stood there for a moment looking out through the window into the street. Cars went by, carrying people who knew nothing of my world and all it entailed. They were blissful in their ignorance, and I envied them that.
Downstairs once more, I stood on the lowest riser from where I could see through into the kitchen. Angelina busied herself around the children, feeding them, cleaning up after them, and there was an emotion I felt as I watched her that could never have been defined. It was beyond love. It was beyond the physical and emotional. I believed that it was something spiritual. I thought of something happening that might take all of this away, and for the first time in as long as I could recall I experienced a moment of such deep, profound panic that I had to hold onto the banister so as not to lose my balance. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I willed myself to think of nothing negative.
I shook my head, and once more looked down into the kitchen. Angelina had moved out of sight, but the children were there, both of them wide-eyed and smiling. Neither of them could see me, but in their expressions was something that I believed I would never achieve for myself. A sense of true happiness, of peace perhaps, and I wondered if ever there would be a time I could escape this life and take them away from my past.
I breathed deeply. I stepped down and walked along the hallway to the front door. I let myself out quietly, and closed the door behind me.
Don Calligaris was waiting for me in the kitchen of his house. With him were two men I had not seen before. The older man had red hair speckled with gray at the temples, the other, jet-black eyes that looked like the coals one would use to make a snowman.
Ten Cent came into the room behind me and we all sat at the table near the window.
‘There’s a lot of history here,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘and a great deal of it goes back to Dion O’Banion. There was bad blood back then in Prohibition, but bad blood runs good with time, and the northside, the turf that Johnny Torrio gave to O’Banion and the Irish gangs, is still a good part Irish. We are here to work out some things, because Tony Accardo wants us to work with the Irish and make the northside more profitable. You got hookers down there, right?’
The older, redheaded man nodded.
‘And there’s the narcotics and gambling, even the slot machines are owned by the Irish, and they need a little help handling some details that are jeopardizing their territory.’
The two men signaled agreement but said nothing.
‘This man,’ Don Calligaris said, indicating the older of the two, ‘is Gerry McGowan, and this man here is his son-in-law Daniel Ryan. Mr McGowan-’
‘It’s Gerry,’ McGowan said. ‘No-one calls me Mr McGowan save the fuckin’ priest.’ He laughed. His accent was Irish-American, a thick brogue, and when he smiled I could see that three of his front teeth were half-capped with gold.
‘Gerry works for a man called Kyle Brennan, and Mr Brennan is the boss of the Irish family.’
‘Known as the Cicero Gang,’ Gerry McGowan said, ‘seein’ as how Mr Brennan’s family comes from Cicero, see.’
‘Mr Brennan owns most of the land that verges on the business quarter,’ Don Calligaris explained, ‘and there are some Chicago business people who have applied to the Mayor’s Office to have the land claimed back as part of Chicago city territory. They wanna make some developments, tear down the old buildings where much of Mr Brennan’s business is transacted, and Mr Brennan needs some help sorting these matters out. We have been asked, as a show of good faith and friendship, to help work out these problems and make them go away.’
‘Who’s back of it?’ I asked.
‘Asshole goes by the name of Paul Kaufman,’ McGowan said venomously. ‘Jew motherfucker from back east who’s come down here to make waves. He’s some bigshot city business type, no wife, no kids, maybe forty-five years old, and he’s got all the dollars in the world behind him. He’s into stocks and bonds and investment things, figures he can force Chicago City Council to flatten the back end of the northside so’s he can put up a shitload of office blocks and apartment buildings.’
‘And who’s his contact in the City?’
‘Senior Development Officer he is… goes by the name of David Hackley. The plans that Kaufman has submitted have to go through him, but he doesn’t get the final say-so. That comes to a board meeting of the Chicago City Council in January of next year, but Hackley is a serious contender, and whatever he advises is what the board is gonna recommend. If he says go then they’ll go, and there ain’t gonna be a thing we can do about it.’
‘So Hackley’s the man,’ I said. ‘You remove the connection between Kaufman and the City Council and he’ll be back at square one.’
‘Well, maybe,’ Daniel Ryan interjected. ‘It ain’t so simple as just whacking Hackley. You take Hackley out of the picture and they’ll just dust themselves down and get someone else in there who’ll give the word. What you gotta do is make sure that Hackley advises against the redevelopment plans… and he has to
‘But he ain’t gonna do that, is he?’ I asked; a rhetorical question.
Gerry McGowan smiled. ‘Not unless he’s got a very good reason to do what we want, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think this is gonna be a matter of breaking into his house and beating the crap outta him… this ain’t gonna fly with strong-arm tactics. This is politics, right? Politics is what got him where he is and politics has to be the thing that takes him out.’
‘Whichever way it goes, but we need Hackley silenced before the middle of next month, because that’s when he puts his final case before the Council. They’ll be away through Christmas sure, but when they meet again in January they’ll have had all the time in the world to consider the proposal, and I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty of sweeteners for these folks courtesy of Jewish hospitality.’
‘We know anything useful about Hackley?’ Don Calligaris asked.
‘Seems clean as driven fucking snow. Wife, three kids, married only once. Doesn’t use drugs or hookers, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t drink liquor by all accounts. Real hardworking all-American fucking genius from what I gather.’
‘Everyone has their Achilles heel,’ I said.
McGowan smiled with his gold teeth. ‘Sure as shit they do, but we been looking around this guy for the better part of three months and we ain’t found nothin’.’
I shrugged. ‘Man doesn’t have an Achilles heel, then you make one for him.’
McGowan nodded, ‘Well, that’s what we’re here for, and if you sort this matter out then the Irishers and the Ities are gonna get along just fine.’
‘You go back to Mr Brennan,’ I said. ‘Go back with our blessing and goodwill. Tell him he sent you to see the right people, that we will take care of this matter for you, and that by the middle of next month Hackley will stand up before the Chicago City Council Board and tell them that redeveloping the northside would be the very worst thing that they could do.’
McGowan smiled. ‘I have your word on that?’
I stood up. I extended my hand. McGowan rose also and shook with me. ‘You have my word,’ I said. ‘You have the word of Don Calligaris’s family it will be done.’
McGowan grinned from ear to ear. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the kind of business we like to do.’
Don Calligaris rose also. ‘So,’ he said, ‘let’s eat.’
That night, McGowan and Ryan long since gone, I sat with Don Calligaris in the back room and we spoke.
‘You gave the word of the family,’ he said. ‘I understand why you did that, and that is what they came here for, but now you have said this you cannot go back to them and tell them it cannot be done.’
‘It will be done, Don Calligaris.’
‘You’re so sure?’
‘I am.’
‘How? How can you be so sure, Ernesto?’
‘Because when I say I’m gonna do something I’ll do it.’
‘I have to trust you,’ Don Calligaris said.
‘Yes, you have to trust me… and have I ever let you down?’
He shook his head. ‘No, you have never let me down.’
‘This is important, right?’
