Above the jagged rooflines across the street, I could see light green laser beams shooting out of one of the casinos on the Boardwalk and crisscrossing the sky like marionette strings.
“I don’t know what happened to Mike,” he sighed. “It could be he had a problem with the old man in Philly. Maybe one day you’ll find out and tell me. He was my best friend in the world besides Teddy.”
For the first time, it occurred to me that he might be lying to protect someone.
“Listen,” he said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry if you were upset about what happened in there. Teddy and me, we’ve been getting all stressed lately.”
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have told him that I was the one who whacked Larry.”
“I know, I know.” He ran the comb through his wild hair again, but it had no effect. “I’m just trying to get you the button, that’s all.”
“But I don’t want that,” I said vehemently. “I want you to go back in there and straighten it out. Tell him what really happened.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But I could see he was thinking about something else. His hair was still standing up higher than usual.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Don’t help me with the button anymore. I’ll help myself.”
“One day you’ll appreciate what I done for you,” he told me wistfully.
“Yeah, right.” I gave him a hug just to let him know everything was okay between us. “So next year on my birthday, don’t get me anything, all right? The kind of presents you give, I’ll end up doing eight-to-twenty-five in a state prison.”
8
“WHEN I FIRST come out here, there was nothing,” Teddy was saying the next day. “We had to build it up. The Boardwalk was so empty, you could’ve fired a cannonball and not hit anybody.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” said Jackie, the new mob boss visiting from New York.
“It was right after the Democratic Convention in ’64,” Teddy went on. “When all the press said Atlantic City was a shithole. ‘The glory days are over.’ You know. Because people weren’t coming down to the shore anymore. But I tell you, it only really got bad after the stories in the media. Right? Correct me, Vin. Anytime anything goes wrong you’ll either find a lawyer or a newsman behind it.”
They were sitting in Teddy’s backyard at the Florida Avenue house. A gentle breeze rustled the rose garden by the twelve-foot-high brick wall. Teddy and Vin were sitting on one side of a brown picnic table under a large white umbrella. Jackie “J.J.” Pugnitore and his underboss Sal Matera were on the other side. A platter full of cold cuts sat between them. Jackie still had not touched any food. He was forty-nine years old and wore a beige linen suit with a bright red shirt and a black handkerchief in his breast pocket. His nostrils were as wide and dark as his eyes. He’d first made his name as a street fighter in the Bronx, beating up blacks for being in the wrong neighborhood. He would’ve been disturbed to know that his ancestors in Sicily were referred to as “those Africans” by their neighbors on the Italian mainland.
His underboss Sal had slicked-back hair and a closed-off face. His designer polo shirt was a size too small, to emphasize the roundness of his pectorals and the broadness of his shoulders.
“Eat something,” Vin urged the guests.
“In a minute.” Jackie touched his heart.
“Anyway that’s what Vin and I inherited when we came out here,” Teddy continued, enjoying the sunny day and the attention of his visitors. “A pile of shit. We had to lay the foundations. Us and a guy named Mike Dillon.”
Vin flinched a little when Teddy said the name.
“In fact,” Teddy went on, “I got sent out here as punishment by the old man in Philadelphia. Vin and I beat up a shine liquor salesman who wouldn’t give up his parking space on Rosemount Avenue.”
“There was a Mercury behind it we wanted to steal,” Vin explained, rolling up the sleeve of his blue-and-white running suit so he wouldn’t get oil stains on it.
“It wasn’t our fault the guy dropped dead four days later in the hospital.” Teddy took two slices of salami off the platter and put them in his mouth. “Poor Vin got charged with manslaughter and did a five-year stretch in Graterford for the both of us.”
Teddy laid a heavy, appreciative hand on Vin’s shoulder. “He never once opened his mouth either,” he said. “He did his time like a man. Not like these rat kids, running around now. Can’t wait to find a federal agent to snitch to.”
Jackie seemed interested in something Teddy said before, though. “You were in Graterford, Vin?” he asked, one eyebrow arching up toward his perfectly coiffed gray-black hair.
“Five years.” Vin took two slices of rye bread and made Teddy a sandwich.
“You know Billy Nose while you were in there?” Jackie asked.
They were all quiet. Billy Nose had been boss of the biggest crew in New York. Jackie had had him killed two months before in a power struggle.
“Yeah.” Vin put mayo on the sandwich. “I think he was doing a stretch for driving somebody else’s Rambler on the Turnpike with thirty G’s in the back.”
Jackie gave his underboss a sidelong glance and then turned back to Vin. “And how’d he do his time?”
“How’d he do his time?” Vin handed over the sandwich. “The worst I ever seen.”
“Really?” Jackie seemed pleased.
“I’m telling you.” Vin scratched his nuts. “He was always running to me whenever he had a problem. Always crying, always. He said, ‘Vin, when I’m with you, I’m so comfortable, it’s like I’m sucking on my own mother’s tit.’”
Both of Jackie’s eyebrows shot up. “He said that? Those were his words?” His mouth twisted in disgust.
“You show me someone who can prove he didn’t, I’ll let you fuck me in the ass,” Vin said.
Everyone smiled. Teddy’s wife, Camille, came out of the house with a tray full of glasses. She moved slowly, as though permanently stunned, and wore a dark pair of Ray-Ban shades. She put the tray down with trembling, bony hands and returned to the house without looking at any of the men.
“Thank you, Mrs. Marino,” Jackie called after her.
Teddy poured each of the four of them a glass of Remy Martin and proposed a toast. “Here’s lookin’ at you, Jackie,” he said. “No one deserved to be boss more.”
They raised their glasses and clinked them together. Teddy and Vin downed about half their drinks. Jackie and Sal barely sipped theirs.
“Tell you the truth, I’m glad Billy Nose is dead.” Vin turned sideways and looked out toward the rose garden.
“I heard he was an old scumbag,” Teddy added, biting into his sandwich.
Jackie ran his fingers along his lapels and looked philosophical. “You know what the trouble was?” he said. “He was an old man. No offense, Teddy.”
Teddy lifted and dropped his shoulders. No offense taken. He was only about eleven years older than Jackie himself.
“I mean, he thought like an old man,” Jackie elaborated. His underboss Sal nodded. “He was afraid to make changes. He wouldn’t move anybody up. He was jealous of the young guys like me.”
Teddy wiped his hands on a paper napkin and looked over at Vin. “We were just saying, our old man in Philadelphia was the same way,” he said. “All them old greaseballs are like that. They see a young guy like you, Jackie, and it reminds them they’re gonna die one day.”
“Right,” said Jackie as Sal Matera leaned back and grabbed his own crotch. “Billy Nose just stopped making people. I’m serious. After Apalachin, he didn’t induct one soldier. Not one. Until the eighties. You had a whole generation of guys backed up, because they couldn’t go anywhere. It’s frustrating, you know.”