“How do they know Al’s crack-up ain’t recent? How do they know that dose of his didn’t push him over the edge, just lately? Them diseases are, what-you-call-it... progressive.”
Campagna gestured with open hands. “That makes sense.”
“Of course it does.”
“So tell the boys. Call a meeting. You tell them how Al’s sick, but not so sick that he ain’t had the good sense to leave you in charge.”
Nitti turned away from Campagna, reached for the wine, and sipped. “I’ll think about it. Think it over. Thanks, Louie. You always been a good advisor.”
Campagna was shaking his head. “Frank, Al havin’ the mind of a three-year-old retard is only part of the problem.”
Nitti said nothing. Had another sip.
“The takeover try in Florida has Ricca’s greasy fingerprints all over it. But what’s Ricca saying? That he had nothin’ to do with it! That he loves Al, that you must have done this thing yourself.”
The ganglord looked sharply at his advisor. “Ricca’s saying I tried to take Al out?”
With a somber, reluctant nod, Campagna confirmed this.
“Then why don’t the prick say so to me? To my damn face? We sat at the table at the Lex how many times since Miami?”
A small shrug from Campagna. “Ricca talks to people one, two at a time. He’s like a goddamn missionary, makin’ converts.”
Nitti mulled this for a few moments, then again turned pointedly to his consigliere. “Has he talked to you, Louie?”
Campagna looked hurt. “I don’t deserve that, Frank.”
Nitti put a hand on Campagna’s sleeve. “Forgive me, then. But you seem to know what the Waiter has on his mind.”
Campagna clutched the hand on his arm. “Frank, hit the bastard! I’ll help you. Michael over there, you don’t think he’ll help? With a man like Mike, we can take anything they throw at us.”
Slowly Nitti shook his head. “We don’t do things like that no more.”
“Fucking Ricca does!”
“I don’t do things like that no more.”
Shaking his head despairingly, Campagna kept trying. “Frank! Don’t you understand? You look weak in this thing! If you don’t hit Ricca, and good and goddamn soon... you’ll be out and he’ll be in.”
Eyes tight, Nitti asked, “My friends... they would turn on me?”
Campagna tried to make the reply matter of fact, but Michael could hear the sorrow: “You said it yourself, Frank. It’s business. They’ll go with strength.”
Nitti smiled gently at his friend; he touched the man’s face. “And you, Louie? Where do you stand?”
As Nitti withdrew his hand, Campagna raised a fist and shook it. “Strong — right next to you. Goin’ after that prick Ricca... Michael!”
Michael looked up from his magazine, affected an expression as if he hadn’t heard a word of this.
Campagna said, “You’ll stand with us. You’re the ol’ Demonio Angelico, right? Ricca can throw all the soldiers at us he wants, and you’re still with us! Choppin’ up the bastards like firewood! Right?”
“I’m with Mr. Nitti,” Michael said ambiguously.
Campagna got to his feet again; he clasped his hands, pleadingly. “Say the word. Say the word. Please, Frank... say the word.”
Nitti said, “I’ll think on it.”
Campagna looked to be on the verge of tears. “Think soon, Frank.”
And the little hood gathered his coat and hat and was gone.
As usual, Michael drove Nitti — who sat in front, not liking the pretension of a chauffeured ride — home to the Near West Side suburbs, where so many Outfit bigwigs lived. Nitti’s neighborhood was wealthy in an understated way — generous lawns, overgrown bungalows, paved driveways, backyard swing sets. In the Hollywood soundstage of Michael’s life, Riverside was the MGM backlot, but the next shooting here wouldn’t be an Andy Hardy movie.
Nitti’s home was a brown-brick story-and-a-half on the corner, plenty of well-manicured yard separating it from the street — new-looking with crisp white woodwork, shrubs hugging the house, patio out back. Mrs. Nitti’s black ’42 Ford sedan sat in the driveway. A vice president at a bank might live here; or the sales manager of Carson Pirie Scott.
Michael’s duties rarely extended to the house; usually he hung around only for the rare evening board meeting in the living room (Michael relegated to the kitchen). Nitti did not have live-in bodyguards, but a pair of men sat in a car all night outside the house; they hadn’t arrived yet.
Michael pulled up at the edge of the drive, and Nitti said, “Shut the car off. Don’t waste gas. There’s a war on.”
Michael obeyed. Nitti was making no move to get out. Though they’d exchanged not a word on the ride over, the boss now apparently wanted to talk.
His voice casual, friendly, Nitti asked, “What’s your take on what Louie said?”
Feeling in over his head, Michael said frankly, “Mr. Nitti — I’m really not qualified to have an opinion.”
Nitti smiled; he patted Michael’s knee. “You wouldn’t be my number two if that was true. You know, Louie’s a good man, and smart, but he’s no genius. And he’s no leader.”
“I like Louie,” Michael said, pointlessly.
“I know you do, son. But some soldiers ain’t cut out to be generals. Now Ricca could be a general, all right; but he’s a ruthless son of a bitch, and the soldiers he surrounds himself with are kill-happy Young Turks. He’ll put us into narcotics, he’ll start the whores up after the war, he’ll squeeze the unions like a buncha pimples.”
Michael said nothing.
“Which puts me in a bad place. Because the terrible things this cocksucker is capable of forces me to consider doing the same kind of terrible things... Michael, are you with Louie?”
“I’m with you, Mr. Nitti.”
He patted the air with a palm. “I know. I know. But should we take Ricca out? You’re the one man I know who wouldn’t be afraid of the likes of Mad Sam and Mooney.”
Michael thought about it. “Maybe it’s like the war. Maybe when you got evil men like Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo, you got no choice.”
Nitti sighed. “And I shouldn’t sit around on my ass waitin’ for Pearl Harbor to happen.”
“No. You shouldn’t.”
Nitti looked older than his years — he wasn’t even sixty; he seemed small, as if he’d shrunk. “How I wish you weren’t so god-damned young. How I wish you were ready... because, Michael, I don’t know if I have the strength, anymore.”
“Of course you do, Mr. Nitti.”
He shook his head. “I’m not even sure Louie hasn’t already talked to Ricca. That’s what that was about, you know, this afternoon — our little conversation.”
“I don’t follow...”
“It was about Louie warning me that if I didn’t go with him, he would go with Ricca... Michael... my boy. You’ve been a ray of light in this darkness.”
Michael didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve tried to hold on, since Anna’s death. You know, I had everything for a while, Michael — a family I loved, a prosperous business. And then when I lost my wife, it all crashed down. Nature of what we do, I had to try not to show it. But I had needs. Not... not what you might think. A woman is more than the physical; it’s support, friendship, loyalty. I thought Toni was the answer.”
Nitti meant his second wife.
“She seems like a great woman,” he went on. “She’s good with my kid — such a wonderful kid I have. See, I knew Toni before. I adored my Anna, she was everything to me; but I’m a man, and when I was younger, I had those other kinda needs. Toni’s been around our business for years — secretarial stuff. You heard of Eddie O’Hare?”