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The Diary of a Lonely Hit Man

By

Al Lamanda

Copyright by Al Lamanda

One

May 1963

It has been said that World War One was started with a single bullet, that it was the shot heard around the world. That war left ten million dead and another twenty million wounded.

There was another shot heard around the world, but it came later, much later and we still don’t know what the direct consequences of it will be.

Maybe we never will.

*****

May is supposed to be a cooler month of rebirth, but ninety-one degree heat scorched the sidewalks of Fordham Road in The Bronx, when I left Alexander’s Department Store around noon carrying a shopping bag.

The unexpected heat wave didn’t discourage the shoppers along the Grand Concourse and I had to mingle with the crowds for several blocks until I crossed the Concourse at 188^th Street.

I lived in the Bronx neighborhood known as Little Italy. I walked several blocks to Arthur Avenue and entered the neighborhood on 189^th Street. One square mile of first generation Italians that came through Elis Island, coexisting with their fourth generation offspring that didn’t understand why operating a bakery was such a great way of life.

The old-timers lived in the past and refused to see the world through modern eyes. The new generation saw the word as a platform of opportunity. The new generation left the neighborhood in droves. They took the money offered them by their parents and grandparents for their college tuition at Fordham U or NYU in the City and then moved away upon graduation. Many were ashamed of the old-word lifestyle of their parents and grandparents and didn’t want to spend their lives baking bread or hacking meat in a butcher shop. Some left to pursue new dreams that were beyond the grasp of the previous generations. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen, those were the dreams of the ambitious young.

And some of them left the neighborhood so they wouldn’t have to associate with people like me.

By the time I reached Sal’s Bakery, my shirt and jacket was soaked in sweat. Fortunately, Sal had the awning extended to cover the sidewalk tables and afford some shade from the brutal sun.

I grabbed a free table and pulled a copy of the Daily News out of the shopping bag. I turned to the rear of the paper to the sports pages and barely had time to check baseball scores before my kid sister Sara, came out from the bakery with a cup of coffee.

“Jimmy,” Sara said as she set the coffee on the table.

My sister, five years younger looks like what I envisioned the real Snow White to look like when I was a little boy and first saw the animated film. Hair as black as coal, eyes to match, skin like milk, Sara had little of our Irish father in her. She was Ma all the way.

I pulled out my pack of cigarettes and lighter. I studied Sara’s face as I lit a cigarette. She was an easy read. She wore her emotions on her face.

“What’s happening, kid?” I said.

“It’s … well, it’s Kevin,” Sara said. “He’s behind on his alimony again.”

I sighed and blew smoke at the same time.

“How much?” I asked.

“Three months.”

“Jesus, Sara, when are you going to take this asshole back to court?” I asked.

“That won’t fix the problem, Jimmy,” Sara said. “Kevin owes money all over town. The only reason he isn’t dead is Ma.”

“You want me to see him?”

Sara nodded.

“He still live at the same place?”

“He can’t afford to go anyplace else.”

“I’ll go see him.”

Sara kissed me on the cheek.

“Ma said to come to dinner tonight.”

“If one of your unmarried friends is there, I’ll …”

“Just us,” Sara said. “Promise. Seven-thirty, don’t be late.”

She returned to the bakery.

I scanned the sports pages. The Yankees, after just thirty games had a big lead in the American League. The Nation League was shaping up to be a Dodgers and Giants race again. After the Dodgers and Giants skipped town for the sunshine of California, an expansion team called the Mets took their place. They played at the Polo Grounds, the Giants old stadium, but they were mutts who had talent little better than a high school team.

I finished my coffee and left a five-dollar-bill for a tip. Sal would never give me a check, but I always tipped his girls, even if it wasn’t Sara waiting on me.

Home is a small, three room apartment in a building on Highland Avenue. I took a detour and stopped at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on 187^th Street and Belmont. Built in 1906, the church is a massive and highly ornate structure. For Sunday mass there is never and empty seat and most times it’s standing room only in back.

They never locked the doors until midnight. On hot days such as today they prop the doors open to allow air to circulate. I went in and took a seat in a front row pew. My footsteps echoed loudly on the tiled floor. There is something about sound in church that makes everything amplified. If someone in the last row clears their throat you can hear it in the front row as if the person was right next to you.

A few old women in black were scattered about the pews. They held rosary beads as they prayed. They were widows and their prayers were for the souls of their dead husbands, most of whom did not die of natural causes.

I could hear their whisperings in the otherwise silent church. I watched the altar for a while and not because I had a deep faith in God, I didn’t. I was raised Catholic and made my first communion and conformation in this very church, but faith left me a long time ago.

Even so, I visited the church often when mass wasn’t in session because the serenity its interior allowed me to wind down and relax. On the way out, I left one thousand dollars in a white envelope on the altar. The money wasn’t an offering for my sins or a bribe for a door to the afterlife. It was because the church did good work in the neighborhood and good work, like everything else costs money. I made such an offering several times a year.

I knew the monsignor would retrieve the money one minute after I left, but he never spoke of it whenever chance brought us together on the street.

A block from the church is the street corner where Dion and the Belmont’s started singing more than a decade ago. They’d sing almost every day and in winter they would build a fire in a trash can to keep warm.

I turned onto Highland Avenue to my building, a four-story apartment that didn’t have an elevator. My cat, a female calico, greeted me at the door. A few years ago there was trouble with mice in the building. A woman on the first floor had a cat that had a litter of kittens and suggested I grab one to control the problem. By the time she was six months old, she had killed her first mouse. Soon after that the problem disappeared entirely. I was used to having her around by then, so I kept her.

I had left all the windows open before I went out, but the apartment was still filled with dead air. I turned on the ceiling fan in the kitchen and bedroom to get some air circulating. The cat jumped onto the kitchen window ledge to look out. There were heavy screens on every window to keep the cat from jumping to her death over a passing bird.

In the bedroom, I stripped down to my tee-shirt and underwear. I needed a cool shower to wash the sweat off my body and cool my skin, but that would have to wait a bit.

I dumped the contents of the shopping bag onto the bed. Two pairs of tan slacks, two white shirts, one .357 Magnum revolver, one four-inch-long silencer, one box of fifty rounds, one cleaning kit. The revolver and silencer were blued at my request.

I cleaned the revolver with a steel brush and wiped it clean with a fine cloth. The serial numbers had been filed off and then acid washed to remove all traces of them. Then the markings were filled in with nickel, polished and blued to a smooth finish.

I carefully inspected the custom made silencer. It was engineering perfection.

Satisfied, I replaced the revolver, ammunition, silencer and kit back into the shopping bag and stuck it into the clothes closet on the shelf.

I never used the same gun twice. Once it was used, I got rid of it. The East River, Hudson River and Bronx River were ideal for losing weapons and body parts. So were the city dumps and construction sites.

Usually when I required a weapon, I contacted the gunsmith and told him what I needed. He told me when it would be ready and we made a date. For pickup I then retrieved the shopping bag in the men’s room on the fifth floor at Alexander’s Department Store. There were two urinals in that men’s room. I would enter first and then he would enter and slide the shopping bag under the opening to my feet.

The pants and shirts were paid for in advance in case anybody questioned me on the way out.

Nobody ever has.

Police do ballistics test on recovered bullets. They can match those results to the weapon that fired them. It’s useless information if the weapon is never recovered and the ballistics aren’t on file.

Even though I have a valid pistol permit issued by the State of New York to carry a concealed weapon, I never carry or keep one in the apartment unless it’s for an assignment.

I decided to take a short nap and turned on the radio beside the bed. Hey Paula came on and I closed my eyes and listened to the song. It was followed by I Love You Because sung by Al Martino.

When I opened my eyes two hours later, Ruby and the Romantics were singing Our Day Will Come, and the cat was curled into a tight ball beside me.

The sheets were soaked in my sweat. I rubbed the cat behind the ears for a moment and then went to the kitchen a put on a pot of coffee. I smoked a cigarette by the window while it percolated and then drank a cup with another cigarette at the table under the ceiling fan.

I scanned the sports pages of the Daily News and noted the Yankees were playing Boston in a night game at the Stadium. If dinner with Ma didn’t go too long I could catch the last three innings on the radio.

After a cool shower and after toweling dry, I turned on the box fan in the bedroom and stood in front of it for a full five minutes.

The cat was in the bedroom window.

Bobby Vinton crooned Blue on Blue on the radio.

I dressed in lightweight slacks and opted just to wear a white tee-shirt under the jacket that matched the slacks. I fished out twenty-five hundred dollars in fifties and rolled it tightly with a thick rubberband and stuck it into my jacket pocket.

I turned the radio on low to give the cat something to listen to while I was out and left the apartment with Johnny Cash singing Ring of Fire in the background.

*****

Ma lived on Cambridge Street, about a ten minute walk from my apartment. My father bought the house forty years ago when they were first married. He paid eleven thousand dollars for the two-story, red brick house on the quiet, tree-lined street that was a one block walk to the church.

That was important to my mother as she went to mass nearly every day of the week. Seven-thirty morning mass weekdays, ten am high mass on Sundays. My sister went with her most days.

The front of the house had a nice garden of fenced-in flowers and scrubs. A long driveway led to the two-car garage and backyard garden that had six fig trees that grew the fruit every summer.

Sara and her three sons lived on the second floor of the house. Ma had the first floor to herself. She was born Constance Sara Pizzuto, sixty-three years ago just seven blocks from the house she and my father first occupied as newlyweds.

She’s never lived anywhere else outside this neighborhood and will probably die right there in the bedroom she shared with my father.

Ma’s brother is my Uncle Sal, owner of the bakery Sara has worked at since high school. Sara bakes bread and pastry every morning and waits tables in the afternoon. Sal is a very distant cousin to Tommy LaCasa, the boss of the Rocco crime family in The Bronx. That makes Sal untouchable. If somebody messes with him with one phone call that somebody will simply never be heard from again.

My nephews are eleven-year-old James, nine-year-old Carmine and seven-year-old Anthony. They are polite boys enrolled in private, Catholic school. James is an altar boy at Sunday mass and Ma never misses the opportunity to brag about that around the neighborhood.

Ma will probably make a desperate attempt at some point to try to force Sara to enroll James into the priesthood.

Ma looks a good ten years younger than her age.

She claims her youthful appearance is from good Sicilian bloodlines.

Dinner was a mother-load of spaghetti with meatballs, baked chicken with vegetables and bread Sara brought home from the bakery. Dessert consisted of pastry and coffee. The pastry Sara baked earlier in the day. The coffee was espresso. Talk was local gossip in the neighborhood, the church, school for the boys and the trip to the old country Ma has been planning for ten years that this would finally be they year she went.

After the dishes were washed and stacked and Sara took my nephews upstairs, Ma finally got around to the nature of my invitation to dinner.

“It’s that son of a bitch, Kevin,” she said.

“He’s behind again, I know, Ma.”

“Three months, this bastard,” Ma said. “The nerve of this man not supporting his children.”

“Sara has more money than God, Ma,” I said. “She’s a third owner in Sal’s Bakery for Christ sake.”

“She’s comfortable, but that’s not the point,” Ma said. “He’s supposed to support his children as the court ordered. He’s supposed to act like a man, Jimmy, not a freeloader.”

“I’ll talk to him, Ma,” I said.

“Maybe you should do a little more than talk, Jimmy,” Ma said.

Whenever Ma wanted something a little extra from me she got this strange little look in her eyes. She had that look now.

“Like what, Ma?” I asked.

“I’ll let you be the judge of that,” she said. “Take some of these pastries with you when you leave. I’m watching my weight these days.”

*****

My employer is the LaCasa Family in The Bronx, but I’m not a made man. Made men are pure one hundred percent Sicilian and my father was Irish. LaCasa is not above loaning me out for special details on occasion, for a hefty fee, of course.

Basically I’m an employee at the disposal of Tommy LaCasa. LaCasa is the head of what was once known as the Rocco Crime Family. Rocco died in 1930 and enter LaCasa, considered one of the founding members of the modern-day mafia. Tommy is missing his right thumb and forefinger from an accident in his youth and carries the nickname Three Finger Brown, so named for a three-fingered baseball player who played in the twenties.

Despite the fact that LaCasa is involved in prostitution, gambling, loan sharking, importing heron and cocaine, gun smuggling, money laundering and a dozen other ventures that are illegal, LaCasa considers himself a moral man. He attends church on a regular basis and gives generously to the church and charity.

He won’t allow his family to get involved in civilian matters unless there is a direct threat to the family. A couple of years ago when LaCasa and Gambino went to war against the Profuci Family, I was assigned as backup to Joe Gallo and his crew. Joe Gallo wasn’t called Crazy Joe Gallo without good reason. The man was insane. I was with him and his crew at a restaurant the night he shot a waiter in the foot for spilling soup on the table.

The war ended when Joey Gallo was arrested and sent to federal prison.

Since then things have been pretty peaceful, but I knew that wouldn’t last. The bosses are like squabbling children in a schoolyard. Somebody is always going to do something somebody else doesn’t like and it generally ended with blood.

On my walk home, I stopped for a bottle of fresh milk for the cat. She always likes a saucer full in the evening.

*****

In the morning, I walked to Ma’s house to get my car from her garage. My building doesn’t have a garage and I dislike parking on the street. Sara was already at work and Ma went to church by the time I arrives.

I drive a four-year-old Impala. Most made guys drove Cadillac’s and the streets of the neighborhood were littered with them. The Impala was almost as large as those boats on wheels, but far less expensive to own and operate.

I picked up a container of coffee on the way out of the neighborhood. Sara was in back making bread, so one of Sal’s counter girls gave me the container.

I took Boston Road across the Bronx River to the Bronx River Parkway all the way to Gun Hill Road and Laconia Avenue. Kevin, Sara’s ex worked in a machine shop on Gun Hill Road and I parked on the street. A few blocks away the elevated Number 2 train rumbled by on its way to Manhattan.

Kevin’s work day started at nine in the morning. Like most factories, it was required that employees arrive fifteen minutes early. I found Kevin with a group of workers on the side of the machine shop. He was drinking take-out coffee and smoking a cigarette.

The workers stared at me as I walked over to Kevin. His eyes told me he knew the reason for my visit.

“We need to talk in private,” I said. “Let’s take a walk.”

Kevin nodded.

“Who the fuck are you?” a man snapped. “I’m foreman here and…”

“Open your mouth again and you’ll be taking sick time to replace you teeth,” I said. “Mr. Foreman.”

“It’s okay,” Kevin said. “We’ll be right back.”

I guided Kevin away from the group to Gun Hill Road where we made a right turn onto the wide street.

“You have to pay what you owe,” I said.

“I know,” Kevin said.

“Three months,” I said.

“I know,” Kevin said.

“Can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t bust your head wide open?” I asked.

We stopped at the corner. Kevin lit another cigarette.

“Over on White Plains Road on 231^st Street is a machine shop for sale,” he said. “Me and some of the guys are trying to put together ten grand for a deposit on a loan. I know I should have sent Sara the money, but I’m trying to build something for the kids for the future.”

“Did you tell Sara this?”

“I tried, but she won’t listen to me,” Kevin said. “I never wanted the divorce you know.”

“I don’t get involved in personal crap,” I said. “Can you pay the money or not?”

“If I pull out of this deal,” Kevin said.

“Is this factory thing on the level?” I asked.

“One hundred percent,” Kevin said. “Come by at four-thirty and I’ll take you there and show you the operation.”

“I don’t have time for this Mickey Mouse bullshit,” I said. “I’ll spot you the six hundred and you’ll owe me. If you don’t pay me what you owe inside of three months you will never walk again. Understood?”

Kevin nodded.

“And you’ll pay my sister the first of every month like clockwork from now on,” I said. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

“Understood, Jimmy.”

“Go to work,” I said.

*****

I had been summoned to the home of Tommy LaCasa. He lived in Lido Beach, on Long Island. The last time I received such a summons was in late sixty-one when LaCasa went to war with the Profuci Family and he wanted me to backup the Gallo brothers.

Last year I wasn’t invited to the wedding of LaCasa’s daughter when she married Thomas Gambino, son of Carlo Gambino, an act that sealed the two bosses together.

A few years back, LaCasa moved his family to Lido Beach to escape the reporters that always seem to be hanging around his Bronx home. The drive would take me about two hours.

I grabbed another container of coffee at a diner on White Plains Road and drove to the Parkway.

The Impala is not a luxury car, but one option I insisted upon was having a radio. I don’t own a television anymore. After the last one broke three years ago I decided there wasn’t anything worthwhile watching, so I never replaced it. I do, however, insist upon having a radio in the apartment and the car.

Shelley Fabares sang Johnny Angel, followed by Roses are Red, by Bobby Vinton as I drove along the Parkway to the LIE East to Long Island. Lido Beach is in the Town of Hempstead and a real pain in the ass to get to from The Bronx.

Nat King Cole was crooning Ramblin Rose when I arrived at LaCasa’s house shortly before noon.

The house, a two-story brick home near the beach wasn’t what you might expect from one of the most powerful bosses in the country. It was modest by what he could afford, but Tommy never flaunted his money or power out of fear the IRS would Al Capone him.

I parked on the street.

Six associates of LaCasa were on duty. Five bodyguards and LaCasa’s personal driver. All were made men.

I was frisked thoroughly before being allowed access to the house.

LaCasa was in his den. The entire room was made of walnut. The bookcase, desk, conference table and chairs.

“Jimmy, thanks for coming,” LaCasa said when I entered the den.

“Sure,” I said like I had a choice in the matter.

“Have some coffee with me,” he said and walked me to the conference table.

LaCasa wasn’t as tall or as broad as he was in his youth, and thick glasses were needed to correct his failing vision, but he was still formidable in appearance. He poured coffee from a ceramic pot with his left hand as having only three fingers on the right hand made it difficult.

“Smoke if you want,” LaCasa said.

I removed my pack of cigarettes and lit one off my Zippo lighter.

“I need a personal favor from you, Jimmy,” LaCasa said. “All right?”

“Sure,” I said.

LaCasa asked as if I had an option, which we both knew I didn’t.

“This is not to get around, Jimmy,” LaCasa said. “Not to anyone, not even your mother. Okay?”

I nodded as I inhaled on the cigarette.

“The local police are, as a favor to me, keeping what I am about to tell you very quiet,” LaCasa said. “They have agreed to allow me to handle this matter privately so to speak.”

LaCasa owned the local police and they would do what he told them.

“Three weeks ago the church in town was robbed by a pair of junkies,” LaCasa said. “Even worse, a nun caught them in the act and they raped and beat her.”

“A nun?”

“They’re from out of town these junkies,” LaCasa said. “They ride around different towns and neighborhoods targeting churches for the gold. Now, Jimmy, I don’t want them killed. You can have your way with them, but then I want them dropped off at the Hempstead Police Department. They have fingerprints from the church and they’ll match them up to these scumbags. Okay, Jimmy?”

I nodded. “How is the nun?”

“Recovering after two weeks in the hospital.”

“Where can I find these junkies?”

“My men will give that to you on your way out,” LaCasa said. “And your regular fee will be in the mail with an added bonus.”

“Thank you, Tommy,” I said.

“No, Jimmy, thank you,” LaCasa said. “And Jimmy, do this one quick.”

*****

I rarely dream anymore, usually right before I do a job.

I spent six savage weeks on Iwo Jima in 1945. I joined the Marine Corp right out of high school in late forty-three and shipped out right after boot camp. I island hopped with fifty thousand Marines and Army soldiers until they sent us to Jima. Twenty-one thousand Japanese were on the island. The battle lasted five weeks and when it was over we lost seven thousand men. I don’t believe one Japanese soldier survived that battle. I was on the other side of the island when they raised the flag. The Japs had yet to surrender and we were still fighting for our lives when the photographer took the staged picture.

We sat on our asses for a few weeks recovering and then word came down we were being sent to another island. Okinawa. Eighty-two days and nights of savage combat. The Japs were dug in pretty well in underground bunkers and tunnels and twelve thousand men lost their lives in securing the island. In all, some seventy thousand plus Japanese soldiers died in the battle. This was instrumental in Truman dropping the bombs on Japan. Otherwise, the bastards would have never given up and we would have had to invade Japan, and turn the island country into a sea of blood.

When the dream hits, it’s a bad one.

I’m back on Okinawa and the fighting just won’t stop. My squad is ordered to give support to a team of flame throwers who were needed to clear out a bunker of Japanese machine gun nests.

The battle for that bunker lasted two days. We hit it with grenades, M-1 and machine gun fire and finally bazookas in order to get the flame throwers closes enough for them to operate.

From twenty-five feet down the hill, six throwers at a time unleashed their fiery hell on the Jap bunker. A dozen or more Japs abandoned the bunker and ran straight at us. They were on fire and screaming in agony. We killed them at that point not because they were the enemy, but to end their pain.

That’s my dream.

Japanese soldiers on fire running down a hill.

*****

I awoke in a cold sweat.

The cat, curled up in a ball at my feet didn’t stir when I got out of bed. I went to the kitchen to make coffee and the dream slowly faded from my consciousness. By the time the coffee was ready the dream all but faded from my memory.

That’s the way it is with dreams.

Especially the ones you’d rather forget.

My father all but disowned me when I joined the Marine Corps. He was running numbers and collecting for the Colombo Family, and pulling in five hundred a week in a time when the average working stiff was lucky to make two hundred in a month. Later on, he graduated to doing contracted hits for Tommy LaCasa.

He wanted me to come in with him and when I broke the news to the family, he wanted to beat me to a pulp, but Ma stepped between us. The war was for saps, suckers, Jews and niggers, my father told me.

The mob had a rule that a made man couldn’t enlist. If one were drafted the draft board was paid off and that draftee was declared 4F.

I pointed out to him that I was half Irish and neither of us was a made man. If Ma and Sara weren’t between us I do believe he would have shot me on the spot for uttering those words.

My father hated the fact that he was Irish. More than anything else in the world he wanted to be a wise guy, a true made man in the LaCasa Family. That it would never happen made him bitter and disillusioned.

My mother, although broken-hearted and worried I might be killed, nonetheless stood proud by my side the day I boarded the bus for Paris Island in South Carolina.

Sara, only twelve at the time didn’t really understand it all. Later she told me she thought I was going off to summer camp.

I never told anybody about the dreams. Not because I was ashamed of them or thought of them as a weakness, but because they couldn’t possibly understand what I would be talking about unless they had been there with me and experienced the same things.

I lit a cigarette to go with the coffee and opened the envelope one of LaCasa’s men gave me when I left his home yesterday afternoon.

Jerome Williams and Troy Parker, a couple of black men from Harlem on 138^th Street near the East River. Junkies for sure, thieves and rapists to boot. Junkies that filled their veins with mob heroin and now the mob wanted them punished for crimes they probably never would have committed if they weren’t junkies.

They were also stupid men, but heroin will make you that way. They fenced their stolen church items at a pawn shop on West 45 Street off Eighth Avenue. The pawn shop is mob owned and the information took mere minutes to reach LaCasa’s people.

I fed the cat and took a shower.

*****

I drove south through The Bronx and crossed over into Manhattan by the bridge near Yankee Stadium.

I skirted past the old Polo Grounds where the new team in town, the Mets played and headed south to 125^th Street.

Harlem is now black man’s territory, but the restaurants along 125^th street catered to the white man’s pocketbook.

I was looking for Willie ‘Bo-Bo’ Brown and he was usually found having lunch at the ribs joint every day around one in the afternoon.

Willie is Colombo’s heroin dealer for Harlem. He has a crew of thirty men who distribute and collect from 110^th Street to the George Washington Bridge, east to west. I don’t know what the arrangement is, but it’s probably the standard 50-50 split.

Willie was in a booth with three of his crew. A booth to his front and rear was filled with eight more of his team. Although the restaurant had a decent white population for lunch, Willie knew immediately I wasn’t there for the ribs.

His men stood and moved to the other two booths so I could sit opposite Willie.

“Jimmy Fallen, always a pleasure,” Willie said.

“How’s business, Willie,” I said.

“On the upswing these days,” Willie said. “Big demand for marijuana in the nightclubs and jazz joints. Used to be cocaine, but the musicians are going for the weed.”

A waitress stopped by the table. She meekly looked at Willie.

“Will your friend be having anything?” she asked in just above a whisper.

“Ask him,” Willie said.

“Coffee,” I said.

She nodded and walked away.

“Know why I’m here?” I asked.

“Not specifically,” Willie said. “But if you show up, somebody is going to the great bye and bye. It ain’t me or I’d be gone by now.”

“Not this time,” I said. “This is a courtesy call. A couple of dopers robbed a church on Long island in LaCasa’s neighborhood.”

“Who robs a fucking church?” Willie said. “Even junkie assholes know better than that.”

“Worse,” I said. “They raped a nun.”

Willie looked at me. He’s around my age, taller and thin as a reed. His skin is light brown like coffee with too much milk. He doesn’t dope or even use alcohol as far as I know. He spent four years in the Army Air Corp during the war, but because he’s black all he was allowed to do was drive officers to a from their bombers in England. After the war he went to City College and earned a degree in accounting. He quickly discovered that no white man would allow a black man to do his taxes. He found other ways to utilize his accounting skills.

“The mo’fuckers raped a nun,” he said.

“They did,” I said. “But they don’t want them killed. Punished and taken to the Hempstead Police.”

Willie nodded.

“We’ll pay them a visit right after you’re done with your ribs,” I said.

*****

I stood with Willie outside the apartment building on 138^th Street. The building should have been condemned it was in such bad shape. It may have been for all I knew and the occupants, what there were of them were squatters.

“Rat infested shithole,” Willie said.

Willie followed me in his black sedan with a few of his men.

“Want us to go in with you?” he asked.

“You can come, but have your people watch the street,” I said.

I opened the trunk of my car, removed a roll of duct tape and left the trunk cracked a bit.

Willie and I entered the lobby of the building. It stunk of stale urine and vomit. Broken glass was everywhere, some from windows, most from beer and wine bottles. I doubted the elevator worked, but Williams and Parker were on the second floor.

“Let’s do this quick before I puke,” Willie said.

I gave him the duct tape and removed the .357 revolver and silencer from my jacket pocket and screwed the two together.

LaCasa’s report gave the apartment as 2E. We stood before the unlocked door and I listened for a moment and heard nothing. I pushed open the door and the stink was like a cold slap to the face that actually watered my eyes it was so pungent.

Garbage filled the living room. Empty beer bottles were everywhere. Rotting food on paper plates littered the floor. There was no furniture. Just two filthy mattresses on which Williams and Parker rested.

They had recently shot up. Needles, spoon, bags of dope, matches were on the floor. They were in la-la land.

There was little point in whacking these guys around, they wouldn’t feel a thing.

I removed the silencer from the .357 and tucked both away.

*****

Willie and I smoked cigarettes on the street while his guys carried the unconscious Williams and Parker to my trunk. They had tapped their hands, feet and mouths, but I doubted the two junkies would wake up before I delivered them to the Hempstead Police.

“You think these assholes will see the inside of a courtroom?” Willie asked.

“They will probably be shot trying to escape,” I said.

“Dumb asses to the last,” Willie said.

I removed one thousand dollars from my roll and gave it to Willie.

“For your guys,” I said. “And worth every penny for touching this filth.”

*****

I parked in the lot beside the Hempstead Police Station. A dozen uniformed cops were lingering out front with coffee and cigarettes when I walked past them and entered the station.

A gruff looking sergeant was on duty at the desk.

“Jimmy Fallen to see your captain,” I said. “Mr. LaCasa sent me.”

Captain Ed Grimes was around fifty-years-old and wore the buzz cut of a Marine boot. He also wore the uniform of a captain rather than civilian clothes. I suppose he thought it made him look more in command.

To me it just made him look uncomfortable.

“We’ve never met,” Grimes said from behind his desk.

“No,” I said.

“You work for Mr. LaCasa?” Grimes said. “Fallen is Irish, isn’t it?”

“So is Grimes,” I said.

“Tell Mr. LaCasa thank you,” Grimes said.

*****

The trunk of my car stunk to high heaven after the junkies had been removed. I took it to a car wash on the way back to The Bronx and had it washed and scented.

I parked the car in Ma’s garage and walked to Sal’s Bakery and took a seat at a sidewalk table.

Without asking for it, Sara came out with a cup of espresso coffee.

“I have something for you,” I said. “Sit a second.”

Sara took the chair opposite me at the table while I pealed off six one hundred dollar bills from my roll.

“He wasn’t dumb enough to give you any trouble?” Sara asked.

“No.”

“I guess even he isn’t that stupid.”

“Sara, I’ve never asked you what went wrong between you two,” I said.

“He’s a loser, Jimmy,” Sara said. “Always with his get rich quick schemes and idiotic ideas, it’s all a waste of time if you ask me.”

“He wants to buy a machine shop,” I said. “That’s why he was late.”

“Jimmy, I had to listen to that crap for ten years,” Sara said. “It’s always something with him and none of it ever pans out. If he’s late one more time I expect you to break both his fucking legs and remove his dick with a rusty knife. He insults your sister, Jimmy. You hear me? Your sister.”

I nodded.

“Ma expects to see you in church this Sunday,” Sara said. “Don’t disappoint her.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

Sara stood and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“You’re a good brother, Jimmy,” she said and returned to the bakery.

*****

Sara was the kiss of death for many men, made guys and civilians alike. She was my Uncle Sal and Ma all the way. Whatever blood she has from our father was buried deep below her Sicilian roots.

Sara even used Ma and Sal’s last name of Pizzuto, even when she was married to Kevin.

Often times, Sal used Sara as a mediator in the neighborhood and she was tougher than most men when it came to solving a dispute.

She practically ran the feast the church held every summer and heaven help any outside vendor that broke the rules.

A few years back, she caught the Ferris wheel operator skimming profits that were bound for the church. He mysteriously disappeared and a neighborhood guy took his place for the remainder of the festival.

I swear to God that if our blood was pure, LaCasa would break the hundred year old, sacred rules and make Sara the first full female member.

I thought about my sister as I walked home. On my block some kids were playing three sewer stickball and a few of them waved to me as I passed by and entered my building.

A thick padded envelope was waiting for me in my mailbox.

I opened it at the kitchen table. Fifteen thousand dollars in large bills were in a sealed, white envelope. My usual fee. A second white envelope contained twenty-five hundred dollar.

My bonus.

The postmark on the padded envelope was dated three days ago. LaCasa had it mailed before I was even summoned.

To LaCasa and the other bosses, I was nothing but a foregone conclusion.

*****

I sat in a front row between Sara and Ma for the ten am high mass. Much of the mass was in Latin and I’m always surprised at how much of the dead language I understood from my days as an altar boy when I was a kid.

After mass, the congregation always met for coffee and donuts in the church basement, or on sunny days in the backyard courtyard gardens.

Since the heat wave passed and it was a much more pleasant sixty degrees, the coffee and donuts were served in the gardens.

The monsignor greeted each member of the congregation as it filed out of the rear doors of the church. Altar boys manned the coffee and donuts tables.

“Fantastic sermon today,” Ma told the monsignor as we greeted him in the gardens.

Ma and Sara were decked out in their Sunday best dresses and hats. I wore a tan suit with a paisley tie.

I went to a table for a donut and coffee. They were donated by Sal’s and baked around four that morning. It was the least I could get for my hundred dollar donation into the collection plate.

“Now would be a good time to escape,” Sara told me as she walked to the donut table.

“Why is that?” I asked between bites of the donut.

“Ma invited her cousin from Jersey to Sunday dinner,” Sara said.

“So?”

“So she brought her unmarried daughter with her and Ma expects you to sit next to her, if you catch my drift,” Sara said.

“The one with a face like a horse?” I said.

“The one and only.”

“Shit.”

“Better get lost, big brother and fast.”

“Tell Ma I had something important to do,” I said.

“Go. I see them coming,” Sara said.

I ducked back into the church and out to the street and returned to my apartment.

*****

My mother doesn’t understand why I’m pushing forty and have never married.

My senior year at Roosevelt High, I was madly in love with Jean Marie Baccari, a neighborhood girl who lived a block away from me. She was pure Sicilian, had the olive skin of the old country, black hair and eyes and the features of Roman goddess. We dated for two years and she promised to wait for me while I was away in the Marine Corps.

She didn’t.

I received the Dear John letter in the Philippines.

Her family insisted that she marry a pure Sicilian.

And she did, in late 1944. He was on the verge of being made into the Castillano Family and had an arranged 4F draft status.

When I returned home in forty-six, she had married and moved to Brooklyn, as did her entire family.

It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. In fact, it hardly bothered me at all. I lost my faith in God after Okinawa and the capacity to feel much of anything by the time I came home.

When you shot Japanese soldiers who were on fire to quiet their screams, how do you return home to a normal life? After you’ve watched enemy soldiers blow their brains out or cut open their guts rather than surrender, how do you take a woman to the drive-in to watch a Jerry Lewis comedy as if none of that ever happened?

In my closet on the shelf is an old metal band-aid box. It’s filled with gold teeth. After each battle, Marines removed the gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers with pliers. We figured they no longer needed the teeth and gold was a valuable commodity to have, even twenty years ago.

My band-aid box has about one hundred gold teeth in it. I’ve never spoken of it or showed it to a living soul.

I have the memories of it, but never dream of it the way I do the Japanese soldiers on fire. I don’t know why. After each battle we would peruse the Japanese dead to make sure they were dead. Any we found alive we killed because they were going to die of their wounds anyway and we had no room for prisoners. We’d inspect the teeth of the dead and if he had gold teeth, we take pliers and simply snap the tooth out of his mouth. He was beyond feeling or caring at that point.

I still can hear that snap of the tooth sometimes. See myself with pliers, grabbing a gold tooth and snapping it off at the gum.

To do that you need to be as lifeless on the inside as the man is dead that you’re doing it to.

My mother could never understand something like that.

She’s been around the mob, the bosses and even lost her husband to a mob related hit, but to her it’s all a game of pinball. When you aren’t directly involved in the bloodshed, it’s like reading a comic book where the bad guy gets killed. It doesn’t touch you even though you’re looking right at it.

*****

I spent the afternoon and evening at the movies to escape my mother’s devious matchmaking plans.

The Paradise Theatre on Fordham Road showed The Birds. It was a creepy Hitchcock film about birds that turned killer for no reason in a small beach community in northern California. What was really eerie about the film was the lack of music. In my memory it’s the only movie I’ve ever seen that was totally void of music.

After the movie, I grabbed a burger at a coffee shop on Fordham Road, and then walked to the Concourse Theatre on 184^th Street. Sean Connery battled Russian Spies in From Russia With Love. I thought that Robert Shaw was great in his role as the Russian bad guy, but Lotte Lenya, a bit over the top as the female Russian agent. I couldn’t remember seeing the love interest, Daniela Bianchi, in any other films.

By the time James Bond was kissing the girl at the end, it was nearly ten o’clock at night. The Grand Concourse was asleep for the evening as I walked back to Fordham Road and turned onto Arthur Avenue.

Sal’s was dark and locked up tight when I walked past it, as were all of the shops. The side-streets were quiet as I walked to my building.

The last person I expected to see sitting on the stoop of my building was Sal.

He was drinking straight from a bottle of Jim Bean and smoking a DiNobli cigar.

That he was here meant something out of the ordinary was going to happen.

“Where you been, kid?” Sal asked as I sat next to him on the stoop.

“I wasn’t in the mood for one of Ma’s match-making dinners,” I said. “I went to the movies.”

“My sister is a hard woman,” Sal said.

He passed me the bottle. I took a sip. The bourbon burned my tongue and throat as it went down.

I passed the bottle back to Sal and pulled out my cigarettes.

Sal puffed on his DiNobli cigar.

“Tuesday morning, you need to be at the bakery, armed and ready by nine o’clock,” he said.

I lit a smoke and nodded. I didn’t ask why. Sal would tell me.

“LaCasa and Gambino are having a meeting and I won’t open for business until it’s over,” Sal said. “There will be a full crew of security people, but you need to be there at LaCasa’s request. Okay, kid?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

Sal stood up. “Okay,” he said.

“See you in the morning,” I said.

Sal took a few steps and then turned around. “Our cousin from Jersey, her daughter that looks like a horse?”

“That’s the one,” I said.

“I wouldn’t of went to the movies, I would have left the state,” Sal said.

*****

The cat curled up into a tight ball next to me on the bed and closed her eyes Connie Francis sang Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You, softly on the radio.

I lit a cigarette and looked at the ceiling.

When Gambino’s son married LaCasa’s daughter, it sealed a bond between the two bosses. The meeting on Tuesday would cement that bond. LaCasa ran Idlewild Airport. The unions controlled security and all workers and LaCasa controlled the unions.

At this meeting, LaCasa would give a portion of his control to Gambino, and for a very good reason. Together they would control the airport, the police, the politicians and most of the other bosses in New York.

Connie Francis gave way to Elvis singing Can’t Help Falling in Love.

I put out the cigarette, turned the radio off and went to sleep.

*****

Sara brought coffee and a fresh pastry to my sidewalk table at Sal’s.

“Ma is plenty pissed at you,” she said with a smirk.

“You told me to take off,” I said.

“Where did you go?”

“Movies.”

“Anything good?”

“James Bond and that creepy movie about birds,” I said.

“I read some people fainted at that movie,” Sara said. “The bird one.”

I took a sip of coffee and then said, “So you don’t come to work tomorrow until Sal says otherwise.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t leave the house until I say otherwise.”

“Jimmy, I have to …”

“I wasn’t asking you, Sara,” I said.

She stared at me.

“If I catch you on the street before Sal gives the all-clear, grown woman or not I will spank you like you were a two-year old and lock you in a closet,” I said. “Clear?”

Sara nodded.

“I gotta go,” she said.

She kissed me lightly on the lips and returned to the bakery.

I nibbled on the pastry and I watched the street. The rooftops of the four-story buildings across the street were excellent places for a sharpshooter to take post. The storefront of Sal’s was mostly glass with bread and pastry on shelves.

I lit a cigarette and sipped my coffee.

Sal came out and sat next to me.

“How many security people are they bringing?” I asked.

“Enough,” Sal said.

“No such thing as enough,” I said. “There should be some men handy with a rifle on the rooftops across the street. It’s a clear shot to the sidewalk from those rooftops.”

Sal looked up. “I’ll mention it,” he said.

“Police?”

“No. They don’t want to advertise this meeting,” Sal said.

“Have everybody double-park on the whole block before the meeting starts,” I said. “Including the fire hydrants. If somebody drives by with a heater they have to shoot over or through two cars to reach the bakery.”

“That’s good thinking, kid,” Sal said. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Will they arrive out back?” I asked.

“The delivery entrance, yeah.”

“They should have their men line the back alleyway as well,” I said. “And put up an awning to block a roof shot.”

Sal looked at me.

“Okay?” I said.

Sal nodded.

“I’ll talk to you later tonight,” I said.

*****

It wasn’t the first time Sal’s has been used for meetings. The most recent was planning the alliance between LaCasa and Gambino to fight the war against the Profuci Family a few years back.

Joe Bonanno threw in with Profuci and it was a real mess. A lot of made men and mercenaries died over the span of eighteen months. I took out eleven or twelve shooters working with the Gallo brothers before the war finally ended.

LaCasa knew the way to prevent a future war among the bosses was to become too powerful to mess with. Peace through strength, so to speak. More than anything else, that’s what his alliance with Gambino was about.

I decided to take my punishment and have dinner with Ma.

“Your aunt and cousin were very disappointed that you weren’t here,” Ma scolded me as we sat down to dinner.

“Ma, I have things to do sometimes that can’t wait,” I said.

Ma eyed me with suspiciously.

“Tomorrow at church I pray for …”

“No church tomorrow, Ma,” I said.

“What do you mean no church?” Ma said.

“Church is closed tomorrow,” I said.

Ma eyed me, then looked at Sara, then returned her eyes to me.

“Until what time?” Ma asked.

“Until the priest rings the bell,” I said.

Ma nodded and then looked at Sara. “I think we need more bread at the table,” she said.

When the meeting was over and LaCasa and Gambino were gone, Sal would notify the priest and he would ring the church bell. The bell would resonate throughout the entire neighborhood and everyone would know the streets were safe to walk again.

Sara went to the kitchen and returned with a fresh basket of bread and a dipping bowl of olive oil.

They serve butter with the bread in most American/Italian restaurants and even in Manhattan’s Little Italy, but no real Italian wouldn’t be caught dead using butter on bread.

Sara had added some roasted garlic to the olive oil and I tore off a slice of bread and dipped.

“There is more to a woman than a pretty face, Jimmy,” Ma said, changing the subject of church.

“Like what?” I said.

Sara stifled a laugh that drew dagger-like looks from Ma.

“There are children at the table,” Ma said.

“I know that, Ma,” Sara said. “I gave birth to them.”

My nephews giggled under their breath.

Ma pointed a finger at them. “Eat,” she commanded.

*****

I put my nephews to bed and took coffee at the kitchen table with my sister.

“I need to convert the den to a bedroom,” Sara said. “The boys are getting too big to share bedrooms.”

“You have time yet,” I said. “Another year at least.”

Sara sipped her coffee and looked at me.

“Jimmy, I want to see it,” she said. “The meeting.”

“Are you crazy?” I snapped.

“Just hear me out,” Sara said. “The bosses need someone to serve them coffee, right? Why can’t I do that? I do it all day, anyway.”

“Because the bosses would never allow a woman to hear their conversations,” I said. “Because it could be dangerous. And because I said no. Now that’s it. No more talk about meetings and who serves the coffee.”

My sister had that look in her eyes. She had the blood, no doubt. Talk of bosses and made men got her temperature rising and it showed in the lustful glow on her cheeks and neck.

Why her marriage to Kevin didn’t work was simple to me. Kevin wasn’t a mobster. He was an honest man who wanted nothing to do with the mob, the bosses or any of it.

She tried, my sister, but in the end her Sicilian blood won out and the marriage failed because Kevin couldn’t be what she needed.

“It’s not fair, Jimmy,” Sara said. “I always have to be in the background like I was some kind of second class citizen.”

“Fair?” I said. “You have three sons to raise. Worry about them and forget fair. What, do you want them to turn out like me, is that what you want?”

“Would that be so terrible?” Sara said.

I looked at my sister for a second or two and then I exploded. Before I even realized what was happening, I was out of the chair and I slapped her across the face.

Sara’s head snapped back and she nearly fell from her chair.

My hand left a deep red mark on her right cheek.

She glared at me.

“You don’t want them to be anything like me,” I said. “You want them to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, anything but like me.”

I saw a tear fill her right eye as I walked away from the table and left the house.

The streets were dark and empty as I walked to my apartment. I could hardly breathe the air was so still and heavy.

I reached my building, sat on the stoop and lit a cigarette. My hands shook slightly as I inhaled.

I didn’t have to examine my memory to know that tonight was the first time I’d ever laid hand to Sara.

Her blood was her blood and she couldn’t help that anymore than a snake can help having scales. I was no one to throw stones.

I finished the cigarette and decided to take a walk rather than try to sleep.

I walked to Fordham Road and then to the Grand Concourse. I had nowhere to go and was in no hurry to get there. I turned south and strolled for a few blocks. The Paradise Movie Theatre was closed for the night and I paused to light a cigarette and study the posters of coming attractions.

The Great Escape and Charade.

Traffic was light to nonexistent on the wide boulevard.

I was alone on the sidewalk on both sides of the street.

I walked a few more blocks and spotted a car parked against the curb with its blinkers on. I saw the open trunk, but not the driver.

I crossed the street and walked to the car, a 61 Plymouth. The right rear tire was flat. Someone had their nose in the trunk.

“Need some help?” I asked.

The person jumped back from the trunk with a tire iron in hand. Even in the dark I could see she was a really pretty lady. Tall, slender, with curves, dark hair and eyes and milk-like skin.

She wore white pants and top and matching sneakers.

Her eyes were frightened.

“Take it easy,” I said. “I was just taking a walk and saw you had a flat.”

“I … I can fix it,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“I mean it, I can fix it,” she said.

“I believe you,” I said.

I walked to the corner and crossed the street. When I looked back she had her head in the trunk again.

She finally drew out the jack and set it on the ground. She fumbled with the hubcap and after thirty seconds or so she gave it a good kick.

I crossed back over and walked to her.

“Unless you want to be here to watch the sunrise, better let me do that,” I said.

She looked at me.

“If I meant you harm it would have happened already,” I said. “Where’s the spare tire?”

“Under the floor of the trunk,” she said.

I removed the false floor in the trunk and pulled out the donut tire and set it aside. “Always take out the spare first,” I said. “You don’t want to be rocking the car when it’s up on the jack. Okay?”

She nodded.

I set the jack in place.

She stood in back of me and I could feel her eyes on my neck.

I removed the hubcap and loosened the lug nuts. Then I jacked up the car. When I removed the flat I noticed the back seat of her car was piled high with bakery boxes. Dembrowski’s Bakery, the boxes read.

“You work in a bakery?” I asked as I slipped on the donut.

She nodded. “Yes. I’m a baker.”

“I noticed all the boxes,” I said.

“Our regular night-shift baker has the flu,” she said. “I’m filling in until morning.”

I added the lug nuts and tightened them, then replaced the hubcap and slowly lowered the car.

“Better get this tire fixed right away,” I said. “Those donuts aren’t meant for long-term driving.”

“I will,” she said.

I couldn’t help but notice how lovely a woman she was.

“My name is Jimmy Fallen,” I said as I lowered the car.

“Hannah Dembrowski,” she said.

“It’s your bakery?” I asked.

“My aunt and uncle,” Hannah said.

I tossed the flat and jack into the trunk and closed it.

“That should do it,” I said.

“Thank you, Mr. Fallen,” she said.

“Jimmy, or James,” I said.

She smiled and the night lit up. “James,” she said.

“Drive safe,” I said.

She got into the car, started the engine and drove away. I lit a cigarette and watched the red tail lights fade away as she drove north on the Concourse.

By the time I returned to my apartment it was after midnight and the cat was starving. I filled her bowl with food, changed her water dish and treated her to a saucer of cold milk.

It was one in the morning before I turned in, but there was no need to set the alarm. I would be up with the sunrise out of a habit born a lifetime ago in a place halfway around the world.

I closed my eyes and her smiled filled my mind.

I fell asleep thinking of that smile.

*****

By eight in the morning, I was drinking coffee at a sidewalk table at Sal’s. Cars were double-parked along the entire block, creating a nice barrier between the street and the bakery window.

Eight soldiers belonging to LaCasa and Gambino occupied street tables. I knew men were on the rooftops across the street, but I couldn’t see them as yet. They didn’t want to advertise their presence until the last minute. A rifle scope reflected light and could give away your position from blocks away.

Sal appeared at my side.

“They should be here by nine,” he said. “The cars will travel on Belmont to the alleyway in back of the bakery.”

“How many men out back?” I asked.

“At least eight, all armed.”

“Good.”

“After the meeting, LaCasa and Gambino want to go to church and light a candle,” Sal said. “A prayer and a donation to seal their partnership.”

I lit a cigarette and nodded.

“I better get inside, kid,” Sal said. “It won’t look good if I’m not at the back door to greet them.”

Sal returned to the bakery and I heard the door lock.

I finished the cigarette and coffee and refilled my cup from the pot at the waiter’s stand, sat and lit another cigarette.

I watched the street.

My watch read ten of nine when the soldiers at the corner motioned to the soldiers at the tables that cars were arriving.

The soldiers at the tables stood and went on high alert.

I drank my coffee.

The soldiers at the corner signaled that the cars had parked.

I inhaled on my cigarette.

And looked at the tower of the church two blocks away.

And my head started to buzz. When you’re in combat long enough you develop a sixth sense that can’t be explained. Your sense of awareness becomes heightened and is on high alert even when sleeping. On patrol in the islands in the Pacific, many times I would stop and wait when there seemed no clear-cut reason to do so. Except that Japanese soldiers had dug in and disguised themselves as part of the environment and even though I couldn’t see them, I sensed they were there beneath my feet.

My head would buzz.

My head was buzzing now.

Although I didn’t know why.

I stood up from the table and nodded to the soldiers. “I’m going to take a walk around the block,” I said.

I walked to the end of the block and crossed the street, turned down the block and came up behind the church. The courtyard wall was six feet high. I scaled the wall and landed softly on the grass.

The back door of the church was wide open.

I removed the .357 Magnum revolver and silencer from my pocket and attached the two. I had two speed-loaders in my left pocket and held one in my left hand as I slowly entered the church through the back door.

I removed my shoes.

I walked behind the altar and stood perfectly still. I took soft, shallow breaths as I was trained to when on point patrol at night. My eyes scanned the interior, the pews, walls and stained glass.

To my left along the wall was the baptismal station.

On my right were three confessional booths.

I walked around the altar and took the steps down to the first pew. In my stocking feet my footsteps were silent. I turned right and approached the confessional booths and stopped about six feet from them.

I kept my breathing shallow and listened to the stillness of the church.

Most people don’t realize how rapid, loud breathing can interfere with your hearing. Not a lot, just enough so that you don’t hear that twig snap a hundred feet to your rear. Most people have never been on sniper duty at night in the Pacific.

I waited.

One minute, then two.

From the center confessional I heard a faint rustling of material.

I waited another thirty seconds.

Then I aimed the .357 and fired two shots into each confessional booth. Immediately, I opened the wheel and dumped the spent cartridges and reloaded with the speed-loader.

The door to the right booth opened and a man with a Tommy-gun stumbled out and looked at me. He had two holes in his chest.

I shot him once in the head and he dropped to the polished floor.

The man in the left booth had a shotgun. He opened the door and fell out to the floor. One of my bullets had struck his neck and he was bleeding puddles, but he was still alive.

I shot him twice in the back of the head.

The center confessional was quiet. I yanked open the door and the man inside was on the chair with half his skull missing.

I closed the door.

*****

LaCasa and Gambino stood over the three dead men in the church.

I sat in a pew near the center aisle and smoked a cigarette. Sal sat to my left.

A dozen soldiers stood around the two bosses.

LaCasa walked to me and stood outside the pew.

“Magliocco’s boys,” he said. “Since Profuci died and he took over, Magliocco can’t accept the fact the war between us is finished.”

“You have a leak in your organization,” I said. “There was no other way for them to know you would be coming into the church.”

LaCasa nodded at the confessional booths. “How did you know?” he asked.

I inhaled on the cigarette and blew a smoke ring.

“I sensed it,” I said.

LaCasa stared at me for a moment, then nodded a tiny bit and turned away.

“Nobody comes in the church until after this mess is cleaned up,” he said.

*****

I was having coffee with Sal at a sidewalk table when the church bells rang. It was after three in the afternoon.

When the bells quieted, life returned to the neighborhood.

“LaCasa and Gambino will open season on Magliocco,” Sal said. “It will get bloody.”

I sipped coffee and then lit a cigarette.

“They left ten grand each for the church,” Sal said.

“I have to go see my sister,” I said.

*****

When you open the vestibule door to Ma’s house, there are two interior doors. The one on the right leads to Ma’s first floor residence. The left takes you to the second floor where Sara and her boys live.

I went left and knocked on the door.

Sara opened the door and looked at me.

“You never hit me before,” she said.

“I know.”

“If you’ve come to apologize, don’t bother,” she said. “I had it coming.”

“That’s no excuse for raising my hands,” I said.

“The boys are downstairs with Ma,” Sara said. “Want some coffee. I made almond cookies at work yesterday and brought a box home.”

My sister poured and then set a plate of cookies on the kitchen table.

She sat and I inspected her face. There was a purple mark and slight swelling on her right cheek.

“I hurt you,” I said.

“Don’t cry about it,” Sara said. “It doesn’t hurt and a little makeup does wonders.”

I reached out and touched her chin.

“Jesus Sara,” I said.

“It’s nothing compared to what Joey Pep did to me in forty-five,” she said. “I was fifteen and he took me to the drive-in and thought I would put out for him. He got mad when I didn’t and slapped me around good. I had lumps for weeks. Ma hid it from Dad, but Dad died a few weeks later, anyway.”

I stared at my sister.

Her eyes told me she realized that I had never heard that story before.

“Oh, hey, Jimmy, that was like eighteen years ago,” Sara said. “It doesn’t mean anything now. Honest. I was just making a point is all.”

“A point?” I said.

“Jimmy, for God’s sake, leave it alone,” Sara said.

I lit a cigarette.

“You’re not going to, are you?” Sara said.

“He slapped you around good,” I said. “Is that what you said?”

I cock-teased him even though I was a virgin and had no intentions of giving it to him,” Sara said. “It was my fault, not his.”

“I’ve had a rough day,” I said. “I’m going home and take a nap.”

“Jimmy, promise me nothing will happen,” Sara said. “Joey Pep is a made guy now. You can’t touch him, you know that.”

“I know.”

“Promise me. Swear it.”

“I promise,” I said.

“On Dad’s soul.”

“Yes.”

“No, not yes. Swear.”

“I swear on Dad’s soul,” I said.

Sara nodded.

“Take some cookies with you,” she said. “I made too much.”

With a light kiss at the door, my sister handed me a doggie bag of cookies.

“You swore, Jimmy, remember,” Sara said. “If you break this promise you’ll go to hell forever.”

*****

The dozens of hits and contracts I’ve done during the past two decades won’t keep me from entering heaven, but a broken promise will.

My sister had the Sicilian blood all right.

I played with the cat for a bit on the bed until I felt my eyes close and I went under for a while.

The thing about my dreams is I have the memory of certain aromas that I could actually smell in my sleep. When we torched the Japanese soldiers from their bunkers and tunnels and they abandoned their hideaways, most were engulfed in flames. It wasn’t just their piercing, harrowing screams that I remember, but also the smell of fat melting off their bodies.

Sometimes when I have that dream and I wake up, the stench of melting fat is in my nose.

I woke up after ninety minutes and smelled the fat cooking even though I was alone and all the windows were wide open, because the aroma was in my memory.

I took a hot shower to rid the stench from my brain and then I sat naked at the table and drank a cold glass of milk and ate a few of Sara’s cookies.

It was just getting dark by the time I dressed and left the apartment. Sal’s was closing for the day and when I knocked on the door he unlocked it and stepped outside.

“Jimmy, what are you doing?” Sal asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I know you’re closed, but do you have any bread left?”

“Bread?” Sal said. “Are you feeling all right, kid?”

“Fine. I was walking by and felt like some bread.”

“Come in, we’ll see what I got left,” Sal said.

I followed Sal into the bakery and he locked the door.

“We were only open half a day today, so I don’t have much in the way of bread,” Sal said. “There are some pastries still fresh. Take them or they wind up in the garbage.”

“That’s all right, Sal,” I said. “I just wanted some bread. It can wait until tomorrow.”

Sal looked at me. “Are you sure you’re okay, kid? You had a rough day.”

“Fine, Sal,” I said. “I’ll be on my way.”

“Listen, kid, LaCasa and Gambino, they don’t forget what you did today,” Sal said.

“Sure, I said.

I walked toward Ma’s house and rang her bell when I arrived. She was alone, dressed in her bathrobe.

“Jimmy, what is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No, Ma, nothing is wrong,” I said. “I just felt like taking a walk.”

“Did you eat?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll fix you a steak.”

“Ma, I …”

“Medium as usual,” Ma said.

“Sure.”

I sat at the kitchen table while my mother pan-fried a steak for me. She doused it with garlic and pepper and cooked it in olive oil and served thick slices of crusty Italian bread to go with it.

“What’s bothering you, Jimmy?” Ma asked as I ate.

“I’m fine, Ma. Honest,” I said.

“Then eat and I’ll put on some coffee.”

When I finished the steak, Ma served coffee with pastry from Sal’s.

“Your sister didn’t go to work today,” she said. “One of the other bakers made these, so they might not be as good.”

“I’m sure they’re fine, Ma,” I said.

I nibbled on a Napoleon and sipped some coffee.

“Jimmy, if you’re upset about the church, you did what you had to do,” Ma said. “Even the bosses know what you did today was heroic. You should be proud. I am.”

There was no need to look any further than Ma to know why my sister was the way that she is.

“Sure, Ma,” I said. “I think I’ll take the car out for a little ride.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Jimmy?” Ma asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Where’s your phonebook?”

“Phonebook?” Ma said.

*****

The Dembrowski Bakery was located on Bedford Park Boulevard, a block from Lehman College in the neighborhood of Mosholu Parkway. It was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and some tough Jewish gangsters came out of it and they even did business with the Bosses from time-to-time.

I had gotten the address from Ma’s phonebook and drove north on the Grand Course to Bedford Park Boulevard. I found a coffee shop still open and grabbed a large coffee and then parked across the street from the Dembrowski Bakery.

The bakery was at least twice the size of Sal’s. I could see six or seven people scurrying around from the back room to the service counters.

I sipped coffee and smoked a few cigarettes while I waited.

Around midnight, the side door opened and a few workers came out for a break. Hannah was among the small group. Lights from the bakery illuminated her enough for me to see that her face and white shirt was covered with flour. She didn’t seem to mind and chatted and laughed with the others.

After a bit they filed back inside and I lost sight of her.

I sat in my car in the dark and finished my coffee and smoked a few more cigarettes.

Around one in the morning I drove home.

After returning the car to Ma’s garage, I walked to my apartment and sat on the stoop. The night air was crisp and cool. I smoked a few cigarettes as I sat and thought about Hannah Dembrowski.

*****

Sal greeted me with a smile and shoebox wrapped in brown paper when I grabbed a sidewalk seat at his bakery.

“What?” I said.

“From LaCasa and Gambino,” Sal said. “A messenger delivered it this morning.”

Sara came out with coffee and set it on the table. There was a look of pride on her face generally reserved for one of her sons.

“Open it,” she said.

“I’ll open it later,” I said.

“Come on, Jimmy,” Sara said.

Sal gave her one of his looks.

“Don’t you have something in the ovens?” he snapped.

Reluctantly, Sara went inside.

Sal took a seat.

“I told you, Jimmy,” he said. “The bosses don’t forget.”

“How old are you, Sal?” I asked.

“Sixty-eight,” Sal said. “Why?”

“How long you been married?”

“Forty-six years,” Sal said. “Why? What’s the matter with you, kid?”

“Nothing is the matter, Sal,” I said. “I just wanted to know how long you and Aunt Mary have been married.”

“You got a woman stashed somewhere?” Sal asked. “Is that what this is all about?”

“No, Sal,” I said.

Sara poked her head out the door.

“Sal, phone,” she said.

I stood up from the table.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

*****

The cat jumped on my kitchen table and immediately used the brown paper wrapping on the shoebox as a place to sharpen her claws.

I let her have at it for a bit, then tore off the wrapping, rolled it into a ball and tossed it on the floor. She jumped down and attacked the ball.

I removed the lid on the shoebox.

It was filled with five stacks of ten thousand dollars in a stack.

The boss’s way of saying thanks.

Not a card or a note, just stacks of money.

I removed two stacks and placed them in my strongbox in the bedroom closet.

The remaining three stacks I stuffed into my suit jacket pockets and left the apartment.

*****

I knocked on Sara’s door around eight in the evening. She was surprised to see me.

“Jimmy, what are …?” she said.

“Take this for the boys,” I said and handed her three bank book accounts.

“I don’t understand. What’s this?”

“College tuition for the boys,” I said. “Ten thousand dollars each.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I love my sister.”

“If you still feeling guilty about that slap, I…”

“No,” I said. “I just want you to have it.”

Sara wrapped her arms around my neck and held on tight.

“You’re a good brother, Jimmy,” she said. “The best.”

*****

I drove north on the Concourse to Bedford Park Boulevard and parked across the street from the Dembrowski Bakery. I could see a few people inside, wiping and cleaning.  Hannah’s car wasn’t in the lot. I had arrived before her shift or she had the night off. I had no way of knowing which.

I sat in the dark and smoked a few cigarettes. Around nine-thirty, Hannah’s Plymouth pulled into the lot and parked near the side entrance.

She exited her car and walked to the door and rang a bell.

She wore yellow shorts, a white tank-top style tee-shirt and sneakers. Her legs were perfect, the kind of legs most women wished they had but very few did.

Then the door opened and she was gone.

I watched the windows for a few minutes. She came into view dressed in the white clothes she wore the night before and then vanished into the kitchen through a rear door.

I started the car, clicked on the radio and listened to The Beach Boys sing about summer, Bobby Vinton croon about love and Leslie Gore whine about her party as I drove home.

*****

Memorial Day weekend is celebrated in the neighborhood with a feast sponsored by the church and paid for by everyone. Every shop, store and restaurant in the neighborhood kicks in money and goods. The church arranges for the rides, booths and games. For the past ten years, my sister has been the chairman of the feast and oversaw every volunteer and person operating a ride and manning a booth. Two city blocks are closed for the three-day-weekend and all cars are cleared off the streets.

The tradition started after the First World War and has grown from a small neighborhood event to an actual tourist attraction, growing in stature every year.

The festivities begin with six altar boys carrying the stature of the Virgin Mary through the streets on a platform. Neighborhood residents and visitors plaster money on the stature as it passed by. Residents usually fork over ten and twenty dollar bills, while visitors part with ones and fives.

I usually skip most of the festival, either staying in my apartment or going to the City for the evening and catching a movie or two. On Memorial Day, a fireworks display started at dark and is a highlight of the three-day affair.

I was having coffee with Sal at a sidewalk table an hour before sunset. From the tables I would have a bird’s-eye view of the fireworks show. The Ferris wheel, always a major attraction had a line fifty deep.

I watched kids and moms ride the wheel and waiting in line was Hannah Dembrowski. She was chatting with three women. I stared at her as the line inched forward and then she and her three friends climbed aboard a vacant car.

Your quarter bought you six spins on the wheel. Hannah and her friends laughed and pointed at various things as the wheel went around and around. Then it stopped and they got off and mingled back into the crowd.

“I’m going to take a walk around,” I said.

“Sure, kid,” Sal said. “I’ll hold your table.”

I wandered into the crowd and scouted around until I spotted her and her friends at a fried dough stand. Hannah had a large dough covered with pineapple sauce and powdered sugar. From the looks of things eating it wasn’t going too well. Her lips and chin were covered in the powdered sugar and she was trying her best to keep the sauce off her white blouse.

Her friends, also holding fried dough, were equally as messy.

I approached her and she looked at me without recognition.

“The trick to eating fried dough is to fold it like a slice of pizza and let it drip onto the paper plate,” I said.

“I don’t … do I know you?” she asked.

“Jimmy. Flat tire,” I said.

Her eyes lit up as recognition set in.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you right away, but I never expected to run into you here.”

“Pineapple is dripping on your sleeve,” I said.

Hannah looked at the sleeve. “I can’t eat this,” she said.

“Let me buy you a coffee and a real pastry,” I said. “Across the street at Sal’s.”

“I couldn’t,” she said. “I came with friends.”

Her three friends glared at me in the background.

“You can catch up to them later,” I said.

She looked at me. She was slightly afraid, but interested at the same time.

“My friends would be angry with me,” she said.

“They’ll get over it,” I said. “If you change your mind I’ll be at Sal’s across the street over there.”

I left her with a nod and made my way through the crowd back to Sal’s. My seat was vacant as promised.

Across the street, my sister stood on the erected platform with the monsignor of the church. In thirty minutes she would use the bullhorn to announce the fireworks show.

Sal came out with two cups of coffee and took the chair next to me.

I lit a cigarette.

“Good crowd for the fireworks,” Sal said.

Hannah and her three friends suddenly appeared in the middle of the street. They were arguing. Finally, Hannah wagged her finger at them, turned and walked directly to Sal’s.

“See that good looking woman walking this way, Sal?” I said.

“The tall brunette?”

“She about to join me for coffee,” I said.

Sal stood up. “I’ll get a fresh cup.”

Hannah walked to the table, looked at me and said, “I decided a cup of coffee would be good right about now.”

“Your friends didn’t think so,” I said.

“They’re hens, but they mean well.”

I stood and pulled the chair out and she slid into it.

And Sal was there with a fresh cup and pot.

“Would you like a fresh pastry?” he asked.

“I would,” Hannah said. “What do you recommend?”

“Two slices of strawberry cheesecake, Sal,” I said as I took my chair.

Sal nodded and entered the bakery.

“Do you come to the festival a lot?” Hannah asked.

“I can’t avoid it since I live right around the corner,” I said.

“Jimmy Fallen, that’s Irish, isn’t it?” Hannah asked.

“Of my father’s side,” I said. “My mother is Sicilian. I was born a few blocks from here.”

Sal returned with the cheesecake and set a plate in front of each of us. “Enjoy,” he said.

“Thank you,” Hannah said.

“I’m guessing you’re Polish,” I said.

“Easy guess with a name like Dembrowski,” she said as she forked into her cheesecake.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” I said. “In the City.”

“This is excellent cheesecake,” she said.

“I know. About dinner?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“My friends say that you’re a gangster.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I’m not sure. You kind of look like one.”

“Then why did you agree to coffee?”

“I’m not sure about that, either.”

“I’m a union rep for the teamsters,” I said.

That was my official cover story if I was ever picked up and questioned by the police or FBI, as unlikely as that may seem. I even had official union identification in my wallet that identified me as such.

“What does a union rep do?” Hannah asked.

“Chair meetings, recruit new members, hear grievances, that kind of stuff.”

“I belong to the baker’s union,” Hannah said.

“So you know what a union rep does.”

“I know what my union rep does.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “The fireworks start in fifteen minutes. The best place to see them is on the Ferris wheel.”

“The sign says they close at nine for the show.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “Come on.”

I stood and pulled out her chair and caught a glimpse of my sister on the platform. Her face told me she wasn’t pleased.

“Come on,” I said.

We crossed the street and walked to the Ferris wheel.

Carlo Pesci, a local guy from the neighborhood was operating the wheel.

“Hey, Jimmy, how you doing?” he asked.

“Good. My lady friend and I would like to watch the fireworks from up top. Okay?” I said.

“Sure, Jimmy,” Carlo said. “I’m stopping the wheel now.”

He stopped the wheel at each car to let people off and when the wheel was empty, he turned to Hannah. “All aboard, lady friend,” he said.

Hannah stepped onto the car and I sat next to her. Carlo locked the bar in place and slowly took us to the top where he locked us in place.

From sixty feet high, the view of the fair and neighborhood was mostly lights.

Hannah looked at me.

“People are used to doing what you tell them, aren’t they?” she said.

“A lot of union people around here,” I said.

The platform where my sister stood with the monsignor was illuminated enough so that I could see her face.

She was not happy.

Then Sara held up the bullhorn and announced the start of the fireworks show.

Lights in the booths and shops dimmed.

“That roof in front of us,” I said. “See those men? They’re pyro-technicians.”

“Are they in the union?” Hannah asked.

She had a slight grin on her face.

“A union, but not mine,” I said.

Music started from the rooftop. Stars and Stripes Forever.

The first skyrocket exploded into a beautiful, multi-colored waterfall and the crowd below us cheered and applauded.

The show lasted close to thirty minutes and ended with a non-stop finale of explosions and dazzling colors. Hannah didn’t speak to me while the show was in progress, but after a few minutes her knee brushed against mine and she made no attempt to move it.

When the last skyrocket vanished from the sky, the feast came to life again. Booths lit up, rides went into motion and the Ferris wheel descended to the bottom.

“We could take a last ride before we get off,” I suggested.

“The people waiting in line won’t mind?” Hannah asked.

“No.”

“They won’t mind, or they will mind and not say anything?”

“Maybe a little bit of both.”

The car reached bottom.

“We’re going to take a spin, okay, Carlo?” I said.

“Sure, Jimmy,” Carlo said.

Once each car was loaded, the ride lasted six revolutions. As we came out of the first revolution and reached the top, Hannah said, “That woman on the platform beside the priest, she keeps looking at you. She wouldn’t happen to be your wife or girlfriend?”

“My kid sister,” I said.

“As long as I brought it up, is there one?”

“Wife or girlfriend, no, there isn’t.”

“Ex, divorced, kids?”

“No to all three. You?”

She held up her naked left ring finger.

“So how about dinner?” I said.

“I usually take Sunday and Monday night off,” Hannah said. “Would Sunday be all right?”

“It would.”

She opened her tiny pocketbook and withdrew a business card and pen and scribbled on the back.

“Seven okay?”

“Fine.”

“This is my address and phone number,” she said. “Pick me up there.”

I took the card and tucked it into a pocket.

“Do you like expensive Italian food?” I asked.

“It doesn’t have to be expensive, just good.”

The ride stopped and we exited the car.

“I have to go now,” Hannah said. “My friends are fuming mad.”

“Sunday night then,” I said.

“Good night,” she said. “Jimmy,” she added.

I watched her join her friends and they faded into the crowd. I returned to Sal’s and Sara was at my table. She was smoking a cigarette and exhaled smoke through her nose as I took my chair. Sara only smoked when she was in pissed-off mad mode.

“Who was that?” she demanded. “That woman you took on the wheel.”

“A friend,” I said.

“Bullshit, Jimmy,” Sara said. “I saw how you looked at her. I saw how she looked at you. Don’t hand me that friend crap.”

“I was talking a walk. She had a flat tire. I changed it for her.”

“She doesn’t look Italian,” Sara said. “It’s bad enough dad was Irish, you want to water down the blood even more?”

“She’s Polish,” I said.

“That’s great, that’s just fucking great,” Sara said. “I’ll sneak into your apartment and cut your dick off in your sleep before I let you shack up with a Polack, Jimmy. I won’t let you make the mistakes I made with Kevin.”

“I don’t plan on dating Kevin,” I said.

“Oh, fuck you,” Sara said.

Then her anger faded and she burst out laughing.

“I only want to see you happy, Jimmy,” she said. “And you need me to look after you when it comes to women. In that department you’re not the hotshot, understand.”

I looked at my sister as I lit a cigarette.

Sara sighed.

“At least make it an Italian girl, Jimmy,” she said.

“I think the monsignor wants you on the platform,” I said.

Sara looked across the street where the priest was waving to her.

“Fucking old goat is as horny as a nineteen-year-old,” she said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

*****

I sprawled out on my sofa with the cat on my stomach and listened to the Kingston Trio sing Where Have All The Flowers Gone on the radio.

Her knee on my knee was like a bolt of lightning up my spine, and I didn’t know why. It was just a knee, for God’s sake.

Eddie Hodges replaced the Trio with Girls, Girls, Girls.

I scratched the cat behind her ears and she purred loudly.

A simple knee on my knee in a crowded space and it was all I could think about.

My sister would say it was the Irish in me.

I fell asleep listening to the Four Seasons crooning Walk Like A Man.