Sullivan glanced at the impressions of what must have been a size ten snowboot making one-way tracks the length of the pier.
“Crazy Benny ain’t coming back this way,” Meehan said, slapping Sullivan on the back.
“I’ll light a candle for him,” the superintendent remarked, and walked back to his office. He despised Meehan and the whole White Hand, but he was grateful for the service they had performed for Gowanus Stevedoring.
Frankie Yale was fit to be tied. He banged his fist savagely on the desktop in his garage office. Frenchy Carlino expected this reaction. The big coup that Willie Altierri had accomplished only the day before at Gowanus Stevedoring had been wiped out by Denny Meehan’s swift, stunning reprisal.
Frenchy had been able to get back to the boss alive and well because of the head start Crazy Benny had gotten in leaving the car. That sixty-second delay gave Frenchy just the time needed to spot Denny Meehan and the two torpedoes approaching Benny. In fact, Frenchy saw the White Hand leader and his confederates even before they had turned the corner of the warehouse, which was when Benny first became aware of them. But it had been too late to shout a warning to Benny. So Frenchy took the only sensible turn under the circumstances: he drove away as quickly as he could, leaving Benny to his fate.
If Frankie Yale had any doubt as to what became of Crazy Benny, it was erased by the headlines of the morning newspapers of Saturday, January 10:
Benny’s body had been trawled out of the Lower Bay off Hamilton Parkway in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge section, about ten miles from where the corpse was dumped.
The autopsy showed Benny had been struck by fourteen bullets, six of them had gone through the heart.
The newspaper accounts of Crazy Benny’s demise were also read over at Denny Meehan’s second-floor offices in a garage on Baltic Street. Denny Meehan and his boys grinned from ear to ear.
“I always said Crazy Benny had a stout heart,” Meehan laughed uproariously. “With six bullets in it…hey, that gotta be a very stout heart.”
Levity had no place at Frankie Yale’s office. Frankie mouthed maledictions at Denny Meehan for almost an hour, helped by a chorus of curses uttered by Two-Knife, Big Beef, Rackets, and some of his other boys.
Finally, Yale walked over to the plaque with the two broken knife handles.
“I swear on this fuckin’ squealer’s grave,” Yale snarled, slamming his fist into the wall. “If Denny Meehan wants war, that’s what the fuck he’ll get!”
A mean March wind whipped in from Gowanus Bay, an icy reminder that one of New York’s worst winters was reluctant to make its departure.
Nine weeks had gone by since Frankie Yale had sworn vengeance on Denny Meehan. That was far too much time to let pass without having dispatched the White Hand gang’s leader to another world, as the Black Hand boss had vowed to do.
Some of Frankie’s lieutenants were getting restless, but he didn’t become aware of that until his little brother, Anthony, jogged his memory.
“Hey, Frankie,” Anthony said through widely spaced teeth that produced a whistle when he spoke. “What do you think if we have a little meeting to figure out that thing which has been bothering…?”
“What thing?” Frankie interrupted, glaring at his ugly-faced brother. Frankie abhorred that habit of Tony’s—talking about “that thing” as if other people could read his mind and know what he meant.
“I’m talking about Denny Meehan.” Tony laughed to ease the tension he’d created by raising the subject. Figuring out a fitting finale for the White Hand chieftain’s lease on mortality was something that had been grating on Frankie day and night since Crazy Benny’s leaded corpse had been fished out of the Lower Bay.
“You got some ideas, smart brother?” Frankie demanded gruffly. He began swivelling impatiently in the desk chair.
“Don’t get mad, Frankie,” Tony whined. Ever since they were kids, Frankie, the handsome son of the Domenico Ioele family, was Tony’s unrelentingly tyrannical adversary. Frankie had always poked fun at Tony’s gap-toothed mouth and his crooked, hooked nose, and Tony, who was three years younger and still three inches shorter than Frankie, simply took the abuse. He was too frightened of Frankie’s strength to fight back with fists or words.
Yet Frankie harbored an undemonstrated respect for his smaller brother because of his value in the organization. Frankie counted on Tony as the sounding board for the gang, who seemed inclined to confide their complaints to him.
So Frankie’s upbraiding of Tony for bringing up “that thing,” was more theatrical than real, but that was Frankie’s style.
Of course, his question wasn’t answered when he wanted to know if Tony had any ideas. Tony had never been allowed to think for himself. Yet Tony’s suggestion that they hold a meeting was deeply significant to Frankie.
Since Tony never had an idea in his life, the thought obviously had come from some of the boys in the mob.
“So they’re getting restless, eh?” he asked Tony with a demanding stare. “They want me to move, is that it?”
“Yeah…yeah, Frankie…that’s kinda what the picture is like…you know what I mean?” Tony stammered, relieved that his brother had not made it hotter for him.
For several seconds, Frankie glared at Tony as he kept swivelling in his chair. Then he stopped abruptly and leaned forward, his face creased as though in pain, elbows resting on the desk, and hands elapsed tightly together.
Tony recognized the pose. Frankie always struck it when he was on the verge of some monumental pronouncement.
“I want you, little brother, to get your ass out of here,” Yale began slowly, each word forced through tightly drawn lips. “I want you to go get hold of Two-Knife and have him come see me right away.”
Tony was out the door as though he’d been fired from a rifle. He responded with swift and unswerving obedience to every command from Frankie, for Tony wanted nothing more out of life than to be his brother’s loyal lackey. The fear Frankie instilled in Tony early on had made his demeaning subservience a part of his nature.
Twenty minutes passed. At 2:45 p.m. Willie Altierri walked into Yale’s office and stood stiffly in front of Frankie’s desk. Willie curled his lips in a half-smile.
“Don’t give me that shit-eatin’ grin, Willie,” Yale said sharply. “Wait till you hear what we’re gonna do. Go over there and sit down.”
Yale pointed to the chair beside his desk. Two-Knife walked over and settled himself squarely on the hard wooden seat. He crossed his legs and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Altierri always shook like a vibrator in Yale’s presence. Even though he was a killer without peer, Two-Knife was terrified of Frankie, although not for the same reasons that had made Frankie’s younger brother so slavishly submissive to him. lo Willie, Frankie Yale represented power—the ugliest kind of power, which could dispatch other exterminators upon him if he ever made a mistake or pulled a double-cross.
Two-Knife exercised extreme care to stay on Frankie’s good side. Much as he relished carving a victim into eternity, Willie had an awesome fear of his own death.
Altierri blew a puff of smoke up to the ceiling and turned to Yale, who was scribbling names on a piece of note paper. When he finished, he pushed the sheet toward Willie and asked him to read it. The names included his own, Tony Yale,