‘Now here,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘here you got some fucking history.’ He laughed. He seemed in good humor. Three days we had been in Chicago, Angelina and me, the kids, all of us installed in a house on Amundson Street. Don Calligaris, Ten Cent, a couple of other guys who were part of the original Alcatraz Swimming Team back in Miami, were in a house across the street. We got our own little neighborhood, Don Calligaris kept saying, like he was trying to convince himself that whatever he had left behind in New York wasn’t as good as this. I did not ask why he had left; I did not care to know; all that mattered was that my family was out of Los Angeles, and Chicago – bitterly cold, its vicious wind that rushed in from the edge of Lake Michigan seeming to find you wherever you hid – was an awful lot better than living with your eyes in the back of your head.
‘So here, here in Chicago,’ Don Calligaris went on, ‘is where a great deal of American people get their ideas about the family. The whole prohibition thing, and the way that politics ran down here at the beginning of the century, you know? Big Bill Thompson and Mont Tennes, and then out of New York the man himself, Al Capone. You heard of Al Capone?’
‘Sure I heard of Al Capone,’ I said.
Don Calligaris smiled.
I thought of Angelina and the children. She was out somewhere, walking them in the park or somesuch. I was here, in Don Calligaris’s house, when I wanted to be with them. I felt more and more that I was leading two separate and irreconcilable lives.
‘Capone was born in Brooklyn, was part of a street gang called the Five Pointers,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘One of the gang bosses back then, a guy called Frankie Yale, he recognized a certain quality in Al and put him to work as a meeter and greeter at this dime-a-dance club called the Harvard Inn on Coney Island. Then Al Capone starts to get ideas of his own. He starts to act outside his authority, and he kills one of Wild Bill Lovett’s White Hand Gang. He knows he’s gotta get out of there before Frankie Yale gets him whacked so he leaves New York. He was twenty then, maybe twenty-one, and he comes to Chicago to work for Big Jim Colosimo. Big Jim was the heaviest operator of hookers in Chicago, made a shitload of money, but he didn’t wanna get into the liquor business. Someone shot him in the Wabash Avenue Cafe, and word has it that it may have been Capone who did that.’
I watched Don Calligaris as he talked. He was speaking of his ancestors, if not by blood then by trade and reputation. Fabio Calligaris wanted to be ranked alongside these people; I could tell by the tone of pride in his voice as he spoke. He wanted to be remembered, for what I didn’t know, but he wanted his name alongside Capone and Luciano and Giancana. Don Calligaris would never be anything but an underboss, powerful in his own way and with his own reputation and recognition, but he lacked the necessary ruthlessness to take him to the top.
‘Johnny Torrio took over Colosimo’s rackets, and with Capone’s help they established breweries in preparation for the big thirst. They knew what was coming, they saw the opportunity, and they took it with both hands. Smart guy, Johnny Torrio… he worked to stop all the Chicago gangs fighting between themselves and gave them individual turfs. He gave the northside to Dion O’Banion, but the majority of the city belonged to Torrio and Capone, and by 1924 they were carving up the better part of a hundred grand between them every single goddamned week.’
Don Calligaris laughed. I wanted to use the head but I didn’t want to interrupt him in full flow. He was in his element; he seemed more at ease than I ever remembered him. Maybe there was something in New York that was shadowing him and he had escaped, just as I had from Los Angeles.
‘Capone put someone up for Mayor of Cicero, and Cicero became the power-base for the liquor operations. Things had never been as smooth as silk between Torrio and Capone and O’Banion, and then in late 1924 O’Banion gave the word on a brewery operation. The police raided the place, arrested Torrio, and he was fined five grand and sentenced to nine months. O’Banion got himself whacked in his flower shop a little while later. Northside gang took a new boss, a Polack called Hymie Weiss, and they went back for Capone and tried to off him and Torrio. They escaped, but Weiss wasn’t a man to quit, and they went after Torrio again the same day and shot him five times. Torrio didn’t die, but he was all fucked up, and he went to jail to do his nine months looking like the fucking invisible man. Couple of weeks after Torrio got out they hit Weiss and killed him. Guy called Bugs Moran came in to run the northside after Weiss was killed. He ran the operation from a garage on Clark Street. Capone sent a couple of his people, guys by the name of Albert Anselmi and John Scalisi, down there. He dressed them up as police officers. They had seven of Moran’s crew lined up against the wall and they killed ’em. St Valentine’s Day Massacre they called it, and later on Capone got Anselmi and Scalisi whacked. Bunch of businessmen went to see President Hoover at the end of the ’20s. They asked him to repeal prohibition and take out Capone. Hoover assigned a guy called Elliot Ness to the Chicago PD. Ness was a Treasury Department guy, but he was a tough bastard by all accounts. He went after Capone, but he never actually got him. That was when they came up with the idea of hitting him for tax evasion, and finally they arrested him in 1931. Capone did a couple of years in Atlanta and then they shipped him to Alcatraz.’
Don Calligaris sipped his coffee and lit another cigarette. The room seemed full of smoke, and each time I looked towards the window I thought of Angelina and the children. I wanted to be away from here, outside with the people I cared for, not trapped inside this house listening to old war stories.
‘Capone’s gang… hell of a gang, you know? That’s where people like the Fischetti brothers, Frank Nitti and Sam Giancana came from. Nitti was the one who took over control when Capone went down, and he and a bunch of others were indicted for extorting money out of some studios in Hollywood. Frank didn’t wanna go down, he didn’t wanna testify against his family, so he shoots himself in the fucking head with a.38. Then Tony Accardo took over and moved Chicago’s interests into Vegas and Reno, and he stayed until ’57 when he stepped down in favour of Giancana. Giancana was boss ’til ’66, did a year in jail, and then he came out and was living the high-life until ’75, by which time everyone had gotten sick of his bullshit. He got himself whacked, and then there was a whole bunch of assholes fighting over who should be boss so Tony Accardo comes back. He’s boss here now, and he’s who we’re gonna be working with. He’s an old-timer, a very smart guy, and he wants us to keep some areas of his operations in line so he can spend his time making new friends and gaining some territories. That’s where you and I come in. I had to come down here, and I wanted some people with me who I could trust to do the necessary things, right?’
‘Right,’ I said.
Don Calligaris smiled. ‘So how’s it goin’ with you and Angelina? How’s it to be a father now, Ernesto?’
I smiled back. Every time I thought of Angelina and the children there was a feeling of warmth and certainty. ‘It’s good, very good. It’s a helluva thing.’
‘Tell me about it. Nothing more important than family, you know? Nothing in this world is more important than family, but you gotta keep your priorities right, you gotta keep your head straight and your eyes going both the same way. You gotta remember how you came by what you got and that you owe your dues.’
He was speaking of Don Alessandro, Don Giacalone and Tony Provenzano, the people who had given their blessing for me to marry inside the family, albeit an unspoken connection; the fact that Angelina Tiacoli was born out of a relationship that brought the death of her parents and a sense of shame to the Alessandros, but family all the same.
Don Calligaris was warning me that whatever might have been given me could just as easily be taken away. I heard what he said and I understood it. I had no intention of displeasing these people; they were an awful lot more powerful than me, and wherever I might have run to, wherever I might have taken Angelina and the kids, the influence and communication lines of this family spanned the entirety of the United States, even as far as the Florida Keys and Cuba, and they would have found us. A man alone, perhaps just myself, I could have become lost. But with a wife and two small children there wasn’t a prayer. The simple truth was that there was nothing I would knowingly do to jeopardize what I had created with Angelina and the children. They were everything; they were my life.
‘I know the score, Don Calligaris… I understand the way things work. That thing in LA turned out a mess, but it got done.’
Calligaris nodded. ‘It got done, Ernesto, that’s the main thing, and I appreciate it. All of that is behind us now. We all have things we would change if we were given the time again, but it’s all water under the bridge, you know? We deal with whatever we have to, and then we move on. This is why coming here to Chicago is a good thing. It gives both of us a chance to make things better. There are important things happening here. It is a new start. We make it work for ourselves and for the family, and we do what we have to do.’
Once again I recognized the unspoken in his words. Something had happened in New York to prompt his departure. He would not tell me; Don Calligaris was a man who gave out information only when it was needed. I did not ask, it was not my place to ask, and had I done so he would have been both offended and annoyed.
Ten Cent came into the room. It was good to see him. We had years behind us, and though he was much more part of this family than I was, he was nevertheless a man I felt I could trust. He treated me as an equal, as much a part of this as himself, and I believed that whatever might happen he could always be depended upon.
‘So we relax for a few days,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘We take it easy. I go see a couple of folks, we get some things worked out, and then we wait and see what kind of work they’re gonna require of us.’
I stayed a little while longer. I talked with them of nothing consequential. Ten Cent asked about the children, said he would come down later that day and have some dinner with us. I was happy for him to come. Angelina liked him, the children just seemed to laugh when he was around, and with him in my house I always felt a sense of reassurance that nothing would come to harm us. That was the way it was then – knowing who would stand beside you, who would stand behind. Always present, even as you slept, was the certainty that no-one was defensible, there was no-one who could not be reached. These people took out their own if it served the purpose of the family, and though I had my connections, though I had given them loyalty and support for the better part of twenty-five years, my life would be gone in a second if I crossed the lines. I did not intend to do such a thing. It was the furthest thing from my mind. But I was not naïve, I was learned and wise in the customs and mores of this business. Business was business, and clipping someone was as significant as giving him a haircut if requirements dictated.
The first call came on Monday 22 November, three days before Thanksgiving.
‘It’s time,’ Ten Cent said. ‘Come to the house.’
I walked back from the front hallway to where Angelina sat in the kitchen with the children. They were six months old by then, growing by inches each day, it seemed, and only the previous day Lucia had uttered her first barely identifiable word.
‘Da… da… da,’ she’d said, and reached out her arms towards me. That simple action, the sound that had accompanied it, had brought tears to my eyes.
‘You away for long?’ Angelina asked.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’
She looked distressed. ‘You tell Fabio Calligaris from me that you are a husband and a father now, and he shouldn’t be involving you in anything that will cause trouble.’
What she meant, though she could never have brought herself to say it, was that I should tell Don Calligaris to leave me in an office somewhere counting stacks of dollar bills, that he shouldn’t be sending me out to engage in actions that would risk my life.
I told her I would pass on her message, but I knew, and she knew also, that no such message would ever reach him.
I reached over and touched the side of her face. She turned her face and kissed my palm.
‘It will be okay,’ I whispered.
‘Will it?’ she asked. ‘You promise?’
I nodded, ‘I promise.’
‘On the lives of your children, Ernesto?’
‘Don’t ask me that, Angel.’
‘Then give me your word, as my husband and as their father.’
‘I give you my word.’
‘Then go, do whatever you have to do… I will see you when you come home.’
I kissed my children. I went upstairs. I put on a clean shirt and tie, a suit, an overcoat. I took my.38 from a bundle of socks at the bottom of the dresser, and I tucked it into the waistband of my pants. I lit a cigarette and stood there for a moment looking out through the window into the street. Cars went by, carrying people who knew nothing of my world and all it entailed. They were blissful in their ignorance, and I envied them that.
Downstairs once more, I stood on the lowest riser from where I could see through into the kitchen. Angelina busied herself around the children, feeding them, cleaning up after them, and there was an emotion I felt as I watched her that could never have been defined. It was beyond love. It was beyond the physical and emotional. I believed that it was something spiritual. I thought of something happening that might take all of this away, and for the first time in as long as I could recall I experienced a moment of such deep, profound panic that I had to hold onto the banister so as not to lose my balance. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I willed myself to think of nothing negative.
I shook my head, and once more looked down into the kitchen. Angelina had moved out of sight, but the children were there, both of them wide-eyed and smiling. Neither of them could see me, but in their expressions was something that I believed I would never achieve for myself. A sense of true happiness, of peace perhaps, and I wondered if ever there would be a time I could escape this life and take them away from my past.
I breathed deeply. I stepped down and walked along the hallway to the front door. I let myself out quietly, and closed the door behind me.
Don Calligaris was waiting for me in the kitchen of his house. With him were two men I had not seen before. The older man had red hair speckled with gray at the temples, the other, jet-black eyes that looked like the coals one would use to make a snowman.
Ten Cent came into the room behind me and we all sat at the table near the window.
‘There’s a lot of history here,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘and a great deal of it goes back to Dion O’Banion. There was bad blood back then in Prohibition, but bad blood runs good with time, and the northside, the turf that Johnny Torrio gave to O’Banion and the Irish gangs, is still a good part Irish. We are here to work out some things, because Tony Accardo wants us to work with the Irish and make the northside more profitable. You got hookers down there, right?’
The older, redheaded man nodded.
‘And there’s the narcotics and gambling, even the slot machines are owned by the Irish, and they need a little help handling some details that are jeopardizing their territory.’
The two men signaled agreement but said nothing.
‘This man,’ Don Calligaris said, indicating the older of the two, ‘is Gerry McGowan, and this man here is his son-in-law Daniel Ryan. Mr McGowan-’
‘It’s Gerry,’ McGowan said. ‘No-one calls me Mr McGowan save the fuckin’ priest.’ He laughed. His accent was Irish-American, a thick brogue, and when he smiled I could see that three of his front teeth were half-capped with gold.
‘Gerry works for a man called Kyle Brennan, and Mr Brennan is the boss of the Irish family.’
‘Known as the Cicero Gang,’ Gerry McGowan said, ‘seein’ as how Mr Brennan’s family comes from Cicero, see.’
‘Mr Brennan owns most of the land that verges on the business quarter,’ Don Calligaris explained, ‘and there are some Chicago business people who have applied to the Mayor’s Office to have the land claimed back as part of Chicago city territory. They wanna make some developments, tear down the old buildings where much of Mr Brennan’s business is transacted, and Mr Brennan needs some help sorting these matters out. We have been asked, as a show of good faith and friendship, to help work out these problems and make them go away.’
‘Who’s back of it?’ I asked.
‘Asshole goes by the name of Paul Kaufman,’ McGowan said venomously. ‘Jew motherfucker from back east who’s come down here to make waves. He’s some bigshot city business type, no wife, no kids, maybe forty-five years old, and he’s got all the dollars in the world behind him. He’s into stocks and bonds and investment things, figures he can force Chicago City Council to flatten the back end of the northside so’s he can put up a shitload of office blocks and apartment buildings.’
‘And who’s his contact in the City?’
‘Senior Development Officer he is… goes by the name of David Hackley. The plans that Kaufman has submitted have to go through him, but he doesn’t get the final say-so. That comes to a board meeting of the Chicago City Council in January of next year, but Hackley is a serious contender, and whatever he advises is what the board is gonna recommend. If he says go then they’ll go, and there ain’t gonna be a thing we can do about it.’
‘So Hackley’s the man,’ I said. ‘You remove the connection between Kaufman and the City Council and he’ll be back at square one.’
‘Well, maybe,’ Daniel Ryan interjected. ‘It ain’t so simple as just whacking Hackley. You take Hackley out of the picture and they’ll just dust themselves down and get someone else in there who’ll give the word. What you gotta do is make sure that Hackley advises against the redevelopment plans… and he has to really advise against them, like he has to tell the Council that redeveloping the area would be a bad thing for Chicago.’
‘But he ain’t gonna do that, is he?’ I asked; a rhetorical question.
Gerry McGowan smiled. ‘Not unless he’s got a very good reason to do what we want, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think this is gonna be a matter of breaking into his house and beating the crap outta him… this ain’t gonna fly with strong-arm tactics. This is politics, right? Politics is what got him where he is and politics has to be the thing that takes him out.’
‘Whichever way it goes, but we need Hackley silenced before the middle of next month, because that’s when he puts his final case before the Council. They’ll be away through Christmas sure, but when they meet again in January they’ll have had all the time in the world to consider the proposal, and I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty of sweeteners for these folks courtesy of Jewish hospitality.’
‘We know anything useful about Hackley?’ Don Calligaris asked.
‘Seems clean as driven fucking snow. Wife, three kids, married only once. Doesn’t use drugs or hookers, doesn’t gamble, doesn’t drink liquor by all accounts. Real hardworking all-American fucking genius from what I gather.’
‘Everyone has their Achilles heel,’ I said.
McGowan smiled with his gold teeth. ‘Sure as shit they do, but we been looking around this guy for the better part of three months and we ain’t found nothin’.’
I shrugged. ‘Man doesn’t have an Achilles heel, then you make one for him.’
McGowan nodded, ‘Well, that’s what we’re here for, and if you sort this matter out then the Irishers and the Ities are gonna get along just fine.’
‘You go back to Mr Brennan,’ I said. ‘Go back with our blessing and goodwill. Tell him he sent you to see the right people, that we will take care of this matter for you, and that by the middle of next month Hackley will stand up before the Chicago City Council Board and tell them that redeveloping the northside would be the very worst thing that they could do.’
McGowan smiled. ‘I have your word on that?’
I stood up. I extended my hand. McGowan rose also and shook with me. ‘You have my word,’ I said. ‘You have the word of Don Calligaris’s family it will be done.’
McGowan grinned from ear to ear. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the kind of business we like to do.’
Don Calligaris rose also. ‘So,’ he said, ‘let’s eat.’
That night, McGowan and Ryan long since gone, I sat with Don Calligaris in the back room and we spoke.
‘You gave the word of the family,’ he said. ‘I understand why you did that, and that is what they came here for, but now you have said this you cannot go back to them and tell them it cannot be done.’
‘It will be done, Don Calligaris.’
‘You’re so sure?’
‘I am.’
‘How? How can you be so sure, Ernesto?’
‘Because when I say I’m gonna do something I’ll do it.’
‘I have to trust you,’ Don Calligaris said.
‘Yes, you have to trust me… and have I ever let you down?’
He shook his head. ‘No, you have never let me down.’
‘This is important, right?’
Don Calligaris leaned back in his chair. ‘I left New York for a reason,’ he said. ‘I am not going to tell you the reason because it is not important now, but the fact of the matter is that something that should have been done was not done and it caused some trouble for the family. In a way I am lucky to be alive… but then I never believed in luck. I am alive because I am valuable, because I am a made man, and once you are made there is no way you can be removed without the express permission of the head of the family. Tony Ducks, Don Corallo, did not want me out of the family, but he sent me here to make things good, to pay my dues.’ Don Calligaris looked away for a moment, and then looked back at me. ‘Sometimes we all arrive at a point where we have to make something good, where we have to pay the dues, you know. Anyway, this thing, this thing with the Irish family, we will make this work and I will have paid my dues, I will have served my time in the wilderness if you like. You say you can do this then I need you to do it. I need you to carry through with your word and the word of the family and make this happen. If you do this then I will owe you my life in a way, and there will come a time when you need something from me and I will make it happen. You understand, Ernesto?’
‘Yes, I understand, and I will make this happen, and the Irish family will keep the northside, and you will be able to go home.’
Don Calligaris rose and stretched out his arms. I rose also and he hugged me tight.
‘You do this, and in my eyes you will be a made man, Ernesto Perez, crazy Cuban motherfucker or not.’
He laughed. I laughed also.
I left after a little while, and even though I would now have to dedicate myself to ruining someone’s reputation, to ruining someone’s life more than likely, there was a sense of exhilaration in my heart. I did not have to kill anyone. That was the reason I had given my word. I would never have spoken such a thing, would never have told Don Calligaris my reason, but the fact of the matter was that I wanted to do this, to make this thing right, because I would walk away without any more blood on my hands.
That night I slept soundly. I did not dream. I did not fear for the safety of my family. And when I rose the next morning even Angelina noticed a difference in my manner.
‘Things went well yesterday?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Angelina, they went well.’
‘You have some work to do?’
‘Yes, there is some work to do.’
‘But it is safe,’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘Yes, it is safe… you needn’t worry for yourself or the children.’
‘And you? Need I worry for you, Ernesto?’
‘No, nor for me. I have some things to do but it is business that can be done with words. You understand?’
‘I understand.’
She did not mention it again; she asked me no more questions. The subject was closed, and I sensed in her attitude a deep relief and confidence that everything, just everything, was going to be alright. What she could never know, and never hope to understand, was the significance of this situation for me. I would perform an action, I would resolve this matter, and the simple truth was that no-one would die. I, Ernesto Cabrera Perez, would go out to fix something and kill no-one.
It seemed that Gerry McGowan had been right, I watched the comings and goings of David Hackley for the better part of a week and he seemed the model American citizen. I hated him for it. I had given my word. I had little more than two weeks, and before five days had passed I wondered what in fuck’s name I was gonna do.
I remembered then something Don Ceriano had told me many years before, about heading out for vengeance and digging two graves.
This matter was not one of vengeance, but one of territory, and with the word of the family and Don Calligaris’s position in the balance, I could not do anything but make this work. If David Hackley did not possess an Achilles heel, then perhaps his son did.
I switched my attention to the young man. I staked out his office and his apartment. I watched him leave his work late at night and go home. I believed him for a while to be a younger version of his father, and there seemed to be nothing to identify any weak point in his life.
It was the beginning of December. I sat in my car a half block away from the exit of the apartment building where James Hackley lived, and I was set to start up the engine and go home when the door opened and the man himself appeared. He was dressed for the weather in a long overcoat, a scarf and gloves, and he hurried across the street to where his car was parked and climbed in.
I followed him a good two miles downtown, through the less wealthy areas of the city to the edge of the northside. Here he slowed, stopped on Machin Street, and after spending a few moments looking for something in his car he climbed out and started down the street. I followed him on foot a good fifteen yards behind, ever alert for the moment he would turn and glance back over his shoulder. He did not, and I watched as he crossed at the junction and entered at the side door of a porn cinema on Penn Street. He was in the Cicero Gang’s territory, right there in the heart of the area his own father was planning to demolish, and he was frequenting one of the cinemas more than likely owned by Kyle Brennan. Irony put a smile on my face. It did not give me what I wanted – hell, half of America’s model citizens went to porn shows and strip clubs, and there wasn’t a thing in the world that could be considered illegal about it, but it was something, it was a start, and a start, however small, was better than nothing at all.
I went into the cinema after him. I walked to the counter and asked after the young man that had just entered.
‘And what the fuck business is it of yours?’ an overweight greasy-vested man behind the counter said.
‘Important business,’ I said. ‘I’m here on behalf of Gerry McGowan, and I need your assistance.’
‘Oh shit,’ the man said. ‘Oh shit, I’m sorry, mister… I didn’t know Mr McGowan was sending anyone down here tonight. I think we’re all paid up… in fact I’m sure we are… let me call the boss down and you can have a word with him. Hell, what the fuck am I thinking? Come with me, come through here and up the stairs and you can speak with him yourself.’
I followed the overweight guy as he heaved his vast girth up a narrow flight of stairs. We turned right at the top, and he knocked on a door.
‘Come!’ Someone shouted from within.
The fat guy went in. I followed him. We stood in a small but neatly decorated office, plain walls, a wide mahogany desk, behind it a smartly-dressed man with the same dark hair and bright eyes as Daniel Ryan.
‘Julie, what the fuck is this?’ the man behind the desk said. ‘I’m busy up here… you should be on the desk downstairs making sure those asshole kids don’t sneak in without payin’.’
‘Someone here,’ the fat guy said. ‘Someone from Mr McGowan.’
I stepped around Julie and faced the man behind the desk. He smiled. He came around and reached out his hand. ‘Hey, how goes it there?’ he said. ‘Name’s Michael Doyle… what can we do for you and Mr McGowan?’
‘I told him we were all paid up, Mr Doyle… soon as he said he was from Mr McGowan I told him we were all paid up,’ the fat guy said, nervousness evident in his voice.
‘Okay Julie, okay… you don’t mind yourself with this, you go on back down and tend to the desk, okay?’
‘Okay Mr Doyle,’ Julie said, and worked his width out through the doorway and thundered down the stairs.
‘Not so easy to find good help these days, eh?’ Michael Doyle said. He indicated a chair other side of the desk and asked me to sit down. I did so, and Doyle resumed his chair opposite. ‘So what can we be doin’ for you an’ Mr McGowan?’ he asked.
‘You have a customer here, a man by the name of James Hackley.’
Doyle shrugged. ‘Christ, I wouldn’t know… sure as hell ain’t my hobby to go associatin’ with the people that come here to watch this stuff.’
‘He is the son of a very important Chicago real estate developer called David Hackley. Mr McGowan needs your help to make something go away, and there’s a good possibility it may involve putting his son in a somewhat embarrassing position.’
Doyle laughed. ‘Well, I’d consider being found with your pants round your ankles in a joint like this somewhat embarrassing.’
I shook my head. ‘Something a little closer to the bone,’ I said.
Doyle leaned back in his chair. ‘Something he wouldn’t walk away from without it dirtying the family name a little?’ he said.
‘A lot,’ I replied. ‘Something that could be held in limbo, something that could come out of the woodwork if the developer doesn’t see eye to eye with Mr McGowan.’
‘And if this could be done, then I’m sure it would mean a good word in Mr McGowan’s ear for me, right?’
‘And a good word in Mr McGowan’s ear is a good word to Kyle Brennan,’ I said. ‘I figure you might find yourself working somewhere a little more upmarket if this goes the way we want it to go.’
Doyle grinned. ‘I think we can fix something up, Mr-?’
‘Perez,’ I said. ‘My name is Perez.’
‘I think Mr James Hackley will be gettin’ a polite invitation to see something a little more colorful than whatever the hell he might be watching tonight.’
It was that simple.
Three days later James Hackley was arrested in the back room of a small cinema on Penn Street. Three other ‘clients’ were arrested with him. They were charged with ‘solicitation to view minors engaged in illegal sexual activities’. Michael Doyle had organized a private showing of some kiddie porn. James Hackley was arraigned and bound over, bailed for thirty thousand dollars, and scheduled to appear for further questioning on 11 December.
On 9 December a brief conversation took place between the captain of the Chicago Police Precinct where Hackley had been charged and two of Kyle Brennan’s trusted consiglieres. A deal was made. A contribution of an undisclosed sum would be willed to the 13th Precinct Widows and Orphans Fund within the week if the charges against Hackley were dropped for lack of evidence.
Two hours later, one of those same consiglieres met with a reputable and upstanding member of the Chicago Rejuvenation Council on a park bench near Howard Street. The conversation lasted no more than fifteen minutes. The men, one of them a crestfallen and dejected-looking David Hackley, walked away without a word.
On Thursday 16 December, 1982, David Hackley rose before the Chicago City Council Board Meeting and presented his case. He advised in the most determined and unreasonable words that planning permission to redevelop the northside of Chicago at this time be denied. He presented a good case, even issued an eleven-page proposal as to why such a move would be detrimental to the history and character of the city.
The Council came back with a unanimous decision on the twenty-second, three weeks ahead of schedule. Permission to redevelop was denied. Paul Kaufman was sent home with his tail between his legs.
The following day, 23 December, just in time for Christmas, all charges against James Hackley were dropped due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The Cicero Gang were joyous, as was Don Calligaris. We had an Irish-Italian party at a club on Plymouth Street on the northside, and I met Kyle Brennan. He gave Angelina five hundred dollars for toys and things for the babies, you know? and I believed that here in Chicago – despite the bitter wind and often vicious rain from Lake Michigan, among the itinerants and stragglers, the Irish gangsters with their brogue and brash manner – we had perhaps found a home.
For the subsequent eight years, as we watched our children grow, heard them speak their first words, saw them learn their first alphabet and write their first sentences, we stayed in Chicago. We kept the same house down the street from Don Calligaris and his own extended family. I cannot say that there weren’t times that I was required to go back to my old trade, to exercise my muscles and consign some miscreant to the hereafter, but those times were few and far between. It was approaching the end of the decade, the world had grown up also, and as I reached my fifty-third birthday in August of 1990 – as I stood at the doorway of my house and watched as Victor and Lucia, now eight years old, came running down the street from where the schoolbus had let them off – my mind turned to thoughts of where I would go when I became too old for such things. The world was changing. Influences from Eastern Europe were cutting across the family’s business in America. Streetgangs of teenage youths were killing one another with no more mercy than one would kill an insect. Russians and Poles and Jamaicans were all providing supply lines for weapons and drugs and hookers, and they had the manpower and artillery to command and maintain their place at the table. We were aware of what was happening, and we believed that the generation following ours would have to fight so much harder than we did to keep any part of our operations alive. But we also knew that, just as you could never resign from such a life as this, so you could not retire. You were permitted to see out your latter days in Florida perhaps, even California near the mountains, but you were always there, always remembered, and if there was some action that needed to be taken and your presence was required, then so be it.
Don Calligaris himself was close to sixty-five, and though Chicago had served him well I could see his thoughts also turning to where he might go and what he might become when working was no longer an option.
‘Time has closed up on us,’ he said one time. ‘It comes and goes in an instant, it seems. I can remember running down the street as a child, thinking that a day lasted for ever. Now most of the day has gone by the time I have eaten my breakfast.’
We sat in the kitchen of his house. Ten Cent was in front watching TV.
‘My children keep me thinking like a teenager,’ I said.
‘How old are they now?’
‘Eight last June.’
Calligaris shook his head. ‘Eight years old… I remember when Ten Cent used to carry both of them in one arm.’
I laughed. ‘Now my son Victor, he could probably wrestle Ten Cent to the ground. He is a tough little man, the head of the house as far as he is concerned.’
‘But his sister, she is smart like most girls,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘The men are the head of the house, but the girls, they are the neck, and they can turn the head any which way they please.’
I heard the phone then, and with it came a sense of foreboding. Business had been without trouble for some time, and there had been no calls for the better part of a month.
I heard Ten Cent shut down the TV and walk out into the front hall.
‘Si,’ I heard him say, and then he set down the receiver on the table and he walked to the kitchen.
‘Don Calligaris, it is for you, from upstairs.’
‘Upstairs’ was the word we used for the boss and his people; ‘upstairs’ meant that something was going to happen, something that would require us.
I listened for words I could understand in Don Calligaris’s conversation, brief though it was, but despite all my years with these people I had never taken the time to learn Italian. I tried to speak Spanish as often as I could, even to myself, but Italian, though similar in many ways, just seemed too difficult to manage.
Don Calligaris was no more than a minute, and then he returned to the kitchen and looked at me.
‘We have a sit-down,’ he said.
‘Now?’ I asked.
‘Tonight.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Three hours from now at Don Accardo’s restaurant. He wants all three of us, and there will be a good few more, I think.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘I don’t know, Ernesto, so don’t ask me. We do not discuss details on the telephone. All I know is that we meet at seven at the trattoria.’
I went home to dress. I spoke with Angel, told her not to wait up for me. The children were away with some friends and would return later. I told her to say goodnight to them for me, to tell them I would see them in the morning.
I looked at her, a woman of forty-four, but still in her eyes that difficult and awkward young woman I had first met in New York.
‘You have made my life something of which to be proud,’ I told her.
She frowned. ‘What is this? Why are you talking like that?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I have been thinking the past few days that I am becoming an old man-’
She laughed. ‘There are few old men who have as much energy as you, Ernesto Perez.’
I raised my hand. ‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘I have been thinking that soon it will be time to make some changes, to find somewhere to live where the children will be away from all this.’
Angelina looked at me then. There was an expression in her eyes that told me she had been waiting to hear these words for as long as she had known me. She shook her head, perhaps with an element of disbelief. ‘Go to your meeting, Ernesto. We will talk about such things another time.’
I leaned forward, I held her face in my hands and I kissed her.
‘I love you, Angelina.’
‘And I you, Ernesto. Now be gone with you-’
Then I saw tears in her eyes, welling up in the corners. I brushed the hair back from her cheeks and frowned. ‘What?’ I asked.
She shook her head. She closed her eyes and looked down at the floor.
I lowered my hand and raised her chin. She opened her eyes and looked back at me.
‘What?’ I asked again. ‘What is it?’
For a second there was a flash of anger in her expression, and then it softened. She shook her head once more and said, ‘Go Ernesto, go now. I have things to do before the children come home.’
I did not move. I waited until she looked at me once again and I opened my mouth to ask her what was happening.
She shifted to the left and rose to her feet. I stepped back for a moment, puzzled at first, and then I recognized the fire inside her.
‘You know what it is, Ernesto,’ she said, and in her voice was the edge of defiant independence that had so attracted me when I first knew her. ‘You go to your meeting now. I will not question what you are doing, and when you come back I will not ask what you have done. You are a good man, Ernesto. I know this, and if I did not believe that there was more good in you than evil I would never have stayed. You are who you are, and I am wise enough to know that I will never change that… but I will not have you risk my life or the lives of our children-’
I raised my hand. I was shocked, not at what she said, for these were words I had perhaps been expecting for many years, but the vehemence and anger with which she uttered them.
‘Do not tell me to quieten my voice,’ she said. ‘I want you to say nothing, Ernesto, nothing at all. I don’t want to hear you explain or defend yourself or the people for whom you work. Go and speak with them. Go and do whatever you have to do, and when you are done I will still be here with your children. Whatever madness lies out there, I wish you to keep it from our door, because if anything happens that hurts my family I will kill you myself.’
I could not speak, I dared not say a word.
She crossed the room and took my overcoat from the back of a chair. She held it out for me and I walked towards her. She even lifted it up for me to put my arms into the sleeves.
I turned to face her and she raised her hand and pressed her finger to my lips.
‘Go,’ she said. ‘I have said everything I needed to say. I am empty, Ernesto.’
I started to think of how I should respond and she read my thoughts.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Go finish whatever business you have to finish and then we will talk of the future.’
I left the house and walked back across the street. My mind was like a hollow gourd.
We talked for a little while, Don Calligaris and I; we ventured ideas on what the sit-down could be about, but in truth we knew nothing. I could not concentrate. I could see Angelina’s face, the flash of anger in her eyes, the fear she felt for our children.
At six-thirty we left, and at the end of the street I looked back towards my house, towards where my wife and children would be while I was at Don Accardo’s restaurant, and I wished I could step out of the car and go back.
I had a premonition of something dark walking those sidewalks, pausing in front of my house. I swept such thoughts away. My wife and children were safe. There was nothing to be concerned about. I forced myself to believe that this was the truth.
The restaurant itself was packed to the walls every which way. We maneuvered our way between tables and chairs, waited while waiters performed circus balancing acts with antipasta and steaming plates of carbonara and made it through to the back behind the main room. Here we were greeted by Don Accardo’s men, heavy-set Sicilians with unresponsive faces, and were shown to a table where a good dozen men were seated.
We did not wait long for Don Accardo to appear, and as he entered the room everyone rose and clapped. He quietened them down with a gesture and then he sat also. A few minutes passed while people lit cigarettes, while introductions were made, and then Don Accardo spoke.
‘I appreciate that you have all come to see me on such short notice. I understand that you are busy people, you have families and things to attend to, and the fact that everyone I asked to come is here has been duly noted.’
He paused for a moment and took a sip of water from a glass to his right.
‘Were it not a matter of some importance I would not have called you here, but there is a matter of some grave concern to myself and others that will require our immediate attention.’
Don Accardo looked around the faces at the table. No-one spoke.
‘Some years ago, we dealt with a matter on behalf of our Irish cousins. Don Calligaris took some action which paved the way for a relationship which has grown from strength to strength these past years, and for this we are grateful to Don Calligaris and his people.’
There was a murmur of consent and acknowledgement around the table.
‘Now it seems our Irish cousins are faced with a more serious threat to their operations, not here in Chicago, but in New York, and they have asked for our assistance once again.’
The room was silent.
‘For several years there has been a relationship between the families in New York, specifically the Lucheses, and a man called Antoine Feraud from New Orleans.’
I looked up suddenly. I thought for a moment that I had imagined what I heard.
‘You have all heard of this man. You all know what he is capable of. We helped him with a small matter some time ago, a little difficulty we had with the Teamsters.’
Eyes around the table turned towards me. There were a few nods of respect, all of which I returned. I had not realized how many people knew who I was and of my history.
‘So now we have a situation with this Feraud. He has strong ties with the French and the Hispanics here in Chicago, and he is muscling in on Brennan’s northside territory. Brennan is a strong man, he will not tolerate such things, but with the French and the Hispanics behind Feraud he is strong in some areas. Feraud has no concern regarding who he works with… the Polish, the Eastern Europeans, and he will use these people to take whatever he wants. Brennan has again asked us for our help, and we are here to make a local vote on this matter.’
‘This will be a war,’ a man to the right of Accardo said.
Accardo nodded. ‘This is something we have to be aware of. A war it may become, and though I am the last man in the world who would care for war right now, it is nevertheless a situation of loyalty and honor. For the past many years we have worked close with the Irish. They are not as strong as we are, and therefore we have the upper hand. There are concessions made for us that would otherwise be worthless, and it is not without its benefits that the vast majority of senior officials within the police department are Irish. This is a strong tie, a tie we do not have with the French or the Hispanic people, and I would be very aggrieved if we lost the foothold we possess in this city. This is, after all, Big Jim Colosimo’s city, and we would not want it taken away from him.’
Again a murmur of agreement from the gathering around the table.
‘So speak amongst yourselves for a little while. We will take a vote, and when we have decided, we will send word to Brennan and his people and wait for a strategy to be outlined.’
Don Accardo raised his right hand. ‘Proceed,’ he said.
I turned to Don Calligaris. ‘I cannot believe this… after all these years, these same people.’
Don Calligaris smiled. ‘It’s the way it works. These people put each other in positions of power, and then they work to keep all their friends where they are. This is a political arrangement that has been present since Machiavelli.’
‘There is no question,’ I said. ‘Our ties with the Irish are so much stronger than those with Feraud and his people.’
‘But Feraud has people in Vegas, also in New York. There aren’t many, but then it doesn’t necessarily take an army to win a war.’
I shook my head. ‘I know where my loyalties would lie,’ I said.
‘And I have my own view regarding Feraud and his politician friend.’
Calligaris nodded. ‘I think you will find the opinion here agreeable with yours.’
Don Accardo raised his hand again and the hubbub ceased.
‘So we have a vote to take. All those in favor of working again with Brennan and the Cicero Gang to oust these French and Hispanics, raise your hand.’
The vote was unanimous. No question. These people knew who they wanted close, and it was not Feraud’s organization.
We stayed a couple of hours. We ate well, we drank many bottles of rioja, and when we left we believed that we had been party to a small matter of politics. Even Don Calligaris waved his hand aside when I mentioned it, saying, ‘This is nothing of great consequence… I imagine we will hear a few words in the coming weeks, and then it will be gone. The Irish will be Irish and keep the whole thing within their quarter.’
Don Calligaris’s words could not have been further from the truth.
Within a week thirty-seven men had been killed, eleven from within the Chicago family, one young man the son of Don Accardo’s own cousin. Though whatever battles raged on the northside did not directly involve us, we were nevertheless aware that at any moment the telephone could ring and we could be despatched to take care of something.
By the time September arrived Chicago had fallen silent. The call we expected never came. We waited still, but there was no further word of what had happened between the Irish and Feraud’s people, save that Feraud had withdrawn his French and Hispanic soldiers from Chicago and gone home.
Don Calligaris believed the thing was done.
Christmas came and went.
We celebrated the New Year with a trip to Niagara Falls. We went – Angelina, myself, Victor and Lucia – like a real American family. We were not, had never been and never would be, but for all appearances that was what we were.
Again I broached the subject of where we would go when I ceased to work, and once more Angelina changed the subject tactfully. It seemed she did not want to mention this, as if ceasing to be part of what we had in Chicago would signal the end of something else. Perhaps she saw some sense of balance had been attained, and she did not wish to tempt fate by unsettling it. Perhaps she was doing nothing more than working out what she really wanted, because she knew that the decisions we made at this time would determine the rest of our lives. I did not know; Angelina would come to me when she was ready, and when she was ready she would tell me what she wanted to do.
In March of 1991 Don Accardo died. For a brief while the family was in disarray. Don Calligaris spent more and more time away from the house, and it became a rare occasion when I would see him.
On the sixteenth of that month Ten Cent called at my house.
‘Don Calligaris is coming tonight,’ he said. ‘He has been away dealing with family matters, but tonight he is coming back and he wants to take you and your family out for the evening. Get yourselves dressed and ready. He will bring gifts for Angelina and the children. He is very happy. Things have worked very well for him.’
I spoke with Angelina. She seemed excited, the children too, for all the children knew of Don Calligaris was that he spoke to them as if they were grown-ups, but he spoiled them like eight-year-olds.
By the time Don Calligaris came we were dressed as if for church. The children were uncontrollable, and we had to shut them in the kitchen until Don Calligaris was ready to meet them in the front.
We drove together, all of us – Don Calligaris up front with Ten Cent, me and Angelina with the children in the back. It was a warm evening for the time of year, and we went right into the heart of Chicago to the finest restaurant in the city. Out of respect for Angelina and the children Don Calligaris had chosen a place that had no family connections. For this I was grateful; I knew that my children were old enough and wise enough to hear everything that was said around them.
We ate well, we talked of inconsequential things. The children told tales of their trip to Niagara, and Don Calligaris told them a story of a visit he made to Naples when he was a boy.
My children were well-behaved and polite, interested in everything Don Calligaris had to say, and more than once he looked at me and smiled. He knew how special my family was; he understood, above all else, the importance of family, and as he spoke with them, as Angelina leaned forward to refill their glasses I watched all three of them – my wife, my son, my daughter – and I was truly aware of how I had been blessed. They were everything to me, just everything, and I believed in that moment that I had somehow shrugged off the weight of the past, the death of my own mother and father, the things that had taken place in New Orleans and Havana. I was now a man. I controlled my own life. I was someone, if only as a father and a husband, and someone was all I had ever wished to be.
The evening drew on. The children were tiring, and before I knew it we were calling for the check, gathering coats and hats, preparing ourselves to leave.
Don Calligaris gave the keys to his car to Ten Cent. ‘Take Angelina and the children,’ he said. ‘Pull the car out front. Ernesto and I will be no more than a minute.’
‘There will be changes now that Don Accardo has passed away,’ he said once we were alone. ‘We have elected a new boss, a good man, a friend of Don Alessandro’s, a man called Tomas Giovannetti. You will do well with him.’ Don Calligaris leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘For me things will change too. I will be returning to Italy at the end of the month, and I will be staying there.’
I opened my mouth to speak.
Don Calligaris raised his hand. ‘I am an old man now, much older than you. I did not have a wife and children to keep me young… such a wife you have, Ernesto, and your children!’ He raised his hands and clenched his fists. He laughed. ‘You have such a special family, and even though they are not mine I am proud of them.’ He lowered his hands and reached out to grip my forearm. ‘The time has come for me to make a move to pasture. You will stay here with Ten Cent, and Don Giovannetti will ensure that things are taken care of for you… like I said, he is a good man, believes greatly in the importance of family, and he knows of all the things you have done to assist, both here in Chicago, also in New York and Miami. I spoke well of you, but he knew already of your reputation.’
I shook my head. I did not know what to say.
‘Change is inevitable,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘Everything changes. We take the changes, we change with them, or we lose everything.’
I heard Victor calling for me at the door. I turned and saw him standing beside Ten Cent. They walked across the room towards us.
‘Angelina and Lucia are in the car out front,’ Ten Cent said. ‘We’re ready to go. The children want to go home and play with their toys.’
‘To go to bed more likely,’ I said, and started to rise from my chair.
Victor pulled a face at me, the spoiled-child face he had somehow mastered to perfection.
‘Perhaps ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes and then bed for you, young man.’
‘Twenty,’ Victor replied.
Don Calligaris laughed and ruffled Victor’s hair. ‘That attitude I have seen before, eh Ernesto?’
‘We shall see,’ I said. ‘Now we go… come on.’ I took his hand and turned away from the table where we had been seated.
‘So we shall stay in touch once I am home,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘and perhaps when you are too old to keep a job in the city you will come out and see me.’
I laughed. It was a pleasant thought. The image of myself and Don Calligaris as old men sitting beneath the olive trees in the warm evening sunshine.
I looked ahead at Victor and Ten Cent. Victor reached no higher than Ten Cent’s elbow, but Ten Cent was leaning down to listen to something Victor was telling him. I could hear the sound of laughter, of people sharing one another’s company, I felt the warmth of the atmosphere, the feeling that things were going to change, but change for the better; the feeling that despite everything that had gone before us we were still alive, we had made it through this far, and we were going to make it all the way. A sense of accomplishment perhaps; a sense of pride; of certainty that somehow all was well with the world.
Later, all I could remember was the light. The way the room seemed suddenly bathed in light. The sound did not come until much later, or at least that was the way it seemed at the time, but when it came it was ferocious, like a tidal wave inside my head, and then there was the glass, and then there were people screaming, and then I felt the slow-dawning realization of what had happened.
The sensation was one of something trying to escape through my ears and eyes, as if everything inside my head had built to such a pressure there was nothing for it to do but burst outwards.
I remember climbing over spread-eagled people as I ran to the door.
I remember shouting at Ten Cent to hold onto Victor.
I remember wondering if the children would be too excited to sleep once we arrived home.
Colors rushed together in a confusion and my eyes could not focus. I fell sideways and felt a sharp pain rushing through the upper part of my leg. Instinctively my hand reached for the gun in back of my waistband, but it was not there. This had been a time for my family. That’s all it had been. Surely something was wrong; surely these things – these sounds and feelings, the awareness of pain and destruction – belonged to someone else’s life?
I remember a man bleeding from the head, a sharp jag of glass jutting from his cheek, screaming for help at the top of his lungs. I remember all these things, but even those things faded when I fell out through the front doorway and saw the burned and obliterated wreck that was once Don Calligaris’s car.
Black and twisted metal, the smell of cordite and seared paint. The wave of disbelief as I realized I had somehow been thrown into someone else’s reality, for this was not happening, this was not how the evening was supposed to end, this was wrong… so wrong…
The heat was unbearable, and even as I tried to approach what was left of the vehicle I knew there was nothing I could do.
The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming. The sound inside my own head as my life collapsed.
My wife and my daughter.
Angelina and Lucia.
I fell to my knees on the sidewalk, and from my throat came a sound that was inhuman.
That sound went on for ever.
It seemed to be all I could hear for hours.
Even now I cannot recall how I made it away from that place, nor what happened to me that night.
‘I am sorry,’ Don Calligaris was saying. ‘I have pleaded with them. I have told them that I was the intended victim of this terrible thing, but there is nothing I can do.’
My head in my hands, my elbows on my knees, Ten Cent standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder, Don Calligaris ahead of me, his face white and drawn, tears in his eyes, his hands shaking as he reached out towards me.
‘I know that you have been with us all these years, and there is no question of your loyalty, and perhaps if Don Accardo was still alive he would have done something… but things have changed. I am no longer in possession of the influence I once had. Don Giovannetti is now in control. He does not feel that he can take an action so soon-’
Don Calligaris leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.
‘I hurt for you, Ernesto. I have done all I can. I have spoken with Don Giovannetti, and though he understands that you have been a loyal part of this family he feels that he cannot violate adherence to tradition. He is the new boss. He also has to earn his reputation and loyalties. Tradition says that we cannot avenge the death of someone who is not blood. You are Cuban, Ernesto, and your wife was the daughter of someone who was not part of this family, and though I have argued your case for hours there is nothing further I can do.’
I raised my head.
‘I have done everything I can, Ernesto… everything.’
I looked at Don Calligaris as if he was a stranger. ‘And me? What of me and Victor?’ I asked.
‘I have money… we have money, more money than you could need, but it is time for change, Ernesto, and you must make whatever decision you feel is best for yourself and your son.’
I heard his words. They were swallowed into the vast dark silence that was my mind. I said nothing in return, for there was nothing to say.
Some days later I buried my wife and my daughter. Beside me stood my son, so in shock he had not spoken since the explosion. His sister and his mother had been murdered, by whom we did not know, but whoever it was had set their heart on killing Don Fabio Calligaris and had failed. Had Don Calligaris died there would have been retribution. Had Don Accardo still been boss perhaps he would have redressed the balance, because he knew who I was and would have made a case for me before the Council of la Cosa Nostra. But things had changed; there was a new godfather, and he believed that justice would be seen to be done in time. He was not a rash man; he was a strategist and a politician, and so early in his position he believed it would not be right to act on my behalf.
I never saw Don Giovannetti. I believed, and believe to this day, that he would not have been able to look me in the eye and tell me the lives of my wife and daughter meant nothing.
The following day, two days before Don Calligaris – fearing for his life – would leave for Italy, I boarded a family-owned ship bound for Havana. With me I took a suitcase crammed with fifty-dollar bills, how much in all I did not know, and beside me as we slipped away from the harbor was my eight-year-old son Victor.
He asked me only one question as we watched the land disappear behind us.
‘Will we ever come back home?’
I turned to look at him. I reached out my hand and finger-tipped away the tears from his cheeks.
‘Some day, Victor,’ I whispered. ‘Some day we will come home.’