Created, the Destroyer

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was the back of a grocery store which Viaselli's father ran for a living. Instead of the fancy carved ivory chess pieces, Viaselli was leaning over a wooden case on which were painted black and white squares. He was pondering the cheap wooden pieces when Felton entered.

The summer-hatched flies dominated the room. Viaselli looked up.

«Sit down,» he had said. «I want to talk about money.»

Felton stood. «What does a second-rate numbers runner know about money?»

Viaselli moved a pawn forward. «I know there's a war on. I know there's a lot to be had. I know you're not getting much of it.»

«I'm getting enough.»

«Two grand a job on a contract basis? Is that enough for a smart Jewboy?»

«It's more than dumb guineas make.»

Viaselli moved a bishop from the opposite side of the board.

«Today, yes. Tomorrow?»

«Alphonso isn't going to let you make any more. Blood or not, he doesn't trust you. I've heard.»

«And if Alphonso is dead?»

«Giacomo takes it.»

«And if Giacomo is dead?»

«Louis.»

«And if Louis is dead?»

Felton shrugged. «It would take a plague to kill that many.»

«And if Louis is dead?» Viaselli moved a knight endangering the bishop he had brought out from the other side.

Felton shrugged again. «You bring me here to pass the time of day?»

«And if Louis is dead?» Viaselli repeated.

«Someone else.»

«Who else?»

«Whoever has the balls.»

«Flaherty. Would Flaherty take over?»

«No, he's not a wop.»

«What am I?»

«A wop, but it don't mean you're going to grab the whole works just because your name ends in an 'I'.»

Viaselli moved out another knight. «It's a good beginning,» he said. He looked up from the board again. «Look, what kind of a Jew are you, working for someone else all the time?»

«You want me to work for you?»

Viaselli moved his queen. It was one move to mate. He recited: «You kill Alphonso. You kill Giacomo. You kill Louis. Then…»

«Then what?» Felton said.

«Then who's going to kill you?»

«You.»

«With what? You'll be the only one around with artillery. The only one with any brains, anyway. The whole syndicate will be disorganized.»

«Then why don't I rub you out, and take over myself,» Felton asked.

«Because you're not a wop. Every Mafioso would be gunning for you. They don't trust any but their own. You'd be a danger.»

«And you wouldn't?»

«I'm one of their own. They'll learn to live with me. Particularly if I can get things going again.»

He looked long and hard at Felton. «What's your future now? Two guineas fight and you wind up dying for the money. A couple of lousy grand. Is that any way for a Jew to die?»

«Dead is dead.»

«But you can live. And on top of the pile.»

«And you don't doublecross me?»

«You'll be my queen. My most powerful piece. Doublecross my queen?»

«How about your torpedoes?»

«I won't have any.»

«The ones you inherit.»

«I send them away, Chicago, Frisco, New Orleans. You will be my army. The only way to make this business pay, without trouble, is to separate the money makers from the troublemakers. No one who works for me will carry a gun. You'll do all that work. You get paid, not by the job, but by salary and a percentage of the take. Get rid of Alphonso, Giacomo and Louis, and you'll start off with one million dollars.»

«I wish I understood chess.»

«You could be a master,» Viaselli said.

But Felton didn't have time for chess. From the East Side, he rounded up Moesher, the kid who would stand all day and fire pistols at targets. Angelo Scottichio he found at a bar, planning a cheap heist that would earn him less than one hundred dollars. Timothy O'Hara came off the docks where he specialized in petty larceny of Army equipment. Jimmy Roberts was a cowboy out on his luck, with a big Texas mouth that found him with gun in hand listening to a heavyset young man who had just hired him as a killer.

«You will be my generals,» Felton told the four. «As long as we operate like a military machine, we will survive and win and get rich. Real rich.»

«We can also get killed,» grumbled Moesher.

«Only until we get rid of those who've got the muscle to kill us.»

The first hit was Alphonso Degenerato, head of the Bronx rackets who chose to live in an unassailable Long Island mansion. But he was not in his mansion when a hired torpedo named Norman Felton approached him with four other men.

Alphonso was in bed with a chorus girl in her upper East Side apartment overlooking the East River. He knew he was safe because only his nephew, Carmine Viaselli, knew where he was. He would have found the East River quite cold had it not been for the lead sedative administered by the five young men and the warming company of the lovely and quite-dead chorus girl.

Giacomo Gianinni was a quiet man who never toyed with chorines. He was strictly business. On the good recommendation of Carmine Viaselli, the grieving nephew of Alphonso, he met secretly with a torpedo to plan the revenge of Alphonso. He met the young torpedo on a penthouse roof. The torpedo brought four other men with him, all of whom tried desperately to stop Giacomo from jumping off the roof.

And then Felton received a phone call from Viaselli. «They know it's you, Norman,» he said.

«Then they're sure as hell going to know it's you, too, booby.»

«It's not that bad,» Viaselli said. «There's only Louis left. But he expects you. No surprises this time. But one thing. Make the body disappear.»

«Why?»

«Then I have bargaining power. My people are susceptible to mysteries.»

Louis lived on a yacht and never left it. He had telephone connections and speedboats to carry his orders out and his money in.

To Felton, it was impossible. He was just waiting to be killed, just waiting for Louis to muster the torpedoes to do the job. Then Louis made a mistake. He quietly tied up his yacht on the shores of the Hackensack River in Jersey City, near an auto junkyard.

It was World War II. Junk, steel, metal were in demand. Louis docked his yacht and within fifty-five minutes Felton had paid four times what the yard and its junk-processing machinery was worth. It was every cent he could round up. But what good is money without life?

It was a very simple plan when the former junkyard owner explained how the machine worked. And when Felton saw the machine, he laughed and laughed. «Gentlemen,» he told his four generals, «our future is made.»

That night, the yacht's hull was ripped open by some kind of missile. The next day, over a bullhorn, Jimmy called to the yacht to see if they wanted the hull repaired.

«We can't leave the vessel,» came the answer.

«You don't have to leave. We'll tow you ashore and fix you while you're docked.»

After ten minutes, the men on the yacht agreed.

Junk yard cranes were moved into position. Heavy steel cables were fastened to the front and rear of the ship. The cranes began to hoist and tug. They jerked the yacht up a water-slicked mud runway to the top of an incline, which suddenly spilled downhill into a large concrete block house, reinforced with slabs of steel. The yacht and its crew slid into the block house and never came out.

The next day, Felton received another call from Viaselli. «Magnificent. Did I tell you one million dollars? Make it two million dollars. How did you do it? The crew, the yacht and everything.»

«I don't waste all my time on chess,» Felton answered. The next few years were easy. Moesher, the crack shot, did most of the work, eliminating witnesses against Viaselli. Their bodies vanished.

O'Hara kept recruiting, kept tabs on all the young torpedoes trying to develop within Viaselli's mob. He'd hire them once, then eliminate them. Scottichio built a minor empire in Philadelphia, again under Felton's control.

Jimmy rumbled along following his boss's orders. It was a lot safer than riding brahma bulls. Felton had been able to keep clean. His name came up in no investigations; he kept out of the front line of action; he built a life of respectability.

Only his four men knew anything about Felton's operation. And they would not talk. The mystery kept them all on top of the heap.

It had been a profitable deal for all. And now Felton stared at Viaselli pondering fancy chess pieces in the Royal Plaza Hotel, and he wondered how long the profits would last.

«You're still my white queen, Norman,» Viaselli said, resting his hands on the long mahogany table. «There is no one else.»

«That's nice,» Felton said, watching Viaselli make the final move to mate. «Then, who is Maxwell?»

Viaselli looked up quizzically. «Maxwell?»

Felton nodded. «Whoever is going for us has something to do with a Maxwell. I killed a man this afternoon whose only interest was this Maxwell.»

«Maxwell?» Viaselli stared in puzzlement at the board. Were new pieces entering the game?

«Maxwell?» Felton repeated.

Viaselli shrugged. Felton cocked an eyebrow.