Road to Purgatory

Chicago, Illinois

through March 1943

One

Michael Satariano lay on the bed in the darkened room, curled into a fetal position.

He did not know how much time had passed since the carnage at the Capone estate. Although awake, he remained sluggish, and felt certain the hot tea he’d been given, after entering this room, had been laced with a Mickey Finn.

But, whether his captors had doped him or not, he made no effort to emerge from a funk that came largely from within. Something inside him had died, or at least retreated to its own small, private corner, where it, too, rolled itself up, as if the posture of birth somehow welcomed death.

The recent dispatching by Michael of one Capone gunman after another, piling up dead thugs like kindling, filling doorways with bodies, draping stairways with corpses, splashing blood and gore around the grounds like a sloppy child diving into his birthday cake and ice cream, well, it... all seemed strangely dream-like now. He could still see in his mind’s eye combat in the jungle of Bataan, and himself chopping down Japs with the tommy, summoning gritty sounds-sights-smells reality that, however nightmarish, remained vividly tangible.

But his attempt to shoot his way through an army of bodyguards to carry out his vendetta on Alphonse Capone... hours ago, or at most days (how long had he been held here?)... had already taken on a distinctly surreal cast.

When he woke periodically, in the darkness of the room (what room? where?), he would laugh and weep at once, thinking of the terrible irony of it all, Al Capone a gibbering drooling idiot, beyond Michael’s grasp, free from the responsibility of his crimes and his sins, an unfit target for the revenge of Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.

Who would die at the hand of these Sicilians, and justifiably: hadn’t he for no reason (no good reason, no real reason) betrayed their trust to enter a household where he rained death down upon... how many men? A dozen? More? Invading the home of their retired, revered leader with the intent to kill...

He had been caught red-handed — literally — surrounded by his pointless homicidal handiwork. And now they would kill him for these transgressions, and his father and his mother and his brother would never be avenged, could never be avenged, because the man responsible was lost in the empty rooms of his mind, waiting unaware for death.

Perhaps in hell Capone would return to cognizance; no doubt Michael would be there, waiting for him...

Mimi Capone, accompanied by two armed men, had walked Michael away from the poolside where Al Capone fished in the deep end while, all around, corpses leeched blood and other fluids into the grass under the moonlight. Michael had a sense of the wide-eyed awe and horror of these tough men who’d rushed onto the scene, shocked speechless by the battlefield they’d stumbled into.

As Mimi ushered him across the backyard, Michael had half-sensed questions, but they’d had a hollow, underwater sound, and though he recognized the words as English, they formed no thoughts or concepts he recognized. Vaguely he remembered being escorted up some steps, and shortly after he entered this small room, this cell-like space with just a single cot-like bed and no table or light or anything else.

Someone had made him sit up and drink the tea — was it Mimi? — and the voice had been soothing, gentle, encouraging Michael to drink.

Which he had. Not that he’d been thirsty, just that he was in no state of mind to refuse. Warmth had saturated his system and, without getting under the covers, he got himself (or had they put him there?) onto the bed.

Vaguely he recalled somebody checking on him; had he been walked to a bathroom, once...?

Now, fully awake for the first time, he sensed that his shoes and socks were off; he felt coolness on his legs and arms and realized he was in his underwear, still on top of the bedspread, though the room — which had no windows, at least that he was aware of (he never left the bed to explore his quarters) — was not so cool as to encourage him to crawl under the covers. This would have been far too ambitious an activity for him to attempt, anyway.

Michael’s back was to the door when it opened.

He looked over his shoulder: a silhouette framed in a shaft of light. A man. Anyway, a person wearing a man’s hat.

“I’m gonna hit the switch, kid,” the voice said. “Be ready for it.”

Illumination flooded the room blindingly, and Michael, still on his side curled up and facing the wall, shut his eyes and covered them with his hands, as if the glass one were still flesh and blood, too.

Michael heard footsteps and then felt a hand on his shoulder.

“You been out for two days. Go on and sit up.”

Opening his eyes tentatively, Michael took a few moments to get used to the brightness, then he rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. He touched his face, finding the roughness of stubble there.

Hovering over him was Louie Campagna, wearing a black suit and a black tie and a white shirt and a black fedora. Not very Miami festive — more like Chicago funeral.

“You had yourself quite a party the other night,” Louie said flatly. “Made Calumet City look like a cakewalk.”

Michael, in his underwear, felt like a vulnerable child. He could think of nothing to say and the notion of nodding was beyond him.

Campagna held some clothes in his arms, shoes in one hand. He thrust them forward. “Put these on, kid.”

Then Campagna gave Michael some space, waiting over by the open door. Beyond the door Michael could see a landing looking out over the Capone yard; he was in a room in the gatehouse. It was night out there. Two nights ago, was it, that he’d made his misguided assault?

“They gave you a sedative,” Campagna said. “That’s why you got the feebles. Shake it off.”

Michael got into clothes identical to Campagna’s: black suit and tie, white shirt, black socks, black shoes, only no hat. A funeral’s star performer didn’t need one. Also didn’t need to perform.

Campagna gestured to the open door. “After you, kid.”

“Where...?” was all Michael could manage; his tongue was thick, his mouth, his teeth, filmy with drugged sleep.

“Car’s downstairs. Let’s go. Things to do.”

Michael swallowed, nodded. He went out past Campagna, onto the landing, wondering if he should make a break for it — a thought he was capable of forming, but not executing. His limbs felt rubbery, his head and stomach ached.

The cool evening air, though, did feel good; and it was another beautiful southern Florida night, grass glittering with the rays of a still nearly full moon. No bodies around — the clean-up crew had long since done its work. From here the pool and cabana and the dock could all be viewed, as could the endless shimmer of white-touched blue that was the bay.

Michael clomped down the steps, Campagna just behind him. In the graveled drive waited a hearse-like black Lincoln limousine. Two burly-looking swarthy guys in black stood on either side of the vehicle, one next to a rear open door. Both had bulges under their left arms — not tumors, Michael thought, though surely malignancies.

“Michael,” Campagna said, “you’re gonna have to be blindfolded.”

Michael turned. Campagna was holding up a black length of cloth in both hands, as if preparing to strangle somebody.

“Not necessary,” Michael muttered.

“Sorry. Orders.”

Michael did not resist; and when the blackness settled over his eyes, the knot snugging at the back of his neck, he felt almost relieved to be again shut off from the world. A hand on his arm, probably Louie’s, guided him.

“Duck your head,” Louie said, and Michael did, and was gently pushed inside the vehicle.

Someone climbed in beside him — again, probably Campagna. The door shut. He heard the other men get in, in front, and slam their doors. Then they were moving.

He sat quietly, still as a statue; no one said anything. The sounds were of the limo’s engine, other traffic (not heavy), and birds over the bay. His senses were returning to him, and some of his fatalistic lethargy faded and his blood seemed to start to flow again, an urge for survival rekindling.

But blindfolded in the presence of three armed gangsters, Michael had limited options. Still, his hands and ankles weren’t bound. He could rip the blindfold off his eyes, throw a punch into Campagna’s puss, and get to the door and open it and roll out, before either man in the front seat could do a damn thing. The vehicle was not going fast — twenty-five, thirty tops — and unless he pitched himself out into the path of an oncoming car, then he could—

And the limo came to a stop.

The two front doors opened, followed by the sound of shoes crunching on gravel. The back car door to Michael’s left opened, and the man sitting next to him (Campagna?) slid out. A hand settled on Michael’s arm and guided him out of the car, then steered him across a few feet of gravel and in through a door. Faintly, he detected cooking smells; warm in here, but not hot. Comfortable...

...except for the part where he was blindfolded in the company of three Outfit hoods.

He was escorted a few more feet, and Campagna’s voice, next to him, said, “We’re going in a room. You first.”

Michael brushed a doorjamb as he went through. He stopped, then the hand was on his arm again and he was guided across the room. Not much light was leeching in around the edges of the blindfold, so the room apparently was dim. He heard footsteps behind him, indicating the two thugs had followed, and the door closed.

“There’s a chair here,” Campagna said, and positioned Michael.

“Sit down, Michael,” a familiar baritone voice said.

Michael obeyed.

He felt hands at the back of his neck and the blindfold slipped away, filling Michael’s vision with a man seated at a small square white cloth-covered table opposite.

The man was Frank Nitti, also attired in black.

The room was fairly large, but Nitti sat with his back to the wall; of half a dozen overhead light fixtures, only the one directly above the Outfit kingpin was on, creating a spotlight effect. A few framed paintings — landscapes... Sicilian landscapes? — hung here and there around the room, but otherwise it contained nothing but two chairs and the small table that separated Michael from the man who had been his benefactor in the Outfit, the man who had trusted Michael and who Michael had betrayed.

On the table were a .38 and a black-handled dagger with a crooked and obviously sharply honed blade. Next to them was a white piece of paper.

Frank Nitti’s face was pale and grave. “Michael Satariano,” he said. He gestured to the two weapons on the table. “These represent that you live by the gun and the knife, and that you die by the gun and the knife.”

So that was what the white sheet of paper was for: a suicide note! Well, he wouldn’t write it.

They would have to kill him, Michael thought. He would not commit suicide for them; he was still enough of a Catholic for that to repel. Taking your own life meant hell, for sure... as if that mattered now, all the men he’d killed.

But then Nitti flipped over the piece of paper and revealed it to be a color print of the Virgin Mary, a rather florid painting right out of Sunday school.

Michael frowned, not understanding.

Nitti, solemnly, asked, “Which hand do you shoot with?”

Like a kid in class, Michael raised his right hand.

Nitti nodded, his eyes looking past Michael, and Campagna leaned in, took Michael’s right forefinger and pricked the tip with a needle.

Startled, Michael managed not to rise up out of the chair as Campagna dribbled drops of O’Sullivan blood onto the Virgin Mary, little droplets of red spattering her.

Then Campagna withdrew to his position behind Michael, as Nitti, standing now, lifted by one corner the blood-dotted picture. With his other hand, Nitti deftly used a Zippo lighter, thumbing it to flame, touching the sheet’s opposite corner, and fire ate its way up the Virgin Mary, consuming her, unimpeded by the few beads of Michael’s blood.

Nitti held onto the burning paper until the last minute, then dropped it onto the table, where it curled in ashy remains.

Wondering if he’d gone mad, thinking he was still in that darkened room, having a particularly demented dream, Michael watched as Nitti pricked his forefinger and extended its blood-dripping tip across to Michael...

...who instinctively extended his hand and touched his own pricked fingertip to Nitti’s.

The two fingertips withdrew, and Nitti said, “Blood makes us family. But we will burn like that image if we betray each other. Say yes, Michael.”

“Yes.”

“Repeat what I say. I pledge my honor to be faithful to the Mafia like the Mafia is faithful to me.”

“I... I pledge my honor to be faithful to the Mafia like the Mafia is faithful to me.”

“As this saint and these drops of my blood are burned, so will I give my blood for my new family.”

“As this saint and these drops of my blood are burned, so will I give my blood for my new family.”

Nitti nodded. “You will answer these questions with ‘yes.’ Will you offer reciprocal aid in the case of any need from your new family?”

“Yes.”

“Will you pay absolute obedience to your capo... to me, Michael.”

“Yes, Mr. Nitti.”

“Do you accept that an offense against one is an offense against all?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that you must never reveal names or secrets to anyone outside the family?”

“Yes.”

“Do you accept that this thing of ours comes before all else — blood-family, religion, country?”

“Yes.”

“Good, Michael. Understand that to betray the Outfit means death without trial. I am your capo. Louie is your goombah, your godfather. Is all of that understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Nitti.”

Nitti came from around the table and stood before Michael and said, “Get on your feet, Michael Satariano. You are now a made man.”

Michael rose, and Nitti kissed him on either cheek.

Was this the fabled kiss of death? Michael wondered.

But when Nitti drew away, the ganglord was beaming. And tears glistened.

“Welcome, Michael. Welcome, my son.”

And then Nitti embraced Michael.

Awkwardly, Michael returned the embrace.

The three men in black, standing behind the chair where Michael had sat facing the man he had mistaken for his judge/jury/executioner, began to applaud, Campagna saying, “Hey, Mike, you did it, kid! You did it!”

Then Frank Nitti took Michael by the arm and walked him from what the newest made man in the Chicago Outfit now realized was a banquet room, into the dining room of a traditional red-and-white-tablecloth Italian restaurant, the sort of cozy joint Papa Satariano ran back in DeKalb.

His arm around Michael, Nitti ushered him to a corner table, set up just for two, in a section of the dimly lighted restaurant otherwise closed off. Another table nearby was reserved for Campagna and the two bodyguards; but this table was strictly for the boss and his guest of honor.

As they drank Chianti — beginning with a toast to Michael’s new life, sealed with a clink of glasses — Nitti effusively answered all of Michael’s unasked questions.

“For someone who’s been with us so short a time,” Nitti said, “it’s a rare honor, becomin’ a made man. But the service you done the Outfit... what you did for me, Michael... well, let’s just say this is as close to us giving you a Medal of Honor as we can get.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nitti.”

Nitti, smiling big, shook his head, gesturing with his wine glass. “How did it happen, Mike? Did you come out to find a war going on, raging between Ricca’s traitors and our own loyal people?”

“...Yes.”

The ganglord shrugged elaborately. “We can’t prove it, of course. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“It is?”

“That Ricca wanted to kill Al, and strip me of my power. He figures with Al gone, my support’d crumble.” Though they were out of earshot of the other patrons as well as Campagna and crew, Nitti leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m not sure whether Ricca knows the truth about Al or not.”

Michael sipped the red wine. “How long has Mr. Capone been in this state of mind?”

“Started at the Rock. They let him out early, it was so severe. But for a couple of years, it was more... sporadic, they call it. Sometimes he’d be clear as a bell, other times... you saw him. Vegetable. Which is how he is all the time, now.”

“And who knows?”

“The staff at the estate is kept away from him, except for an inner group of about six... Four of them are dead, now.” He shook his head at this tragedy; then he brightened. “Mae threw in with me — she liked the idea of Al retaining power, and she didn’t want the world to know what this great man of hers had come to.”

“If Ricca does know...”

“The Waiter’ll back off now. He won’t make any more moves, not like this, not for a good long while. He’ll credit me with what you done — with anticipating that he was going to hit Al.”

“But, of course, he denies having anything to do with it.”

Nitti shrugged again, sipped Chianti, then said, “Actually, ain’t spoken to him about it yet. I came down yesterday and met with Mae and Mimi. You know, you left quite a mess there, young man.”

“What... what was done about it?”

“Let’s just say Al’s yacht come in handy. The biggest expense will be all the surviving members of each man’s family. Part of what we do is look after the families of any fallen soldiers. It’s the decent thing. Christian thing. But it’s gonna cost.” He scowled. “Only it burns me there’s no way to know which of ’em were the traitors. You think you could’ve identified which was which?”

“No. It all happened too fast.”

“Figured as much. So the bad get rewarded with the good; such is life... You were in bad shape, Mimi said. Come through unscathed, not a scratch... but a nervous wreck. That’s why Mimi had ’em knock you out. Let you catch your rest.”

“So it didn’t get out? The police, the papers...?”

“Never happened. A dozen immigrants and sons of immigrants fall off the face of the earth, and who the fuck cares but us? We’re the only government for our people, Michael — even now.”

Michael sighed, allowing relief to really take hold. Risked a small smile. “Mr. Nitti, I gotta admit — I didn’t know what was going on tonight. I thought maybe you thought...”

Nitti waved that off. “Don’t be silly.”

“Blindfold, black suits... I was thinking it was a one-way ride.”

With a gruff laugh, Nitti said, “Hey, sorry, kid — didn’t mean to throw a scare in you. But these rituals, some people may say they’re foolish or silly or Old World... but tradition is important. Loyalty. Omertà — that’s the code, Michael. Our secrets are our secrets.”

“I understand.”

Once again he leaned forward; he raised a forefinger — the shadow of smudged blood remained. “And speak to no one about Al’s mental condition. No one.”

“No one.”

Nitti leaned back and gestured with open palms. “Now... as for your duties, you’re officially my number-one bodyguard. My top lieutenant. We’re gonna get you a penthouse suite at the Seneca, and you’re gonna live like a king. Someday you’ll settle down and be a socks-and-slippers man like me, with a wife and kids and house in the suburbs; but for now, enjoy yourself. Be a man about town... just be available when I need ya. How’s a thousand a week sound?”

“Like... a lot of money.”

“Michael, I’ve been looking for a sharp, brave kid like you for a long time. Welcome to the family.”

Nitti extended his hand across the table and they shook.

A platter of spaghetti and meatballs came, proving to be almost as good as Papa’s. They spoke not at all of business after that, and Michael enjoyed Nitti’s good-humored company, as they talked about sports (boxing mostly) and movies (Nitti loved Cagney) and Italian food (his late wife Anna’s veal scallopini alla Marsala had been to die for, and Michael encouraged his boss to travel to DeKalb for Mama Satariano’s version thereof).

Michael felt strangely exhilarated, which was probably mostly his surprise at still being alive. For reasons he could not comprehend, he felt proud that Frank Nitti had thought enough of him to make him a “made” man in the Outfit. What would his father, his real father, have felt for his son, Michael wondered — pride? Shame?

On the way to the limo, Campagna fell in alongside Michael. Man-of-the-people Nitti was walking up ahead, chatting with the other two hoodlums.

“Congratulations, kid,” Campagna said, a grin splitting the lumpy face. “You’re in.”

“Better than being out,” Michael said, grinning, too.

“Kid, the only way you go out of this family,” Campagna said, with a shoulder pat, “is feet first.”

Then they drove back to the Capone mansion, where the first person to approach Michael was a tearfully happy Mae Capone, who embraced him and thanked him again and again for the wonderful thing he had done for her husband.

Two

At the bar in the glitzy Colony Club, Michael sat and sipped his Coca-Cola and enjoyed the music.

Estelle Carey leaned against the piano as she sang — perching on a stool was out of the question, in the formfitting periwinkle gown, with its high neck, mostly bared arms, and bodice with tiny glittering stars. Golden hair piled high, glamour-girl Estelle worked her intimate audience of couples, but Michael knew she was singing straight to him.

Right now, her husky second soprano was wrapping itself around “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.”

Cigarette smoke draped the bar, which was packed; so was the “aristocrat of restaurants,” as the adjacent dining room advertised itself. Michael hadn’t been upstairs to the casino yet, but this was a Saturday night and, judging by the ground floor, the Colony Club was hopping. Frank Nitti’s new number-one lieutenant was wearing a very sharp dark blue white-pinstriped number, a tailored job disguising the .45 in the shoulder sling; but the majority of the Colony Club patrons were in evening dress (and presumably unarmed).

He’d been back from Miami for barely two weeks, but a lot had happened. He’d moved into the promised penthouse at the Seneca; his relationship with Frank Nitti grew ever closer; and every night he’d slept with Estelle, either upstairs or at his Seneca digs — her own apartment was off-limits, as she roomed with a woman who ran a classy dress shop in which Estelle was partnered.

Now that the publicity over his Medal of Honor had receded, so had his celebrity; rarely did anyone recognize Michael, to ask for an autograph or embarrass him with praise, and he relished this new anonymity.

His state of mind was numb, but not unpleasantly so. He was surprised to be alive, and right now did not feel inclined to swim against the tide. If this was limbo, it wasn’t bad — Michael Satariano was, after all, a twenty-two-year-old making a thousand dollars a week, in an easy job, living in a posh penthouse, with a gorgeous nightclub singer for a girlfriend.

Maybe he had died back in Miami; maybe Capone’s people had shot him full of holes and this was heaven, or possibly a coma he hadn’t come out of, and if so, what was the hurry?

With “I’ll Never Smile Again,” Estelle’s set was over — on the weekends, her performances were timed so that while she was on, the orchestra was off, and vice versa. She drifted over to Michael, appearing through the cigarette fog like a materializing dream; she proved her reality by slipping her hand into his and led him into the chrome-and-glass dining room where a table in back waited.

Don Orlando and his orchestra played rhumbas, the dance floor fairly packed, while Michael ate a rare tenderloin (the modest serving the only sign of wartime shortages) and Estelle a small shrimp salad (anything larger would have shown, in that gown). Afterward they danced — slow romantic tunes, no rhumbas for Michael — in preparation for retiring to the specific third-floor bedroom (the “Rhapsody in Blue” suite) of which Estelle seemed to have sole use.

Michael hoped he was the only other man sharing it with her, now; but he had not yet pressed the point.

In the dim light of Rush Street neons tinted blue by the semi-sheer curtains, the two made love, with the combination of tenderness and urgency that always seemed to characterize the act for them. As usual, she preferred to start on top, her long golden hair undone now, and bouncing off her creamy shoulders, her eyes half-lidded in pleasure, her breasts pert hard-tipped handfuls. Christ, she was lovely...

Soon she lay naked next to him, a loose sheet halfheartedly covering the couple, his arm round her, her face against his chest, which was largely hairless (“You’re just a boy, you’re just a child,” she would tease); for a while she kissed his chest lazily, and then she slept, snoring very gently against his flesh, almost a purr.

He felt an enormous affection for this willowy creature with her doll-like features, a girl/woman who had learned to use the softness of her charms in so many hard ways. In a wave of sentimentality, which he mistook for deep emotion, Michael wished he could whisk her away from the Chicago of gambling, whoring, and other commercial sins.

She looked so innocent, slumbering against him. So untroubled. So blissfully at rest. But earlier in the week she’d seemed distracted, and on edge.

In this same bed, she had sat up, arms folded over her bare breasts, her brow furrowed. “I may need you to talk to Frank for me. Mr. Nitti, I mean.”

Propped on his elbow, he stared at her. “Why, baby? Problem?”

“You see that business in the papers, about those actresses who got burnt?”

“Anita Louise, you mean? And somebody else famous, right?”

“Yeah — Constance Bennett. They’re in town promoting a new picture.”

The robbery of several thousand in jewels from a hotel room of the two visiting Hollywood beauties had made headlines. Seemed like a hard way to hawk a movie.

“Well, they were here when it happened,” she said with a humorless smirk, pointing a finger downstairs. “Word is the cops think the heist was planned at the Colony.”

“Like somebody kept the girls busy at the club, giving somebody else time to nick the gems at the hotel?”

“Right. But what would we have to do with it?”

Michael shrugged. “Unless it was a bartender or somebody else employed here, nothing.”

“Right!” she said, hair flouncing. “I mean, what the hell — I can’t be responsible for our clientele. We’re a popular place; all kinds of people come here.”

“How about the cops? They come here?”

“Not yet... It’s just, I know Mr. Nitti wants to keep things low-key, about now. Mike, I promise I laid the law down with the girls: no exchange of cash. Big rollers get comped with a little affection, but that’s it.”

“I’ll say something to him, if you want.”

“Would you?”

She’d seemed fine after that, and by the next day, the MOVIE STAR JEWELRY HEIST had, like his Medal of Honor, faded from the headlines.

And now it faded from Michael’s mind, too, as he began drifting off to sleep...

...only to have gunshots rudely wake him.

In half a heartbeat, he was out of the bed in his boxer shorts, snatching the .45 from the holster draped over a chair and heading in bare feet for the door. Behind him, startled to wakefulness, Estelle sat up, fists pulling the sheet to her chin, eyes huge and frightened; but he was in the hallway before she could speak.

Two guys, one skinny, one burly, were barreling right at him. They were in T-shirts and pants and socks, charging down the narrow pink carpet, single file, though he could see them both — and each had a gun in his fist.

The skinny one, at the rear, was firing over a shoulder, three sharp reports, shooting at the stairwell door, punching splintering holes. No one in sight, down there — the door itself seemed to be the guy’s target.

He recognized them, sort of: they’d been hanging around the Colony all week; not local, a couple gladhanders who for the last couple days had been hitting the casino hard.

Right now Michael was between them and the elevator, and the burly guy was raising his gun, teeth bared, eyes intense, motioning, motioning, motioning for Michael to move aside.

Instead, Michael walked into the path of the stampeding gunmen and slapped the first guy across the side of the head with the .45.

Then Michael stepped aside — so that the man could go down and his partner stumble over him. Both men lost their guns, identical .38s that went flying.

The burly man Michael had pistol-whipped was unconscious, and his skinny partner was piled squirming on top of him, like shower night at Joliet. Before the surprised partner could get his bearings, Michael leaned in and slapped him across the side of the head, too, with the .45 barrel.

The partner slumped on top of his pal, as if in postcoital exhaustion.

Michael was collecting the two fallen weapons when the shot-up stairwell door cracked tentatively...

Then it opened wide, and Eliot Ness stepped out, his own .38 in hand.

Ness, very much his public image in fedora and brown suit, had a spooked expression, not at all like his public image. Clearly the gunshots fired at that door had been meant for him. Seeing Michael, Ness opened his mouth.

Before any words could come out, however, Michael yelled at him, “Who the hell are you? What’s going on here?”

Behind Ness, from out the stairwell, came a firm-jawed, dark-haired guy in a homburg and beautifully cut charcoal suit with black vest and red tie. His natty attire might not say plainclothes cop, but his manner — and the badge pinned on his breast pocket, plus the Police Special in his fist — did. As he joined Ness, a pair of uniformed cops with weapons in hand also emerged from the stairs.

Ness strode up the hall, saying, “I’m Eliot Ness, with the Federal Social Protection Division. This is Lieutenant William Drury, from Town Hall Station.”

Drury stayed back, talking to the two cops, sending them into a room down on the right, next to the stairwell.

“These are suspects in a jewelry robbery,” Ness said, nodding toward the fallen duo.

“You mind if I get some clothes on,” Michael asked, “while you handcuff these boys?”

“Not at all.”

Michael rejoined Estelle in the blue suite, where — the bedside lamp switched on — she’d already put on a simple business-like brown-and-white suit. As he got dressed, Michael explained that he’d apparently just captured the two jewelry bandits for the cops.

“But that fed Ness is along for the ride,” Michael said.

Confusion merged with indignation in her response: “What does he have to do with catching jewel robbers?”

“Nothing. He’s probably here to try to shut you down.”

She followed Michael to the door, but he turned and took her by the arms. “Let me deal with this.”

Estelle drew in a deep breath, considering taking issue; then she let the air out and nodded. She sat in a chair by the window, and folded her hands primly in her lap, Rush Street neon winking through the curtains next to her.

In the hallway, Michael saw the T-shirted bandits, too groggy to be pissed off yet, on their feet and in the process of getting hauled off by the uniformed men.

Michael gave Ness a hard look, indicating it wasn’t safe to talk, and said, “I heard the gunshot and ran out into the hall... I have a license to carry.”

He patted the .45, snugged back under his shoulder.

“Fine,” Ness said. “Come with me.”

Michael followed him down the hall and past a shot-up door into a suite done up in whorehouse red, though otherwise identical to the blue room.

Cowering under the covers, wide eyes peeking over their edges, was a 26 girl named Marie, a cute little brunette Michael knew only to say hello to; apparently the robbers had been sharing her, or maybe one had opted for the sidelines. Neither Ness nor Lieutenant Drury acknowledged her existence, much less her presence.

Drury was standing at the bedstand, where a wallet was open and the detective was thumbing a wad of bills.

“Pretty flush couple of fellas, huh?” Drury said idly.

Ness asked, “Without the jewelry, can you make it stick?”

Drury nodded; he had dark alert eyes, a jutting nose, and, though not particularly heavyset, a double chin that cushioned his firm jaw.

“We have the fence,” Drury said, “and we can put both of ’em in the hotel. I think they have an accomplice here, probably a bartender, who called and gave ’em the all clear. We’ll see if they give the guy up.”

Ness was shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. They’re finished here.”

Not sure he understood what Ness meant, Michael asked Drury, “What’s going on?”

Drury was the police contact Ness had mentioned several times, so he knew damn well who Michael was; but with the little naked brunette witness quivering under the bedsheets, the detective knew enough not to make that evident.

“You’ve figured out,” Drury said, “that we were after those jewelry punks.”

“But the robbery warrant gave us entree to the Colony Club,” Ness said, “where we’ve discovered all kinds of law-breaking — including, on this floor, prostitution.”

Marie said, “I am not!”

Ignoring that, Ness said, “Anticipating as much, we brought along half a dozen paddy wagons. We’ve already shut down the casino, though with so many lawbreakers on the premises, we’ll have to make a number of trips.”

“And about now,” Drury said, “my boys will be knocking on doors all up and down this floor — taking johns and whores into custody.”

“I am not!” Marie insisted.

Ness said to Michael, “We appreciate your help, sir... We haven’t got your name yet, have we?”

“It’s Satariano. Michael Satariano.”

Playacting, Drury said, “Oh, Medal of Honor winner! Well, you deserve another one, for nabbing these bad guys.”

“They’re not local,” Michael said. “I’ve been around the club every night this week, and heard ’em making conversation at the bar. They said they were salesmen.”

“Selling what?”

“Judging by who they turned out to be, I’d say selling themselves as salesmen.”

Ness nodded, apparently liking that analysis.

Drury asked, “Speak to them yourself, Mr. Satariano?”

“No. They were obnoxious. I kept my distance. But looking back, I can see they suddenly turned into high rollers, after that robbery.”

“Thanks for not keeping your distance tonight,” Drury said. “We knocked on the door and announced ourselves, and they started shooting. We ducked in the stairwell, and they ran out and shot some more. We’re both lucky not to be ventilated.”

“Glad to help,” Michael said flatly. “Anything else, fellas?”

“Unfortunately,” Ness said, “you’ll have to come over to the station house, to make a statement.”

“Can’t I make that here?”

With unmistakable, nonnegotiable firmness, Ness said, “No.”

“Well, I’m down the hall with my girlfriend. I assure you I’m not a john, and she’s not a whore.”

“Me neither,” Marie whimpered, mascara running.

Michael continued: “She’s one of the owners and managers of the club.”

“Estelle Carey?” Drury asked.

Michael nodded.

“Well,” Drury said smugly, “that’s handy.”

“What do you mean, handy?”

Ness said, “We want to talk to her, too.”

Michael did his best to reassure Estelle that everything would be fine, though sounds from the street below — officious yelling by cops, car and paddy wagon doors slamming, the frightened/irritated yammer and babbling of those being rounded up — undermined his efforts.

Finally Ness came around to collect them. Drury was chatting with another plainclothes cop in the hall, a Sergeant O’Connor, who was taking over the supervisory role. Then Michael and Estelle were escorted by Ness and Drury down the elevator and through the downstairs, where a small army of boys in blue were ushering indignant socialites out to waiting paddy wagons on Rush Street, the red-and-blue lights of police vehicles competing with neons.

Michael and Estelle were driven in an unmarked car to turn-of-the-century Town Hall Station, a formidable red-brick building on the corner of Addison and Halsted. Within ten minutes, inside a small interrogation chamber whose walls and ceiling were acoustically tiled, Michael and Ness sat at a small scarred wooden table.

Michael — his tie off, his collar open — glanced around: the usual two-way mirror was absent.

Noting Michael taking stock, Ness tossed his fedora on the table and said, “It’s secure.”

“It’s not rigged for eavesdropping?”

“No. Some of the other booths are. Like the one Lieutenant Drury’s questioning your friend Estelle Carey in.”

“You’re shutting her down?”

“The Colony Club’ll be a memory by tomorrow.”

“Won’t it reopen? It’s a protected joint.”

He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning I’m holding a press conference at the Colony. Every paper in town will have pictures of the casino and the third-floor cathouse.”

“Sounds like good advertising.”

“No. They’re done. Something will open to take its place, no doubt — but the Colony’s over.”

Michael grunted a humorless laugh. “Real blow you struck for Uncle Sam — some serviceman hangout.”

“It’s the Outfit we’re squeezing. That was fortuitous, tonight.”

“Me saving your ass, you mean?”

Ness smiled, barely. “Well... that, and it giving us a chance to talk privately. You’ve been something of a stranger, Michael. You don’t call... you don’t write...”

“You said you were going to be out of town.”

“I gave you Lieutenant Drury’s number. You’ve been back from Miami for well over a week. What went on down there?”

“Why, what do you hear?”

“Just a few rumblings.”

“Such as?”

Ness shrugged. “They’ve imported some new staff.”

Michael shrugged. “Security’s an issue, on the Capone estate.”

Eyes narrowing, Ness leaned forward, slightly. “Did you see Capone? Talk to him?”

“I saw him.”

“What’s his, uh... mental state?”

Michael fixed a cold gaze on the fed. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Ness, all innocence, blinked twice. “Knew what?”

Now Michael sat forward. “You manipulated me into infiltrating Frank Nitti’s inner circle, so I could finally settle up with the man who had my father killed.”

Michael slammed a hand on the table — hard.

But Ness didn’t jump. Or even blink.

“And all the time you knew — knew ‘King’ Capone was a drooling imbecile.”

Silence held the room for perhaps thirty seconds. Michael felt himself trembling and hoped it didn’t show. Ness seemed a statue.

Then finally the G-man said, “We didn’t know. We suspected — medical projections were made, based upon his condition when he was released, back in ’39. But until right now... we weren’t sure.”

“Hell, you oughta put Big Al’s puss on a poster and hang that up in all the barracks, and show GIs what VD really can do.”

“...It’s an idea.”

Michael snorted a nonlaugh and sat back and folded his arms. “So. I’ve fulfilled my mission, then.”

“You have accomplished a major portion of it, at least. You’ve confirmed my theory that Frank Nitti has maintained his control over the syndicate by perpetuating the fiction that Capone was ruling from afar.”

Twitching a smile, Michael said, “Haven’t you veered slightly off course, Mr. Ness? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting military bases and defense plants from painted women?”

Ness gestured with an open hand — vaguely conciliatory. “Your sarcasm aside, Michael, that is indeed my job — but I’m also part of a coordinated effort by various government agencies to put the Capone bunch out of business.”

“You think stopping Frank Nitti is a good idea.”

“Don’t you?”

Michael shrugged one shoulder. “Nitti’s not the worst man in his world.”

Ness’s eyes at once widened and tightened. “You can’t be serious — what the hell kind of ‘world’?”

Calmly, Michael said, “A legitimate world, within ten years, if Nitti has his way. Get rid of him and you’re looking at Paul the Waiter Ricca — and psychos like Stefano and Giancana, mad dogs up from the street. It’ll mean decades of gambling and whores and loansharking and narcotics. Capone’ll seem like Walt Disney.”

The federal agent sat silent, stunned by this onslaught of words, coming from the normally taciturn Michael.

Finally, Ness said, “Your father thought John Looney was the best man in their world. And look what it got him.”

Michael snapped, “Frank Nitti is not John Looney, and I’m not my father.”

“Are you sure?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness looked pale; almost sick. “You’ve... you’re not the kid I sent in, Michael. Maybe I made a mistake.”

This time Michael’s laugh did have humor in it — dark humor. “What, I’m infected now? You oughta have access to penicillin, if anybody does.”

Still wearing that stricken expression, Ness said, “You need to understand, Michael. Undercover work has unique pitfalls. You can easily become part of the universe you’ve insinuated yourself into.”

“If you don’t, Mr. Ness, you get killed.”

With a sigh, the fed said, “I know that. I know that.” Ness became suddenly business-like. “So I’m pulling the plug on you, Michael. This relationship is over.”

Surprised that he cared, Michael said defensively, “Swell. What should I tell Frank Nitti, thanks for the summer job? Think I’ll head back to DeKalb and toss pizza?”

Ness’s expression and voice seemed earnest. “Michael... you’ll find the moment. Ease yourself out. It’s not like you’re a made man.”

Michael said nothing.

Ness’s eyes froze.

And when Ness next spoke, his voice was almost a whisper, as if he could barely bring himself to say any of this out loud. “Oh Christ... Then you did kill Abatte, in Calumet City. Self-defense, I know, ‘hypothetical,’ you said, but... Michael, we have to get you out of there.”

“And where would I go? Bataan, maybe?”

Ness was shaking his head, looking for words that weren’t presenting themselves.

“You said it yourself, Mr. Ness. Our relationship is over... Are we done here?”

Michael sat in a wooden chair against a wall in the big waiting-room area on the first floor of the station, with four rough-looking juvies waiting for their parents to come take them home.

Finally, Estelle came down the wide wooden stairs, unaccompanied; in that conservative suit, she again looked almost prim, if shellshocked. Gratefully she took Michael’s arm as he led her into the cool dark of early morning.

Michael walked her down the block to an all-night diner, where he called for a cab. Then he sat in a window booth next to her, waiting for the ride; they both had coffee.

“What did Drury want?” he asked her.

“He’s working with Ness, you know.”

“Yeah, I gathered.”

In the pretty face, her upper lip curled back nastily. “Hundreds of bent cops in this town, you wouldn’t think one honest flatfoot could cause so much trouble.”

She meant Drury. But it applied to Ness as well. And without the cooperation of an honest copper like Drury, the G-man could never have executed a raid like tonight’s.

Michael said, “They’re shuttering the Colony.”

“I know. I know.” She leaned forward, the anxiety in her eyes terrible to behold; she reached out and clutched one of his hands. “Mike, please talk to Mr. Nitti. Tell him this wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know anything about those damn jewel thieves, and—”

“It’ll be fine, baby.”

She shook her head, blonde hair askew. “You don’t understand — the feds, they’re squeezing me. They want to pull me in as a witness on this movie-extortion business.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Not much.”

But she didn’t sound convincing; she had been Nicky Dean’s mistress, after all, and bagman Dean was already doing time in the Hollywood case. Michael had overheard Campagna and Nitti expressing concern the hood might be bargaining for a shorter sentence by singing.

And not in the way Estelle sang at the club, either...

“I’m not going to cooperate, Michael. I told Drury less than nothing. But if the Outfit boys even think I might be spilling... You gotta talk to Frank for me!”

“I will,” he said gently. “I will.”

The cab arrived, and Michael took Estelle to his suite at the Seneca. In bed, he held her all night long, and she shivered as if she were cold or perhaps had the flu. Only it wasn’t cold in the penthouse, and she was a healthy girl.

For now.

Three

For the half year following Michael’s initiation into the Chicago Outfit, the made man’s life proceeded in a nonviolent, routine manner.

At times he felt as if he’d wandered out of reality and onto a Hollywood soundstage. After all, his girlfriend looked like a movie star, screwed him silly on a regular basis, and made upon him no demands whatsoever. His apartment — appointed in a contemporary manner, all browns and greens — had a bedroom, living room, kitchenette, and a balcony view of the city. While he worked long hours, he for the most part sat around, reading magazines and novels, receiving a two-hundred-dollar-a-week check, for accounting purposes, and eight hundred cash, for his own.

He dined out at top restaurants, from Don the Beachcomber’s to Henrici’s, and here at the Seneca Hotel, owned by Outfit investors, his meals, drinks, everything, was (like his suite) comped. A free ride at most nightspots was waiting, too, from the Chez Paree to the Mayfair Room. He wore custom suits from a Michigan Avenue haberdashery attuned to the special needs of the well-armed gentleman about town; and a company car was his on off hours, ration tickets no problem. And like any good American, he bought war bonds.

As he floated through this easy, vaguely exciting life, directionless, empty, yet numbly content, only a few times a day did Michael feel pangs of... not conscience, exactly, more like twinges. Twinges of character.

When he read the papers, morning and evening alike, and certain distinctive words popped out at him — Guadalcanal, North Africa, Stalingrad — something gnawed at his gut. Gratifying as good news from the Solomon Islands might be, he was frustrated by the absence of Philippines coverage. The government continued to keep the lid on tight, particularly about how Uncle Sam had left behind the boys on Bataan... all except Michael Satariano and General MacArthur... to twist in an ill wind from the Far East.

But then he’d turn to the funnies, and force such thoughts out, making room for L’il Abner and Dick Tracy.

At night, between cool sheets in a bed big enough for a family of five, Michael would sometimes face sleeplessness. (“It’s the caffeine in those damn Cokes,” Campagna would say, advising, “You’d sleep like a baby, you drank beer.”) Coca-Cola notwithstanding, he slept better when Estelle lay beside him, breathing, beautiful, human, physical company.

But alone, often when he was just about asleep, faces from the past would drift through his consciousness... his father, patiently teaching him to drive on a country back road; his mother, serving a plate of corned beef and cabbage with a knowing smile (“I told you you’d grow to like it”); his brother’s gleeful laughter when Michael pushed him in the backyard swing; Connor Looney’s sick smile at the last Christmas gathering; grandfatherly John Looney tousling Michael’s hair; his father blasting away with a tommy gun; his mother and brother dead on the floor of their house; his father cut down from behind, by a Capone killer.

And he would go out on the balcony, even when it got cold, even when he had to kick snow aside, and he would stare at the abstract twinkling shapes that were the buildings of the city. And sometimes the edge of that railing seemed to call to him, inviting him to slip over and take the ride of twenty stories down to a bed where he could sleep undisturbed...

As the months went by, Michael did not hear from Eliot Ness. Nor did Lieutenant Drury make any effort to contact him. Perhaps the two men were embarrassed by the meager payoff of their raid on the Colony Club.

Shuttering Rush Street’s most popular nightspot did not make either man any friends, and the embarrassment suffered by captains of industry, politicians, and judges, ignominiously rounded up and shoved in the back of paddy wagons, translated into criticism and lack of support in high places for the gang-busting efforts of both men.

Shortly after the Town Hall interview with Ness, Michael received notification he was back on inactive duty; his little paychecks ceased. He was no longer a soldier in Uncle Sam’s army, rather a lieutenant in Frank Nitti’s.

Within the Outfit, Nitti’s decision to walk away from prostitution was generally accepted as a sound one. With the real houses shut down, Ness stooping to raid the Colony as a “brothel” (a stretch) showed the G-man’s desperation. And, at the same time, the boys still got their share from the girls — strip clubs and arcades were flourishing with serviceman trade — with the high-class hookers working out of hotels and apartments kicking back, as usual.

Michael was able to convince Frank Nitti that Estelle was loyal; that despite what Drury was claiming in the press — about the Colony’s third-floor housing wide-open cash-and-carry prostitution — Estelle had strictly used the favors of her 26 girls as a dividend for high rollers. That no charges were brought against her indicated she was telling the truth.

“If you vouch for her, kid,” Nitti had said, as they sat in a booth at the Capri, “that’s all I need.”

But the landscape was shifting, and in early 1943 the blessing of Frank Nitti did not always seem to be enough.

Though not privy to board meetings, Michael would get the lowdown from his friend Louie Campagna. On a peaceful return trip to Calumet City — where once a month Campagna and Michael strolled around, just to maintain in certain people the fear of God — Campagna had warned Michael that Estelle might well be in solid with Nitti, but other Outfit insiders suspected her.

“She’s straight, Louie,” Michael said, behind the wheel. “She’s a good kid.”

“She’s a ‘kid’ ten years older than you, Mike. And her old boyfriend Nicky Dean’s helping the feds, we think. Plus which, Ricca and some of the others don’t view her getting a free ride from the cops same way Frank does.”

“How so?”

Campagna, who was cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife, said, “They think she got a pass ’cause she’s cooperating with the feds.”

Frowning, Michael said, “Louie — she got a pass because Drury couldn’t make that prostitution charge stick!”

“Yeah? What about the gambling?”

“She leased the second floor out to Sonny Goldstone, you know that.”

Campagna shrugged. “They coulda nailed her, if they wanted. Had her in for questioning half a dozen times.”

“I been questioned, you been questioned. That doesn’t make us rats.”

The stocky little hood put away the pocket knife, as the car rolled by a steel mill. “I know you like the broad. Who wouldn’t? But even if she’s as straight as you think—”

“She is.”

“Fine. But Ricca suspects her. And maybe you noticed, innocent till proved guilty don’t come up much, in our circle.”

From his position on the sidelines, right next to the game, Michael could easily sense the tensions. Though gradual, a certain physical deterioration on Nitti’s part was inescapable — the man was drinking more wine than milk these days, taking prescription pain medication for back pains relating to an old assassination attempt, and he’d lost weight, giving him a tired, sunken-cheeked look.

To Michael, however, the man seemed no less sharp; and his impeccable grooming, a point of pride for the one-time barber, kept him looking like the top executive he was. Often Nitti and Michael would have lunch together, sometimes joined by Campagna, sometimes not, and Nitti increasingly spoke of business in front of Michael.

Whose status as Nitti’s number-two man (after Campagna) was widely known now, and accepted. The story about Calumet City had reached legendary proportions, and his “rescue” of Capone from disloyal bodyguards — though only a rumor, never openly discussed — had inspired the resurrection, from the Medal of Honor press coverage, of the Demonio Angelico tag the Filipino Scouts had bestowed him. Spoken in front of Michael, a certain comic tone usually was present; but respect was there, too. Kidding on the square.

Michael, of course, had benefited from Nitti’s misreading of his assault at the Capone estate. But the young bodyguard, a novice to Outfit politics, could not foresee the ramifications facing Nitti himself; and by February, the breaking point approached.

In the white-and-gold presidential suite at the Bismarck, Nitti, tie loose, sat on the couch, stocking feet up on a coffee table, a glass of wine in hand. Campagna, Michael, and their boss had just returned from St. Hubert’s where treasurer Jake Guzik revealed overall earnings were up, despite the decreased prostitution revenue.

While Nitti relaxed, Campagna stewed, pacing behind the couch. This had been coming for weeks; even months. Campagna would bring the subject of Ricca up, and Nitti would bat it away. But today the putty-faced consigliere clearly would be heard.

Campagna finally lumbered around to plant himself before his seated master. “Frank, you gotta face this thing.”

Nitti’s eyes stared into nothing; the glass of wine in his hand was still. “What thing?”

“You know what thing. The Ricca thing.”

The tiniest of shrugs caused a bare ripple in the wine. “Nothing to face. Profits are up. We stand firm against these charges.”

Nitti meant the continuing federal investigation into the Hollywood extortion matter. Any day now, the indictments would fall, hence the anxiety in the air.

Campagna’s voice trembled; his hands were balled. “Frank, you know that ain’t what I mean. You have to strike back.”

“Not the way I do things.”

“In the old days it was. Cermak hit you, you hit him. Mayor of the fuck Chicago tries to have you killed, and you have him killed!”

“Discreetly, Louie,” Nitti said, his free hand raised in benediction, although still his eyes did not meet his advisor’s. “Discreetly.”

Now Campagna was gesturing animatedly — this was the most worked up Michael had ever seen the low-key hoodlum. “Sure, the papers wrote it off as a botched hit on Roosevelt! But the people who counted, they knew — our people, they found out what happened when you try to take out Frank fucking Nitti!”

Finally Nitti looked at his old friend. “Louie, those days are over. Got to be over. Have to be over. We’re businessmen. We came up out of the streets, but now we’re in skyscrapers. They call us gangsters, but we’re really just capitalists, good American capitalists. Unions, restaurants, laundries, nice and legit — plus, yeah, gambling and such — slice it how you want, it’s goods and services for the public. Look at how the Colony Club backfired on those fuckin’ do-gooders. Drury and Ness made themselves the villains! Not us. We’re just businessmen, givin’ the public what they want.”

This was an extraordinary speech, coming from Nitti, who chose his words so sparingly. Michael, pretending to read Film Fun, peered over the edges of a picture of Toby Wing.

Campagna was sitting down next to this man for whom he obviously had so much affection. “I agree with all of what you say, Frank. You know that. Your vision of the future is my vision of the future.”

Nitti patted Campagna’s knee. “Good to hear, Louie. Always good to hear.”

An edge spiked Campagna’s reply. “Well, what I got to say now won’t be. Frank, what happened down in Florida was too big to contain. People know.”

“Know what?”

“Well, for one thing, that Al’s slipped the trolley. The new boys we sent down there, to replace all them casualties, some of ’em are in Ricca’s pocket and they spilled.”

“Nobody’s said a word to me about it.”

Campagna raised his hands as if in surrender, though he was still fighting. “Nobody wants to broach the fuckin’ subject, Frank! Nobody wants to accuse you of... of...”

Nitti frowned — more in disappointment than anger. “Lying? Deceiving my brothers?”

“Well.” Campagna swallowed thickly. “It could be viewed like that.”

Nitti took his feet off the coffee table; set down the glass of vino. Swiveled to throw a hard gaze at Campagna, all the harder coming out of the sunken sockets.

“How do they know Al’s crack-up ain’t recent? How do they know that dose of his didn’t push him over the edge, just lately? Them diseases are, what-you-call-it... progressive.”

Campagna gestured with open hands. “That makes sense.”

“Of course it does.”

“So tell the boys. Call a meeting. You tell them how Al’s sick, but not so sick that he ain’t had the good sense to leave you in charge.”

Nitti turned away from Campagna, reached for the wine, and sipped. “I’ll think about it. Think it over. Thanks, Louie. You always been a good advisor.”

Campagna was shaking his head. “Frank, Al havin’ the mind of a three-year-old retard is only part of the problem.”

Nitti said nothing. Had another sip.

“The takeover try in Florida has Ricca’s greasy fingerprints all over it. But what’s Ricca saying? That he had nothin’ to do with it! That he loves Al, that you must have done this thing yourself.”

The ganglord looked sharply at his advisor. “Ricca’s saying I tried to take Al out?”

With a somber, reluctant nod, Campagna confirmed this.

“Then why don’t the prick say so to me? To my damn face? We sat at the table at the Lex how many times since Miami?”

A small shrug from Campagna. “Ricca talks to people one, two at a time. He’s like a goddamn missionary, makin’ converts.”

Nitti mulled this for a few moments, then again turned pointedly to his consigliere. “Has he talked to you, Louie?”

Campagna looked hurt. “I don’t deserve that, Frank.”

Nitti put a hand on Campagna’s sleeve. “Forgive me, then. But you seem to know what the Waiter has on his mind.”

Campagna clutched the hand on his arm. “Frank, hit the bastard! I’ll help you. Michael over there, you don’t think he’ll help? With a man like Mike, we can take anything they throw at us.”

Slowly Nitti shook his head. “We don’t do things like that no more.”

“Fucking Ricca does!”

“I don’t do things like that no more.”

Shaking his head despairingly, Campagna kept trying. “Frank! Don’t you understand? You look weak in this thing! If you don’t hit Ricca, and good and goddamn soon... you’ll be out and he’ll be in.”

Eyes tight, Nitti asked, “My friends... they would turn on me?”

Campagna tried to make the reply matter of fact, but Michael could hear the sorrow: “You said it yourself, Frank. It’s business. They’ll go with strength.”

Nitti smiled gently at his friend; he touched the man’s face. “And you, Louie? Where do you stand?”

As Nitti withdrew his hand, Campagna raised a fist and shook it. “Strong — right next to you. Goin’ after that prick Ricca... Michael!”

Michael looked up from his magazine, affected an expression as if he hadn’t heard a word of this.

Campagna said, “You’ll stand with us. You’re the ol’ Demonio Angelico, right? Ricca can throw all the soldiers at us he wants, and you’re still with us! Choppin’ up the bastards like firewood! Right?”

“I’m with Mr. Nitti,” Michael said ambiguously.

Campagna got to his feet again; he clasped his hands, pleadingly. “Say the word. Say the word. Please, Frank... say the word.”

Nitti said, “I’ll think on it.”

Campagna looked to be on the verge of tears. “Think soon, Frank.”

And the little hood gathered his coat and hat and was gone.

As usual, Michael drove Nitti — who sat in front, not liking the pretension of a chauffeured ride — home to the Near West Side suburbs, where so many Outfit bigwigs lived. Nitti’s neighborhood was wealthy in an understated way — generous lawns, overgrown bungalows, paved driveways, backyard swing sets. In the Hollywood soundstage of Michael’s life, Riverside was the MGM backlot, but the next shooting here wouldn’t be an Andy Hardy movie.

Nitti’s home was a brown-brick story-and-a-half on the corner, plenty of well-manicured yard separating it from the street — new-looking with crisp white woodwork, shrubs hugging the house, patio out back. Mrs. Nitti’s black ’42 Ford sedan sat in the driveway. A vice president at a bank might live here; or the sales manager of Carson Pirie Scott.

Michael’s duties rarely extended to the house; usually he hung around only for the rare evening board meeting in the living room (Michael relegated to the kitchen). Nitti did not have live-in bodyguards, but a pair of men sat in a car all night outside the house; they hadn’t arrived yet.

Michael pulled up at the edge of the drive, and Nitti said, “Shut the car off. Don’t waste gas. There’s a war on.”

Michael obeyed. Nitti was making no move to get out. Though they’d exchanged not a word on the ride over, the boss now apparently wanted to talk.

His voice casual, friendly, Nitti asked, “What’s your take on what Louie said?”

Feeling in over his head, Michael said frankly, “Mr. Nitti — I’m really not qualified to have an opinion.”

Nitti smiled; he patted Michael’s knee. “You wouldn’t be my number two if that was true. You know, Louie’s a good man, and smart, but he’s no genius. And he’s no leader.”

“I like Louie,” Michael said, pointlessly.

“I know you do, son. But some soldiers ain’t cut out to be generals. Now Ricca could be a general, all right; but he’s a ruthless son of a bitch, and the soldiers he surrounds himself with are kill-happy Young Turks. He’ll put us into narcotics, he’ll start the whores up after the war, he’ll squeeze the unions like a buncha pimples.”

Michael said nothing.

“Which puts me in a bad place. Because the terrible things this cocksucker is capable of forces me to consider doing the same kind of terrible things... Michael, are you with Louie?”

“I’m with you, Mr. Nitti.”

He patted the air with a palm. “I know. I know. But should we take Ricca out? You’re the one man I know who wouldn’t be afraid of the likes of Mad Sam and Mooney.”

Michael thought about it. “Maybe it’s like the war. Maybe when you got evil men like Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo, you got no choice.”

Nitti sighed. “And I shouldn’t sit around on my ass waitin’ for Pearl Harbor to happen.”

“No. You shouldn’t.”

Nitti looked older than his years — he wasn’t even sixty; he seemed small, as if he’d shrunk. “How I wish you weren’t so god-damned young. How I wish you were ready... because, Michael, I don’t know if I have the strength, anymore.”

“Of course you do, Mr. Nitti.”

He shook his head. “I’m not even sure Louie hasn’t already talked to Ricca. That’s what that was about, you know, this afternoon — our little conversation.”

“I don’t follow...”

“It was about Louie warning me that if I didn’t go with him, he would go with Ricca... Michael... my boy. You’ve been a ray of light in this darkness.”

Michael didn’t know what to say.

“I’ve tried to hold on, since Anna’s death. You know, I had everything for a while, Michael — a family I loved, a prosperous business. And then when I lost my wife, it all crashed down. Nature of what we do, I had to try not to show it. But I had needs. Not... not what you might think. A woman is more than the physical; it’s support, friendship, loyalty. I thought Toni was the answer.”

Nitti meant his second wife.

“She seems like a great woman,” he went on. “She’s good with my kid — such a wonderful kid I have. See, I knew Toni before. I adored my Anna, she was everything to me; but I’m a man, and when I was younger, I had those other kinda needs. Toni’s been around our business for years — secretarial stuff. You heard of Eddie O’Hare?”

“Yeah...”

“Well, Toni was Eddie O’Hare’s secretary... before he got hit? She’s been a good friend to me, a lotta years, and she’s strong and smart and so I married her.”

“I like her,” Michael said honestly, though he’d only exchanged a handful of words with the pleasant, severely handsome woman, who did seem to dote on Nitti.

“But now... I wonder about her. She makes phone calls. Hangs up quick when she sees me comin’... No, no, she doesn’t have anyone else, that’s not it. But I start to wonder. Is my own wife in their camp? Did she marry me to keep an eye on me? Did Ricca and them put her up to it? ’Cause they thought I was slipping? After Anna died?”

“I’m sure your wife loves you. You’re just—”

“Imagining it?” He grinned like a skull. “So, Michael, am I going mad, like Al? Only without the dose?” Nitti laughed bitterly. “So much I’ve built up. So many mistakes, from the old days, I put behind us. If Ricca gets in, it’s a return to the old ways, but minus the tradition, the honor. Just the violence. The killing.”

“What should we do, Mr. Nitti?”

Nitti again patted Michael’s leg. “I’m not sure, son. If we had a few years, you’d be ready, to step in. But it’s too soon. Too damn soon. And if the feds do nail us... all us big boys go to prison for a long time.”

“Could that happen?”

“Looking at ten years, lawyers say. We can buy paroles in maybe three, four, five. If the feds do put us away, pray Ricca goes along for the ride. Accardo, he’s next in line, after the eight or nine of us facin’ this Hollywood thing. He’d take over, in the... what’s it called? Interim.”

“Mr. Accardo wasn’t involved with Hollywood?”

“No. Oh, in a minor way — he hit a guy named Tommy Maloy, at the outset. Projectionist union guy. But other than that, nothing. There’ll be no indictment for him.”

“You approve of Mr. Accardo.”

“He’s better than Ricca, and imagine where we’d be with Giancana in the top chair! If I’m in stir, get next to Accardo, Michael.”

Michael’s eyes tensed. “You really think it’ll come to that?”

“I think so, I do think so... But get this — Ricca’s saying I should take the rap. That the Hollywood business was all my doing.”

“That’s not true — is it?”

Nitti gestured dismissively. “I was the prime mover, but we were all in it. Biggest mistake was using a couple of lying untrustworthy bastards like Bioff and Browne as our reps; that’s why I sent Nicky Dean out to look over their shoulders.”

“And Dean hasn’t talked, like the other two.”

“No. Thing is, Ricca knows damn well I can’t shoulder the blame. It’s a fuckin’ conspiracy case! Of course, Ricca already knows that — blaming me is just part of him tryin’ to undermine me with the boys.”

Michael locked his gaze with his chief’s. “You want him dead, Mr. Nitti, he’s dead.”

Nitti looked at Michael with infinite fondness; patted his cheek like a favored child. “You’re a sweet boy, Michael. Sweet boy... We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll sleep on it. You, too.”

Then Nitti slipped out of the vehicle and headed up the sidewalk to his cozy home and his beloved son and a wife he no longer trusted.

That evening Michael and Estelle had cocktails in a rear booth of the Seneca’s Bow ’n’ Arrow Room, where authentic Indian murals and a mirrored ceiling lent the cocktail lounge an atmosphere of spaciousness and warmth.

But about now the world seemed a cold one to Michael, and closing in. He found the irony of his situation bitterly unamusing — in attempting to take revenge upon a villain whom the fates had transformed into an impotent moron, Michael had managed only to set the stage for the downfall of the one man in the Outfit he truly respected.

Her hair styled short and dyed a reddish blonde, Estelle wore a business-like cream-color suit. She’d been spending time at the dress shop she co-owned, though Michael knew her primary business remained brothel-less madam. At Nitti’s behest, she’d developed a little black book of customers and call girls, and from her apartment made referrals.

Michael neither approved nor disapproved; such business had been part of Estelle’s life long before they’d met. As a gangster’s bodyguard, he was not inclined to judge.

Like Frank Nitti, Estelle had been hit hard by the intervening months; beautiful though she still was, she appeared at once haggard and puffy.

“Michael,” she said, in the midst of her third martini, “I think maybe I need to move in with you.”

“Well, that’s swell, baby.”

“I don’t mean to impose,” she said, shaking her head, “or push you into anything—”

“I’ve asked you to do it, half a dozen times, and you’ve said no — half a dozen times. Please do. Pack your bag.”

She played with a swizzle stick in the now empty martini glass. “I won’t lie to you, Mike. It’s not about us.”

“Well... usually, when a gal moves in with a fella, it is about them. Us.”

She swallowed; glanced around anxiously. The cocktail lounge did a good business, but their booth was private enough. Paranoia, it seemed, was going around like flu.

“Michael,” she said, leaning halfway across the table, “I’m afraid. I’m really afraid.”

This was hardly stop-the-presses stuff; she’d been frightened for months.

“So move in with me,” he said, touching her face, “and feel more secure.”

“I just don’t think it’s fair to you if... I don’t admit that to you. Admit that I’m moving in because I think you can protect me. Admit that here in the hotel I don’t figure anybody’d dare... you know... It’s sort of their home turf, right?”

“Now I’m not following you.”

She shook her head, arcs of hair swinging like twin scythes. “Oh, Michael... how can you be you, and still be so naive? These indictments are about to come down. Everybody knows that. And the feds are pressing Nicky. Pressing hard.”

Feeling a twinge of jealousy, Michael said, “You’re in touch with the guy? I thought that was over.”

“It is over. But we’re in touch, yeah. Through lawyers... Michael, there’s a rumor on the street.”

“What rumor?”

Her lower lip trembled, her eyes brimmed. “That I’m going to be made an example. That something... bad’ll happen to me, to send Nicky a message.”

He reached across and held her ice-cold hand. “I won’t let that happen, baby. You move in with me. Right away.”

She nodded, and nodded some more. “Thank you, Michael. Thank you.”

In his penthouse, Michael and Estelle made love with an urgent intensity driven by unspoken-of emotions that left them both spent; nonetheless, he fell prey to the insomnia again, which had never before been the case on nights when she’d stayed with him.

He slipped from her slumbering grasp and out of bed and, in his boxers, stepped into slippers, tossed a dressing robe around himself, and walked out into the living room. He slid open the glass door and went out onto the balcony. The night was crisp but not cold. Leaning against the rail, he studied the skyline, its luminescent geometry again reminding him of a Hollywood backdrop.

“What are you doing out here?” Estelle said from behind him. “You wanna freeze to death, silly?”

He half-turned to see her at the door, just inside — shivering in her chemise, breasts perked by the chill.

“It’s not that cold. Throw something around yourself, and join me.”

Soon, a yellow-and-red blanket wrapped around her Indian-style, she was snuggling against him, looking out at the cityscape. “It just doesn’t look real, does it?”

Taking it all in, he nodded. “Like something you’d see out a window in a Fred and Ginger musical.”

But her eyes had shifted from the skyscrapers to Michael. “You like the movies, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Always reading books, too. Don’t you like real life?”

“No.”

“Maybe you’d like it if... you could start over.”

He turned to her with a curious frown.

She was gazing up at him with an oddly tentative expression. “If you could run off with me... would you?”

“Well... sure.”

“I’m not kidding, Michael.”

He thought for a moment. “I don’t think I am, either.”

“What if I told you... that I have some money.”

“I’m sure you do.”

A tiny crinkly smile appeared on the doll-like face. “No. I mean... a lot of money.”

“How much is a lot?”

“Oh — a quarter of a million dollars, a lot.”

His eyebrows climbed. “You’re not serious...?”

She hugged the blanket to herself, and her eyes drifted across the view. “You mean you haven’t heard the rumors? How I salted away a couple million from the movie scams, for Nicky and me to make a new life, when he gets out?”

“...Maybe I have.”

“Well, like most rumors... it’s exaggerated. There may be as much as a million missing, from union treasuries, but most of it went to those two goons, Bioff and Browne.”

“But some went to you? And your friend Nicky?”

Now her eyes returned to him. “...Suppose it had. Would you come?”

He grinned a little. “I thought I just did.”

“Not just tonight, stupe. Every night. Forever till we’re dead.”

Trying to make it real, he managed, “Wouldn’t they... chase us?”

“They wouldn’t know where to look. Do you know how well you can live on that much money in Mexico? Or certain South American countries? Very good.”

“We’d just leave. Disappear.”

“That’s right. You should be contemplating taking a powder, anyway.”

“Why?”

“Your angel, your sponsor, Frank Nitti?... Hell, he’s mine, too... He’s on his last legs, Michael. He’s on the way out. And where will that leave his fair-haired boy?”

“Don’t count Frank Nitti out just yet.”

She sneered and huddled within the blanket. “Fuck Frank Nitti. And fuck Nicky Dean.”

“Estelle...”

“Matter of fact,” she said, but in a different voice, “fuck me,” and she dragged him and the blanket back inside and pulled him down on the floor, on top of her, and they did it again, slowly but with that same urgency, the balcony door open, the coolness of the night licking at the heat they made.

“Move me in here tomorrow,” she said, afterward, clutching his bare back desperately. “And we’ll plan it.”

“Okay,” he said.

In his ear she said, “Not a word to a soul about the money! Not a word. To a soul.”

“Okay.”

He carried her like a new bride over the bedroom threshold and deposited her gently on the covers. Soon she was snuggling up under his arm, her face against his hairless chest. Both were quickly asleep, legs tangled.

But he dreamed of Bataan, of that jungle clearing, only this time he was blasting away with his tommy gun at faceless Ricca thugs.

Who, unlike the Japs, refused to fall.

Four

The next morning Campagna phoned Michael saying Mr. Nitti was feeling sick and staying home — though he’d remain on call, this effectively gave Michael the day off.

Estelle, as was her habit, had slipped out in the early morning hours. Alone in the penthouse, showered and shaved but in T-shirt and boxers, Michael dialed his console radio to the latest popular tunes; he did not turn up it loud, just providing himself with a little low-key company by way of outfits like Benny Goodman and Harry James and singers like Peggy Lee and that new kid, Sinatra. He fixed himself breakfast — scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice — and then, at the same table, spent close to an hour cleaning and fussing over the .45 Colt automatic that had belonged to Michael O’Sullivan, Sr.

The gun was just about the only possession of his late father’s that Michael owned; just that, and a few family photos he and his father carried with them, long ago, on the road to Perdition (and these were in his room at home, that is, DeKalb). He treated the weapon with near reverence, rubbing it lightly with an oil-saturated rag, then drying it with another rag, a fresh one. The bore he purified with a cleaner-saturated patch followed by a dry patch. With a stiff bristly brush he dusted out all the crevices.

When he was finished, he clicked a fresh magazine in and slipped the .45 into the oil-rubbed shoulder holster, currently draped over a kitchenette chair.

Then he returned to the book he was reading, a reprint edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls, which he was enjoying, though he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to end well for the hero. Propped up with two pillows, he was just starting the last chapter when the bedstand phone rang.

“Hi, hero,” Estelle said.

“Hey, I have the day off. Are you home? I can come over any time and move you out.”

“I was calling to try to head you off, in case you got ambitious, Mr. Moving Man. Some old friends dropped by — we’ll be visiting for a while. Can you make it around two?”

It was just after eleven, now.

“Sure. See you then.”

“Michael, I appreciate this. I’m gonna feel a lot better, rooming with you.”

“I’m sorta looking forward to havin’ you in my bed, myself.”

“Naughty boy,” she chuckled.

They hung up, and he folded the book open on the bedstand, figuring to go down to the Seneca coffee shop for a bite. He had stepped into a pair of tan slacks and was just shrugging into a brown sportcoat — having taken the time to sling on the shoulder holster, considering the tensions of late — when somebody knocked at the door.

Withdrawing the .45, Michael strode over and checked the peephole: it was a woman, a blonde (not Estelle, obviously), good-looking it would seem, but through this fish-eye view, who could say?

Still, you never knew, so he opened the door carefully with his left hand, snugging his right-gun-in-hand behind him.

For half a moment he didn’t recognize her, though she hadn’t really changed much if at all. He just didn’t expect to see Patsy Ann O’Hara of DeKalb on the doorstep of Michael Satariano of Chicago.

She looked so business-like, so much... older. She had on a brown tweed Prince Albert reefer-style topcoat, with a wide collar and vaguely military rows of buttons. Purse under her arm, she wore a white scarf bunched at the throat and white gloves and a little side-tilted brown hat with a feather.

“Hey, soldier,” she said, clearly a little apprehensive. “Wouldn’t care to buy a girl some lunch, would you?”

He’d almost forgotten how lovely she was — the big blue eyes with the long lashes, the pert nose, the full lips with that phony perfect beauty mark that happened to be real.

“Patsy Ann,” he said, and warmth flooded through him, and he embraced her, and she embraced him.

Still in his arms, she drew away a little and gazed up at him, clearly wanting to be kissed.

He released her, moved off and made a joke of it, saying, “Hey — I’m not takin’ a girl out for lunch with her makeup mussed... Want to see the digs?”

“Sure,” she said, forcing a smile.

He stepped inside, gun still behind him, and gestured for her to enter; when her back was to him, he slipped the weapon in its shoulder holster. Then he showed her around, and she seemed suitably impressed, though something behind her pleasant expression seemed stiff, even disapproving.

The day was crisp but sunny — he wore a gabardine trenchcoat — as he took his former best girl on his arm, walking the little area that was so much a part of his world. Rush was an around-the-clock street, and had surprisingly little of the tawdry look such areas often did by day, neon glow replaced by an aura of the avantgarde. Nightclubs and many restaurants were closed, but other businesses flourished in the sun: art dealers, bookshops, florists with blooming wares overflowing onto the sidewalk, chic dress shops, and, of course, saloons — even in daylight, this was still Chicago.

As they walked arm-in-arm, further linked by their tan-and-brown clothing, they said nothing. If an underlying awkwardness had accompanied those first minutes, a wordless comfort had already replaced it. They enjoyed each other’s company and were resisting bringing themselves up — to — date, and spoiling everything.

In a roundabout way, they ended up at Little Normandy, a restaurant not so little and which did not keep the implied promise of French food. The old mansion across from the Water Tower was an elegant graystone with a delightful interior-broad open staircase, grand fireplaces, and leaded glass windows, with murals, wood carvings, and ceramic plaques designed by a modern artist who lived upstairs. The bold dramatic artwork struck Michael as cartoony, while (had she been asked) college senior Patsy Ann would have termed it “art moderne with influences ranging from cave drawings to Japanese prints” (but no one asked).

The place was crowded as usual, but the pretty hostess/manager, Celia, recognized Michael and provided a cozy booth in the Black Sheep Bar. Patsy Ann ordered onion soup (a rare French item at the Normandy), and Michael chose hamburger steak with Roquefort sauce, a house specialty.

He had his usual Coca-Cola, and she drank a 7UP while they waited for their lunch. Finally he asked, “What brings you to the big city?”

She leaned forward a little, gloved hands folded on the table cloth. “Well, you know I graduate in June. So I’m interviewing for teaching positions. There’s an opening at a high school in Evanston, and that interview’s at two thirty, and then I have another at Downers Grove, for an elementary. That’s at four thirty.”

“Could be a little tight,” he said. “Opposite sides of the world.”

Nodding, she said, “I know, but these interviews only last about fifteen minutes. It’s mostly your grades and letters of recommendation and... Michael, thank you for not being angry with me.”

“Why would I be?”

She shrugged, leaned back; she looked awfully sweet in that feathered hat; the dress beneath the topcoat had proven to be a smart brown corduroy suit.

“You didn’t want to be crowded,” she was saying. “You made that clear... but you have to admit...” And now she leaned forward again, and gave him a bold little smile. “...you did leave the door open.”

“...Patsy Ann, you know you’ll always have a special place in my heart.”

She frowned. “What a horrible thing to say.”

“What?”

“That sounded like the door closing. Slamming.”

Her gaze was boring through him. He transferred his attention to the glass of Coke and sipped it, offhandedly saying, “How did you find me?”

“Papa Satariano... Now don’t be mad at him — I know you made him promise not to tell anybody where you were. But I wore him down, Michael — took months to do it... Why haven’t you gone home to visit? Even once? It’s not that far.”

How could he explain how vast the distance was?

“I write once a week,” he said.

“To them. Not to me. Some things never change — it’s like you’re still at war.”

Now she’d stumbled onto it.

He took one of her gloved hands. “I’m involved in something that I... I don’t want to have touch any of the people I care about.”

She swallowed; her frown had worry in it. “You mean, because of these... gangsters you’re in with.”

He frowned. “Papa S. told you that?”

“Eventually... He says you want to get in solid with them, so that someday you can have a restaurant or a nightclub. He says these people control businesses like that — show business, too. Is that true?”

“True enough.”

She put her other hand on top of the one holding hers; she squeezed. Her eyes were urgent. “What if I said I didn’t care?”

“What?”

“What if I said I didn’t care that you were in with gangsters? You think I didn’t see you put that gun away? When was I ever stupid?”

“...Never.”

“Why do you think I’m looking at schools around Chicago? I have an offer at DeKalb Township.”

“I would imagine you get... a lot of offers.”

He wasn’t talking about teaching jobs.

Her chin crinkled as she drew her hand away from his. “I do. I always have had. I can still snap my fingers and get any man on campus.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because I love you, you selfish son of a bitch.”

Their food came. They picked at it in silence.

Finally she said, “Not enough, huh?”

“What isn’t?”

“Selling my soul to be with you. In books, that’s all it usually takes.”

Michael waved a waiter over to remove their plates. No dessert. Check, please.

Then he leaned toward her and said, “Do you remember, a long time ago, when I told you I had a brother who died?”

“Yes... of course. But I respected your privacy and—”

“I was adopted, Patsy Ann.”

“...I didn’t know.”

“We didn’t advertise it. If I tell you something, you can’t repeat it to anybody, not even Papa S., ’cause even he doesn’t know.”

Eyes tight with interest and concern, she bent forward. “Know what?”

“That my brother was killed. That my mother was killed. That my father was killed.”

Her eyes froze as she repeated the word, as if it were foreign: “Killed.”

“Murdered,” he said, offering a synonym the lit major might be familiar with. “By gangsters. My real father was one of them, and he tried to keep us separate from what he did. But it... spilled over. And my mother was killed, and my brother, and when my father went after the ones responsible, he was killed, too.”

Her eyes were huge and shimmering. “Oh, Michael... oh my God, Michael.”

He shrugged. “So now I’m in that life. Following in my father’s footsteps. But I’m not going to make the mistake he did. I’m not going to risk those I care for.”

“Why, Michael?”

“Isn’t it self-evident?”

She shook her head, blonde locks bouncing, frustrated with him. “No. No, why are you... following in footsteps like those?”

“That I can’t go into. I promise you the reasons were good ones. But things... they’ve gotten a little out of control.”

She reached across and took his hand again in both of hers. Her grip was surprisingly strong; so was her gaze. “Walk away from it, Mike. With me.”

How could he tell her he was thinking of doing that very thing with another lovely blonde... only, one who was — like him — damaged goods? He couldn’t risk such a life with a good person like Patsy Ann. Even if she would sell her soul for him.

Which was a nice gesture, but still he said, “No. You need to move on. I’ve gone down my own road, and you don’t want to even consider taking that turn.”

He paid the bill, grabbed her by the hand, and walked her out to the sidewalk. “Where’s your car?”

“On the street, near the Seneca.”

“Let’s go.”

Almost pulling her along, he escorted her to that same Buick in whose backseat they’d made love by a cornfield under fireworks in the starry sky, eons ago, last year.

She was angry now, and the question of whether to grant her a good-bye kiss — which might betray how difficult this was for him — became a moot point. In a nonpatriotic squeal of rubber, she was gone.

Out of his life for good this time?

For her sake, he hoped so.

Driving the navy 1940 Ford sedan he frequently ushered Nitti around in, Michael headed toward Estelle’s on West Addison. Because Estelle shared the place with her partner in the dress shop, Michael had seldom stayed over there, though he did have a key. Her apartment house was a large one in a battery of such buildings in a quiet, upper-middle-class neighborhood in the shadows of nearby lakeshore skyscrapers.

Today, however, West Addison was not quiet, the sidewalks on either side lined with gawkers, from proper-looking business men to women in curlers and housecoats. A small fire engine was barring passage, though clearly the handful of black-slickered firefighters — moving with no urgency whatsoever — were wrapping things up, literally and figuratively.

Michael parked by a hydrant — they didn’t seem to need the thing anymore — and walked quickly down to the fire truck, approaching the helmeted men.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

The firefighter, a young one, said, “You got here in a hurry.”

Immediately Michael understood that, thanks in part to his trenchcoat, he’d been mistaken for plainclothes police.

Manufacturing a half-smile, Michael said, “Hell, the station’s only two blocks away. Buddies are right behind me. What do we have?”

The firefighter gestured with a heavily gloved finger. “Third-floor flat...”

Estelle’s flat was on the third floor!

“...fire was contained to just the dining room, and we’ve got it out; ready for you guys to take over. One victim, and that’s why we called you.”

“Go on.”

Slickered shoulders shrugged and the helmet nodded toward the apartment building. “See for yourself. I may be new on the job, but that’s no fire fatality. That’s a goddamn murder.”

Hiding his alarm, Michael nodded thanks, and went quickly in. The building had multiple entrances, stairs leading up to landings where apartments faced each other across the stairwell. The acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils as he took the stairs three at a time.

The door to her apartment was open, the smoke stench issuing its nasty invitation...

He braced himself and went in. The living room was in disarray, though the firemen could have caused that. He moved on through into the dining room, and there she was.

Bracing himself had not been enough. It couldn’t have been.

A chair had been positioned centrally; she lay nearby. The two adjacent walls were black and dripping wet, from the firefighter’s successful effort to stem the blaze. Much of the carpet was also black, a broken whiskey bottle on the floor apparently having fed the flames. The acrid stench was almost overpowering.

Wearing only a red silk robe, she lay on the plush scorched carpet, on her back, in a Christ-on-the-cross sprawl. The robe was charred from the waist down and her legs were burnt so badly that from the knees down, the limbs were cinders.

Michael knelt near the upper half of her, as if praying that this battered, burnt corpse was not the woman he’d shared his bed with the night before. But he knew such prayers were useless, because this clearly was not the roommate, rather Estelle herself — the welts and bruises and cuts could not disguise the fact, nor the ragged slash through one eye nor the punctures on her cheeks; not her bloodied broken nose nor the smashed pulp of once-lovely lips. Not the frightwig hair, clumps yanked or cut from her scalp. Not even the ear-to-ear slash on her throat, which was not what had killed her, too superficial, merely part of the torture that had preceded her murder.

Her head tilted to one side, eyes blankly open. Her hands were puffy with burns — had her torturers tossed the whiskey on her, set it aflame, and allowed her to try to put it out with her palms?

Forever till we’re dead, her voice whispered in his memory.

Somehow he got to his feet. He staggered into the next room, the kitchen, where he found signs of struggle even a one-eyed man couldn’t miss: a broken drinking glass on the floor; bloodsmeared cabinets; scarlet spattering the sink. On the floor, a bloodstained breadknife, a bloody rolling pin, and the blood-tipped ice pick that no doubt had made the punctures on those pretty cheeks. Also, a bloody blackjack, as if the kitchen hadn’t given up enough impromptu weapons.

On the maple table where he’d on several occasions shared breakfast with Estelle sat the unlikely meal of a flatiron, also bloodsmeared, obviously utilized as a battering instrument. Blood splatter dotted the table, chair, and floor underneath. A glass ashtray with a number of smashed cigarette butts signaled the time the process had taken, and one had lipstick on it. Estelle did not smoke. Had not.

On the stove, milk was simmering. On the counter nearby, three cups with powdered cocoa in the bottom. He recalled what she’d said on the phone: some old friends had dropped by. She had turned her back to these friends — who had been with her when she’d called Michael — and they had done this to her...

In his mind his own voice, speaking to Patsy Ann, over the cozy lunch they’d had while Estelle was being tortured to death, said, I’m not going to risk those I care for.

Feeling weak-kneed, he wanted to sit; hot in the trench coat, he wanted to strip it off and fling it somewhere. But he dared do neither — evidence was scattered from one end of the five-room apartment to the other, and he didn’t want to disturb any of it, on the off-chance an honest Chicago cop caught the case.

As if that had been his cue, Lieutenant William Drury — the most famous honest cop in town, despite that camel’s hair topcoat — appeared at the mouth of the kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Drury asked.

Michael began to scream and rushed the cop, who backed into the room where Estelle lay. Throwing a punch that almost connected, Michael met a punch of Drury’s that did.

Then he was on the scorched carpet, sprawled next to Estelle’s vacant-eyed corpse, her ghastly white/purple/black/red face turned questioningly his way.

Hands jerked him to his feet, but Michael pulled away, shoving past Drury and fleeing to the kitchen where he flung himself over the blood-spattered sink and lost the meal he’d shared, not long ago, with his other best girl.

And when the cuffs were snapped on, he had, mercifully, already passed out.

Five

Michael woke in a small isolation cell. Sun filtered in through a high barred window; he judged it morning — maybe ten. He knew where he was: Town Hall Station, only two blocks from Estelle’s apartment.

He had slept deep and long and dreamed a delirium of faces and events floating but never congealing into even the incoherent, surrealistic narrative of a nightmare — more a review of Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.’s, life as Michael Satariano... faces and places from Bataan, Captain Wermuth, General Wainwright, the clearing full of Japs, the Zero dipping down over that jungle roadway... scraps of memory from DeKalb, Papa and Mama S., school friends, bits and pieces of that last Fourth of July... a drooling Al Capone, bodyguards with guns streaming at Michael, that guy Abatte from Calumet City standing on the sidelines, grinning at him only with a hole in his head, Frank Nitti patting Michael’s shoulder, spouting reassuring gibberish... Estelle whispering words of love in bed on top of him at the Colony, transforming into a terrible scorched and beaten and dead Patsy Ann, grinding on him and murmuring her love through battered, cut lips...

He jerked upright.

Shook his head, dispelling the images; swung his legs around, to sit on the edge of the cot in the small cement chamber, which had an open toilet bowl and nothing else. He was in his T-shirt and pants, his belt gone; he was shoeless, though he’d been left his socks. His wristwatch was missing, but checking the time would be meaningless, as he was unsure what day it was.

He had that same drugged, sluggish feeling as when he’d woken in the cell-like bedroom at the Capone mansion. But he knew where he was and why he felt that way — he had a blurred but undeniable memory of attacking uniformed cops in this cell, when his cuffs were removed. He’d assaulted them for no particular reason, other than his grief-driven rage needed somewhere to go.

And another memory — of a doctor with a gladstone bag entering and sedating him — was not blurred at all, as distinct as the needle that had plunged into his arm. The only surprise was waking up in this isolation cell, and not in an infirmary, though considering he’d attacked both Drury and those other cops, maybe the bars made sense.

Clarity and a peculiar calm came to him quickly. He had been adrift of late, purposeless; but his reason for living had returned, as did the deadly stoic surface he’d inherited from his father. And at the core of his being glowed something red hot.

A guard came checking on him, and Michael convinced the man sufficiently he was no longer a threat. Lunch was brought to Michael, and the information that a day had passed came casually.

Eventually he was ushered to the same windowless, sound proofed interrogation booth as before. Three chairs waited at the small scarred table, and he took one. Before long Lieutenant Drury came in, in shirtsleeves and a vest, tie loosened, his creased pants looking crisp, even if the detective did not.

Drury took one of the remaining chairs. He sat and stared at Michael, who got tired of it quickly and transferred his attention to the wall. For an eternity this went on — a full minute, at least — and then a third party joined them.

Eliot Ness sat across from Michael. The G-man’s suit was rumpled, but not as rumpled as the G-man. Ness looked terrible — older, puffy, eyes circled; the smell of liquor was on him. His physical deterioration reminded Michael of somebody, vaguely... and then it came to him: Frank Nitti.

Drury said, “Are you going to take another swing at me?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “Your fingerprints are all over the Carey woman’s apartment.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “We don’t think you killed her. From what we understand, you two were an item.”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “Why do you think she was tortured?”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “It’s no surprise the Outfit had her killed. You know what happened yesterday? It was on the radio.”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “Grand Jury returned indictments in the Hollywood shakedown. Against Frank ‘the Enforcer’ Nitti, Paul ‘the Waiter’ Ricca, Louis ‘Little New York’ Campagna, Rosselli, Gioe, D’Andrea... all of ’em, short of Accardo.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “Killing Estelle sends a message to Nicky Dean.”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “Maybe putting Estelle through hell was part of the message.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “Or maybe they were after something — money, maybe?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “There’s over a million missing from the stage hand union retirement fund.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “But that might be bullshit. Was there ever really any money? Could the killers have found it in that apartment?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “We say killers, Michael, because it seems to be a man and a woman. Lipstick on a cigarette. People she trusted. ‘Friends.’ She was fixing ’em cocoa when they started in on her.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “Anybody could have sent them. Nitti or Ricca or any one of the other seven indicted. Or the whole damn bunch. You’re the little mouse in the corner, Michael. What did you hear?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness leaned forward, desperation in his eyes. “Help us. Tell us what you know. That’s why we did this in the first place, Michael — remember? That’s why you did this. To help me get these bastards.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “If we can add murder to extortion, the Outfit is finished; this whole hierarchy will go away for a long, long time, and all the bribe money in the world won’t spring ’em loose.”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “It’s not too late for you, Michael. With that medal of yours, I can get you a job with my department. Or with Treasury; Christ, even Hoover wouldn’t turn you away. Michael, the Mafia doesn’t kill FBI agents!”

Michael said nothing.

Drury slammed a hand on the table. “What is this, that fucking omertà? You’re a made man, now — on their side? The side of those who tortured and killed that poor girl?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness said, “You have to choose, Mike. Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution? You become one of us, openly, and you’ll be protected.”

Michael said nothing.

Drury said, “It’s your best option, kid. What if we leaked the truth? That you went into Nitti’s organization, undercover, for Eliot Ness? How long would they let you live?”

Michael said nothing.

Ness looked at Drury and shook his head. Drury, lowering his gaze, sighed heavily. The G-man got up slowly, took one last mournful lingering look at Michael, and went out. Drury, his expression disgusted, was halfway out the door when Michael finally spoke.

“Interesting interrogation technique,” Michael said.

Drury, startled, said nothing.

“Don’t hit the suspect with a rubber hose,” Michael said. “Hit him with everything you know, and see if it breaks him down... Do I get my phone call now?”

Still poised in the doorway, Drury sighed. “You don’t need it. A lawyer’s already been around. Should be here with your writ of habeas corpus any time now.”

“Your friend Ness looks like he’s been drinking.”

Drury stepped back in; shut the door. His tone shifted to conversational. “He’s had a tough go of it lately. Washington thought he was spending too much time in Chicago; been running him ragged all ’round the country. Only reason he’s back in town now is some joint workshop with the FBI.”

“America’s most famous Prohibition agent... a drunk?”

“Eliot’s no drunk. He’s still a good man... and he’s concerned about you. You should let him be your friend. You should let me be your friend.”

It sounded genuine enough, but Michael knew what both men wanted was to use him.

“I’ll think about it,” Michael said.

“All I ask,” Drury said.

Then the cop slipped out, and a uniformed cop ushered Michael back to the cell.

Less than an hour later, Michael was on the street, in his military-style gabardine trenchcoat over the brown sportcoat and tan slacks — same as for his dates yesterday with Patsy Ann and Estelle. The .45, returned to him by the police, was back in its shoulder sling; he was, after all, licensed to carry a concealed weapon.

He found the Ford sedan where he’d left it, parked by the hydrant, wiper wearing three parking tickets; at least it hadn’t been towed. He was about to get in when a car behind him honked.

Glancing back, he saw Louie Campagna at the wheel of a dark blue ’41 Chevy. The lumpy-faced little hood curled a finger.

Michael got in on the passenger side, shut himself in, and wondered if this was a one-way ride. He said, “Did you arrange for that mouthpiece, Louie? Thanks.”

“Actually, I didn’t. Guy that sprung you was Bulger.”

Michael frowned. “Joe Bulger? He’s Ricca’s attorney!”

“I know. Things are... upside down. I’ll fill you in.”

The heater was on in the car, and the stocky gangster was not in his topcoat, nor was he wearing a hat, exposing his thinning black hair. He looked awful, pasty white and baggy-eyed — not as bad as Ness and Nitti; but bad enough.

“Sorry about the Carey dame,” Campagna said, but his mind was obviously elsewhere.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“We need to talk. Diner down the street.”

Within minutes they were in a booth and, as they waited for coffee, Campagna asked, “You hear about the indictments?”

“You were expecting it, right?”

Campagna nodded. “But it’s like death, kid — you can’t get ready for shit like this, even when you know it’s comin’... Something bad happened last night. At Frank’s. Counsel meeting.”

Michael leaned forward in the booth. “Tell me they didn’t vote to have Estelle killed.”

“No! No. Hell no. I figure that was Ricca.”

“Not Mr. Nitti.”

Campagna smirked mirthlessly. “Does it sound like him?”

Michael had already thought this through; he knew a murder of this kind was against everything Nitti believed in, where public opinion was concerned.

Still, he said, “Lot of pressure on him lately, Louie. Ricca breathing down his neck. These indictments.”

Campagna shrugged, as if they were discussing baseball scores of not very important games. “Word I get is it was a couple, a man and wife, old friends of hers. Named Borgia.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “As in Cesare and Lucretia?”

“No, I think their names are John and Olivia. John’s a small-timer, on the fringes of the Outfit, worked with Nicky Dean at the 101 Club. Olivia was a 26 girl, there.”

“Is this solid, them doing it?”

“No. Just talk. But John’s got ties to Ricca.” Another shrug; Campagna seemed vaguely annoyed to be talking about such a trivial matter.

A waitress brought coffee and, after a sip, Michael asked Campagna, “You still up for a little preventative medicine, where the Waiter is concerned?”

Campagna sighed. Shook his head glumly. “I think we missed our moment.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I said somethin’ bad happened last night.”

Campagna described the counsel meeting in the living room of Nitti’s Riverside home.

Ricca took over the meeting, out of the gate. He reminded Nitti and the others that hiring squealers Bioff and Browne had been Nitti’s idea; that Nicky Dean was also Nitti’s man. That Nitti had “masterminded the whole scam and it went sour.”

“No point in all of us goin’ down this road,” Ricca had said. “Al took the fall for the rest of us and went on trial alone. You can do the same, Frank — you plead guilty and we’ll take care of things. Till you get out.”

“I’ve told you, Paul,” Nitti said wearily. “It’s conspiracy. Nobody can take the fall for the rest of us — we gotta stick together, and try and beat the thing.”

Sipping his coffee, Campagna told Michael, “It got heated, then — harsh words, back and forth. Thought it might come to blows... or worse. Finally Ricca says, ‘Frank, you’re askin’ for it.’ ”

Michael frowned. “What did Mr. Nitti say?”

“Nothing. He... Mike, I ain’t proud of this... Frank looked around the room at us and...” Campagna had tears in his eyes. “...we all looked away. Nobody stood up for him.”

“Not even you, Louie?”

“No. Mike, there was one strong man in that room. One leader. And it sure as hell wasn’t me. But it also wasn’t Frank.”

“What did Mr. Nitti do?”

“That was the worst of it. He got up, went to the front door, opened it, and pointed to the outside.”

“What was so bad about that?”

“Ain’t you Sicilian, kid?”

Without missing a beat, Michael said, “Sure I’m Sicilian... a Sicilian raised in DeKalb, Illinois. What was so bad about what Mr. Nitti did?”

“In the old country, when you open the door on your guests, indicating you want ’em to leave... it’s a breach.”

“Breach.”

“Of Sicilian peasant rules of hospitality. It’s like Frank spit in all our faces.”

“But mostly,” Michael said, “he was answering Ricca.”

“When Ricca said Frank was gonna get it, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, that was the main meaning.”

“How did Ricca react?”

Campagna gestured elaborately with both hands. “It was so... so goddamn dramatic, that we all just got up, got our hats and coats and went out into the cold. Without a word from Frank. Without a word from us.”

“So, Louie. Where do you stand?”

“I wish I knew, kid. Do you know?”

Michael said nothing. Then he took the check, and paid at the register. Campagna tagged along.

“Kid — where do you stand?”

“Take me to my car, Louie. Would you?”

Campagna sighed. “Sure. Sure, Mike. Right away.”

Like Frank Nitti, Paul Ricca had moved to a suburb, River Forest; but the Waiter’s heart, Michael knew, remained on the Near West Side where many workers in various legit and not-so-legit Outfit enterprises made their homes. Sluggers, drivers, and (yes) waiters lived in these well-maintained two- and three-story tenements, in a neighborhood of cast-iron porches, broad sidewalks, and no lawns. Here, in this longtime breeding ground for Outfit soldiers, Ricca could court the Young Turks coming up.

Bella Napoli was a corner building, a one-story brown-brick structure with a row of narrow, shuttered windows extending around its sides; during Prohibition, these windows had been blackened, no doubt, whereas these days (in summer and spring, anyway) window boxes of colorful flowers offered a friendly, family feel. In the gravel parking lot in the back, Michael left the Ford among a few other vehicles, one a 1942 black Pontiac sedan he recognized as Ricca’s.

Michael had been to the Bella Napoli restaurant once before, with Nitti and Campagna, for a tense meeting with Ricca, whose favorite hangout this was. The Waiter made a point of lunching at this old-fashioned Italian joint, rather than in the Loop with politicians and reporters.

The only entrance was around front, double doors beneath an unlit horizontal neon. Stepping inside, Michael was pleasantly assaulted by the rich aroma of spicy tomato sauce, taking him immediately to Papa S.’s spaghetti house in DeKalb, although the resemblance ended there.

This was a neat, open dining room punctuated by dark woodwork but with an overwhelmingly bright ambience: tables wore white cloths, walls bore murals of ancient Rome under blue skies, and decorative wine bottles were everywhere, shelved above doors, lining the red button-tufted booths. The lunch crowd was thinning — it was after one thirty — but perhaps half the tables were inhabited.

Michael raised a hand to forestall the hostess and walked toward the rear, where at a table with his back to the wall sat Paul Ricca. On his either side were Sam “Mad Dog” DeStefano and Sam “Mooney” Giancana, the most notorious of the Young Turks aligned with this Outfit elder statesman.

Knife-blade thin, his short hair as white as the tablecloth, Ricca — in a beautifully tailored charcoal suit with a lighter gray tie and lighter-yet gray shirt — had pushed away a small plate with half a cannoli on it; he was sipping espresso and had a cigarette going. With his high cheekbones, narrow nose, and mouth like a cut in his face that refused to heal, Ricca had a visage oddly reminiscent of an American Indian’s. Obviously he saw Michael approaching, but he reacted not at all, his dark brown eyes unblinking.

At right, Giancana — in a well-cut chocolate suit with orange tie — sat back in his chair, arm slung over it, smoking a cigar. His dark eyes hooded, small, nondescript-looking, with severely thinning black hair, Giancana had a bland oval face that took on a vaguely sinister aura when a sneer formed, as it did upon his seeing Michael.

At left, DeStefano — bigger than the other two, by far — sat wolfing down a dish of spumoni with a spoon. If he’d noticed Michael walking toward them, he was hiding it well. Fleshy but not fat in a black slept-in-looking suit, a red-and-blue food-stained tie loose at his collar, DeStefano had a cantaloupe-shaped noggin with a full head of hair thick with Brillcream yet still as unruly as a bucket of worms. The tiny close-set eyes, nose like a wad of clay a sculptor stuck there (and hadn’t got ’round to finishing yet), and thin-lipped permanent scowl all suited him perfectly: he was widely considered to be the biggest lunatic in the Outfit, surviving only at the whim of Ricca.

Both of these Young Turks were graduates of the street gang, the 42s — vicious punks who stripped cars, held up stores, and raped high school girls. Giancana was currently Ricca’s bodyguard and chauffeur. DeStefano was a loan shark, but was also Ricca’s personal assassin. According to Campagna, Ricca would just turn to DeStefano, point to somebody, and say, “Make him go away.”

And that somebody would go away.

If there hadn’t been so many civilians present, Michael might simply stride up and shoot the two punks right at the table, to make a point with Ricca and to save himself the trouble, later.

Instead, he just walked up to the empty chair opposite Ricca and stood there expectantly. DeStefano, ice cream dribbling down his chin, finally noticed Michael, and his natural scowl exaggerated itself into something that would have been comic, had it not been worn by a psychopath. Giancana leaned back, smiling a little, as if he found Michael mildly amusing.

Both men, Michael noted, wore shoulder holsters: he recognized the cut of their coat (most of the Outfit guys used the same tailor). Ricca appeared unarmed.

“Sit, Michael,” Ricca said genially, gesturing with a cigarette-in-hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Ricca,” he said, and sat.

“You show a good deal of courage, coming in here. Of course, a Medal of Honor winner like you, small potatoes, right?”

DeStefano seemed frozen, his brow grooved deeply, as if a thought trying to form had curdled there; spumoni in its various colors dripped down his chin like a messy flag.

“I take you very seriously, Mr. Ricca,” Michael said, nodding toward both men. “And your friends.”

Nodding gravely, Ricca said, “Respect is an important thing, Michael... Sam, wipe your face. We have a guest.”

DeStefano hung his head and picked up a napkin.

Michael said, “May I speak frankly?”

Ricca raised a hand in “stop” fashion, like a traffic cop. “I prefer you and I speak in private, Michael.”

“I would like that.”

DeStefano, his face wiped clean of spumoni but not confusion, said in a rough baritone, “Mr. Ricca, you want Mooney and me should move over a table?”

“No, Sam. Mr. Satariano and I are going to speak in the back room. Alone.”

Giancana sat forward so quickly, Michael thought the little man might lose his balance. “Boss — you’re not gonna go off with that... this... Demonio fucker by yourself?” The nasty little hoodlum curled his upper lip as he said to Michael, “Everybody knows you’re Frank Nitti’s lapdog.”

Michael said, “And whose son of a bitch are you?”

Giancana was half out of the chair when Ricca reached out and gripped him by the arm. “He’s my guest, Momo,” Ricca said, using another of Giancana’s nicknames. “He showed us respect, we must do the same.”

“He didn’t fucking show me respect!”

Ricca made a gesture with an open palm. “You insulted him. You were in his place, wouldja’ve ignored such an insult? Of course not. Now, you two boys sit here and behave yourselves. Sam, order some more spumoni if you like.”

DeStefano seemed to like the sound of that; but Giancana was frowning, his eyes locked on Michael like unfriendly magnets.

Ricca got up, and this time Giancana was the one who reached out, gripping his master’s arm. “At least make him leave his biscuit behind.”

By that, Giancana meant Michael’s weapon.

Michael met Ricca’s gaze and shook his head: no way will that happen.

Ricca nodded, then said to Giancana, “I don’t think the management would appreciate it if Mr. Satariano were to display his ‘biscuit’ in public.”

“I think that’s wise, Mr. Ricca,” Michael said. “There’s always a chance it could go off.”

Giancana’s sneer was in full bloom as he said, “War hero. Remind me to piss myself, when you scare me.”

“I won’t have to.”

DeStefano started to giggle, and Giancana glared at him.

“So sue me, Mooney,” DeStefano said, through sniggers. “Funny’s funny!”

Ricca stepped around the table and gestured toward the double doors into the kitchen. Michael, walking sideways to keep an eye on the two young lunatics, followed him through. A number of bustling cooks, under the supervision of a chef, were hard at work, steam rising, pots and pans clanking, and again the restaurant smells triggered memories in Michael, who followed Ricca into an office off the kitchen.

It was just a cubbyhole with a small desk and a file cabinet; the only decoration was a framed photograph of the restaurant on opening day. Despite a chair opposite the desk, and one behind it, neither man sat.

Ricca, hands on hips, stood perhaps two feet from Michael and cast a hard unblinking stare at him. “Why did you come here, Michael? After what Frank Nitti did last night, this could be viewed as enemy territory.”

Michael was thrown by Ricca’s manner. The man’s voice was flat, uninflected, and the ganglord seemed unafraid, though Michael could easily have withdrawn the .45, shot Ricca, and then run out through the kitchen to the parking lot, where he could position himself behind the Ford and pick off the two Sams as they came after him...

“Is there going to be a war, Mr. Ricca? Have the battle lines been drawn?”

“Yes to the second question. The first question I can’t answer yet.”

Michael frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Ricca smiled enigmatically. “It will.”

Frustrated, Michael snapped, “Why the hell did you bail me out?”

“Technically, I didn’t bail you out. That wasn’t necessary. Mr. Bulger merely delivered a writ of—”

“You know what I mean.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Obviously. What were they?”

Ricca sat on the edge of the desk; he folded his arms and smiled gently up at Michael. “Let me tell you why you came around here. You think I had your girlfriend killed... Well, I didn’t.”

“Really?” Michael gestured with a thumb toward the restaurant. “Your resident Frankenstein monster, Mad Sam, is known for torturing his victims before he kills them. He’s a sadistic bastard.”

“Yes. But he’s my sadistic bastard, who does what I tell him. And I didn’t tell him to kill Estelle. I liked Estelle.”

“I suppose you want me to believe Frank Nitti ordered it done.”

Ricca shook his head. “No. It’s not his style. We both know that, just as you know that I’m not a fool, and I know you’re not a fool... I’m afraid I have disappointing news for you, even though in a way it’s good news.”

“Disappointing how?”

A tiny shrug. “I know what makes you tick, Michael. It’s revenge, isn’t it? That’s your whole reason for living.”

The back of Michael’s neck tingled. “Estelle was my girl, like you said — I want to even the score.”

“Oh I know you do. I’m afraid that’s the disappointing part. You see, a couple named the Borgias were responsible.”

Michael’s eyes tightened. “I heard that from Louie Campagna. Where can I find them?”

Ricca lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, these two were freelance; just a couple of greedy lowlifes who were after Estelle’s money. You know — the money Nicky Dean embezzled and left with her? It had nothing to do with anybody Outfit making an example of her. Notice I’m not trying to pawn this off on Nitti — this is the truth, Michael.”

A sense of urgency was pumping through him, fueled by the notion of getting his hands on these murderers. “All right. Suppose it is. Where can I find them?”

An open-handed shrug now. “Somewhere under Lake Michigan.”

“You’re saying they’re... dead.”

“Well they aren’t holding their breath... I think one of Frank’s people took care of it. Oh, I can see how disappointed you are.”

“How do I know you’re—”

“Telling the truth? Not lying? Because I’m your friend. Or I’m going to be.” Ricca folded his arms again and bestowed that enigmatic smile. “Michael, I could have ruined your life months ago, had I wanted to.”

“Really.”

“Oh yes. Really. You see, William Drury is an honest cop — boringly, stupidly, pointlessly honest. You know — like your friend Ness.”

It was as if cold water had been splashed in his face. “My... what?”

“Eliot Ness, Michael. Not every cop at Town Hall Station is as honest as Bill Drury — almost none of ’em, in fact. That’s how I was able to hear a wire recording of the conversation you and Ness had there, the night the Colony Club was raided.”

Michael whipped the .45 from under his shoulder and pointed it at Ricca.

Who did not blink. Did not react an iota.

Rather, merely said, “I know who you are, Michael. You’re Michael Satariano, yes. But you’re also Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.”

The words hit him like a physical blow.

“I knew your father. He was the best soldier ever lived. What I would give for a man like that... a man like you, Michael. A clown like Mad Sam has his uses; and a cunning little shitheel like Mooney, too. But an angel of death... a demonic angel... why, they come along only once in a lifetime.”

His hand gripping the gun trembled; he tried to stop it from doing that, unsuccessfully. “You... if you know who I am... why...?”

Ricca’s smile widened and turned ghastly in the process. “Why not expose you? After all, you are, in a way, an under cover cop... or anyway, you were. Only, your loyalties shifted from Eliot Ness to Frank Nitti many months ago. That was clear in the conversation I heard, from Town Hall. Also from your conduct.”

Mind reeling, Michael managed, “Why didn’t you tell Nitti about me?”

Ricca’s eyes popped. “And have a good man killed? The son of the Angel of Death? Do I look like a fool? As I said, I know what makes you tick, son. I know that it was you — a one-man army — who rained all that blood down upon Palm Island. You discovered... and made it possible for me to discover... that for fucking years Al Capone has been a feeble-minded figurehead for Frank Nitti.”

A numb Michael asked, “You knew that... and still you didn’t... I don’t understand.”

“You will. I said, I know what makes you tick. Like any good bomb... Oh, lately you’ve lost your way, maybe more than just your way — you lost your purpose. You went to Miami to kill Al Capone. Why?”

“You seem to know everything.”

“To avenge your father’s death. Your father made a deed with the Outfit — he would stop robbing their banks, the war he waged against them would end... if they gave him the Looney kid. And they did. Connor Looney died in the street in Rock Island. I know. I was there.”

“You were there?”

He folded his hands on his skinny belly. “I was one of the bodyguards who sent Connor out to meet his fate that rainy night. His ‘fate’ being your father... Your father kept his end of the bargain, but he was betrayed. Only... that wasn’t Al Capone’s doing.”

“What?”

“The man who made the bargain with your father was the man who broke it. Oh, I’m sure he had Al’s blessing or at least tacit approval. But your father’s betrayer, Michael... was Frank Nitti.”

Again, the words punched Michael like a fist.

“No,” Michael said, shaking his head. “I don’t believe you...”

“You don’t want to believe me... but it’s true. And when you think it through, you’ll know I’m not lying.”

Emotions, conflicting and confusing, surged through the young man; it was all he could do to steady the gun.

“And, Michael? To get back to what we were talking about, before?... There doesn’t have to be a war. Not if Frank Nitti dies.”

Michael swallowed thickly. The .45 in his hand felt so very heavy...

Ricca slid off the desk to his feet and he put a fatherly hand on Michael’s shoulder and smiled at him.

“And who better to carry out this execution, than his trusted right hand — Michael Satariano? Just as what more fitting end could there be for Frank Nitti, than at the hands of Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.?”

Six

Two men in a green 194 °Chevy were parked outside Frank Nitti’s suburban home. Michael did not know them, other than to exchange nods with — they were bodyguards who usually worked the graveyard shift, keeping an eye on Nitti and his house after dark. That they were here in midafternoon indicated the heightened security following the disastrous counsel meeting of the night before.

The man behind the wheel, dark, small, was named Jimmy the Rat Rossi, his name reflecting rodent-like features that his toothpick sucking somehow accentuated. He wore a dark suit and tie, his hat off to reveal dark hair given way to a monk’s bald spot.

In the rider’s seat, also in dark suit and tie, reading The Racing News, was stocky, bucket-headed Tony “Pocky” Licata, whose claim to fame was a single pockmarked cheek; his hat was off, too, his prematurely gray hair cut close to the scalp. Both men were in their thirties and neither were live wires — just your standard-issue Outfit muscle.

In his military-style trenchcoat, Michael stopped alongside the Chevy, tapped on the window — the car wasn’t running, but it was cold enough to keep the windows up — and leaned in as the Rat rolled it down.

“Anything unusual?” Michael asked.

“No, Mr. Satariano,” the Rat said. “Quiet as a mouse.”

The minor irony of the statement seemed to escape the man who dispensed it.

Pocky looked up from the racing rag to say, “Mrs. Nitti left about fifteen minutes ago.”

Michael glanced over at the empty driveway.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going up to the house. I have a little business with Mr. Nitti.”

The Rat nodded, not giving a shit, rolling the window up. But unlike his partner, the Rat wasn’t reading on the job; he seemed to be attentive to the effort, almost as much as to shifting that toothpick around.

Michael crossed the street to the unpretentious brown-brick home. It had snowed yesterday afternoon, lightly, and while the city showed few signs, out here in the suburbs, the brown of the short-trimmed yards had a dusting of white that somehow took the edge off the dreary, chilly weather.

On the stoop, Michael paused to collect himself. He felt calm; in fact, he felt as if he were sleepwalking.

He was about to ring the bell when the door opened and there was Nitti, poised in the doorway in a brown fedora and brown plaid overcoat, blue-and-maroon silk scarf loose around his neck, coat open to reveal a snappy gray checked suit.

Startled, Nitti — his face going in an instant from bland to savage — yanked a .32 revolver from his pocket and thrust it toward Michael.

But before Michael could react — had time to react — Nitti’s expression just as quickly changed to relief, and he slipped the little black revolver back in his topcoat pocket.

“Jesus, kid,” Nitti said, and chuckled, an ungloved hand on his chest. “Give me the scare of my life, there.”

“Sorry, Mr. Nitti. I was about to ring the bell.”

“I was just going out for a stroll. Toni went to church to light a candle or two, all this shit goin’ on. Frankly, I, uh...” He stepped out onto the little porch with Michael. “...drank a little too much vino, this afternoon. Thought I’d walk it off.”

The smell of wine was on him, all right. Like the smell of booze had been on Eliot Ness.

“That’s not like you, Mr. Nitti.”

Nitti put his hand on Michael’s shoulder and smiled. “I’m not proud of it... Do I seem drunk to you?”

“No.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Walk with me?”

“Sure.”

From the sidewalk, Nitti made a “no” motion to the bodyguards in the car, not to follow along. In the rider’s window, the Rat nodded, rolling his toothpick.

They turned right, Nitti saying, “We’ll just walk around the block. Get a little of this nice fresh air.”

While the weather wasn’t chilly exactly, a brittle edge made it just cold enough for their breath to smoke; neither man wore gloves and kept hands in pockets. Of course, Michael was aware that Nitti had that .32 in his right-hand one.

The shrunken-looking Nitti had been fairly diminutive to start with, and seemed much smaller than Frank Nitti had any right to be. But the ex-barber’s hair was freshly cut and, vino or no, he seemed alert. He was lifting his face into a crisp breeze and relishing it.

“Spoke to Louie,” Nitti said, as they turned the corner. He flashed a sideways, chagrined grin. “Sorry about letting you sit overnight in the jug. I honestly didn’t know you was in there.”

“You had a right to be distracted.”

Nitti shot him a sharper look. “So, Louie’s filled you in on the situation?”

“Kinda sounds like you threw the gauntlet down to Ricca, Mr. Nitti. That surprised me.”

“Did it? Why?”

Michael, hands still in his pockets, shrugged, walking. “You’re usually more careful than that. Why stir up enmity with Ricca, right now?”

Nitti shook his head, his mouth tight. “I didn’t stir it — he did. He’s taking advantage of this moment to try to bring me down... A kid who uses a term like ‘enmity’ probably knows what a coup is, right?”

“Sure.”

“Well, this is what the politicians call a bloodless coup. If Ricca can convince the rest of the counsel I’m a selfish fuck-up, unwilling to fall on my sword for ’em... then he slides into my chair.”

“And he figures you won’t move against him.”

Nitti nodded. “And I won’t. We’re facing a trial that’s gonna get big play in the press. But what’s it over? Buncha Hollywood nonsense. Union stuff. Compared to war news, it ain’t nothing. Public yawns and flips to the funnies.” The little ganglord stopped cold. “But we start shooting at each other, acting like gangsters? Then we get way too much attention from John Q. Public.”

Nitti calmly walked on. They turned the corner, to the right. They had the sidewalks to themselves; it was a school day, Friday, and cold enough to keep housewives inside. The tree-lined streets twisted through an idyllic world where the dwellings, if less than mansions, were nonetheless spacious and distinctive; nothing cookie-cutter about the homes of Riverside. Despite the white-brushed lawns, a consistent peppering of evergreens threw a little color into the landscape.

“Kid,” Nitti said, and his expression was grave, “I’m sorry about that girl of yours.”

“Thanks, Mr. Nitti.”

“I liked Estelle. She was as smart as she was pretty. Good earner for us, too.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“I know who did it, and a guy who does work for me, time to time, took care of it.” Nitti stopped again and so did Michael; the older man put his hand on the younger one’s shoulder. “I know you’d like to’ve been the one who took ’em out, but it’s better this way.”

Michael nodded.

They walked along.

“Their name was Borgia,” he said. “If you know your history, you see how fitting that is. They probably were sent by Ricca either to throw a scare in her — afraid she’d talk, in the trial, y’know — or maybe to kill her, and send Nicky Dean a wake-up call.”

“Would Ricca do that?”

“Sure. But I doubt even the Waiter’s reckless enough to attract the press that torture killing got. Stupid. Now, that’s just what I’m talkin’ about — look at the fuck-ing field day the papers are having over Estelle Carey! It puts the goddamn spotlight right on us. All of sudden, we’re mobsters again, not businessmen.”

“I don’t think Ricca thinks of himself as a businessman — at least not the way you do, Mr. Nitti.”

“Probably true. Probably true. Or else he wouldn’t surround himself with sick-in-the-head killers like Mad Sam and Mooney.” Nitti sighed. “Only good thing could come from this is Ricca going away. I have confidence in Accardo.”

Once again Nitti stopped. This time, he put both hands on Michael’s shoulders. Speaking with great emphasis, he said, “While we’re away, Joe Batters will be capo.”

That was another name for Tony Accardo.

“He’s a good man. You can trust him. Stand by him, Michael. Serve him.”

“Yes, Mr. Nitti.”

Nitti’s hands returned to his pockets. They walked on.

Michael said, “No way you can beat this rap?”

“No. And though I can’t take the fall, I must bear some responsibility. Trusting Bioff and Browne, that was stupid. But the nature of what we do is risk. Decisions can come back to haunt you.”

“Bad decisions?”

“Even good ones. We make hard choices for the greater good.”

“Like that guy, what did they call him? The Angel of Death?”

They were at the end of the block. The residential area gave way to undeveloped lots; across the street a row of skeletal trees mingled with shrubbery, behind which a wire fence defended a patch of prairie, high dead grass and brush cut by intersecting tracks of the Illinois Central. In the distance, beyond the dead brush, and the tracks, was a complex of brick buildings, a tuberculosis sanitarium.

Michael knew as much because Campagna had mentioned the fence, which had a gaping hole in it, as a security issue in guarding Nitti. In these days of gas rationing, neighborhood employees of the sanitarium had clipped a hole in the wire barrier, to be able to walk to work.

Having stopped again, Nitti frowned in thoughtful surprise. “Angel of Death... haven’t heard that phrase in ages. O’Sullivan. Looney’s man.”

“Right.”

Nitti grunted a laugh. “Haven’t thought of him in ages, either.”

“Looney or O’Sullivan?”

“Take your pick.” Hands still in pockets, Nitti rocked on his heels. “Old Man Looney’s still in stir, I hear. But O’Sullivan — he was something. Best soldier I ever knew.” Nitti’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell d’you ever hear of him, son?”

“It was written up in the true detective magazines.”

Another grunted laugh. “Buncha bullshit, most likely. Although, with that O’Sullivan — you wouldn’t have to exaggerate what he did, make a good yarn.”

“I thought he was your enemy.”

Nitti shook his head. “No. Looking back, I wonder if I shouldn’t’ve taken him up on his offer — he came to me, wanted me to step aside and let him take his revenge on Looney. But we had a business relationship with Rock Island, and... well.”

“What had Looney done to him?”

Nitti shivered, possibly not from the cold. “It wasn’t what Looney did — the Old Man’s kid, a lunatic like Mooney and Mad Sam — killed O’Sullivan’s wife and son.”

“I thought our families were off limits.”

“They are. They are. But these weren’t our people, Michael — these were a bunch of crazy micks, killing each other.”

“Ah. Why did Looney’s kid kill the mother and son?”

Nitti shrugged, still rocking. “Oh, the reason isn’t important. But he did it, and when I wouldn’t back O’Sullivan’s play, he hit us hard, in the pocketbook. Kinda like Ness! What a man that mick was.”

“But you had him killed.”

Again Nitti shrugged. “I had to. To allow one man to inflict such damage to our business, and get away with it? Some things you just can’t abide.”

“I can grasp that.”

Nitti cocked his head, giving Michael a curious half-smile. “What makes you so keen on ancient history, son?”

“I have a vested interest.”

Curious, Nitti smiled. “Really? What kind?”

Now Michael shrugged. “Well, you see, my real name isn’t Michael Satariano. I was adopted.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m the kid who helped rob those Outfit banks. The driver?... I’m Michael O’Sullivan, Jr.”

It took a while for Nitti’s smile to fade, as if Michael’s statement were some colossal joke.

“You... you’re O’Sullivan’s kid?”

“Yes, and I got next to you so I could kill Capone. I thought he was the one responsible for my father’s death. But now...” And Michael slipped his right hand under the trenchcoat and withdrew the .45 and, holding it close to his body, pointed it at Nitti. “...now I know different.”

Nitti raised his hands, just to waist level, more a reasoning gesture than one of surrender. “You... you should know, then, that what I did was business. You heard me just now! How much I respected your father.”

“I can understand that, Mr. Nitti. You can respect a man you have to kill.”

Eyes narrow, Nitti was shaking his head as pieces slipped into place. “All of that... in Miami... your doing. Ricca wasn’t behind it.”

“Wasn’t Ricca at all. When I saw Capone, fishing in his pool, I couldn’t squeeze the trigger. Would’ve been like shooting a little kid.”

The smile returned, bitter now. “But you can shoot me, right, Michael?”

“I think so.”

“You aren’t sure?”

Michael let out a tiny humorless laugh. “It surprises me, but... the rage. I can’t summon the rage. All I feel is... disappointment.”

And in a flash he recalled when he’d last felt like this: it was when he witnessed his father shooting those men in that ware house, when he knew his brave war-hero father had not been on missions, but was just a gangster, a thug, a killer...

Nitti put his hands down. “It would be... foolish to say I’ll try to make it up to you. But Michael, I’ve come to look at you as a son...”

“Don’t say that.”

Nitti’s eyes tightened; he wasn’t exactly pleading. “You could be my successor. You have the guts and the mind and the heart to take this Outfit where it needs to go! And leave all the illegitimate shit in the past where it belongs. Listen to me, son...”

“Don’t call me that!”

Nitti nodded. “I understand... I understand. But I know... no matter what you say, I know there’s a bond between us.”

“Stop it.”

Slowly Nitti shook his head. “You don’t want to do this. You’ve already lost your father, the rest of your family. If you do this thing, you’ll burn in hell, and you won’t even have to die to get there.”

“Satariano!”

Without taking the gun off Nitti, Michael whirled to one side, and he saw the two bodyguards, Rat and Pocky, heading toward them, guns in hand, down the sidewalk.

Michael swung the .45 toward them, when Rat called out: “We know you’re with Ricca, Mike!” Toothpick tumbling from his lips, Rat added, “Get down, the fuck down!”

Nitti, eyes and nostrils flaring, shoved Michael, knocking him to the cement, and ran pell-mell across the street toward the row of trees and bushes, topcoat flapping. Gunshots rang in the afternoon air, hollow little sounds, like the firing of a starting pistol before a race.

Which was apropos, because the shots had missed Nitti and he was slipping between the trees, stepping over bushes, crawling through the gaping hole in the fence. The ganglord had the revolver in hand now, and paused to turn and throw one sharp shot their way.

The bullet flew well over Michael’s head: he lay on the sidewalk, 45 in hand, and Nitti’s shot seemed intended for the two approaching on-the-run bodyguards-turned-hitmen.

Rat paused to help haul Michael to his feet. “You want in on this, come along!”

And then Michael was standing on the corner, watching Rat and Pocky pick their way between trees and brush and through that hole in the fence.

Things were happening fast, and reflection was not an option; but somehow he knew, no matter what Frank Nitti had done ten years ago, that he could not allow that man to be brought down by these traitors.

As he ran across the street, cutting between the trees, bursting through the fence, 45 in hand, Michael was unsure whether he was acting so that he could kill Nitti himself, or to protect this man, about whom his feelings were decidedly mixed...

...but he fell in behind Rat and Pocky, who were up ahead about fifteen yards, wading through waist-high grass, the way slowed by clumps of shrub brush and wild skinny trees that leaned like modern dancers in the gentle wind.

As if chasing through mud they went, Michael at the rear, the bodyguards up ahead, the pair throwing rounds at the fleeing Nitti out in front, their shots cracking the air, sounding firecracker-small under the big gray sky.

Nitti only paused one more time, to toss a wild shot back at his pursuers, and then the man was slicing through the dead undergrowth toward the train tracks, where the grass and brush had been cut back to accommodate passage. Michael knew at once what Nitti was up to: the dark buildings of that sanitarium loomed, and the tracks went right by there, meaning the fugitive could find refuge among a wealth of witnesses; taking this road also allowed the little gangster to run faster, the topcoat flying behind him like a cape.

But Nitti also made himself a better target for his bodyguard pursuers, and two shots took the fedora right off him, sending it flapping away like a wounded bird.

Michael stopped running, planted himself, and aimed at the back of the Rat’s head; he squeezed the trigger and the bodyguard stopped dead, literally, his head coming apart in red and white and gray chunks.

Pocky, who was just a few steps behind Rat, almost fell over his own feet, coming to an astonished stop as he saw the corpse of his partner do a final limp bow, as if seeking applause before curling up awkwardly in the grass, just another dead animal.

Startled but enraged, Pocky wheeled and saw Michael coming and ran right at him, shooting the revolver. Michael fell face down on the grass and when Pocky ran over to check the body, the “corpse” reached up and shot him in the head.

Pocky’s face, with wide surprised eyes, one pockmarked cheek, and a single new red pock in his forehead, was haloed in his own prematurely gray hair and a mist of scarlet.

Then he, too, dropped, swallowed by weeds.

That left Nitti, about twenty-five yards up ahead, on the rail road tracks. He was clearly winded, and staggering along, not making much headway.

Michael quickly cut over to the tracks and was coming up behind the man when Nitti glanced back, saw him, and cut off the tracks, running through the grass to the dead end of more wire fencing.

Breath heaving, his back to the barrier, Nitti raised the revolver as Michael pushed through the grass, slowly now.

“Stop, Michael! Right there. Stop.”

Michael kept moving, brushing aside the prairie jungle. The .45 in his hand was held waist-high.

“I’m not going to let you do it!” Nitti said, his eyes wild, the little revolver pointing unsteadily at Michael.

“Mr. Nitti...”

Nitti laughed. “So respectful. Respectful to the end.” And Frank Nitti raised the revolver to his temple. “I don’t want to see you in hell, son. Understand? Okay?”

“Mr. Nitti!”

Nitti fired the .32.

Only a small spray of blood exited his left temple, and he slid like a cloth doll down the fence and sat slumped there, chin on his chest, the revolver loose in his hand.

Michael stood staring for several long seconds, then, shaking his head, said, “I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to...”

A clanging and a whistle and engine noise signaled an approaching train and, keeping low, Michael rushed through the grass as voices rose above the wind-whisper, two voices, back and forth, coming closer all the time, a flagman and a switchman, hanging off a forward-moving caboose:

“Shot himself!”

“You’re tellin’ me? I saw him do it!”

Retracing his path, more or less, Michael stayed low as he headed for the hole in the fence. He’d already slipped the .45 in its shoulder holster when he stepped through, to find a breathless Louie Campagna waiting.

“What the hell happened, kid?”

“Nitti’s bodyguards turned on him.”

“Pocky and Rat?”

“Yeah. They’re out there in the weeds, dead as hell. I made them that way.”

Michael felt sure Louie knew all about the turncoat bodyguards — else why was Campagna here? But he kept that to himself.

Together they walked across the street, back to the corner where Michael had revealed himself to Nitti. The neighborhood remained quiet, the sidewalks empty; it was as if the world had ended.

Campagna asked, “What about Frank?”

“He thought they had him cornered. Didn’t know I’d taken care of it. Turned his gun on himself.”

Shaking his head, genuine sorrow on his lumpy mug, Campagna said, “Aw. Ah hell. Ah Frank.”

Michael pointed toward the fence. “Cops’ll be here soon. Better have some men pull those stiffs out of the weeds, or this’ll get uglier than it has to.”

Campagna nodded, patting Michael on the back. “Done. You get the hell out of here, kid.”

Michael nodded.

He was just heading off when Campagna stopped him, with a hand on his arm.

“I know how you feel, kid.”

“What?”

Campagna swallowed thickly. “He was a great man.”

Michael didn’t know what the hell Campagna was talking about until, behind the wheel of the Ford, he saw his face in the mirror.

Saw the tears streaking his cheeks.

Seven

Michael Satariano and Patsy Ann O’Hara sat on the same stone bench in Huntley Park in DeKalb, Illinois, as last July Fourth. The cement-and-boulder bandshell was bare, and the park itself seemed abandoned. On this chilly afternoon in late March, under a sky as gray as gunmetal, Michael and Patsy Ann were rare sweethearts holding hands here.

They looked young, but then she was a college student and he wasn’t much older. He wore a brown leather jacket and chinos, she a soldier-blue wool coat and lighter blue slacks. Neither wore a hat, and an easy wind ruffled Patsy Ann’s blonde hair without really mussing it.

Michael sat staring at the empty bandshell. Frank Nitti was in the ground — hallowed ground, for this good Catholic who’d condemned himself to hell; on earth, at least, the fix was in. He’d left behind a loyal wife — who conveniently was at church, praying, during the killing — and a nine-year-old son he adored. Paul Ricca considered Michael to have been responsible for Nitti’s demise (officially suicide), and Louie Campagna had informed Michael — with a smile that said just how quickly Nitti had become yesterday’s news — that “the Satariano star” was rising.

This was the same Campagna who’d told Michael the way one leaves the Outfit, after the blood oath over dagger and gun: feet first. Nitti had left that way. His bodyguards, too, though they hadn’t even made the papers — Campagna’s Sicilian clean-up crew had quickly stowed them in the trunk of a car and, before any cops showed — or honest ones, anyway — whisked them into eternity. The pair were in a landfill by now (Mad Sam was in the garbage trade), or maybe at the bottom of Lake Michigan making it a foursome with Estelle Carey’s “friends,” the Borgias.

Michael knew all too well that Ness’s offer to help him parlay his Medal of Honor into some kind of government badge was no real option. Despite the Outfit’s reluctance to kill cops, particularly feds, a made man who became a G-man would surely be an exception.

Michael Satariano was one of them now. Like it or not.

At the Bella Napoli, Michael had sat with the Outfit’s new top capo at a rear table, just the two of them. Michael’s peculiar tastes were honored with an iced glass of Coca-Cola, while Paul Ricca again sipped an espresso. Bodyguards were on either side, at their own tables.

“Mr. Ricca,” Michael said, hands folded respectfully, “I am weary of bloodshed. I had my fill overseas, and found more awaited me here.”

Ricca’s eyes were hooded, though their dark brown seemed oddly gentle, in the angular, cruel face. “I understand. But a soldier goes where his general bids him go.”

“This I know... have I earned the right to ask a favor?”

Ricca nodded.

“As soon as possible, I would like to leave Chicago. My father... in DeKalb... is in the restaurant business. I spent years around that trade. A restaurant, a nightclub, perhaps something in show business would please me.”

Ricca nodded slowly. “Like your late capo, you prefer the legitimate. The whores, the juice, the gambling, narcotics, none of these things appeal to you.”

“They do not. I say this in respect.”

He sipped the espresso, then, conversationally, said, “You know, Michael, Nitti’s the only one who’ll beat this federal rap. We’ll be gone, many of us, perhaps as long as five years. While we’re away, Tony Accardo will hold my chair. I’ve recommended you to him.”

Not relishing these words, Michael nonetheless said, “Thank you, Mr. Ricca.”

The gash in Ricca’s face that was his mouth formed something that could be called, charitably, a smile.

“Michael, when I return, I’ll grant your request. We’ll send you to Vegas or possibly Hollywood... Despite this setback, we still have interests out there.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ricca.”

“Until then, here in Chicago, you serve Joe Batters.”

“I am honored.”

Ricca lifted a lecturing forefinger. “Now, Michael — do not mislead yourself. You can be in a passive part of our business and still be called upon. With your talents, from time to time — this will happen. This... will... happen.”

“I know.”

Ricca, lighting a cigarette with a silver lighter, studied Michael. He drew on the cigarette, exhaled a wreath of gray-blue smoke, then said, “You need to live your life.”

“I... I’m not sure I understand, Mr. Ricca.”

Ricca snapped shut the lighter. “We will not speak of your parents... your real parents again... but I will say now that you must not let what happened to them stand in the way of your living a normal life. You’re an American hero, Michael — you deserve the best.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Go out and find a good wife and raise little micks who’ll think they’re Sicilian — okay? And someday get yourself a mistress. You’ll need the outlet. Believe me.”

Michael nodded.

Ricca reached out and patted Michael’s folded hands. “We don’t bother each other’s families. When you’re made, we don’t fuck your wife, let alone kill her. Capeesh?”

“Capeesh,” Michael said softly.

“Do what I tell you. Wife and family. House in the suburbs.” Ricca shrugged elaborately. “It’s the American dream, my son.”

And now Michael was next to Patsy Ann on a park bench. The sky was bleak and the air was cold, but he handed her the little black box, which she opened, and the two-karat diamond ring in the silver setting on the velvet bed sparkled so brilliantly that Patsy Ann saw nothing but brightness.

He helped her on with it and then she did that thing women do — outstretching her hand, as if making sure the diamond was big enough to be seen at a distance — and finally she hugged him and kissed him and kissed him and hugged him...

With her in his arms, he stared into her lovely blue eyes and said, “You don’t have to sell your soul for me, baby. I’m gonna work in strictly legit areas.”

She touched a forefinger to his mouth. “Loose lips sink ships,” she said.

And those same eyes told him that she would not ask him about his work, nor would she judge him for it; she loved him. No strings. No small print.

“All I ask is that you always love me,” she said, not smiling now, her voice trembling, “and our children. Promise me that — and that our children will be safe.”

He drew her closer. “I promise you, baby. These kiddies are gonna have a better life than I ever did.”

Kissing her again, tenderly, slowly, lingeringly, he did not tell her that keeping such a promise should not be difficult. Not when the standard was his life...

But he did promise himself he would protect her and their kids-to-be. They would have a happy and prosperous life, and nothing would touch them; he would not let it. If some small voice of reality spoke from the recesses of his mind, he batted it away — he had once thought he could never put at risk those he cared about; but he now knew he could not face a life without those he cared for around him.

And right now, this smart, painfully pretty college coed, who was foolish enough to care for him back, was the only person on earth he loved. Not the only person he cared for — but the only one he loved...

At Pasquale’s Spaghetti House, they showed his parents the ring, and told them of their decision, and the Satarianos were beside themselves with joy, fat old people bouncing like babies. Patsy Ann called her parents, who dropped everything and, with sister Betty in willing tow, came over to the restaurant, where they all sat at a big table and the two families, about to become one, had mountains of spaghetti, and plenty of vino, too.

Patsy Ann said that she had three good offers in the Chicago area for teaching jobs, and hoped Michael wouldn’t mind if they waited a while to start their family.

“You can support me forever, if you want,” Michael said, gesturing with a wine glass. “You’re a modern woman, I’m a modern man.”

He told her they would live in Chicago for a few years, but that he’d been promised a position out West, mostly likely in show business.

“Oh, Michael,” Patsy Ann said, clutching his hand with her newly diamond-adorned one. “It’s like a dream come true. Is it terrible to be so happy, when the world is at war?”

Papa S., across from them, lifted his wine glass and said, “Wars don’t last forever. And in the postwar world, everything will be possible.”

Patsy Ann’s burly, handsome father raised a glass and made a toast any Buick dealer in the USA might well have made: “To the American dream!”

Voices all around the table echoed: “To the American dream!”

Only Patsy Ann noticed that Michael hadn’t joined in. He was remembering Ricca using the same phrase: It’s the American dream...

...my son.

He only prayed he would never wake up screaming from it.