“Since now. You’re not a gangster.”
“Trying to hurt my feelings, Maso?”
“You’re an outlaw, a bandit in a suit. And now I hear you’re thinking of going legitimate?”
“Thinking about it.”
“So you won’t mind if I replace you down here?”
Joe smiled for some reason. Chuckled. He found his cigarettes and lit one.
“When I got here, Maso? This outfit grossed a million a year.”
“I know.”
“Since I got here? We’ve averaged almost eleven million.”
“Mostly because of the rum, though. Those days are ending. You’ve neglected the girls and the narcotics.”
“Bullshit,” Joe said.
“Excuse me?”
“I concentrated on the rum because, yeah, it was most profitable. But our narcotic sales are up sixty-five percent. As for the girls, we added four houses in my time here.”
“But you could have added more. And the whores claim they’re rarely beaten.”
Joe found himself looking down at the table into Loretta’s face, then looking up, then looking back down again. It was his turn to exhale a loud breath. “Maso, I—”
“Mr. Pescatore,” Maso said.
Joe said nothing.
“Joseph,” Maso said, “our friend Charlie wants to make some changes to the way we run our thing.”
“Our friend Charlie” was Lucky Luciano out of New York. King, essentially. Emperor for Life.
“What changes?”
“Considering Lucky’s right hand is a kike, the changes are a bit ironic, even unfair. I won’t lie to you.”
Joe gave Maso a tight smile and waited for the old man to get to it.
“Charlie wants Italians, and only Italians, in the top slots.”
Maso wasn’t kidding—it was the height of irony. Everyone knew that no matter how smart Lucky was—and he was smart as hell—he was nothing without Meyer Lansky. Lansky, a Jew from the Lower East Side, had done more than anyone in this thing of theirs to turn a collection of mom-and-pop shops into a corporation.
The thing was, though, Joe had no desire to reach the top. He was happy with his small local operation.
He said as much now to Maso.
“You’re far too modest,” Maso said.
“I’m not. I run Ybor. And the rum, yeah, but that’s over, like you said.”
“You run a lot more than Ybor and a lot more than Tampa, Joseph. Everyone knows that. You run the Gulf Coast from here to Biloxi. You run the out routes from here to Jacksonville and half the ones that head north. I’ve been through the books. You’ve made us a force down here.”
Instead of saying And this is how you thank me? Joe said, “So if I can’t be in charge because Charlie says ‘No Irish need apply,’ what can I be?”
“What I tell you to.” This from Digger, finished with his second orange, wiping his sticky palms on the sides of the armchair.
Maso gave Joe a don’t-mind-him look and said, “Consigliere. You stay with Digger and teach him the ropes, introduce him to people around town, maybe teach him how to golf or fish.”
Digger fixed Joe in his tiny eyes. “I know how to shave and tie my shoes.”
Joe wanted to say, But you have to think about it, don’t you?
Maso patted Joe’s knee once. “You’ll have to take a little haircut, financially speaking. But don’t worry, we’re going to muscle the port this summer, take the whole fucking thing over, and there’ll be plenty of work, I promise.”
Joe nodded. “What kind of haircut?”
Maso said, “Digger takes over your cut. You assemble a crew and keep whatever you make, less tribute.”
Joe looked at the windows. He looked out at the ones overlooking the alley for a moment. Then the ones overlooking the bay. He counted down slowly from ten. “You’re demoting me to crew boss?”
Maso patted his knee again. “It’s a realignment, Joseph. On Charlie Luciano’s orders.”
“Charlie said, ‘Replace Joe Coughlin in Tampa.’ ”
“Charlie said, ‘No non-Italians at the top.’ ” Maso’s voice was still smooth, kindly even, but Joe could hear a bit of frustration creeping in.
Joe took a moment to keep his own voice in check because he knew how fast Maso could drop the courtly old gentleman mask and reveal the savage cannibal behind it.
“Maso, I think Digger wearing the crown is a great idea. The two of us together? We’ll take over the state, take over Cuba while we’re at it. I have the connections to do that. But my cut needs to stay close to what it is now. I step down to crew boss? I’ll make maybe a tenth of what I’m making now. And I gotta make my monthly nut on—what?—shaking down longshoremen unions and cigar factory owners? There’s no power there.”
“Maybe that’s the point.” Digger smiled for the first time, a piece of orange stuck in his upper teeth. “You ever think of that, smart guy?”
Joe looked at Maso.
Maso stared back at him.
Joe said, “I built this.”
Maso nodded.
Joe said, “I pulled ten-eleven times out of this city what Lou Ormino was fucking making for you.”
“Because I let you,” Maso said.
“Because you needed me.”
“Hey, smart guy,” Digger said, “nobody needs you.”
Maso patted the air between him and his son, the kind of calming gesture you used on a dog. Digger sat back in his chair, and Maso turned to Joe. “We could use you, Joseph. We could. But I am sensing a lack of gratitude.”
“So am I.”
This time Maso’s hand settled on his knee and squeezed. “You work for me. Not for yourself, not for the spics or the niggers you surround yourself with. If I tell you to go clean the shit out of my toilet, guess what you’re going to do?” He smiled, his voice as soft as ever. “I’ll kill your cunt girlfriend and burn your house to embers if I feel like it. You know this, Joseph. Your eyes got a little big for your head down here, that’s all. I’ve seen it happen before.” He raised the hand from Joe’s knee and patted Joe’s face with it. “So, do you want to be a crew boss? Or do you want to clean the shit out of my toilets on diarrhea day? I’m accepting applications for both.”
If Joe played ball, he’d have a few days’ head start to talk to all his contacts, marshal his forces, and align the chess pieces correctly. While Maso and his guns were back on the train heading north, Joe would fly up to New York, talk to Luciano directly, put a balance sheet on his desk and show him what Joe would make him versus what a retard like Digger Pescatore would lose him. There was an excellent chance Lucky would see the light and they could move past this with minimal bloodshed.