American Gangster
- Автор: Коллинз Макс Аллан
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Tom Doherty Associates
- ISBN: 978-0-7653-5901-8
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «American Gangster». Краткое содержание книги:
Huey’s eyes widened behind the big tinted lenses, his expression half-shocked, half-sorrowful. “Frank, you can’t mean that... He’s your cousin! What’s he gonna do?”
“I don’t care what he does. Just so he doesn’t do it in my world.”
“He can’t go back home. We brought him up here! There’s nothing left back there...”
“Does any of this sound like my problem?”
Huey risked a smile and patted the air. “Listen, give him a chance, give me a chance, to go and talk to him. I’ll straighten his ass out.”
Frank just stood there looking at his brother behind the ridiculous glasses; what was Huey trying to be, a goddamn spaceman? It was like talking to a cartoon character.
“Give those here,” Frank said, and held out his hand, palm up.
“What?”
“Glasses.” Frank’s fingers made the “come here” gesture.
“What? Why?”
Frank grabbed the things off his brother’s face and threw them to the carpeting and cracked and crushed them under his shoe.
Then he backed off and, one at a time, he caught their eyes and held on until each brother had to look away.
Finally Frank said, “Jimmy Zee goes back to North Carolina, or to hell, for all I care. Cousin, brother, doesn’t cut shit with me. I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime. Blow it, and you’re gone.”
There were gulps and nods and mumbled apologies.
“Now get the fuck out,” he told them.
And they went, as the Jackson 5 — the hi-fi not so loud now, but still distinct — sang “Never Can Say Goodbye.”
15. Boody
On a beautiful, lazy Sunday afternoon in the New Jersey suburbs, Richie Roberts whiled away a few hours with mob kingpin Dominic Cattano’s nephew, Joey Sadano.
Richie had gone to high school with Joey, and when the weather allowed, he and Joey and other mutual friends would play softball in a park, then head over to the Sadano ranch-style digs — very nice, with swimming pool and all the modern conveniences, if not a castle like Uncle Dominic’s.
As on many a Sunday afternoon, Richie and Joey and other pals — wise guys like Joey, if truth be told — transformed into a bunch of eternal teenage boys in their brown-and-orange Weequahie jerseys, talking sports, drinking beer, cooking burgers and hot dogs on the backyard grill.
As things began winding down, Richie nodded to Joey that he wanted a word. Joey — mustached, pockmarked, hair receding, but attractive and affable — ushered Richie into the den-like poolhouse and they sat at a table where the guys sometimes played poker.
“You’re getting that constipated look again,” Joey said.
“Other day,” Richie said, lifting his eyebrows, “I coulda got killed, chasing bad guys in heavy traffic. Makes you think.”
Joey’s eyebrows also went up. “Yeah. And I know what you’re thinking — you’re off playin’ Lone Ranger, and here you are with a kid to worry about. Well, don’t. When you asked me to be your son’s godfather, I took it very serious.”
Richie flicked a smile. “I know.”
Joey gestured expansively. “I said, yes, I’ll take on this responsibility, take care of your son, God forbid something should happen to your crazy, sorry ass...”
Richie felt like a boulder had settled on his shoulders. He’d known Joey forever. He loved Joey like a brother. But Joey was a problem.
“Joey, the thing is, Laurie’s telling Child Social Services stuff that makes me look bad, real bad. Tells ’em I’m out all night...”
“Aren’t you?”
Joey didn’t know the half of it. Just yesterday morning, Richie had gone to the door in his robe and underwear and found an attractive, professional-looking black woman with a briefcase standing there, looking at him like he was the Ghost of Christmas Past. Was she a one-night stand he’d filed away and forgotten?
Speaking of which, the stewardess he’d spent the night with had taken just that moment to hip-sway out of the bedroom, one hand buttoning her blouse, the other hauling her little wheeled travel thingie into a living room that somehow managed to be both minuscule and a huge mess.
“Mr. Roberts,” the woman in the doorway had said, “I’m here for our appointment... Child Social Services?”
Now here he was sitting in his friend’s poolhouse, needing to sever a tie that stretched back decades.
“The women are bad enough,” Richie said. “I take full blame on that one. I take full blame on all of it — all-night stakeouts, chump change for pay, lowlife informants hanging around.”
“Not to mention,” Joey said softly, starting to get it, “certain old friends. Like me?”
Richie sighed. He sat in silence cut only by the muffled laughter of their friends out in the yard and kids shrieking around the pool. He felt like a total shit. Then Joey’s hand settled on his shoulder.
“Buddy,” Joey said, “it’s all right. Really. I understand. It’s the waters we swim in. Look, these social workers come sniffing around, I’ll tell them whatever you want me to. I’ll lie my ass off for you, man.”
“Thank you. I don’t deserve a friend like you.”
“You got that right... What else is it? There’s something else.”
Richie drew in a breath. Let it out. “You don’t have to talk about it, Joey, if you don’t want. But have you heard anything about this Blue Magic shit? Anything at all?”
Joey’s mouth tightened and his eyelids lowered to half-mast. “Not much magical about it. Lot of sorrow and misery from guys gettin’ put out of business, is all.”
Richie leaned forward. “Nothing about who’s bringing it in?”
“Guys down South, is all I heard.”
“Down South, where? Florida? Cuba?”
Joey held up a palm. “All I can tell you is, whoever it is? They’re upsetting the natural order of things.”
Neither Richie nor Joey had the slightest notion that Joey’s uncle would soon meet with Frank Lucas in accordance with the natural order of things — specifically, the law of supply and demand... he who controls the supply can demand whatever the fuck he wants.
But of course Frank Lucas was not yet even a blip on Richie Roberts’s radar.
On a perfect sunny morning in quietly suburban Livingston, New Jersey, Frank Lucas and his fiancee Eva were guests in a palatial residence where the old expression “king of his castle” made perfect sense.
Outside the literally castle-like residence, on grounds so perfectly manicured a country club might well be greenly envious, a series of statues rose above an elaborate European fountain: a Napoleonic representation of Mafia capo Dominic Cattano on horseback, and next to him a woman and two children (Mrs. Cattano and their offspring) astride marble horses of their own.
Cattano was a cruelly handsome middle-aged man whose baronial bearing made this tribute to himself seem less ridiculous than it should — centuries ago, Frank thought, Cattano would have been the kind of Italian who paid painters and sculptors to do works of art that would last forever, in between said patron poisoning relatives and rivals.
Somehow, though, Frank didn’t think the Cattano family on horseback would go down through the ages.
A shotgun in his hands, Cattano, in tailored hunter’s attire, was (as usual) giving an order: “Pull!”
A clay pigeon sailed out across a vast backyard bordered by stunningly colorful gardens — the target obliterated by Cattano’s well-aimed blast.