Hit #29, page 6
During this whole period I had not spent too much time with my wife. Except for an occasional fight we never just sat down and talked, so I decided I would give her a surprise. I would beat her home and cook a nice dinner for her. Cooking is one of my true hobbies. I love to put on my apron that my brother gave me which says, “Please do not bother the chef. He is doing the best job he can,” and really cook us a super dish.
The biggest decision of my day is what I’m going to make: The winner is meatballs and Italian sauce. Joey’s special Italian sauce, guaranteed to make your mouth water and burn your eyes out! On the way home I stopped at the market and picked up tomatoes, some spices, a chunk of pork for flavoring and some chop meat. This is going to be a nice surprise.
Unfortunately, my wife had a surprise of her own. “Tonight you are taking me to Macy’s!”
I started to argue but then she started reeling off a list of presents we owed to various people and how she was so embarrassed and on and on. So she broiled some hot dogs, opened a can of beans, and off we went to Manhattan and the world’s largest department store.
I don’t particularly enjoy shopping, and I hate big crowds, but I’ve never minded going to Macy’s. When we were growing up in the middle of the depression Macy’s always had a special meaning. Occasionally I would go down there with a group of friends and we would just wander through the store, wide eyed and bushy tailed just looking at all the things we couldn’t afford. We’d steal if we could, but that was never the reason we went down. We went down to see what the other side of the tracks was like. So now, even when we can afford Bloomingdale’s and Bonwit’s and other places like that, most of the people from the old neighborhood are still loyal to Macy’s.
We started in the electronics department. My nephew was about to have either his 16th or 17th birthday and my wife wanted to buy him a clock-radio. $39.95.
Up to linens. A wedding present for the daughter of one of her close friends. $28 plus tax.
Into housewares. An anniversary gift for a couple I could never stand. Some sort of broiler plate. $16.99.
Finally my wife said, “Now I want to get some pants for myself.” Like a good husband I followed her into the women’s department. And like a good husband I stood in the corner and minded my own business while she waded into the midst of the display racks. And it was while I was standing there, slowly eliminating the beans from my system, that I met another good husband.
Joseph Franklin Squillante!
I didn’t even see him coming. All of a sudden I heard my name called out and I turned around and there was the entire family: the victim-to-be, his wife and their three children.
I did my very best to put a wide smile on my face. “Hey, Joe, how you doin’?”
“Wonderful, fine,” he said, “everything’s goin’ good.” As usual he was well dressed. As usual, he had a hat on. And Cindy, his wife, looked better than ever. I could have sworn her tits were growing upwards, but her waist seemed just as small as it ever was. “What are you doin’ here?”
I pointed over to my wife. “Spending money. And you?”
He nodded. “Same thing. I was just telling …” My wife spotted me talking to them and hurried over. She had met them before, a long time ago, but didn’t really remember them. It didn’t matter though, she immediately made friends with Cindy and before I realized what she was doing, she and Cindy were on their way to the toy department with the three Squillante children. And Joe and I were sitting down over a cup of coffee.
We quickly filled each other in on mutual friends. He told me: Jamie Goldberg was a doctor, Bart Rush was working in the garment center, Dugie Giancarlo was a cop and Buster Harrelson was coming up for sentencing on an assault rap.
I told him: Monk Campbell was a lawyer, Jughead we-couldn’t-remember-his-last-name got killed in a car accident, and Tony DeLuca owned some sort of manufacturing plant. “You know, Joe,” I said to him, “all things considered, the guys from the neighborhood did pretty good.”
He agreed. “How about you Joey?” he asked me. “What are you doin’ now?” Squillante knew I was in numbers and bookmaking and everything else I could get my hands into. And probably he’d heard that I did heavyweight work. But I was not about to tell him.
“I do whatever comes along Joe, just like always. I got a piece of a book downtown. Card game now and then, you know, I keep busy.” I paused. “You still with the Fat Man?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Did I tell you that he made me a controller a few years ago?”
“Yeah, I heard that from somebody. You doing alright then?”
“Yeah, good,” he said.
It was not really that strange sitting and talking with him. At least it wasn’t once I had gotten over the initial shock of bumping into him. I’ve sat with people I knew were about to die a number of times before. Later I would be with Joey Gallo a number of times after I knew the contract on him was out. But there was one difference in being with Squillante: I was the gun.
After we finished the small talk I didn’t know what to say. But after running it through my mind quickly I decided to use the occasion to do a little research. “Hey, how come I never see you at the tracks. I remember that you were the first guy on the block to buy the racing form.”
He laughed. The guy had a big smile. I had forgotten he had such a big smile. “Whattya doin’, lookin’ for customers?”
I laughed. “Everywhere.”
“Not me,” he said, “who’s got the time? I got a route to run every day. I never touch the horses. Can’t afford it. I used to …”
I stopped listening. The man said he never touched the horses! That made absolutely no sense at all. Here was a guy supposedly $200,000 in debt from gambling and he’s telling me he never goes near the nags. All of a sudden I had a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was definitely rotten in the Bronx.
“… me my lesson. No more. Not me.”
I chuckled very uneasily. “Wish I could say the same.”
We finished our coffee and went back to the toy department to meet the women. My old lady and Cindy had become bosom buddies, which was alright with me because I liked Cindy. They even exchanged phone numbers and there was some talk about getting together. I said I’d love to, lying a little. Things were definitely not going the way I expected. I was quiet on the way home.
“What’s the matter with you?” my wife asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I told her. Then she shut up and let me think.
DOUBTS AND GREAT DANES
On the way over to the coffee shop to pick up on Squillante the next morning I started going over the situation in my head. What it came down to was that I had been hired by a man who hated me, supposedly to do a job on an individual I knew, for doing what he says he isn’t. There is only one conclusion I can reach: If Squillante isn’t lying then maybe he isn’t being the one set up for the kill.
Maybe I am.
It’s happened before. I knew of a Jersey hit man who was hired to make a hit out in the swamps. He waited there a few hours and then his supposed victim showed up—with two other guys and a shitload of bullets. They left the hit man floating. It would not surprise me if Jackie Sweetlips had finally gained enough power to fulfill his wish about getting even with me. I knew Petey would never get involved in something like that, but it is possible he really doesn’t know about the setup.
So maybe it’s me instead of Squillante.
Or maybe it is Squillante and I’m letting my mind work too hard.
Or maybe it’s both of us.
I really had no choice about what to do. I couldn’t confront Jackie or the Fat Man. What would they tell me? That I’m the target? No way. I couldn’t turn the job down, I had already taken the money. So my decision was to continue to follow Squillante, get the job done as soon as possible, and keep an eye to the rear right of my car.
And I started carrying a loaded .38 inside my belt.
I arrived at the coffee shop and sat outside in my car waiting. I briefly toyed with the idea of going in and getting a cup of coffee and bringing it outside, but I didn’t want to take the chance on Squillante walking in on me. If this thing was legitimate, I had to figure Squillante must be at least a little itchy, and seeing me twice in two days is more than a coincidence. The one thing I didn’t want him to do was start getting paranoid. When a man starts getting itchy he starts getting erratic and unpredictable and that is precisely what I did not need. So I sat in my car and waited.
He showed up a few minutes after the hour and I watched through the window as he sat and had two cups of coffee and gabbed with an ugly waitress. I was just beginning to get angry with him for sitting there so long when we both got better things to do, when he finally decided to leave. The chase resumed.
He drove directly to the funeral home to bury all the envelopes and slips he had on him. I never understood why he did that because I knew from the list that he hadn’t finished his collections. I wasn’t at all surprised though, because Sweetlips had mentioned the possibility on his fact sheet. So far, in fact, that information had been perfect. Maybe, I wondered, even too perfect. But all I did was write the information down on my little pad.
He didn’t stay there very long and from there we went back up to the Bronx. He made his first stop at a cab garage at 142nd Street and Jackson. Obviously the dispatcher there was collecting from his drivers and anyone else who wandered by during the night. This could be a highly profitable little business for the dispatcher. I have seen guys pulling in $500 per night just sitting in a garage if their drivers hustle and have customers of their own.
Squillante walked down the block to 141st and Jackson and hit a second cab garage. His third, and what turned out to be the final stop of his working day, was at Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse. There were three guys waiting for him with envelopes. Then he drove back to the bank again. While he was in the bank I cross-checked my list with Jackie’s list and from what I could see we had covered all his runners. So that portion of his day was finished. Now came the cute part, trying to figure out some sort of pattern for what he did the rest of the day.
People who live and work within organized crime usually lead pretty unorganized lives after they’ve done their work for the day. It’s tough to be able to predict what a guy is going to do three days from Tuesday when chances are the guy himself doesn’t know. What you have to try to do is find some point to which he keeps returning: a girlfriend, a card game, a friend’s apartment, a social club. And after you’ve got that, all you have to do is figure out when he’ll be there. It is not easy.
Squillante stayed in the funeral home about 25 minutes, tying up his sheet and everything. He drove from there back up into the Bronx, to the project on Randall Avenue where his girlfriend lived. He got there about two o’clock and parked. I wanted to see how long he stayed there, so I parked too. There’s no way of telling about a man and his girlfriend. Some guys will run to their girlfriend’s house every day and stay for 20 minutes just a quickie to tickle their fancy, or whatever else they’re into. Others will make an entire day out of it. I figured Squillante would be there for awhile because he fancied himself a ladies’ man and I knew he could never hit and run. It just wasn’t in the man’s character.
So I sat there waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. I’ve always believed that waiting is the most difficult part of making a hit. You can overcome everything but boredom. You listen to the radio, you think, you try to pass the time someway, but each minute just drags on.
For the first time since I took the job, I started thinking about this Joseph Squillante. Assuming he was doing what they said he was doing, he certainly was not very uptight about it. He was floating around free and fancy. In fact, I thought a little too free for an individual who has got to be aware his life could be snapped off at any point. A guy who had hired two punks to rip off his employers—neither stupid nor gentle people! He didn’t even seem to be looking over his shoulder. He seemed to be making my job very easy. Too easy.
I wondered what was going through his mind when he made the decision to double-cross the Fat Man. This is supposed to be a bright person, a year at City College, successful controller, how could he ever believe he would get away with it? I couldn’t figure it out.
I wondered if he spent much time worrying about his debts. How could he not worry? Yet, when I met him at Macy’s, he seemed not to be bothered at all. Another strange thought popped into my mind: In the brief time I had been following him I had not seen him make one move that looked like he was placing a bet. Not even one bet. I suppose he could have been making them from his girlfriend’s apartment, but I would have been really surprised if he was going up to this chick’s place to read the form or the sports pages, and he’s not gonna bet if he doesn’t peruse them might-tee care-fully. I knew he wasn’t about to quit—I’ve never seen anybody quit when they were as far behind as he was, people at that stage are always looking to get even with one blow—but I hadn’t seen him place a single bet yet. As soon as I saw him do that, I knew a lot of my doubts about this job would fade away. But I had to see it soon, or I would be getting uptight myself.
As I sat there I never took my eyes off the front door of her building. I wondered exactly where her apartment was. Sweetlips’s fact sheet said 7N. I thought casually about checking it myself, but gave up that idea fast. Again, I didn’t want to see Squillante again no how, no way. And I had been caught checking an apartment building once before. I knew it could easily happen again.
I was going to do this guy in Chicago. When I got there my employers gave me the entire layout. I said, “You don’t mind if I check it out?” and they said of course not, go ahead. One of the locations they suggested was his girlfriend’s apartment, so I went over there. I was walking into the hallway when he came down the stairs. I quickly began looking at the names and numbers listed next to the buzzers. He was very helpful. “You need some help?” he asked, not in the nicest tone but still an ask.
I didn’t blink an eye. “I’m looking for Phil Lefkowitz. But I can’t find his name on this thing.”
So he looked and, amazingly enough, he couldn’t find it either. “What address you lookin’ for?”
I told him. “Four twenty-six North Park Drive.”
“That’s your problem then.” He was being a good Samaritan now. “This is South Park. Go outside and turn right and walk up about six blocks.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “You mean there’s two parts to this street? Imagine that.” And I walk out. I killed him four days later, but nowhere near North or South Park Drive.
So I waited for Squillante some more. He came out looking happy and content—and why shouldn’t he, he had a nice afternoon while I was sitting there freezing—and drove back to his house. I almost dropped him there because I couldn’t find a legal place to park. Most of the time I’ll pull in next to a hydrant, but there was no way I wanted a cop to bother me while I was sitting on Squillante’s block. All I need is a parking ticket putting me near his house a week before he’s gunned.
I took one quick swing around the block and found a spot just beyond a bus stop, near a lamp post. By the time I parked he was out of the house and headed for the social club in the Tremont Avenue and Arthur Avenue area. This “social club” is nothing more than a big room on the bottom floor of a tenement-type building. I’ve never been inside this particular one, but if it’s like all the others I’ve been in, it’s got a pool table, some card tables, soda, candy and cigarette machines, a color television set, and a lot of chairs, usually filled with guys not doing too much of anything.
I don’t know what Squillante was doing inside, but whatever it was didn’t take him very long. He was out in ten minutes. I trailed him right back to his place and then said a fond adieu for the day. I had had enough of this bird.
And he still hadn’t looked over his shoulder.
When I got home after bumping into Squillante I called Cockeyed Jimmy, as requested, and he told me the rest of my order had arrived. “Do me a favor, will ya, kid?” he asked. “Meet me at the trotters tomorrow night because I got a horse. Okay?”
Asking me to go to a race track is something like inviting a nympho to an orgy. There is absolutely no way in this entire world that I’m gonna turn down that invitation. I don’t get that much opportunity to mix business with pleasure.
“You gotta promise me one thing, though,” he added. “This horse goes in the sixth. No matter what I tell ya, don’t give me my money before then because if you do I’ll piss it away.”
“You’d better be there on time then,” I laughed, “because if you’re not I’ll piss it away for you.”
Not only was he there on time, he was early. I met him just before the third race and he handed me a brown paper bag. I could feel the heavy metal silencer inside. I stuck the package in the pocket of my jacket and asked him, “You sure you don’t want your money now?”
He was a changed man. He couldn’t wait five minutes, much less until the sixth race. “Gimme my money. Gimme my money.” The horses do that to people. So I handed him the money I owed him and, sure enough, by the time the sixth race came around he had pissed it away and he put the touch on me. It all worked out for the bettor, which was me, because the horse won and paid $46 and change. Those winnings paid for the gun and silencer.
One of my favorite comedians is a Hebe named Jackie Mason. He does this routine about guns. “Guns? Guns?” he says in a Jewish accent which I imitate very well. “Guns have never bothered me. I’m not at all scared of guns.” Then he pauses and sticks his index finger in the air to make his point: “Bullets! Bullets are what bothers me.”
