Little Caesar
Rico sat down. The applause lasted for over a minute. Then Ottavio
got up with a bottle in his hand.
“Here’s to Rico and Blondy and the Big Boy.”
Everybody shouted and made a grab for bottles and glasses. Blackie
Avezzano fell under the table and stayed there, lying on his face.
After the toast was drunk, Killer Pepi and Kid Bean began to quarrel.
The Kid picked up a plate and struck at Pepi, who threw a bottle at the
Kid, missing him by a fraction of an inch.
Rico banged on the table.
“Cut it out, you guys. Ain’t that a hell of a way to act?”
Pepi and the Kid shook hands and another toast was drunk.
A waiter came in the door and went over to Rico.
“Couple of newspaper guys, boss. They want to take a flashlight.”
“What’s the idea?” the Big Boy inquired.
“Send ’em up,” said Rico.
“We’re gonna get our mugs shot,” cried Blondy Belle.
“Maybe we are,” said Rico.
“What’s the idea?” the Big Boy reiterated.
“We ain’t got nothing to hide,” said Rico.
The waiter returned, followed by two newspaper men, one of whom was
carrying a big camera. Rico motioned them over.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
Sam Vettori came in and went over to Rico.
“They’re O.K., Rico,” he said, “they been here before.”
“Sure, we’re O.K.,” said the photographer, a little intimidated by
Rico’s manner.
“Well, spill it,” said Rico, “what’s the idea of the flashlight?”
“Well, we got a section in the Sunday paper about how different classes
of people live in Chicago. See? Last week we featured Lake Forest. Had
some pictures of the swells, see, and the dumps where they lived. This
Sunday we want Little Italy. We just heard about the banquet they was
giving you, Mr. Rico, so we kinda thought....”
“O.K.,” said Rico, “but make it snappy.”
“I’m out of this picture,” said the Big Boy, rising and walking
over to the doorway. Sam Vettori took his place.
After maneuvering about for a few minutes the photographer got the
correct slant. He put the powder on the little tray.
“Now!” he cried.
Rico sat with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, looking very
stern. There was a blinding flash. Ottavio Vettori leapt into the
air and crying “My God, I’m shot” fell face down across the table.
Everybody laughed.
When the newspaper men had gone the Big Boy came over and put his hand
on Rico’s arm.
“They may pick you up on that.”
“Who the hell’s gonna see it.”
“You don’t know who’s gonna see it. That was a bad play, Rico.”
Rico laughed.
“If they pick me up, I’ll alibi them to death.”
When the banquet was over Rico had Otero call him a cab. Blondy Belle
was a little drunk and Rico had to support her as they went down the
stairs. As she weighed about twenty pounds more than he did, this
was not an easy job. As they were going out the side-entrance, Flaherty
left his table in the club and came over to them.
He put his hand on Rico’s shoulder.
“Getting up in the world ain’t you, Rico?”
Rico looked at him.
“Don’t you know your old pal Jim Flaherty?”
“Sure I know you. What’s the big idea?”
“Go chase yourself around the block, flat-foot,” said Blondy Belle; “if
I ain’t getting sick of seeing bulls.”
“Hello, Blondy,” said Flaherty, “you and Rico hitting it off, eh?
That’s the old ticket. Rico’s a good boy, but he’s young. If they don’t
put him behind the bars, he’ll be a man yet.”
“What’s the idea, Flaherty?” asked Rico.
“Why, I don’t want you to forget that I’m your friend,” said Flaherty.
“I got my eyes on you, Rico. I like to see a young guy getting up in
the world.”
“Yeah?” said Rico.
The cab was waiting at the curb and one of the waiters went out and
opened the door for them. Rico boosted Blondy Belle into the cab.
Flaherty stood in the doorway and watched them drive off.
“The nerve of that Irish bastard,” said Blondy.
But Rico had forgotten Flaherty. He sat thinking about Joe Massara.
Gentleman Joe was getting too good for them, eh? He was going to turn
softie.
“Well, I guess not,” said Rico.
IV
The sound of the pianola woke Rico. He sat up and looked at his wrist
watch. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. He had slept twelve hours.
Rico lived at a tension. His nervous system was geared up to such a
pitch that he was never sleepy, never felt the desire to relax, was
always keenly alive. He did not average over five hours sleep a night
and as soon as he opened his eyes he was awake. When he sat in a chair
he never thrust out his feet and lolled, but sat rigid and alert.
He walked, ate, took his pleasures in the same manner. What
distinguished him from his associates was his inability to live in the
present. He was like a man on a long train journey to a promised land.
To him the present was but a dingy way-station; he had his eyes on the
end of the journey. This is the mental attitude of a man destined for
success. But the resultant tension had its drawbacks. He was subject
to periodic slumps. His energy would suddenly disappear; he would lose
interest in everything and for several days would sleep twelve to
fifteen hours at a stretch. This was a dangerous weakness, and Rico was
aware of it and feared it.
Rico leapt out of bed and hastily put on his clothes.
“Twelve hours, boy,” he said to his reflection in the mirror, as he
stood combing his hair, “that’ll never do.”
He had been seeing too much of Blondy Belle; that was the trouble.
Rico had very little to do with women. He regarded them with a sort
of contempt; they seemed so silly, reckless and purposeless, also
mendacious and extremely undependable. Not that Rico trusted men, far
from it. He was temperamentally suspicious. But in the course of
his life he had discovered a few men he could trust, but no women. What
he feared most in women, though, was not their treachery, that could
be guarded against, but their ability to relax a man, to make him soft
and slack, like Joe Massara. Rico had never been deeply involved with
a woman. Incapable of tender sentiments, he had escaped the commoner
kind of pitfalls. He was given to short bursts of lust, and, this lust
once satisfied, he looked at women impersonally for a while, as one
looks at inanimate objects. But at times this lust, usually the result
of an inner need and not the outcome of exterior stimulus, would be
aroused by the sight of some particular woman. This had been the case
with Blondy Belle; she was big, healthy and lascivious. This exactly
suited Rico’s tastes; she excited him, and for that very reason he was
on guard against her.
“Yeah,” he said, “I got to lay off Blondy for a while.”
She wanted him to come and live with her, but he refused. The offer
tickled his vanity, though, for Pepi or Joe Sansone would have
jumped at the chance. But not Rico. He fought shy of any kind of ties.
A slight relaxing of this principal and you are tangled up before you
know it. The strong travel light.
He went out into the living room. Blondy, in a cerise kimono, was
pedaling the pianola and singing loudly. The room was in disorder.
Stockings hung from the backs of chairs, the dress Blondy had worn the
night before was suspended from the chandelier on a coat-hanger, and
there was a pile of clothes in the middle of the room.
Blondy turned around and smiled at him, pedaling the piano at the same
time.
“What the hell kind of a piece is that?” asked Rico.
“That’s an Eyetalian piece,” said Blondy. “Ain’t it swell?”
“No,” said Rico, “I like jazz better.”
Blondy stopped the pianola and back-pedaled the roll.
“I got it yesterday because I thought you’d like it,” she said.
“Hell, quit kidding,” said Rico.
“I sure did. It’s from an Opera.”
“Yeah? Say, what’s wrong with you?”
Blondy looked at him. She had pretensions. Ten years ago she had been
a lady’s maid and she felt that she was somewhat cultured. One summer
she had even made Little Arnie take her to Ravinia Park to hear the
Opera. The soprano impressed her by her loud singing; the tenor by his
beautiful legs.
“You’d think I was a regular wop to hear you talk,” said Rico; “say, I
was born in Youngstown and I can’t even speak the lingo.”
“Well, I guess I wasn’t born in the old country either,” said Blondy.
She put a new roll on the pianola and Rico sat smoking, while she
played it. Rico had no ear for music; he couldn’t even whistle, or
distinguish one tune from another. But he liked rhythm. There was
something straightforward and primitive about jazz rhythms that
impressed him.
“That’s a good one,” he said, when the roll was played through.
“Want to hear some more?”
“No,” said Rico, “I got to go.”
He rose and went over to the closet for his overcoat, but Blondy said:
“Listen, Rico, I want to see you a minute before you go.”
“What about?”
“About Little Arnie.”
Rico stared at her.
“What’s the idea? To hell with Little Arnie. As long as he’s straight
with me I ain’t got no interest in him at all.”
“He ain’t straight with nobody.”
Rico just looked at her.
Little Arnie had played his hand badly. At first he hadn’t minded
losing Blondy Belle in the least; she cost him a good deal of money
and she bored and irritated him. But he had been kidded unmercifully.
As he had no sense of humor whatever and was very touchy in a personal
matter, this eventually angered him. In revenge, he talked. He told
all who would listen that Blondy Belle was a liar, a crook, and had
certain unnatural appetites. Killer Pepi was one of the auditors and he
immediately repeated Little Arnie’s assertions to his woman, Blue
Jay, who ran at once to Blondy Belle. Yes, Little Arnie, who was fifty
percent fool, had played his hand badly.
Blondy lit a cigarette and lay down on the davenport.
“Come over here and sit down,” she said; “I’ll give you an earful.”
“I ain’t got no time,” said Rico.
Blondy blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Arnie’s double-crossing you right now!” said Blondy.
“What you got on your mind?” said Rico; “spill it.”
“All right,” said Blondy. “Arnie’s giving you a split on the house,
ain’t he? What’s the split?”
“Thirty percent.”
“How do you know you’re getting thirty?”
“I look at the books.”
Blondy laughed.
“Them books is crooked.”
“Straight dope?” asked Rico, his face hardening.
“Sure,” said Blondy, “I wasn’t gonna say nothing. It wasn’t none
of my business, but Arnie’s been peddling a lot of loose talk about me
and I don’t take that.”
“All right,” said Rico, “now you know so damn much, how we gonna prove
it?”
“It’s a cinch,” said Blondy; “hand Arnie’s boy, Joe Peeper, some dough
and he’ll spill the news. Joe hates Arnie.”
“Good!” said Rico, banging the table with his fist; “I’ll run Arnie out
of town and declare you in, Blondy. You got brains.”
Blondy looked at him.
“You stick to me, boy, and we’ll own the town.”
“Don’t get swelled up,” said Rico, “just because you happened to be in
the know.”
That’s what she liked about Rico. He was hard to impress.
“Hell of a lot of thanks I get for it,” said Blondy.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Rico, his head buzzing with projects,
“you’ll get something better than thanks.”
Rico went to the closet and got his coat and hat.
“Wait a minute, big boy,” said Blondy, “you ain’t heard it all.
Listen, that joint of Arnie’s is worth plenty of dough. He ain’t gonna
give it up without a battle.”
“Hell,” said Rico, “he’s yellow.”
“Sure he is. But he’s tricky. Rico, if you can’t work the Joe Peeper
stunt, here’s a lever. Remember Limpy John?”
“Sure,” said Rico, “they bumped him off.”
“Who did?”
“The cops.”
Blondy laughed.
“They thought they did. Arnie bumped him off.”
Rico grinned.
“I got you.”
Rico put on his overcoat.
“Be round tonight?” asked Blondy.
“No, I got business.”
“Monkey business.”