Bressio by Richard Ben Sapir

Author:Richard Ben Sapir
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504021630
Publisher: Open Road Media

XII

As Bressio’s plane took off for Phoenix, Willie Knuckles, his head bandaged, his ears ringing, was directing his brother-in-law in the unloading of his golf clubs from his car on Bathgate Avenue in the Bronx when a sniper across the street sent a 30–30 slug through Willie Knuckles’ brain, some of which clotted on the sweet spot of his Maxfli pitching wedge. The brother-in-law dove under the car. This was only the first killing among people maneuvering for what was in the house on Pren Street.

Sally Bugellerio, Bressio’s second cousin, later that night, slipped under the wheels of an Uptown F train at the isolated Fourteenth Street station. Helping him slip were Johnny Tomasino and Alfiere (Al Donnelly) Donelle of Brooklyn, who kept pleading for cooperation as the F train roared in: “C’mon, Sally, you know you’re gonna get it.”

Tomasino joined Willie Knuckles and Sally Bugellerio the next day when he started his car and got a face full of engine parts and shreds of fire wall.

The Daily News screamed of gang war. The New York Post, which had lost the news break on Willie Knuckles and Sally Bugellerio to the morning News, but had a Tomasino exclusive, ran a sidebar on the meaning of the gang war, tying it in to every professional-style hit in the last two years.

“Silly, silly, silly,” said Don Carmine, who normally read only the business section of The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He sipped coffee and ate buns with his friend and adviser, Felli, in his Brooklyn apartment. “The world is run by fools. Fools. I am convinced of this.”

“Does Bressio know? Is it possible he still does not know about Pren Street?”

“I do not see how,” said Don Carmine.

“Perhaps his new associates on Wall Street have gotten to his head. Perhaps he thinks he is bulletproof? He worked over that Bronx nobody for no apparent reason, unless …”

“He did not kill that man, I am led to believe.”

“If he is not involved in this silliness, then he is acting like some Calabrese,” said Felli, using a Sicillian appellation of dim-witted, a reference to the people of Calabria, whose appellation “Siciliano” had connotations of untrustworthy and vicious.

“Perhaps, but he is not the biggest fool in this thing,” said Don Carmine, who had a distaste for disorder that would shame Queen Victoria. “It is the narcotics people. Why do they not run their business properly? Why must they engage in such … such … silliness.”

“It comes from Washington, I am told.”

“And who tells Washington?” said Don Carmine. “Has Washington lost its senses? Has Alphonse lost his senses? I do not know.”

In Mitchell, Walker and Cutler, Hedding “Puff” Mitchell looked in on his partner, who appeared to be in better spirits day by day. “How are you feeling today, Jim?”

“Much better. Much better, Puff.”

“Things working out well with Mary Beth?”

“Much better. Much better.”

“Say, Jim, I just happened to glance at the Daily News, I don’t read it regularly, of course, but today I happened to glance at it and the Mafiosi seem to be going at it again.

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