John Kennedy and Salvatore Vitale.”
“So it ain’t about color?” Lee Otis said.
I shrugged, helpless. “Some of it. Maybe. But not all of it. I don’t know who and what we’re dealing with. Not entirely. All I know . . . is that I can’t fight that world all by myself. I can’t protect you all by myself.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“He’s going to Chicago to mob up. Join the family,” Money said, his tone final. “So Uncle Sal can kill the prosecutor . . . whoever the hell that is now.”
Money was too smart for his own good. But it was a relief to have it spelled out in simple terms.
Esther’s arm had grown slack around mine.
“There’s a commission. A process. You don’t just spit in your hand and say, ‘I’m in,’” I said. “Sal told me to meet him in Chicago. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“So you were going to make me part of the family too,” Esther said, her tone flat. I had to look at her. I tipped my head so I could see her face.
“That’s why you want to marry me?” she said.
“You told me not to be gentle,” I said. “This is as real as it gets, Baby Ruth.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes solemn.
“Do you love me, Benny Lament?”
“I love you, Esther Mine. I love you enough to do whatever I have to do. Do you understand now?”
“Well, I understand now,” Money said. But Esther said nothing.
“You think Alexander sent them? The guys that shot at us? The guys Bo Johnson killed?” Alvin asked.
“I don’t know.”
“They looked like gangsters,” Money said.
“If it’s mob related, it wasn’t Sal. Sal would kill me before he’d cut off my fingers. He loved my mother. He loved my father. He would take me out if he felt it couldn’t be avoided, but he wouldn’t torture me. It would be quick, and it would be done.”
“They tried to kill you,” Money protested. “I saw it.”
“Why cut off my finger?”
“So you couldn’t play,” Esther whispered.
“I couldn’t play if I was dead, Baby Ruth. It doesn’t make sense. They wanted to make a statement. Or make it look like a statement. They cut off my ring finger. My wedding ring. That gets out . . . it looks personal. Racial. It feeds into the frenzy. It tells a certain story. ‘White piano man and Negro singer attacked. Wedding band cut off man’s finger.’”
“It makes it look like something it’s not?” Alvin asked.
“Maybe it’s like Murder Inc.,” Lee Otis said. “Maybe someone just hired them.”
“Well . . . they’re dead now,” Money said, satisfied.
We stayed at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. I got two rooms, nice ones, and made no bones about who was rooming with me. The Blackstone, on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive, was a big, red, high-rise hotel where politicians, gangsters, and entertainers liked to stay. It was known as the “Hotel of Presidents,” the place where big deals happened in smoke-filled rooms. John Kennedy was a frequent guest. Rudolf Alexander too. Uncle Sal and Theresa stayed there whenever they visited her family, and her father, Carlos Reina, got his hair cut in the Blackstone barbershop once a month. He was even known to have meetings with his bosses while the barber snipped away.
Pop and Uncle Sal avoided barbershops after Anastasia was taken down. They had a barber visit La Vita every so often instead.
I thought about hiding out in a dive at the edge of town, and then decided against it. I didn’t want to stay in a dump. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anywhere to hide, and our name was on the marquee at the Regal Theatre in the Bronzeville district. Everyone who wanted to do us harm would know exactly where we were and when.
But I was marrying Esther in front of a judge with a messed-up face and a target on my back. No party. No fanfare. No pretty white dress. And she deserved all those things. The least I could do was get us a nice room. And this was where Sal told me to be. I took heart in that.
The place was crawling with gangsters. Oddly, I took heart in that too.
Sal called me Thursday night, ringing through from the front desk.
Esther was coloring her nails. It was a long process, painting and fanning, painting and fanning, and she’d been at it for a while. She said she might be getting married at the courthouse, but she was going to