Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra Page A

business. One-Lung Curran, a Gopher waterfront boss, earned a small fortune by converting stolen policemen's winter coats into ladies' wear, causing a fashion sensation during two Garment District seasons. Curran suffered from a chronic tubercular condition and ran his business from a Bellevue Hospital bed, turning a third-floor ward into a workable sales office.
        Buck O'Brien, a Hell's Kitchen Gopher boss, invested his illegal profits in the stock market. His portfolio was helped by insider tips he received from Wall Street high-rollers he supplied with free women and drink.
        Neither man had the foresight of Angus McQueen, who saw a future in which the rows of low-rent bars would be replaced by upper-tier nightclubs featuring top-of-the-line talent and stiff cover charges. In time, McQueen would own percentages in three dozen such places, including Harlem's famed Cotton Club.
        These were the robber barons of lower Manhattan. Violent visionaries backed by gangs and guns who rode through town on the backs of poverty. There was a Gold Rush in illegal trade to be mined, and they took full advantage of the opportunity. Where many only saw teeming streets filled with disease and the destitute, Curran, McQueen and the others who followed in their wake saw thick pockets of riches, as the eager hands of the poor were quick to spend what little money they had on gambling, women and drink. And best of all, there was no one there to stop them. He used to say it was like living in the Wild West, Mary said. The black hats made the rules and the white hats followed them. If you were weak, you were doomed.
        They could have moved, I said. Tried to make it in another place, another city.
        Where would they go? Mary asked me, her eyes sad but firm. And where could they go that would be so different?
       
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    ANGUS MCQUEEN OWNED the street where Angelo Vestieri and Pudge Nichols lived. He was a scrawny man who didn't need to be seen in order to have his presence felt. Angus never raised his voice and always kept his word. His parents moved out of a run-down flat in East London and brought him to America when he was eleven. By then, McQueen had more than his fill of poverty and was determined to live his days soaking in the pleasures of wealth. And in the America he found, Angus learned that the fastest way to fulfill that childhood quest was with a loaded gun.
        He killed his first man when he was seventeen and became a Gopher boss a year later. By the time he was twenty-three, McQueen's murder count had risen to seven. He kept a thick lead pipe wrapped in newspaper in his back pocket, a set of brass knuckles next to his wallet, a blackjack hanging from a leather strap around his neck, and a holstered gun close to his heart. He never held a formal job and loved seeing his name and criminal exploits written up in the papers. Angus McQueen was the first Manhattan gangster to attain mythic status among his peers. It was a position he loved having and he did all he could to maintain his lofty perch. Killing for it was the least of his concerns.
        While Angus grew richer, Paolino Vestieri turned more despondent. The harder he worked, the less he seemed to earn. His living conditions did not improve and he began to drink more than his usual amount. He felt Angelo drifting away, lured by the streets and influenced heavily by the trio of Ida the Goose, Pudge Nichols and his own aunt, Josephina. He did not blame the boy. In their company, he was at least offered some promise of hope, a glimmer of an escape. Sitting next to his father, even a boy as young and innocent as Angelo could smell the fear.
        Paolino cut a fresh piece of cheese and held it out for his son. The boy took it, split it in half and put a chunk in his mouth. He lifted the small cup of water mixed with a few drops of red wine at his feet and drank it down.
        How much time they give you to