“Not to say there weren't Italians. Grew up here myself.” Zannoni shifted in his chair; Laura remained sideways on hers, facing him. “Not so easy, sometimes, being Italian in Pleasant Hills. To the Irish kids, all wops were Mafia, so they were hot shit if they beat the crap outta you. Fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Bad blood, micks and wops out here, and a lot more of them than us.”
“Sounds pretty rotten,” Laura said, to let Zannoni know she was on his side.
“Old history now. But one thing was true. Not so much Pleasant Hills, but Staten Island. Lot of Mafia out here. The Italians-are-like-everyone guys will tell you that's not true, but it is.
“Around here—Pleasant Hills—the Irish had their crook, but we had ours, too. Theirs was Big Mike Molloy. Jack Molloy's father? Ours was Aldo Spano. You heard of them?”
“I've heard of Molloy, only because of this. And Aldo Spano—he's Eddie Spano's father?”
Zannoni grunted. Laura took it for agreement.
“Molloy was the big fish. Pleasant Hills was pretty much Mike Molloy's. Spano nibbled around the edges. Spano put up with Molloy because he had a big organization and he'd've been hard to dislodge.”
“Why did Molloy put up with Spano?”
“The Irish, they operated independent, each organization. Molloy was big, but he was on his own. Italians, you're hooked up with someone, one of the families, or you're out of business. Al Spano's hookup was the Bonnanos. Spano wasn't a big enough deal for them to go out of their way, clear-cut a territory for him, but they would've jumped if Molloy made a direct move.”
“So it was a stalemate?”
“Worked pretty well. Each side had their rackets.”
Laura, feeling she was tiptoeing out onto thin ice, asked, “What did the police do?”
“About them?” Zannoni stared at her as though she'd asked what the police did about the weather. “Shit, those guys were a lot heavier hitters than we were. Now you got prosecutors, state and city, like Rudy before he was mayor, people like that, they'll take on these guys. But back then nobody did. All we could do was keep the noise down.”
The ice hadn't cracked, so Laura took another step. “You're telling me that's what you did in the Molloy case?”
Zannoni put down the mug. It was, Laura saw, finally empty. “You ever ask yourself where McCaffery got the kind of money he was passing on to Keegan's family, if it was him? Salary of a fireman just starting out, those days, no way. Hell, even today, no fucking way.”
“It was someone else's money?”
“Sure as God made little apples.”
“Whose?”
“Like you said, you only heard of Big Mike Molloy because of this. The guy is history. His organization's history. You know he had two sons?”
“Jack and Thomas. I interviewed Thomas Molloy yesterday.”
“No kidding?” Zannoni raised his eyebrows. “You put that in today's paper?”
“Yes.”
“Didn't get the paper today. What'd he have to say?”
Laura spoke to what she guessed was the point. “I asked him about ties between his brother and the Spanos. He said there weren't any, as far as he knew, but Jack could have angered someone in the Spano organization.”
“What'd you think of him? Tom?”
“You mean, did I think he was legitimate? I got the impression he was.”
Zannoni nodded. “When I was at the 124, word was Tom was being groomed to take over Big Mike Molloy's organization. But what happened after Jack got killed, it seems like Tom got cold feet. Or maybe we were reading it wrong. Anyway, over the next couple years—long before Big Mike died—a lot of the Molloy rackets got sold off, shut down. And guess who ended up with whatever was left, added them to his own? Guess who's the only game in town now, in Pleasant Hills?”
“Spano?”
“Eddie Spano,” Zannoni agreed. “In the end, it's the Italians on top.”
Zannoni stared straight ahead, over the trees and roofs. An American flag snapped in the wind in the yard of a nearby house. Laura had learned in grade school that the flag was supposed to come down at night, but these days the flags weren't coming down.
“It sounds to me,” she ventured, “like this was something you were thinking about even back then. With the second ring top and everything. But—”
“Case was closed. Perp took the plea. Me and Jeff had other things to do. And,” he added, as though he knew she was going to keep pushing, “I didn't know about McCaffery then. Didn't have an idea who the other guy that night was. But I could see who could come out ahead. Without Jack, maybe the Molloy organization's in trouble. Maybe Al Spano ends up the big fish.” Zannoni pushed himself out of his chair and walked to the balcony rail. Staring out to sea, he said, “I'm older than those Molloys. Jack and Tom. Never took a punch from either of 'em. But, Jack—guys just like him gave me black eyes, bloody noses, threw my schoolbooks down the sewer, whole time I was growing up.
