Mob Rule: Part 22
The Noblesse Oblige
Jack learns the financial details of the family business, but he can't shake the feeling he's being groomed for something bigger
By John Armstrong
We didn’t go boating the next day after all. Bobby wanted me to go over some things with him and by late morning we’d been through a forest’s worth of paper; reports, earnings sheets, cost analysis breakdowns and just about everything else you can use to give a man headache and eyestrain. It was more of what I’d gone over the day before and it all added up to what I already knew, but I said nothing. I needed to see what it led to and we’d get there when Bobby decided we would. When we finished with that he wanted me to come downtown with him and we ended up on a tour of developments the family already had underway and these were all of a kind, too; the family hadn’t kept all the loot they’d taken in, by any stretch. They’d done many good things with it and were doing more – hospitals and schools ...
Mob Rule: Part 21
A Special Appearance
Just when he's trying to be icy, Jack returns to the Compound to find Ethel, Bobby and a familiar face that's making him flush with warm feelings
By John Armstrong
It was near dark when I pulled into the big circular drive in Hyannis and the outside lights were already on, flying bugs and spring moths clustered around them, elbowing each other out of the way in their rush to be burned alive. I put the Buick back in the garage and hung the keys up. There were voices from the back patio and I walked back to say hello. Vanessa was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs with a tall glass in her hand, talking to Ethel in the chair beside her. Then she looked up and saw me. She ran to me and I just stood there, dumb. Over her shoulder I saw Bobby laughing. “Close your mouth – you’ll swallow a fly.” I realized my mouth really was open. I’d been about to say something but nothing came out. I still couldn’t come up with anything better than, ...
Mob Rule: Part 20
What makes a Kennedy
Revisiting the landscapes of his boyhood back in Boston, Jack wades through a flood of memories that take us back to the beginning
By John Armstrong
After our swim I was at a loss for what to do with myself. Bobby was organizing the kids for a touch football game on the front lawn but I’d already had enough exercise for one day. More evidence that I’m not a true Kennedy, I suppose. The genuine article can spend all day waterskiing, riding horses and playing tennis and then climb a mountain just for the hell of it after dinner. I can think of much better ways to get tired and in most cases I prefer to conserve my strength in case I might need it for something important. (I did play hockey and lacrosse at college, because there was no way to get out if it, and both those sports are really just street fights with complicated rules. The brothers thought it developed character. I thought it created practice cases for the interns at the medical college. ...
Mob Rule: Part 19
Route 1 to the heart of darkness
Jack settles back into the Kennedy cottage where he gets a warm welcome from Bobby and gets a good look at The Grandfather: Joseph P. Sr.
By John Armstrong
It was as quiet as New York ever gets on the way out of the city and traffic was light when we got onto US 1 headed south. The freeway runs over top of what was the original Boston Post Road, three hundred years old under its modern surface and ironically, that cement and tarmac was poured and paid for by the Kennedys at their end and the New York Families at ours, our respective crews meeting in the middle somewhere. I remember that because it was one of the illustrations of how a closed economic system works, back in college. We collect our tribute from the people and in return, we have to keep things working, such as roads. Plus, it’s a basic cost of business. Where would we be without transportation? Or sewers, or whatever. Say we have a contract to let for 100 miles of freeway ...
Mob Rule: Part 18
A spy heads into Hyannis Port
Jack packs his apartment and bids adieu to Vanessa as the plot thickens with a ruse that takes us inside the gates of the Kennedy compound
By John Armstrong
In the 15 hours since we’d left Vegas I hadn’t eaten anything but pastry and coffee on the plane; now that the adrenaline of the fighting had worn off it was a toss-up whether I could stay awake long enough to eat. I had a flash and popped into Frank’s office and there it was in the little office fridge, wrapped in foil, the remains of the ossobuco from Rao’s. How old was it? Two days? I peeled back the foil and pried the lid up – it smelled fine. Problem solved. “Tell Ricco bring a car around, and call this number, ask Vanessa does she want to come for dinner at my place, right now.” I scratched the number on Abby’s pad. “Tell her call my place with the answer, Ricco will come get her. Tell Frank and Meyer I went home to catch some sleep. And please call me there as soon ...
Mob Rule: Part 17
Old money and mirrors
When the interrogation of hostile foot soldiers yields no information, Jack is asked to go undercover at the Kennedy compound in the hopes of getting actionable proof about who's behind the truce-breaking violence
By John Armstrong
It’s hard to believe that anyone actually enjoys torturing a man but by the time you reach manhood you learn that many things are true which you may not care to believe. Fortunately, we didn’t need to tie anyone to a chair and stick things under their fingernails to get what we wanted. The captured gunsels had no reason not to talk. The ones we’d brought in from Queens were all from the Lucchese Family. I sat in on one interrogation that was more like a friendly chat among guys waiting for their cars to be fixed at a muffler shop. But why shouldn’t it have been, really? They’d done their job bravely, now it was over and we harbored no real animosity to each other. People say, “Oh, they’re so cold. They can ...
Mob Rule: Part 16
War breaks out in the borough
Jack can't believe his eyes as the mattresses come out before the hail of bullets begins, but as newly appointed battle commander, he needs to hatch a strategy that will flush the bad guys from their Flushing stronghold before his men are picked off by sniper fire.
By John Armstrong
From 7th Avenue looking down 33rd towards the Luciano-Costello Building you would have thought you were on the set of a movie: cars and trucks had been parked sideways across the street at both ends, forcing any attack to come though the narrow bottlenecks they left open, a bad idea as there were gunmen stationed everywhere. And I’m only talking about the ones you could see; who knows how many more were watching from sniper posts? The driver delivered us to the front door and I mean, right to the doors themselves, up on the sidewalk with barely room to open them so that we were exposed to any enemy shooters for the shortest possible amount of time. Inside it was ...
Mob Rule: Part 15
Sex in Vegas, Blood in New York
Jack and Vanessa get to know each other in a Biblical sense while an unholy gang war starts to ramp up on the streets of the big apple
By John Armstrong
Some time later I called the desk and asked them to tell Mr. Cohen we had been unavoidably detained. I lit a cigarette one-handed, as the other was trapped from the shoulder down beneath a large mound of hair snuggled into my chest and portions of a beautiful face peeking out here and there. “This is exactly what I swore to my mother I would not do,” she said. “‘Mind you don’t get swept off your feet by some fancy hoodlum and wind up on your back’, she said, and here I am, on my back.” She tugged the sheet towards her. “My mother also believes the Catholics are taking over the world, through numbers. That’s why the Pope’s against birth control.” “Absolutely true,” I told her. “We’re in a race with the Chinese for domination. It’s why the Earth tilts on its ...
Mob Rule: Part 14
What happens in Vegas...
Jack and Vanessa get a massage together, but if they don't get the message you will: He's strapped on his Doc Holliday double huckleberries, and he's ready for whatever happens next...
By John Armstrong
Normally I wouldn’t fall asleep while someone is kneading and stroking me and anointing me with oils, but I somehow managed it. I was in a half-dreaming state the details of which are not suitable to go into here, and only awoke when urged to turn over, something I found with some embarrassment I needed to do carefully. Vanessa was making very interesting and encouraging moans of contentment practically in my ear which didn’t help matters any. My masseuse showed admirable professionalism by completely failing to notice anything was amiss while casually folding a large towel and laying it on the sheet just where it would do the most good. When they had done about as much as was possible unless we were going to give up on a any semblance of a purely ...
Mob Rule: Part 13
Checking in at the Flamingo
If things were hot in New York, they're scorching in Las Vegas, where our family guy is wise to the history of the syndicate, but looking to get a better look at the landscape from his suite on the 30th floor
By John Armstrong
It was just after 7 a.m. local time when we touched down in Vegas and the heat hit us as soon as they popped the cabin door, an instant, sweltering blast like being in the kitchen on Christmas Day when your mother opens the oven to check the turkey. It was already over 80 and climbing and I could feel myself starting to sweat through my ‘lightweight’ wool suit. Vanessa already had her sweater halfway over her head, revealing a shorter version of a man’s white tuxedo shirt under it. She got a pair of sunglasses from the shoulder bag and immediately looked ready for the Riviera. “Don’t worry, the limo’s got AC,” Cohen said. “In Vegas, everything has AC – no-one goes outside except to get to the pool, and ...
