Every Man for Himself. Mark J. Hannon

hope he’s learned to go for the legs, or Getman will twist him into a pretzel.”

      Hearing this, several others expressed surprise and guffawed, as young Steinegar was the one among them who would hold up a corner of a wagon as they changed a wheel and was thought to be invincible.

      “Awf, that’s silly. When Heinz Steinegar gets hold of Getman’s wrist, even, the match will be over!”

      “Charge, get him around the waist, throw him, and it’ll be over, I say,” another said through a gathering cloud of cigar smoke.

      “He’d better watch out for Getman’s dodges, because I’ve seen him do it to lots of stronger men,” Torreo continued to Phillip’s rapt attention. “He’ll feint you and keep escaping until you get tired, then sneak around behind, grab a leg and an arm, and tip you over like a turtle.”

      The discussions went on like this for some time, the beer flowing and the smoke filling the place. Phillip ate it all up, tilting the tankard of fresh birch beer back until its effervescence got in his nose. When the men started moving the tables off to the side to practice the moves they spoke of, Torreo finished his beer and slipped out of the place quietly. He had tried wrestling with them, but the others had learned that his gimpy leg would sooner or later betray him, despite the might in his other three limbs. As he walked down Niagara towards his house, he went past the Rowing Club. He hadn’t been back there since the battle with the South Buffalo boys. Silly Irishmen with their rowing. Silly Germans with their wrestling. He had too much to do to waste time on games. The sun was still strong in the summer sky as he walked, and he paused to wipe his brow again with his kerchief, when he thought he would stop by the café, where his brother worked, and get a glass of wine. He smiled that Rafaele was working and wasn’t drinking as much.

      As he turned the corner on Jersey, his joy turned to concern, for Raffie had been from job to job, and he wondered if his older brother would ever be able to take care of himself. His pace quickened as he walked under the canopy of maple leaves that covered the street, and when he saw the café’s glass front window, he stopped and looked in from an angle where he wouldn’t be observed. The front door was open, and the voices inside were boisterous and laughing. He saw two men sitting at a small round table in the corner. They were wearing black suits with white shirts buttoned up to the neck and no neckties. One was young with slicked-back hair and darting eyes. The other was older, with a big mustache and a wide-brimmed fedora. Rafaele stood in front of them, his back to Torreo, who quietly entered the plank-floored shop and stood in the doorway. The younger man stared at Rafaele, then swept the small coffee cups in front of him to the floor. Rafaele tried to step back, but stumbled off balance and crashed into the table behind, knocking the cups there all about as the occupants jumped out of the way.

      “This isn’t café,” the younger man said with a thick accent from the old country, “It’s mierda! Can’t you damned Americans make decent espresso?”

      Rafaele sat on the floor and started to push himself up as the older man laughed.

      “I’m sorry . . .,” Rafaele began, and the young man’s black eyes danced. He grabbed a sugar bowl off another table and threw it at Rafaele, who sat back down and crossed his arms before himself and started to weep. No one else in the cafe moved or said anything, and the older man continued to laugh.

      “Damned drunk, clean up this mierda and get us some real café,” the young man screamed, his face reddening.

      Torreo couldn’t move at first. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He took a deep breath, and then the raging man with the slicked back hair saw him.

      “What do you want, you stumbling fool?” he said as he reached into his pocket. The older man looked up and his laughter slowed. Torreo leapt across the floor just in time to backhand the young man’s knife across the room with his left arm as he slammed his right fist against the man’s face, driving it into the wall behind him, where it ripped the wallpaper. He then seized the man’s face with his callused hand, covering it from jaw to eyes, and slammed the sputtering man’s head against the wall three, four, five times as the crumbling plaster fell to the floor. The people in the cafe started to scream, and the older man struggled to get out of his seat, reaching into his jacket pocket. Torreo caught this out of the corner of his eye and let the wounded man slide down the wall, unconscious and bleeding. He grabbed the older man’s arm at the wrist and the elbow, and twisted his arm ninety degrees until it snapped, and a revolver fell to the floor. As the mustachioed man crumpled to the floor, moaning, Torreo punched his face as hard as he could, cracking his jaw.

      The aproned cafe owner ran over and threw his arms around Torreo. “No, Torreo, stop! You must stop or you’ll kill them!” Torreo threw him off; looked at the battered men; the shocked customers bailing out in all directions; and his brother, sobbing on the floor.

      “I’m sorry, Torreo. I’m sorry. I failed again,” he wept.

      Torreo stopped, and then helped his brother to his feet. Brushing him off with his hands, Torreo put his arms around him and led him out, saying, “It’s ok, it’s ok. I’ll take care of it,” as they went home to the flat where they were raised.

      Twenty minutes later, the owner of the cafe came through the Monteduros’ backyard, hustled up the back steps, and knocked rapidly on the kitchen door. Rafaele sat at the kitchen table, a glass of water in front of him. Torreo stood at the sink, massaging his hands silently.

      “Torreo, it’s me, Frankie, from the cafe.”

      “C’mon in.”

      “Torreo, we gotta talk about this. Those two guys, they’re bad men. They’re mano negro. The young guy, he’s still out. They took him to the hospital; he may not live. The other guy, he’s Pietro Sciandra; everyone knows him.”

      “Shit on them; they’re garbage,” Torreo said, getting mad again.

      “In that case, here,” Frankie said, and, opening a towel, dumped the knife and the gun from the cafe onto the kitchen table. “You, cazzo motto, are going to need them.”

      Rafaele stared at the heavy weapons on the table, and Torreo came over and picked up the big revolver, looking it over. Frankie stepped back, edging towards the door.

      “Don’t worry, Frankie. Those bums aren’t going to bother you, or us, anymore.”

      CHAPTER 8

      BUFFALO, 1918

      When the police got called to Columbus Hospital, they recognized the battered, young hoodlum immediately, but he never recovered consciousness, and died that night. There was another guy there, an older guy, getting his arm set who one of the detectives, Packy Mulhern, recognized.

      While the other officers gathered information about the dying man, Packy walked over to the older man and asked, “What happened to your pal Sciandra?”

      His eyes danced in pain but none of the hairs in his handlebar mustache moved.

      Packy leaned over close and smelled the spilt coffee.

      “Jersey Street Cafe, huh?”

      The older man’s eyes blinked, but he said nothing.

      Packy nodded and went to the other detectives, who were writing notes. “You guys get the rest of the information here. I’ll see you at the station house later,” he said, tugging his derby down tight.

      When Packy walked into the cafe, everyone started speaking Italian. The place was clean, but the plaster on the wall was still busted. Frankie came over to him, and Packy pointed to the wall and said, “Who busted up Sciandra and his boy Frankie?”

      “Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about, detective. That wall is old. I just gotta find time to fix it. Ask anybody.”

      “Uh, huh.” Packy asked the rest of the staff if they’d seen anything, but all he got were shaken heads and a lot of muttered Italian behind him.

      As he walked up the steps at the Tenth Precinct, he ran into a patrolman