Free Sons and Princes by James Lepore Page B

cousin, Johnny Logan, called, in late 1976, to offer him a piece of his business at the Two Bridges Houses, in return for Dolan’s “muscle” as Logan had absurdly put it, Ed, angry and disillusioned, decided to give it a try. He was afraid of no man, and anything, he felt, would be better than hanging out in saloons or watching his son go off to school while he stayed home with nothing to do.
    Dolan’s wife Margaret was off on a five-day tour of Jersey City’s saloons when he was killed. The police had no choice but to take Ed Jr. out of school and bring him up to Bellevue to identify his father’s body. When he returned, Johnny Logan’s girlfriend Moira, a darkly beautiful young woman in pointy boots, a red leather jacket and a striped scarf, was waiting for him in front of his apartment building on Washington Street in the West Village. Johnny was alive. She had been allowed in to see him for a second before his surgery. Joe Black Massi killed his dad, then gut shot Johnny, then made it look like a shootout between the two cousins. It was no shootout. Don’t believe anything else. Andy O’Brien worked for Richie Velardo. He’ll lie to save his own life. It was Joe Black. He’s the murderer.
    Moira, tears, makeup and strands of wet brown hair streaking her face, hugged Ed Jr. and cried on his shoulder as they stood in the small tiled foyer of his tenement. There was a vulnerability, a nakedness, in Moira’s eyes that had caught at Ed’s stomach. Now, breathing in her perfume, he felt an intense stab of desire, and was immediately shamed by it. Then he watched the building’s tired old wooden door swing quickly open and shut as she left to return to Beth Israel Hospital. He had not cried. That would have to wait. He had to figure out how to find his mom. But before that, there was something else. He had to find Chris Massi. Chris had to know how much he hated him. He had to know.

7.
    The day after his drink with Joseph at the Peninsula, Chris borrowed Joseph’s car, a Saab convertible leased for him by Marsha, and drove to Joe Black and Rose’s house in Jersey. Earlier in the week, he had rented a small truck and moved the things that had sentimental value to a storage facility he rented just off the Garden State Parkway in Clifton. These included photo albums, a leather-bound set of the Harvard Classics, a few pieces of solid old world furniture and a collection of curio-sized dragons – in ceramic, blown-glass, bronze and various semi-precious stones, that had surrounded Rose on Carmine Street and then in the small house in Bloomfield. The rest of his parents’ things, including all of their clothes and the remaining furniture, he gave to the Salvation Army. On Friday, he went to clean the place up in anticipation of the closing that was to be held the following week. The evening before, he had called Teresa to see if the kids were willing to help, but Tess had promised to tutor a friend for a math exam, and Matt had been invited to help inaugurate a new pool on the grounds of a mini-mansion owned by one of his friend’s parents. It seemed, incredibly, that his bat-wielding son had escaped all punishment for his conduct on the prior weekend, an outcome that Chris chose not to discuss with his ex-wife on the phone but that nevertheless brought his blood to a boil. The mindless work at his parents’ house was a welcome diversion.
    Primarily in the living room, but also scattered in the rooms throughout the now empty house, there were groups of cardboard boxes containing things that Chris was too busy to make decisions about prior to the Salvation Army truck’s arrival earlier in the week. His work today was to go through these boxes, sort out the few things of value, and put the rest at the curb. There was a garage that needed to be looked at, but he saved that for last. In two hours, he had about twenty boxes of various sizes neatly stacked out front. The few things worth saving, including his