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Josephina said. It belonged to us, to the Italians. The police, they did nothing, out of fear. The politicians did nothing, because that is what they were paid to do. That left it up to the men of the towns to form a group that only they could trust.
        Did they win? Angelo asked. Did they get their land back?
        Much blood was spilled, but yes, they won their fight, Josephina said. And no one ever touched their land again.
        Was your husband in the group? Angelo asked, reacting to the story as most children would to a favorite fairy tale.
        Yes, Josephina said. He was capo of the town where we lived and where he died.
        Papa says that it was to get me and Mama away from men like Uncle Tomasso that we came to America, Angelo said.
        Your father is weak, Josephina hissed in a dismissive tone. He will never be more than what he is, a piece of furniture moved about by other people.
        I am weak, too, Angelo said, sad eyes peering up at Josephina.
        That will change, Josephina said, a large hand reaching out and caressing the boy's face.
       
         *     *     *
       
    ALL THE GANGSTERS I have known are superstitious, and it stems from childhood days spent with women such as Josephina, who spoon-fed them hand-me-down tales that have no weight in a modern world yet have lingered for centuries. Their everyday fears go miles beyond the simple black cats and open ladder phobias most people demonstrate and are driven by dreams, numbers and suspicion.
        Do you know his biggest fear, courtesy of Aunt Josephina? Mary asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
        Maybe I do, I said. If you came into a room with your jacket buttoned it meant you were planning to kill him.
        That was a good one, Mary said. But the one I got the biggest kick from was that he would never sit at a table or even be seen with a woman who had red hair.
        Why not?
        It was the color of the devil, Mary said. And Josephina believed that they had the power to turn the hearts of the most loyal of men.
        Do you think he really believed all that? I asked.
        I hope to God he did, Mary said, the smile gone from her face. He had more than one man murdered because of them.
       
         *     *     *
       
    ON SUMMER AFTERNOONS, Angelo would sit on the middle step of his tenement stoop, staring at the faces in the crowds that squeezed their way past. The street was congested with human and horse-drawn traffic, and thick piles of manure and litter lined both ends of the sidewalk. Across the street from Angelo's building was a dilapidated saloon with an unhinged front door, chipped walls and an uptown name.
        It was called the Cafe Maryland.
        Inside its dark, beer- and bloodstained interior, local gangs met to plot their murders and burglaries, map out hijacking routes and collect on their cash loan-outs. In the summer of 1910, three men were shot and killed after a long and loud argument over a woman whose company many of the bar patrons had already shared. The morgue attendants pulled their black van up to the front door soon after the final shots had been fired, scooped up the bodies and vanished back into the darkness, shrugging then: shoulders and laughing after another night of battle between the dagos and the micks.
        Angelo was warned by his father never to step near the Maryland. The people in that bar and the people we escaped from are one and the same, Paolino said. There is no difference. Paolino ached to spend more time with his son, but the need to work two jobs that barely brought in enough money put an end to such fatherly desires. He worked three full day and night shifts at the midtown piers, helping unload the ships that flooded in and out of the packed harbor. For that, Paolino earned seven dollars a week, but he had to kick back half of that to Chick Tricker's enforcers, who guaranteed the work in return for the payoff.