Chapter 2
F ORTY MILES NORTH OF DC, in Baltimore, two cocksure long-haired hit men in their mid to late twenties ignored the Members Only sign and sashayed into the St. Francis Social Club on South High Street, not far from the harbor. Both men were heavily armed and smiling like a couple of stand-up comedians.
There were twenty-seven capos and soldiers in the club room that night, playing cards, drinking grappa and espresso, watching the Bullets lose to the Knicks on TV Suddenly the room was quiet and on edge.
Nobody just walked into St. Francis of Assisi, especially not uninvited and armed.
One of the intruders in the doorway, a man named Michael Sullivan, calmly saluted the group. This was some funny shit, Sullivan was thinking to himself. All these goombah tough guys sitting around chewing their cud. His companion, or compare, Jimmy “Hats” Galati, glanced around the room from under the brim of a beat-up black fedora, like the one worn by Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley. The social club was pretty typical ? straight chairs, card tables, makeshift bar, guineas coming out of the woodwork.
“No welcoming committee for us? No brass bands?” asked Sullivan, who lived for confrontation of any kind, verbal or physical. It had always been him and Jimmy Hats against everybody else, ever since they were fifteen and ran away from their homes in Brooklyn.
“Who the hell are you?” asked a foot soldier, who rose like steam from one of the rickety card tables. He was maybe six two, with jet-black hair, and weighed 220 or so, obviously worked out with weights.
“He’s the Butcher of Sligo. Ever hear of him?” said Jimmy Hats. “We’re from New York City. Ever hear of New York City?”