Sweeney on the Rocks

by Allen Morris Jones

  It was a long walk back Bay Ridge, and he was twenty blocks into it before he found the razor in his pocket.

  Call it a souvenir.

  Worst news in Marilyn’s life, it’s always come to her over the phone. Her experience, people pass along good news in person. They want to see your face. Bad news? It slips most easily through a phone line.

  Her mother’s first cancer report: “They say it’s in both breasts, but you know, they’re optimistic.” And six months later? Her father, sobbing from Mayo in Minnesota. “She’s gone.” Ted’s first phone call from the jail in Yonkers. “Yeah, hey, you’re going to have to come up and bail me out.” Then again, from the DA’s office in Midtown. “They’re saying Montana.”

  And now she sits in her prowler, staring out past a bug spattered windshield (grasshoppers caught under the wiper blades) toward a parking lot gone sepia in the heat. The road dust lies low in an inversion. Her cell phone cupped in both hands like a religious artifact. She’s in the midst of a moment of vertigo, a disconnect so profound it nears nausea. Rachel Aniello in Montana. In a deputy’s uniform. You never get used to it.

  She has four messages, all from Ted. And all of increasing length, complexity, and apparent implausibility. From the first call-me-back to the last, which fills up the entire allotted three minutes of memory, and ends with the words, “which means, yeah, he’s this goddamn psychopath or something, and must have a grudge against me long as your fucking arm to be doing what he’s doing, and you know what really gets me, the thing I can’t figure out, the thing the breaks my heart? Is that I….” Beeeeep.

  Marilyn’s prowler has become a trawler. She’s lashed to the steering wheel in a storm, tossed through rolling troughs steep as canyons.

  Sweeney in New York. That’s the first thing. Her hunger not only for the background detritus of the city—the pneumatic wheeze of busses, distant Spanish; passing sirens (all of it hitting her ear the way drops of water find a cupped palm)—but for Sweeney’s tone as well. That hint of Cosmo. This more than anything. A little of the old Brooklyn coming through, a little fuck you. Not just the accent (although that too), but the confidence. Even those words, “breaks my heart,” were spoken with his old swagger, a self-depreciating I’m-just-fuckin-witch-ya kind of lilt.

  That man, that man…

  To her genuine astonishment, turns out she’s missed him so goddamn much.

  Counts Enemies, flipping through his CDs, says, “You got any hip hop?”

  “What, I’m black, I got to be into rap?”

  “Before I bust into a place—and granted, it’s been a while—me, I like to get my bounce on. You know. NWA, Eazy-E. Older stuff. Get some anger running through. It helps.”

  “How about Curtis Mayfield?”

  “Seriously?” He finds the CD. Tilts it up to the light for scratches. “Yeah, this’ll work.”

  They sit listening to the bass line of “Pusherman.” Counts Enemies nods. “Yeah, this’ll work.”

  “Lot of people don’t hear the sour under the sweet.”

  “So how we doing this?”

  Merchant knows all the trailheads in Paradise Valley. Has his favorites, but he’s hiked them all. His first year in Rockjaw, Jack Creek was his introduction. A quick drive from town, it picks up the dog walkers and geriatrics. Picnic tables and fire pits. But you get tired of dodging dog shit, so Merchant left this particular trail behind. He still remembers this cabin, though. Hard to forget it.

  Couple hundred yards up from the gravel road to the trailhead, it stares down over the valley with unblinking windows, the leering teeth of a two-story porch, a patrician air of tolerance, silently suffering the parade of unwashed heathen treating themselves to a hike.

  They’re parked a quarter mile away. Counts Enemies says, “So if it’s just the two of us, the only way we can do it where the hostages don’t get killed, we set up a sniper post, wait until the guy shows himself. Pop. Done.”

  “There’s a chance it might not be the right guy, yeah?”

  “So we watch the house until we can verify the hostages.”

  “No time.”

  “Knock on the door. The guy answers, we shove a pistol in his ear.”

  “Might be more than one.”

  “So call the cops. Tell them you saw a guy dragging a woman in there against her will. Probable cause. Let the locals do the work.”

  They chew this over, staring at the house. They both come to the same conclusion at the same time. The only real option. Let the locals take over. Counts Enemies has his Glock, but drops it back into the canvas sack. Metal knocks against metal. “Ah well. That was going to be…”

  “Yeah.”

  Merchant’s cell phone rings. He checks out the number. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Marilyn Sweeney.” Merchant shows him the number. “The locals.”

  Even the worst of us are restrained by circumstance, chained by cause and effect, shackled by rhyme and reason. But what if there is no rhyme, no reason? What if there is will but no conscience? Eddie Adamo at his worst? It needs a macabre highlight reel. Sportscenter meets the Oscar death montage

  One o’clock in the morning, Eddie and Nose, having just locked up the tire shop, stand in the cold, adjusting to the city’s near silence. The echoing growl of engines, distant laughter, garbage trucks. They could see their breaths. Nose shivered deeper into his coat, said, “D’you hear about that Russian guy? That barber?”

  “What about him?”

  Three days since Eddie’s visit. After Eddie had given Nose his report (“Leave the guy alone a while, is my advice.”), there’d been nothing. No obituary, no crime report. Nothing. Was it possible that the guy was so isolated, so alone, nobody even checked in on him? Solitary old fuck, deserved what he got.

  “Somebody punched his ticket.” Nose drew a finger across his neck. “I guess I weren’t the only one he pissed off.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Gutted like a fucking pig. Plus, I heard they cut his balls off.”

  “Jesus.” All this news to Eddie, of course, but he didn’t miss the note of admiration in the Nose’s voice.

  Nose never smiled, but now the slabs of his cheeks twitched. He rubbed his hands together in a way that suggested pleasure. He was a minor leaguer who’d just been given inside dish about the Yanks. “Jesus is right. This world we live in, kid. I swear.”

  Twenty hours later, in a mist of rain, Eddie stood under an umbrella, staring up at the second story of a Russian restaurant. On the gray awning, in English and Cyrillic: “The Russo-America—Fine Cuisine.” Women in black moved past the windows, faces hidden under veils of dark lace. Radishes in sour cream, crunching under white teeth. Chilled vodka sweating in shot glasses. The sound of an accordion, a muted trumpet blowing slow and sad. A semi-Orthodox wake.

  As the rain drifted past, Eddie folded his umbrella, shook his last cigarette from a crumpled pack. Watched as the barber’s capo, the pudgy commie with the cane, staggered out of the restaurant. Misread the three steps and lunged forward onto an absent fourth. Caught himself against the railing, hung there for a while. Straightened, touched his fedora. Looked around, pleased with the world. Wobbled down the sidewalk. Turned into an alley. Cue the sound of urine splattering against garbage cans.

  Eddie with his razor, held low at his hip, stepped up behind. “Nice night.”

  The Russian started a little. Dick in hand, drew a wet zigzag on the wall. He saw white teeth in the gloom, and returned the grin. “Nice night, yes. Indeed.” A cultured voice, measured. Careful with the sibilants in the way of a practiced drunk.

  Later, Eddie rested the Russian’s head (surprisingly heavy) wetly on a garbage can. Turned it toward the street, just so. Tucked a note into the man’s mouth. “Breetvah.” Took a few steps back and bent to touch the man’s wrist, his lapels. Found the gold watch and an envelope within the jacket, thick as a Louis L’amour novel. Indeed.

  Eddie, given his
nose for a buck, an oenophile of opportunism, started hanging out in Brighton Beach. All the good music was out of Seattle, the beefiest cabernets were bottled in Napa, and the smartest cons were being played by the Russians. A dog to vomit, for an aspiring wise guy, you go where the money is.

  He found his bar on the boardwalk. Nice weather, they opened up the French doors to let a breeze through. Three, four times a week, Eddie picked up the N train to Coney Island, took a walk down the beach toward his Absolut on the rocks. Turns out, American Russians don’t fancy Russian vodka. Something about leaving the homeland behind. Instead, they go for Absolut. The afternoon bartender had this little chip on her shoulder, and gave him his drink with her upper lip one twitch away from a sneer. Short little sexpot, with a cascade of black curly hair halfway to her ass. Sexy as hell. She kept some hand weights behind the bar, and worked on her guns when business was slow. Her name was Raisa, and in addition to Russian, she spoke Spanish like a Spaniard, English like a professor. But kept the TV tuned to insipid Mexican soaps operas.

  Took some time, but Eddie finally found the spoon to crack her shell. She was waiting for him to buy her drinks. Shot after shot of vodka, and Eddie tipping big with each shot. They don’t go for subtle, the Russians. After her shift was over, took their private party to a table by the jukebox. Drank, and developed a rapport. They only screwed the one time (two nights later, Eddie held her ankle up to his ear like it was a salute), but respected each other as fellow aspirants. They wanted.

  Raisa came to know enough about Eddie—the tire shop, Nose, his cousin Cosmo—such that when Bytchkov and Jasha finally dropped in for a snort, she could give Eddie a meaningful tilt of her head. That guy.

  Eddie went for a leak, came back to read his paper one stool down. Took his time with the business section, eavesdropping. Finally, through the guttural gargles, he heard his word: Breetvah. Heard it again, punctuated by an approving palm slap hard to the bar. Then again, as Bytchkov and Jasha touched their shot glasses, drank fast.

  Eddie folded his paper. Said, “You know Breetvah?”

  Bytchkov turned on his stool. “Excuse me, we are have our conversation. Not you.”

  “Me, I know Breetvah.”

  Bytchkov stared at the toes of Eddie’s cheap sneakers and moved up, laying down judgment. Then dismissed him with a puff of air through hairy nostrils. “I do not think so.”

  Suave, nonchalant as hell, Eddie dropped a heavy gold watch on the bar. “We should talk, Mr. Bytchkov.”

  Eddie over the next six, seven years? His jawline goes loose and his shoulders go hard, and he coughs like a consumptive, squinting through the smoke. Working over his razor with the tired, jaded eyes of a sweatshop seamstress. His foreman and conductor, Grigory Bytchkov, pointing the way according to his own arcane agendas, his own opaque and particular reasons: This guy, that guy, him over there. And Breetvah, of course, blooms. A man over whom neither Bytchkov nor even Eddie Adamo feels like they have complete control.

  Finally, here’s Eddie in his early forties. A nice Sunday morning in Brooklyn. A doorbell, and Eddie comes to the door in a cardigan. Gray at his temples and a pair of reading glasses hooked to his shirt. Time beats us all in the end, even the arrogant, even the murderous. Which is perhaps a consoling thought for the rest of us.

  Eddie had the Sunday crossword folded under one arm. “Donnie, great to see you. Thanks for the call. Marky, great tie. Come on in. Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

  Donnie Moretti, breathing hard after a brief walk from the curb, said, “Thanks, yeah. Coffee.” Beside him, Marky Schena, in his suit and silk tie (a clothes horse in the tradition of Tony the Trigger) failed to return Eddie’s smile.

  Between the two men, a guy Eddie didn’t recognize. Russian, from Eddie’s quick glance. Confirmed by the accent. “Pleased to make your acquaintanceship.” A dry handshake, spotless fingernails. A flinchy, pleading way of glancing at Moretti: Are we partners or am I a hostage or what?

  Eddie called into the house. “Tina? Coffee?”

  From the kitchen: “What, are your legs broken? Get it your own fuckin’ self.” She came to the door between rooms, wearing yoga pants and a sweatband. “Oh, hey. Donnie. Sorry about that. Yeah, I’ll get you some coffee.”

  Settling into chairs, Eddie said, “Apologies for my wife. She don’t got no manners.”

  Moretti made a sympathetic gesture. What’re you gonna do.

  Eddie poured cream, offered it around. Stirred a spoon into his coffee. Set it smoking on a napkin. “Gentleman?”

  Moretti didn’t drink coffee, which Eddie well knew. But it had been offered, and this was another man’s house. He took a sip. Which told Eddie volumes about the errand. Moretti needed a favor. Big one. “Word has it, Eddie, you got an inside track to this guy, Breetvah.”

  “Who now?”

  Moretti gave him a look. Please. “Word has it, this guy Breetvah, he’s moved some stones. He’s connected that way.”

  Eddie played it quiet-and-reflective.

  “Me, I can go find a buyer for a couple rocks here and there. But we got a big order here. I need an introduction.”

  “How big’s the order?”

  Moretti tried on his version of a grin. A rictus of lips pulled back with fishhooks. “Show him there, Marky.”

  Marky produced a cheap black velvet bag from his jacket pocket. Worked at a knot and tipped the mouth toward the table. Spilled a few stones.

  Eddie swallowed.

  Marky rattled the rest of the bag for effect. Fed the spilled stones back into the mouth and made the bag disappear again.

  The Russian had watched the bag the way a cat watches a can opener. Once the bag was out of sight, his eyes went back to Moretti.

  Okay, so the Russian was here buying….what, exactly? Maybe influence. Moretti’s connections. Him and de Blasio have had lunch. Leverage to fast track his American citizenship, a string of no-show management positions. But membership in this club would be contingent upon liquidation and laundry.

  The machinery behind Eddie’s eyes picked up speed. Turbines hummed, fans kicked in. You could almost smell the ozone-stink of burning wires, insulation. “I can make an introduction.”

  Moretti: “When?”

  “Couple days? He ain’t in New York, and he don’t come into town that often.”

  “Couple days.” Moretti frowned.

  “Nothing I can do. Also, all due respect Donnie. He gets twitchy around his, you know, peers. The fewer people meet him, the better. He’s going to want to see your buddy here, so they can speak Russian. See who they went to grade school with, or some fucking thing. And he’ll tolerate Marky here, cause he knows you need to represent. But it might be better if you sit this one out.”

  Moretti studied Eddie. Came to a decision. Nodded once, quick.

  And in that moment, Moretti lost his rocks but saved his life.

  The old days, Moretti ran his business out the back of an Italian restaurant. Maybe he’s still got it. Anyway, the kind of place that left a residue, a slime on the skin. Moretti’s walleyed nephew behind the bar; osteoporotic aunt for a hostess; a nine-year-old nail biter for a busboy. The restaurant sat over a soundproofed basement where Donnie used to conduct his Q & As. On the occasion of Sweeney’s one and only visit, an informant had sat chained from the ceiling, hanging like beef, unconscious, one eye out of its socket. Moretti passed Sweeney some homemade brass knucks. Folded them up in Sweeney’s hand like a grandmother passing along nickels. “Feel like breaking some cheek bones?”

  Sweeney finds Moretti now under the fluorescents of his own Bay Ridge Hardee’s. From the street, he’s hunched like a moist toadstool, food tray picked clean by fat, agile fingers. Nothing left but crumbs, a sprinkle of salt, a smear of ketchup.

  Coming in the door, Jimmy Rugg stands up quick, blocking Sweeney’s path. He’s got this look.

  Sweeney, “What?”

  Jimmy Rugg pats him down, and he’s not gentle with it. Hands hard against Sweeney
’s ribs, inside his legs. He steps back. Tilts his head. “We’ve just buhheen sitting here, me and Lucho, thinking about that trick you pulled.”

  “Which trick now?”

  “That one where you made everybody think you were dead.”

  “Ah.”

  “Lucho had to point it out, what kind of cold, cold blooded shit that is, man.” Rugg is angry enough, maybe he’s on the edge of tears. “Took me a while, but that shit? That’s juhhust unforgiveable. It just is.”

  Sweeney spread his hands. How do you respond to unforgiveable?

  “And that thing you said about grabbing lunch?” Rugg broke his gaze. “That’s a dick thing to say, man. You just needed to know that. You ever need backup, don’t look my way. That’s all.” He jerked his head back at Moretti. “Donnie? We’re over here you need us.”

  Unstable now, wobbly, Sweeney pushes past Rugg to approach Moretti. Supplicant before the Pope.

  Moretti was never a looker, but this light’s doing nothing for him. Complexion like sandpaper coated in Elmer’s glue, cellulite in the jowels, bags under his eyes. A cheap chrome cane against the wall and, with one leg stretched out long, fabric hiked up to show a shin swollen under orthotic hose. Sweeney feels a twinge of sympathy. But then, no. Careful with that shit, Sweeney. There’s no advantage to sympathy. Wave it away like it’s a bee.

  “Them guys there,” Moretti says, “they’re some kind of pissed at you. You know that?”

  “I got that feeling, yeah.”

  “Jimmy Rugg, sweetest man on the face of the earth. You know what kind of asshole it takes to get Jimmy Rugg pissed at him?”

  A rhetorical question.

  “Me, I got no problem with what you done. I’m a, what’s that word, that word you and Eddie was always throwing around. Sounded like pig, only had an R in it.”