The Trouble Boys

by E. R. FALLON

  “Ways?”

  “I know people.”

  “You mean, Tom McPhalen?”

  Colin nodded. “They aren’t such bad fellows.”

  Lucille scoffed. “How could you, after what men like them did to your father?”

  “They’re nothing like them. They assist the immigrant community.” He handed her the flowers and the doll. “Here, I brought you these.” Colin pointed at the toy. “That’s for your daughter.”

  Lucille held the gifts limply in her hands. “My daughter’s not home. She’s out with her father. They’re visiting his parents. I don’t get along with them.”

  Colin was glad to hear that her husband wasn’t home despite it being a Saturday.

  “Can I come in for a moment?” he asked.

  Lucille stepped out of the doorway and glanced around the neighborhood, as if she was checking to make sure no one was watching them.

  “You can come in for a moment. Just for a moment.”

  He followed Lucille inside and she shut the door. She put the gifts down on a table and Colin wondered if she’d throw them away after he left.

  “Aren’t you going to put the flowers in water?” he asked.

  “I will when you leave.”

  “Why don’t you get along with your husband’s parents?” She didn’t answer him.

  “Your home is beautiful. How long have you lived here?” Colin envied how Lucille’s husband could provide her with the luxuries he couldn’t yet.

  “Since after my wedding,” she said.

  “To escape the Bowery?” He smiled.

  “My husband got a better job offer here. He’s the chief of police in our town.”

  “I’m impressed.” Lucille frowned.

  The house had peach-colored carpeting and tasteful furniture. On the fireplace mantel there were photographs of Lucille’s husband and daughter. Her husband had a chubby face, and he looked like a decent man, but Colin thought that he was better looking. Lucille’s blonde daughter looked a lot like her.

  “Your daughter looks like you,” he commented to Lucille. She murmured thanks.

  Colin pulled the rosary beads she’d given him out of his pocket. “I still have these. Looking at them in prison and thinking about you helped me survive in there.”

  Lucille’s face flushed. “Would you like a drink?”

  He put the beads in his pocket. “Yeah. Thanks. Scotch or whatever you have is fine.”

  “We don’t keep any of that in the house. My husband’s very religious. We don’t drink.”

  Colin was about to make a joke then he noticed a picture of Jesus on the wall and realized Lucille was serious.

  “We have cola,” she said.

  “That’s fine. Thank you.”

  Lucille nodded and left the room in a hurry, as though his presence tempted her and she was happy to get away.

  Colin looked over the photographs of Lucille’s family at the beach while she was in the kitchen. He stared at the pictures of her husband particularly hard. From what he could see in the photos, her husband was tall, clean-shaven, and had dark hair, just like him. He looked around forty years old. Lucille’s daughter had the same bright green eyes as her.

  Lucille returned and gave Colin the drink. He set the glass down on the mantel. He grabbed her hand and looked her over. “Let me have a look at you. Beautiful. You don’t look a day older than when I last saw you.”

  She pulled away. “Colin, stop. What do you want?”

  He looked into her eyes. “I don’t want anything. I wanted to see you.”

  Lucille looked away from him. “You’re lucky my husband isn’t home. What makes you think you can just show up at my house?”

  “If he had been home, who would you tell him I was?” Colin smiled. “An old friend?”

  “He’s a good man. I love him.”

  “You love him,” Colin echoed.

  Lucille stared at Colin. “I love him very much.”

  “I’m starting to feel like I’m not welcome here.”

  “You aren’t. Please go. And don’t call me.”

  Colin drank his cola and handed her the glass. “Okay, I’ll leave. But I’ll call you.”

  Johnny still worked at the auto mechanic’s shop. Colin knew this and he avoided walking near the place. It’s not that he didn’t want to see Johnny. In fact, they had seen each other. They ran into one another a few days after Colin had been released from prison and returned to the Bowery. Johnny was now shorter than him. They’d made small talk for a couple of minutes and Colin had thanked Johnny for his help with Carmine, and then they’d parted ways, as though they’d seen each other only yesterday, when it had been years. When Colin got sent to prison they had been friends, but the lost years had created an awkwardness between them. Johnny hadn’t written to him in prison. And it was as though they noticed their skin color more now that they were older.

  Johnny was twenty-nine years old. He sometimes stole and resold cars, but the aspirations of Johnny and Colin’s boyhood ‘criminal enterprise’ had fallen through over a decade ago. Johnny was divorced from Donna, with a young son and daughter who lived with their mother in Brooklyn. Johnny made it a point to see his children often because he didn’t want them to grow up without a father like he had.

  Like some of the other boys in the Bowery, Johnny had wanted to be a gangster when he grew up. Because, after all, gangsters made a lot of money and often came from nothing; but unlike most of the other boys in the Bowery, Johnny had both Cuban and Irish blood. Gangsters were sometimes of mixed blood, but there were certain boundaries. If you were Italian and Irish you could work for the Irish or the Italians as an associate, but you could never become a made member of either. Things went the same way if you were Cuban. But there weren’t any Cuban-Irish gangs in the Bowery. So Johnny was left hanging.

  Tito Bernal was a Lower East Side guy himself. He came to the US as a twelve-year-old. He grew up on Fifteenth Street, and he led a small gang there called the Tigres, who stole cars and sold the parts, and broke into stores at night to take appliances, which they’d resell. They weren’t anything big, but Tom McPhalen was becoming more aware of them.

  In the 1950s more Cuban families started moving into the Lower East Side because of the armed revolt led by Castro. Some of the older residents resented the new families coming in and acted out their dislike. Some Bowery landlords wouldn’t lease apartments to Cuban families, and some local employers wouldn’t hire them for jobs. Others took out their resentment with violence, as though they’d forgotten the similar treatment their ancestors had faced years before. They beat up the Cuban men with metal pipes, and their wives threw lye at the Cuban women and tripped them as they walked in the street. Offensive graffiti began to appear on the outsides of Cuban-owned shops.

  Tito Bernal watched this happening to his people and he didn’t like what he saw.

  Johnny met Tito at the garage when the older man came in for new car tires.

  “Are you Cuban?” Tito asked Johnny as he changed his tires.

  Johnny stared at the stocky man in the fedora who’d introduced himself as Tito Bernal. “Yeah. My father was.”

  “Was?”

  “He died a few years ago. Right after he got out of prison.” Johnny had never reconnected with his father.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Tito gave him a sympathetic smile. “It’s good to meet a fellow brother.” He read Johnny’s nametag and shook his hand. “Johnny.”

  “Johnny Garcia.”

  “So it was your father’s side?” Johnny nodded.

  “It must not have been easy being only a half-gringo in this neighborhood.”

  “It’s not. Your car’s ready.” Tito nodded but didn’t move.

  Johnny couldn’t tell what Tito Bernal wanted. He knew that Tito’s car was done and he could take his car and leave the garage whenever he wanted to.

  “I can only imagine how hard it was for you to grow up here,” Tito said, glancing around th
e garage. “And it still is hard.”

  “Your car’s ready,” Johnny said to get things moving. Tito nodded.

  “You can pay at the front,” Johnny said when Tito didn’t budge. “The guy up there will take care of you.”

  Johnny left Tito and walked over to a side project he was working on that involved fixing up an old car for his mother to use someday. He kept an eye on Tito Bernal as Tito made his way up to the front counter to pay. Tito must have felt Johnny’s gaze on him because he smiled at Johnny. Johnny looked the other way and continued working.

  Tito stepped into his car and Johnny heard him start the engine. But then Tito opened the car door and came outside again. He walked toward where Johnny knelt on the floor working. Johnny saw Tito’s shiny black shoes near him and looked up at the older man’s smiling face.

  “Here’s a card for our club,” Tito said.

  LESCA

  143 East Fifteenth Street

  Johnny stared at the card. “Lesca? What’s it mean?”

  “Lower East Side Cuban Americans. Do you speak Spanish?”

  Johnny shook his head and accepted the card and shoved it into the pocket of his mechanic’s suit without looking at it again.

  “You should learn,” Tito said.

  “Maybe.”

  “We’re having a gathering tomorrow night. There will be music, dancing, refreshments, and lots of pretty girls.” Tito smiled.

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

  “Six o’clock.”

  “I said I’ll think about it.”

  Tito nodded. He turned away and went back to his car with the engine still running. He opened the door and stepped inside. Johnny watched him drive slowly away.

  When Tito was gone Johnny took the card he’d given him out of his pocket. He didn’t know why but he spent more than five minutes looking at it. He wondered if he had thought the texture, the letters, the ink, would be different because a Cuban had ordered them, maybe even printed them. Did they do things differently? Did he do things differently? And did people notice? People around the Bowery? How about across the rest of the city?

  Besides heritage, what really made a Cuban a Cuban, and an Irish an Irish? And, since he was both, where did he belong?

  “You can go home now, Johnny,” his manager called out.

  “It six o’clock already?”

  “Yeah.”

  Johnny slipped out of his mechanic’s suit. He looked at his reflection in the grimy mirror on the wall as he washed his hands. Cuban. Irish. A little bit of each.

  He walked out of the mechanic’s shop in his jeans and t-shirt, but he’d forgotten the denim jacket he had arrived to work wearing. He remembered about the jacket when he was on the subway and halfway uptown on his way to see his mother. He knew he wouldn’t be returning to the garage to get his jacket, but he would be going to that party tomorrow night.

  Tom was in the middle of cutting a deal with the Woodlawn gang on the Lower West Side, and he appeared quite worked up about it. Sweat glistened on his forehead when he told Colin the news. The deal involved opening a nightclub and restaurant that would be a front for a gambling operation.

  The leaders of the Woodlawn gang (the ‘Two Declans’, as they were dubbed) – Declan Burke, who was not related to David Burke as far as Colin knew, and his underboss, Declan O’Connor – were Irish-American. Most of their men were second or third generation. Tom’s gang consisted of men directly from the old country. Men like Colin, who, although he’d grown up in the US, still thought of himself as Irish, despite having lost his Northern brogue and many of his memories of home.

  No-Last-Name Max, a notable hitman and a captain for Declan Burke, and a few years his senior, was thought to be more of a gentleman on the inside than Declan Burke ever could be, but not as sharp business-or-dress-wise. Tom told Colin that was why Max wasn’t the boss or even the underboss.

  Tom chose Colin to cut the deal, even though Colin had been in the organization for less than a year.

  “All you have to do is tell them the plan to open up the nightclub is moving along as scheduled, and that we’re all excited about working together on it. How finally after all these years we’re joining up, and it’s fantastic. Shite like that,” Errol told Colin outside of Tom’s large brownstone house. “Saying shite, that’ll make them grin. Make sure they know we’re all so fecking happy about working with them on this. That’s what my father wants you to say. Okay? He thinks they’ll like you because you’re a giant but you have an honest face. He thinks they’ll take you very seriously. I don’t agree about your face but that’s what he thinks.” Errol smiled. “The most important thing, and the real purpose of this meeting, is that we need the five thousand instalment from them. They should have the money with them. Bring it back here, and be careful that nothing happens to it. If you lose it then you’re not alive anymore. Understand? And if for some reason they don’t have it with them then you need to ask them where the feck it is, but in a nicer way.”

  Colin wanted to tell Errol to fuck off for threatening him, but at the last minute he thought better of it. “I understand.”

  Errol handed Colin some keys. “Here’s the keys for the car. It’d be too risky walking or taking a taxi with all that money. You can park at the pub.”

  “Okay, Errol.” Colin stared at the black car parked in the street. The car was a sleek beauty that Tom loaned to all of his men for important meetings and errands so they could travel in style.

  Errol peered at him. “You’ll do well.”

  His kind words reminded Colin of his da. That surprised Colin, but it didn’t surprise him as much as when Errol patted him on the back. Errol wasn’t a warm person, and he never made gestures like that unless he meant them. Colin knew he should be honored so he thanked Errol.

  There were three members of the Woodlawn gang waiting for Colin at Dowd’s pub on the Lower West Side at around one in the afternoon. The men all had dark hair and brown eyes. In appearance two of them seemed grittier than Tom’s men and didn’t look like sophisticated gangsters. Those two wore old denim jackets and cigarettes dangled from their lips. Colin had once worn a denim jacket, but that was when he was a teenager. Now he wore good suits.

  They appeared a little insulted that Tom hadn’t sent a top man to discuss the deal. But after Colin sat down and spoke for Tom, they seemed to accept him.

  No-Last-Name Max, Dean Fitzpatrick, and Gerry Thomas were the Woodlawn gang members seated at the booth in the pub. Their leaders weren’t present. That angered Tom when Colin told him afterwards. Tom saw it as a sign of disrespect that the ‘big men’ hadn’t bothered to take the time to come. Colin then pointed out to Tom that he hadn’t sent his top men either. He had sent him.

  “About the nightclub, we’ve decided we don’t have to spend that much more money getting it ready,” Colin said to the men. “The neighborhood it’s in isn’t very nice. If the place looked too classy, it’d stand out too much.”

  The three men hadn’t taken their eyes off him during the conversation. Then they nodded almost all at once.

  “That’s what the Declans thought as well,” Max, the only one wearing a suit, albeit one too small for his chunky figure, said.

  “It’s settled then,” Colin said, and Max nodded. “Tom’s very enthusiastic about working together.”

  Dean Fitzpatrick, the largest of the three, smirked. “Is something wrong?” Colin asked.

  Dean shrugged.

  “About the payment arrangement,” Colin continued.

  “We have the money on us,” Dean cut him off.

  Colin could tell that Dean, a tall, gaunt man with piercing dark eyes, hadn’t liked him from the beginning. He didn’t smile like the others had when Colin entered and introduced himself. Dean had sat there and glared.

  Dean took a stuffed packet out of his denim jacket pocket and tossed it on the table. Colin picked the packet up and held it in his hand. He was about to count the money inside.

&nb
sp; “What? You don’t trust us?” Dean said.

  Colin put the packet back down on the table. All four men stared at it. There was silence at the table for a moment, with Dean glancing at Colin every so often, and Colin trying to ignore him.

  Working for Tom had tamed Colin. “We’re not boys,” Tom was always telling the gang. “And we need to control ourselves during business. Guns aren’t necessary unless you have no other choice.”

  Max broke the tense silence. “Come on, Fitz.” He chuckled.

  “There’s no harm in it.”

  Colin didn’t dare call Dean ‘Fitz’. “Except he don’t trust us,” Dean said.

  Dean picked the packet up from the table and held it in his thin, veiny hand. He was like a child who was unwilling to share his toy with another boy.

  Max shot Dean a glare.

  “Okay. Okay. Let him fucking count it if he wants to.” Dean tossed the packet on the table again.

  Colin picked it up and counted the money.

  Dean remained difficult for most of the night, until after he had a couple of pints, and then he settled down a little. But he still didn’t talk to or acknowledge Colin’s presence much. He kept to himself, and he sat there with his arms crossed and an uninterested expression on his face.

  Max said he was impressed with Colin and then tried to coax him into working for their organization, but Colin insisted he had already made a commitment to Tom.

  “Tell me, I heard through my boss that your family comes from the North. Is that correct?” Max asked him.

  “Yeah, from Kilrea.”

  “A while back our families came from the North. So what are you doing working for the Southern Irish then?”

  “I live in the Bowery. And I have a relative or two in the South.”

  “So does Gerry.” Max nodded at Gerry, who was seated across from them next to Dean.

  “I got a great-uncle there,” Gerry said.

  Max ordered a whiskey. “Anyway,” he said to Colin. “Just having a ‘relative or two’ there don’t make you a South. I’m surprised Tom’s letting you work for him. Usually, they’re pretty strict with their rules. South ancestry and Irish-born only. All of their fellas are South and directly from Ireland. You ain’t.”