Love or Honor

by Barthel, Joan;

  A joint on West 22nd Street—far west, in the warehouse section—was a dangerous place, he’d heard. He didn’t realize how dangerous until he got just inside the door, past the bouncer, a big black guy.

  “You got a piece?” he was asked.

  “Yeah, I got a gun, what’s the problem?” Chris asked.

  “You got a piece, you gotta leave it here,” he was told.

  If you said no, they didn’t take your word for it; they patted you down. Chris had seen a lot of strange sights in his time, but he still marveled at the sight of a couple of dozen guns stashed in little cubicles, row on row. People checked their guns as routinely as though they were coats or hats. You didn’t get a claim check; if you didn’t know which gun was yours, you were in such a bad way that a claim check wasn’t going to help.

  Anytime you have so many guns around, Chris thought, there’s going to be a shooting, sooner or later. He didn’t stay long, the first time. When he went back, he went prepared. He’d removed the firing pin from the gun he checked—if he got shot, he’d rather not be shot with his own gun—and he tucked another gun in his boot. That gun had the firing pin in place.

  The joint didn’t have a name, but Chris thought it could have qualified for the quaint old label, “den of iniquity.” Mounds of coke were piled along the bar, with people leaning over, snorting through straws as casually as people lined up at other bars to drink. Unlike other mob joints he’d known, this one was patronized by as many blacks as whites. One black guy with snow-white hair and bright blue eyes had a stable of both black and white women and was of particular interest to Chris.

  Blue-eyes wasn’t snorting, but he was smoking a joint, and he handed it to Chris, who pretended to smoke it—he was excellent at faking that, by now. Chris had just finished a drink when he heard a commotion at the end of the bar.

  A woman was being pushed up against the wall. She was nude. She was crying hysterically, as two men began stubbing out cigarettes on her breasts and on her stomach. One man grabbed a long stick, like a broomstick, and shoved it up her vagina. She gave a piercing scream, but people along the bar, blowing their coke, just looked over at her, as though it were the evening’s entertainment. Blue-eyes shook his head mournfully and told Chris the whore was being taught a lesson—she was a junkie who’d lifted somebody’s wallet.

  Chris felt helpless. He couldn’t stop it. Yet he had to stop it. He’d have to pull his spare gun and whatever happened, happened. He got up from the bar stool and felt dizzy. He began to sweat. The man who had been torturing the woman yelled something. Through a sweaty blur, Chris saw him throw her clothes at her. Clutching her clothes, crying, she ran into a back room and the door closed behind her.

  Chris weaved his way outside, retrieving his gun on the way, past the bouncer. He was thinking fuzzily that she hadn’t come out—maybe he should call the cops—when everything started spinning round and round.

  He fell to the sidewalk and vomited. He lay flat on the pavement, thinking: the car—I’ve got to make it to the car. He never parked directly in front of a place, always two blocks away, at least. If anybody was watching the place, law enforcement or otherwise, he didn’t want them to run his plate and cause unnecessary complications.

  What the hell is wrong with me? he thought groggily. He couldn’t get up. His stomach was on fire, being stuck with knives. He vomited again, pulling himself along the sidewalk. He’d only pretended to smoke the joint; it had to be the drink. Now what? Was somebody going to come up behind him and rob him, or worse? Inch by inch, he dragged himself along the sidewalk. I’ve got to make it to the car.

  By the time he got to the curb, he was able to raise himself slightly. He crossed the street on his hands and knees. Down another block, still listening for footsteps, waiting for the crash of a weapon on the back of his head, the hot slash of a knife in his back. Or maybe one gunshot. Maybe he wouldn’t feel a thing.

  He reached for the door handle on the car, pulled himself up, found his keys and pulled the door open. I made it, I’m okay, I’m safe, he thought, as he fell into the backseat.

  He awoke with bright sunlight streaming across his face. He still felt sweaty and sick, but he was okay. He never knew what had happened, or why. He just knew it was a dangerous place.

  A while later, he got a call from the doorman. Chris had been right: With so many guns around, sooner or later somebody was going to start shooting. The guy had been shot and was calling from the hospital.

  “I know who did it, Chrissie,” he said, “and I want you to get him. I don’t care what it costs!”

  Chris said he’d talk to him about it, the next time he saw him. But when Chris and Harry discussed it, they decided Chris shouldn’t follow it up. The doorman was only a source, not an OC figure. There were too many other things going on. What happened on West 22nd Street was just all in a day’s work.

  For their fifth wedding anniversary, Chris and Liz went to dinner at a little Italian place in the neighborhood. Forest Hills was only a ten-minute drive from the Kew, but the restaurant was run by Yugoslavs, so Chris was sure it wasn’t on the Kew guys’ list. Chris and Liz had been there often, when they were first married. The owner greeted them cheerily and took them to a nice table in the back, but not so near the kitchen that it was hard to talk.

  Chris was determined to make this a pleasant evening. He had a lot of time to make up for, with his wife. It had been so long since they’d been out together that it seemed unreal. Hey, this is my wife, he thought, as he looked at her over the top of his menu. This girl is my wife. I owe her something. I owe her a lot.

  Liz didn’t want champagne, so they let the owner persuade them to try his favorite wine, a white, from Yugoslavia. Chris didn’t know they made wine in Yugoslavia, but he liked it. He ordered fish; Liz had veal marsala, because she didn’t like spicy food.

  “Tell me what you’ve been doing,” Chris said. “Anything good coming up?” He really wanted her to do well, but he also wanted her to be doing well because that would make him feel better about being away so much.

  “Not too much,” Liz said. “The usual. Two auditions yesterday, one the day before.”

  “Well, I really admire the way you hang in there,” Chris said. “I know how hard you’ve worked—I can remember when you’d have three or four calls a day, and you’d run in and out, showering and changing and back out again. You sure deserve a big break.”

  Liz didn’t say anything.

  “Do you need money?” Chris asked.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said. “I really thought that by this time I’d be able to support myself.”

  “Hey, no problem,” Chris said. “I know it’s important for you to keep on with the singing lessons, and the acting, and all that jazz.”

  He smiled at his little wordplay, but Liz just looked wistful.

  “I’ve been wondering just how important it is, anymore,” she said. “I’ve been thinking—maybe it’s time for us to have a baby.”

  “But I thought—you always wanted a career,” Chris said.

  “I know,” Liz said, “But I’ve been thinking—I wouldn’t have to give it up completely. I think I could handle both. I don’t mean going out on the road with industrials or anything, but I could still do some modeling, a few things like that.”

  Chris didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Maybe it’s because I miss you,” Liz continued quietly. “You’re gone so much. All the time.”

  “Well, that’s a big decision,” Chris said. “That’s something to really think about.”

  “I’m thirty years old,” Liz said. “And I love the amplifier, by the way. I use it all the time.”

  “Well, thirty,” Chris said. “You’ve got a lot of time yet.”

  Back home, Liz brought out a set of proofs. She needed new publicity photos, she said, and she wanted him to pick out the ones he liked. “As long as you’re paying for them, you ought to have some say,” she said lightly.
Chris thought the cost of the photos was exorbitant—nearly five hundred dollars—but he also thought that, under the circumstances, it was the least he could do.

  He did some paperwork in the den for about an hour, then they walked out again, to the Baskin-Robbins on the corner, for ice cream cones.

  “Why are you wearing your sunglasses?” Liz asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know—my eyes hurt a little,” Chris said. “Just eyestrain, I guess. Nothing wrong.”

  It was a trivial, meaningless lie. It was nothing. But it bothered him. He wasn’t sure whether it was getting easier or harder to lie to Liz, and he wasn’t sure which was worse.

  8

  “Do me a favor,” John said to Chris one Sunday after dinner. “I have to go into the city tomorrow. Will you drive me in?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Chris said.

  He tried to act normally the rest of the evening, but he was a nervous wreck. He couldn’t imagine why John had suddenly asked this. Actually, he could think of a handful of reasons, none of them appealing. One: He wants to know more about me. Two: He wants to know my intentions toward his daughter. Three: He’s going to tell me to keep away from his daughter. Four: He already knows about me.

  At daylight, Chris was still wide awake, lying in bed with his eyes open, talking to himself. Will Marty be there? No, Marty won’t be there. She’ll be at work already. Anna will be there, won’t she? What about Anna? Will Anna be there? Where else would Anna be at nine o’clock in the morning? What if Anna doesn’t answer the door? Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call him and say you can’t make it? Why not just call and say you’re tied up? Because you gave him your word. Because the only way you don’t show up, if you gave him your word, is if you are dead.

  “Good morning,” Anna said, with a smile that had never seemed so warm or so welcome. She kissed him lightly as he came in and stood at the door. It occurred to him that Anna always made the first move to kiss him, whether in greeting or good-bye.

  “He’ll be ready in a minute,” Anna said. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No thank you,” Chris said.

  John came into the foyer and took his hat from the rack. “I remembered you said you had to go into the city today,” he said. Chris knew he hadn’t said any such thing, but he wasn’t going to argue about it.

  Anna kissed her husband and then kissed Chris on the cheek again. “Drive carefully,” she said. She stood in the doorway and watched as they got into John’s car and drove away, Chris at the wheel.

  “Nice car,” Chris said, as they pulled out of the driveway. John said nothing. For most of the drive in, John just looked out the window, although once in a while, Chris could feel John looking over at him. Chris said something about the weather, and John just grunted, so Chris figured the old man didn’t want to talk. Chris stopped talking, too.

  In Manhattan, John directed him downtown. “Pull over here,” John said. “I’ll be out in ten minutes.” When John went inside the place, Chris quickly tossed the car. He looked in the glove box, under the seat, between the cushions. If he’d found a gun, he’d have just left it where it was, but he’d have felt better knowing its location. There was no gun in the car.

  They made three more stops before noon. Chris noticed the precision of John’s timing: When John said, “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he was back in ten minutes, on the dot. He didn’t explain anything, and Chris didn’t ask. He knew that when this report went in, somebody at Intel was going to bitch about it. “Why the hell didn’t Jason ask him what he was doing?” Chris couldn’t do that. John may have been testing him, trying to find out how nosy Chris was, whether Chris would try to pump him, whether Chris could be trusted. Chris knew Harry would understand and would get the brass to understand, too.

  “That’s it,” John said, shortly after noon. “I’m finished. I don’t have to do anything else. You have to do anything?”

  “No, I don’t have to do anything,” Chris said.

  “You want to stop at a diner?” John asked. “You want to stop, we’ll stop.” From the way he said it, Chris figured that John didn’t want to stop, so he didn’t want to, either. “No, that’s okay, I’ll eat later,” Chris said.

  On the drive back, John still said almost nothing. As they turned off the parkway, he spoke, still looking out the side window. “Are you and Marty going out tonight?”

  “Uh, yeah, yes, I’m seeing her tonight,” Chris said.

  When John said nothing, Chris felt compelled to say something more. “You have a wonderful family,” he said.

  John grunted. “I know that,” he said. “I’ve been married to the woman for thirty years, and I’m lucky to have the daughter I got.”

  “Oh, yes,” Chris agreed. “You’re very lucky. And I’m lucky too.” He realized how hideously wrong that sounded, so he continued quickly. “She’s very, very nice. Very bright. Very intelligent.”

  John did not respond. Chris pulled in the driveway and parked in front of the house. John got out; Chris got out, to go over to his own car. As they stood between the two cars, John pointed his finger at Chris and spoke sternly. “You treat her gently,” John said. “You treat her with respect.”

  “Oh, I do,” Chris said. “I always do.”

  Chris waited until John had entered the house and closed the door before he drove away. He felt relieved that the morning had gone so smoothly, that John hadn’t yelled at him or threatened him, ordering him to leave his daughter alone. But in a way, the very fact that John hadn’t yelled, and seemed to accept the relationship, worried him a little. Chris had the feeling that John hadn’t asked questions because he already had some answers. Or why would John have allowed him to come into his daughter’s life?

  Chris felt he’d made a good impression, all along. He didn’t hold Marty’s hand when they left the house together; it would have been a natural thing to do, but to avoid Marty reaching for his hand, he always shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d never put his arm around her or kissed her in her house. He knew that if he had a daughter, he wouldn’t want to see some guy doing that in the house.

  Maybe John even liked him. John wouldn’t have said so; Chris doubted that the phrase was in the old man’s vocabulary. But he knew one thing: if John didn’t like him, Chris would surely know.

  True, John was no longer a shooter. Nor did he give anyone such a direct order, as far as Chris knew. But he could have been the person to authorize a hit; or one of the persons: OC leaders had learned to put differences aside and work together for a common cause, which made it easier for a job to be carried out and harder for the law to pinpoint the responsibility. John had the power to make decisions, and power created fear, just as it did on Wall Street, say, or in any corporation. Chris could almost smell the fear, sometimes, on Sunday afternoons.

  John had a way of looking at people, with his mouth stretched in a tight line and a flat look in his eyes, that sometimes made Chris want to get out of the house in the worst way, even though he wasn’t looking at Chris that way. Chris saw the effect it had on other people. One Sunday before dinner at John’s table, one man was sweating so heavily that he actually couldn’t pick up his glass of wine. When he tried, he would get it only an inch or so above the table when it would start to slip through his grasp, so he would carefully set it back down.

  Driving John into the city, one or two days a week, and spending Sundays at the house became routine for Chris. He always brought Anna a bunch of mums, because he wanted to. Sometimes on Sundays he would leave early, making some excuse to get out of the house before any of the other men left; if any new men were there, Chris wanted to get their plate numbers. But as time went on, he stopped leaving early. He felt it was rude to Anna, who had arranged for him to be invited to that first Sunday dinner. And he didn’t want to give up the rest of the evening with Marty. What am I leaving for? he asked himself one time, when he left early. I was invited here for dinner, and I’d like to stay. So mostly, from the
n on, he stayed.

  He kept hoping that John and the men who came to see John would speak in Italian. Chris knew enough Italian, from his mother, to keep up, and John didn’t know he knew. Both John and Anna were born in this country, but their parents were immigrants, and they’d grown up in homes where Italian was the first language. From the few times Chris heard Anna speak in Italian, he judged her Italian to be quite good. But when John tried it, once in a while, he spoke poorly. Chris thought John must have been too busy doing other things to pay attention to language skills.

  Even in English, John didn’t say much that was clear or definite. Like other OC people, he relied on clichés. If somebody said, “This guy has to be taken care of,” John might say, “Do what you have to do,” or, if he wanted to be specific, “Give it to the short guy.” Professionals didn’t say, “I’m going down to the Ravenite Social Club to discuss this problem with Neil Dellacroce.” They said, “I’m gonna see the right guy.” Not, “I made ten grand on the airport job,” but “I scored big on this one.” Someone who’d been around would know what was being talked about, and sometimes Chris did know, or could make a reasonable guess.

  Not all the discussions involved business. Domestic issues sometimes came up—a problem with somebody’s kid. Even a grown son or daughter was a kid.