The Forty-Two

by Ed Kurtz

  “I doubt it,” Charley said with a smirk.

  “Well anyway, after that the porn loop racket took a dive. I mean, they was still around for a while, at least until people started buying up them video machines. Then it was really dead.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Sure I’m sure. It’s obsolete, an anachronism. Gone, finito. Even all the worst stuff is shot on Beta or VHS now. Same sources if you want it—trunk of some Guido’s Cadillac at an arranged time and place—but no eight millimeter, not anymore. Almost sort of sad, if you think about it.”

  “Tragic. So you quit that end when the adult houses opened?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “And the old Italian boy didn’t mind?”

  “Why the hell should they care? If you’re doing business, they want a cut. If you’re not, then so what? I stopped making loops and they stopped getting revenue from me. End of story.”

  “What was the guy’s name?”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy who collected from you.”

  Rosenthal narrowed his eyes and leaned forward on his enormous arms. His blubbery torso made waves from the momentum.

  “Now why the hell would you want to know something like that, kid?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Does to me.”

  Charley sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils and then eased himself into the chair facing Rosenthal’s desk. He crossed his legs and laced his fingers.

  “My girl, her sister used to make loops like that. That is, she was in a lot of them. Not the nice kind, like I’m sure you made. Nice and romantic, just like mom and dad. No, this chick was in the other kind.”

  “There’s lots of kinds,” Rosenthal offered.

  “Then we’ll just say there’s nice and there’s naughty. This girl’s loops were very, very naughty.”

  Rosenthal made a face. Charley could not decipher it.

  “You wanna know if I made em?”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “Then what’s your beef?”

  “She got killed.”

  “That don’t really sweeten the pot, kid.”

  “I need to find out who did it.”

  “Isn’t that what cops are for?”

  Now Charley made a face, which Rosenthal deciphered just fine.

  “Okay,” Rosenthal said. “Fair enough. But can’t you let it alone?”

  “Not after they’ve taken a few shots at me. Andy’s in traction, for shit’s sake.”

  “No shit? That’s tough.”

  “Tough enough. But I need something before it gets tougher, you understand?”

  “I understand. But I’m still not convinced I wanna help you get it. Most times like this a fella asks what’s in it for him. Alls I see in it is a nice hard beating with a tire iron if my numbers are lucky that day.”

  “So keep your door locked.”

  Rosenthal laughed hard. His jowls undulated and he had to press his hands against his expansive belly to keep it from popping all his shirt buttons.

  “Who do you think my landlords are? They own this fucking place!”

  Charley exhaled noisily and stood up. His mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes felt heavy in his face.

  “All right,” he said softly. “There’s no blood on your hands. I can’t blame you.”

  He made to leave but Rosenthal piped up before he was out the door.

  “Hold on a minute, kid,” he said with evident exasperation. “Can you leave me out of this? I mean you gotta promise on your mother’s grave.”

  “My mother isn’t dead.”

  “She ain’t gonna live forever, kid.”

  Charley frowned.

  “Okay, I promise. If I’m asked I’ll just say a little birdy told me.”

  “A little birdy who ain’t called Rosenthal.”

  “Anything but Rosenthal,” Charley consented.

  The big man groaned and reached into a desk drawer for a cigar. He cut it, took his time lighting it with a paper match. When he exhaled the first cloud of grayish blue smoke, he studied the ember on the end to make sure it was evenly lit. It was.

  “You wanna talk to an Eye-tie name of Cioci. Louie Cioci.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “That I can’t say for certain—it’s been a few years since I got out of that racket. But back six, maybe seven years ago I hear he was always hanging around a deli called Porello’s or Porelli’s, some kind of wop name like that. Somewhere over on Forty-Sixth, I think.”

  Charley suddenly felt anxious. A nervous tremor surged from his shoulders to his knees. He was fine with the tough guy routine when it was just him and Rosey, but now he had a lead on someone who could have his legs broken with the snap of his fingers. Even for a guy who had been shot at twice in the last week that was a lot to take in.

  “Thanks, Rosey,” Charley said with a shaky smile. “You’re a prince.”

  “Don’t call me Rosey, kid,” Rosenthal grouchily admonished him.

  Charley’s smile hardened.

  “Don’t call me kid, Rosey.”

  Rosenthal grimaced and shooed Charley away with the back of his hand. Charley chuckled and obliged. He was getting pretty hungry anyway. He hoped the deli had decent salami.

  Chapter 19

  The deli was not called either Porelli’s or Porello’s. It was called Pastore’s and it was in a decent little stretch of Forty-Sixth Street at Third Avenue that was lined with bare pear trees. The place had red and white checkered curtains on all the windows and tablecloths to match, and the hefty guy behind the counter even shouted a hello at Charley when he walked in. It was a friendly sort of joint, so he flashed a smile at the guy and waltzed up to the counter.

  “Hey how ya doin,” the counterman said rapidly. “Gimme a sec.”

  The counterman leaned over the glass counter where every kind of meat known to mankind was on display. It all looked delectable to Charley, but he had his eye on a peppered salami that was making his mouth work its sprinklers overtime.

  “Hey Louie,” the guy shouted to the far corner of the dining area. All of the emphasis was on the –ie. “You doin all right over there?”

  Startled, Charley turned and saw the man in the corner wave gently without looking up from the book he was reading. The counterman gave a satisfied smile and returned his attention to Charley.

  “All right what can I do for ya?”

  “Salami and provolone on rye.”

  “Dressing?”

  “Make it how you like it.”

  “Hope you like tomatoes cause I like a lot of tomatoes.”

  “Tomatoes are fine, thanks.”

  While the counterman got to work on the sandwich, Charley tried to surreptitiously observe the quiet man in the corner. Louie, evidently. Louie Cioci, it seemed easy enough to infer. His nose was still buried in that book, which upon closer inspection turned out to be The Nature of Mass Poverty. Sad and destitute looking people adorned the book jacket; the sort of unfortunates Charley imagined spotted the countryside in the USSR. Rosenthal’s mob connection suddenly seemed a little less capitalistic than it should have.

  Louie Cioci wore a thick black beard the same length as his hair. He had on large eyeglasses that shielded half his face, and he wore a striped polo shirt and blue jeans. To Charley he looked more like a guidance counselor than somebody connected to the mob, but it wasn’t the days of Capone and Schultz anymore, either. The nastiest killer the syndicate had on their payroll was better off looking like some Long Island schlub—his mark would never see him coming.

  The counterman wiped his meaty hands on the well-stained apron that hung over his wide midsection and clapped them together with a piercing snap. Charley jumped; it sounded too much like a gunshot to him.

  “Salami and provolone on rye for ya,” the counterman roared with satisfaction. “What else for ya? Orangeade, a bag of chips?”

  “Orangeade,” Charley
murmured, shaken. “Sounds good.”

  The guy wrapped the sandwich in wax paper and grabbed a pear shaped bottle of milky orange fluid out of the cooler. These he pushed across the counter at Charley as he said, “Two bucks.”

  Charley paid the man and went over to a table to work on his lunch. Every table in the place was free except one—Louie Cioci’s. Charlie sat down facing the dark faced man but pretended not to notice him while he bit down into the sandwich. It was a simple enough concoction but Charley was amazed at how good it was. No wonder Cioci spent so much time there. Presently he was not eating, though. He was only interested in consuming the text he held mere inches from his face, devouring every word with relish. Charley made it to the halfway point on the sandwich and cracked open the orangeade. After he took a swig he made a face. He preferred orange pop.

  The counterman waddled around the counter and lit a cigarette.

  “Hey Louie,” he called out, “you don’t mind I put on some music in here do ya? The quiet’s killing me but I see you’re reading that book so’s maybe I’ll just suffer, ya know?”

  Without looking up from the page, Louie Cioci said, “Go ’head, Phil.”

  Phil dug a nickel out of his apron pocket and waddled over to the ancient juke box against the far wall. Charley continued to study Cioci out of the corners of his eyes as he took one last bite from the sandwich. The rest he’d save for later. Momentarily the dusty speakers in three corners of the room crackled to life with a droning ballad by Dion and the Belmonts. The speaker directly behind Charley’s head crinkled and spit, making Dion’s voice sound like a slowly burning paper bag. He turned to have a look at the offending speaker, and when he twisted back around he jumped again. Louie Cioci was sitting across the table from him, boring a hole through Charley’s forehead with his cold blue eyes.

  Dion DiMucci crooned about the deep suffering in his teenage heart for the chick who did not reciprocate his mildly obsessive affections while Charley struggled to force the mashed up remains of salami and provolone on rye down his gullet with the back of his tongue. Cioci continued to stare, his face a cold slab of bearded marble with no particular expression etched into it. Eventually the mouthful made its way down Charley’s throat with a loud gulp, permitting him to meekly squawk, “Hello.”

  “Two dollars,” Cioci said morosely.

  Charley raised his eyebrows and tried to look attentive rather than terrified.

  “One meal, two bucks. That’s a goddamn luxury.” Cioci pounded the tip of his index finger against the cover of his book as he said this.

  “Beats eating at the Four Seasons,” Charley replied.

  “You live in an industrialized country with sufficient capital and developing technologies, you get to eat a two-dollar sandwich.”

  “Actually, with the orangeade—”

  “But these poor bastards out in places like India and China, they won’t ever get to have a two-dollar sandwich,” Cioci interrupted. “It’s a goddamn culture of poverty. They don’t know anything else. They pretty much want to be miserable. You understand that? That’s the human race for you. They sit in the mud and stare at their goddamn toes all day long, never giving a thought to what it’s all about. You can’t take advantage of people like that. There’s nothing to take advantage of. But these same sort of people, they live right here in this city, did you know that?”

  Charley shook his head and made a noise that almost became a “no.”

  “These sons of bitches, they’re sitting in the muck and staring at their toes too, only there’s all the capital in the world all around them. They can do whatever the hell they like if they just reach out and take that goddamn brass ring.”

  Cioci snapped his arm forward and mimicked the seizure of the ring. It startled Charley, who was getting tired of jumping so much.

  “But they’re fucking sheep. That’s just the way it is. There are sheep and there are shepherds. Also, there’s wolves. All of them, all of them keep one another in balance, even in an industrialized country like this fine chunk of dirt we got ourselves here. Check that, especially so. That’s why you got the mick flatfoot on one corner and the scam artist on the other and then all the dumb rubes skittering around in between. It’s all a beautiful and well-oiled machine, if you think about it. And it’s the only way it’s ever going to work; any way else and the whole goddamn house of cards comes crashing down on your head.”

  Cioci concluded with a vertical drop of one hand until it smacked against the other. Charley tried to brace himself, but he flinched anyway. The place was on the verge of giving him a nervous condition. The seven inch in the juke box clicked off the turntable as the mechanized arm lifted it up and replaced it with another. The Capris were now purring about the moon that was out tonight. Phil swayed gently behind the counter, his eyes closed and a small grin turning up his mouth. The counterman clearly dug his doo-wop. The man across the table from Charley now laid his hands palms down on the table cloth and leaned very slightly forward, his face still a tight and unreadable mask.

  “Now,” he said softly, “what the hell do you want?”

  Charley tried to take a deep breath but his lungs would only permit short ones. He smiled anyway.

  “I guess I’d like to discuss capitalism with you, Mr. Cioci.”

  “Capitalism.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Kill that sir shit. Who are you?”

  “Nobody,” Charley said. “My name is Charley. Charley McCormick.”

  “Okay Charley Charley McCormick. Who am I?”

  Charley turned down one eyebrow.

  “You seemed to already know me when you walked in here. So who am I to you?”

  “Louie Cioci. I got your name from a friend of mine. Guy you used to do some business with.”

  “Business,” Cioci said absently as he cupped a fist with the other hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind?”

  “Loops,” Charley said quietly.

  Cioci grimaced. It was the first show of emotion his stone face had managed and it made Charley anxious.

  “Loops of what? I look like a hose salesman to you?”

  “No, sir,” Charley said with a flinch. “I mean, no Mr. Cioci.”

  “Who’s your friend, then?”

  “Rosey Rosenthal.”

  Louie Cioci leaned back in his chair and smiled out of one corner of his mouth. He sucked in a lungful of air and expelled it with a shout at Phil.

  “Would ya kill that doo-wop crap, Phil? It’s giving me a headache.”

  Phil obliged instantly. Charley’s ears filled up with the hum of the industrial refrigerator behind the counter the second the music stopped, and he wondered why he didn’t notice it before. Cioci rotated his shoulders and stuck his lips out like a duck.

  “I don’t guess I’ve seen Rosey going on five, six years now. What the hell’s he want with me all a sudden?”

  “Nothing, he doesn’t want anything. It’s me who’s got the questions, Mr. Cioci.”

  “Try Louie for a change.”

  “All right. Louie.”

  Although Phil had killed the juke box, he was continuing the song by way of humming it as he wiped the counter down. Cioci bellowed, “Phil!”

  “Sorry,” Phil grumbled.

  “Go ’head,” Cioci said to Charley.

  Charley folded his arms over his stomach and dove right in.

  “I understand Rosenthal used to produce and distribute some films for your, uh, outfit.”

  “Could be.”

  “He said he quit that end when the porno theaters got big.”

  Cioci stared. Charley swallowed and went on.

  “After that, the only people buying loops were dudes who wanted a private collection of the same sort of stuff you could see at the Globe, or else folks whose proclivities tended toward the peculiar.”

  “This a history lesson? Cause you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

  “I’m a l
ittle longwinded,” Charly apologized, “but I’m getting around to it. When videotapes came around, the market for loops pretty much dried up except for a small percentage of diehard enthusiasts and the aforementioned perverts. It’s the perverts I guess I’m interested in.”

  “You wanna look at pictures of chicks crapping on each other, you go ask somebody else,” Cioci said sternly.

  “I don’t. But I do want to know about the people who make films like that and maybe a little something about the folks who buy them. I doubt this will surprise you, but there’s still a market for that kind of thing.”

  “There’s a market for every kind of thing, McCormick. Supply and demand. That’s capitalism.”

  “Yeah,” Charley agreed. “I guess it is. So what sort of capitalists make movies with dogs in them?”

  “Walt Disney.”

  “Wrong kind of dogs.”

  “I know what you meant. But I never had anything to do with any sick shit like that. It gets worse, you know.”

  “How much worse?”

  “Worse than I’d believe you could think up on your own.”

  “Try me.”

  “I’d rather not. Worse thing I ever peddled was group sex flicks. Just ten years back that was pretty goddamn kinky. Now they practically got that on the ten o’clock news. The pervs get a bug up their ass nowadays they gotta see the weirdest thing anyone ever thought up. Girls doing it with barnyard animals, eighty-year-old men, little kids even. They got films of girls just getting the hell beat outta them or getting cut up with knives. For chrissakes, who wants to look at that?”

  “I’d sure like to know.”

  “You sure about that? Cause yeah, there’s the obvious freakos down in Times Square you’d expect, but then there’s loads of guys you wouldn’t. Father O’Houlihan and Officer Brody and good old Coach Joe Schmoe from any high school anyplace. Those were always the ones who crept up to us in their trench coats and fedoras wanting to know where they could get their slimy little hands on that stuff. I sold a crateful of orgy loops to the boxing coach from my own parish. Didn’t think I recognized him, but next time I saw him I gave the bastard a wink and he knew.”