01 The Big Blowdown

by George Pelecanos

  Costa, short and stocky with a great head of black hair and a thick black moustache, pushed through the doors excitedly. The only other customer, an old-timer wearing a chesterfield coat, glanced up from his soup at the sound of the doors crying on their hinges.

  Costa looked at Karras. “What, you tellin’ me these hot dogs for you, Pete?”

  Karras nodded. “That’s what I want, Costa.”

  “You think you at the ballpark or somethin’? Huh? I got a nice little lamb in the back!” He tossed the carving knife that was in his hand up into the air. It rotated once, came to rest cleanly in his grip.

  “Give him what he wants,” said Stefanos.

  “Entaxi.” Costa snorted, cursed floridly, turned back toward the kitchen.

  “You got no problem,” said Stefanos, “do you, Costa?”

  “Me?” said Costa. “I don’t give a damn nothing.”

  Stefanos reached into the cooler, fixed a nice plate of calamata olives and feta cheese. He put the plate and a bottle of Coke on the counter in front of Karras.

  “Here you go, vre,” said Stefanos. “Have a little meza while you’re waitin’.”

  “Thanks, Nick.”

  Karras popped an olive into his mouth, stripped it, spit the pit into the plate. He looked past Stefanos’s wide head to the large blue sign that hung on the wall—MANN’S POTATO CHIPS, YEAH MANN!—and listened to the show coming from the radio that sat on a wooden shelf next to the sign. An actor was being interviewed by a ventriloquist’s dummy. Karras had to smile.

  “Who’s that on Charlie McCarthy?” said Karras.

  “What’s that guy,” said Stefanos, “the guy plays a drunk.”

  “Ray Milland,” said Karras. “You seen The Lost Weekend yet?”

  “I go to the pictures, I wanna be happy. See a good Western, maybe. What I wanna see a movie ‘bout a boozer for? I got enough problems of my own, right here.”

  “What kind of problems you got?”

  Stefanos made a sweep of his hand. “Just look at my dinner business. There isn’t any. The car agencies across the street, they had to close on account of the war.”

  “Well, they didn’t have any cars to sell.”

  “I know, but…what I got left is the phone company business, and it’s not enough. I’m telling you, I’m thinkin’ about turning this into a place for the mavri.”

  “You’re gonna make this into a colored joint?”

  “I’m thinkin’ about it. Hell, Pete Frank’s gettin’ ready to do it, right down the street. I can’t let him get all the mavriko business from U Street, can I?”

  “Frank’s a good man.”

  “All right, he’s good. But what the hell, I’m not gonna let him get all the goddamn business.”

  Costa came from the kitchen and dropped a steaming plate of food in front of Karras. He reached under the counter and married a fork and knife setup to a napkin. He slid a bottle of ketchup down next to that.

  “Here you go, boss,” said Costa. He walked away.

  “So what about you?” said Stefanos, leaning his bulk against the counter. “What’re you gonna do, now you’re back from the war?”

  “I don’t know,” said Karras. “Little bit of this and that, I guess.”

  “Uh,” said Stefanos.

  “Gotta find something I like. Don’t wanna end up behind a fruit cart like my old man.”

  “Well, when things pick up around here, and you get tired of relaxin’, you come see me. I’m gonna be needin’ a little help, a strong set of arms now that me and Costa are gettin’ up over forty. And you got a kid on the way now. You gotta think about that, too.”

  Karras swallowed some food, looked straight ahead. “Sure, Nick. Maybe you and me, we’ll have a talk.”

  The bell over the door chimed, and Lou DiGeordano stepped into the store. He had come directly from his fruit cart, wearing a threadbare jacket over a plain white shirt. His hair was slicked back, his thin black moustache greased as well. A few stray grays sprouted from the black.

  “Karras Jr.,” said DiGeordano, clapping Karras on the shoulder. He chin-nodded Stefanos. “Nick.”

  “Lou,” said Stefanos.

  “How’s your old man?” said DiGeordano.

  “He’s okay,” said Karras.

  “He’s some kinda proud of you, boy. Always talkin’ about his son, the war hero.”

  Karras stabbed his fork into a frank.

  “Wanna beer, Lou?” said Stefanos.

  “Ballantine Ale,” said DiGeordano.

  “What’s the line on the fight tonight?” said Karras.

  “I’m strictly numbers,” said DiGeordano. “1 don’t make book. But if you take Parks, you got a screw loose somewheres. You see the chest on Archie Moore?”

  “Some guys around town say that Moore could go down,” said Karras.

  DiGeordano curled his lip. “Those guys don’t know shit from apple butter.”

  Karras nodded. Stefanos took two bottles from the cooler, and motioned his head in the direction of the kitchen.

  “If you’re gonna be back there a while,” said Karras, “leave me somethin’ to read, will you, Nick?”

  Stefanos put an Evening Star on the counter. He went back to the kitchen, and DiGeordano followed.

  Karras finished his dinner, put fire to a smoke as he read the front page. MacArthur was set to execute some Japanese officer from the Philippine campaign, and the hearings on Pearl Harbor were ready to begin. Below the fold, he read about a woman of no fixed address found dead in a house on New York Avenue, cut wide open from sternum to groin. So another working girl went and got herself killed. There had been plenty of crime in town since the war, a few murders now and again, retribution deaths, final settlements on long-cold gambling debts and the like. But these whore murders were a new brand of slaughter: vicious, senseless. These whore murders were just something else.

  Costa came out of the kitchen and took Karras’s plate. He wiped the area clean with a wet rag.

  “Hey, Pete,” said Costa, “I was wonderin’. You bring back any kind of knife from overseas? Switchblade, anything like that?”

  “I left the only knife I had on the island of Leyte,” said Karras. “One of those Filipinos over there, he gave me his machete. That’s about it.”

  “I bet you seen some good knives over there, though. Right?” Costa’s eyes were bright.

  Karras just shrugged. Costa stared at him for a second or two, then took his plate and the empty soup bowl from the old-timer and went away.

  Lou DiGeordano came from the kitchen, using the sleeve of his jacket to wipe foam from his moustache as he walked.

  “See you later, Karras Jr.”

  “Okay, Mr. DiGeordano. See you around.”

  The chime sounded as DiGeordano went out the door.

  Karras took a last drag off his smoke, stubbed it out in the ashtray. The old-timer had hit the road, left two bits on the counter before he buttoned his chesterfield and shuffled out. Nick Stefanos walked from the kitchen, hiking up his trousers as he moved.

  “What do I owe you, Nick?”

  “Let’s see…franks and beans, a bottle of Coke. Seventy-five cents.”

  “All that, huh?” Karras pushed a buck across the counter. “You play a good one with Lou?”

  Stefanos spread his hands. “They’re all good, till they don’t come up. I had a dream about this one, though. My mother was in the dream.”

  “I never dream about the dead. Anyway, you’re not supposed to.”

  “That’s right. But she wasn’t in the dream, exactly. I mean, I didn’t see her. I heard her voice, though. I was listenin’ to her from behind a door. There was a number on the door, like some kind apartment number—”

  “So you played the number.”

  “Yeah. I put a fistful on it.”

  “You’ll win a bundle if it hits. What’re you gonna do with it if you win?”

  “1 dunno. Send some to my boy in Greece, I guess. Or maybe use
it like bait to get him over here. Anyway, I don’t hit the number, I’m gonna win it back from Lou on Saturday night.”

  “You still have that card game at your place every weekend?”

  “Yeah, sure. Lou and Costa are regulars. Pete Frank and his wife Kiki, they’re gonna come too. Pete’s brother-in-law, George Boukas—”

  “That the guy who used to be a fighter?”

  “Went by the name of ‘Kid Boukas’ in the ring. Worked down at the Willard as a busboy, long time. Has a flower shop now.”

  “Yeah,” said Karras. “I heard of that guy. A lightweight, wasn’t he?”

  “Good little boxer,” said Stefanos. “Good athlete, all the way around.”

  A horn sounded outside the plate-glass window of the grill as a Mercury coupe pulled over to the curb. Karras stood, grabbed his topcoat, smoothed out the lapels as he put it on.

  “That’s my ride, Nick.”

  “You chew on what I told you, re. Fun and games is all right, but now you gotta think about a little honest work.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Call me,” said Stefanos. “Adams four, sixty-four-eighty.”

  Karras smiled. “Okay, Nick. We’ll talk.”

  The chimes sounded as Karras went out to the street. Nick Stefanos watched him open the passenger door of the coupe and climb inside.

  “Yeah,” said Stefanos to an empty store, rubbing a thick, calloused hand across his face. “We’ll talk. But first, young guy like you? You gonna go out and have a little fun.”

  Chapter 10

  Joe Recevo pushed the shifter into second, gave the Mercury some gas. He looked over at Karras, fiddling with the dial on the radio. An old, English-accented voice came through the dash speaker. The sound of it made Recevo wince.

  “Find some music on that thing, will ya?”

  “That’s Fred Allen’s show,” said Karras. “What’s wrong with that? He’s got this British comedian…comedienne on tonight. Beatrice Lillie is her name.”

  “I don’t care what her name is. I need to hear some old broad yappin’ like a submarine needs a screen door.”

  Karras spun the dial, landed on the lilting vocal of Dinah Shore—“Personality” was the tune. He kept his hand on the knob, glanced across the bench at Recevo: a chocolate-brown suit with a matching tie, and a camel hair topcoat over the whole rig. On his head, a brown fedora with a chocolate-brown band, a small red feather tucked in it. Recevo, always with the hats.

  “This okay?” said Karras.

  “Yeah, Dinah Shore is top shelf.” Recevo sideglanced at Karras. “They say she’s high yellow. You know that?”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes, Joe.”

  “Got a strain of jig blood in her. It ain’t no secret.”

  “That’s a bunch of horseshit.”

  “What, did I offend you, Mrs. Roosevelt?”

  “It’s stupid, Joe, that’s all.”

  Recevo grinned a little, fished a deck of Raleighs from his coat, blew into the open top of the pack. A cigarette popped out from the rush. Karras lighted a match, heated up a Lucky for himself, extended the match to Recevo, lighted his. Recevo extinguished the flame on the exhale. Karras cracked the window, tossed the match out into the night.

  “Have a good dinner with your pals?” said Recevo.

  “Yeah.”

  “You and all them JCOs, talkin’ away. That must of been a sight.”

  “JCOs?” said Karras. “They didn’t just come over.’ Hell, Joe, they been here over twenty years. Came the same time as your old man, and mine.”

  “They don’t sound like it. The little one, Costa—”

  “He’s all right. Just has an excitable personality, is all. And Nick Stefanos is all aces.”

  “Stefanos is Jake. I know one thing, I’d hate to be on the receiving end of one of his punches. You ever get a look at that guy’s hands? Like pie plates.”

  “He offered me a job in his place.”

  Joe smiled. “I’d like to see that. You in an apron.”

  “Yeah,” said Karras. “That would be somethin’, wouldn’t it?”

  Recevo slowed going by the Lotus Club, where a small line had formed outside. Karras craned his neck.

  “What’re they, givin’ away drinks?” said Karras.

  “No cover tonight,” said Recevo. ‘The usual revue. Burlesque, with an orchestra. The Baron Twins—”

  “I seen ‘em,” said Karras. “One’s all right, but two is overkill.”

  Recevo hooked a left onto New York Avenue, downshifted going into the turn. Karras lurched forward, ashes dropping onto his coat.

  “Shit, Joe, can’t you control this oil can?”

  “It’s that Flathead V-8 under the hood. A little too many horses for the car.”

  “Maybe you ought to get yourself a nice, quiet sedan.”

  “I got my eye on the new models when they come out. A Hudson, maybe. Anyway, I don’t need advice from a guy who doesn’t even own a set of wheels.”

  “I like to walk, is what it is.”

  “Yeah, you took a good one tonight. You know, you coulda caught a streetcar, Pete.”

  “You seen the streetcars lately? Too crowded for me. They all look like the Toonerville Trolley, everybody hangin’ off the sides. This whole damn town’s too crowded. They said things would clear out after V-J Day, but you wouldn’t know it, lookin’ around D.C.”

  “You can’t complain about the women, though, can you. My God, there’s enough of ‘em.”

  “I noticed,” said Karras.

  “Sure you did,” said Recevo. “Gash-hound like you.”

  Karras dragged on his cigarette, blew smoke through his lips and watched it shatter on the windshield. He looked down on the hand that held the cigarette. A wedge of yellow light passed across his fingers, disappeared and returned as they drove beneath the streetlights. The veins along the back of his hand reflected blue in the light.

  “Where we headed now?” said Karras.

  “To see Mr. Burke,” said Recevo. “He’s got something for us to take care of later on. It won’t take a minute. He’s just gonna give us our marching orders, and then we’re gonna be on our way.”

  “I took all the orders I ever wanted to take in the service.”

  “It kept you alive, didn’t it?”

  “Luck kept me alive,” said Karras. “Plain dumb luck.”

  “Well, I’ll do any talking if it’s called for. You just smile and nod your head. Think you can do that?”

  “Sure, Joey,” said Karras. “I’ll just nod my head.” He took one last drag off his cigarette, and pitched the butt end out the window.

  Sinatra’s latest, “Day by Day,” came smoothly through the radio. Recevo reached over and gave the volume a quarter turn. He tossed his cigarette, settled into his seat, smiled, and began to sing along. Karras let him do it. The truth of it was, Joe had a pretty nice voice.

  “You know, they say it’s gonna be all singers now,” said Recevo at the break in the vocal. “The big bands are through.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “I loved the bands, you know? But if all the singers sounded like Sinatra, I wouldn’t mind if I never heard another instrumental number in my life.” Recevo tapped Karras’s arm. “Hey, you remember the first time we saw him?”

  “U-Line Arena,” said Karras.

  “Nineteen-forty. He was with the Pied Pipers. Sang ‘Just Look at Me Now.’ My God, the girls went nuts. One minute we were dancin’ with a couple of broads, and the next we were standing alone in the middle of the floor. Hell, we barely even knew who the guy was.”

  “Looked like just another greaser to me,” said Karras. But Recevo was off somewhere, and the comment didn’t sink.

  “But the best night,” said Recevo. “The best night! That was when we took those canoes down from Fletcher’s Boathouse, floated down the channel to the Watergate barge. Sinatra was playing for free that night, under the stars with a full orchestra. Sang ‘
Ol’ Man River,’ right? It’s like the whole crowd was hypnotized or somethin’. Man, those women were all googoo-eyed, hangin’ off the Memorial Bridge.”

  “Just before you shipped out.”

  “Yeah. I was with that Lawson girl—what the hell was her first name?”

  “How would I know? She was your girl, not mine.”

  “And you were with Helen Leonides. Goddamn, did she look put together that night. A brick shithouse don’t begin to describe it—”

  “Knock it off, Joey.”

  “Sorry. I forgot, you’re married now. And your buddy Pericles is married to Helen—”

  “Forget about it.”

  “What, now you’re gonna tell me you never had any of that? Shit, Greek, you told me the next day that you jazzed her all up and down—”

  “I said, knock it off!”

  “All right.”

  They drove without speaking for the next couple of miles. A Phil Harris record replaced the Sinatra. Karras rolled the window down an inch and let himself cool off. It wasn’t Joe he was mad at, anyway.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Karras, “I saw Perry earlier tonight.”

  “How’s he doin’?”

  “He’s good. He’s working hard, lookin’ to open a place of his own. He’ll probably have a few of them when he’s done.”

  “See the new baby?”

  “Uh-huh. The baby’s fine.”

  “And how about Helen. You see her too?”

  “I saw her.”

  “Yeah?” Recevo cleared his throat. “How’d she look?”

  Karras looked over at Recevo. Both of them broke out in laughter. Karras punched Recevo’s arm. Recevo put one hand up to stop a second blow, and the Mercury swerved over the center line. They hit the Negro blocks around New Jersey Avenue, still laughing as they reached a cross street with a few row houses occupied by whites. Recevo pulled over to the curb and cut the engine.

  “Remember what I said, Pete.”

  “Smile and nod.”

  “Right.”

  They got out of the coupe and crossed the street. Karras and Recevo were roughly the same height, moved similarly with fluid, sharklike intent.

  When they walked together, side by side like that, it was as if they were two halves of one man. Recevo had angular, set-in, pockmarked cheeks, and he was dark of complexion with black, wavy hair. Nobody ever called him handsome like they did Karras. Street handsome was more like it. But Recevo did all right.