01 The Big Blowdown

by George Pelecanos

  * * *

  Florek’s father had bought a ‘34 Plymouth for three hundred and twenty dollars just before the war. Mike Florek thought about the times the family would drive into Ohio, buy chickens there off a farm, tie the live chickens to the fenders of the Plymouth, then head back to Farrell. They were in bad shape then, what with his father laid off from the mills, working on the highway in a government program for beans and flour and the odd nickel and dime. He could remember being hungry then, really hungry, and cold up in the apartment in the bowels of winter, the only warmth rising up from the bakery below, a warmth that carried a soft, pleasant smell. Thinking back on it, it wasn’t all that bad. They were together then, at least. The Plymouth started with a cough. Florek pumped the gas a couple of times, let the engine idle. No heat in this one ever, and no radio. He could have done without the heater, but he really would have liked some music. Florek liked the lady singers and the big band sound. He had seen plenty of the bands and their singers—Misty June Christie with Stan Kenton’s outfit, Doris Day with Les Brown—who came through Youngstown. He had caught Glenn Miller, too, at Yankee Lake over in Ohio, and boy, that had been a night. They had packed them in so tight for Miller, you couldn’t even dance. Yankee Lake, it had its share of acts. But if you really wanted to see the big ones, you had to make the trip into Youngstown.

  Youngstown itself was a world away from Farrell. The mob was deeper into Youngstown than New York and Chicago combined. It seemed that way, anyhow. You could find any brand of trouble in Youngstown, and you could find it right out in the open, from whores to gambling to narcotics. Florek had taken a bus there one Saturday night with a couple of his buddies, and they had looked in the front door of Youngstown’s biggest and most notorious gambling house, the Jungle Inn. A couple of hard guys patrolled the upper deck. Tommy guns cradled in their arms. You’d have to be screwy to try and knock over a place like that. Those gorillas with the Tommy guns, they’d open up and kill every customer in the joint before you ever got a nickel. No, Youngstown was not the kind of place where Mike Florek wanted to hang out.

  Florek pointed the Plymouth out of town and over the Ohio line. After another half hour or so of driving he reached the township of Brookfield and went on into Masury, a small commercial block which was little more than a post office box. He parked on the street in front of the Clover Club, looked down the block. The Gray Wolf Tavern was down there among a couple of other businesses. Florek had heard about the Grey Wolf’s floor shows, but he had never seen one. The Clover Club would be closer to Lola’s style.

  Florek got out of the car, walked in the front door. In the middle of the day, the Clover Club looked like any other shot-and-a-beer tavern he knew. A couple of guys, millworkers from the looks of them, drank boiler-makers at the bar, staring straight ahead. A solo drinker, a veteran whom Florek recognized but could not place, sat on the last stool nursing a mug of beer. Between the millworkers and the veteran were two large jars, one containing pickled pig’s feet, the other filled with hardboiled eggs swimming in the juice of beets. The new Louis Prima came from the radio mounted above the rows of call.

  Florek had a seat away from the others. The thick-necked bartender came down, gave Florek a good going-over. Florek knew he looked young with his gangly wrists and undersized frame. But in Ohio, you only had to be eighteen to drink their 3.2. And in Masury, if you could reach up to the bar and drop your dime on it, you’d always get served.

  “What’s it gonna be?”

  “A bottle of Green Pop,” said Florek.

  The bartender went to the cooler and withdrew a Rolling Rock, placed the bottle on the bar in front of Florek.

  “Another one of these Dukes,” said the millworker closest to Florek, the one with mean eyes. He wiggled his finger above his shot glass. “One more of these, too.”

  The bartender walked to the tap, drew a Duquesne, put a nice head on it. He carried the mug and a bottle of rail whiskey over to the millworker, poured the whiskey to the lip of the millworker’s glass.

  The millworker dropped the shot glass into the beer. It sank and settled at the bottom of the mug. The millworker looked over at Florek, raised the mug and drank. Florek raised his glass and did the same. He heard a soft chuckle come from the millworker’s buddy, seated to his right. Were they laughing at him?

  Florek drank his beer down, let it hit him. He ordered another and pulled out the picture of his sister as the tender put the bottle down on the bar.

  Florek leaned in. “I’m looking for this girl. Lola Florek’s her name. You seen her?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Here you go.”

  Florek smoothed out the photograph with his fingers, turned it around so the bartender could have a straight look. The tender’s eyes flashed for a moment, then returned to their natural dull state. Florek had time enough to catch the recognition in the man’s eyes.

  “You do know her,” said Florek. “Am I right?”

  “I’ve seen her,” said the bartender with a sloppy shrug. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’m her brother.”

  One of the millworkers laughed.

  The bartender looked away. “Like I say, it’s been a while.”

  “I know she drinks in here on Saturday nights. She told me about this place—”

  “She used to, maybe.” The bartender drifted, drying the inside of a rocks glass with a rag as he moved.

  Florek looked over at the millworkers, who were no longer laughing. Both of them had their eyes pointed down into their drinks. At the end of the bar, the veteran stared at the millworkers, kept staring as he killed his mug of beer.

  Florek knew the guy was a veteran, but not from his getup today. He wore a carcoat ripped at the armpits, with a quilted flannel shirt tucked into dirty blue workpants. Still, when Florek looked at the guy, he pictured him in uniform, just back from the war.

  The government had given its soldiers twenty bucks a week, every week, for the first fifty-two weeks after their discharge. A guy could live on that, and he could buy a lot of drinks with it as well. Some of them never even thought of looking for a job that first year. A few of them fell in love with the idea of sitting on a barstool, figuring ways to stretch the twenty out. The years began to fall away for guys like that. Florek’s mother said that the government never should have given its soldiers such a gift. That was trouble money, she said, no kind of gift at all.

  The veteran got up from his seat, walked across the boards in the direction of Florek. hie slowed going by the millworkers, stared at their backs, then kept on. Reaching Florek, he clapped him lightly on the shoulder, slid himself onto the stool to Florek’s right. He settled in with the slow and deliberate movement of a man inching toward an afternoon drunk.

  “How you doin’, friend?” The voice was scorched from tobacco.

  “Doin’ okay,” said Florek.

  “You don’t remember me, do ya.”

  “I can’t…no, I don’t think so.”

  “I remember you.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Sure. I went to Farrell High, just like you. Graduated two, three years ahead of you. I grew up downtown, off Idaho.”

  Florek’s hand tightened on the bottle. It’s Ted. Ted Something A Bulgarian-Macedonian name. Lupoff, Luminoff, something like that. What the hell is it?

  “Ted Lupicoff,” said the veteran. He put out his hand.

  Florek took it. “Mike Florek. How’s it goin’?”

  “Good.”

  “Let me buy you one, Ted.”

  “Naw, that’s all right.”

  “C’mon.”

  “Aw, hell. A beer, then, for luck. Yeah, I’ll have a beer. Make it an Iron City.”

  The bartender served it. Lupicoff and Florek tapped bottles, drank off some of the beer. Lupicoff lighted a cigarette.

  “You still don’t remember me, huh?”

  “It’s coming back.”

  “Ted Lupicoff, Mike. I used to run aro
und with your sister, back when. For Chrissakes, I been to your house once for Sunday supper.”

  It came to Florek then. He could see Lupicoff now, bright-eyed and smiling, without the two-day stubble and the stinking clothes. He could see him in uniform just back from the war.

  Lupicoff smiled, the stain of nicotine splashed across his teeth. “Your mom still makin’ those pierogies with the sauerkraut inside?”

  “Sure. She makes ‘em all the time.”

  “Those pierogies,” said Lupicoff, “they’ll make you cry.”

  “Yeah, my ma, she can cook.”

  “You said it, friend.” Lupicoff wrapped his hand around Florek’s thin bicep. “Listen, don’t get the wrong idea about me and Lola. Like I say, we ran around together in the same crowd, is all. I’m talkin’ about way back when.”

  Florek sipped his beer, placed the bottle softly on the bar. “You seen her lately?”

  Lupicoff lowered his eyes. “Yeah. I seen her in here once or twice.”

  “When’s the last time?”

  “The last time?” Lupicoff’s mouth twitched. He put his cigarette between his lips to stop the twitch. “Hell, I don’t know, Mikey. She’s been keepin’ to herself lately, I guess. Last week or so, I hear she’s been stayin’ over at the hotel.”

  “In Brookfield?”

  “Yeah.”

  Florek stood up, put a few dollars on the bar. He signalled the tender, pointed to Lupicoff’s empty bottle. The bartender went to the cooler and pulled an Iron City from the ice.

  “There’s a bellhop over at the hotel,” said Lupicoff. “Real hep guy by the name of Danny Auerbach.”

  “Auerbach.”

  “Right. See him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want I should come along?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Take care of yourself, Mikey.”

  “You too.”

  Florek went out to the bright light of the street. He walked up toward Brookfield, thinking that the walk and the air would clear his head. Two beers and he was half-lit. He didn’t much care for the feeling of being unsteady on his feet, but the beer gave him confidence, put a can-do swagger in his step. He’d find Lola now, bring her back home for Sunday supper. He’d do that, and things would be all right.

  Florek stepped into the hotel lobby. Upon entering, he could hear the sound of an old man talking to himself and cursing under his breath from a small adjoining room. Florek knew from stories that this room held a slot. Another old man sat behind the desk, reading a dime novel. He looked up at Florek, coughed consumptively into a yellow handkerchief, then returned to his paperback. Florek moved over to the desk.

  “Yes,” said the desk clerk.

  “I’m looking for the bellhop who works here. Fellow by the name of Danny Auerbach.”

  “You got bizness with him?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What kind of bizness.”

  “The personal kind.” Florek shifted his feet. “I’ll just wait till he comes out.”

  “Suit yourself. But he don’t come out unless we got a new guest. And we ain’t takin’ on any new guests tonight. We’re all full up.”

  “Can you ring him out, then?”

  The desk clerk dabbed the handkerchief at the saliva glistening on the edge of his pink mouth. “Maybe I can locate him for you.” He had never taken his eyes away from the book. Florek stood over him for a couple of minutes. Neither he nor the desk clerk said a word. Then Florek pulled a one-dollar bill from his trousers and placed it in front of the old man. The desk clerk took it, slipped it somewhere beneath the counter with a swift and unexpected dexterity.

  “Straight back down the hall, then make a left. Auerbach’ll be there, workin’ on a cigarette.”

  Florek walked past the lobby’s staircase and back into an unlighted hall, dark as it was deep. He felt along the wall, stumbled once, hooked a left at the light of the hall’s end. Down the hall, a compact, pale man in a red bellman’s uniform stood talking to a maid. He was smoking a cigarette, the cigarette dangling carelessly between his fingers. The guy was leaning into the maid like he was trying to make time. He looked at Florek, then back at the maid. He said something to the maid, and both of them laughed.

  Florek squinted through the cigarette smoke that roiled in the hallway light. “You Auerbach?”

  Auerbach nodded, smiled, saluted by lightly touching his hat in a wise kind of way. He stabbed his cigarette into an ashtray by the maid’s stand and walked down the hall toward Florek with an exaggerated spring in his step. He was a small one, with tiny blue eyes and the hands of a boy. He moved with the jerkiness of a windup toy.

  “Yes, sir,” said Auerbach, standing in front of Florek. “What can I get you?” Up close, Auerbach looked like a blond mouse.

  Florek took the picture of Lola from his mackinaw, held it out for Auerbach. Auerbach studied it, looked up cheerfully.

  “She’s somethin’.”

  “You seen her?”

  “She’s a dish,” said Auerbach.

  “Her name is Lola. She’s my sister.”

  Auerbach shrugged. “Consider yourself lucky, pally. Some guys got ugly sisters, they have to look at that mess all their lives.”

  “I heard she might be stayin’ here.”

  “Maybe.”

  “A guy over at the Clover Club—”

  “What guy?”

  “Just a guy. He told me my sister might have a room here. Said you might be able to help me out.”

  “I might.”

  Florek didn’t wait this time for the touch. It had already been a long day, and the smoke in the hallway had begun to sting his eyes. He reached into his pocket, withdrew the last of his money, a one and a five. He held the one dollar bill out to Auerbach.

  “Uh-uh,” said Auerbach.

  “I’m just lookin’ for directions. It shouldn’t cost all that much.”

  “You got me confused with that old desk jockey, pally. That guy comes straight out of the last century. You can romance him with a one, maybe, but a one don’t even begin to buy my drinks.”

  “What do you want?”

  Auerbach pointed his sharp chin at the bill in Florek’s hand. “The fin.”

  Florek handed it over. Auerbach folded it neatly, tucked it into the watch pocket of his trousers.

  Auerbach stepped around Florek. “C’mon.”

  Florek and Auerbach went down the hall, through a door and into a back stairwell. Florek figured they would take the stairs up to the second floor, but instead Auerbach headed down toward the basement. Florek had been in a few hotels; he couldn’t think of any, even the cheapest flophouses, with rooms in their basements. He followed Auerbach, watched the cocky roll of the little guy’s shoulders as he hit the bottom of the stairs.

  They went into another hallway, passed rooms housing cleaning supplies and a bathroom with a floor slick from grease. The hall ended at an open-doored boiler room, where Florek could hear the steady hum of the house furnace. It was warm down here, close to hot, the heat dry and raw. Florek pulled the zipper down on his jacket.

  Auerbach turned the knob on a door adjacent to the boiler room. He pushed the door open, reached in and flicked on an overhead light. He waved Florek through, stepped aside.

  “Here you are, pally.”

  Florek went inside. On the floor lay a mattress covered with tossed, wrinkled sheets and a blue and black afghan blanket. Next to the mattress a lamp with a scorched shade sat on an overturned lettuce crate. A glass basin topped a plywood dresser pushed against the wall. The walls, empty of decoration, had been painted a pale gray. The floor was naked gray concrete.

  “Where is she?” said Florek. He stared at the afghan on the bed. His mother had knitted it for Lola one very cold winter, three years back.

  Auerbach walked into the room, leaned against the wall. He raised one foot, rolled down his sock, pulled free a pack of cigarettes. He extracted one, covered the pack up with his sock, put the foot
back down on the concrete. He rolled the cigarette elaborately in his fingers, examined it like it was something special.

  “I asked you where she was.”

  Auerbach tore a match from his book, lighted the cigarette. He kept the cigarette dangling in his mouth as he glared impishly at Florek.

  “I can’t hear you so good,” said Auerbach.

  “What, you’re gonna hit me up again?”

  “You asked to see her room. Anything else is extra.”

  “You took my last nickel.”

  “Then I guess we’re done.” Auerbach rolled his shoulders.” ‘Cause information like that don’t come free.”

  “Information.” Florek felt a tickle of sweat on his back. “Maybe I got a little information for the cops in this township. Maybe they might like to know that the bellhop in this place is a lousy pimp.”

  “Sure, they’d like that.” Auerbach took the cigarette from his mouth and grinned. “And while you’re singin’ about it, don’t forget to tell ‘em about your sister. Yeah, and you might want to go back to your little town and brag about her, too. Tell ‘em all how your sister ain’t nothin’ but a three-dollar whore.”

  Florek lowered his head, stared at the floor. “Where is she?” he muttered.

  “See? That’s a whole lot better. A guy like you shouldn’t try and wear a man’s suit. It just don’t hang on you right.” Auerbach flicked a speck of tobacco off his pants. “Aw, hell, you seem like a nice kid. I guess it’s only right I give you a few details, seein’ as how she’s your sister—”

  “Where?”

  Auerbach dragged on his cigarette. “Gone south to the big city, pally. Washington, D.C.”

  The swirls in the floor’s concrete vibrated softly in front of Florek’s eyes. “Gone with who?”

  “A man she met here last week. A man and a woman, it was. I don’t have no names. He registered at the desk, but you can make book that the name was a phony.”