Murder at the Foul Line

by Otto Penzler

  “And Al was a good-looking guy,” he went on. “Could’ve been a movie star, except, as I said, he never opened his mouth. But he saw more pussy than a pair of ladies’ panties. Which is why I never understood why he was shacking up with this girl Vera, who made her living as a whore.”

  “Al Newberger lived with a whore?” I said.

  Sidney lunged across the table and backhanded me on the left breast. “What the hell do you know? Of course he was living with a whore!”

  “What do you mean, of course? You just said you never understood it yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m saying!” Sidney said. “He lived with her!”

  It’s tempting to say that Sidney’s exasperating conversational logic had been brought on by old age, but, sadly, it appears to have been a permanent fixture of his temperament.

  “He lived with a girl who made her living shtupping other men,” Sidney said, shaking his head at the peculiarity of it.

  “Maybe he was afraid of commitment,” I suggested.

  Sidney looked at me as if I were out of my mind. Psychological speculation was not a hobby of his, while I, who was already in therapy—no doubt partly because of growing up around infuriating Jewish men—loved nothing more than speculating about the complexities of human relationships.

  “I’ll tell you what he was afraid of Ronnie. He was afraid of not getting a first-class blow job, that’s what he was afraid of. If you want a job done well, get a professional—that’s what I’ve always said. I hope you don’t mind my plain speech.”

  “I can take it,” I said. I not only loved his salty language—I loved hearing about these Jews who didn’t talk so much, who beat the shit out of their opponents, who lived with whores.

  “Still,” Sidney said, “what kind of man wants to sleep with a lady you don’t know where her pussy’s been? What am I gonna do? He’s my best ballplayer. What’s the worst could’ve happened? The clap. Al even brings her around the National Hotel—you remember, don’t you, that we played our home games in a hotel ballroom?—and all the guys know her, and she’s a classy kind of whore, always with the tailored suits and a nice hat.”

  It was dawning on me that Sidney was working up to something. Although I had no idea where the story was going, he didn’t seem merely to be trolling the past for glimmering little glories, as old men do, as Sidney had started to do the last few years. This story was already longer than most of them.

  “So we’re leading the league by a game or two over the Bronx Black Stars, and it’s March, maybe two or three weeks to go before the playoffs. Now, we’ve won the championship two out of the last three seasons, five of the last seven, so everyone’s gunning for us. You should’ve heard the crowds at our road games, Ronnie: ‘We’ll get you, you bunch of kikes’ and ‘You fuckin’ sheenies!’ But we loved it. ‘We may be sheenies,’ I’d yell back, ‘but we’re the sheenies who are kicking your ass!’ I’ve got to tell you, Ronnie, it was a great time to be a Jew who could put a ball in the hoop. A great time. You should’ve been there.”

  Like many American Jewish boys who had known only the suburbs growing up, who had never served in the military, I had gone through life feeling untested, but not especially eager to pass any of the tests I had in mind. Our energies had been rerouted, like traffic around a bad accident, to the world of intellectual pursuit. Through Sidney and his stories, I vicariously enjoyed the tough ethnic brothers I admired from afar. Not the thugs like Mendy Weiss, Arnold Rothstein, Bugsy Siegel, or Gurrah Shapiro. The good Jews, like Sidney.

  Sidney yanked a hanky out of his pants pocket and mopped his brow, then ran the soiled cloth over his balding head, as if he were polishing it. “So what happens? What happens is Al Newberger’s home one night in the apartment he shared with Vera when he hears a car pull up outside and there’s an argument going on in there between Vera and one of her Johns. Apparently, the guy couldn’t perform and he’s saying he shouldn’t have to pay, and she’s telling him there’re no free samples and that she won’t get out of the car till he forks over the two bucks. And Al’s watching from the window and sees this guy get out, come around, and pull Vera out of the car and throw her on the ground and give her a kick for good measure.

  “Well, Al’s out of the apartment building in no time flat—you gotta understand how quick he was, Ronnie—and Al picks up Vera, makes sure she’s all right, and sends her into the apartment. Then he and the guy have a few words. Before the other guy knows it, Al Newberger is kicking the crap out of him. By the time Al’s through with him, the guy’s face looks like a tsimmes. So Al throws him in the back of the guy’s car and then drives the car to the old railroad yard and leaves him there and walks back home, fuming.

  “I forgot to tell you one thing, Ronnie. While Al was beating this john up, a gun, a five-shot revolver of some kind, falls out of the guy’s camel-hair coat, and now Al’s got it. He doesn’t know what to do with it, but he sure as hell isn’t going to leave it in the back of the car with the guy, so he goes home, wraps it up in some rags, and hides it up on a ledge inside the fireplace chimney.”

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  “Because Al told me later. I got it out of him later. Get me a glass of water, Ronnie, no ice. I’m not used to doing this much talking.”

  He waited until I returned from the kitchen sink to resume the story. He took occasional, incongruously dainty sips of water. “So a couple of days later, after our next home game, Al’s walking home from the National when a guy falls in step with him. Spiffy-looking gentleman in his late thirties wearing a nice chalk-striped, double-breasted suit and rimless glasses. He looks like a well-dressed accountant, which, I happen to know, is what his mother once hoped he would be. But his father, who used to launder restaurant linen for the mob, seemed to get the upper hand with Irving. That’s this guy’s name, Irving Levchuck, but he introduces himself to Al as just Irving, and when Al tells him to get lost, Irving says very calmly that Al beat up an associate of his the other day, a guy named Itchy Weintraub. That’s the name of the guy Al left bleeding in the Packard in the railroad yard.”

  “Is everybody a Jew in this story?” I asked.

  “Yes. Absolutely. So Irving says to Al as they’re walking along that he’s in a position to propose a resolution to their squabble that will leave Al Newberger physically unharmed. So Al says, ‘I’m supposed to worry about some guy named Itchy hurting me?’ So Irving says, “Look, Al, you shoot basketballs for a living, and you’re pretty good at it. Well, Itchy Weintraub shoots people for a living, and he’s got an even higher shooting percentage than you.’

  “Now Irving Levchuck has Al Newberger’s attention. Irving tells Al that this guy Itchy’s a schlammer who used to work for the Matteo brothers, who used to control South Philadelphia when the Italians were in charge. So if you were a little schmeggege like Itchy and you liked to shoot people, and you wanted to get paid for it, you worked for the dagos.”

  “So why’s this guy Irving involved?”

  “Do I interrupt you when you’re in the middle of a story?”

  “Yes.”

  “So here’s what Irving says to Al. He says if you’re good enough to make a basket, which you are, then you’re good enough to miss. Al knows just where this is going, of course, and tells Irving to take a hike. Why shouldn’t he? After all, Al Newberger’s a hero in Philly. He’s the biggest thing going. There’s only one professional basketball team in Philly and that’s us. For Jews, he’s like Michael Jordan. Whole families would come to the National on Saturday night to watch us play. After, there was a dance, with Ted Morris conducting his orchestra. Ted was one of our starting guards, fast as hell, but he had a band and they’d start up right after the game. Ted didn’t even have time to shower. He’d get out of his uniform and right into his tux. Ten minutes after the game’s over and the ballroom’s a sea of dancing Jewish couples. You never saw anything like it. This was before television, Ronnie—”

  “I know that,
Grandpa,” I said.

  “What do you know? Where was I? You made me lose my place.”

  “Al Newberger was telling Irving what’s-his-name to take a hike.”

  “Thank you, Ronnie. So Al tells Irving to take a hike and Irving, very gentleman-like, explains that if Al doesn’t ‘play ball,’ something terrible could happen to him or, worse, Vera.

  “Now Al’s even more interested, because he can’t figure out how this guy would know Vera’s name. But he’s still not giving in to Irving, and when Irving says Itchy wants his gun back, Al pretends like he doesn’t have it. ’Cause how’s Itchy going to shoot Al if he doesn’t have his gun?” Sidney laughed ruefully and went on. “I can laugh now, Ronnie, it’s a long time ago, but you can imagine that this encounter with Irving Levchuck, however inconclusive, would begin to play with Al Newberger’s mind. He should’ve come to me right away, of course, but it wasn’t Al’s nature.

  “So a couple of days later, after a game, Al and some of the guys are drinking at a place in South Philly that they used to go to, called the Two Deuces or the Forty-two Queens, one of those. Al leaves to go home and that guy Itchy Weintraub—with his face all bandaged and fucked up—jumps out of a car parked at the curb, grabs Al, and throws him in the front seat. Irving is behind the wheel.”

  “Itchy, Irving,” I said. “It’s a little hard to keep these guys straight, Grandpa.”

  “Do your best,” Sidney said. “So Itchy gets in the backseat and before Al knows it, he’s pointing a pistol at the back of Al’s head and Irving’s saying, ‘Look, Al, Itchy’s got a new gun.’ Then he tells Al that they’re spreading a lot of money around town that says the Planets won’t beat the Union City Arrows by more than two points at the National Hotel on Saturday night. Al tells him he’s not going to do it, not going to shave points, and before he knows it, now Itchy’s got a piano wire around Al’s neck and he’s choking him to death and that seems to do the trick. Al’s in the tank.

  “So, wouldn’t you know it, on Saturday night we beat the Arrows by a single point. Instead of killing the clock at the end of the game with a three-point lead, Al takes a bad shot and gives the Arrows the ball and then lets his man waltz past him for an easy bucket. I figure Al’s having a bad night. He’s too proud to come to me with his problem. But somebody else isn’t.

  “A few days later, Vera comes to see me at my office. An exceptionally good-looking girl, Ronnie. She tells me how Al beat this guy up who used to work for the Matteo brothers and how Itchy’s going to pay him back. I ask her if Al knows she’s coming to see me and she says no. So I ask, ‘How do you know what this guy Itchy’s going to do?’ She says, ‘Because everybody knows how these bums operate.’ You following me so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then you’ll understand my problem. Because I can tell that Al hasn’t told her anything. He never talked to nobody in general. So Vera knows more about this on her own than she’s letting on. So I ask her, ‘What’s your relationship with these monkeys, anyway?’ Because I figure—”

  “—that she’s tied in with Itchy and knows exactly how much trouble Al’s in.”

  “When I want some information I’ll consult the encyclopedia. So I thank Vera for her concern and figure it’s time to make some inquiries. Meanwhile, Al’s up to his pupik in trouble. I can use this like a hole in the head. We already got a Depression that won’t end. We got the German American Bund parading around the city in swastikas and jackboots.

  “Al gets another visit from Irving, who tells Al that when the Planets go up to Harlem in a few days, the Rens are going to win by four. Al tells Irving no, I’m through, that’s it. So Irving whispers an address in Al’s ear, ‘That’s where my mother lives,’ Al says, and Irving says, ‘And it’s where she’s gonna die if the Rens don’t win by at least four.’ So Al says, ‘You can’t make me do this,’ and Irving says, ‘You’d be amazed by what I can make you do.’

  “But the next day I buy Al dinner at the old Horn and Hardart and I tell him I know he’s in the tank. I don’t say it was Vera who told me. He admits some guy named Irving says some guy named Itchy is going to shoot him. I’ve got to take care of this problem, right? So I take Al down to Atlantic City to see Mo Mo Scharf.”

  “Mo Mo?”

  “Big bootlegger I knew ’cause he was the moneyman for a team I coached in the late twenties. Not that I knew he was an untervelt mensch at the time. Now he’s semiretired, living on the boardwalk, and I figure he might do us a favor. He was always doing business with the Matteo brothers. But I’m in for a couple surprises. First of all, he’s become a schlump. He’s a nobody now, an old man in slippers with a bad memory. But he does know one thing, and that’s the second surprise. He tells Al and me the Matteo brothers are no longer running things in South Philly. Who, then? A guy named Levchuck, Mo Mo tells me. Irving Levchuck.”

  At this point, I recall clearly how Sidney’s demeanor changed. He no longer seemed to be telling me a story at all. The light in Sidney’s face dimmed slowly, as if on a rheostat, and his voice became quieter and more determined, as if he was now being forced to tell the story. “Now, Ronnie, you understand that, until this point, I have no idea that the guy who’s got his claws into Al is Irving Levchuck. Al knows him only as Irving. Let me tell you, this throws me for a loop, because I grew up with the guy.”

  “You grew up with him?”

  “What did I just say? Our mothers were in the same canasta club. Even then I hated him. He was a little goniff. When we were about twelve or thirteen, he stole some athletic equipment from the Jewish Community Center and sold it to some Negroes across town. I ratted him out. From then on, he hated me. I wasn’t surprised that he became a bookkeeper for Mo Mo when he was still in his twenties. He was always good with numbers. But did I know the little goniff had moved up to run organized crime in Philadelphia? What did I know from the workings of the underworld? I was shocked when Mo Mo tells me this, but I don’t let on to either of them that I grew up with the mamzer.

  “Because now I know why Irving Levchuck has Al by the balls and won’t let go. First of all, he’s getting back at me for ratting him out twenty-five years before. But the real reason? Owning a piece of the Planets was like owning a piece of God. We were the force of good, Ronnie, and Irving was the kind of guy who had to take a shit on everything he couldn’t control. And without knowing it Al had just handed him the opportunity of a lifetime.

  “So we drove back from Atlantic City in silence and when we played our last regular season game in Harlem a couple of nights later, I kept Al on the bench. And that fucking Itchy had the balls to come down to the bench near the end of the game and yell at Al. I was right there and I heard him ask Al, ‘You got a death wish, Al? You got a death wish?’ His face was right down next to Al’s, and Vic Fine, who’s sitting next to him on the bench, throws an elbow right in Itchy’s face. Itchy opens his coat and shows them his semiautomatic. ‘I got something better than elbows, you pricks.’ I remember this like it was yesterday, Ronnie. I thought he was going to use the gun then and there. But I point a finger at him and order him back to his seat, and you know what? He goes. But after the game, since I figure these mamzers are going to be waiting for Al, we got him out of the Renaissance Ballroom with the Harlem team.”

  Out of his pocket Sidney took the soiled hanky again and ran it around his forehead and skull. “But nobody had to tell me this story didn’t look like it was going to have a happy ending. I put Al and Vera up in the Rittenhouse Hotel. The next day, or the day after that, Vera pays me another visit at my office and says that if Al doesn’t play and do what they say, they’re gonna kill him. You don’t have to be a genius to know this is a distinct possibility. But how come she’s so sure? Well, since I last saw Vera I’ve been asking about her around South Philly, and now I know she’s been peddling her puss for Irving and his crowd since she was a teenager. This is the broad my best ballplayer chooses to shack up with?” Sidney clapped his hand against his fore
head. “Gott in himmell!

  “It took me about a minute and a half to turn her, Ronnie. I told her she had to choose sides. I told her from now on she was my spy. To let Irving’s people know Al wasn’t going along with them and I wanted Vera to let me know exactly what they were going to do about it. The playoffs are about to start and Vera reports back to me that Al won’t make it out of the National Hotel Ballroom alive if he doesn’t go in the tank—the Planets win by two points in the first game, no more.

  “If she’s telling me the truth, all I got to do is frisk all three thousand people who show up for the game. I hire every tough Jew I know to guard the doors that night. Irving and Itchy and their broads waltz right in, but not until we’ve patted them down. I put Al in the game. Only problem is, they smuggled a gun in somehow and Itchy comes out of his seat at the end of the game and tries to shoot Al as he’s leaving the floor. Some of my guys get to Itchy first and nobody gets hurt, but Itchy gets away.

  “An hour after the game, Al goes back to his suite at the Rittenhouse, the one I got for him and Vera, and he walks in and there’s Vera asleep in the bed with the covers pulled up over her chin. She doesn’t wake up when he comes in, so Al goes over and pulls the covers down. Vera’s throat has been slit from ear to ear. Poor girl. And me, I figure I’m responsible for it because when Irving and Itchy saw all the security at the game, they must’ve figured Vera was talking to me, had tipped me off. And she paid a terrible price.

  “So now it’s war. I’m ready to break Itchy in two when one of my guys who was watching the stands during the game tells me that it was Irving’s seat that was empty since the middle of the game. Are you sure? I ask. Sure I’m sure, says my guy. So it’s Irving, who used to kill kittens when he was a boy. Now he’s killed a grown-up kitten named Vera.”