“No, you don’t understand,” Mulqueen said. “We need that space for the track.”
“That’s the motor pool,” the armory worker said. “It don’t move.”
It was now 7:15 p.m. Mulqueen walked the length of the armory floor quickly. He went out into the lobby. He saw Joseph DeLauria, dressed in a tuxedo, greeting old men who had sashes draped over their shoulders. Mulqueen tried to talk to DeLauria. DeLauria shook his head and wouldn’t listen. Mulqueen saw Izzy leaning against a wall. “I don’t do woodwork,” Izzy said. Mulqueen finally saw Kid Sally Palumbo standing in the middle of a circle of his people.
“That’s nothin’, just have them move the trucks,” Kid Sally Palumbo said. He turned back to his people.
“They won’t move the trucks,” Mulqueen said.
“Hey, that’s nothin’,” Big Jelly said. “Sally Kid, go over to the office there and tell the guy and he’ll do it for you.”
“It’s always me,” Kid Sally said. “I got to do everything.” He stepped through the people and went into the armory office.
“You got to move the cannons for us,” Kid Sally said. A man in civilian clothes sat at the desk.
“Where to?” the man said.
“Out in the street, anywhere, I don’t care. Just move them.”
“Move our motor pool? That’s the property of the United States government. We can’t move one jeep.”
Kid Sally closed his eyes and ran a hand over them. “Who’s in charge of this place?”
“The colonel.”
“Where is he?”
“Home.”
“Get him on the phone and straighten this thing out.”
The man dialed a number. “Hello, is Colonel Rudershan there? Oh, I see. Yes, I forgot all about that. Well, thanks, I’ll try him tomorrow then.”
He hung up. “The colonel went to a movie with his wife and his brother and sister-in-law. It’s the sister-in-law’s birthday.”
“Move the cannons,” Kid Sally said.
“That’s government property,” the man said.
“MOVE THE CANNONS!” Kid Sally screamed.
“Hey!”
Baccala stood in the doorway, shoes gleaming, black hat tilted on his head, a DeNobili fuming in his mouth.
“How you no measure the track right?”
“This guy won’t move the cannons,” Kid Sally said.
“So he no move the cannons, then you move the track,” Baccala said. “Make the track little.”
Mulqueen, the carpenter, closed his eyes. “You can’t do it. The thing is measured to fit like it is.”
“Fix,” Baccala said. His eyes were narrow. He walked out of the office.
A haze formed inside Kid Sally Palumbo’s head. The haze solidified and turned into a throbbing knot in the middle of his forehead. He began to punch himself on the forehead. He didn’t see Baccala walk away.
Down at the end of the armory floor, Mulqueen and Keefe stood and looked at the track.
“Eight hours,” Keefe said. “Eight hours at least.”
It was 8:17 p.m. now. Nearly 2500 people sat in the stands. In the age of numbers, 2500 at a sports event is painfully few on paper. But when you have 2500 people sitting and waiting for an event to start that you can’t get started and you stand in the middle of the floor and look up at these 2500 people, they look like a million people.
A voice from an empty part of the balcony started it. “Hey, what you do?”
A growl ran through the rest of the people. A Polack jumped up in the end balcony. “Come on.”
The Greeks in the seats behind their society banner began to clap their hands. The clapping spread and now the whole place was clapping, and then the people started stamping their feet and the noise sounded like a building coming down. Kid Sally Palumbo stood in the infield with his eyes shut. His cousin Albert Palumbo said he had an idea. Albert went downstairs to the locker room and called the riders, who were sitting on wooden benches between the green lockers and looking up at the ceiling. The stamping coming through the ceiling had them frightened. Albert led them up the stairs and onto the armory floor. The rhythmic clapping turned to cheers for the riders. Albert led them across the track and into the infield.
“All right, inside,” Albert yelled. He began motioning to the riders. The riders looked at the cages and did not move. Big Jelly and Carmine and Albert had to come and start pushing them into their assigned cages. Grumbling in several languages began. The riders got into the cages, and the doors were slammed.
Bike-riders race in T-shirts and black knit swimming trunks. Because they sit on hard bike seats for hours at a time, they stuff things down the front of their trunks to cushion themselves against the steady chafing, biting motion of the bike seat. In a normal six-day bike race, the riders, by the last day, have so much stuffed down their fronts that they appear to have elephantiasis. Towels are used for stuffing. Many old-time bike-riders used to stuff steaks into their trunks. They found the grease was very good for the insides of their thighs. Also the steaks could be eaten after the race was over.
The riders were in the cages and the crowd stirred and again began to clap. At 9:30 p.m., a Greek in a cage started it. Contestant Constantine Caras turned his back on the audience and stuffed three large bathtowels down the front of his trunks. Proudly, Caras turned and faced the crowd with this great bulge between his legs.
“Yip, yip,” the Greek yelled. He gripped the bars and began jumping up and down in the cage. He stopped jumping and started scratching behind his neck. He scratched under his arms. He had his hands down and he was scratching his waist when the crowd saw what was coming. A roar went out when the Greek stuck his tongue out of one side of his mouth and his hands began tearing at the bulge between his legs.
Caras’ Greek partner had been sitting on the edge of the cot. Now he came off the cot onto all fours. He padded up to the bars and began barking like a dog. He raised one leg into the air.
The crowd was in tears. People were standing, bent over, and slapping their thighs.
Mario Trantino and Carlo Rafetto, who were in the cage next to the Greeks, saw the crowd becoming helpless with laughter. Mario took the folding tray and began banging it against the bars, the way he had seen them do it in American prison movies. The sound of the tin tray carried. One of the Polacks on the other side of the circle of cages picked up his tray and began banging it. Soon the steady rhythm of trays banging against the bars sounded everywhere and the people in the seats clapped along with the banging trays. Up at the end of the armory Mulqueen was ripping out sections of track and scratching his ear while he tried to figure out what to do, and then the clapping from the crowd started to die down and the first people got up and began to file to the exits. More people started to file out. There was a tangle at the exits because people were turning back from the exits, growling, and trying to push their way back into the arena. Everybody was pushing and getting nowhere, and then one old Italian, face shaking with anger, threw his cigar into the air and held out his hands like the Pope and screamed in Italian that the ticket clerk wouldn’t give him his money back.
An old woman in a black cloth coat was out of the grandstands first. She came with a stumpy walk. She came with a shopping bag filled with food for the entire night in her right hand. She came across the track with this stumpy walk and with the shopping bag full of food in her right hand and she saw Joseph DeLauria standing in his tuxedo and she went right for the tuxedo and swung the bag of food and the bag broke . on Joseph DeLauria’s head. Sausage sandwiches with rich red sauce flew all over the place.
A fat man in a truck-driver’s cap came running across the track. He began skipping around with his right leg drawn back. He was trying to figure out who to go after when Albert Palumbo came around the side of the cage, and the guy looked at Albert and then let go and kicked Albert in the ankles. A fat, bald Greek came pounding over the track with a folding chair held over his head. He swung the chair at Big Jelly. The Gr
eek missed, but he kept the chair in motion and the chair caught Tony the Indian on the head and he went down like an air-raid victim. Now people were coming from everywhere, throwing punches and chairs, and the bike-riders held their bulges and jumped up and down like monkeys.
An old man in a cap and overcoat grabbed a bike from the front of the Polish riders’ cage. The old man walked the bike onto the track and got on it. He started pumping the bike up to the turn. He hit the saucer and pumped wildly around it and then shot down onto the straightaway and flew along it. There was a rumble from the far end of the armory. The big green corrugated door was coming down and the carpenters and workers ducked under it and into the safety of the motor pool. The door came all the way down the floor. The old man riding the bike was in ecstasy while he shot down the straightaway. Three-quarters of the way down he felt the handlebars for brakes. Then he pushed the pedal backward. This made only a zizzzziiiing sound. The bike did not slacken.
The old man got excited and his foot fumbled and pushed the pedal violently forward by mistake. When he and the bike hit the green door, he went halfway up the door like a human fly. He fell like a sack of cement.
The first call was made to the 91st Precinct by the man in the armory office. When the squad car responded, the patrolman took a look at the crowd milling around the track and went back to the car and put in a Signal 16, which is the riot call.
The next morning, the court attendant looked up and saw the judge was ready. With an unhurried municipal walk, the attendant went over to open the door to the detention pens and bring the morning’s defendants into the courtroom. A wave of snarling people slapped into the attendant. Kid Sally Palumbo was leading them. He was in his T-shirt. His suit jacket was folded over his arm. Both knees of his pants were ripped. Behind him came a crush of bandaged, splattered, ripped people from the bike-race riot.
“And what’s this?” the judge said.
“A company returning,” the docket clerk said.
When everybody was released on bail, Kid Sally began to whisper and glance around to let his people know they were to show up at the street later in the day.
They came through the double doors of the courtroom and out into a shabby high-ceilinged lobby. Cigarette butts and candy wrappers littered the floor. Revolving doors opened onto the cold street. Through the door, Kid Sally could see photographers jamming together to get pictures of him coming out of court. Pictures ordinarily were all right, in fact Kid Sally once tried to pay a Daily News cameraman $25 to take a color picture for the Sunday roto section. But Kid Sally didn’t want New York to see a picture of him in a T-shirt and with ripped pants. He stopped and looked around. The two old men working the shoeshine stand looked at him.
“Shine?” one of them said.
“No,” Kid Sally said. “No, not a shine.” He came over to the stand and took a tin of black polish. Using a courtroom-door window as a mirror, Kid Sally put his fingers into the polish and printed FUCK YOU across his forehead. Kid Sally came through the revolving doors waving his arm at the pack of crouching, jostling, swearing cameramen, who laughed and then froze when they saw his forehead.
Chapter 11
MARIO HAD GOTTEN BACK to the hotel at three a.m. At nine a.m. the hotel cashier woke him up. The room bill had been paid, the cashier said, and Mario had until one p.m. to check out. After that, all bills run up by the bike-riders would be their own responsibility. If Mario intended to remain, the hotel suggested a deposit. Mario came down to the lobby, where the bike-riders were waving airline tickets and arguing over what had happened. The girl at the airlines counter in the lobby was busy booking the bike-riders on the afternoon and evening flights back to Europe. Mario handed the girl his ticket and said he wanted to cash it in. The girl gave him $311.35.
Mario took a cab down to 10th Street. He leaned forward on the seat and went through his inside pocket for the picture Father Marsalano had given him the morning he left for America. A small warmth ran through Mario when he felt the envelope. He looked at the words on the back of the picture: “Dear Friends Who Left Catanzia to Go to America and Become Rich …” Mario patted the picture. No matter how tough it could get in America, he always had the envelope from home. When the cab stopped on 10th Street, Mario saw the meter was $1.45. He became immobile. Slowly he handed the driver a dollar bill, two dimes, and a lire piece he hoped would pass for a quarter. The cabbie’s hand felt $1.45. The cabbie’s thumb ran over the palm trying to find a tip. The thumb found no tip. The cabbie wanted to shout, but his tongue already had gone into shock. Mario was halfway across the sidewalk when the cabbie finally broke the numbness.
“I could understand it if you was a Puerto Rican,” he yelled at Mario.
The veins on the sides of the cabbie’s head popped out in anger. Two blocks later, he was still muttering when he began to put the coins in his change-maker. When he saw the lire piece, he suffered a heart spasm.
Sidney had a more positive reaction when he opened the door and Mario pushed into the apartment.
“Kill yourself,” Sidney said.
Sidney was edgy because he did not like Mario, and also because he had been living without whisky. After Mario had shown up at the Plaza Hotel, Grant Monroe, in a rage, had come down to the apartment and frisked the place for whisky. Now Mario, who had caused all the trouble for Sidney, was sitting across from him. And Mario, as payment for having discovered Grant Monroe’s particular brand of larceny, was expecting help.
“Grant says we got no room for you,” Sidney said. “We’ll give you all the help we can, but we got no room.”
“Just show me how you do this thing,” Mario said. He thought that if he could just learn the game, the next step would take care of itself.
“Well, where are you staying?” Sidney said.
“The chiti,” Mario said. Sometimes English words beginning with C came out “Ch.”
“Cheatey is the right name,” Sidney said. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I think you’re a natural thief myself.”
He described his operation, which was very simple. Five years back, when Grant Monroe and Sidney met each other and started off, the usual route in art forging was to copy a Chagall or Modigliani. But apartments on Fifth and Park Avenues were becoming as crowded as subway trains with all the thieves selling phony Chagalls and Modiglianis to rich idiots. Grant came up with the idea of finding work done by artists who had lived in unrecognized ability and who died virtually unknown. Sidney would copy their works and sign Grant Monroe’s name to them. Grant’s great sales personality would carry it from there. He was great at selecting customers who lived far away from each other. They could be sold the same paintings. All Sidney had to do was sit in the apartment and work like a Xerox machine. It was a fine arrangement. Rather than pushing fake Chagalls for big, risky money, Grant Monroe sold phony Grant Monroes on a solid volume basis. The hundred-dollar bills added up. Of course, everything depended on Sidney’s remaining hidden. This was all right with Sidney. He couldn’t sell his own work. His personality was so bad the Chinese would not take free missiles from him. Besides, Sidney appreciated Grant. He felt Grant was removing the ultimate hazard of an art thief’s life: a guard who won’t allow you to mix paint in your cell.
“Just remember, only use dead artists,” Sidney told Mario. “If they can breathe, they can sign warrants.”
Sidney tugged open the doors of an old cabinet. Inside was a pile of reproductions and scarred originals of work done by people dead and unremembered. “Take your pick,” he said to Mario. “Whichever you think is best for you. Don’t worry what people like. They all got the taste of pigs. You can sell anything. The biggest art-collector in this city got a bum Picasso right in his living room.”
Mario went through the pile. “Which one do you think I should use?” he asked.
Sidney said, “Hey, I don’t even know if you can put a straight line on paper. Grant said help you out. That’s what I’m doing. But you got to be able to do thi
s yourself. If you’re not a half an artist, then go find another way to steal.”
Mario’s chin came out in pride. “I can do it myself,” he said. He pulled out an original of a nude girl in her apartment. There was a rip through the girl’s face. The rest of her was intact. Sidney said the picture was particularly safe to use. The artist, Peppis, was caught by the Depression and he wound up painting station signs in the subway for the WPA. He became drunk and tumbled off the platform and was killed by the Broadway local. “Even the motorman who killed him is dead,” Sidney said.
Mario nodded and stepped around Sidney and Sidney tried to roll the wheelchair after Mario, but Mario was already whisking sheets from a stack of art paper. “The hell you will, they cost a dollar-fifty apiece,” Sidney said. Mario was grabbing at charcoal nubs, paint tubes, brushes, anything that could be picked up.
“Thief bastard!” Sidney yelled as Mario walked out the door.
When Mario got back to the hotel there was a message from Angela. She would be at the hotel at 12:30. Mario was in front of the hotel at 12:15. He had his suitcase between his feet and the art paper tucked under his arm. The winter wind swirled out of a lifeless gray sky. The wind lifted newspaper pages and carried them along the sidewalk. Angela came around the corner from the subway. She had her chin buried into the collar of a navy-blue coat. She did not smile when she saw him. Her eyes teared in the wind and her face seemed drained. People who have been up all night always show it in cold weather.
She looked at the suitcase. “You’re going home?” she said. Her voice had a hopeful rise.
“No, I’m staying here.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then what’s the suitcase for?”
“The hotel costs too much. I have to find another place.”
“You have to move already?” she said to him.
“They want money in deposit if I stay.”
Angela’s eyes narrowed. “Che cazzo diavolo!”
Mario thought he heard her say this, but he decided he had not. A woman hasn’t talked like this since Mary Magdalene reformed.
Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Page 11
