Becker gave Nichols a sideward glance. “Let me out. I’ll go into the next car before your babes come back.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Becker nodded. He opened the door, looked both ways, then, walking out into the corridor, turned toward the front of the train.
Semanon’s : July 14, 1929 : 5:10 P.M.
“HiyaPal,” Charlie Jones, the heavy-set, affable proprietor of Cafe Semanon said to Jack McCarthy, a smartly dressed stockbroker.
Semanon—which spelled ‘No Names’ backward—was a speakeasy in the basement of the Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world. The Woolworth Building was located at 233 Broadway, just above the raging madness of Wall Street, and across the street from City Hall. To the side of the main entrance of the building was a small flower shop. Earlier, McCarthy entered the flower shop, nodded to the shopkeeper, then familiarly parted a curtain that led to the stock room. A small door between work benches in the stock room led to a narrow, stairway that wound itself down into a noisy, smoky, crowded after-work rendezvous of brokers, lawyers, politicians, secretaries, girlfriends, waiters, and Charlie Jones. A man with a moustache was playing an upright piano against one wall in the back.
“Usual?” the rosy-cheeked bartender with a red bowtie said over the heads of the two-deep crowd at the bar. The bartender was a policeman who pulled a night tour at City Hall after closing time at the Speak, which was fairly early since it was an after-work crowd. McCarthy nodded as he shook hands with Caesar Barra, one of the leading lights of New York’s criminal trial lawyers. Another stock broker, without breakingfrom his conversation with a blonde secretary, took a whiskey soda from the outstretched hand of the bartender, and passed it over the heads and between the shoulders of the smoking, chattering crowd, to McCarthy.
“How’d it go today?” Charlie Jones asked McCarthy, glancing toward the front of the Speak.
McCarthy winked one of his blue eyes. “Peachy, Charlie. The sky’s the limit.”
“You hear from His Honor, Charlie?” asked Maurice Dougherty, who was standing near the end of the bar, watching the stairway. Dougherty was the right hand of Jim Farrell, boss of Tammany Hall. “He was supposed to meet the Boss at five.” He nodded over his shoulder to the back booth where Boss Farrell was enjoying a cold beer.
“He oughta be here any minute. You know the Mayor,” said Charlie.
Dougherty nodded. “Everything okay, Charlie?” he said, not taking his eyes from the stairway.
“Everything’s peachy,” said Charlie. He liked the sound of that; he liked peaches, and sun, and summers. Nowadays, everything was summer and good things and stocks were going through the roof, even the roof of the Woolworth Building. Business was good, everybody was drinking. The sky, indeed, was the limit.
Alphabet City : June 18, 1996 : 10:25 P.M.
Manhattan, near Houston Street, on the extreme east side of the island, is an area that had long been treated to rejection and derision, its Avenues indifferently named by single letters of the alphabet for lack of sufficient interest or enthusiasm to coin names, an area which has long been forgotten or ignored, a mere addendum to the City, filled as it was, at first, with ignorant immigrants sleeping in the summer on the fire escapes of greasy tenements, thereafter with junkies falling down stairs. This was Alphabet City.
Janette Rouse, a small, thin, unkempt, black woman with a large square jaw—looking hardly more than a young girl—wandered in a semi-daze toward the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street. Her baptismal name unknown or long forgotten by most, she was called, simply, Li’l Bit. She wore a dirty tee-shirt with the legend “Go For It” emblazoned in blue letters that swayed with the heave of her sagging bosom, jeans that had originally been slashed for stylish effect along the thighs, now additionally torn by wear and neglect, and sandals. Her feet were dirty to the point of white crustiness.
“Hey, Li’l Bit,” a man’s voice called from a doorway near the corner.
Li’l Bit stopped, studying the doorway. “Flaco?” she flickered a smile. “You got something for me, baby?” She swayed toward the doorway. “I am in nnn-eed.”
“I got something for you, baby. You got something for me?”
Li’l Bit’s eyes closed, her head heaving with a deep sigh. “I am out of bread, man. Just out. I don’t get my check until Thursday. What day is today anyway?”
“Your lucky day—maybe.”
“Give me something, and I’ll give you the money soon’s I get my check. On Thursday. Promise. I’m really busted,” she said, turning her empty pockets out.
“You fuckin’ think I’m crazy?” scoffed the man out of the shadows. “I’ll be kissing my ass goodbye before I get money from you.”
“I swear, man.” Li’l Bit swayed unsteadily. “I really need something.”
“Me, too, baby. I really need something, too.”
“I ain’t got money today, man,” Li’l Bit said hopelessly, her hands struggling to find her rear pockets.
“Come on. You got somethin’.”
“No, I don’t, man. I’m really busted.”
“Don’t put me on. You got somethin’ I like.”
Li’l Bit stood helpless, shaking her head. “Nothin’.”
“I know you do.”
“I don’t have nothin’, man,” Li’l Bit said emphatically, shaking her head, stamping a foot, turning in a circle.
“Hey, hey. Cool it, bitch. This street is full of snakes. Don’t bring no heat to me with your carrying on. I’ll kick your ass.”
“You give me something, you can kick my ass,” she murmured, defeated, shaking her head, her eyes closed.
The man’s hand reached out of the shadows and picked up the front of Li’l Bit’s tee-shirt. “You still got nice titties, Li’l Bit.”
“Let go my shirt, you slimy fuck.” She said, brushing her shirtfront down. ‘You not doing nothin’ for me, you don’t get no free looks.”
“Where’s your old man?”
“I don’t know. Out, around.”
“Yeah, for how long?” A police car rolled slowly along Avenue C. “Stand still,” said the man. Li’l Bit stood gazing foggily toward the blue and white car, following its progress northward. The silhouetted occupant of the passenger seat glanced at Li’l Bit for a moment.
“You goin’ give me something, or not,” Li’l Bit said, as the patrol car disappeared behind the corner building. She looked soulfully into the darkened doorway.
“You goin’ give me something?”
“I got to get home. My little daughter’s sleeping. I just come out to see what’s happening.”
“I’m happenin’ baby.” There was a deep snort from the darkened doorway. “Don’t tease me, you rotten bitch.” Another snort. “Want a snort, on me?” said the voice.
“Yeah, man, yeah?”
“Tit for tat, baby, tit for tat.”
Li’l Bit stepped into the darkness of the doorway grabbing at the little glassine bag in Flaco’s hand. “Hey, hey, don’t be greedy,” he said. “I’ll hold it.”
As Li’l Bit was inhaling one nostril’s worth of the white dream, Flaco’s hand slid under her tee-shirt, squeezing and rubbing her breasts.
A short Hispanic man with a thin moustache turned the corner from Avenue C and approached the doorway. One of his hands held a folded five dollar bill, “Ave Maria,” the newcomer exclaimed, jumping back from the two shadows in the doorway. “That you, Flaco?” he said, studying the figures in the dark.
“Cool it,” said Flaco, handing a small glassine bag to the newcomer, snaring the five dollar bill.
“Ai, Chico, I’m cool, man. I’m cool.” The man pocketed the bag, turning back toward the avenue, smirking as he walked away.
“That’s enough,” said Li’l Bit, brushing the man’s hand from under her tee-shirt.
“That’s nothin’,” said Flaco, pulling Li’l Bit close, pumping himself against one of her hips.
“Thas’ not enough for that. W
here’s the rest?” protested Li’l Bit, pushing away from Flaco.
“Ai, Chica, come with me. I give you the rest,” said Flaco, pulling Li’l Bit by a wrist into the light of the street lamps. Flaco was very dark, tall, thin.
“You goin’ to give me the rest?” said Li’l Bit.
“You goin’ get all of it,” said Flaco. He pulled Li’l Bit toward the doorway of a deserted tenement. All the windows were covered with tin. The entrance door was covered with a sheet of plywood. He pushed the plywood a bit to the side, reaching inside to turn the doorknob.
“Who?” growled a voice from the dark top of a stairway inside the deserted building. It was Ruben, the worker who guarded the stash of drugs that was kept on the second floor of the building.
“Me, me” Flaco said.
“Who’s that wich you?”
“Mind your fucking job, man, okay?”
“You got a bitch wich you?”
“It ain’t got nothin’ to do with you,” said Flaco. He moved toward the back of the hallway, stepping over refuse and crunching broken glass beneath his feet as he did. He stopped near another plywood covered door that led to the back yard. He pushed Li’l Bit against the wall and began to grope for the buttons of her jeans.
“Give me,” she said, pushing his hands away from her pants.
“No, you give me,” the man said, handing her a glassine bag. Li’l Bit began to tear open one end of the bag as the man popped the buttons of her jeans. He pushed her pants and panties down together over her hips, twirling her around to face the wall.
Li’l Bit was snorting the powder hungrily as the man opened his fly and thrust himself up into her from behind, pumping eagerly.
“Easy, man, easy,” Li’l Bit cautioned, not wanting the precious white powder to spill.
“Hold on the wall, bitch, I’m riding you now, I’m riding you now … now … now …” He moaned, then whined, his pumping subsiding, standing on tip toes, his legs shaking, his breath heavy, holding onto her hips to steady himself. Li’l Bit oblivious to the activity behind her, stuck her tongue into the glassine bag, licking the residue of powder inside the bag.
The panel of plywood covering the front door of the tenement was pushed open roughly. “Hey, Flaco, what the fuck is going on? There are customers all over the place over here, looking for some shit,” called a man’s voice.
“Okay, Jefe, okay. I’ll be right there. Gotta go outside. That’s the boss,” Flaco moaned softly, his eyes still closed, his hands still on Li’l Bit’s hips. He took a deep breath, then pulled back from Li’l Bit quickly.
“Owww,” she complained, looking around at the shadow of Flaco.
Flaco was already walking toward the front entrance, pulling up the zipper of his fly, as Li’l bit finished the residue inside the glassine bag. She threw the spent bag to the floor, and began to hike up her panties.
“Hey, Li’l bitch,” called the sing-song voice of Ruben from the upper stairway. “I got sometiiing for you, too.”
“Who’s that?” said Li’l Bit.
“It’s me, Ruben. I got something for you.
“Yeah, what’s that?” said Li’l Bit to the darkness.
“It’s something you like, Li’l bitch.” The voice was coming down the stairs. A beam of a flashlight leaped over the bannister and shone on Li’l Bit. “Oh, Li’l bitch. Don’t pull up those panties. Let me see your pussy. Lookie, lookie what I got for you.” The flashlight beam was turned to the hand of the man descending the staircase. Two glassine bags of white powder danced in the flashlight beam. “Don’t move, Li’l bitch.” The beam of light was turned quickly to Li’l Bit’s crotch. “I’ll give you these two nice little bags if you don’t cover up that little pussy of yours.”
The ply-wood on the front door was pulled aside again. “Hey, Ruben,” called the boss. “Keep your mind on your job, hear? Li’l Bit, you in there? Get the fuck out here, leave my men alone.”
“I’m not doin’ nothing to them. They’s doin’ me.”
“Get the fuck out here.”
“Li’l Bit, I got a nice little bag for you. I come to see you at your place.”
“My kid is sleeping.”
“I like little kids, too, Li’l Bitch. I got two bags for a nice girl.”
“Two bags?” she said as she hiked up her pants, starting toward the front door.
“An’ a big, red cock.”
“Hey, Li’l Bit, get the fuck out my building,” the Boss called harshly from the entrance.
“I’m comin’. I’m comin’.”
“Me, too,” said Ruben from the upper stairway. “I’m comin’. I’m comin’.” He was masturbating in the dark, thinking of Li’l Bit, her place, her kid, after his shift was over.
Greenwich Village : June 18, 1996 : 10:35 P.M.
Sandro lived in a converted brick carriage house on an old, cobble stoned alley on the west side of New York’s Greenwich Village. The front of the building had two large, central oak doors on long brass hinges. Behind these doors, sat the Testa Rossa. Two smaller, matching entrance doors with brass door-knockers were on either side of the center archway. Shiny, brass carriage lamps shone between. The door on the right led into a short corridor, which opened into a beamed, two-story cathedral ceiling living room with a stone fireplace on one side and a 12 foot window overlooking a garden at the rear. In the front section of the room, circular wooden stairs rose to an upper level, where there was a study, a bedroom, and a large bathroom. Although Sandro and Tatiana spent a great deal of time together, each maintained separate apartments. Tatiana’s apartment was in the Brighton Beach area, near Club Vasily.
Out in the garden, several flaming torches on white bamboo poles lit the night as five guests—who Sandro had invited after arriving back home this evening—sat around a table under a pergola covered with grape vines.
“Sandro, come on out, enjoy the party,” Vic Rosa, a lawyer friend of Sandro’s called. Rosa had been an Assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn when Sandro first met him. Now he labored in a mid-sized corporate firm uptown. Angelo Marini, another person sitting at the table in the garden, also a lawyer, had often kidded Rosa that no one knew loneliness more than a lawyer working in a mid-sized, New York, Jewish law firm. Both Marini and Sandro were always importuning Rosa that he should practice law with Sandro, as a single practicioner; but Rosa needed the illusion of security provided by a larger firm with lots of people walking through the halls. Rosa’s wife, Jenna, sat beside him. Emma Galiber, the Senator’s wife—the Senator had planned to join the group for desert and champagne when he finished a fund-raiser in the Bronx—was next to Jenna.
“I am enjoying myself,” Sandro called back through the open archway that connected the large kitchen with the living room. A variety of copper pots and pans hung from a square rack over the center of a work island. “The pasta will be finished in a minute. Put that colander in the sink,” he said to Tatiana who was standing at the ready next to him. “Do they need more champagne out there?”
“All fine.” Tatiana wore white pants and a blazing red silk top which was covered with a bibbed apron. She removed a colander from the overhead rack and placed it in the sink.
“Will you two come out and join the guests,” said Angelo Marini, entering the kitchen with three Bellinis in his hands. He was about the same size as Sandro, with salt and pepper hair. He held out the champagne flutes. Tatiana took one for herself and one for Sandro. Marini and Sandro had attended high school, college, and part of law school together; Sandro dropped out of law school for three years while he raced Formula 2 in Europe. While Sandro had been abroad, Marini passed the Bar and joined the District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn. His law career was cut short, however, when he inherited the small, exclusive restaurant in East Harlem that had become all the rage among the chichi New York crowd. Having inherited culinary enthusiasm from his mother, he now devoted his time to greeting the nightly crowds that arrived in shiny limousines that were parked outsid
e the ancient tenements.
“If you weren’t such a cheap bastard, you would hire a cook,” said Marini, raising his champagne flute.
“I wanted to cook my speciality for Tatiana on her birthday.”
“It’s also your anniversary,” said Tatiana.
“… And my anniversary at the Bar,” added Sandro. “We hadn’t planned to be here, but hey—here we all are, and it’s great.” The three of them clinked glasses together.
The stove-timer sounded. “Everybody at their stations,” said Sandro with feigned urgence, putting down his glass, moving quickly to take the pot of boiling pasta from the stove. He emptied it into the colander, shook out the water, and emptied it back into the pot, pouring several pints of heavy cream on top.
“What are we making?” said Marini.
“Carbonara.” Sandro put the pot back over a low flame. He separated three eggs and dropped the yolks onto the pasta, mixing everything together with a wooden spoon.
“Let me do that,” said Tatiana, “while you have a drink with Angelo.”
“Happy birthday, Tatiana; happy anniversary, brother.” Marini put his arm around Sandro and kissed his cheek. “You know how long we know each other?” he asked Tatiana.
“A long time. Did you break the bacon?” Tatiana said to Sandro.
“Not yet. I’ll get it now.”
“You do the cheese,” Marini said to Tatiana, “I’ll do the bacon.” Marini took an apron from a peg on the wall. “Carbonara has to be served hot immediately, or it’s ruined. Are the plates warm?”
“Because you run that stinky hole-in-the-wall restaurant, you think you know how fine pasta has to be served?” said Sandro.
Marini gave Sandro a side-long glance. “I could cook carbonara for the Pope,” he said.
“What does he know, he’s Polish” They all laughed. “Ahh, just thinking about cooking in Italy, being in Italy, makes my soul ache,” said Sandro.
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