Brooklyn Noir 3

by Tim McLoughlin

  “Thanks, mister,” Loo-Loo said to the man in the Adam Hat.

  Then his knees went soft, and Loo-Loo felt as if he’d be reviewing his supper in about a minute. Still, he managed to finish the cone. When he got home, he consulted his dictionary:

  es•pi•o•nage /n [F espionage.] the act of obtaining information clandestinely. Applies to act of collecting military and industrial data about one nation or business for the benefit of another.

  Loo-Loo also looked up clandestinely. Which made his heart thump even faster.

  The phone rang. Stunned out of Crown Heights, Larry Sloan picked up. It was the producer demanding to know: “How many pages?”

  “I haven’t counted. Leave me alone, Roger. I’m trying to work.”

  “Well, work fast. We’ve got another project coming up. You could be right for it, Larry. No promises.”

  “Want to tell me now?” Larry asked.

  “We’ll talk about it,” Roger said, dangling the invisible carrot with which Larry was so familiar.

  “Goodbye,” Larry said.

  “Don’t go anywhere. Pages, okay? Later.”

  * * *

  Even before school let out for the summer, some June days of 1953 could be stifling at P.S. 189, this being the era before everything in the city was routinely air-conditioned.

  On such blazing days, school ended early, releasing to the damp heat Loo-Loo and a couple of his inner-circle pals, Teddy Newman and Lester Dank. They hightailed it across Lincoln Terrace Park to the Creamflake, in the cause of a guaranteed gratis charlotte russe for each.

  The coveted charlotte russe consisted of a slab of sponge cake set in a little white cardboard cup, topped with whipped cream and a ceremonious glazed cherry—a particular favorite of the chunkier Lester. As the boys entered, Al Scharfsky sized up the troop and ordered Manya, the Czech refugee beauty with the visible gold tooth who worked behind the counter, to give the boys what they wanted. Manya did.

  Manya always wore a tight sweater, making it hard for Loo-Loo and his friends to keep their eyes off the cushiony outlines. Whenever Manya saw the boys staring, she smiled, and her gold incisor would catch the light in Slavic appreciation.

  As instructed, she now gave Loo-Loo and Lester and Teddy a charlotte russe. Then Al asked his son’s two pals to take a hike because he needed to talk to Loo-Loo privately. This was unusual, but the boys left, their faces smeared with whipped cream as they stole a last look at Manya’s majestic sweater.

  “What’d I do, Pop?”

  “Nothing. Come in the back, we got a job for you.”

  “We” meant Pop and Mr. Horn, who never talked much. The two men moved to the end of a long butcher-block worktable, motioning for Loo-Loo to come close. Back by the ovens, the Russians turned to watch.

  Al Scharfsky lit up a Chesterfield and took a deep drag. He spoke in a muted tone, with exhaled smoke punctuating his words. “You know the Union Bakery?”

  “Yeah.”

  Al reached into the secret petty cash drawer under the butcher block and extracted a five-dollar bill. Loo-Loo knew about the drawer because it was where his father and Mr. Horn kept a gun in case of a robbery.

  “Take this and go to the Union Bakery,” said Al, handing over the fiver to Loo-Loo. “Buy a chocolate layer cake. Don’t tell them who you are or where you’re from. Just give them the money and bring back a chocolate layer cake.”

  “The Union is our competitor, right? Can I go in there?”

  “Sure you can. Just don’t say nothing.”

  “But why, Pop?”

  Mr. Horn—in charge of cakes, after all—chimed in. “Because we need to know what they’re putting into the layer cakes,” said the man who didn’t say much. “Understand? It’s business.”

  “But what if they find out that you sent me?”

  Al placed a fatherly hand on his boy’s shoulder. “They’re not gonna find out, bright boy, because you’re not gonna say nothing. Just buy the cake. Is that so hard?”

  “No,” said Loo-Loo. He liked being called bright boy. “I thought you said the Union is owned by the mob.”

  “I didn’t say. I only heard.”

  “They’re gonna know where I’m from.”

  “No. They don’t know who the hell you are,” said Al. “You’re some kid buying a layer cake. Now hurry, before they sell out.”

  All eyes were on Loo-Loo. Al, Mr. Horn, and the Russians were studying him, assessing his bravery. Especially the Russians, immigrants being naturally curious about matters of risk.

  Al said, “You can keep the change, Loo-Loo. After you do it, that is.”

  Mr. Horn inquired, “You ain’t a sissy, are you?”

  With the fiver deep in his pants pocket, Loo-Loo proceeded up Utica toward Eastern Parkway—past Chudow’s radio repair shop, past the chicken store, past the fruit market.

  At Union Street, a hotness crawled across his chest. It felt like the prickly heat rash he sometimes got in August, but this was only June.

  Espionage! They were asking him to commit espionage. Loo-Loo, a bright boy, was about to procure secrets from the competitor and deliver said intelligence to the Creamflake.

  Wasn’t this kind of thing against the law? Wasn’t it punishable by J. Edgar Hoover and his federal authorities, who had sent Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg to the electric chair? And what about that higher court in the sky that Al and Dotty had talked about when Loo-Loo was little?

  At that moment, he caught sight of McEntee, the huge cop of the neighborhood. He was ambling down Utica with a bunch of grapes in one hand and a peach in the other. He was always eating something he got from the storekeepers for free. Loo-Loo jaywalked to the other side, trying not to look suspicious.

  What if McEntee asked him where he was going? Would Loo-Loo confess? Kids could go to jail. The city was getting tough on juvenile delinquents. Loo-Loo had seen plenty of reform schools in the movies. Full of delinquents, mostly Irish kids who would beat the crap out of you if you looked at them funny. Especially if your name was something like Loo-Loo.

  Loo-Loo passed Union Street now, and found himself in the repeat line of little shops. Then the big sign over the street like a movie marquee: Union Bakery. Loo-Loo dragged his heels over the pavement, shuffling forward. He didn’t want to move, but he was somehow moving anyhow.

  What if it was true that gangsters had taken over the Union? Gangsters would know the minute Loo-Loo walked in that he was up to no good, that he was a spy for the Creamflake.

  They’d grab him right there, take him in the back of the bakery, and tie him up, make him talk. So you won’t talk, huh? Hey, Tony, get a hot coal out of the oven and let’s burn a hole in his freakin’ head. Or else they’d stick the spout of the doughnut machine in his ear and press the lever, filling his skull with strawberry jelly. They did things like that, these gangsters. Loo-Loo had heard the stories, he’d watched the Kefauver hearings. And didn’t he faithfully study the crime blotter in the Daily Mirror, just the same as Al himself did during his long stays in the can?

  But even if the Union guys weren’t gangsters, Loo-Loo reasoned, he was still doing something really wrong in buying their cake—clandestinely!

  So when J. Edgar Hoover sat Loo-Loo Scharfsky down on Old Sparky, would the electrodes function properly? Or would smoke come billowing out of his head? Say—how about if Loo-Loo managed to escape to Coney Island and hide out in room 623 at the Half Moon Hotel? Would somebody toss him out the window, making it look like he did the old brain-dive?

  Funny how the Union Bakery smelled just like the Creamflake. This was comforting for about five seconds. Things even looked alike.

  Tall glass showcases displayed cakes and cookies, breads and rolls. Loo-Loo had never gone into this shop, of course—ever. It was off limits. Yet the merchandise looked so familiar, and the girls behind the counter looked so much like Manya.

  A few customers were ahead of him, so Loo-Loo lingered at the counter, waiting his turn. What’s that? You s
ay you can hear my heart beating, mister? That’s not my heart, it’s coming from the subway tracks. Get outta my way. I got business.

  “What would you like, dear?” asked a cushiony Manya look-alike.

  “A chocolate layer cake, please.”

  “What size, honey?”

  “Size?”

  “Seven-inch or nine-inch?” The woman gave a nod of her head toward the showcase with the fancy cakes.

  This was a monkey-wrench question, thought Loo-Loo, who felt as if he was suddenly coming down with a fever. If he hesitated, the woman would suspect. She’d send some kind of signal, and a couple of thugs would come bursting out from the back of the shop.

  Loo-Loo studied the cakes. Don’t try anything, sister. My father owns a gun.

  “Well, dear?”

  “The nine-inch,” said Loo-Loo, figuring Mr. Horn would want as much as he could get.

  Sister took the chocolate cake out from the showcase, slid it into a half-opened cake box, closed the sides, and deftly tied and bowed it with a curly red-and-white string that spooled down from the ceiling—just like the spool at the Creamflake.

  “Two dollars,” she said. Loo-Loo dug in for the bill, passed it up to her, took the change, and ran like hell.

  He shouldn’t have bolted out of the Union like that. He should have left slowly. But he couldn’t take it. They could probably hear his heart pounding in Brownsville, clear across the park.

  Obviously, the woman suspected something fishy was going on. She’d be in the back by now, telling the hard guys. And then they’d come tearing out of the store after him.

  If not the hard guys, then somebody. Cops maybe, or the FBI. Or even the dreaded “element.” It could be anybody, but one thing was for sure: Somebody was going to get Loo-Loo today.

  It didn’t matter who. Loo-Loo was in too deep. He’d crossed the mob. He’d committed a federal crime. He was tangled in a clandestine web of lies. At least that’s how they talked when he listened to The Shadow on the radio. A web of lies.

  But this was the real thing, not some stupid mystery show. Loo-Loo ran for his life, and the faster he ran, the faster the tears washed down his face. You big sissy! What are you crying about, you moron? The tears burned, and blurred.

  The big hand seemed to come out from the sky.

  It gripped his arm. It seized him powerfully and held fast, bringing the bawling Loo-Loo to a dead halt.

  It was all over. The end of the line, and inspiration for the big block letters in tomorrow’s Daily Mirror: BLOODY DEAD KID SPLATTERED ALL OVER UTICA AVENUE.

  Not quite.

  McEntee’s shiny badge was slowly becoming visible through the big puddle of Loo-Loo’s eyeballs.

  “Now where’s the fire, boyo? You looking for trouble?”

  “No.”

  “You know you almost ran into that bus? You trying to wreck a bus or something?” McEntee laughed. “You want to be more careful. You could hurt people, feller.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Watcha got in the box? Looks like a cake.”

  Loo-Loo now sized up McEntee, noting with disgust how the big cop was smacking his lips. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s a cake.”

  “How’s about donating a big piece to the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association?”

  “It’s for my father,” said Loo-Loo, prepared to run like hell again. “Gotta go!”

  McEntee laughed.

  They were waiting for him at the Creamflake. Al and Mr. Horn and the Russians and Manya in her sweater.

  Wordlessly, Loo-Loo’s father took the Union box and had the boy follow him to the back, where he plunked the parcel down on the baking table.

  Mr. Horn picked up a huge knife. He cut the string and opened the box and slid the chocolate layer cake onto the surface, positioning it under a glaring overhead light, and there it sat: pristine, a work of the baker’s art and toil, a prize.

  Then—whack!—in a sudden motion, Mr. Horn brought down the knife, like it was a six-pound meat cleaver, slashing the chocolate cake in two. Everybody watched as Mr. Horn surgically slit the layers.

  There were three layers of dark chocolate, with viscous spaces defining them: one space filled with raspberry jam, chocolate buttercream in the other. Again like the careful surgeon, Mr. Horn scraped at the fillings, determining their thickness, their richness. He handed a layer to Al, who tasted it.

  Then the Russian bakers closed in for a taste. All the men made knowledgeable comments as they probed and dissected and sampled the enemy booty. Mr. Horn took notes, writing on a brown paper bag, which he would later hang over the worktable.

  “You did a good job,” Al said to Loo-Loo. “Just don’t mention it to your friends.”

  “Why not?”

  “On account of it’s nobody’s business. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How much change did you keep, Loo-Loo?”

  “Three dollars.”

  Al reached into the petty cash drawer.

  “Here’s two dollars extra,” he said. “Go buy yourself a present at the Woolworth’s. Good job, kiddo.”

  Loo-Loo heard the bleating siren of a cop car as it sped past the Creamflake, heading for Brownsville, no doubt, where somebody was holding up a liquor store or maybe a Plymouth exploded with somebody inside of it.

  Loo-Loo studied the dollar bills, saying nothing. Five bucks in all. Pretty good. He stared at the engraving on the bills, particularly the triangle atop the pyramid with the one eye on it—staring back at Loo-Loo Scharfsky, as if it knew all about him.

  “When we finish this project—remember, we got something more for you, Larry”

  “What? A game show?”

  “No. It’s a movie script we picked up. White Heat meets Diff’rent Strokes. A gritty urban story, only there’s no grit yet. We need you to—you know—Brooklyn it up.”

  “Brooklyn it up?”

  “Yeah. Think you can handle it?”

  “Piece of cake.”

  “Money’s good too.”

  “I’m all over it.”

  * * *

  EDITORS’ NOTE: The author of this report, Jess Korman, is a shy person. He is of the same quirky generation of television writers as Neil “Doc” Simon, with whom he shares two impulses: recounting life experience comedically, as a means of relieving pain through laughter; and hiding behind alter egos. In writing his memoir, Jess Korman employs assorted aliases. In the case of “The Creamflake Kid,” a true tale (though some names have been changed), the character Larry Sloan, né Scharfsky, a.k.a. Loo-Loo, is indeed the alter ego of a shy person.

  MOMMY WEARS A WIRE

  BY DENISE BUFFA

  Borough Park

  Judge Gerald Garson, a cigar-smoking, suntanning Brooklyn jurist, was known to hold court in chambers. After sliding off his heavy overcoat, he would strut around in his crisp, dark suit and talk nonstop at whoever would listen. Those who needed favors from the foul-mouthed seventy-year-old would give him their full attention. They’d laugh on cue.

  Attorney Paul Siminovsky—young enough to be Garson’s son—was a sorry excuse for a lawyer, but a professional ass-kisser. When he wasn’t wining and dining Garson at the Brooklyn Marriott hotel’s bar/restaurant—feeding an estimated $10,000 worth of food and drink to the judge’s belly over the years—Siminovsky was hanging out with the jurist in chambers, right off the courtroom Garson controlled at 210 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights. The two men— Garson, the product of a well-connected Democratic family, and Siminovsky, who hoped to be adopted—shared the same sense of humor. For a while, they acted like a couple of frat boys.

  The senior Garson sat behind his big desk one day in March 2003, making lewd and demeaning remarks about women, some of whom he was railroading in his courtroom. The sophomoric Siminovsky, then forty-six, popped candy into his mouth, indulging himself from the bowl on the judge’s desk.

  “Rose Ann C. Branda. What’s the C. for?” Garson mused.

  “I don’t wa
nt to say what comes to mind,” Siminovsky retorted.

  “Cuchita,” the judge said.

  “Cuchita?” Siminovsky asked.

  “Cuchita banana …” the judge sang, as he waved his hands in the air from his chair.

  Siminovsky laughed on cue.

  Siminovsky was at home inside the judge’s private parlor, plopping himself into a black leather chair, crossing his legs, throwing back his big curly head, and laughing all the way to the bank.

  Siminovsky garnered more jobs from Garson than any other lawyer. When kids needed to be represented in contentious custody battles, which paid tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, he was Garson’s first pick.

  The powerful matrimonial judge—who decided the financial and familial fates of desperate men and women in highly disputed divorce cases—had a reputation of favoring those with brawn over those with breasts.

  Anyone familiar with Garson’s courtroom knew Siminovsky was on a winning streak there. No wonder. Judge and jester hammered out cases behind closed doors—without opposing counsel, blatantly violating rules of fairness.

  Siminovsky once told Garson to give a house to his client, Avraham Levi, who was getting divorced. And the judge guaranteed him a win.

  “The house. Oh, you gotta order custody. His father owns half of it and he owns a quarter of it,” Siminovsky urged the judge at one point.

  “Oh, you mean your guy,” Garson said.

  “Yeah,” Siminovsky said.

  “I’ll order, I’ll award, I’ll award him exclusive use on [the house],” Garson assured Siminovsky. “She’s fucked …”

  Frieda Hanimov, a mother of three, feared she too would get screwed by Garson. Hanimov, a nurse who had reared three well-mannered children with her diamonddealer husband, noted that Garson was so abrasive to her in the courtroom one might think she was a crack-addled streetwalker.

  “I’m a mother, three kids, married to a multimillionaire, and I lose everything. How could a mother lose?” she said. “I’m not a drug addict. I’m not a prostitute. How could you not be suspicious? I knew this judge was not normal.”