“Not at the moment.” And smiled.
At closing time she was still sitting there, as if waiting for him to make his move. He did.
“Can we have a drink somewhere?” he finally asked.
She looked pleased behind her shades. Her olive complexion, he decided, might be Italian.
“My name is Nick,” he informed her.
“Call me Roberta.”
They piled into his pickup truck and drove toward Newark with his radio blaring rock and roll. Faintly behind it, from another station, she heard someone singing another song:
You re an uptown up-tempo woman
I’m a downtown downbeat guy. …
“I’m trying to stay off the hard stuff,” he explained, when they were sitting side by side in a booth in a dimly-lit cocktail lounge off the highway. “It gets me into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, fights, stuff like that. Last time I got into it with some nigger, I don’t even know what about. I wake up in the clink with both eyes black.”
“I know how that is,” she told him sympathetically, as if she knew exactly how it felt to wake up in the clink with two black eyes, and blew lightly into his ear, “Poor Nicky, poor Nicky.”
“Two vodka martinis,” he told the waitress.
“Remember that you have to drive, Nicky.”
“Drive where?” he wanted to know.
“I live in Ironbound,” she told him, mentioning the Portuguese slum of Newark.
“Oh,” he seemed to brighten a bit at that, “Portugee?”
She lowered her lids in acknowledgement; and raised her glass to his.
She detected an odor as of frying chicken on him as he pressed her close in the booth. He must have spilled grease on his pants, she thought. Then realized it wasn’t an odor of chicken—it was his own odor. His breath was bad. She felt a physical revulsion to him.
“I work in a dry-cleaning joint there,” she explained, opening her handbag. “I open the place in the morning.” She showed him her key. Then put it back into her bag and left him sipping thoughtfully.
His thoughts were as clear to her as if he’d spoken them aloud:
“I drive this nutty broad to her joint. I wait outside. She goes in because I tell her to go in. I tell her I give her a whistle if I see cops. She comes out with the bankroll. I take her home. She drags me upstairs and gives me a blow job out of this world. It’s what she’s had on her mind ever since she seen me in the Chicken Shack. I pretend I’m asleep. She turns out the light and falls asleep. I grab the roll and blow. Goodbye Chicken Shack. And thank you, ma’am.”
“What,” he asked her aloud, “do you have in mind, honey?”
“I want to move into New York City,” she confided in him. “I need rent money, clothes, walking-around money. God knows, the way they work me, they owe me that much at least.”
“How much you think might be in that register?”
“On a Saturday night? Are you kidding? They’re coining money there, Nicky. Coining it. The Brinks truck don’t pick it up till eleven A.M. Monday.”
“How much you think is in there, Roberta?”
“A thousand at least. Maybe more. For the taking.”
“Why tell me about it?”
“Because you’re a man who’s been around. I can tell. I need someone I can rely on at the door. Someone to holler cheezit.”
He grinned to himself. “I thought all the angels was in heaven,” he told her. And thought to himself, “This kind don’t usually come out unless there’s a full moon.”
She kissed him lightly on his mouth to keep him from kissing her on hers. And let her hand fall lightly across his heavy thigh. He rose without being certain of what he intended to do or where he was going.
Neither spoke again until they reached downtown Newark. At her direction, then, he wheeled left onto Kinney Street. She pointed to an all-night neon sign, straight ahead in green and white, inviting everyone in town who owned a pair of unpressed pants:
1-HR. DRY-CLEANING/5-HR. SHIRT LAUNDRY
He parked in the lot behind the store, beside a line of four laundry trucks, and put out his lights.
“Go in and get it, honey,” he instructed her. “I’ll keep the motor running.”
“Just come with me as far as the door,” she begged him, “so you can give me warning better,” and took his arm. “It won’t take but a minute.”
She got him to the door before he hesitated. This was too easy, too simple to be true.
“A big fat bundle, honey,” she whispered hoarsely into his ear, “they’re hauling in so much they don’t get time to bank it.” She had one hand clasping his arm and her key in her other hand. He had a strange moment when he hoped—he didn’t know why—that the key wouldn’t fit.
It fitted.
The door swung wide and she stepped in, still holding him firmly. Then swung about, facing him, put her arms about him and drove her tongue between his lips. “Honey,” she confessed, “I can hardly wait.”
“Not here, babe,” he cautioned her, “later. Get the money first.”
She didn’t let go of him. She drew him beside her to the register. They were both now plainly visible in the green-and-white neon’s glow. She gave him a small nudge forward. “Gent it. Get it all.”
He got it. He got it all. He got it in a hurry, dropping a bill, stooping to recover it. He got it so hurriedly he did not even hear the soft turn of the key in the rear door. He was loading his pockets with quarters and halves, confident that she was standing in the shadow right behind him.
Adeline raced around the corner of the plant toward a telephone booth, then switched when she saw a squad car cruising directly in front of it and stopped it by waving her arms wildly.
“Robbing the place!” she shouted, pointing at the dry-cleaning plant. From the squad car, both officers could see the man plainly, in the green-and-white flash of neon, at the cash register.
The officer in the passenger seat didn’t wait for orders. He raced around the rear of the plant with his revolver drawn. The driver banged on the front door with the butt of his gun. The man at the cash register looked up. There were bills in his pockets, bills in his hands and his pockets were stuffed with silver. He turned toward the rear, then realized he was trapped. There would be no way out, back or front, either way.
Caught. Caught cold. He tried, feebly, to put some of the bills back, then realized it was no use, no use at all. He went to the front door and unlocked it.
Adeline, watching from a darkened doorway down the street, took off her shades the better to witness the scene. The arresting officer, half a head taller, held the little round man by the nape of his neck, keeping one hand on his revolver, as he urged his suspect into the squad car.
Adeline put on her shades. It wouldn’t take long for the Newark police chief to reach De Vivani. De Vivani would do as much, and had done as much, for him.
“Put him in here,” De Vivani instructed the same officer who’d pinched Iello earlier. “We’ll see what the little wop has to say in the morning.”
The little wop had nothing to say by morning. He’d sat on the edge of his built-in cot trying to put two and two together. That little Portugee broad, whoever she’d been, had fled when the cops had trapped him. Couldn’t blame her, Iello reflected. What else could she have done?
His recollection of her was vague. Nothing but a pretty face behind a pair of shades and a habit of sticking out her tongue seductively. Let her go. She couldn’t help him now.
The tape recorder stood as big as life upon De Vivani’s desk.
“Coffee, Nick?” De Vivani asked him.
“If that’s all you got to offer,” Iello accepted.
“Can you give me a hand here, Greenleaf?” De Vivani asked an officer. “You remember Nick Iello? The Calhoun case? The Melody Bar and Grill. Of course. Nick has something to tell us.” He turned toward Nick.
“No hurry, son,” De Vivani joshed the
pitiable little bum. Over the years he had almost grown fond of him. He’d never seen a man who was such a clown, even in a circus. “Take all the time you want. Think it over. Call your lawyer. Don’t tell us anything you don’t want to tell us because it may be used against you in court. How did you get into that dry-cleaner’s Nick?”
“Worked the lock with a piece of wire,” he assured the lieutenant.
De Vivani poured coffee into a lily cup. “Black with sugar, isn’t that it, Nick?”
Iello nodded miserably. De Vivani waited until he’d finished the coffee.
“Sure you don’t want time to think it all over, son?”
“Nothing to think over.”
Nothing. Of course, nothing. Nothing except an indeterminate sentence, one to fourteen. At least fourteen. With his recantation, how could it be less?
“I’ll get you a hundred years,” Iello now recalled De Vivani’s clear warning.
“What for?” Iello had asked him then. “A hundred years? What for?” Now he knew what for.
A good thing about De Vivani was that, when he had you, he didn’t rub it in. He didn’t say, “Didn’t I warn you about drinking, Nick?” He never said, “Look, you bum, I’ve got you cold.” Not De Vivani. “We’re not going to pressure you, son,” he told Iello now, “this is something you have to make up your own mind about. Fact is we haven’t even booked you yet. Had any word lately from Barney Kerrigan?”
Iello looked up. Although his eyes were fogged by misery, he managed to give De Vivani a sick grin. “Let’s get it over, Vince,” he nodded toward the recorder. “Let her whirl.”
STATE OF NEW JERSEY AFFIDAVIT
COUNTY OF HUDSON October 1,1976
I, Nicholas Patrick Iello, in presence of Officers De Vivani and Greenleaf, do hereby attest and swear: The recantation of my original testimony in New Jersey vs. Calhoun, was obtained under duress. Mr. Kerrigan threatened me with violence if I did not sign the statement he handed to me.
Mr. Kerrigan advised me that, unless I signed his document, people in support of Mr. Calhoun would do me great physical harm.
Herewith I swear and attest that my original testimony, offered in New Jersey vs. Calhoun was true. My later recantation was false.
(signed): Nicholas Patrick Iello
8
Chinatown
Mooks never looked at the price list. They took the bait by telling the redheaded bartender, “Give the lady a drink.”
When Red said, “That will be thirty dollars, sir,” they were caught.
If the mook protested, Red called, “Man here, Moon!”
Moon the Bear.
Race: white. Height: six feet five. Weight: 235-240. Hair: blond, worn shoulder-length. Identifying marks: Pancho Villa mustache, also blond. Tattoo on upper right arm above elbow: Bred to Fight. Habits: nondrinker, nonsmoker.
Dovie-Jean had been putting in her off week at the Carousel for several weeks and had not yet seen anyone refuse to pay up when confronted by Moon the Bear.
“Mooks put in complaints at the Midtown Station now and then,” Red filled her in, “but they don’t follow through. They think it over a couple of days then either leave town or decide it’s too risky to bear witness in court. So long as Moon don’t carry a gun, he’s within his rights, speaking legally.”
“I’ve seen you on TV,” Dovie-Jean heard one of the B-girls tell a mook, whose head was turned.
“That wasn’t me,” the mook assured the girl, “that was Art Carney. I ain’t Art Carney, I ain’t Jackie Gleason. I ain’t nobody. I never been on TV. If they asked me I’d go on but nobody asked me. I used to work on the Delaware-Lackawan but I don’t work no more. All I do is follow horses and screw around. In fact that was what I done mostly on the Delaware-Lackawan—follow horses and screw around.”
Then he laughed and, sure enough, he was old Flash-from-the Track. He gave her a hug, then began singing hoarsely:
Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mm, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.
Oh, I get high with a little help from my friends,
Yes, I get by with a little help from my friends,
With a little help from my friends.
“I just got hit three seventy-five for a beer here,” he told Dovie-Jean, “so I can’t buy you more than one.” Then, turning to Red, “Give the lady a drink.”
“Remember that ‘Dear John’ program?” he reminded her. “You know that clown-dressed-like-a-chicken. Kept it up every day until I had to write. He seems to think that a man who comes to a whore-house wears dark glasses and a false beard, he feels so guilty about it. I been goin’ to whorehouses as long as I been goin’ to the track, and I never yet felt guilty about either. You put your money down, you make your pick and hope it’s a winner, that’s all. He seems to think I’m going to give up going to see the girls if he tells my neighbors about it on the radio.”
“What you write, Flash?”
“I wrote: ‘Dear Mayor, WNYC, New York City. I am in full support of your “Dear John” program. I am a John who patronizes a young woman in midtown Manhattan once or twice a month. I pay her fifty dollars. My name is Arnold Wingate, I live at eighty-two Maple Avenue, Hackensack, New Jersey. I plan to see my friend next week. Shall I call your office first? Photograph enclosed. Cordially yours, Arnold Wingate.’”
“Did he answer you, Flash?”
Flash wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. He thanked me for giving him my support.”
Red poured a cheap white wine into a cocktail glass, out of a gallon jar with a screw-type cap.
“That will be thirty dollars, sir,” he told Flash politely.
Dovie-Jean felt Flash take a deep breath, then merely sat looking at Red until Red repeated the information.
“That will be thirty dollars, sir.”
“No way in the world I’m going to pay you thirty dollars for that,” Flash assured him.
Red never argued. He called up front. Here comes the Bear.
The Bear looked Flash over. Flashed looked the Bear over: he didn’t appear intimidated.
“You ordered a drink for the young lady?”
“I never offered to pay her rent and buy her a pair of shoes.”
“Here’s the price list, mister. Tell me what it says.”
“I can’t read.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Even if I could I wouldn’t read a price list.”
“That shows you’re not a gentleman. If you were a gentleman you would always read the price list.”
“I’m not a gentleman.”
“Pay for the drink you order” Moonigan bent his big mug right down into Flash’s, drew his lips back and hissed so hotly that Flash’s thin hair wavered with his breath. Flash himself didn’t waver.
“No way.”
Moonigan stood up. “Man refuses to pay bill here!” he announced. “Call the squad car! Call the cops! Get the police! Get the law! Take this man away! Lock him up!”
“Flash,” Dovie-Jean felt it her duty to support the house, “they’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“It’s all right, honey,” the old sport reassured her, “I don’t mind getting locked.”
“Look, pops,” Red leaned across the bar to warn him, “tomorrow’s a holiday. That means you won’t get into court until Friday.”
“I’m not doing anything in particular over the weekend. Being locked is how you get to know new people. Make friends wherever you go. Might meet somebody in the can, see him again at the track, he gives me a hot tip, we go out and celebrate.” He turned away from Red and back to Dovie-Jean, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” He laughed. Moonigan didn’t see anything funny.
“I don’t doubt that,” he attempted to be cutting. “I’m sure being locked up is an old experience for you.”
“What good is a man who never gets locked up?” Flash wanted to know. “He just ain’t living up to his human potential if he don’t.”
“Their policy ain’t mine, sweetheart.”
The Bear sat down at the comedian’s side.
“What they’re going to do to you, pops, is certify you!”
“Certify me? For what? For TV?”
“For Bellevue, old man.”
Flash-from-the-Track looked at him in amazement. “Bellevue, for God’s sake? That’s where I’m from! I’m on a liberty pass until Monday!”
For the life of him, Dovie-Jean perceived, the Bear couldn’t figure this one out. Was he being kidded or was this the real thing in bugs? She saw the doubt in Moonigan’s eyes.
“I don’t doubt it,” the Bear repeated.
“At the other end, Emil,” Red told the Bear.
Another mook protesting about the price of a glass of wine. The Bear sauntered down to the Bar’s end and shortly reported back.
“He paid,” he assured Flash.
“Where are them cops?” Flash reminded him.
“I think you’re some kind of bug,” the Bear came to a decision. “Get out.”
Flash rose, yet didn’t move toward the door. He went to where Red stood guarding the cash register. The Puerto Rican came and stood in the tavern’s door.
“I gave you a ten-spot,” Flash reminded Red. “You owe me six and a quarter.”
“I don’t owe you nothing, mister.”
“You been bustin’ our balls around here long enough, old man,” the Bear gave Flash final warning. “So go. Go-go-go!”
“You’d best go, Flash,” Dovie-Jean stepped in between, and put her hand on his arm.
“Not without my change,” he told her, and turned to Moonigan.
“Fuck you, baboon, I’m getting my change.”
The Bear looked at Red. There wasn’t going to be any change.
Moonigan grabbed the old man by his shoulders, intending to lift him off his feet and hustle him out the door. (It wasn’t wise to have a customer hurt.) The old man, feeling himself being lifted bodily, swung with all his force into Moonigan’s big nose. Blood spurted as though it had been broken. Red reached over the bar and clipped the old fool on the side of the head.
The Devil's Stocking Page 27
