Hard City

by Clark Howard

  Of the people watching, all were men except for Chloe and a large Slavic-looking woman with no makeup who was drinking Blatz from a bottle. Chloe and five others were in front of Richie on the same side of the room, while the rest of the spectators were in a half-circle facing him from the other side. A door leading into the alley was propped open a foot by a case of beer to let some air in and some smoke out. Because of the smoke, and the fact that the only light in the room was from a low-hanging, green-shaded fixture directly over the table, the standing people were in shadow from mid-chest up. Richie could make out their faces, but not too clearly. Nor was he trying to; he was more interested in watching the men playing cards. But as he watched, he had the eerie feeling that someone was about to touch him. But no one was near him. Looking across the table at those people facing him, he became aware of a pair of eyes fixed unblinkingly on him. Richie stared back, frowning.

  The staring eyes belonged to a man who was standing back from the others, in the shadows of the opposite wall. Only part of his face showed: a clean line of jaw, one ear, darkish blond hair.

  Richie’s eyes grew wide as he realized suddenly who it was. The man he had seen out the window. His father. Lips parting, Richie was about to speak to his mother, when the man in the shadows shook his head no. Then a hand came up out of the shadows and one finger beckoned Richie to come to him. Richie was about to get down off the chair when he heard Jack Smart’s voice. “Hi, honey. What are you d-doing here?”

  And he heard his mother reply, “Jack, honey, I’m sorry to interrupt your game, but I’ve got an emergency. Can I speak to you for a couple of minutes?”

  “Okay. Just one more h-hand,” Jack said. “And let’s have a fresh deck for it,” he added, tossing the cards into a nearby wastebasket and taking a new, unopened deck from a carton on a chair next to the table.

  As Jack was removing the cellophane from the deck, a new voice said quietly, “Just a minute.” The speaker was a swarthy man with a drooping moustache, heavy-lidded as if sleepy, but his eyes beneath the half-closed lids were alert and penetrating. “I’d like to take a look at that old deck.”

  “What the hell for?” Jack demanded. Richie stared at him; it was the first time he had ever heard Uncle Jack speak a complete sentence without stuttering.

  “I don’t have to give you a reason,” the swarthy man said evenly. Without taking his eyes off Jack, he backed his chair up until he could reach the wastebasket. Reaching into it, he pulled out a dozen cards. Still without taking his eyes from Jack, he moved his fingertips lightly over the back of each card. When he finished, he pushed them aside.

  “S-satisfied?” Jack asked with a smirk.

  “Not yet.” The swarthy man reached down and got a dozen more cards.

  “I d-don’t have to take this,” Jack announced, putting his hands flat on the table to get up.

  “It’s his right to look at the cards,” another player said. “Stay put.”

  Once again the swarthy man was lightly running his fingertips over the backs of the cards. After several cards he stopped and smiled coldly. Tossing one of the cards into the middle of the table, he said, “Crimped.” Then, in a sudden, unexpected move, he reached across the table and grabbed Jack’s left hand, turning it over to reveal the underside of a signet ring. On the back of the ring was a tiny needle point with which Jack had pricked a barely discernible nick—a “crimp”—that his fingertips could detect in certain key cards as he dealt.

  “You son of a bitch!” one of the other players snarled.

  Jerking his hand away, Jack leaped up, knocking his chair back, and reached for a small pistol stuck in his waistband under his vest. He managed to pull it clear but was not quick enough to level it and aim; the swarthy man, also on his feet now, already had his own gun ready; he shot Jack twice in the stomach.

  “Jack!” Chloe screamed, and began pushing through to the table. Jack, after slamming back against the wall, pitched foward over the table clutching his stomach with both hands. Grabbing what money they could off the table, the card players scattered. The spectators began rushing into the tavern and out to the alley. The chair on which Richie stood was next to the door connecting to the tavern. Wide-eyed, he looked at the door, then across the commotion at his father.

  “The alley, boy!” his father yelled. He pointed to Richie and the tavern door, then to himself and the alley door. “The alley!” he yelled again.

  Richie’s face lighted up as he understood. He was to go through the tavern door and meet his father around in the alley. Nodding yes, he leaped off the chair and threw himself into the press of people hurrying into the tavern. Behind him, he heard his mother still screaming, “Jack! Jack!” Glancing back once, he looked briefly at her, thrown over the bent form of Jack Smart, who was oozing red onto the green felt of the table. Then Richie’s eyes shifted and located his father; he was in the other press of spectators who were struggling through the alley door.

  Dropping to his knees, Richie plunged forward into the tavern. As he scurried, someone’s heel kicked back and struck the point of his chin. Moaning, he scrambled on, getting past the doorjamb, then bounded to his feet and dashed toward the LADIES ONLY door. Most of the patrons in the tavern were fighting to get out the front door, the access they used and were familiar with; only a few people even thought of the ladies’ entrance. Richie got to it in an instant and burst headlong onto the sidewalk.

  Outside, people had heard the shots and were looking out windows and coming out on front porches to stare. Fifty feet away from the mouth of the alley, those who had been fighting to get out the back door now ran to the street and hurried off in various directions. Richie darted to the alley and skidded to a halt under a streetlight that threw its yellow glow barely past the tavern’s rear door. There he froze, shocked by what he saw.

  His father was pushed back against a black sedan, a burly man’s hand on his throat, a pistol pointed at his face. Another man was searching him, while a third man, at the wheel of the car, kept revving the engine and saying “Come on! Come on!”

  “He ain’t packing,” announced the man doing the searching.

  “Okay, hick, get the fuck in the car,” said the man with the pistol, jerking Slim forward and shoving him into the back seat.

  Car doors slammed; headlights came on, blinding Richie; there was a screech of tires. The sedan shot forward, oblivious of anyone in its path.

  “Jesus, kid, look out!” someone shouted, and a rough hand grabbed Richie by the upper arm and jerked him from the mouth of the alley, snapping his head and neck viciously, getting him out of the way of the car by inches.

  Richie watched helplessly as the sedan sped away with his father.

  16

  “They was Ralph Capone’s boys, sure,” Mack told Richie the summer Richie turned thirteen. “And I found out later that the same bartender that tipped Slim that Jack Smart was going to be there, also tipped one of Ralph’s men that Slim was going to be there. See, the Capone family had guys on its payroll in every precinct in the city. Ralph put out the word on your dad, and those guys spread it around. It wasn’t hard for that bartender to put two and two together and come up with Slim. He saw a chance to get paid twice and he done it.”

  “Dirty bastard,” Richie said.

  Mack shrugged indifferently. “Everybody gets along as best they can,” he said. They were in Mack’s little kitchen above his garage. He was at an old, chipped porcelain stove stirring a pot of steaming Mulligan stew with the handle of a screwdriver. When it was mixed to suit him, he lifted the pot with two pieces of rubber sliced from an old tire and poured two bowlsful. With a bottle of beer for himself and a glass of milk for Richie, they sat down to eat.

  “What did they do with him?” Richie asked.

  “Brought him to the garage in back of the mansion,” Mack said. “Ralph and a half a dozen of his boys was waiting there. Ralph was mad as a castrated bull. Walked up to Slim and punched him right in the mouth. ‘You lying s
on of a bitch!’ he yelled. ‘My brother never heard of you!’ Slim tried to hit Ralph back, but two of the boys grabbed him and pinned his arms. Blood was coming out of Slim’s mouth and he spit it on the front of Ralph’s suit. ‘Al don’t remember me because he’s sick!’ Slim yelled. Ralph punched him in the face again. ‘I don’t give a fuck if he is sick!’ he yelled back at Slim. ‘He’d remember giving his word to somebody! My brother’s word is sacred to him! He’d never forget it!’ And with that, he slugged Slim a couple times in the gut.” Telling about it, Mack was a little embarrassed. “I was there, you know, but there wasn’t nothing I could do for him. Even if I’d’ve tried, why, a crippled garage mechanic ain’t no match for professional gorillas like them. I thought about going over to the mansion and telling Ava what was happening, thinking maybe she could get Mamma Teresa to step in, but I realized all I’d be doing was getting Ava in a lot of trouble, and I knew Slim wouldn’t want that.”

  As he talked, Mack shoveled stew into his mouth and washed it down with beer.

  “Ralph wanted to do your old man in,” he said. “A couple of his men advised against it, saying there was no need for nothing that drastic. But Ralph, he couldn’t be reasoned with. ‘I want the son of a bitch iced! Give him some cement shoes and drop him in the fucking lake!’ He was like a madman. I remember thinking, ‘it’ll take a miracle to save Slim.’” Mack paused to point his spoon at Richie. “And that’s what happened too—a miracle.”

  “Go on, get him the fuck out of here!” Ralph ordered. “Run him over to the Michigan side of the lake and dump him there.” With a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, Ralph wiped away some of the blood Slim had spat on him.

  Two of Ralph’s men dragged Slim back to the sedan. Before they put him in the back seat, one of the big overhang doors opened at the front of the garage and a gray Buick drove in. Its driver, one of Ralph’s lieutenants, got out, grinning, and said, “Hey, Ralphie, look who they finally turned loose!”

  From the passenger seat stepped a muscular, smiling man with carrot-colored hair. Ralph Capone’s angry expression was replaced by a wide smile.

  “Rusty! I’ll be goddamned!” Red Rudensky came forward and the two men embraced warmly. “Rusty!” Ralph said again. “How the hell are you?”

  “In the pink, Ralphie,” said Rudensky. Looking past Capone, he saw the bloody-faced Slim. “Hey, Slim! What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You know this farmer?” Ralph asked.

  “Hell, yeah, I know him,” Red replied. “Him and Al and me were all cell partners in Atlanta. He kept Al from getting a shank in his gut one day on the yard.”

  Ralph turned chalk white. “Sweet Jesus,” he said quietly to himself.

  “What’s going on?” Red wanted to know.

  “Come on in the office and I’ll tell you,” Ralph said. Going over to the sedan, he said to his men, “Clean him up. Fix his face. Then bring him to the office. Mack, get us some coffee, will you?”

  In the private office at the rear of the garage, Ralph told Red Rudensky about the day Slim showed up at the mansion with Mamma Teresa’s photograph, and what had happened since. He was just finishing the story when Mack limped in and put two mugs of coffee on the desk. Ralph reached for his but could not pick it up, his hands were trembling so. “I almost had him taken for a ride,” he said thickly, “and the guy didn’t do nothing. Jesus. Al never would’ve made a mistake like that.”

  “Take it easy,” Red soothed. “Ain’t any of us in Al’s league when it comes to smarts. Main thing is, the mistake was caught in time.”

  Mack got out a bottle of brandy and laced their coffee, just as Ralph’s men brought Slim in. Slim’s bottom lip was swelling and there was a bruise spreading on the surface of one cheek. Standing in front of the desk where Ralph sat, Slim glared at him with cold, unmoving eyes. Ralph spread his hands helplessly.

  “I was wrong,” he said.

  “I kept trying to tell you that.” Slim’s lips barely moved. His hands closed into fists and Ralph saw it.

  “Okay,” Ralph said. “Okay.” He stood up. “I don’t want it to leave this room. I got enough on my mind without having to worry about a hardhead like you carrying a grudge. So go ahead. Get even right now. I won’t swing back.”

  Slim’s fist moved a little as his arms tensed with the invitation. Ralph’s face was there, just across the desk, and Slim’s own face throbbed from the punches he had taken just minutes ago. But Slim would not hit a man who would not fight back. Slim knew what it was to be wrong. He opened his hands and relaxed his arms. “All right,” he said quietly. “Let it lay.”

  Rudensky came over and put an arm around Slim’s shoulders. “Good man, Slim,” he said.

  Slim grinned at him with his puffing lip. “They must be letting just anybody out these days.”

  “You want a job, Red?” asked Ralph Capone. Rudensky shook his head.

  “Already got one. I just stopped by to say hello. I’m on my way to St. Paul to work for a company named Brown and Bigelow. They make calendars. And they hire ex-cons.” Red’s big chin jutted out in an extra inch of determination. “I’m going straight.”

  Ralph and Slim stared at him for a moment, then Slim nodded in somber understanding.

  “I am too, Red.”

  Behind the desk, Ralph Capone shook his head in disgust. “You two better beat it.” He told them wryly, “You’re gonna give my garage a bad reputation.” Taking a roll of bills from his pocket, he gave each four fifty-dollar bills. “Good luck,” he said.

  The big red headed Jewish safecracker from New York and the lanky blond bootlegger from Tennessee left the garage and walked down the alley together.

  It was Estelle who put the final piece of the puzzle in place for Richie.

  “Your daddy watched the obituary columns for the next few days until he seen where Jack’s funeral was going to be held. He figured your mother would be there, and he was right. She was scared as hell to go, because she knew from you that your daddy had been in the card room at Ritter’s; she knew Richmond had traced Jack that far, so she knew he was smart enough to find out where the funeral was at. I told her she ought to just take you and run away if she was that scared of Richmond, but she wouldn’t do it. ‘Jack cared for me, ‘Stelle,’ she said. ‘He was probably cheating at cards just to help me get out of Chicago. I couldn’t let him go to his grave without being there. It wouldn’t be decent.’ ” Estelle sighed sadly and reached for a cigarette. “You remember the day of Jack’s funeral, don’t you, sugar?”

  “Yeah,” Richie nodded. “That girl Helen, where we used to live, stayed home from school and came over to take care of me.”

  “Your mother didn’t want you going to the funeral,” Estelle explained. “It was an open casket and she didn’t want you seeing a dead person; she said it might give you nightmares. It wasn’t much of a funeral, really. Wasn’t even in a church, just the chapel of the funeral parlor. Jack’s two sisters, they came from Indiana; that was all the family he had. Your mother and I were both pretty nervous all during the service, expecting Richmond to walk in any minute. But it wasn’t until the service was over, when we were walking up the aisle, that we seen your daddy at the back of the chapel with his cap in his hands, waiting for your mother. And we could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t aiming to cause no trouble for nobody. If ever I’ve seen a man who’d had enough trouble for a lifetime, it was your daddy that day. Your mother seen it too. ‘He understands, ‘Stelle,’ she said, I can tell.’ So we just walked right on up the aisle to where he stood . . . .”

  “Hello, honey,” Slim said.

  “Hello, Richmond.”

  The two women stared frankly at the marks left on his face by Ralph Capone. Slim grinned sheepishly. “Little misunderstanding. It’s all straightened out now.” His eyes settled on Chloe. “The boy all right?”

  “Yes. He’s fine.”

  “I’ve been looking for the two of you for a spell. Figured to tak
e you back home. That was before I knew about this feller Smart.”

  Chloe’s eyes shifted away from his and she said nothing.

  “Listen,” Estelle said. “I’ll wait over there.” She walked away and sat in one of the pews. The chapel was now deserted; she could still hear what the two of them said.

  “I done a lot of thinking in the pen,” Slim said. “A lot of figuring. I made up my mind to make a new start when I got out. I was hoping you would wait for me—but I guess I knew you wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.”

  “Richmond, I don’t know why things happen like they do,” Chloe said, her voice quavering. Estelle saw her dab at her eyes with the handkerchief she had held throughout the funeral. “But I know one thing—I’m not a strong enough woman for you. I don’t have what it takes to be part of the kind of life you live.”

  “The kind of life I live is going to be different from what it was before,” Slim said. “I’m going straight. I don’t want no more of the penitentiary. I made up my mind to ask my daddy if he’d let me come back and work the place with him.”

  Chloe looked at him incredulously. Never since she had known him, never even as a boy, certainly never as a man, had she heard him speak like this. Looking closely at him now, she saw that even his presence had changed. He no longer held his head arrogantly, no longer carried his shoulders and arms with the old cockiness. He had been the only man she had ever seen who could strut standing still. Now the brashness was gone.

  “The only thing I ever wanted,” she told him quietly, “was a decent, safe life . . . for me and for Richie. The reason I didn’t wait for you was because I never believed you’d ever give us that. I never believed your own life would be anything but back roads and bootleg booze. You told me yourself you’d never change.”

  Grunting softly, Slim said, “In the pen I learned never to say never.” On a sudden urge, he took both her hands. “Listen, honey. Neither one of us don’t belong up here in this hard city. We’ve both learned some mean lessons up here. But there’s still a chance for us to get out before this place traps us for good. Let’s take the boy and do it. There’s a train south every day at six o’clock. Let’s get on the one that leaves today.”