Hot-Wired in Brooklyn (9 page)

“What’s
this?”
I asked.

Frankie grinned. “It’s beer. What’s it look like?”

I pushed him, the case fell to the floor, and a couple of bottles broke. “What the hell is
this?”

Frankie’s grin vanished. “It’s beer. What’d you push me for?”

I pulled out an unbroken bottle and shoved it in his face, the label side showing. “This say ‘Schaefer?’”

Frankie pulled back. “What’re you talkin’ about, Eddie? What the hell’s wrong?”

I pushed it back in his face. “This say ‘Schaefer?’”

He pushed it away. “They were out.”

“Who was out?”

“Fanucci’s, the liquor store. They were out. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“You ever see any other beer but Schaefer in this house?”

“No, but…”

I pushed him again. “You’re an idiot, Frankie. Take this bottled piss outa here.”

“Screw you!” Frankie snapped as he pushed me back. I was ready to deck him when Gino filled the space between us.

“You wanna hit me, too, Eddie?”

“I’m thinkin’ about it.”

“Well, think about this. Number one, you and Frankie ain’t hit each other since the sixth grade. Number two, you’re scaring
the hell out of Sal. You really wanna do that?”

I glanced at Sal, an Al Capone look-alike with the temperament
of a kiddie show clown. It didn’t take much to frighten Sal. Watching two of his
goombahs
actually come to blows would be more than he could bear.

“Well, Eddie?” Gino prompted when I didn’t answer.

I brushed my hand lightly across Sal’s chubby face and forced a smile. “Sorry, Sal.”

Frankie was still looking testy. His face was set in a scowl, and his fists were ready. I made another consoling gesture.
“No offense, Frankie. It’s that ill wind, not you.”

Frankie nodded, and I turned to Gino. “The lasagna’s ready. You just gotta put it in the oven at 425 degrees.” I grabbed my
coat and headed for the door. “Take it out when it bubbles.”

“Eddie?”

“See you later, Gino.”

“But, where ya goin’?”

“Back to see Arnold. If I’m gonna do some hurtin’, it oughta be somebody I don’t like.”

I
t was regular hours at Raymond Street. The visiting room hummed like a hive in midsummer, but not all the bees were industrious.
Or contrite.

Arnold walked in flashing his movie star smile, upping the wattage when he saw me. That meant he hadn’t heard about Jimmy
Hutchinson, or so I hoped. As much as I hated the little prick, I still didn’t figure him for cold-blooded.

He sat down on the other side of the divider, keeping up the grin.

“I take it you’ve seen Charlotte,” I said.

The grin waned. “No. You said you’d talk to her.”

“That I did. She offered me a drink. Milk, fresh-squeezed, without the glass.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ll tell you sometime, Arnold, when it doesn’t matter.”

“So’s she coming?”

“To see you? Don’t hold your Polack bad breath waitin’.”

He sneered. “Is that all you came for?”

“No,” I said. “I came to find out if you were still human. That’s what I came for.”

The smile returned, but cautiously. “You’re pretty funny for a dago, Lombardi. You should go into vaudeville.”

“You think so? Try this joke: Jimmy Hutchinson’s dead.”

Arnold was halfway out of his chair, eyes blazing. “You’re a fuckin’ liar!”

“Am I? Steal a nickel and call the morgue.”

He slumped back. “No. You’re
lyin’
…”

“He’s
dead,
Arnold. .45 caliber, back of the head. The bullet blew his whole goddamn face off. Did he used to be a good-lookin’ kid?
I guess I’ll never know.”

Arnold went bone-white. Without a pause, or pity, I told him the rest, like a succession of hard, punishing slaps across the
face; from brains in the alley to the mute horrors of the morgue. It felt so good that I relaxed a little.

“Jesus Christ,” he said finally. “Oh, shit.”

“You want to tell me the truth now?” I asked, my eyes boring in. “I’ve had enough, Arnold. Enough lies, smug looks, and bullshit.
You’re up to your skinny Polack ass in somethin’ that’s way bigger than you are, you and Chick and Teddy. You’re not the hotshot
you thought you were. You don’t listen to me, you don’t stop lyin’, and you’re all gonna end up dead like Jimmy. You understand
me, Arnold?
Dead.”

He looked like he might actually cry. “Jimmy didn’t have nothin’ to do with it,” he said protectively.

“Doesn’t matter. Whoever got him will get Chick and Teddy, and they’ll get you in here, just as easy. You’re not safe. Whatever
you think you’ve got on the D.A., it’s not
enough to keep you alive if you keep it to yourself. It’ll kill you, Arnold.” I let that hang for a moment before I finished
the thought. “Do you really want to die here in Raymond Street?”

He didn’t crack wise, didn’t say a word. That was good enough for me.

“Okay. Let’s start out simple. What’ve you got on Carlson?”

“Pictures.”

“What of?”

“I don’t know.”

I stood up. “I’m walkin’, Arnold.”

“No, wait! It’s the truth! Chick and Teddy know, but I don’t.”

“How’s that?”

“I didn’t have a chance to look. When I dropped them off after we stole the car, they took the briefcase. The pictures, they
were in it.”

I sat down. “So, Chick and Teddy were with you when you stole the car?”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t know anything about the pictures?”

“I think maybe they were dirty, ‘cuz Chick kept gigglin’, goin’ ‘Ooo la la,’ and he wouldn’t pass ’em up to us. I guess Teddy
saw ’em later, but I never did.”

I let a skeptical silence settle in before I asked the next question. “Where’d you find the car, Arnold?”

He stared at his shoes.

“Where, Arnold?”

“Victory.”

“The wrecking yard?”

“Yeah.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows casually on the table and fighting the temptation to gloat. “Okay, Arnold, tell me everything.
And if you want to survive this mess, don’t make it fiction.”

Arnold went silent. I couldn’t tell if he was arranging his lies so they wouldn’t compete with each other, or if he was just
trying to get it straight and true from the beginning. Finally, he spoke.

“Me, Teddy, and Chick, we all worked at Victory. We used to sneak in at night once, twice a month, and steal batteries. The
night watchman was a boozer, so it was real easy. Then, this one night last week when we were sneakin’ in, we saw a light
on in Shork’s office. There was a sharp set of wheels out by the front gate, too.”

“What time was this?”

“Maybe ten-thirty. I couldn’t figure it at first. I mean, we’d never seen Shork there at night before. Not that late anyway.
So, the three of us snuck up to the office and peeked in the side window. Shork was in there with this guy in a suit. I didn’t
even know who he was, but Teddy knew. The D.A., Carlson. Shork was sittin’ at his desk countin’ money. A lot of it. He counted
it twice, slow, like he was enjoyin’ it, like it was fun makin’ the D.A. stand there and wait. Then, the D.A., he asks for
the pictures. Shork hands him a folder, and the D.A. looks at ’em, asks if that’s all of ’em. Shork says it is. Then the D.A.
asks about the negatives, and Shork smiles and says they’re extra. They argue about that for a while, and then the D.A. goes
out to the fancy car by the front gate. To get
more money, he tells Shork. He opens the back door, drops the pictures into a leather briefcase and comes back.”

“Then what?”

“Things happened real fast. They were tradin’ the negatives for the money when Chick sneezed, and all of a sudden Joe Shork
was lookin’ right at us through the window. We saw Shork go for the gun he keeps in his desk drawer, and man, we started
runnin’.”

“You see the gun?”

“Naah, but everybody knew he kept one there. A little faggot gun, .25 caliber. I don’t know if the D.A. stopped him from shootin’
at us. We weren’t lookin’. Hell, Teddy was runnin’ so fast without lookin’, he ran right into the side of the car.”

“Is that how the window broke?”

“Yeah. Anyway, now Teddy’s lookin’ right into the car, and there’s a guy behind the wheel. The guy starts the car, like he
wants to get out o’ there, so I run around the driver’s side, pull him out into the street, Chick and Teddy get in on the
passenger side, and we drive like hell outa there.”

“Get a good look at the driver?”

“Teddy did, maybe, not me.”

“You
pulled him out of the car, didn’t you?”

“Look, everything was happenin’ fast. All I remember is red hair.”

Arnold watched me as I paused to process a thought. I was trying to remember the name of the guy in Carlson’s office. Jacobson?
No, Jorgenson.

“That’s all I remember, okay?” Arnold continued. “We were just tryin’ to get outa there.”

“All right. What happened next?”

“We just drove. We were scared shitless at first, but then we calmed down. Chick, he’s in the backseat with the briefcase
on his lap, lookin’ at the pictures and goin’ ‘Ooh’ and ‘Aah,’ and stuff like that, and we start laughin’ like it’s some big
joke. I mean, here we are toolin’ along in the fuckin’ D.A.’s car with his dirty pictures. Big time kicks.”

“But then you started to think.”

Arnold grimaced. “Yeah. I drove the car near this old building we use for a hideout.”

“Near the bridge.”

“Yeah,” he said, a hint of respect sneaking into his voice.

“So you dropped them off with the briefcase, told them to lay low until they heard from you, and then you tried to find a
spot to ditch the car. You got as far as Greenpoint when the cops stopped you, and you made up the story about Shork so you’d
have a serviceable lie to tell your father.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And when you got out on bail, you tried to find Chick and Teddy.”

“They weren’t home. So I called Charlotte. But she hadn’t seen ’em either. They weren’t at the hideout, she said. She’d already
been. And they hadn’t called her.”

“They just disappeared.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s when Jimmy disappeared, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Charlotte have anything to do with this?”

“No. Why would she?”

“Just asking.”

Arnold went silent again. I couldn’t tell if he was lying about Charlotte. I didn’t press, and I didn’t ask more about Jimmy.

“Well, that’s all of it.” he said finally.

“Not quite. There’s still Shork. You wouldn’t be in half the trouble you’re in if you’d left him out of it. But you couldn’t
resist unloading on the little worm in front of the cops when they pulled you over. You made a big scene to look like a tough
guy, and you followed it up here with another cute little act for Herm Kowalski’s benefit.”

“Who?”

“The lawyer I sent to bail you out.”

“Oh.”

“OK One-Eye.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, sounding like he might mean it.

“I’ll let you tell him yourself when—
if
—I get you out.”

“Sure… okay.”

“You shouldn’t’ve been such a wiseass, Arnold,” I said, using Gino’s favorite reprimand and managing it with a straight face.
“Now all that adolescent play-acting about bashin’ Shork’s head in has your skinny ass in deep trouble.”

“I didn’t have nothin’ to do with Shork. I didn’t kill the fuckin’ weasel.”

“But he’s dead just the same.”

His eyes settled in his lap. “Yeah,” he said in a near-whisper.

“And so is Jimmy. Things are out of control, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.” Arnold put his head in his hands. He wouldn’t cry until he could do it in private.

“Okay, Arnold,” I said in a gentler voice. “I’ll help you. But I need a few more things first: addresses for Chick and Teddy
and the exact location of your hideout by the bridge.”

He didn’t make me wait.

I
didn’t go straight to Arnold’s hideout when I left Raymond Street. I was hungry and hoping there was still some lasagna left
at my place. I was also in no hurry to help whoever was tailing me.

The car was a gray Pontiac. I altered my speed, hoping to lure it close enough to make the occupants or read the license,
but the driver kept his distance. While we played that game, I tried to put some of the more jagged pieces of the puzzle together.
Would the D.A. kill for some compromising photographs? Of him and a lady friend? Or him and another kind of friend? But why
kill Jimmy Hutchinson, or any of the other boys? Why not just buy them off, like he did Shork? And if he’d killed Shork, too,
why do it
after
the pictures and negatives were out of Shork’s dirty hands?

Then there was Charlotte. Caroline had said she pushed the boys into doing things. Bad things. Was she really the one in charge?
Was Arnold trying to protect her
by lying? Why? How much of what he’d told me was already a lie?

The Pontiac dropped the tail when I turned onto 16th Avenue. They’d use a different car next time, unless they decided to
drop the subtle approach and come at me head-on. For what reason? What was my part in all this, anyway?

My
goombahs
had saved me a little lasagna and some garlic bread, but nobody was foolish enough to offer me a beer. They were all consumed
by a low-stakes poker game anyway. Gino offered to deal me in the next hand, but I begged off. The way my Italian luck was
running?

I went downstairs and called Watusi from the office phone. I explained about the hideout and asked if he was interested in
a little late-night snooping. He wasn’t until I told him about the tail I’d picked up. Cracking the hard, empty skulls of
Neanderthals was one of Watusi’s simple pleasures.

We picked a rendezvous point up on Flatbush Avenue, and a time: just after midnight. We’d use his car. After years of taking
the subway down from Harlem, Watusi finally had his own wheels. But he was smart enough to pick the relatively neutral turf
of downtown for our meeting place; smart enough not to drive into Bensonhurst at any hour. Big, head-cracking, ebony giant
that he was, he knew better.