The Hoods (19 page)

Max said, “Have a drink, John.”

I never heard anybody answer “No” in such a disdainful manner. I couldn't help thinking, the sonofabitch acts as if we're not good enough to drink with. I looked at Max. For the moment, he, too, appeared perturbed at our visitor's manner, but he was able to keep control of himself. I was beginning to lose my temper fast.

To appear friendly, Max asked, “How's the insurance business, John?”

“Let's dispense with unnecessary conversation and get down to business,” was the curt reply.

Boy, that remark got me all steamed up. I felt like walking over and smacking him right in his insolent puss. I looked at my companions. They were staring coldly at him. Strange, they weren't as angry as I was. So this was the insurance executive from whom we had been receiving tips for lucrative heists? This was the Judas who betrayed his friends and business associates for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver? He and his prize-package of a wife. It's ironic, I thought. I'll bet, besides everything else, he looks down on us on account of our East Side background, and I'll bet he looks on himself as a legit and honest businessman, an honorable member of society. The sanctimonious bastard!

Boy, how many crumbs do we come in contact with who have this same holier-than-thou attitude. Whores, all of them. You can buy them all with a charlotte russe. Employers and union leaders who exploit and sell out labor. Lice in public office who take graft and betray their trust. Men in the courts who practice law and betray their clients. Profiteering big businessmen who mulct the poor ignorant masses with legal chicanery.

A furious indignation burned inside of me. I knew for a guy like me my thoughts were preposterous. But I couldn't control myself. I kept on thinking in the same vein.

Suddenly I remembered our furniture piled up in the street, my mother crying in shame and despair and how I went over to one of the men who was carrying our furniture. All I did was tap him on the arm and say, “Please, mister, please.”

He snarled at me, “Beat it, you stinkin' little Jew.”

And this sanctimonious bastard of an executive in a big insurance company was the image of that bastard landlord. Insurance companies, what the hell are they? Just gigantic legal bookies. They make book that you won't die until a certain age, or that you won't have a fire. They'll make book on anything.

I was working myself into a rage. I had my right hand in my pants pocket, one finger feeling for the button on my knife. I was thinking, if I pulled the knife, pressed the button and dug the six-inch switchblade deep into his windpipe with one fast upsweep, boy would that sonofabitch lose that contemptuous look on his face fast! Look at that sonofabitch. He's staring at me. I bet he feels all the hate I have for him. Would he make a distinguished looking corpse with that flower in his lapel. Yeh, this consort of a masochist would look good laid out nice and cozy in a coffin.

I took a step closer to him. My blood pressure was mounting. I could feel the blood pounding in my head. I was in an angry, drunken fog. The cold steel of the switch-blade felt anxious to rip into him. The bastard was staring with panic in his eyes. I felt I had him. He was paralyzed with fear. I stepped in closer. I pressed the button. The blade shot open. The click and flash of the blade hypnotized him. I had it almost at his throat.

“No surgery on this patient, Noodles.” Maxie grabbed my arm. What the hell is eating you all of a sudden?” he asked.

I was in a sweat. I sat down. Yeh, what the hell was the matter with me? Max tossed me a Corona. I caught it, bit off the end, fumbled for a match, with the bum staring at me all the time. Dammit, I felt frustrated. I got the shakes all over. I better get my mind off him. I must be cracking up. The hell with him. What's the matter with me? I'm getting to be a sadistic bully or something.

Patsy leaned over with a light for my cigar. He whispered, “What's eating you, Noodles?”

How could I go into a long explanation about how this guy symbolized—what?—one of my pet hates? Maybe this guy Freud could explain it. I couldn't. Then something whispered in me, “You're drunk, you bastard, you're drunk.”

I just answered, “He rubs me the wrong way.”

Patsy replied, “Me, too.”

The insurance guy sat down. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead with a quivering hand. Maxie pushed a double hooker towards him. He picked it up, murmuring a low and respectful, “Thanks, Max.” His unsteady hand spilled half the liquor before the glass reached his lips.

Max said complacently, “O.K., John. 'Tauchess offen tish.'”

Evidently he understood he was to put it on the table. He opened his briefcase and took out a thick manila envelope.

Max opened it, spread out on the table thirty bundles of money which were individually wrapped with a narrow strip of bank paper, bearing the stamp “One Thousand Dollars.” He took the bag of diamonds out of his pocket and tossed it toward the insurance man.

“One stone short. It got lost in the shuffle. Okay, John?”

I was waiting for him to complain or make a crack. But he didn't. He meekly nodded his head. His entire attitude had changed. His pose of the upper class visiting the riffraff was gone. Maxie pushed three bundles of bills toward him.

“Here's your ten percent, John.”

“Thanks very much, Max.”

His smile and bow included all of us, like an obsequious waiter receiving a large tip.

Then, after another drink, he regained some of his composure. He put his three thousand into his briefcase and closed the zipper.

“May I say you boys did a thorough job? It was perfect. Only one thing—mind, I'm not criticising, but was all that violence necessary?” He gave a sycophantic, sickening laugh. “Three men were removed to the hospital and my wife is home, a nervous wreck from shock.”

Shock, hell, frustrated passion. I'll bet he can never satisfy that bitch, I thought to myself.

Maxie blew a cloud of smoke out of his mouth.

“Well, I'll tell you, John. When we go out on a heist, we aren't playing tiddly-winks, you know. We play for keeps.”

“Oh yes, yes, I know you boys did a fine job and you're the best in the business. You were highly recommended by that party years ago.”

He was exuding good-will, fawning all over the place.

Max cut him short with a curt, “Okay, John. When you get one lined up, contact me in the usual way.”

He took the hint. “Yes. Yes.” He picked up his briefcase and stood up. “I'm getting a juicier one than this last lined up. It'll be ripe to pluck in a month or so, one of my real big clients.”

Max took him by the arm and walked him to the door. “Fine. We'll be at your service then, John.”

The pusillanimous bastard smirked. “It will be a pleasure to get together again, boys,” he said.

He caught my scornful look. He turned and went out with a barely audible, “Goodbye.”

Max said, “So long.” The rest of us stared coldly after him.

Max sat down at the table. He turned to me and smiled.

“Itching to slit the throat of the goose that lays the golden eggs, Noodles?”

“He's a rat. We can't trust him,” I said tersely. “He's the only one that can tie us in with this job. He's our Achilles' heel.”

Maxie gathered the money lying on the table in a heap and said thoughtfully, “Yep, you're right, Noodles. He's a rat, all right. I guess some day we may have to exterminate him.”

Maxie took money out of his pocket and added it to the pile. “Twenty-seven left from John's dough, fourteen grand left after paying Jake and his boys for the Nutchy switcheroo and three grand for burying the bum. Let's see now...” he said.

He fumbled for a pencil in his pocket, picked up a hundred dollar bill and started scratching figures on it.

“Hmmmm—total comes to forty-four grand. Split four ways... well, my arithmetic makes it eleven thousand apiece. Look at the figures, Noodles. They correct?”

I glanced at them perfunctorily. I was too groggy to figure. I said, “Okay.”

As Maxie gave us each his share, he remarked in a cynical tone, Crime doesn't pay. I guess we ought to get jobs as shipping clerks in Macy's or something.”

Patsy said, “Boy, that joint would make a beautiful heist. I hear the day before Christmas there's about a million bucks lying around in the controller's office.”

“A million bucks,” Cockeye said with a wistful air. “Yeh, Max, it's a good idea. We ought to step into Macy's and heist the joint.”

“Macy's? Nope, not Macy's. I'm lining up something bigger and better.”

Maxie rocked back and forth in his chair. With a faraway look on his face, he sent clouds of smoke floating to the ceiling from his Corona cigar.

I wondered. A bigger heist than a million bucks? What the hell, is Maxie still dreaming about that Federal Reserve job? Does he still have it in mind after all these years?

Sarcastically I asked, “Max, you got the Federal Reserve job still on your mind?”

Max looked at me for a minute, with supreme confidence. He replied, “Yes I have. I'm having the joint cased, and when I get all the info, we're going to heist it.”

I didn't know whether to laugh or reason with him. I just looked at him for awhile. In fact we were all staring at Maxie. We all had a hell of a lot of faith in his good judgment, but heist the Federal Reserve Bank? It appeared impossible. The joint was an impenetrable fortress. It was right in the heart of the financial district and everybody knew that if a recognized criminal went within smelling distance of that neighborhood, he got pinched on sight. The entire underworld knew that the financial district was out of bounds. But who the hell knows? With Maxie anything is possible.

Aloud I said, “You got somebody giving the joint the elzoo?”

“Yep, I got somebody.”

“Any dope on it?” Patsy asked.

“Can it be cracked?” I asked.

“Well, yes and no. I'm trying to figure it out. The vaults downstairs may be tough to take, but I think I got a plan to grab the daily small total the armored cars bring in every day for deposit from their member banks, grab it at the platform, as they're unloading.”

“How much is the small total?” I asked sarcastically.

“Oh, about ten million in cash or better.” Maxie smiled coolly at me. He looked at our faces to see if we were properly impressed. Jesus, I thought, am I drunk or is Maxie crazy drunk?

It was Wednesday morning. Callers were few and uninteresting. Out front Fat Moe and his bartenders were busy with their normally good business. We were indulging in our usual Greek rummy game when Fat Moe came in to announce, “Peggy's outside. She wants to see you guys.”

We were in the midst of a play, and we didn't really pay attention to what he said.

Maxie raised his eyes from his cards for an instant.

“Peggy? What Peggy?” he asked.

Moe put both hands on his hips, walked across the room swaying his large buttocks from side to side.

Maxie dropped his cards. In eager excitement he shouted, “Peggy the Bumehke? Why the hell didn't you say so? Let her in.”

We had heard she'd been operating professionally for many years, and I'd expected to see the usual worn-out, dried-up, drugged and dissipated, sad-looking whore. I was already terribly sorry for her.

A warm feeling of gladness surged through me at the thought, “She's here for a touch. Boy, will she be delighted at the generous amount we can afford and will give her.”

I visualized myself saying as I handed her the dough, “Here you are, Peg, just enough to buy yourself a charlotte russe.”

Was I surprised when she came in. We all stood up chivalrously and bowed as blonde Peggy came in making a grand entrance, like Mae West in her play, “Diamond Lil.” She looked as young and as sexy as ever. She was covered with furs and blazing diamonds. She gave each of us a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Cockeye ran all around her, sniffing. “Ah, what perfume, what are you using, Peggy? Fulton Fish Market Number 5? You look like a classy bitch in all that fitch.”

The remark got a short laugh.

Peggy said, “And you look like you're suffering from that rare Hawaiian disease.”

“What disease?” Cockeye was concerned.

Peggy looked at Cockeye, smiling at him from head to toe. “Lack, a nooky. Chump. You're pretty frisky, clowning and skipping around like that. What you need is a good trip around the world from a cute little Frenchie I got up in my joint.”

Maxie laughed. “Soliciting new business, eh, Peg?”

She laughed. “But not for money. For you guys my joint is for free. Like in the old days. Just bring me a charlotte russe.” She laughed gaily. “Everything is on the house when you boys pay me a visit. Remember, Noodles, you cutie pie?” She threw me a kiss.

I returned it.

“Okay, Peg. I was only kidding.”

“What's douchin'?” Maxie asked. “You didn't come down to Delancey Street just to look over your old neighborhood, did you?”

“Many times I thought of coming down to see you guys.” Peggy sat down. She slipped her furs off her shoulders and reached for a drink.