The Hoods (64 page)

Muscles almost yanked my arm out of my socket. He leered, “How you feel, Noodles? Like shitten in your pants?”

“You muff, divin, stinkin bitch.” I burst into a furious rage. “If I had my shiv, I'd cut you in a million pieces, piece by piece.”

I spit on him.

Muscles wiped his face and came at me. Mendy got in his way.

He snapped at him. “You deserve it. Didn't I tell you Noodles is a man?” He added admiringly, “And to a man you show respect.”

Mendy gave the customary knocking and scratching signal on the warehouse door. The big door opened. We walked in. The only one of the four inside guards I recognized was the Chicken Flicker. He stood there looking me over curiously. He had a Tommy gun in his hand. I nodded to him.

He said, “Hello, Noodles.”

Muscles chuckled, “Hey, Chicken Flicker, you shoulda said 'Goodbye Noodles.'”

“Who asked you?” Mendy barked at Muscles. He turned to the guards. “Go ahead, you guys, take a powder.”

Chicken Flicker and the rest walked away.

“All right, let's get it over with.” He gestured for us to follow.

“We stepped over and around the piles of merchandise. He seemed to have a specific part of the warehouse in mind. We walked around a pyramid of steel drums. I almost dropped dead. Yeh, there it was, in the regulation wooden square: a fresh mixture of cement. Alongside of it stood a large steel barrel. There was the answer to the question, the sixty-four dollar question. I knew how I was to get the business. They were going to put me to sleep with a bullet in the brain, then a cement kimono, at the bottom of the Hudson River.

Those two items, the cement mixture and the steel drum stifled my air of bravado. I felt hopeless. What to do? What to do? Should I plead? No, there wasn't a chance with this hard-boiled crew. I watched as Mendy bent down and ran his hand through the cement mixture with the air of an expert, and said to Muscles, “Two more shovels of sand.”

I watched with fascinated awe as Muscles added two shovels of fine sand and stirred the mixture.

Muscles smiled. “The last guy we gave a cement kimono to was Bow Legs. Bow Legs Wineberg.”

“Who asked you?” Mendy said curtly. “Just keep mixing that stuff, good. Goddamn good. I don't want a half-assed job.”

The strain was getting too much for me. I felt I was going to break any moment. Now I knew how people feel before they die. They die a hundred times over before they're dead. It's better to die unexpectedly than to know when you're about to die. It's fearful, ghastly. Why don't they get it over with? Please God, do something.

Mendy signaled Trigger. Trigger took his .45 out and attached a Maxim silencer.

There was a gentleness in Mendy's voice as he asked, “Where do you want it, Noodles? The belly, the heart, or in the brains?”

“Yeh, that Noodles is supposed to have a big brain,” Muscles sneered.

“None of that. Show respect.” Mendy glared at Muscles.

There was a kindly expression on Mendy's face as he said, “Where?”

My mouth was dry, my tongue was frozen, I couldn't talk.

“Where?” Trigger repeated patiently. He was staring at me with the gun in his hand for hours. With a terrific effort I was finally able to raise my hand and touch my forehead. Yeh, that was where I wanted the slug to crash into me. It seemed all eternity passed as he slowly, oh so slowly, lifted his arm. The gun with the silencer attached looked enormous, like a cannon. I was hypnotized by it. The muzzle of the gun against my head felt icy cold and burning hot at the same time.

In a voice that seemed a mile away I heard Trigger say, “Hey, Mendy.”

Mendy asked, “Yes?”

If I hadn't been paralyzed stiff with fear, as if rigor mortis had already set in, I would have been a heap of quivering terror on the floor.

“Ain't you going to let Noodles say a prayer? Ain't he entitled?” Trigger repeated. “Yeh, you're right, Trigger.”

Mendy turned to me apologetically. “I'm sorry, Noodles, I forgot, go ahead and say a prayer.”

Dumbly I shook my head.

“Nothing you want to say?” Mendy asked graciously. “A last message to somebody, maybe?”

A last message? I thought who to? I ain't got nobody, only Eve. How can I get in touch with her? So at least she'll get the benefit of that hundred grand I got in the United States Bank. And that elusive million in the trunks that I couldn't find. Suddenly my mind began to function. Yeh, if I play it smart and don't overdo it, at the least it would give me a short reprieve. I got nothing to lose. Maybe, somehow, I could get word to her through Moe?

Yeh, but I got to play it slow and smart. I got to tempt them just a little bit and not overdo it. I can't buy them off. No, they won't take a chance. The hope, the slim hope loosened my tongue, I was able to speak. I had an idea.

“Yeh, I would like to send a message to my brother,” I said.

“Okay, I'll have it get to him. What do you want to tell him?”

“I want to tell him where my dough is.”

At the word dough, the three exchanged glances.

“Okay, I'll tell him, where is it?” Mendy asked.

A greedy look came into his eyes.

“You know the order Frank sent around to everybody to take their dough out of the banks?”

“Yeh, I heard of it,” Mendy said eagerly.

“Well, Max, Cockeye, Patsy and I took our dough out of the banks and put it into trunks.”

“You grabbed all that dough?” Mendy questioned tensely.

Shamefully I hung my head. “Yeh, I grabbed all the dough.”

“It must amount to plenty? Hey, Noodles?”

Trigger stuck his face close to mine, an avaricious smile on his face.

“Yeh, we all had money.” I tried to sound evasive.

“How much?” Muscles grabbed me by the head. He almost twisted my head off, like a chicken's.

Mendy jumped in, grabbed Muscles by the hair, and pulled him off me.

I fell back, feigning pain and anger.

I shouted savagely. “I got a million bucks stacked away. You'll never get any part of it. I know what's on your mind.”

“Keep your hands off Noodles. I'm giving you your last warning.”

Mendy glared furiously at Muscles. “Let's you and I talk this over.” He motioned me to a box. We both sat down.

“We can make a deal.” He offered me a starter.

With a supreme effort, I controlled my eagerness and played hard to get.

I shrugged and said, “I don't know. What's the deal?”

“Half the dough, and I let you go.”

I tried to look gullible.

“That's a fair deal, Mendy. Is it okay with those guys?”

I nodded in their direction. Two hostile faces were looking at us.

“I can handle them, they take orders from me.” Mendy raised his voice. “Come here.” He motioned to them. “I made a deal with Noodles. We get half the dough and Noodles disappears, leaves the country for good. Okay with you?”

He didn't wait for their answer; he turned to me.

I nodded.

“Nobody will be the wiser,” Mendy continued. “We'll report you got the business and dumped you in the Hudson River.”

“It's a deal,” I agreed hurriedly.

They went into a whispered huddle. From the group Muscles gave me a mocking grin as if I didn't know that even if I had the dough and could produce it, they would take all of it, and then dump me. These crumbs would even fight and kill one another over the division of it. If—yes, a big if—I had it. What the hell was I to do now? Why did I prolong it? It could have been over with. Where could I take them? What could I do? God Almighty, I got to think of something, I got to use my noodle now. Please, God, give me an idea what to do. Anyway, I'm going to get out of here.

This place always gave me the creeps. I don't want to die here. It's like a big mausoleum. Too many guys were killed in this joint. If I got to die, I'll die on the outside. Frig them bastards. As a last resort I'll fight until they murder me. Maybe I can take that Muscles with me. If I can lay my hands on something, a shiv or a gat.

God, where can I? Maybe there's something laying in a closet in Fat Moe's? Yeh, that's it, I'll steer them there. Maybe Jake the Goniff or Goo-Goo or Pipy would be around and help? God, would that be a break. Please, God, do something. I will go to schul for the rest of my life like my papa. Please God.

They broke up, grinning slyly at me. Mendy said, “We'll go and get the gelt?”

I nodded. “Yeh, let's go.”

I tried to act tough.

“Where?” Mendy smiled pleasantly.

“It's in storage.”

“Storage? Where?”

“First I got to pick up the keys and receipts for the trunks at Fat Moe's.”

I tried to say it quick and businesslike.

“In Fat Moe's?” Mendy smiled. “All of us don't have to go.” My heart jumped for joy; they were going to split up; what a break. “Me and Trigger can go for them,” Mendy said.

My heart dropped into my belly.

“Why can't we all go?” Muscles asked suspiciously.

“I'll never tell you where the keys are and you'll never find them if I don't go along,” I said grimly, “no matter what you do.”

“Okay,” Mendy smiled amiably, “we'll all go.”

During the ride I almost took a chance to dive through the door. We stopped for traffic where two cops stood talking together.

But I guess I didn't have much of a chance with Muscles' arm draped affectionately around my neck. One move out of the way, and he would have strangled me. God, I was in a hopeless state. The most ridiculous comparison entered my mind: I felt like a fish squirming helplessly on a hook in a basket. I guess that was because the upholstery of the car was a straw weave, and every time I fidgeted, Muscles growled, “Stop twisting like a fish, or I strangle you.”

I wasn't very frightened any more. I was in a state of bewilderment. I was wondering what I should do when we got to Fat Moe's. I was resigned to the inevitable. I didn't have a chance. I was muddled; the fight was out of me.

I kept saying to myself, the hell with it, what's the use. I got nothing or nobody, no friends, Maxie, Patsy, Cockeye, all dead. I may as well join them. My mother. God Almighty, Eve—Eve will be waiting for me. My wave of self-pity was interrupted as the car pulled up to the curb. Like a sleepwalker in a trance, I walked between them across the crowded sidewalk of Delancey Street into the front entrance of Moe's.

Did I imagine it? Did Fat Moe really give me a sign of assurance as we passed him? He seemed to give me a look of compassion and understanding. No, that was wishful thinking. No, nobody in the whole world could help me. Even Moe, after that quick look, turned his face and went about his business. The back room looked empty and cold.

“All right, get the stuff you're looking for and let's get out of here,” Mendy said gruffly.

I walked over to the closet slowly. I was actually in a state of hypnosis This was all a dream, some kind of nightmare. The closet door seemed far away as I put my hand on the knob.

From way behind me I heard Mendy growl. What the hell you want? Keep the hell out.”

Dazedly, I turned to see whom he was addressing.

Fat Moe was standing there with a bottle and glasses on a tray; his fat face was beaming in a friendly smile.

“Have something to drink, gents?”

“Yeh, that's a good idea,” Muscles said, going for the bottle.

Smiling, Moe put the tray on the table. He said, “Help yourselves,” and walked away.

I saw Muscles fill three glasses. Mendy had his eyes on me as he lifted his glass to his lips. I turned and opened the door of the closet, slowly I went down on my knees to rummage around on the bottom. I found nothing, not even an empty whiskey bottle to fight with. I remained in that position, sparring for time. I didn't turn around. I picked up the floor linoleum in the closet as if I was diligently searching for something. I had an urge to creep deeper into the closet, close the door and stay there in the dark for the rest of my life. It was strangely quiet behind me.

Then I found myself praying, praying for a miracle. I was praying to a God. What God? Was there a God? Would He hear the prayer of a miserable creature like me hidden away in a dark closet? What should I say? Please God, please God, spare me; I will be a good man. Or should I put it this way: spare my stinking life, God, and I will make a deal with you. I will do anything. Spare me, God.

Oh, the hell with everything. Why don't they yank me out and kill me? I was mumbling hopelessly to myself, “What's the use? Oh, what's the use, why don't they grab me and finish me off?”

Suddenly I heard a crash behind me. I jumped up and out. I came to life. Mendy was lying on the floor, out like a light. Trigger was sprawled over the table snoring. Muscles, his eyes glazed, was on his feet staggering around muttering, “Knockout drops, all screwed up with knockout drops.”

He poured the liquor from the bottle on his head in an effort to revive himself. He shook his head violently from side to side, trying to keep awake. He saw me. He came for me.