The Mayor of Lexington Avenue (6 page)

Every weekend and every Wednesday, Austin was on his boat out on the lake. Every afternoon promptly at the stroke of three, he could be found placing his generous rump on his favorite barstool at the Bass Creek Hotel. Drinks at the Bass Creek were a little more expensive than at the local dives around town, but Austin wouldn’t go anywhere else. He loved the old bar: the thick Southern atmosphere that hung from the old oak walls like Spanish moss, that called to him and cradled and comforted him in his time of need—which was every day at three. He was not unique in that regard. Many well-to-do inebriates called the Bass Creek home. It was, after all, the best place in town to get a steak after a few highballs.

Austin was in residence at his usual spot, taking a long, satisfactory pull on an authentic Cuban cigar, when the call came in from Elena.

“Now hold on, Elena. Slow down a bit. I can’t understand a word you’re saying, girl. Start slowly and for God’s sake, speak English.” As she often did when she was upset, Elena had slipped into her own brand of Spanglish. She forced herself to calm down.

“It’s Rudy. They have him at the station and they’re questioning him about the murder of that girl in the barrio. I told them to stop but they told me only Rudy or his attorney can stop him from talking. I want you to be his attorney and call them and tell them to stop talking to him. I’ll come and get you and we’ll go to the station together.”

“I’d love to help, Elena, but I don’t know the first thing about that kind of law. I do wills, wills and trusts.”

Elena had no time for niceties. “Austin, I don’t care what you do. I want you to call the police station now and tell them to stop talking to my son. I’ll pick you up in five minutes.” She hung up the receiver before he could lodge any further protest.

Austin was in a pickle and he hadn’t even been drinking that long. He knew Elena and Rudy well enough from the bar but not well enough to stick his neck out for them. He didn’t know anybody that well. On the other hand, he didn’t want Elena as an enemy. Making a phone call, driving to the station—that would be easy and it might make him a real hero at his favorite watering hole. Besides, it might prove to be a profitable venture down the road. He picked up the phone and made the call.

Austin could sound very authoritative when necessary. In just a few seconds he was talking to Del Shorter and then Wesley Brume. Wes’s conversation with Rudy had just ended but Rudy hadn’t had his blood taken yet when Austin emphatically demanded that Wes cease and desist.

Austin was standing outside the hotel when Elena pulled up just a few minutes later. Having had a quick shot of Lord Calvert before exiting the bar, he was more than comfortable in his new role as defender of the innocent.

“I’ve already shut them down,” he told Elena. “We’ll have Rudy out of there in no time.” Elena could tell from his words that Austin had stepped over the line separating mere tipsiness from outright intoxication, and her shoulders sagged as he dropped into the passenger seat.

But Rudy was already walking down the street from the police station when they pulled up. Elena now had to restrain Austin from going into the station and giving the police “a piece of my mind.” She convinced him to come back to the hotel with her and Rudy instead. While Austin dined on a complimentary porterhouse, Rudy told them everything.

Elena felt like she had spent her whole life anticipating the pitfalls that would confront her son as he grew. She had known, for instance, that he would face ridicule at school because he was “different,” so she had enrolled him in a karate class when he was six years old. By the time he was fourteen, he was a brown belt, which eliminated much of the direct heckling from his male peers. She immersed him in structure and routine: Always come home right after school, she said; always leave messages where you’re going to be, who you’re going to be with; call if you’re going to be late; avoid strangers, unfamiliar situations. She took him into the hotel bar when he was twelve, told him about what alcohol did to people’s lives, how it was an addictive drug. Told him to look at the faces at the bar and to check every day to see if they changed. The message stuck with young Rudy as he witnessed the same soap opera day after day. The star of the show happened to be sitting next to him eating a steak at that very moment.

Elena had done her job well. Still, after all the training and preparation, Rudy had fallen headfirst into the maelstrom. But this was no time for second-guessing. The only important question now was,
Where do we go from here?

Surprisingly, it was Austin who got them headed in the right direction.

“You’re going to need a top-notch lawyer right away. Somebody who’s not from here and specializes in this stuff.” The steak was sobering him up somewhat. “I know the perfect person. Tracey James. Her main office is in Vero Beach but she has several branch offices inland, including one in Bass Creek. She’s an expert in criminal law and I could call her if you like.”

Elena had heard of Tracey James. Who hadn’t? She was the most famous lawyer in the area, perhaps in the whole state. Elena had seen her billboards on the highway and her name and picture in big ads in the phone book.

“Would you, Austin?”

“Why certainly, first thing in the morning. But I must caution you, Elena, she is very expensive.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said. At the moment, money was the last thing on her mind.

Seven

S
UMMER
1960

“We’re going to Boy Scout camp in July. Why don’t you sign up?”

“Who’s we?” Johnny asked.

“My brothers and me,” Mikey replied. Mikey had two older brothers, Danny and Eddie. Eddie was eighteen months older than Mikey, and Danny was sixteen months older than Eddie. Irish triplets.

“I can’t. You know my parents. They’d have to look into it for a year.” Johnny’s father was a bank clerk. Mr. Kelly, on the other hand, was a fireman, a big burly fellow, afraid of nothing. He gave that same confidence to his sons.

“I’ll tell you what.” Mikey had his thinking cap on. “I’ll ask my mother to talk to your mother. She’ll think of something. She’ll be sure to tell her that my brothers will look after you and all that shit.”

“Will she do it?”

“Sure. My mom loves you. Sometimes more than me, I think.” Johnny looked at him to see if he was serious. Mikey flashed him that million-dollar smile. Mikey’s smile. It was like a magic wand. He always looked like a saint when he was smiling.

Two days later, Johnny was having the conversation with his parents in the living room of their tiny four-room apartment. He could not believe they were actually considering letting him go. Of course, his father had to place a few obstacles in his path.

“You have to keep up your summer reading.”

“I’ll bring the books with me, Dad.”

“And you’ve got to get somebody to serve Mass for you at the convent.” There was a convent on the corner of his block, and he and Mikey alternated serving Mass there every morning.

“I know. I’ll take care of it.” He was wearing them down. He could feel the decision coming his way. His mom was already won over.

“I trust the Kelly boys, dear. They’ll look out for him.”

“The older two are a little rowdy for me,” his dad replied and just stood there for a minute, his hands on his hips. Johnny could feel the pendulum swinging back again—but there was nothing he could do.

“All right,” his father finally said as if he were making the decision to start World War III. “You can go, but if you don’t get your reading done and if you have any problems, this will never happen again. You understand me?”

“Yessir.” He was so excited he could barely contain himself. Two weeks away from home—two weeks! He just kept saying it over and over.

Ondawa Lake scout camp was in a lovely wooded section of upstate New York, a four-hour bus trip from the city. There were as many as two or three hundred boys there at any one time, mostly troops from the city. About fourteen kids from Johnny and Mikey’s scout troop made the bus trip from Manhattan. They were led by John Miller, the scoutmaster, and Tom Daly, his assistant.

The troop had their own little campsite, a half-acre clearing with a large campfire planted in the middle. There were two wooden lean-tos on one side of the campfire and two rows of white canvas tents on the other. An outhouse was set at the edge of the clearing, fifty yards or so from the nearest tent.

“Pair up. Find yourselves a tent,” scoutmaster John Miller shouted. The boys raced for the tents, Johnny following closely behind Mikey. They picked one in the middle of the row. Eddie and Danny picked one across from them about thirty yards away.

Each tent sat on a wooden platform and had two cots. There was a large burlap and a small burlap sack on each cot. The boys were told to stash their gear under the beds and bring their sacks. They walked, tripped and ran down a long, narrow trail to another clearing with a haystack in the middle.

“The big sack is your mattress, the small sack your pillow,” Mr. Miller told them. “Fill ’em up.” The boys attacked the haystack with a vengeance.

It was an inauspicious start for young Johnny, who suffered from hay fever. He didn’t sleep well that first night. His nose was stuffed, his mouth dry, his face swollen, and the crickets droned incessantly. On the other side of the tent, less than three feet away, Mikey was sound asleep, as if he had grown up in the woods.

Sometime in the middle of that first night, Johnny had the urge to pee. He opened the tent flap and peered out into a darkness he had never known. The outhouse looked a hundred miles away. Who knew what creatures were lurking in the woods? As he stood there, scared and exhausted, wiping the drip at his nose with his hand, Johnny wished his father had said no. But it was too late for wishes. The cool night air hit his half-naked body and nature took it from there. He flipped down his Fruit of the Looms and pissed off the platform of his tent, trying not to make a puddle at the entrance.

Maybe a half hour later, in a dream state, he heard Mikey doing the same thing.

Things picked up after that first night. The camp had everything: baseball fields, basketball courts, woods
to
explore—in the daylight, of course—and the largest lake they had ever seen. Being city kids, they spent as much time on the lake as possible, swimming and boating. It was amazing to them that they could go down to the lake and sign a rowboat or a canoe out at any time.

There was ritual, too: Every morning before breakfast the entire camp gathered at the parade field for the Pledge of Allegiance and reveille, and every night after dinner for “God Bless America” and taps. All scouts had to be in uniform for these events: collarless, short-sleeve scout shirt with kerchief, short scout pants, and knee-length scout socks with tassels. They hated the uniforms, especially the shorts, but they weren’t alone. The other city boys, like the troop from Harlem, didn’t take to the short pants either.

By the end of the first week, Johnny had adjusted to country life, even his bedding full of hay. He slept with his mouth open and a canteen full of water at his bedside. When his dry mouth woke him, he took a sip of water and went back to sleep. When he was full to the brim, he stood at the front of his tent and relieved himself. Sometimes he and Mikey stumbled out of their cots at the same time. On those occasions, they had a contest to see who could pee the farthest and the longest. They didn’t know they were being watched.

On Saturday night, there was a bonfire at the parade grounds. All the troops attended. The scouts roasted marshmallows and drank sodas. When darkness fell, the scoutmasters took turns telling scary stories. One of the stories was about a ferocious wildcat that roamed those very woods. It even scared Mikey, who clung to Johnny on the trail back to their campsite. That night the sodas caused them to wake several times to pee.

After their second contest, they had a visitor. Johnny was lying on his side facing the tent wall when assistant scoutmaster Tom Daly came in and lay beside him in his cot. Johnny was half asleep. After a few seconds, Daly took Johnny’s arm and pulled it towards him. Johnny jumped up, almost knocking the bed and the whole tent over. Mikey woke up instantly.

“What are you doing?” Johnny shouted.

“You know what I’m doing,” Daly replied, standing up. He was a big man, heavily muscled from weightlifting, an imposing figure now standing at the entrance to the tent. Johnny’s reaction had startled him a bit.

“No, I don’t,” Johnny replied. Daly turned to Mikey.

“You tell him what I’m doing here. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes and you’d better be ready.”

“What’d he do?” Mikey asked as soon as Daly left.

“He pulled my arm back until my hand touched his dick.”

“Nooo. That is so gross.”

“What are we gonna do, Mikey? I’m scared. He’s coming back.”

Mikey thought for a moment. “Grab your pillow and cover,” he told Johnny. “We’re getting out of here.”

They ran over to Eddie and Danny’s tent and told them the story. Mikey’s brothers, although they were only thirteen and fourteen at the time, were tough boys.

“Stay here,” Eddie told them. “Get under our beds. Hide behind the knapsacks and duffel bags. He won’t be able to see you.”

“What if he wants to search the room?” Johnny asked, trying to plan for every contingency. He was still in shock.

“We’ll tell him to go fuck himself,” Danny replied. That was the last word on the matter and it made Johnny feel secure. He wasn’t in this alone.

A half hour later, assistant scoutmaster Daly showed up at the tent.

“Have you guys seen Johnny and Mikey?” he asked. Eddie sat up.

“Nope. Did you check their tent?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Yeah. They’re not there.”