Jimmy the Stick (10 page)

On the way back, Deputy Parker said, “You shouldn't talk to the sheriff like that, calling him ‘fatso.' You'll make him mad.”

“Who found the Marquette and the body? Kittner?”

The deputy's voice hardened. “All right, we made a mistake. He sure looked dead at first.”

“What about Cloninger? Is he the borough coroner? That's why he was called in?”

“He's been here for years. He's always done these things.”

So Parker was a local boy. Maybe that explained his interest in Flora. He was only a couple of years older than her. “What did the sheriff mean about Schwarzkopf and Keaten?”

“Bill Schwarzkopf is the superintendent of the State Police. Charlie Keaten is in charge of the kidnap investigation.”

And we both knew that Kittner would do any damn thing to be part of such a big deal.

“What do you think about last night?” I asked him. “The doll and everything.”

“It could be nothing. Mrs. Pennyweight is not popular with everyone around here. She can be highhanded and sometimes she's slow to pay. I'll check on the bucket. I'm sure it came from Bartham's Butcher Shop, but I doubt he had anything to do with it. He's not the kind of guy who'd do something like that with the doll just to scare her or make her mad. But there are other people in town who would do it.”

“But what about Fordham Evans? If your sheriff really thinks he's involved with the Lindbergh business, why'd he drag me out here?”

The deputy gave me a nasty cop smile. “Maybe he thinks you shot Mr. Evans. I do.”

It was so damned foolish I laughed again.

Parker said, “All I know is that nobody was stabbing dolls or nailing people to trees until you showed up.”

“And for what it's worth, I saw somebody near the house early this morning, somebody in the woods watching the place.”

Parker cut his eyes at me and said he'd talk to Dietz about it.

Word that Fordham Evans had been killed reached Mrs. Conway's kitchen before I got back. She was even more thrilled when she learned that he'd been shot, and frozen near death but survived. She turned down the radio while I gave her all the details, including the purple tongue.

“The sheriff's right. It must have had something to do with the kidnapping. Who'd have thought of it, poor Mr. Evans.”

I drank a mug of strong black coffee as she made toast, spooned up scrambled eggs, and held forth on the latest Lindbergh news. The colonel was personally leading the search and hadn't slept since he discovered his son was gone. The newspapers reported $50,000 in reward money for the kidnapper and were confident that the child would be returned unharmed very soon. They wrote that Mrs. Lindbergh was bearing up bravely and calmly.

I ate my eggs and sympathized, wondering how long it had been since I'd slept. I couldn't remember, but it didn't matter. The eggs hit the spot. Mr. Mears worked on a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee laced with aquavit. Connie Nix prepared two trays with white linen and bud vases. When she'd finished, she went to the shelves of baby food. She and Mrs. Conway put their heads together over a printed form. Apparently, they weren't sure what the kid was supposed to have for breakfast. It must have been really complicated because they had to open half a dozen jars and boxes before they got what they wanted on a tray.

“Did you actually see Mr. Evans?” Connie Nix asked.

“Yeah,” I said between bites. “Looked to me like his car ran off the road in the woods not far from here, and then he took off all his clothes and ran into the woods.”

Knowing looks passed between the two women.

“Damn cold night for that. Then somebody nailed him to a tree like this.” I spread my arms wide. “And then they drilled him. One shot. Could have been a .32, nothing larger. Maybe even a .22. Or maybe they shot him and then nailed him up. Why does everybody think this shooting is involved with the Lindbergh business?”

“Well, Mr. Evans spent a lot of time in the city, and if it was the work of racketeers . . .”

I shook my head and repeated, “Nobody I know was in on this.” Not after Vinnie.

“And now they've admitted that there is a ransom note . . .” Mrs. Conway rattled on about a bill in the New Jersey legislature that would give the death penalty to such heartless criminals. But, she argued with herself, that could force the kidnappers to kill the boy.

I got up and carried my coffee to Connie Nix, still fiddling with the trays.

I asked if she had time for a little talk, and she said yes, Mrs. Spencer probably wouldn't be up for hours. Of course, with Mrs. Pennyweight, you never could tell.

She poured a cup of tea and sat next to me at the big table. I could see that her hair and eyes were as dark as mine. She had thick eyebrows, wide cheekbones, and a sharp little nose. It was hard not to stare too closely at her face. I asked what kind of shooting she'd done.

“Target shooting with my father and brothers, and a little quail hunting with a shotgun. I never personally hit anything but I ate the quail. Tasty. Better than the ones they buy here.” I liked her voice, too.

“Where was this?”

“California.”

California? I didn't think I'd ever known anyone from California. That explained the accent. “Like we were saying last night, we might want another gun. Are you interested?”

She nodded. “I suppose so, but I haven't touched a gun in a pretty long time.”

“You could practice. Spence has a good collection.”

Mrs. Conway sniffed. “Actually, those are Mr. Pennyweight's guns.”

“He won't be needing them. We do. It'll only take an hour or so.”

“No,” Mrs. Conway said. “Nix has her assigned tasks, breakfast and washing and I don't know what we're going to do about the nursery. I never heard of such a thing, a woman shouldn't be . . .” She banged a skillet into the sink.

“When?” said Connie Nix.

“No, never. She's not going to—”

“Mrs. Conway!” The girl raised her voice and the older woman piped down. “I can handle a gun. If that's what it's going to take to keep little Ethan safe, then Mrs. Pennyweight will want me to do it.”

Mrs. Conway resumed muttering, but her heart wasn't in it.

I turned back to Connie. “When?”

“This evening.”

“Fine,” I said, yawning. “I'm bushed. Come down to the gun room later.”

Upstairs, I stripped off my clothes, pulled the curtains closed, and crawled into bed. I was asleep immediately.

1919

NEW YORK CITY

I probably should have explained that Mother Moon was my aunt or great aunt or something. She always claimed we were related. You see, she was Mother Quinn until she married that Chinaman. At least, that was the story she told after she came back from a trip out west, from either San Francisco or Cleveland, depending on which version she chose. I heard both several times. She brought back an exotically dark-haired baby girl she called her daughter, Fantan Perfect Jasmine Moon, a couple of years older than me. Nobody had actually seen this Chinaman, but if anyone doubted the old gal, they didn't say so to her face. All that happened before I knew her anyway.

My parents came from Ireland, and went straight from immigration to an address they'd been given. It was a building on the south side of Hell's Kitchen. A relative back home had told them that another relative owned a tenement there, and she'd have a place for them. They moved into the building, and that's where I was born. My mother died of tuberculosis when I was too young to understand. Not long after, my father wandered away. The only thing I think I remember is being on the roof with my parents on a bright warm day, and their saying that this was the best place they'd ever found. But chances are that's only something I saw in a movie or made up.

Mother Moon took care of a mob of kids who lived in the building. We usually numbered between six and twenty. Some of us had parents or other relatives. But Mother Moon fed us regularly and provided beds to the ones who needed them. Every morning, she sent us out to school or to work or to steal. She'd made arrangements with Alderman Jimmy Hines's office as well as the local cops. They got a cut of everything we stole and on Election Day, Mother Moon's little street apes could be counted on to help deliver the vote. Hines also steered us toward shopkeepers and stores that weren't being cooperative enough with Tammany. We stole stuff or tore apart those places, depending on what we'd been told to do. In the rare cases when any of us got caught, the alderman contacted the cops and judges on our behalf, and had us sprung. If that didn't work, he'd see to it that we were represented by lawyer Ira Jacobson. We almost never went to court. When we did, the alderman and the counselor made sure that things were speedily settled.

I did well enough selling newspapers for a while. I was better at petty theft, but since I was always small, I got pounded regularly by the bigger boys. I can't tell you how frightened and ashamed I felt after each of those beatings, no matter how trivial, until one night when I came back bleeding, crying, and humiliated, and Mother Moon instructed me in the way of the world.

“You're never going to be the biggest boy in a fight,” she said. “So if there's any way for you to get away, you take it and run. Remember, the last thing you want is a fair fight. Hell, there ain't such a thing. But you are quick, Jimmy. Speed is your gift, so you'll have to learn to use that. Do you understand?”

I didn't really understand but sniffed back those tears and said that I did. I'd figure it out later.

“You can
never
smoke, not ever. Not cigarettes, not cigars, not the weed, nor the dreamy pipe, bless it. Running fast is about all you can do, and smoke will ruin your lungs and your legs. Don't forget it.

“Now, the time will come when you find yourself in situations where you won't be able to run away and then you'll have to battle it out. When that happens, hit first and keep hitting. If you can put a guy on the ground, make sure he stays there. That's where these come into play.” She handed me a set of joined metal rings.

“These are brass knuckles. If they're too big, we'll find another set. We'll also get you a knife. Here, your fingers go in this way. Now, knucks do two things. First, they protect your hand when you hit something hard like a skull. Second, if you hit a guy in the right place, around his eye or in the mouth, they'll draw a lot of blood and that's good in a fight. Scares 'em and then you can run.”

I was a quick study. Soon enough the bigger boys picked easier, slower targets.

But bigger boys weren't the only bullies. Some of them were nuns. I hadn't been in school more than a year before I ran into this goddamn sister who loved nothing better than smacking kids with her goddamn whippy wooden switch. I'm not talking about a little smack on the back of your hands when you were doing something you shouldn't. She'd sneak up behind a kid and hit him right across the arm or the neck for no reason at all. I saw the sick smile on her face when she laid into one of the guys, and you'll never tell me she was just trying to keep her students in place. She liked to hit people, particularly people who were smaller. She did it to me once but I followed Mother Moon's advice and went after her with the knucks. I couldn't reach her face so I didn't draw blood. But I got in some good licks to her stomach and legs. That got me kicked out of school, and ended my formal education.

More or less the same thing happened when Oh Boy talked me into going to Mass, and some priest tried to handle my privates. I got him with the knucks too, but he never said anything to anybody. Those two things probably didn't happen as close together as I remember, but I think of them as one event after the other, and since then I've had no use for the Church.

Instead of school and godly pursuits, I applied myself to work. The shooting gallery was a good idea at first, but after the regular boys went “over there,” most of the mugs refused to admit they needed any practice and so business slowed, which meant I had the place to myself. Mother Moon must have gotten a great deal on ammunition from her guy at the gun shop because she never complained about my using all those bullets. I could never claim to be a gifted marksman, so I practiced and practiced and practiced until I could aim and shoot several different pistols with either hand. From time to time, guys came messing around our building and I shot at them. I know I hit at least three, but I'm mostly sure I didn't kill anybody back then.

I also taught myself the geography of Midtown Manhattan and explored on foot as best I could the different neighborhoods around Hell's Kitchen and learned which ones to avoid, which ones were safe, and which ones you had to pay to use. I figured out that the streets changed literally from day to day. The alley that cut through from Thirty-Third to Thirty-Fourth one morning might be stacked high with trash cans the next. The open sidewalk I dashed down on Thursday could be blocked off and torn apart by Saturday, or covered with ice if the temperature dropped in winter.

On my feet, wearing the right shoes, I was fast, really fast, and the clogged sidewalks and city streets were perfect for someone my size.

Mother Moon soon realized how quickly a boy like me could cover any area, regardless of crowds. And besides being speedy, I was an obedient little squirt, always trying to do what she told me, and learning from what I saw. So she decided I could be more profitable to her in other areas.

One night, she told me we were going to meet someone important and I was to put on special clothes. She settled on my most comfortable pair of dungarees, a white shirt neatly buttoned to the neck, a jacket that wasn't too snug, a cap to tuck my unruly hair under, and my best Keds. She tried to make me put on a nice little tie but gave up when I kept pulling at it.

As we walked the long crosstown blocks, I could tell she was nervous. If I'd known she was nervous for me, I might have shared the feeling. But I had no idea what lay ahead even after we stopped outside Reuben's Deli on Broadway and Seventy-Third. She checked my clothes, roughly rebuttoning my shirt and explaining what to do even though she'd told me three times already. Reuben's was a busy, smoky place. Mother Moon pushed through a crowd of men to a table near the back stairs. And there he was, Arnold Rothstein. I recognized him right away. I didn't know exactly who he was or what he did, but all the older guys spoke his name with genuine respect. To them, Rothstein was simply “The Man.” He wore a black wool suit and bow tie, his boater on the table beside an open paper bag. He had a long, rounded face and nose, a very high forehead, and tiny ears. He was talking to a massively muscled man with a bald bullet head. That was Monk Eastman. I was awed and frightened to see such legendary figures in the flesh.