Jimmy the Stick (15 page)

“Goddamn, Spence.” I grinned at the big guy. “Where the hell've you been? I went to the parade when your outfit came back. I looked real careful but didn't see you.”

“Yeah, well.” He ducked his head, looking a little sheepish. “I wasn't in that parade. There was this misunderstanding, you know how it is.”

“We heard they'd locked you up. What'd'ya do?”

“It was nothing. It wasn't even me. There was this card game and some money went missing . . .”

“How much did you clear?”

He laughed. “Less than a yard. Damn, it's good to be back. Let's get the hell out of here and get something to eat.” I locked up the automatic and the ammunition, and snuffed out the lamps. Fanny watched carefully as Spence and I left.

Out on the street, I could see that he'd filled out. In the years he'd been gone, he'd grown even taller and more solid through the chest. The unfocused teenager had become sharper, maybe even clever. But he still walked with that long, loping stride, his hands jammed in his coat pockets, and hunched against the cold.

It felt good, really good, just to be walking with my big pal. It made me feel grown-up, now that I was almost ten.

“What are you up to, Jimmy? I heard you been working for Arnold Rothstein. Not bad. Were you in on the Series fix?”

“I did my part. Carried messages back and forth. He told Mother Moon when to place bets so we made some side money too.” Actually, she made a lot of money.

We went to Lindy's, A. R.'s new favorite deli, and had pastrami sandwiches and cheesecake. The waiter knew me, and so he treated us both with more abuse than usual, which was great. Spence was impressed. After we finished, I asked about the war.

He shook his head and said, “I can't tell you how bad it was. First they sent us down to South Carolina where it's hot as hell, and they made us march and train with machine guns, carrying all that goddamn equipment like mules. Then we go to France where the damn cooties give you scabies.”

“Did you kill a bunch of krauts?”

“None that I know of. They had these high-pressure hoses that would spray burning gasoline across the trenches. I didn't get caught in any of them but saw guys who did. And the other gas, the mustard gas, that was worse. I've never seen so many men and animals slaughtered for nothing. I was about the shittiest soldier in the whole goddamn Army. That's why I kept getting busted, but,” he brightened, “one good thing did happen.”

“What's that?”

“I learned how to steal trucks.”

“You did? That's great! I know a guy who'll take 'em off our hands if we can get good ones. Goddamn, let's do it! Right now.”

Spence laughed and said, “Jimmy, you're a pip, you really are.”

We paid and left. On the way to the Bronx, where traffic wasn't so clogged, Spence explained what we wanted to do. Ideally, we'd find a truck fully packed with valuables like cigarettes and tobacco, left idling while the driver chatted with a waitress in a café. We'd hop in and just drive away. Or we'd find trucks making deliveries. A lot of drivers were careless and left keys in the ignition. But, Spence said, Fords were easy enough to start without a key. All we really needed was a minute or so to jigger the ignition, and the balls to do it.

This was the first time I'd been out of Manhattan. We walked down a street of two-story houses and small stores, and passed several trucks before Spence settled on a green Brierley's Grocery delivery job. He said it was a half-ton Ford, and he'd worked on dozens of them. There were two guys in it, a driver and his assistant. We followed for a few blocks until they double-parked in front of a store.

Spence punched me on the arm and said this was it. The two guys opened the back, pulled out a hand truck, and loaded it with boxes. As soon as they were inside the store, Spence sauntered around to the passenger side, then slid over to the driver's seat. I stood by the open door, blocking Spence from the sidewalk. It seemed like he stayed under the steering wheel for an hour. Why was he taking so damn long? What the hell was he doing? Were there cops around? No, don't turn around, I told myself. Not now. No matter who's there, you'd never run out on Spence.

Then he was up, working the pedals and a lever as the engine coughed and caught. I jumped in. Spence signaled with his left hand, pulling smoothly away. I waited for someone to yell behind us, for loud orders to stop. But we drove on across the intersection and became part of the traffic. Several blocks later, I realized I had been holding my breath.

“Now, what do we do with this thing?” Spence asked.

“Go down to the Lower East Side.”

We left the truck in a Ludlow Street lot and walked down Broome to Canal Street. The garage was on the corner, almost under the Williamsburg Bridge. The place looked to be closed but I could see lights through the worn areas of its black-painted windows and could hear the clatter of tools.

I rapped hard on the door and the noise stopped.

A guy opened up a little spy door to snarl, “Whaddayawant?”

“I need to talk to Mr. Lansky.”

“Who's you?”

“Jimmy Quinn.” The little spy door snapped shut.

Spence leaned over and whispered, “Who's Lansky?”

“Meyer Lansky. He works with Mr. Rothstein bootlegging booze. He also likes to work on cars. They say he can juice an engine and outrun anything the cops got.”

“You and the goddamn Jews. I swear, Jimmy,” he clapped me on the shoulder, “if I didn't know better, I'd think you was a hebe. But if you say Lansky is a right guy, that's good enough for me.”

The door opened and a big man in dirty coveralls jerked his head for us to come in. There were about half a dozen cars in the place, most being worked on, and one being cleaned with a high-pressure hose. Lansky wore coveralls and wiped his hands with a rag. Three other guys in ties and shirtsleeves were playing cards at a desk, smoking cigars. I recognized Ben Siegel and Charlie Lucania. Siegel was a big teenager who looked at us suspiciously. Lucky seemed friendlier, with a pockmarked face that lit up when he smiled, and made you want to trust him. He used that smile a lot. The third guy was stocky, with a long weaselly face and weak eyes. He said, “Who's this fuckin' Mick kid?”

Lansky said, “It's OK, Vito. He's a runner for A. R. What's your business, kid?”

“My associate and I have come into possession of a half-ton Ford truck, and we thought you might be interested in taking it off our hands.”

“I might be,” said Lansky. “How much are you asking for this vehicle?”

Spence said $300 and the card players busted out laughing. I elbowed my buddy in the side.

“Tell you what, Mr. Lansky. How about we bring it in and you give us whatever is fair. You tell us what other kinds of trucks—”

“And cars,” Spence interrupted.

“Trucks and cars you might be in the market for, and we'll see what we can do.” We settled on $50 for the grocery truck, but not until the guys playing cards had more laughs at our expense. “We've got a couple of real desperadoes here. . . . How many men did you have to kill to get this fucking thing? Did you have cops on your tail all the way from the Bronx?”

I could tell Spence was steamed, so I turned to Lansky for distraction.

“Tell us what you want. Name a car or truck that you can use and tell us what you'll pay for it.”

The card players laughed even harder. Vito said, “Benny would look good in a Packard Twin Six. Hell, so would I.”

I said, “We'll only steal one. How much?”

Lansky grinned a little, lit a cigarette, and said, “If you can get your hands on a Packard Twin Six, I'll give you a thousand.” The card players laughed even harder. Spence said two thousand and we settled on twelve hundred.

Lansky had one of the other guys give us fifty bucks for the truck. By the time we left, the Brierley's Grocery lettering had been stripped off, with most of the green sides repainted shiny black.

The next day I told Mother Moon what Spence and I had done and gave her $15 out of my share of the truck money. I explained how we'd said we'd boost a Packard Twin Six but weren't sure how to go about it. Fords were everywhere but a Packard was a rich-man's car and a Twin Six was the top of the line. She pocketed the bills, fired up her pipe, and said, “The office where they sell 'em is up on Broadway at Sixty-First. Ought to find a few of them there.”

That afternoon, we walked up to Columbus Circle, right across the street from a Packard dealership. Sure enough, they had the cars. We cased the joint for days without any luck or ideas for stealing such a fancy ride. Then Spence figured out a way.

We had to wait three days for the right guy in the right car. We saw some beautiful Twin Sixes but none of them were right for what Spence had in mind. That one showed up on Friday afternoon. It was about two years old and pretty dirty, with a dented rear fender where the spare tire was supposed to be. The spare was in the backseat. I pulled a big square of white cloth out of my pocket, folded it into a triangle, and tied two corners together. Spence put on his dark glasses, and we were off.

The guy with the dented Packard spent a half hour talking to a salesman, and was none too happy about what he heard. When he finally finished, he drove uptown on Broadway. We followed on the sidewalk until the car stopped at a light.

We approached the vehicle, the two of us being a tall guy in an overcoat and dark glasses carrying a kid in his arms. Spence said, “Sir, please can you help us, it's my son. If you could take us to a hospital.”

I had my arm in a white sling and bawled like a baby.

“Get in.” The man opened the rear door. Spence bundled me in the back next to the spare tire and hurried to the passenger seat, all the while muttering his thank-yous.

As the driver turned south, I pulled the pistol out of my sling and jammed the muzzle under his right ear.

Shrugging out of the overcoat, Spence said, “Pull over to the curb.”

The car stopped and the shaken driver clambered out. Spence made his way around the gearshift to get behind the big wooden steering wheel. For a moment he looked confused, sweat beading his forehead as his hands lay helplessly beside the wheel. Then he grabbed the gearshift knob, shoving the lever toward the dash. The gears grated, and then the guy was back on the running board, grabbing at Spence.

He yelled that we couldn't steal his car in broad daylight and I reached over and smashed him in the nose with the butt of my Detective Special.

Spence got the car in gear and we lurched away from the curb into traffic. But that stubborn son of a bitch held on. I smashed at rigid fingers, and when he still wouldn't let go, I stuck the pistol in his face. I had a fraction of a second to decide if I would pull the trigger on a man who'd done me no harm, and I think I'd actually cocked the pistol when he finally let go. At least, that's the way I remember it.

By then, Spence was pushing the car through traffic, swerving between lanes. I yelled out. “The hat! Put on the hat!”

Spence reached into his chauffeur's coat, and pulled out the matching cap we'd bought from Brill Brothers Uniforms. Maybe it was this obvious little disguise or maybe we'd gotten far enough away, but Spence was able to slow down, and then he looked like a real chauffeur driving an expensive car with a wealthy young brat in the back. We attracted no more attention, either from civilians or cops, as we zipped through Hell's Kitchen and into Chelsea. We stashed the Packard in an alley and called Lansky.

He knocked off $50 for the dented fender.

We busted our buttons that night, happy with the solid wad of bills in our pockets. Mother Moon had never been so glad to see me. She had a wonderful weekend with the pipe at the Sans Souci opium parlor.

But after the initial excitement had faded and I thought back on it, I realized that I was bothered by what we'd done. It was hard for me to figure, because the whole business of stealing cars was so exciting. But the man's frightened face came back to me too easily and too clearly, and I had to understand that I'd been ready to shoot him. But would I have pulled the trigger when it came to that? I couldn't say. It's one thing to steal a grocery truck or to fix the World Series or to bribe a cop who expects to be bribed, but it's another thing to shoot a guy because he has a car that you want.

I puzzled over that one for several years.

FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1932

VALLEY GREEN, NEW JERSEY

After Dr. Cloninger's ambulance took away the ex-Yale assholes, and Cameron and Flora had tottered upstairs, I tried to find Connie Nix. She wasn't in the kitchen or anywhere downstairs, so I figured it was best to leave her alone. It was well after midnight anyway. I returned to the library and Ethan Pennyweight's private reading room, where I got a clean glass and had a tot of brandy.

The ornate lamp cast a warm glow, and the chair sagged comfortably as I sat down to enjoy the drink. I could understand why even a rich guy like Spence's father-in-law would want this little secret place. As I was studying one of his French picture books, a small movement in the shadows distracted me. It sounded like the rats I remembered at Mother Moon's. I tilted the heavy glass lamp and the light revealed another part of the wall, a part that was made of sheet metal. I got up and gave it a tap. It made a hollow sound. A moment later I heard a vibration and then a grinding whir. I was looking at the outside of the dumbwaiter shaft that rose from the kitchen to the first floor and the family's rooms upstairs. We had a larger one like it at the speak, to move stuff from the basement.

I returned to the good brandy, sharp and smooth at the same time, and wondered if Connie Halloran had moved into the Chelsea yet. Probably. Should I call to find out? Probably not. Wait till tomorrow, during the day. Should I call my speak to find out if she was working that night? No, they'd be busy. No sense bothering anybody. But that was an excuse too. I was afraid if I called, I'd find that she wasn't there, and that Frenchy and Marie Therese didn't know where she was.