Jimmy the Stick (19 page)

Still, there was nothing to be done about it, so I went back to the kidnapping news in the papers. A rumrunner had told a guy at a Coast Guard station that he'd heard a baby cry on a dirty white boat with a green stripe. The bishop of New York wanted all churches to have special prayers for the missing Lindbergh boy. So did the president of the school board, and the Companions of the Forest of America. The Changchow Merchants' Guild in Peiping sent a message about all China being shocked. Mrs. Hoover personally ordered a sailor ashore from her yacht to get the latest word about the kidnapping.

When I'd finished with the papers, I'd written
boatswain
,
gleanings
,
dissemination
, and
wainscoting
in my notepad. I looked them up in the big dictionary and found that I'd been right about
gleanings
and
dissemination
, sort of right about
boatswain
, and I still wasn't sure about
wainscoting
.

I was at the dictionary when Catherine Pennyweight came into the library, followed by Connie Nix carrying the woman's grandson, who had half his little fist crammed into his mouth. He seemed to be completely recovered from whatever had upset his stomach that morning.

“Still working on your vocabulary, Mr. Quinn?” Her tone was light, not mocking.

“Just killing time until the next belligerent drunk shows up. Join me in a drink?”

“That's why I'm here. You'll find the good scotch on the bottom shelf.”

Connie Nix put down the boy, cute as a little bug. He burped and crawled across the carpet toward the fireplace. Folding her legs, she sat on the carpet in front of him to block the way, careful about his well-being. Outside, the wind had kicked up, thudding heavily against the house.

“Miss Nix, what'll you have?” I asked.

“Nix is on duty,” said Mrs. Pennyweight.

I ignored her. “You look like a rye and ginger girl, and it's my business to know.”

I mixed the drinks, enjoying Mrs. Pennyweight's irritation. I gave her three fingers of the good scotch from the bottom shelf, mixed a weak ginger ale and rye over cracked ice, and poured another rye for myself.

“We shouldn't have any visitors tonight,” Mrs. Pennyweight said as she took her drink. “Has my daughter come back?”

“Haven't seen her,” I said.

“That girl.” Catherine Pennyweight drank, scowling. “Motherhood changes some women. I thought it would change her. Cameron Rivers is a bad influence. Always was.”

She acted like the big blow-up hadn't happened at all, but I couldn't help but wonder about the timing. As soon as Spence left, Cameron Rivers and the assholes showed up. It might have been a coincidence, or maybe Flora invited them.

“How's the boy?”

“Right as rain. Once again, Ernst has worked a miracle. Now,” she said, “there's something I've got to ask you.”

“OK.”

“I know you've been very close to Walter, and I know that before he married my daughter he asked you to work for him at Pennyweight Petroleum.”

I nodded, not liking where this was going.

“You turned him down. Actually, you never answered him at all. I'm sure he was hurt. Will you tell me why?”

Why? Hell of a question. “How much do you know about what Spence and I used to do?”

Firelight softened the woman's features as she smiled, and I could see how beautiful she'd once been. And how much her daughters resembled their mother.

“I'm sure Walter wouldn't have told me anything that was too incriminating. I know you stole cars and trucks, and transported liquor from rum row. And that you worked with Longy Zwillman, a charming man. I know him socially.”

“Yes, he is, I suppose. He reads books and goes to the opera. I've also seen him beat a man nearly to death with his fists.”

She was neither shocked nor impressed. “Did this man deserve it?”

“He tried to steal from us. He knew what would happen if Longy found out, and Longy found out. Spence and I got to know him through a couple of New York guys in the same racket, Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano.”

Connie Nix asked, “Are they gangsters?”

“Yeah, but not like Al Capone, getting his name in the papers all the time,dressing wild and flashy, or actors in movies, shooting it out with the cops, Charlie and Meyer ain't . . . aren't like that. Charlie has a taste for the limelight, but not Meyer and he's the real boss. They learned from Arnold Rothstein. So did I. Our business is selling booze. We don't shoot cops, we make deals with them whenever we can. Hell, pardon my language, but when we delivered booze for Longy, we had a police escort. There's been times when things got a little out of hand, and people spent some time in jail. But that didn't happen very often. It's not profitable and not good for business.”

The Egg Harbor knockover had changed things. Soon after it, Charlie Lucky became a real man about town and moved into the Waldorf Towers. I started delivering bribes and payoffs for him and Lansky as the work with Rothstein tailed off. A. R. abandoned booze for the heroin and morphine business, which he worked with Chink Sherman.

And after that, I was only with Rothstein for two or three of his famous marathon poker games, and he lost both times, mumbling that the bastards would just have to wait until he was goddamn ready to pay. By then, I was old enough to know how these things worked and understood that A. R. was breaking the rules. But he was still Rothstein, “The Brain,” and he was treated with respect. The guys at Lansky's garage said he was stretched too thin. Two of his men had been arrested with a big shipment of heroin, and he had to make bail. Nobody had ever seen A. R. like that.

“Something else you need to understand is that before I was hurt,” I explained, holding up my cane, “I was the best runner in the city—or courier, if you want to make it sound more legit. I delivered more money and private messages than anyone else. I was never caught or ambushed. Guys chased me, sure. They hit me and shot at me, but they never stopped me or stole my stuff.”

I felt good in that warm library with two women listening as I bragged on myself. I realized I'd better not like it too much or I'd say something I shouldn't.

Working for Meyer and then Longy meant that Spence and I went everywhere, from Long Island to New Jersey, with fine-looking women flocking to us, two successful young gents in sharp suits. We brought them alcohol and we carried guns. OK, the truth is the women flocked to Spence, but he made sure some flocked my way. Spence also gave me rubbers and explained how to use them. “The one good thing I learned overseas,” he said. “There's all kinds of nasty bugs out there. You'd think these society girls wouldn't have anything to do with it but they do.”

But I figured Mrs. Pennyweight and Connie Nix didn't need to know about that part, so I didn't mention it.

Mrs. Pennyweight looked amused. “So you and Walter worked for Mr. Rothstein and Mr. Meyer and Mr. . . . Luciano. Did you do well?”

“Can't complain. But I worked so hard and I got so tired that I didn't get to spend much of what I earned.”

Actually, I still turned over most of everything to Mother Moon. She gave me back what she thought I needed and moved me and Oh Boy into one of the big rooms. She and Fanny also bought us good suits and work clothes from Brooks Brothers and other classy places.

Mrs. Pennyweight said, “Yes, Walter told us much the same. He thought his horizons were too limited and that Prohibition was sure to end. I ask you again, why didn't you take him up on his offer to work for Pennyweight Petroleum?”

I thought for a moment and told half the truth. “I probably should have, but I just couldn't imagine leaving the neighborhood where I grew up. It was the only world I knew. Walter had been to France. He wasn't afraid to go anywhere. When he and I came here that afternoon, he found something he wanted more than what we were doing.”

“And you felt what . . . betrayed?” Her smile was mocking.

“I guess I did. I was still a kid then.”

“Is that all? You were miffed at your old friend and so you turned down a good position?”

How to explain? I poured another drink, knowing it was probably not the right thing to do, and finally said, “I've never told anyone about this, because it's not a good story. I guess it goes back to Arnold Rothstein.

“It was the first Sunday in November, three years ago, in 1928. Around ten, ten thirty that night, I went to Lindy's deli where A. R. conducted his business. He was at his booth in the back, shuffling through a stack of papers and notes. That was the way he worked. He told me to go to the Drake apartment building on Fifty-Sixth. Back then it was a new place. I knew where it was but I'd never been there. A. R. wrote a note, folded it once, and told me to take it to Stanislaw, the doorman. I had to make sure it wasn't Edward the doorman. Stanislaw would give me something to bring back. As I was leaving, he told me that he might have to go out later. If he wasn't there when I got back, I should hang on to whatever I got from Stanislaw and give it to him the next day.”

That kind of thing had happened before, lots of times.

“So off I went, a couple of long blocks east and few blocks north. Stanislaw was on duty. I gave him the note from A. R. He said wait a minute, went inside to his little office, and came back with a sealed envelope. I put it in my inside coat pocket, and went back on Fifty-Sixth the way I came. As I was coming up to Seventh, what did I see but A. R. crossing the street, and going into the service entrance of the Park Central Hotel. I was too far away for him to see me, and anyway, you didn't yell in the street to Mr. Rothstein. Actually, you didn't yell at Mr. Rothstein anywhere. I figured that maybe he knew I'd be coming this way and he'd been waiting for me. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense now, but at the time it did.”

I didn't tell them that this was the same hotel where I listened while Rothstein predicted Prohibition to Meyer Lansky.

“Later I heard that A. R. was at Lindy's when he got a call and told the guys there he was going to the Park Central. He sent his car away and told his bodyguard he wouldn't need protection. Nobody knows why he did that. It doesn't make any sense. And then he walked to the Park Central by himself.

“I went through the service door and took the back stairs. I figured I'd just take a look, see if he was around, maybe in a card game. He was known to play there. I went down the hall on the second floor. Nothing. I went up one more flight and I was in the stairwell when I heard men's voices arguing, and then a shot, a pistol shot close to where I was standing. I pulled open the door just far enough to see another door open slowly, two guys sticking their heads out to check if anybody was around. A second later a third man came out, and they all started down the hall toward me. I ran like hell.”

The first two were Vinnie Coll and Sammy Spats Spatola. I didn't know the third guy by name but I'd seen him playing cards with A. R. and knew he held A. R.'s markers.

I charged down the stairs, hanging on to the metal handrail as I ran. I might have heard footsteps behind me or I might have imagined them. I was never sure about that part. Seconds later, I was back out on Fifty-Sixth Street. Without breaking stride, I turned left and then right, heading downhill on Seventh Avenue.

Later, I'd tell myself that I wasn't running because I was scared. I was getting out because I knew I wasn't supposed to be there. I had no idea if A. R. had been shot. I'd been told to go to Lindy's, and that's what I was doing. But I knew the truth even if I didn't admit it to myself. I was frightened. I panicked and I ran. I was nothing more than a terrified, foolish boy.

Something went wrong as I turned on Seventh Avenue. Maybe my shoe caught against a curb, on a step, or a break in the pavement. Whatever it was, as I twisted, flinging myself around the corner, I felt a sharp pop in my right knee. My leg collapsed, and I crumpled into a useless tangle of flailing limbs.

Nobody had hit me. Nobody pushed me. Nobody touched me. There was nobody to blame but my own damn fool self.

That's what happened. But all I said to Connie Nix and Mrs. Pennyweight was, “When I got to the street, I fell and tore up my knee.”

I don't remember how I managed to get back to Mother Moon's house, only that my knee hurt like hell. I was crying from the pain, and also because I knew I'd done something seriously wrong to myself. Even then, I knew I would never run again.

“About an hour later, they found A. R. in the same stairwell with a bullet in his gut. He died two days after that, and never spoke a word about who shot him.

“Like I said, this all happened on the first Sunday in November. The next Friday or Saturday, your daughter and Spence got married. I still couldn't walk, and by then there had been another death in the family.”

NEW YORK

NOVEMBER 7, 1928

I have never been so goddamn miserable and sorry for myself as I was in the days after A. R. was shot. My knee swelled up like a water balloon and wouldn't support me at all. I was still wallowing in pain and confusion when Fanny and Dr. Ricardo came into my room. The doc looked shaky, like he was overdue for a smoke. Fanny looked serious, but then she almost always did.

I twisted around on the bed, reaching for the crutches Ricardo had sold me.

Fanny said, “She's dead,” and I knew what she meant. Mother Moon had stopped frequenting her opium parlor and had taken to the pipe almost every day in her room. We could tell she wasn't her normal self, even if we didn't really mention it to each other.

Ricardo said, “It was a cancer. You can get a real doctor to check it if you want, but I've seen it before.”

I swung my legs over carefully and sat up using the crutches. The bitterness, self-pity, and anger were as strong as they'd been, and the news of Mother Moon's death did nothing to change that.