Light of the Diddicoy (13 page)

“So,” Dinny says. “Whadda ya think so far?”

“About what in particular?” I ask cautiously.

“About anythin'.”

The Swede scowls at me, Gilchrist hasn't noticed a thing, and I look back to Vincent.

“He's speechless, Dinny,” Vincent says laughing. “First time he stops talkin' since I met'em.”

“Well,” I struggle. “I'm very grateful. . . . Thankful for how you've helped me so much. . . .”

“No worries, anythin' I can do for ya?”

“For me? I don't think so. You've already done so much.”

“Ya good people,” Dinny says. “We need good people. Good people that can help us.”

“How can I help?”

Dinny smiles, looks passed me to Vincent, then back at me in front of him, “Have ya talked wit' ya fam'ly since ya come over?”

“I haven't, the letters I sent to them had the address of . . .”

“Was ya uncle Joseph's.”

I nod.

“He moved, ya know.”

“Yes, but I don't know . . .”

“Down to Red Hook,” Dinny confirms.

“Oh.”

“Safer for'em down there.”

I don't answer that because I am confused, but only a little. The Swede bends down and mumbles something in Dinny's ear. Dinny nods without looking up at him, then looks to me. “I want ya to know somethin' Liam. Ya ever need anythin', ya come to me. Your mother, your family . . . I can help ya get them here. Done it many times. When the time comes, you ask, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We're like a family here too. Families work together, ya know? I help you, you help me.”

Of course, I am too green and young to understand the gravity of that agreement, so agree I do. I am impressed by Dinny for he is the most powerful man I've yet known, and for as much as he had already helped me, I feel indebted even without him asking a favor. But a favor in New York is not in the same class as a favor back home. And as I look at Dinny Meehan with the Manhattan Bridge reaching across the East River behind him, I am unable to imagine the sheer weight of things just yet.

The city is a vast place, and all its movements confuse me and its loyalties and calculated deceits and underground agreements and entire sects and strains of livelihoods based on an illegal society that gives more to the needy than the legal system has even thought of yet. Beyond the bridge behind Dinny is the misty skyline that seems to fill up every open window in the second floor room, stretching from left to right and just like the angles people have to take in order to survive in the city, the massing of step-stone buildings never seem to stop filling out the distance.

“Ya ever been there?”

“Manhattan? I haven't.”

“I got a friend I gotta visit over there,” he says looking behind him. “Maybe you and me can go see'em. He's a West Side feller, I grew up wit' him. Taught me a lot. Ya come wit'?”

“Okay.”

Dinny looks at me and smiles and the silence feels strange, so I say, “When I first moved here I thought St. Louis was on the other side of the bridges.”

“Yeah?” Dinny smiles, then looks at The Swede. “St. Louis, he says.”

Vincent laughs, but The Swede's face just looks pensive and his forehead wrinkly under the white hairs.

“Eddie,” Dinny calls out. “Give'em his envelope for the day's work.”

“Lumpy!” The Swede yells at a startled Eddie Gilchrist who hadn't heard Dinny.

“Wha?” Gilchrist looks up with his round glasses at the end of his sweaty nose.

“Give the kid 'is envelope.”

Gilchrist looks at me as if he has never seen me before, then stands up and sifts anxiously through the envelopes spread out on his table. He has spent the past two hours preparing them and seems completely surprised when the time comes for him to hand them out.

“Fookin' eejit,” The Swede mumbles under his breath.

“Come stand here,” Dinny motions to me. “I want ya watch this.”

As my envelope is passed over to me at the side of Dinny, he motions to Maher. “Connolly.”

Vincent opens the door as far as the latch allows it and yells down to Tommy Tuohey, “Connolly!”

In a moment a double knock comes.

“Who is it?” Vincent asks the door.

“Connolly.”

Vincent opens the door, looks out, then closes and unlocks it for the entrance of Cinders Connolly and behind him wobbles the stout Philip Large.

“Gimme one o' dem yokes,” Connolly says to Maher, who hands over a cigarette. Cinders then flashes his wide, humble smile, tucks the cigarette behind his ear, and strides across the room reaching over Dinny's desk for a shake. “What's doin', boss?”

“Yep,” Dinny responds.

For me, Connolly is a likable docker. Light brown hair, long on top, cropped on the sides and a sledge-head jawline with a clamp to it. His back and shoulders are long and broad, strong as a weathered Celtic cross. I always find him smiling. They say he came from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an old gang named the Swamp Angels that called the rookeries of Gotham Court their home. Beneath Gotham Court, they made the sewers their hangout and mode of business. Stealing through them to the docks, they pilfered ships in the middle of the night and sold the booty inland at cheap prices, but once the Strong Arm Squad posted snipers, they were out of business. So he came across the bridge where the old ways were kept alive since many of the Manhattan gangs were being broken up by the Strong Arm Squad and all their touts and stoolies. In Manhattan, many of the gangs were being rooted out, and either snitched on one another to save their own skins, or were forced to go legitimate. But in Brooklyn, things mostly stayed the same. Especially in the Bridge District where the silence was kept silent by quiet enforcement, long stares. In Brooklyn, when a man is shot and no one knows why, it is said he broke the silence between the White Hand Gang and the world.

“How goes it wit' ya by the Fulton an' Jay?” Dinny asks Connolly.

“Yeah,” Cinders says, sitting down in the chair in front of the desk while Large sits quietly behind him in another chair. “Things are fine, the day went without a hitch after ya left in the mornin'. Had some Polacks hittin' the vodker half-way t'rough da day, but Philip scared 'em off.”

Eddie Gilchrist again walks up and stands over Dinny's shoulder after dropping three envelopes on the desk in front of him. Dinny then explains “the Divvy,” though it is probably for my own benefit: there is the payment from the shipowner, Connolly, and Large's hourly wage through the stevedoring company, and finally the percentage of the tribute they extracted from each laborer, the ship captain, and the pier house manager. It's up to the dockboss to give his right-hand man what he feels is sufficient and anyone else that helps him during the day is often given a stipend, if not bought drinks on top of it. That includes The Swede for the help he gives and Vincent Maher too, if summoned. The rest of the tribute apparently goes to Dinny and the gang or whatever he does with it is not to my knowledge, of course.

“Anythin' I can do for ya Jimmy?” he asks Cinders.

“All's well boss, thanks.”

After another shaking of hands, Cinders stands up and walks toward the door Vincent has opened for them. Large wobbling behind obediently, staring at the floor. I look up at Vincent who smiles.

“Good job Philip,” Vincent says sarcastically, then pats him on the shoulder.

Philip looks at Vincent's chest dumbly, moans something in the air innocently, and walks through the door.

“Send in Gibney,” Dinny calls out in a scolding tone.

“Tommy! Send in Gibney,” Vincent yells down the stairwell and again with the routine:

The double knock, the “Who is it?” the peering through the chained door, the closing of the door, the undoing of the chain, the opening again, and finally the entrance.

John Gibney is a large man with some girth in his chest and legs. At six foot tall with big shoulders and a powerful lower back and legs, Gibney waltzes in as the perfect specimen of the physical demands of a dockworker. But at his side was a hulk that carries the same build as Gibney, though two inches taller and thicker too. With a full head of black hair, short at the sides, long on top and the voice of a barge horn, Big Dick Morissey is known far and wide as a man who enjoys abusing immigrants as much as he does having good times. The only person that likes good times more than Big Dick is John Gibney, and that's why they call him the Lark.

The bulky pair both wear suits three sizes too small, torn at the seams, and on top of that they smell of stale beer and the sort of sweat that seeps into cheap fabric over a very long period of time. After Gibney and Big Dick shake hands with Dinny, Gibney sends a facetious hello to Gilchrist in the corner, who returns a distrustful sneer.

“Hey Lumpy? Gullet feelin' a little better is it?” Big Dick offers as Gibney giggles silently in front of the desk.

Maher laughs too from his spot by the door and Gilchrist tries to ignore the goons and instead looks at The Swede who then points angrily at the two rascals, “Just so ya's know, there'll be no fartin' in here.”

“No, no,” Gibney gets serious while waving his palms and looking up at Dinny. “I know dat.”

“Thanks for that too,” Gilchrist says under his breath, referring to the prank the two pulled on him by passing horrific wind in the water closet, then locking him in it. “Dis-Gusting.”

Big Dick giggles also, though deeper, while Gibney mentions, “We wouldn't want ya da have da spring for another suit, dere. Dem yokes're expensive, yeah?”

In front of Dinny's desk the two goons whisper to each other and snicker again. Giggling like overgrown children in outgrown attire. When The Swede demands to know what they are laughing for, Gibney the Lark speaks up.

“Garrity?” he says as his cohort giggles, then both look my way, “We was wonderin', Dick and me, since ya from the country an' all,” more giggles. “What's it feel like to stuff ya pud in an unsuspectin' sheep?”

“I don't know the answer to that,” I say, which only succeeds in making them laugh harder and frolic in their chairs until they calm themselves under the patient stare of their boss when finally things are quiet on the second floor.

“What about a cow den?” Big Dick says, overcome with the giggles while Gibney holds his hand over his mouth, laughing through it until Dinny interrupts, “So how goes it at the Baltic Terminal fellers, all's well? What?”

“Sure boss,” Gibney answers, still blushed. “Fine exceptin' that we had to deal with the Reds today and yesterday. Forty t'ousand pounds o' rugs, twenny pounds at a time and they wanna do two men to a rug, fa Chrissake. Big Dick over here laced 'em for bein' so stupit as to assume that's how the gig was gonna shake and then they send a emissary to lobby me, Dinny.” he continues, pointing knowingly to him, “Ya know who I'm talkin' about, Dinny. You know.”

“You can say the man's name here,” Dinny assures.

“Garrity,” Gibney answers looking toward me while Big Dick nods. “Joe Garrity, sorry, kid. He came up all the way from Red Hook just to talk wit' us like some politician'r somethin'.”

“Don' worry, Liam. We'll talk about it, okay? I wanna talk about it later,” Dinny says.

“I ain' even seen no Thos Carmody in weeks,” Gibney continues. “But this Joe? With the accent and the labor lingo? I know ya don' want me to do nothin' to'em, Dinny, but this guy's gotta mouth on'em, and he does!”

“Well,” The Swede speaks up. “Leave it up to me and . . .”

“It ain't,” Dinny flatly states as The Swede leaned against the window with his arms crossed, staring forward.

“Yeah well, other'n that, all's good Dinny,” Gibney leans forward, his right hand leaning on his left leg where only the pinky and ring finger remain.

After the goons get their envelopes and stroll for the door, Gibney kisses his lone left fingers and winks at Lumpy. Morissey laughs and pushes Gibney from behind.

Next was Red Donnelly who stammers in with a guilty look on the gob of his box head. He seems to have a different right-hander each day, sometimes it's Mickey Kane, sometimes Dago Tom, maybe even Chisel MaGuire or sometimes he'll take in Eddie and Freddie, but on this day it is Dance Gillen that sits next to him in front of Dinny.

“How's things in the Navy Yard, Red?”

“Good, Dinny. Good.”

“Ya know, Tim at the Wheeling warehousing units keeps tellin' me that they're missing cargo. Inventory's off. The numbers counted on the ships never match with the numbers in the warehouse.”

“Well, I guess we oughter lend 'em Gilchrist, eh? He'll get it right . . . if they can't.”

Dinny calmly looks over Red's shoulder at Dance Gillen, who doesn't know how to show guilt on his face in any case, though guilt seems to suit the two of them well, like charity does a nun. As far as Red Donnelly is concerned, missing cargo is part of an old tradition. A tradition his father defended, and a tradition he continues as a matter of familial rights. Like a generational trade secret. Like what they call “benefits” nowadays, instead of getting stock options on Wall Street, Donnelly gets booty in the Bridge District.

“I'll make sure my guys keep they hands in pockets, Dinny,” Red gives in. “I'll make 'em act properly like.”

“Alright Red,” Dinny nods. “Eddie, give 'em their shares for the day.”

“Lumpy!” The Swede yelps.

As Red and Dance walk out with Red counting his bills slowly, Dinny looks up to Maher. “Reynolds.”

Maher opens the door and yells to Tommy and after a minute or two comes the knocks, the “Who is it?” the look, the unlock, the close, and the entrance.

Harry Reynolds walks in alone. Looks around the room not too obviously and sits down in front of Dinny's desk quietly, but with a calming confidence.