Tough Luck (6 page)

“I know what you’re saying,” Mickey said. “I really do. Maybe if you just paid off your debt this one time, I could talk to my bookie and—”

“How come you didn’t tell me this before I made my first bet?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t you tell me your bookie makes you keep a low number?”

“I don’t know,” Mickey said. “I mean I—”

“Maybe if you told me, I wouldn’t’ve wasted my time. I would’ve known if I bet any serious money, I wouldn’t be able to get even. The way I look at this, this is your fault. So what do you think we should do about that?”

“I don’t think it’s my fault,” Mickey said.

“So what’re you saying? You saying you think it’s
my
fault?”

“No,” Mickey said, his face burning up. “I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault. I think—”

“Call your bookie,” Angelo said.

“I’d like to, Angelo, but—”

“Will you let me finish? Call your fuckin’ bookie. If the bet loses, I’ll be here tomorrow at noon to pay off my whole figure, clean the slate. If the bet wins, we’ll roll it over to next week. Tell your bookie I want the line in the paper today—Seattle minus three and a half. He has a problem, tell him to call Angelo Santoro from the Colombo family. You think he’ll have a problem with that?”

“I’m not putting your bet in,” Mickey said.

Angelo stared at Mickey for a long time, maybe five seconds.

“Excuse me?” Angelo said.

“I said I’m not putting your bet in,” Mickey said. “I shouldn’t’ve put in your other bets, either.”

“You know who the fuck you’re talking to?” Angelo said.

“Yeah, I know who I’m talking to,” Mickey said.

Angelo grinned. He looked both ways, seeing no one was around, then he punched Mickey in the gut. Mickey keeled over, wheezing, trying to breathe.

“Sorry, did that hurt?” Angelo said, then he punched Mickey again, harder. Angelo said something in Italian Mickey didn’t understand, then he grabbed Mickey by his neck, under his chin, and lifted him up.

“You better watch what you say and who you say it to, unless you wanna wind up in pieces. You disrespect me, you disrespect my whole family, you got that? I said, you got that?”

Mickey couldn’t get the breath to speak, so he just nodded.

“Good,” Angelo said. He looked at his watch then said in a suddenly friendly voice, “I gotta run, kid. Root for the Seahawks tonight, will ya? Hey, and I didn’t forget about those Jets-Giants tickets, neither—I’ll bring ’em for you tomorrow afternoon. You take it easy now.”

Angelo walked calmly up the block and turned the corner.

Mickey straightened up slowly. He felt nauseous and the pain in his stomach wouldn’t stop. Gradually, he could breathe again, but he wasn’t ready to walk. He stood there, holding his stomach, for about a minute, then he went back into the fish store, cursing.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing,” Mickey said. He went behind the counter and tried to get busy cleaning up with a wet rag, but his stomach hurt with every movement.

“Second ago you was all smiles,” Charlie said, “now you actin’ like somebody died. Who is that dude Angelo, anyway?”

“Nobody,” Mickey mumbled.

“What’s that?” Charlie asked.

“Just a guy I know,” Mickey said louder.

“So what’d he want to talk to you about out there?”

“Nothing much,” Mickey said, rubbing the countertop so hard his wrist hurt.

“He give you them Jets-Giants tickets yet?” Charlie asked.

“No,” Mickey said, hoping Charlie would shut up.

“When you get those tickets, I hope you gonna take me with you. New York versus New York. That game’s gonna be the joint, man.”

Mickey brought a couple of pounds of flounder fillets home from work, but he wasn’t hungry and he didn’t feel like cooking for his father. He left the fish in the fridge then he got in his car and drove to Kings Highway. He found a spot at a meter and went up to the bookie joint.

“I hope you got my money,” Artie said to Mickey.

“We gotta talk,” Mickey said.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I’m serious,” Mickey said.

“Look,” Artie said. “I got you a few extra days, that was the best I could do. I’m sorry, no more extensions.”

“I don’t want an extension. Can’t we go somewhere?”

“I just walked in.”

“The hallway at least. Give me two minutes. Just two minutes, I promise.”

Shaking his head, Artie followed Mickey out of the bookie joint. They went down the stairs, outside, and stood under the subway el, by the pizza place.

“You eat yet?” Mickey asked.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Artie said.

“But if you’re hungry, I’ll buy you a slice. Come on.”

“Look, can you tell me what the fuck is going on?” Artie said. “And I don’t want to hear that Angelo isn’t paying up, because I warned you about that before he made his first bet.”

“It’s more complicated now,” Mickey said.

“I’m going back upstairs—”

“Come on, listen to me. I’m in trouble now. Big trouble.”

“Just get me some money,” Artie said. “Five hundred bucks even. We can work on a payment plan for the rest.”

“He wants me to put in more action for him.”

“Forget about it—”

“Please, just hear me out.”

“I don’t care what you say, I’m not putting in any more action for you or Angelo till I start seeing some money.”

“He said we don’t have a choice.”

“We? Who are we now, Fred and Ginger?”

“He said he’s in the Colombo family.”

“It’s not very hard to pretend you’re a wiseguy,” Artie said. “You just gotta watch
The Godfather
a few times, and anybody can do it.”

“I thought about that,” Mickey said, “but it doesn’t make sense. Why would someone just pretend to be in the mob?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” Artie said, “maybe to get some free football bets?”

“Yeah, but why would somebody go to all that trouble,” Mickey said, “coming to the fish store every day, dressing up like a mob guy?”

“Okay, what’s this ‘Angelo’s’ last name?” Artie said. “I’ll ask around, see if I can find out if he’s for real or not.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Mickey said.

“You don’t know his last name, do you?”

“Of course I do—it’s Santoro.”

“Santoro? As in Salvadore Santoro?”

“Who?”

“Salvadore Santoro—Tom Mix. He’s the underboss for the Lucchese family. Don’t you read the papers?”

Now the name Santoro sounded vaguely familiar to Mickey.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Mickey asked.

“You ever think your friend Angelo might’ve lied to you about his name?”

“I guess it’s possible.”

“Possible?” Artie said, smiling. “Angelo told you he’s with the
Colombo
family, not the Lucchese family.”

“So?” Mickey said, “Maybe there’re two Santoros in two different families.”

“Face it,” Artie said, “you got taken for a ride.”

“Fuck you,” Mickey said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Angelo Santoro could be in the mob. Why couldn’t he be?”

“What’re we talking about here, anyway?” Artie said. “You want to believe Angelo’s in the mob, believe he’s in the mob. I thought we were talking about my money?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your money.”

“When, Ginger?”

“Put in this one more bet for me.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“Fuck you.”

“I swear, this is the last time—”

“The answer is no—
NO.
I’m doing this for your own good, Mickey. You know what they say at the OTB—‘Bet with your head, not over it.’ Well, you’re over your head. Way over it.”

“How about you give me the number of another bookie?”

“Do yourself a favor,” Artie said, “quit while you’re behind. Put off school, get a part-time job, work nights, weekends, park cars, answer phones—do whatever you gotta do to straighten this thing out.”

“Thanks,” Mickey said, walking away.

“You got till Wednesday,” Artie called after him. “And don’t do nothing stupid. Whatever you do, don’t put in any more action for this guy. I’m warning you—he’s bad news.”

DRIVING HOME ON Kings Highway, Mickey thought it through both ways. If he didn’t put the bet in and the Seahawks lost, Angelo would still be in the hole to Artie for 1,020 bucks. If he put the bet in and the Seahawks won, Angelo would show up tomorrow, thinking his debt was knocked down to twenty bucks and Mickey would have to make up the thousand-dollar difference to Artie. Either way, Mickey would be fucked, so he decided he had to figure out some way to put in Angelo’s bet. At least then there was a chance Angelo could almost break even.

Mickey pulled over at a phone booth and called Nick, Artie’s boss.

“Hey, Nick, it’s Mickey . . . Mickey Prada. You know, Artie’s friend.”

Mickey hardly knew Nick, and Nick waited a few seconds before he said, “Yeah, right.”

“Sorry to call you, but I couldn’t find Artie by Kings Highway, and I wanted to put a bet in on the football game tonight.”

“What do you want?” Nick asked.

“It’s not me, it’s my friend Angelo. He wants two hundred times Seahawks.”

“Angelo?” Nick said. “Isn’t that the guy Artie said’s still shy?”

“Yeah, but Angelo squared that this afternoon,” Mickey said. “I got the money with me in my pocket, right now.”

“
All
of it?” Nick said.

“Yeah, all of it,” Mickey said.

“Okay, if you say so,” Nick said.

When Mickey opened the front door to his apartment, he smelled cooked fish. He went into the kitchen and saw Sal Prada sitting at the table, eating sautéed flounder and a bowl of spaghetti with tomato sauce, reading a newspaper.

“You cooked by yourself,” Mickey said, surprised.

“Of course I cooked,” Sal said. “Why can’t I cook? There’s more on the stove if you want some.”

Mickey made a plate of spaghetti and fish and ate across from his father at the little two-seat Formica table. They didn’t talk, but at least they weren’t fighting.

After dinner, Mickey went into his room to watch the football game. Mickey rooted for the Seahawks, but it didn’t help. Although they beat the Raiders 17–14, they were laying three and a half points, so Angelo lost his bet by one half point. Now the debt to Artie and Nick was $2,120, and Mickey was suddenly positive he would never see Angelo Santoro again.

6

MICKEY WAS WEIGHING scallops for Mrs. Murphy when Charlie said, “Here comes your friend.”

After another night of almost no sleep, Mickey had been in a stupor all morning, feeling barely alive, but his eyes widened as he turned around suddenly, hoping to see Angelo. But then Mickey saw Chris walking toward the counter, and he let out the deep breath he’d taken.

“Yeah, gimme five pounds of the free shrimp please,” Chris said.

Chris was wearing an “I’M WITH STUPID” T-shirt, with a picture of a finger pointing to the left.

“What’s up?” Mickey said, turning away, closing the container of scallops.

“I got a break at work and thought I’d swing by,” Chris said. “Can’t you slip me some free food?”

“No.”

“Come on, your boss won’t catch you.”

“What do you want?” Mickey snapped.

“
Somebody’s
in a pissy mood,” Chris said. “Wanna come by later and watch some hockey?”

“Not tonight,” Mickey said.

“Why, got a date?”

Chris smiled, as if Mickey having a date was impossible.

Two new customers came into the store. Charlie took one order and Mickey took the other, two pounds of sea bass fillets for Mrs. Demback. As Mickey was cutting the fish, he said to Chris, “I’m kinda busy here.”

“So you gonna come by later or what?”

“I can’t,” Mickey said.

“I hope you’re not still pissed about the other night,” Chris said, “I was just bustin’ chops, having some fun. I was also ripped out of my mind. I don’t even remember how I got home.”

“It has nothing to do with that.”

“You sure? ’Cause I hardly remember anything from that night, except you running out of that car like your dick was on fire.” Chris started laughing. “Come on, you gotta admit that was a fuckin’ riot. When you came out of that car, with that look on your face, and that she-man came after you. I can’t believe you almost fucked that freak show.”

Mrs. Dembeck looked over.

“Oops,” Chris said, covering his mouth. “Sorry.”

“Anything else?” Mickey asked the old woman.

“No, that’ll be all,” she said, still giving Chris a nasty look.

“I’ll call you,” Mickey said to Chris.

“Whatever,” Chris said, “Hey, remember we got bowling Thursday night.”

“Right,” Mickey said, although he’d completely forgotten about it.

“We gotta win or we’re out of the playoffs. So get some rest tonight, will ya? No cruisin’ the West Side for chicks with dicks.”

Laughing loudly, Chris exited. Mickey apologized to Mrs. Dembeck as he rang up her order at the register. After Charlie was through with his customer, he said to Mickey, “Your friend better watch his mouth.”

“Who, Chris?”

“I’m telling you, man,” Charlie said. “Guy like that says the wrong thing to the wrong dude, he winds up gettin’ popped.”

“Chris is Chris,” Mickey said. “That’s just the way he is.”

Mickey continued to serve customers. At two o’clock there was still no sign of Angelo.

“I’m taking lunch,” Mickey said to Charlie.

It was busy—five customers lined up to order.

Charlie said, “Come on, can’t you wait?”

Mickey left the store.

MICKEY CALLED ARTIE from a phone booth on Flatbush and K.

“You stupid fuckin’ piece of shit,” Artie said.

“Relax,” Mickey said.

“Relax?” Artie said. “I get on the phone with Nick this morning, he goes, ‘So Mickey Prada’s friend Angelo lost again last night,’ and I go, ‘Again?’ I swear I almost had a fuckin’ stroke. That’s the thanks I get—gettin’ you a fuckin’ extension. Nick, you should’ve heard what he said about you. He wanted to send somebody after you to collect, but I told him, ‘Lemme take care of it.’ Maybe I did the wrong thing—maybe I should’ve let somebody come over to knock you around—teach you a lesson for going behind my back.”

“I have the money,” Mickey said.

“You better have the money, you dumb fuck,” Artie said. “You better have it today too.”

“You told me Wednesday.”

“
Today.
”

“How about Thursday night? I’ll come by the bookie joint.”

“Do you have the money or don’t you?”

“I have it, I have it.”

“What, don’t tell me your mobster friend came through?”

“Yeah, he did,” Mickey lied.

“You know, I don’t really give a shit,” Artie said. “I just better see you Thursday.”

“Artie, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you too,” Artie said.

WHEN SAL PRADA started acting confused during dinner, talking about Mickey’s mother as if she were still alive, Mickey couldn’t take it anymore.

“She’s dead!” he screamed. “She’s fucking dead, and you’re dead too! You’re a living fucking vegetable!”

Mickey went into his room and locked the door. The room seemed smaller than it ever had before. It felt like there was no air to breathe, either, and there was a musty, stale odor. Mickey opened a window but it hardly helped.

Mickey turned on the TV and turned it right off. He was sick of TV—he was sick of his whole life. He thought about his friends from high school—Robert, Mark, and Steve— who had gone away to college this year. Robert was at Boston College, Mark was at U-Mass, and Steve was at SUNY-Albany. They lived in dorms, with good-looking girls around all the time, and they were busy with school and going to parties and making new friends. Mickey couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live someplace else, in a different city. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have a different room.

When Rhonda came to the phone, Mickey wished he hadn’t called her. By the way she said “Oh, hi,” sounding like she might have forgotten who he was, he knew he’d made a big mistake. But he started talking to her, anyway. It was hard at first, trying to think of things to say, but after a while the conversation became more natural and he even started laughing, having a good time, forgetting he was talking to a girl he hardly knew. He even managed to forget about his trouble with Angelo.

Mickey and Rhonda went on talking about Brooklyn— where they had grown up and what schools they had gone to—and about movies and TV shows. She was a big
Honeymooners
fan. She knew as many lines from the show as Mickey did, and when she did a perfect Alice Cramden, saying, “I call you killer ’cause you slay me,” Mickey didn’t miss a beat, putting on his Ralph Cramden voice, firing back, “And I’m callin’ Bellevue ’cause you’re nuts!” When Mickey looked at the clock, he was surprised to see he had been on the phone with her for over an hour.

“So do you want to go out to dinner Friday night?” Mickey asked.

“I’d love to,” Rhonda said.

He arranged to pick her up at her house at eight o’clock. After he hung up, he was excited for a while, then he thought, Who am I kidding? Rhonda had said that she was a freshman at Brooklyn College, studying English, which had always been Mickey’s worst subject. He hated reading books, except sports books, and in school he’d always read the
Cliff
Notes
instead of the books that were assigned to him. She also said that she lived on East Twenty-third Street, a much nicer neighborhood than where Mickey lived. He knew he would have nothing in common with an English major who probably came from a perfect family. He imagined sitting across from her at the restaurant on Friday with nothing to say. It would probably be the worst night of his life.

BY THURSDAY AFTERNOON, as Mickey expected, Angelo didn’t show up to clear his debt. Now Mickey had no choice—he had to pay off Artie with his own money, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

At the Flatbush Federal Savings Bank on Flatbush and Hillel, Mickey filled out a withdrawal slip for eleven hundred dollars. Even though this was about a thousand dollars less than his debt and he had about another nine hundred in his account, he didn’t want to give away
all
of his money. He figured he would just have to work out a payment plan with Artie for the difference.

Mickey slid his bankbook and the withdrawal slip under the Plexiglas window, feeling like he was being robbed. As he watched the teller count out the hundred-dollar bills, he remembered the day he had opened the account, when he was nine years old. Mickey had won thirty-two dollars at the racetrack the week before, and his father took him to the bank one afternoon to set up a custodial account. After that, whenever he had extra cash he made deposits. He’d spent hours alone in his room, looking through his bankbook, imagining his money growing to one hundred thousand dollars or more someday. But now all the time and energy he had spent saving his money had come to nothing.

Mickey was amazed how half of his life savings fit into a single legal-size envelope. As he headed back to work, walking slowly and dejectedly along Flatbush Avenue, Mickey hoped Angelo was really in the mob. At least then he would know that he hadn’t given away his money for no reason; he would know he’d had no choice.

Charlie had taken the afternoon off work to go visit his cousin at Coney Island Hospital. When Mickey returned to the fish store from the bank, Harry was working up front, serving a customer, some old lady.

“Hey, Big Bird, don’t disappear on me, I gotta talk to you.” Ignoring Harry, Mickey went to the back and put on his apron.

“Hey, where you going?” Harry called after him.

When Mickey returned to the front, the customer was gone.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Harry said.

“Leave me alone,” Mickey said.

“You kiddin’ me?” Harry said. “You talk to me like that again, I don’t give a shit, you’re outta here.”

“How about the way you always talk to me?” Mickey said suddenly.

“What?” Harry said. “What the fuck’re you talking about?”

“Not just today—all the time, every day at this goddamn job, I’m fuckin’ sick of it!”

“You’re so sick of it, there’s the fuckin’ door. You ever fuckin’ curse at me again, you can leave, see if I give a shit!”

Mickey thought about it—walking out, never seeing Harry or reeking of fish again. It seemed like a great idea, until he remembered that he was about to give away his life savings to a bookie and that he couldn’t afford to lose his job.

“I don’t care what you’re sick of,” Harry went on. “I’m your boss and you’re my employee, and if you say anything like that again you’re fuckin’ gone. Got that?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that?”

“Yes,” Mickey said louder.

“Good, and don’t forget it. Now, what I had to say to you, we have a little issue here in the store I wanna talk to you about. You listening to me?”

Mickey stopped what he was doing and looked at Harry.

“Somebody’s been taking from the register,” Harry said. “A little over a hundred was missing one day last week. Yesterday another eighty was gone. I know you’re not doing it and I know I didn’t do it, so that only leaves one person.”

“There has to be a mistake,” Mickey said.

Harry was shaking his head. “Nope, there’s no mistake. This didn’t just happen one time, it happened twice. Charlie didn’t say anything to you about this, did he?”

“I’m telling you, Charlie wouldn’t steal,” Mickey said.

“Well, somebody did. If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you—”

“It wasn’t Charlie, either. There’s no way.”

“I don’t want to believe it myself,” Harry said. “I mean I like the guy, but I guess I should’ve expected it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t gotta have a degree to figure it out,” Harry said. “Charlie comes from a lower-income family, right? He also seems to have a lot of anger in him, singing those rap lyrics all the time, and then with what happened the other night. Maybe he wants to get back at white people, so he stole from me. Look, I’m no shrink—I can’t analyze the guy. All I know is money’s missing from my cash register, and it didn’t just dissolve into thin air.”

“I don’t care what you say,” Mickey said, “I know Charlie, and I know he wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Okay, you’re friends with him, right?” Harry said. “Why don’t you talk to him and see what he has to say for himself?”

“I’m not gonna accuse him,” Mickey said.

“Okay, then I guess I’ll just have to fire him.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why can’t I? It’s not like you gotta be Albert fuckin’ Einstein to clean fish. I’ll put a sign in the window, and high school kids’ll be lining up for his job. . . . Hey, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to can the guy, but I’m not gonna let a thief work for me, either.”

“All right, I’ll ask him,” Mickey said.

“Good,” Harry said. “Now, get back to work, will ya? And if I hear any more shit come outta your mouth, I’m gonna put out
two
help-wanted signs.”

AFTER MICKEY DROPPED off dinner for his father—pepper steak from the Chinese takeout on Nostrand—he drove to the bookie joint and met Artie. They went downstairs to the vestibule and Mickey gave Artie the envelope. Artie complained about the missing $1,020 and he warned Mickey that Nick would charge interest.

“How much juice we talking about?” Mickey asked.

“Dunno,” Artie said, “maybe twenty, thirty percent a week—Nick’s still pretty pissed off. But what do you care? It’s not your money. You should just feel lucky. If Angelo didn’t come through, you coulda got hung out to dry for the whole figure.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said, “that
was
lucky.”

Later, when Mickey arrived at the bowling alley, he realized he had forgotten his bowling ball at home. It was too late to drive back to get it because his team was scheduled to play in five minutes.

“Ah, come on,” Filippo said when he found out. “The guy leaves his ball home for the biggest game of the year. Now we’re gonna lose thanks to that fuckin’ faggot.”

Glaring at Filippo, Mickey said, “It’s no big deal. I’ll find another ball to use.”

“You can borrow mine,” Chris said. “You got the same finger size as me. But I was fingerin’ this girl last night, so it might be a little sticky inside there.”

Chris laughed. Filippo laughed too, squeezing his balls, then he gave Chris a high five.

Mickey sat down, putting on his bowling shoes. Filippo’s girlfriend Donna had come to watch the game. Donna lived around the corner from Mickey, but she was a couple of years younger and he hardly knew her. He used to know Donna’s sister, Connie, though. Connie was Mickey’s age and she was one of the most popular girls in junior high school. She used to go out with all the guidos, and Chris claimed that Connie was the first girl he’d had sex with, when they were in seventh grade. During her sophomore year of high school, Connie got sick, with some kind of cancer, and died about a year later.