I couldn’t tell if my uncle was being sincere or if he was just trying to save his son’s life, but my cousin heeded the warning. Frank fell back into his chair, between me and our other cousin, Nicky, and things became quiet for the moment. But that was not going to last for long, as my Uncle Vincent and I understood better than the rest.
Blackie loved my cousin Frank, but that wouldn’t stop him from caving his head in if he felt it needed to be done. For now, my father was content to grab his brother around the neck again, good and tight this time, and start kissing him on the forehead.
“You see, Pop?” Blackie said to his father. “You see how Vinny always takes care of me?”
My grandfather nodded slightly—you don’t get to be ninety by wasting a lot of unnecessary energy. He took a sip of his wine and said, “Bene,” although I wasn’t sure if he was commenting on Uncle Vincent’s protective instincts or the taste of the Chianti.
Whatever Pop meant, Blackie took it as license to engage in another full-scale assault on his brother. He grabbed at Vincent’s face with both hands, and I had this image of Moe Howard going at one of the other Stooges with a series of rapid-fire slaps.
Then Vincent, from beneath the barrage, said, “All right, John, that’ll be enough.”
My father drew back slightly, a wounded expression on his dark face. “Vinny,” he said. Then he said it again, “Vinny,” and his hurt look broke into a drunken smile as he slowly reached out, grabbed another handful of my uncle’s face and gave it a good squeeze. “You think this place of yours is a house?” he asked, the smile fading. “I’m gonna have a house where you can put this whole joint in the friggin’ garage. You hear me?”
As the anger rose in my father’s voice, the room went quiet, the other men turning away or staring down at the table.
“What, you don’t believe me?” Blackie asked them. “All I gotta do is snap my fingers and the money is there.”
“Enough,” my uncle said softly.
Blackie turned back to his brother, as if just remembering he was there. “Vincent,” he said, then lunged forward with both arms extended and wrapped my uncle in a vicious headlock.
That was when Frank sprang across the table, screaming, “Get your hands off my father,” managing to reach far enough to land a glancing slap alongside my father’s head.
It was one of those events when time seems to stand still, all of us frozen in place until my father rose from his seat. The table was too large for him to flip over, especially with Frank still stretched across the width of the thing, but Blackie managed to give it a violent shove.
“You miserable little bastard,” he hollered as Nicky and I grabbed Frank’s legs and pulled him back just before my father’s fist came crashing down where my cousin’s head had been.
The liquor bottles and glasses that Frank hadn’t already knocked down went tumbling over, some falling to the floor.
The other men in the room began scrambling to their feet, except Pop. He slowly slid back against the wall, out of the line of fire.
Uncle Vincent said something quietly to my father, then extended a hand as if to help Blackie back into his chair. But my father smacked his hand away.
“What the fuck are you talking to me for? Talk to that piece o’ shit son of yours, cause after I get my hands on him you won’t be talkin’ to him for a long fucken time.”
Blackie did not curse much, not unless he was very drunk or very angry. That night he was both. He climbed past my uncle and began to make his way to where Nicky and I had taken hold of Frank’s ankles. As he came toward us, he stared directly into my eyes.
“Stay the fuck out of this, son, it’s not your fight.”
Recognizing the look, I decided to take his advice.
Meanwhile, Frank wasn’t waiting to see what Nicky and I were going to do next to help his cause. He spun free of our grasp and took off like an Olympic sprinter.
By now the yelling in the dining room brought in the first wave of women to see what was going on. “Blackie, Blackie,” my Aunt Anna intoned over the din as she poked her head in the room. “What wrong, Blackie?”
Blackie wasn’t in the mood for a chat with his sister. He pushed two of the other men aside as if they were mannequins, providing a clear lane out of the dining room. Hot on the trail of my fleeing cousin, he stomped into the living room, where all conversation abruptly came to a halt.
My Aunt Anna’s sons, Richard and Butch, were a couple of strapping young men in their late twenties, and they had the best chance of slowing my father down. They followed him, and were now on his flanks, my Uncle Vincent and I right behind.
My father spun to his left, then his right, searching for his prey. When he saw his brother, he demanded, “Where the hell is he?”
Uncle Vincent calmly said, “Sit down, will you please, John?”
“Sit down? I’ll sit on that little fucker’s head.” Blackie glared at his brother. “You let your kid treat me like that, Vincent? That’s how you raised that rat bastard?” He reached up and tenderly touched the side of his face, as if Frank had gashed him with a grappling hook rather than landing the barest of slaps.
Someone hollered out that Frank had left the house, a few of the women were imploring my father to stop the madness, and I think if everyone had just let him alone he might have headed out the front door and walked it off. But a lot of the other men were also drunk, and a couple of my uncles made the mistake of grabbing Blackie’s arms and suggesting he take it easy.
Taking it easy was not in my father’s repertoire at the moment.
Pulling away from them, Blackie did a neat pirouette and threw a right cross at the biggest guy in the place, Aunt Anna’s son Butch.
The yelling and screaming resumed when everyone realized that two of Butch’s teeth had gone flying across the room.
“My teeth,” the big guy started hollering. “My fucken teeth.” And there, in the midst of all this, my cousin Butch, all six foot something of him, dropped to his hands and knees, crawling around the beige broadloom carpet of the living room floor, blood dripping down his chin, looking for his missing teeth.
Blackie had no intention of helping Butch search for his teeth, instead shoving his way forward and turning for the kitchen. I’m not clear why he went into the kitchen, but the crowd followed him, backing him into a corner, which was not a great idea.
I made an effort to edge my way forward, foolishly thinking that I ought to say something. This had gone too far, and I was his son, after all.
As I neared the front of this mob scene, my uncle Fred stopped me. “Better stay outta this, kid,” he told me. “Leave it to us.”
Realizing how well he knew and loved my father—not to mention my own wealth of experience with Blackie—I backed away to let the elders sort things out.
By now, my father was shouting, “Get the fuck outta here, all o’ you,” but how many of us can turn away from an approaching train wreck? It was apparent no one was going anywhere, so Blackie reached up to the wall rack and pulled down a butcher knife that looked about two feet long. “I’m telling you,” he hollered as he waved it at us, “get the fuck outta here,” and the crowd shrunk away just enough to stay out of range of the blade.
That’s when my Aunt Mary forced her way past everyone and got right in his face.
She said, “Stop this right now, John. Are you out of your mind?” That was one of my Aunt Mary’s favorite expressions, and it was nothing short of remarkable how often she could work it into a conversation. At the moment, it happened to be the perfect fit.
“Stay outta this,” Blackie warned her.
But Aunt Mary was not about to stay out of it. This was her kitchen—with its yellow-flowered wallpaper and avocado green appliances, which were quite the rage in those days—her knife, her daughter’s wedding and her son that Blackie was looking to slice up.
She also had a special relationship with my father. If Vincent was never actually the big brother Blackie pretended he was, Mary had always been one hell of a loyal sister-in-law.
Aunt Mary held out her hand and said, “Give me the knife, John.” The room full of drunken people became quiet as everyone watched Blackie standing there, his weight shifting uncertainly from one leg to the other.
“Stay outta this,” he told her again, but there was less conviction in his voice this time. Not only did he love Mary, but she was a woman, which meant he couldn’t shut her up by dropping the blade and hitting her with a series of left and right combinations.
“I won’t stay out of this,” she announced firmly. “One of my neighbors called the police. They’re going to be here any minute. You hand over that knife, I’ll make some fresh coffee and we’ll sort this whole thing out.”
Fresh coffee? I was surprised my father didn’t burst out laughing.
People were jammed into all three doorways to Aunt Mary’s kitchen—one leading to the dining room, one to the living room and the third to a short flight of stairs down to the family room. My father jerked his head back and forth, like a cornered grizzly bear, assessing his choices, his husky figure framed by the large bay window behind him.
“Get outta my way, Mary,” he growled, although she wasn’t exactly in his way and he hadn’t actually made a move toward her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied with her sweetest smile. “You’re not going to knock down your old sister-in-law, are you?”
Uncle Fred stepped up, standing just behind Aunt Mary. “She’s right, John. Put the knife down and we’ll go inside for a cup of coffee.” When he began to move forward, my father slashed the air with the stainless steel blade.
Uncle Fred jumped back.
“Stay away from me,” Blackie warned him. “And stop with the fucken coffee.”
Brother of the Year, Uncle Vincent, was nowhere to be seen—I’ve always believed he was the one who called the police—so the next to approach my father was the bridegroom, who managed his way through the crowd until he was alongside his brand new mother-in-law.
“Hey, Uncle Blackie,” Ray greeted him as he approached, already three sheets to the wind himself. “Let’s go downstairs and have a drink. Somebody really did call the cops, so we better cool it for a while. Whadda ya say?”
My father was still looking at Mary. “Come on,” she said softly, holding out her hand again.
But this was no time for my father to gracefully retreat. He’d backed himself into a corner, in fact and in form. What was he supposed do, put down the knife and go inside for espresso and a polite chat?
So, when the doorbell rang out front, he made his move. In one wild motion he threw the knife to the floor, wheeled around and, with his hands over his head, went crashing through the glass of the bay window, onto the back lawn and into the darkness of the night.
Ray, not about to miss this sort of adventure just because it was his wedding night, promptly executed a drunken leap through the jagged glass in pursuit of my father.
I was not about to risk getting cut to shreds, but something told me I had better keep an eye on Blackie, so I shoved my way down the stairs, through the family room and out the back door. What you may or may not find surprising was the identity of the fourth man who joined our little party that night. My cousin Frank had been lurking just outside, waiting to see how the drama played out. When my father came flying through the window, followed closely by Ray, Frank hollered “Wait up,” then he and I chased them around to the driveway. As my Aunt Mary would say, we were out of our minds.
Standing in the cold, Frank pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label he had cadged from his father’s liquor cabinet as he ran out. We all had a taste, then started talking—and laughing, if you can believe that.
The important point is that it would be years before I learned of my father’s letter, but looking back I realized that night was the first time I heard Blackie discuss Benny and the stolen treasure, even if he was short on details.
CHAPTER TWO
At this point, a little background on my parents and how I came into possession of the letter would make sense.
They met in the late 1940s, shortly after the war ended. Blackie had returned from three years overseas, determined to write a personal account of his days in Europe and be hailed as the next Hemingway. Unfortunately, his need to earn a living got in the way, and the best job he could find was as a liquor salesman, logging endless miles in a Ford sedan, traveling from one end of New York State to the other hawking the virtues of second-rate whiskey and cheap gin to thankless bartenders and perpetually cash-strapped restaurant owners.
My mother was several years younger, a wannabe model in Manhattan. She could be found most days behind a counter in Lord & Taylor selling ladies lingerie, spending her off hours posing for artsy snapshots in a West Side photographer’s studio. She wore her blond hair long and combed to one side, a peekaboo style fashionable in that era. She longed for the moment when she would be discovered as the next Veronica Lake—when she would become known as Roxy or Cherie or anything other than Harriet—all golden tresses, creamy complexion and a smile that was part virgin, part vamp.
By the time they met, reality had taken a large bite out of their dreams, but love can often fill life’s voids. Harriet saw Blackie as worldly and exciting and just a little bit dangerous. Blackie saw Harriet as young and beautiful and smart, that last quality a throwaway bonus.
It was a cold January afternoon when they tied the knot, my father twenty-seven, my mother not old enough to vote. They found a small tenement apartment in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx, where they barely had time to unpack the dishes and arrange their meager belongings before discovering they were going to become parents.
It was May when they learned she was pregnant, a rough adjustment for my mother who, having just turned twenty-one, was still being weaned from her cover girl aspirations. By Christmas she was nursing a colicky infant with a penchant for boils, ear infections and insufferably long crying jags. It didn’t leave her much opportunity to negotiate the difficult transition into married life, especially since she was shouldering most of the burden alone.
Be assured, Blackie never changed a single diaper.
As my mother negotiated the difficult transition from aspiring ingénue to housewife, Blackie’s career path was taking an unexpected turn.
By all accounts, my father was a good salesman who was simply given a bad choice of products to peddle. Drug addicts generally make bad candidates to run a pharmacy and you never want a sex fiend to oversee your harem. If Blackie had been selling shoes or widgets he might have made a decent show of it. But he was selling liquor, spending his time in the company of barflies and wiseguys, becoming seduced with tales of easy money and good living, all through a haze of companionable drinking. He was introduced to illicit means of supplementing his paltry income—from running numbers to picking up and delivering gambling payoffs. He soon graduated into arranging loans from nameless men who were willing to provide the cash, in exchange for exorbitant interest to be paid by those “broken-downers” that Bankers Trust didn’t want as customers.
Blackie was on the road to becoming a Serious Man.
While my mother didn’t approve of Blackie’s choice of employment, she didn’t have much to say about it. Divorce wasn’t as popular then as it is now, especially for a young woman whose responsibilities had grown—in the four years since I made my entrance, my two sisters arrived on the scene—and whose husband was now reporting income on his federal tax return of about four hundred and fifty dollars a year. As a Serious Man, Blackie’s job as a salesman was long gone, together with any semblance of a regular paycheck. What was Harriet going to do in divorce court? Tell the judge her husband worked for bookies and loan sharks and ask if they could please arrange to hav
e her support payments dropped off?
Added to this was the peculiar fact that my mother really loved him. Some people say that doesn’t mean much when you have no real choices in life, but I kind of believe it’s just the opposite.
No one in my family was going anywhere, and fast.
As for me, I don’t think I was ten years old yet when I realized my father worked for the mob, or whatever it was called in those days, but I’d already seen enough television to put together the bits and pieces I overheard when he was on the telephone or when one of his business associates came to visit. One day, while he was working in his bedroom with one of his confederates, I strolled in and asked them what they were up to.
“Nothing, son. Why don’t you go back inside?”
I stood there, looking at the scraps of paper strewn across my parents’ bedspread. Blackie and the other man were standing side by side, sorting these fragments of information, my father making notes on a pad. “Are you bookmakers?” I inquired politely.
This was apparently the funniest thing my father’s friend had ever heard. Once he started, he couldn’t stop laughing at the notion that some little pipsqueak had “made them,” as the expression goes.
Blackie looked at me solemnly and asked, “What does that mean to you, son? Bookmaking.”
I stared at the bed again and thought it over. I had certainly heard a lot of my father’s jargon, but had no idea what it meant. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Do you make books out of all those pieces of paper?”
Well, if Blackie’s pal thought I was funny before, I was now the second coming of Jerry Lewis. He said, “You got some kid there, Blackie,” and went on roaring. “We better keep an eye on this one.”
God, was I a riot or what?
My father stood up, came over and put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s something like that son,” he said. Then he turned me around and pointed me toward the door. “Why don’t you run along and I’ll explain it to you later.”
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