Blackie returned his uneven gaze to his brother. “You see, Vinny? You don’t have to worry. They don’t even know who the fuck you are.” Then he turned to the bar. “You’re a good egg Gus. A good egg. You put up with me tonight, right Gus? Hold on.” Blackie staggered over and carefully placed several more bills on the wooden counter.
Gus said, “Hey, you don’t have to do that Blackie.”
“I do,” my father said, his head moving slowly up and down. “Sure I do.” Then he steadied himself. “You coulda called a cop. Coulda taken a run at me. But you clocked it right.” When he turned to leave, Benny grabbed hold of his arm, helping him to stay aloft.
“Hey Benny, tell everyone. Tell ‘em we got the world by the tail. Tell ‘em Benny. Tell ‘em about our deal.”
“Shut up,” Benny said, “let’s just get outta here.”
Blackie thought it over, then said, “Right, right, let’s get outta here.” As he made his way to the door again, he reached out and gave my uncle one last little slap on the cheek. “Best fucken brother in the world,” he said, then he and Benny were gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sitting in Benson’s, after Frank and I were done sharing memories of that night at Jonesy’s, he asked the obvious question. “What about you? Blackie ever say anything more about it. After that night I mean.”
I shook my head. “Not a thing.”
“Must’ve been something to it, the way he kept talking about it and Benny kept shutting him up.”
I looked down at the remains of my second drink, wondering where the rest of it had gone. “Good old Benny.”
“This note is telling you to do more than just say hello to good old Benny, eh?” Frank was studying me carefully now.
“I told you what it says.”
He shook his head back and forth, very slowly, as if I’d just told him something really sad. “It’d be a lot better if we were looking at the letter together, know what I mean?”
Oh, I knew exactly what he meant.
I swallowed what remained of my vodka, stood up, reached in my pocket paid the tab. “I’ll give you a call. I’ve got some stuff to take care of in the office.” As I stood there facing him, I realized he hadn’t bothered to sit down yet. I also noticed I was taller than he was, as if it was the first time that ever occurred to me.
“Aren’t we having lunch?”
“Lunch? Damn, I’d love to, really.” I made a big show of looking at my watch. “I’m sorry, Frank. By the time you got here, and after all the family chit chat. I’ve got to get back. You know how it goes.”
He gave me a benign smile, as if to say, “You poor bastard, you ended up a Working Stiff.”
“How long you in town?”
“Another couple of days. You have my number at the hotel now. Call me. Get me a copy of the letter. We’ll figure this out together. It’ll be fun.”
“Sure,” I said. “Fun. So what about Benny?”
“I hear he moved out west. Las Vegas,” Frank said.
Las Vegas. It might have been worth putting up with Frank for half an hour if this was true.
“I don’t have a number yet,” he told me, although this time I thought he was the one lying. “But I’ll get it.”
“I really should give him a call,” I said, trying to make it sound like, what the hell, what else have I got to do with my time?
“Maybe we should go see him. Together.”
“Who? Benny?”
“Yeah. Benny. Who’re we talking about here?”
I knew Benny was not a big Frank fan, but I said, “It’s an idea,” then held out my hand.
Frank gave me one of his toothy smiles, which he followed by slapping my hand away and pulling me into another bear hug. I hugged him back, not because I felt like it, but with his arms around me I couldn’t just stand there like a mope.
“Don’t make me chase you down now,” he said with a smile.
Even his smile didn’t improve the way that sounded. “No,” I told him, then walked out of Benson’s as if I had someplace to be.
Which I did not.
They weren’t expecting me at the office until later in the afternoon, and I was in no mood for work just then. I found a pay phone around the corner from Benson’s and called my cousin Nicky to say the thought of buying him lunch suddenly sounded like an excellent idea.
***
I GOT TO THE CAFÉ ON 57TH STREET just as Nicky arrived. He looked me up and down, checking out the navy blue suit, then reached out and touched the red tie. “What’s with you? Job interview?”
“I had a meeting.”
“Excuse me, big shot.”
“Actually,” I said, “I saw Frank for a drink.”
“You had a drink with Frank and didn’t call me?”
“I didn’t think of it, tell you the truth. We had some business to handle.”
“You had business with Frank? This I gotta hear.”
We decided to sit at the bar—Nicky was short on time—and ordered sandwiches and beers. I told him about the box of papers, my discussion with Frank and why I wanted to find Benny. I also showed him the letter, which I had in my pocket when I met with Frank.
Nicky read it, then started laughing. He said, “What a pisser your father was,” then slapped me on the shoulder as if this was some great big joke I wasn’t getting.
A lot of people thought my father was more entertaining than I did, so I had a gulp of my beer and waited for Nicky to stop laughing. “That’s it?” I asked him. “That’s all you’ve got for me? That my father was a pisser?”
Nicky was nursing his beer. He had to go back to work, but I had decided I didn’t, so I finished mine and called for another.
“You think this is for real?” he asked me.
“You knew Blackie. He was pie in the sky and all that, but he wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing a letter like this if there wasn’t something to it.”
Nicky agreed. “But years have gone by. Anything could’ve happened. Something might’ve even happened before he died.”
“Then he would’ve ripped up the letter. And it’s dated just a month before he died, don’t you think that’s kind of significant?”
Nicky conceded the point. “What about the years since?” He shook his head. “Benny might have the money. Or someone else. And you’ve got two big problems, even if this is for real.”
“Only two?” My new beer came and I took a long pull. After the vodkas at Benson’s and these drafts, I was happy to have only two big problems.
“First, the letter doesn’t have enough decent clues to get you off this barstool and start looking. Unless we’re missing something obvious.”
“We have Benny.”
“What do you mean ‘we,’ paleface?”
“Go on.”
“The second issue is right there in the letter. He’s telling you the money is stolen. That means trouble, right? Maybe with the law, maybe with the guy it was taken from, which would be a whole lot worse, knowing who your father dealt with. Either way, trouble.”
That last thought had occurred to me, but I hadn’t worried about it, at least not yet. I stared at him, opening my eyes as wide as I could. “Fear? Is that what I’m hearing from you? Fear?”
“No bucko. Common sense. You’ve heard of it, I assume. As I say, given the type of people your father hung with, you should consider who the rightful owner might be.”
I took another swallow of the lager. “Let’s go see Benny.”
“In Las Vegas?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Why not? I’m just a little busy at the moment, living my real life. Look, I know this is weird for you after all these years, and you’ve had some drinks, but the expression wild goose chase must still mean something to you.”
Nicky is fond of
trite sayings and overworked quotations. It’s part of his dependable nature. I knew he wouldn’t go to Vegas with me before I asked. Nicky’s not the jump-on-a-plane kind of guy, which was all right just then. He knew me and he knew Blackie, and a dose of reality was what I needed. What I also needed was his take on whether he thought I was losing my mind. So I asked him.
“Of course you’re losing your mind,” he told me. “Who wouldn’t be knocked for a loop, finding a letter like this.” He shook his head as he thought it over. “It might have been different if you had this letter right after he passed away. But the trail is cold now. Remember, time and tide wait for no man, and I’m afraid this boat has sailed.”
See what I mean about Nicky and trite expressions?
I said, “Don’t make me seasick when I’m drinking.”
***
I WAS FEELING PRETTY MELLOW by the time Nicky headed back to work, so I went to the pay phone in the back of the restaurant and called my office, made an excuse about a stomach virus, then returned to my seat at the bar. I stared straight ahead, above the tops of the liquor bottles lined up against the wall, studying my reflection in the antique, cut-glass mirror. I didn’t think I looked drunk yet, at least not from that distance. I decided another drink would be a good idea.
I don’t drink alone in bars very often, but there I was, doing that very thing for the second time in three hours. I looked around for some company—even a casual conversation with a stranger would have been welcome—but at that hour of the day there was no one sitting still long enough for me to start a chat. People were hustling through the tail end of their lunches and clearing out, while the bartender was busy tending to the cash register. Left on my own, I felt I should be doing something other than just sitting there drinking, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out the copy of Blackie’s letter. It only took me an instant to realize I didn’t want to read it again, so I put it away and took out a scrap of paper and my fountain pen. I’m partial to fountain pens, even though they can tend to be a mess. There’s something about the flow of ink onto the page that appeals to me. Maybe it’s the old-fashioned style I like. Anyway, I unscrewed the cap, wiped the nib clean with a paper cocktail napkin, then pressed the piece of paper flat on the counter with the palm of my hand and started making a list.
I enjoy making lists. It helps me create a sense of order when I’m feeling confused. It also helps me remember things I’d otherwise forget. The need to buy new razor blades, for instance, after I’ve been scraping my face with the same one for about a month and a half. It’s the sort of thing I won’t think about after I walk out of the bathroom unless I write it down.
Leaning over the zinc-topped bar I began making a list of anything I could remember needing, trying to look busy in case anyone was wondering why I was sitting there at three in the afternoon, all alone, drinking a beer.
After a while, I got tired of the list, somewhere between toilet paper and silicone spray for a squeaky closet door, so I ordered another draft, got up and went back to the pay phone and called my friend in the phone company. Now that I knew Benny might be in Las Vegas, she might be able to help me track down his number.
She did. It was unlisted and under his wife’s maiden name, which I just happened to remember. She gave it to me.
The phone was against the wall between the doors to the men’s and ladies’ restrooms. Staring at the chrome plate and silvery-square buttons of the telephone, I wondered what it was going to be like to speak with Benny after six years. I tried to script the first few lines, just to give me something to go with if it got awkward, but I was short on clever ideas at the moment. I thought, what the hell, and punched in the numbers.
This was before cell phones were everywhere, and I must have been a little tipsier than I thought, because I got the numbers on my phone card wrong the first time and the call didn’t go through. I tried again, using an operator for assistance, then listened as a phone rang somewhere in Nevada, feeling more nervous than I thought I would. I noticed my hands getting sweaty and considered hanging up, but then someone picked up the phone on the other end and I heard a familiar voice say, “Yeah?”
“Benny,” I said.
“Who wants to know?”
That was classic Benny.
He sounded a little older, although that might have been my imagination, and I found myself trying to picture what he looked like. Pretty much the same, I guessed. Benny always looked the same. I told him who it was and waited for him to say something.
“Jeez, kid, how the heck are you?”
Benny’s not an effusive sort, but he sounded glad to hear from me. I told him I was fine and he asked how my mother and sisters were doing. I told him about everyone, keeping it simple, speaking slowly and trying not to have my words run together where he’d make me out for drunk.
When I got stalled somewhere in the middle of a boring story about my sister, he gave me a reprieve, interrupting long enough to ask why I had picked this afternoon to call after so many years.
I told him about the letter.
He paused for a long time. Then he said, “I’m not talkin’ about no letter from Blackie,” quickly adding, “and I’m definitely not talkin’ about it on the phone.”
“It sure would be good to see you,” I told him.
“It’d be good to see you too, kid, as long as you’re not gonna bug me about any letter from your father.”
“Sure, all right. Maybe I could come by and see you,” I said, trying to make it sound as casual as I could, like I was around the corner or something.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Okay,” I said, and asked him where he lived.
Benny, ever the man of few words, recited his address, said, “Take it easy, kid,” and hung up.
CHAPTER FIVE
So there I was, about to enter my father’s world, dealing with Frank and Benny, stolen money and who knew what else, fulfilling all of my mother’s worst fears.
Or was I?
I was an advertising account exec, which does not do much to prepare you for life’s grand adventures, not to mention its more sinister dangers. I admit that I’ve never had my father’s physical courage, perhaps because the life he led was so unlike mine, or maybe we were just wired differently. Either way, I felt I was about to head down the rapids with no sense of how to maintain a steady course, not even sure I would stay afloat—but what else was I to do?
Added to that was the reality of my financial situation, a euphemistic way of saying that back then I was existing week to week, working hard throughout the year in the hope my year-end bonus would clear up my credit card debt so I could start all over again in January.
A quick trip to Las Vegas was going to be a budget buster, but what choice did I have?
Destiny can really be a bitch.
I passed the next couple of days without speaking to Frank or Benny, or Nicky for that matter. When I wasn’t at work, I spent my time reading through the rest of my father’s papers and short stories, sorting through his photographs and war record, looking for something, anything that might lead me somewhere other than a flight to Las Vegas.
In the end I booked the trip and Saturday morning boarded the flight.
Riding high above the Midwestern plain states, wondering how my father’s old friend was going to react to this whole thing. I knew if I was going to persuade him to play Abel Magwitch to my Pip, there were a few hurdles I had to leap—the fact that my father’s note contained about as much solid information as a glass of water, the six years that had passed since he wrote it and his warning that Benny didn’t want anything to do with it.
It occurred to me, looking out the window as America slipped by beneath me, how odd it was that Benny settled in Nevada. He’s as true a New Yorker as there is, always was, always will be. You wonder about a guy like that, living near the desert, where there’s no co
ld weather or traffic jams to complain about. There’s not even a crowded street where you can double park your car without getting a ticket, just to prove that you have pull with the local cops. And where do you get decent Italian bread?
Nevada. Made no sense to me. Benny doesn’t even play golf.
I rented a car at the airport, followed the lines on the map the agent drew for me and, after a couple of wrong turns, pulled into one of those nondescript planned communities with a thousand small houses that all look pretty much the same, except for the landscaping on their tiny patches of front lawn.
I found Benny’s place and stopped at the curb, watching as he stood there, garden hose in hand, watering some red and yellow flowers. Whatever my doubts had been, it seemed he’d made the adjustment to Southwestern living. He looked healthy, maybe even a bit younger than the last time we met. Typical Benny, though, he was wearing a black, long-sleeved knit shirt, buttoned right up to the neck.
I got out of the car and, when I slammed the door shut, he turned toward me. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there nodding slowly.
I said, “Hi Benny. It’s great to see you.”
“Yeah,” he said, “you too.”
I walked toward him and we shook hands. “Isn’t that shirt a little warm for this climate?”
“What’s the difference?” he answered. “Everything is air conditioned, right? Your car, your house, the restaurants, the casinos. Pretty soon they’ll air condition the friggin’ streets out here.”
He still had that chunky build on a frame that only stood about five and a half feet tall. He had less hair than the last time I saw him, although what remained had taken on a strange, orange-brown color that must have come from a bottle. His dark olive skin managed the sun quite nicely, and his face was still unmistakably a Benny original, not a straight line or sharp angle to be found. His eyes were dark and warm, and it occurred to me that if he gave up his signature scowl he could model for some kind of cuddly bear on a children’s cartoon program.
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