by Jack Tunney
Much as he appreciated Father Tim’s offer, and he knew where it was coming from because Father Tim was a man in every sense of the word, Levi knew he couldn’t do it. If he took that job, in twenty years he’d be exactly like Cholly Dougan, living in the basement of St. Vincent’s with books and bottles of booze as his only family.
As much Levi had loved Cholly, Lord have mercy on his soul, Levi sure as hell didn’t love him enough to want to be him.
So, Levi had come to Brooklyn. He’d had enough of the South during his time in the Army, and he wanted no more truck with those parts of these here United States, thank you, sir.
He made his left turn on Tompkins, lost in thought, but not so lost he didn’t snap into a defensive stance as four youths came out of darkened doorways and from behind parked cars where they had been lurking.
You always had to keep one eye and one ear open for trouble in Brooklyn, no matter how hard you were thinking. It didn’t take Levi long to learn if you didn’t look out for yourself in Brooklyn, it would eat you alive and pick its teeth with your bones.
The punks spread out. Teenagers, all of them, barely old enough to wipe their own behinds. The leader snarled, “You know what this is, nigger! We know you won that fight so jus’ go on an’ give it up!” The leader reached in his pocket and pulled out a linoleum knife.
Levi’s lips drew back from his teeth. This wasn’t even going to be a fair fight. He went on the offensive, surprising the leader who recovered, tried to cut Levi with the linoleum knife. Levi’s right hook landed with explosive force on the side of the youth’s head and his partners all heard something in his head break with a meaty pop! And in the frosty harsh light of the streetlamp they saw three teeth go flying, trailing bloody roots.
Levi kicked him away and went after the second one, delivering a blow to that boy’s stomach so hard the boy immediately dropped to his knees and gave up his dinner, lunch, and probably breakfast. The two others had seen more than enough. They broke out of there, splitting up and hauling out in two different directions. Standard stick-up kid loyalty.
Levi was in the mood to play. With wanna-be’s like these punks, a message had to be sent so they’d spread the word. Levi picked his victim and gave chase.
The boy couldn’t even run right. His feet slapped against the pavement so loud he might as well have been wearing wooden clogs. And he kept looking over his shoulder to see where Levi was and how fast he was gaining. Anybody with any sense knew if you’re going to run, then run. If you got caught, then you just got caught. But you couldn’t run and look at the same time. If you were going to look then you might as well stand and fight.
Levi let the boy go half a block for the fun of it before cranking up the speed a couple of notches and seizing him by the neck. He slammed the boy up against a parked Chevy, spun him around so he could get a look at him. “Boy, how old are you?”
“Sixteen! Sixteen! Please, Mr. Levi, I’m sorry!”
Levi dragged the boy further into the light so he could see his face fully. “You know me? And you still tried to jump me? Boy, I coulda killed all’a you if I wasn’t in a good mood.” Levi yanked the boy’s knit cap off his head. “What’s your name?”
“Michael Allen! You know my father!”
“You’re Mikey Allen? Sam Allen’s your daddy?”
“That’s right! We live over on Gates Avenue! You been to our house!”
“What you doing out here on a freezing cold night trying to play stick-up kid?” Levi demanded, but he already knew the answer. Sam Allen had disappeared on a night much like this one last year. Along with three other would-be gangsters who boasted and bragged how they were going to loot this Jew warehouse full of stereos over in Williamsburg.
They drove off in a beat up box truck and from that night to this, they had never been seen again. The way Levi heard the story, Sam’s wife Rose had called the police who sent over two detectives. Once she told them about the proposed heist and where her husband and his cronies had gone, the detectives put away their pads and suggested Rose treat the whole incident as if her husband had run off with some woman.
Levi believed the story because he had heard it from Rose herself the night he had beaten Tommy Thompson after fourteen bloody rounds. Rose had been at the fight and she had looked oh, so, fine in a green semi-transparent lace top with matching chiffon skirt.
Rose told him the story after the fight as they lay in his bed, the sweat on their bodies drying. She was lonely and looking for a man to help her raise three boys. But Levi wasn’t that man. He’d cut off relations with Rose soon after. Levi wondered if Michael knew.
“It was my boy, Streety! He said it didn’t matter how good you were supposed to be, you’d be all wore out after a fight. He said the four of us could take you if we hung together.”
“Yeah, I saw how you all hung together. I bet that other punk is clear on over to Flushing Avenue by now.” Levi let Michael go and stood back. The boy wiped his runny nose with the sleeve of his corduroy coat. “Where’s your momma? Home?”
“Naw. She went out. I waited till she turned the corner then I come out.”
“How’d you know she wasn’t coming back home?”
“I heard her on the phone. She going around with The Duke’s crowd these days.”
The boy needed to say no more on that score.
“You need money, why don’t you get a job?”
Now it appeared Levi wasn’t going to beat him to death, Michael retrieved a bit of nerve. “A job’s for suckers, man.”
Levi gave him a right smart clout upside his head for his answer. “Don’t you talk to me that way. You ain’t grown.”
Michael remembered his place and rubbed the side of his head, standing up straight. “Yessir,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, that you are. You go to school?”
“Sometimes.”
“You go t’morrow. And then after school you come by Napoleon Johnson’s gym. You know where it is?”
“Yessir. My brother, Sly, he go there to workout sometimes on Saturdays.”
Levi nodded. “You come by the gym. You’ll work for me.”
“Doin’ what?”
“Doin’ whatever I tell you to do! Boy, don’t test me. You got me standing out here in the cold trying to do your dumb self a favor an’ you ain’t cooperating. Way I see it, you owe me plenty. But me beating on you wouldn’t teach you nothin’. You need money? Then you work for it. You don’t want the job, we can settle up another way.” Levi cracked his knuckles.
Michael got the point. “I’ll be there, Mr. Levi.”
Levi grunted. “You better. And don’t even think about not coming. Like you said, I been to your house. I know where you live. I got to come looking for you and I’ll give you the beatin’ I shoulda give you already.”
“You won’t have to come look for me, Mr. Levi, I swear!”
“Go on and get outta here then. Go straight on home and stay there.”
The boy took off so quickly Levi could have sworn he left behind a Mikey Allen shaped cloud of dust lingering in the frigid air for a few seconds after he was gone.
Levi sighed and went on to the three-story brownstone where he lived, jogging lightly up the stairs, keys in hand. He opened the door and walked up the three flights to his studio apartment. Levi had specifically looked for a top floor apartment so he had to walk up all those stairs.
His studio apartment suited him just fine. He greatly disliked clutter, so his apartment was a model of bare necessities. He had friends who had apartments packed with junk they didn’t need and rarely used. One thing he appreciated about both St. Vincent’s and the Army, they’d taught him how to be satisfied with very little.
Not that he didn’t want more. Not having grown up with a real family, Levi wanted one of his own, including a wife who wanted kids, as Levi planned on having three or more. A house out in Jersey or Long Island. And he wanted to be his own man more than anything. He touched the rubb
er-banded bills in his pocket.
Once inside his apartment he firmly locked the door. He had drawn the blinds and curtains before he left, so nobody from across the street could see in. Being nosy was practically a neighborhood responsibility in this part of Brooklyn. Levi took off his coat and hat then went over to his bed. The biceps on his arms swelled and writhed as he carefully lifted up the end of his bed, moved it about five feet to the right and set it down quietly. He knelt down to a section of the floor that had been covered by the bed.
He used his pocket knife and pried up a rectangular section of the hardwood floor. Within was a gap. A gap filled with money. Thick wads of money held together by rubber bands. Levi took the money from his pocket and threw it in to join the rest. He counted it about once a month just to make sure he had an accurate count. By his reckoning, he had something like $50,000 in there. Another four, maybe five fights and he would give it up for good. Levi carefully replaced the board and moved the bed back in place.
Nobody knew he had his money there, not even Nappy. Levi supposed he should have kept it in a bank, but he didn’t trust banks. And he knew himself, knew that even though the money would have been perfectly safe, he would lie awake nights worrying. This way was simpler, he knew it was right there at all times.
Not even his landlady had a key to this apartment. He’d changed the lock himself quietly and never told her. He had his suspicions about her after hearing a couple of the building’s other tenants saying they’d come home from work and found doors open inside their apartment they knew they had left closed. Some tenants claimed stuff in their bureau drawers looked as if somebody had been rummaging around in them. The guy on the second floor, who was a bachelor like Levi and lived alone, said from time to time he’d come home and found the toilet seat down.
Levi walked over to the fridge and removed a plate with a couple of raw steaks on it. He started a fire on the stove, threw the steaks in a cast iron skillet and put it on the fire. While the steaks cooked, he took out ice trays from the freezer, dumped the ice into a bucket and took it over to the square folding table where he ate his meals.
On the wall across from his bed stood a waist high wooden bookcase he’d built himself. He selected a battered hardcover copy of Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go, which he’d picked up in his favorite used bookstore on Livingston Street.
He set the book on the table along with a plate, knife and a fork. The bottle of Johnnie Walker joined the book. Levi returned to the stove and seasoned his steaks with garlic, green peppers, and onions. When everything was done, he took the skillet over to the table and forked the steaks onto the plate.
He sat down and ate in silence. After the overwhelming noise of a fight, Levi appreciated a few hours of quiet. He needed the time tonight to think about what he getting into with the Allen boy. After he ate, he took himself a healthy slug of Scotch then opened up his book to read for a bit before bed. He stuck his other hand in the bucket of ice.
ROUND THREE
“What do you mean you hired an assistant?” Nappy Johnson frowned slightly. He sat back in an ancient leather wingback chair that creaked as if it were being tortured. Levi never liked going into Nappy’s office. It was cluttered with file cabinets full of bad smelling yellowed papers Levi knew Nappy only kept for show. Anything worth remembering was in Nappy’s head.
The single office window, looking out over Fulton Street, appeared not to have been washed in years. There were over a dozen photos framed on the back wall, most featuring Nappy and his three dead wives.
This photos Levi didn’t care about. The only one he was interested in, and the only one Nappy would never talk about or explain, was the one of Nappy and Sam Langford on Miami Beach. According to words scrawled in the lower right hand corner, the picture had been taken in 1916.
“What part you didn’t understand? I’m taking on an assistant. Somebody to help me out ‘round here. It’s Sam Allen’s boy, Mikey. You know his daddy?”
Nappy nodded, reached for the stub of an unlit cigar resting on the edge of the desk. “Yeah. Fool was messing ‘round with them Jews last year. An’ ain’t nobody seen hide nor hair of him since. You was layin’ up with his wife for a while, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, for about a minute.”
“That got anything to do with you hiring this boy?”
Levi told him about the attempted stick-up after the fight. Nappy thought it pretty hilarious and took about ten minutes to laugh himself into a coughing fit. Levi got him a paper cup of water from the sink in the bathroom. After getting himself under control, Nappy said, “Still don’t explain why you want to give this boy a job. You feel guilty ‘bout layin’ up with his moms?”
Even though they were good friends, Levi knew he could never make Nappy understand why he was doing this for the boy. Now Father Tim, he’d have understood. And he would have approved.
“Look, Nappy, We both know I ain’t gonna be around here forever. It’s about time I started training somebody how to handle the boilers, do the repairs around here, and everything else. Why not him? He could use the money and learn some responsibility. It’ll keep him off the street and away from them knuckleheads who almost got his tail beat to a crisp last night. Next time, he might try to stick up somebody who’ll cut or shoot him. And then I would feel responsible ... like I had my chance to do something and didn’t take it. If you don’t want to pay the boy, I will.”
“Daggone right, you will. He’s your assistant, so he’s your lookout. I don’t want nunna his friends hangin’ ‘round, and I don’t want to hear a single complaint about him from nobody. You hear me?”
“I hear you. Thanks, Nappy.”
Nappy grunted and hauled himself out of his chair. “When he comin’?”
“Not until this afternoon, after school.”
“What you got planned for today?”
“First of all, I think I’m gonna wash your windows. God knows you’re too damn lazy to do it yourself. How do you see out of that thing?”
“I don’t,” Nappy said briskly. “What I need to see out the window for? I know what Fulton Street look like. C’mon with me for a minnit. I want you to take a look at somebody.”
They left Nappy’s office and stepped out into the gym proper. Located on the top floor of a four story building, Johnson’s Gym was one of the few places where Levi Kimbro felt completely at home.
There was nothing on Earth like the smells and sounds of a gym. Especially when it was filled with boxers busy at training. Even at this early hour there were a dozen men busy working up a sweat, their dark skin shining with the fruit of their exercise. The thump of fists against heavy bags, the odd rhythm of speed bags being properly worked, the harsh slap of medicine balls against bare skin, the profane words of encouragement and instruction being shouted … it all blended into a sensory swirl Levi had always found comforting.
Nappy’s gym had three standard sized boxing rings, all being used. Nappy led Levi to the middle one where two lanky youths banged away at each other with more enthusiasm than skill. Nappy pointed with his cigar stub. “The one on the left is Billy Rico. He’s one’a Duke Williamson’s fighters. New boy he brought up from Florida.”
“Duke’s going to put him in the backrooms?” Even as he asked the question Levi knew the answer. Duke Williamson didn’t have a hand in anything legal. All his fighters were straight-up backroom brawlers. But when it came to Duke Williamson, Levi made it a point to play dumb. Even with Nappy. With men like Duke Williamson it was always safer to play dumb.
“You think he shouldn’t?”
Levi shrugged. “Don’t make me a bit of difference, but I’d put a good fifty more pounds of muscle on him before throwin’ him in a fight. His neck’s a little too long, but if you put somebody good to work with him on that…” A sudden thought struck Levi and he looked at his friend with suspicion. “Nappy ... you ain’t thinking about training this boy, are you?”
“Duke’s made me an offer i
s all. All I’d have to do is train. I wouldn’t be corner man or nothin’ like that. And it wouldn’t have anything’ to do with our deal.”
Levi still didn’t like it. Duke Williamson had approached Levi a couple of times about Levi coming to fight for him and Levi had turned him down cold. He didn’t like this idea at all. But Nappy was a grown man who could look out for himself. Still, Levi couldn’t help but feel this was a situation with more cooking under the lid of the pot than what had originally been put in.
“Who’s the other kid?” Levi asked. This kid actually had some good footwork going for him. He easily slipped the punches Rico threw at him as if Rico were moving in slow motion. Every time Rico missed a punch, the kid made him pay for it by jabbing out a nice little beat on his ribs.
“Dunno much about him. Calls himself T-Bird. Says he works for Duke.”
Levi turned away. He was hearing entirely too much of Duke’s name between last night and today.
“I’m gonna get to work,” Levi said just as a sharp female voice cut through the sounds of the gym like a gunshot.
“Teddy! Get yourself out of there right this instant!”
Levi swiveled his head to look at a woman, so striking and so beautiful, he simply could not take his eyes off her.
She crossed the distance between the entrance of the gym and the ring in three-inch heels. Her sharp precise steps making firecracker sounds on the wood floor. Even with the heels she was still an itty-bitty thing. Fine boned, with brown skin and tight curly ebony hair under a pillbox hat.
“Boy, don’t make me tell you again! Get your tail out of there right now!” The woman whirled on Levi. “Are you the manager here?”
Levi couldn’t say a word. Just grin rather stupidly. He couldn’t help it. This woman was like dynamite given human form. He could swear sparks were flying from her in all directions.
“What is your problem? Can’t you talk? Who’s in charge around here?”