Shakedown on Hate St

by Matthew Copes

  An immaculate white table cloth and fresh flowers in a glistening crystal vase adorned the table. The boss' three drinks were lined up in front of him the way they always were. Carrot juice and orange juice. Fresh squeezed, not the shit from cans. Espresso, imported from someplace where they still took coffee seriously.

  Gaetano sat patiently. The boss always finished the article he was reading before they got down to business. His reading bifocals were precariously perched at the tip of his nose, his head raised and eyes down like he was studying a germ under a microscope. The waiter appeared with the cappuccino that had started dripping the minute Gaetano walked through the door. Hot and strong, with a uniform foam cloud hovering just over the porcelain cup's white rim.

  “Morning kid. You look like shit. Everything OK?” the boss asked. He still called Gaetano kid. Have a seat kid. What're you drinking kid? Eat breakfast yet kid? What's new with you kid?

  “Fine, thanks. Stayed up late reading last night.”

  “What're you reading?”

  “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It's a tragedy what we did to those Indians. A disgrace.”

  “What'd you expect? Never trust the government. Ever.” He thought for a moment. “But if you're just learning that at your age, you need to have your head checked.”

  Gaetano nodded. The boss folded his newspaper and laid it on the table. He removed his glasses and set them on top, then placed his index fingers in the corners of his eyes. His eyelids fell and a weary sigh escaped from between his parted lips. Gaetano knew he was in a somber and nostalgic mood. He had been for months, like he knew the end was near.

  “Look at me kid,” he said. “I'll be 80 next month. My waist is 44 inches around and my teeth are the color of charcoal and honey. I've got a hook for a nose and I haven't had a decent piece of ass in 15 years.” He sipped his orange juice, deep in thought. “I've been at the helm of this thing of ours for nearly 30 years. Three decades of peace, prosperity, and most importantly, anonymity. Those flamboyant, big-shot jerkoffs in New York and Philly consider us hicks, and Baltimore a backwater. Did you know that? A city of 900,000 a backwater. The nerve. Those pricks gun one another down in the streets, get their pictures on the front of every tabloid rag from Connecticut to California, and appear before so many grand juries that they barely have time take a piss. Know how many times I've had my picture in a paper? None. Know how many times I've been in front of a grand jury? That's right, none.”

  “You did it the right way,” Gaetano said. “This thing was never supposed to be for public to see. Lots of those guys up north are gonna spend their golden years in Lewisburg.”

  “That's right,” the boss said. “I spent a year in prison before my twentieth birthday, and I've never spent another minute on the inside. I never moved out of the old neighborhood either. I hear Big Paul Castellano lives like the King of Siam out there on Staten Island. Makes everybody kiss his hand like he's Julius Caesar. Rumor has it he's been screwing his Honduran maid for years, and he's so pussy-whipped his wife has to live like a second-class citizen in her own home. No humility. Never forget where you came from. Discipline, loyalty and humility. If you remember those three things, the rest will take care of itself. Remember that when I'm pushing daisies,” he said.

  Gaetano said he would. He'd always been loyal. To his boss, and his wife. He'd been a ghost his whole life. He lived and breathed without existing. No document bearing his true identity would ever be found in any government agency's filing cabinet or database. He'd never had a legitimate job or paid a dime in taxes. Even the name on his driver's license was the figment of some master forger's imagination. And he'd lived in the same comfortable but humble house he and his wife had moved into the day they were married.

  “Forget about it,” Gaetano said. “You still got another 20 years in you.”

  “Listen,” the boss said, leaning in, an unmistakable change transforming his face. “There's something I need you to take care of. It's important. There were eight overdoses in the city last week. One nigger dead on the sidewalk not a block from the mayor's office. The needle still in his arm. It's bad for business. The Jew's taking a lot of heat. This is America for Christ's sake, not Africa. People are asking what he's doing about the problem. Important people. We need to relieve him of some of the pressure. He's still our guy.” He paused. “For now.”

  “Understood. He need some good news?”

  “That's why you're so important kid. You can read my mind. At my age just talking is a pain in the ass. Everything I've said, I've said before. A million times.” He sipped his espresso loudly like one of those saliva sucking dentist's tools.

  “I'll take care of it. Piece of cake.”

  “How'd that thing at the island go?” the boss asked.

  “Already taken care of. Photos and everything,” Gaetano said. He always did what was asked of him. No exceptions. No problems.

  “Beautiful. Give me the short version. What'd he do?”

  “Not much. That's the beautiful part. We got that Jew bastard dead-to-nuts and he didn't even get his dick wet. Couple of cute little black housekeepers slipped something into his drink and went back to his place. The Jew passed out, they took their clothes off and fell asleep. In the morning our guy got a beautiful shot of them leaving his room. One of them was still in her panties, one of her pretty little black tits poking out and everything. You should see the look on The Jew's face. Fuckin’ priceless.”

  17

  ON FRIDAY MORNING A blustery wind blew up the bay and slammed into the waterfront like a dump-truck. The glass door to my balcony rattled and popped against the persistent buffeting. I was bundled up and about to walk to the corner store to pick up bread, milk and toilet paper when the phone rang. Something told me to ignore it, and I should’ve trusted my instincts. It was my brother Alan, calling from the city jail to ask if I could send some money to his account at the commissary. Apparently the Department of Correction's caterer wasn't up to snuff.

  “How about I send over some filet mignon and lobster tails too,” I said.

  “Fine. Just fucking forget it,” he said, then was gone.

  And just like that my uneventful and mildly pleasant morning went down the drain. That 18 second phone call unleashed a horde of memories and emotions that had been wonderfully suppressed. I knew a walk and some brisk air would alleviate some of the tension that churned in my core, so I headed out, but my mind wouldn't let it go.

  I thought about what I told La Lena the night we made love. It felt great to unload that bottled-up baggage, but I'd left a few things out. A few sordid things. And, there was a recurring theme there. Not the kind of thing that would endear me to a girl like her.

  First I left out my brother Alan and the drama his life had become. It was just easier. Alan had always been sweet and sensitive, but emotionally fragile and physically weak. When I saw him in jail I realized he hadn't changed. He still longed for acceptance. He was still that same little boy, just trapped inside a larger body. Growing up he'd always been too docile and unmotivated. The pot he started smoking at 14 just made it worse. He was smart, but he lacked focus. Sometimes I just wanted to give him a hard slap in the face to snap him out of his lethargy, but I never did, and it's something I've always regretted. Maybe if I had he wouldn't have ended up where he had.

  I didn't tell La Lena that the loan shark my down-and-out old man borrowed money from back in the day was black either. The ultimate shame for a white man and his family in those days. That the man who left the bouquet and note in the hospital was black too, and that they must've been the ones who'd made his pension disappear, leaving my mother penniless. That resentment goes deep. I never understood how they did it. Black men. Criminals. In 1974? It has always puzzled the hell out of me.

  The last two things I omitted were the doozies.

  The first was something I brought back from Vietnam. A parting gift. An abomination. I wasn't sure what it was called, but whatever the name it made me feel
weak and powerless. The thing reared its ugly head infrequently, but when it did it took control. Stress was usually the catalyst, but occasionally being confined in a small space like a crowded elevator, or coming into contact with filth of the nastiest sort did the trick too.

  Never in a million years would I have gone to see a shrink, but I'd read articles. I wasn't alone. Similar things afflicted lots of vets. It was a skeleton we shared in our collective closet. According to men who'd spent half their lives in college, it was caused by the mind's innate need for order and predictability in a world where little existed. Especially after immersion in a dangerous and traumatic environment where life and death were largely out of one's control. A place just like Vietnam. So how did I compensate? Like most guys. I stuck my dick in as many women as I could, bought new cars, drank excessively, and nearly worked myself to death. Not a complete list mind you, but you get the idea.

  And if all that wasn't enough, there was one last thing. The big one. The whopper. The landmine I'd been trying to cover up for 20 years. A shameful chapter of my life that still caused me anguish. To a girl like La Lena it would be an unforgivable sin. I left it out because I was sure if I told her I'd never see her again.

  I took the roundabout way to the corner store. Half an hour later I scanned the toiletry aisle remembering I needed a new toothbrush. I bought two. Green for me, pink for her.

  18

  “ALMOST DONE. CLOSE your eyes,” Veronica said from behind the bathroom door. The faux enthusiasm had her head throbbing. Her sweaty hand turned the tarnished knob apprehensively.

  “Stop,” he said. “No more.” He couldn't bear seeing her in another trashy outfit. “Get rid of it all. Tomorrow we'll go to Macy's and max out the credit card if we have to.” His voice was firm, but without jealousy or judgment. She rested her forehead against the door and exhaled.

  “Put on the jeans and t-shirt you were wearing earlier,” he said. “You look more beautiful in them than that other crap.”

  At the small porcelain sink she splashed a few handfuls of cool water on her face. When she slipped through the door into the bedroom Gino was hovering over the heap of clothes on the floor between the bed and dresser. Like a cat burglar she crept behind him, slid her arms around his waist and lay her cheek on his back. The comforting wisps of Old Spice, KOOL smoke and polished leather that constituted his essence rushed through her nostrils causing her eyelids to droop under the weight of contentment they produced.

  “If I ever wanna see you in stuff like that, we'll go pick something out together,” he said. “It'll be just for us.”

  He bent, bear hugged the forsaken pile of clothes that had been her working girl regalia and stuffed it into a garbage bag.

  “Say goodbye to yesterday,” he said.

  “Goodbye yesterday. And good riddance,” she said. Her hand waved it away dismissively like it contained toxic medical waste.

  She walked to the window as he descended the creaky wooden stairs. He emerged a moment later. A pale light lit the street. Moths circled nervously around a crooked street light, the sidewalk slick from an evening thunderstorm. Against a telephone pole lay a heap of grimy trash bags and other refuse stacked atop a foundation of sloppy trash cans. He heaved the bag. It traced an arc through the damp air, making impact near the top of the pile, then cascaded down onto the curb over an oily puddle. A pair of pink, net stockings hung limply from a tear in the bag. He looked up. Her form was dark, the contours of her silhouette illuminated from behind by a soft light, enveloping her in an angelic aura. She extended her hands toward him and pressed them flat against the window.

  Later Gino stood in the scalding shower like a granite monolith. Tension oozed from his pores and disappeared down the drain. Veronica moved around in the bedroom, shuffling and knocking. Consolidating the possessions of their merged lives.

  When the hot water heater had surrendered its last sultry drop, he twisted both knobs, choking the flow. Trails of therapeutic sweat streamed down his head and torso. He wrapped a frayed beige bath towel around his waist and opened the door. Veronica lay in bed leering seductively, the sheet pulled up to her chin. The darkness of her nipples and pubic hair penetrated the threads of the cheap fabric.

  “Want to see what's under the covers?” she asked.

  His already active sweat glands shifted into overdrive, as if a switch on some long-dormant diesel generator had been flipped.

  “I'm dying to see what's under the sheets,” he said. “You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.” As the words slipped past his lips his heart instantly wrenched with anguish over a statement he was sure cheapened the memory of the woman who’d been the world to him. The woman who died on the street in Saigon with his child in her womb.

  “But I don't want to rush things,” he continued. “I want our first time to be perfect. We've got all the time in the world.” He ran a hand across his forehead. “And there's something else. I don't ever want you to think of me like those assholes who used to pay you. Promise me whatever happens you'll never think of me that way.”

  She promised.

  He asked if she remembered the dream he had the first night they met.

  She did.

  “When you close your eyes, what do you see?” he asked.

  “The same things,” she said. “But never here. Never in this city. Never in this country. They'll never be my home. I'm sorry, I should've told you. I've been a prisoner here since I was a little girl.”

  She longed to tell him her story. That she first sold herself when she was 14. That it'd been an uncle who'd led her down that path after he'd taken her virginity. That her mother had known all about it, but kept it from her loving but oblivious father. That he, her father, was the only one she ever cared about. That she adored him, and that she'd watched him waste away slowly, month after painful month, the cancer turning his strong body into a shriveled horror. That she'd spent her childhood suffering violations of unimaginable depravity by men three and four times her age. That at 15 she'd watched a toothless junkie die on a squalid mattress with a needle stuck in his groin. That if she stayed in the city she'd die. She wanted to tell him all of it, to scream it at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't.

  To taint his ears which such filth would be unforgivable.

  19

  VERONICA LIT A NEWPORT and gazed up at the wall mounted television behind the fixins' bar. Phil Donahue tore into an obscenely fat woman with his signature righteous indignation. She sobbed frantically and covered her face with her hands. Gelatinous lobes of flesh the size of oranges hung from her arms just above the elbows.

  “What am I a lip reader? Why can't they turn the fucking sound up?” asked Collette. “I'll probably have to take it up the poop chute tonight. Is hearing Phil Donahue's voice too much to ask?”

  Veronica finished her grape soda and poked at the remnants of the greasy bacon-burger they'd just shared. A short Latina with a bad attitude and worse skin cleared their table. A squadron of anxious flies slammed themselves into the smudgy window overlooking the parking lot. Their quest for freedom so like her own. Kindred spirits. One of them, stunned by the impact, tumbled to the table. It vibrated spastically in tight little circles, then expired.

  Veronica's unrest bordered on neurosis. She'd wanted to explain it to Gino, but she just couldn't. It was simple. If she stayed in the city, she'd die. Maybe not physically, but the other kind of death. The slow, emotional kind that's exponentially worse. For Gino, it was enough to be together. For her, it would never be enough. She needed to escape, and she'd do it with or without him. She needed something fast. A five year plan wouldn't do. She was willing to risk it all, even a life immeasurably better than she'd ever dreamt possible. Death and success were her only options. She wouldn't go out the way her father had. A slow, agonizing slide into the abyss. Not a chance.

  The names and faces of all the degenerates she'd crossed paths with pinged into view, ricocheted once or twice then faded into oblivion as
she scrolled through the dusty Rolodex of her mind. They made her feel anxious and unclean. Unworthy of Gino's love. Ugly men with greasy hair, body odor, and sour breath. And their voices. She heard them too. Sick, hollow voices quivering with lust.

  Men, like vampires, who slept during the day, and emerged like cockroaches as the sun set, lurking in shadows, capitalizing on the weakness and misery of others. Men who thrived in the sea of sewage from which Gino had plucked her. The same sea into which she'd now willingly wade.

  One name kept floating to the surface like a buoyant turd. An ex-lawyer turned bookie-slash-drug dealer with a penchant for hand-jobs. He'd been a regular, but they'd never had intercourse. He was a family man and considered sex outside marriage an unforgivable sin. A hand-job however, was just harmless fun. Plus, he told her, they were cheaper and his wife kept close tabs on the money. After she'd taken care of business they'd usually lay around. He'd talk and talk. She'd pretend to give a shit.

  She never knew where the truth ended and the bullshit started. He constantly mentioned all the big-wheels he knew in the underworld. Probably just trying to compensate for his inadequate penis, but one thing stuck in her mind. He always talked about Texas. That's all she remembered from their nights together. Texas. Texas. Texas.

  She hadn't seen him since she met Gino, but Collette had picked up where she left off. Apparently one hand was as good as another. She was amused to hear he hadn't changed a bit. She resisted the urge to gossip, but got caught up in the moment.

  “So Collette, is BB's dick still tiny?” she asked, blushing.

  Collette assured her it hadn't grown a bit. They guessed the reason BB never wanted to fuck had nothing to do with his morals or his wife. He wasn't even married for all they knew. More likely he wanted to save himself the mortification of hearing derogatory but true comments. They couldn't control themselves. Their creative juices were flowing.