“A package of what, Bob? What are we dealing with here?”
Galatina made a face. He didn’t like talking about this, even if it was all a million years ago.
“Narcotics?”
“Could be.”
“Narcotics then. On what scale?”
“Never anything big,” the Don answered. But, then, what would he consider big? “George made a living, that was all. We used him as a courtesy, for old times’ sake. And it was all over by the middle Fifties, when that stuff began to bring in some real money. We weren’t going to cut George Patchmore in on something big. We had our own mouths to feed.”
“And Uncle Leo ran him?”
“Uncle Leo had various business interests, and many friends. George was one.”
“Uncle Leo is dead, Bob. I can’t arrest him, so relax.”
But Robert Henry Galatina merely shrugged his shoulders, as if to suggest, ever so tactfully, that Detective Lieutenant Spolino had rather missed the point.
“Then maybe you can tell me what George Patchmore did that he was extended such ‘courtesy’.”
At first the only answer was another shrug, but then, perhaps, the Don decided he could extend himself so far as to state the obvious.
“George Patchmore did us a service once,” he said. “He helped us solve a little problem.”
And the way he said it meant that he was not prepared to be any more explicit.
“Has the Family been paying the Moonlight’s upkeep all this time, Bob?”
“Could be,” Sonny answered with a smile.
Spolino would have loved to ask why, but he decided to change the subject.
“I’m curious about another of Uncle Leo’s ‘friends,’ Bob. What can you tell me about a guy named Charlie Brush?”
For a moment Galatina’s face was perfectly blank, and then, for just an instant, his eyes tightened in recognition.
“I can’t help you, Tom. I never heard of a Charlie Brush.”
Chapter 11
Well of course he knew the name, the dumb Wop fuck. They can stroke their moustaches all they want and talk like the world’s their bedroom, but the time was when Charlie Brush used to give them the shakes.
But that was before Mr. Tough-guy Sonny Galatina was even in diapers, back when his grand dad was just another hustling greaser with a straight razor in his pocket. In those days, if the Great Enrico would’ve been unlucky enough to run into Charlie Brush alone on a dark night, he’d have shit in his pants.
I was that kind.
But if you want to know about me you shouldn’t bother with the Wops—what do they know about the inside of their back pockets? You should ask George Patchmore. My pal, Georgie. Except that he’s dead as lumber and ain’t talkin’. Me and Georgie, we go way back.
In a way you could say that my life began with Georgie, on the day I first took the New Haven line up to Greenley, with no ambitions except to roll a few tourists and maybe catch a little sunshine on the beach. That was my Chapter of Genesis, Sunday morning, July 12, 1931. I was twenty-five years old.
The train ride cost a quarter in those days, and the conductor told me that if you wanted the beach you had to go three stops beyond Greenley, to what was called Old Greenley, because the beach in Greenley wasn’t sand but rock. Greenley was where the rich guys had their yachts, because it wasn’t worth spit for swimming.
But I got off in Greenley, figuring I could swim later. First off I needed to make some money, and I liked all that talk about yachts. A guy in a bathing suit usually doesn’t carry much of a wad.
That’s what I did back then, heisting. I was already a hard case, with a year in reform school and a two-year stretch on Rikers Island. Sometimes I lived like a swell, with twenty-dollar suits and the best food and pussy money could buy, and sometimes I was sleeping in doorways. If I was lucky, I might knock over two guys a week, but heisting is a crap shoot and the Depression had definitely been very bad for business. I hadn’t hooked into a real high roller for a long time.
I figured if I could make one halfway decent score on one of the rustic locals—all I was looking for was two or three bucks and maybe a watch I could sell to a fence back in town—then it would be worth my time. Besides, I needed a holiday. I wanted to eat ice cream and get sand in my shoes. I wanted to take off my shirt and get brown. If by noon I managed to part some clown’s hair for him, I would have the rest of the day to play Robinson Crusoe.
In my particular social set you weren’t a real man if you didn’t carry a gun, so I carried a gun. It was a .38 police special with the serial numbers filed off that I bought one time for three bucks. I’d only fired it twice, but I wasn’t a bad shot—one guy I hit in the elbow, and the other guy got a hole in his face. Still, the gun was for status and for taking care of chiselers. I didn’t like to use it on a mark. For one thing it was too fuckin’ noisy, and for another men use guns to kill other men, and I just don’t respect any mark enough to put a bullet in him. A blackjack or a knife is good enough for that kind.
In Greenley, the minute you got off the train you knew you were in the sticks. The tracks ran along a little ridge; there was nothing but the station house up there, and you walked down a dirt path to get to the street.
I’m not saying Greenley only had one street, but there seemed to be only one that mattered. Greenley Avenue—or, to the locals, simply “the Avenue”—ran uphill for about a mile, and there were little businesses clustered along either side the whole distance. If you wanted to get your shoes fixed, or go to Mass, or buy a bottle of beer, you went to the Avenue. There didn’t seem to be anyplace else.
But I wasn’t interested in buying anything, and I don’t like sticking up stores. If you do a store, you have to use a gun, and you’d better have your getaway pretty well organized. It wasn’t such a problem in New York, where you could walk to the next block and disappear forever, but Greenley just didn’t look promising. Besides, you knock over a store, any store, even if you don’t hurt a soul, and everybody gets all upset. People think you’re John Dillinger. But you do some guy for his wallet, you can cut his throat and nobody seems to mind—it’s like they think he had it coming.
Besides, it was seven thirty on a Sunday morning and everything was closed.
So I was going to have a look at those yachts. Yachts were rich men’s toys, bought for god knows how much money so they could take their friends out for a little sea air—regular floating whore houses. Rich people had orgies on their yachts. They spent the night on their yachts, in cute little bunks where they could whack their popsies and make the whole boat rock. And at seven thirty on a Sunday morning, they were probably sleeping one off on their yachts. It sounded to me like it might be pretty good pickings.
And I didn’t have far to walk. The Sound is only about a quarter of a mile from the railroad station, and there were four or five big white boats tied up out there. I picked one that was sort of off by itself—what’s the matter, I thought, is the guy shy?—and sat down to watch it for a while, just to make sure nobody was moving around.
“The Princess - Greenley” it said on the back—excuse me, on the stern. I wondered, did yachts have crews? Maybe not when they’re tied up in their home port. This looked to me like a party boat. For one thing, it was so shiny clean.
What the hell, I figured, let’s have a look.
I learned a long time ago that people don’t get suspicious if you don’t act suspicious. The great thing is to look like you own the joint, so I just strolled down the pier and up the gangway. Nobody tried to stop me, but then hardly anybody ever did.
Right away, I knew I’d hit pay dirt. Right there on the deck, in plain sight, was an empty champagne bottle in a silver bucket. Whoever owned this tub didn’t worry about much, not even the cops—hadn’t anybody told him that Prohibition was still the law?
Nobody had bothered to clear up the mess, so it figured there were no servants or crew on board. And anybody that careless deserves to get jacked up. I h
ad to fight hard to keep myself from just picking up the bucket and taking off—back in New York I could get five bucks for it, easy—but I figured I’d look a little conspicuous walking around with a thing like that under my arm and, besides, I smelled fatter game.
Toward the rear there was a set of double doors like you’d see on a saloon. It looked like a way down to the cabin.
When I need to I can move like a cat, so I was quiet on the stairs. But nobody was listening anyway. There was only the one cabin down there, and that was where I found them.
There were two of them, a man and a woman, fast asleep in a bed smaller than the one I had slept in that night—I’ve never understood how swells can spend so much and get so little.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out the situation. There were clothes spread out all over the floor, and another empty bottle of champagne lying wrapped up in the guy’s trousers. He was probably fifty, big and soft, but the woman was a stunner and a good thirty years younger. They were both naked under a single white sheet, and I could watch it rise and fall with their breathing. I was going to enjoy this.
I took out my blackjack and sat down on the other bunk to wait for them to wake up.
The woman was the first. She let her eyes flutter open and looked around at nothing and then, after a little, she saw me. She sat straight up in bed without even thinking to cover herself and, believe me, she had a nice pair of knockers.
She started to say something, but I shook my head and held a finger up to my lips and she took the hint. I was happy about that, because it would have spoiled the fun if I’d had to crack her.
I knew just what kind she was, because even when she got over her surprise she didn’t pull the sheet up. She didn’t care if I got an eyeful. She liked it.
So we waited together, probably about five minutes, while Sugar Daddy snored peacefully on, and pretty soon this funny little smile comes to her lips. She knows I’m ready to do the guy and she’s really enjoying herself, like she’s changed sides without so much as a word—it figures she didn’t have all that much of a time last night. Hell, I could have reached out and made her, right there.
And, God, I was ready. She was really a dish, just about perfect. Fine, whitish-blond hair and skin that seemed to glow from the inside. Even a couple of little-girl dimples when she smiled. A doll’s face. I like women like that, like big children, easy to hurt. Only the eyes told you that this was a lady who had been around some.
So at last the guy began to join the living. You know the way a drunk fat man wakes up, in fits and starts, like he’s pulling himself loose from the mud. He was really repulsive. He deserved this.
So finally he gets a look at me, and you should have seen the way his eyes went wide. He did the circuit from bewildered to scared to pissed off in about five seconds. He pushed himself right up with his arm, so that he reminded me of a walrus basking on a rock. I knew the way he was going to play it—Mr. Irate Citizen, very full of himself. I really loved this guy. He hadn’t noticed the blackjack, of course.
“Does your wife know how you spend your leisure time?” I asked him, real polite, like I was just curious.
He just manages a quick glance at the wedding ring on his finger, like he thought maybe I’d already snatched it, and then, just like I knew he would, he launches into his big angry pitch.
“Now see here, just who do you think you . . .”
“Ah, fuck off,” I said.
That was when I clouted him.
I caught the guy right on the temple. I don’t know whether he felt anything or not, but his face went kind of funny, like somebody ’d just pulled his guts out in one big coil. Then he just sagged forward and went right over, hitting the deck head first. I knew at once I’d killed him.
I can’t blame the blackjack, because I’d used it lots of times. It was a high quality item, heavy black leather with about two pounds of nice, soft lead inside. I must have gotten mad and swung too hard.
I reached down and touched the artery on the side of his throat, and I think I may have felt the absolute last beat of his heart. He was gone.
“Is he okay?” the girl asked.
“Right as rain,” I answered. “But I don’t suppose he’ll think so when he wakes up.”
And she believed me, too. She was that stupid.
“Where’s his wallet?”
“In his pants.”
And that’s where it was, too. I opened it up, and I could hardly believe my eyes—in hundreds and fifties, there was a good seven hundred bucks. It was easy the biggest score I’d ever made in my life.
I also found a gold pocket watch in his vest that was probably worth another hundred. And all the while the girl is watching me, like I’m sitting in front of a steak dinner and she hasn’t eaten in a week.
Back then a high-class whore like that got, what, maybe twenty bucks for the night. I peeled a hundred-dollar bill off the guy’s wad and held it up to her.
“You want to earn this?” I asked her.
“What about him?” She was interested, but she was scared.
“What about him?” I looked down a Sugar Daddy, who was lying on the deck like he’d decided to take a snooze—except that I knew he was never going to wake up. “Listen, if you ain’t here when he comes around, who’s he gonna complain to? You think he wants the whole world to know he takes broads down here? Nothin’ personal.”
“Okay.”
Well, she had me up on that bed and out of my pants before I knew where I was. She was terrific. She sucked me and fucked me and made more noise than a polecat. It was one of the best pieces of ass I ever had, and sure as hell the quickest.
“How long is he gonna be out?” She asked, looking over the edge of the bed at her boyfriend. I was just putting my shoes back on.
“Oh, quite a while yet. Don’t worry.” And then I gave her a nice ratty smile. “What was he like?”
“A pig, a total slobbering pig. Jesus!” She drew her arms around her, as if recoiling even from the memory of his touch. I guess she didn’t much love him. “I’ve had some bad ones in my time, but he was the worst. What’d you hit him with?”
“With this?” I said, and tossed the blackjack in her lap—I was making like I wanted to impress her, but I couldn’t have cared less what she thought. I’ve never cared what any broad thought.
Just like I knew she would, she picked it up. She was really dumb.
“Jesus,” she said. “Do me again.”
So I did, only this time it took a little longer.
And when we were all finished, and she had her clothes back on, I looked at the guy’s watch. It was almost eight thirty. I closed the watch and put it into the girl’s hand.
“A present,” I said, and then I clipped her one right on the ear, where it wouldn’t show. You could tell she felt it by the way her eyes started to glisten—I wanted to give her another, but I didn’t. “That’s just a reminder to keep your mouth shut. Now get out of here.”
So she left, with her hundred bucks and her gold watch, leaving nothing but a nice set of fingerprints on my blackjack. I would have to sacrifice the blackjack, which was a pity, but it couldn’t be helped.
You see, if you want to prosper as a crook you have to learn to make things easy for the cops. They would find the blackjack when they found the body—with just one set of prints, because I’m not careless about stuff like that. The guy’s name was engraved on the inside cover of his watch and, when the girl sold it, it would be traced back to her. And when the cops caught up with her they wouldn’t be interested in any stories she had to tell them about me. They wouldn’t believe her, because they would have their killer. A whore who knocks off her client is nice and tidy. They wouldn’t need me, so I wouldn’t exist.
I gave her about a five-minute head start, and then I got out of there. It was still pretty early, and I didn’t think anybody saw me leave. I didn’t think so.
Well, I had all day ahead of me and, for once, no shortage of ca
sh. I walked up to town and had a second breakfast at a little diner I found open across the street from the train station—in those days I was always hungry after I did somebody, which I guess was probably just nerves. I paid the tab with my own money, because in a place like that people remember having to make change for a fifty. I didn’t want to be remembered.
Then I went back to the train station and caught the next one going north. I was in Old Greenley by nine thirty, on my way to the beach.
It was a long hike, close to a mile, but Jesus it was nice. All those little saltbox houses with the weeping willow trees in their front yards—I’d hardly been out of New York City in ten years, and never to Connecticut, so it was like a different planet. There’s a little cluster of stores right near the railroad station, and they probably depend on the Sunday visitors to stay in business, so I was able to buy an ice cream cone, strawberry, just like I’d promised myself. I ate it while I walked to the beach.
When you live in New York you forget things, like the feel of the sun on your face or what grass looks like. A rat gets used to his sewer; maybe he doesn’t know there’s anything else, but does he like it? I decided on that walk, with the ice cream melting over my fingers faster than I could lick it up, that I didn’t much like New York. It would be much nicer to live someplace out here.
But then there was always the problem of making a living. I’d done pretty well for a morning’s work, but I wasn’t kidding myself I could pull something like that more than once. It’s easier to get caught in the sticks, where you can’t lose yourself in the crowds. I didn’t see any future for a heister out here.
The churches around here must not do a lively business, I figured, because even at ten in the morning there were a lot of people at the beach. I liked that. I like to have crowds around, so I can relax a little. I took my shoes off and rolled up my trouser legs and went wading in the surf.
Some hustler had set up a grill out there and was cooking hamburgers and hotdogs to sell. He also had lemonade. Around noon I had lunch. I would have loved a beer, since there’s nothing like a beer in the hot sun, but of course there wasn’t any so I had to settle for lemonade. That was the law for you. Rich creeps can drink champagne on their yachts, but a poor man can’t have a beer at the beach.
The Moonlight Page 10