Hot-Wired in Brooklyn

by Douglas Dinunzio

  “Uh huh. And I’ll bet they do whatever you tell ’em.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Whenever they tell you to tell ’em.”

  Shork put his empty glass down and challenged me with a testy look.

  “Relax, Joe,” I said. “I’m tryin’ to be on your side.”

  The hardness in his eyes softened suddenly, and a little admiration crept into his voice. “Lombardi… Now I remember yer name. You was in that Santini business a while back.”

  Jimmy Santini was a capo who lived in Gravesend. I’d done him a service and been in his good graces ever since. Everybody in the Mob knew it, including his two homicidal sons, the Barracuda Brothers.

  Shork poured himself another double. I put my hand over my empty glass when he tried to pour me one. “Gotta be at a dance recital at four,” I explained. “Little girls in tutus. One of ’em’s my godchild.”

  Shork nodded approvingly, bumped back the double shot, and I got up to leave.

  “Gonna smash the little prick’s face in when he comes back,” Shork volunteered as I headed for the door.

  “What makes you think he’s gonna come back, Joe?”

  Shork pointed a wobbly finger at a small, rectangular red metal box beside the door. “The little prick’s tools. When he comes back to get ’em, gonna shove ’em up his skinny Polack ass, one at a time.”

  “Remember to get his pants down first, Joe.”

  “Fuckin’ little greasy-haired son-of-a-bitchin’ prick!” he snarled as I closed the door behind me.

  A symphony to my ears.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The Marcus Garvey Elementary School was on Lenox Avenue, a block away from the two-bedroom apartment that Watusi rented on 128th Street. Going into Harlem could be a fatal misadventure for a white man, but I was protected there, too. My patron was an eccentric gang lord known as the King of Africa. I’d solved a problem for him, uncovered a traitor in the process, and had enjoyed the King’s blessing ever since. I could now park my yellow Chevy convertible safely, day or night, on any street within the King’s domain. Even the pigeons left it alone.

  The King wasn’t entirely a criminal. Some of the money from his pimping and numbers operations had started the school that Desiree attended. Watusi and I had no problem with that. It was as good as any Catholic school, and there were no catechism classes.

  Watusi met me outside. At six-foot-seven, he stands out like a stilt walker at a midgets’ convention. He’s strong enough to break a heavyweight like a twig and smart enough to teach the classics at Columbia, if they’d let him. He’s also the perfect gentleman, as long as he’s on your side.

  “Good evening, Eddie,” he said, his diction immaculate as always.

  I reached out to take his extended hand. “Hi, Tooss.”

  “Desiree was concerned that you weren’t coming.”

  “I had some business.” I started to explain about Arnold and the wrecking yard when a stocky, middle-aged colored woman dressed as an usher shooed us toward the door. She winked at Watusi as we went in, and I smiled back for him.

  “That’s Desiree’s teacher,” he said.

  “Looks like she’s got eyes for you.”

  “Don’t encourage her.”

  “It’s okay, Tooss. Women like to look, too. Just don’t reciprocate.”

  That stopped him. “Are you studying vocabulary again?”

  “Intermittently.”

  We took seats at the back of the auditorium. It wasn’t a full house, but the back row suited Watusi’s height. Desiree wasn’t performing in the first dance number, so I railed about Arnold again, starting with the nightmare and ending with Joe Shork and the D.A.’s stolen car.

  “Would you like a new word for your vocabulary list, Eddie?” he asked at the end of my tirade.

  “What?”

  “Obsession.”

  “Obsession?”

  “About this teenager, Arnold.”

  Watusi studied my face. “I see you don’t agree,” he said. “Let me advance my argument further.”

  “Go ahead.”

  But he didn’t continue. The audience applauded the end of the first number, and Desiree and five other chocolate-colored nine-year-olds burst onto the stage. Skittish as spooked cats, caroming off each other like billiard balls, they were more vaudeville slapstick than ballet; but the audience was as attentive as an opening-night crowd at Carnegie Hall. Watusi and I were, too. To dance in the ballet had been her mother’s dream, and now Desiree was just maybe on the way to fulfilling it. She’d bolted on stage with the fixed smile her teacher had prompted; but the more she flew across the boards, the more genuine and easy the smile became. When she finished her solo at the end of the program, the audience was on its feet.

  We met her out front. “Eddie!” she called, ran to me with arms open and crushed me in an embrace. Watusi, standing behind me, beamed down a reserved, paternal smile.

  “Shall we go for ice cream?” he asked.

  It was past nine when we returned to Watusi’s apartment. Less in the Spartan style than his old place, it was decorated mostly with Desiree’s artwork and “A” papers from school. She got dressed for bed, I tucked her in and kissed her, and Watusi read her the myth of Persephone until she fell asleep. Java, the orange cat I’d given her, curled up purring under her chin.

  Watusi and I adjourned to the living room. I helped myself to a beer from the refrigerator, and he picked up where he’d left off about obsession. “Have you ever seen a dog chase its own tail?” he asked.

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “The dog doesn’t know it’s his until he bites it.”

  “And?”

  “And he learns absolutely nothing from the experience.”

  I took a slow swig and gave Watusi a sour look, as if the beer’d gone flat.

  “Are you drawing anything from the analogy, Eddie?” he said in a serious, professor’s voice.

  I cracked an insolent smile. “I was waiting for you to tell me.”

  “Then you don’t object if I do?”

  “I’m all ears, Tooss.”

  “Unlike the dog, you ought to know that the tail you’ve been chasing is your own.”

  “You just lost me.”

  He leaned forward. “Has it occurred to you that the closer you look at this young man Arnold, the more you see yourself as you once were?”

  “And?”

  “And you don’t like what you see.”

  He waited for a response, but I just sipped the beer in chilly silence. Finally, he sat back and I stood up.

  “Gotta go,” I said abruptly, leaving the beer unfinished. He rose and followed me to the door. “I may have to stake out this guy Shork for a while,” I said. “Can I count on you?”

  “Of course, Eddie.”

  “What about leaving Desiree?”

  “There’s a reliable teenager downstairs who can baby-sit.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch.”

  I was closing the door when he stopped me. “And what about Arnold Pulaski?”

  I let go of the doorknob; the door swung back toward him and my gaze turned colder. “You’ve been a real big help about that, Tooss. We won’t even have to tail him once he gets out on bail. If I wanna know what he’s up to, I’ll just look in the mirror.” I walked out without a good-bye.

  I brooded all the way back to Brooklyn. I was in such a dark mood as I neared the bridge that I took the East River Tunnel instead. Arnold the chicken thief, make that car thief, as the young Fast Eddie? Not on your life. I’d had my ups and downs as a teenager, but Arnold as Eddie? Not possible.

  Absolutely not.

  Never.

  The phone was ringing when I walked in. Herm Kowalski was on the line, and he wasn’t happy. “Jesus, Eddie! Do we have to scrape the bottom of the barrel every single goddamn time?!”

  “I sent you to Raymond Street, Herm. Who’d you expect to represent, Francis of Assisi?”

&n
bsp; “Jesus, Eddie!”

  “Okay, okay, tell me what happened.”

  “You really wanna know?”

  “Tell me, Herm. You’ll feel better.”

  “Well, first I go lookin’ for a bail bondsman. That’s two hours wasted right there…”

  “So, bill me, Herm. And?”

  “I wait another hour, the kid’s father shows up, and after he sobs, groans, and begs, we finally get a bail bondsman. The father doesn’t have a whole lotta collateral, so I agree to make up the difference. Judge Hines says that’s okay, and I’m ready to spring the little prick.”

  “And?”

  “And then he takes his goddamn sweet time comin’ out!”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Tellin’ off the guards, makin’ a fuss gettin’ his valuables back, like they’re worth anything…”

  “And?”

  “And when he does finally come out, I start to tell him off for makin’ me and his old man wait, and you know what he says?”

  I could guess.

  Tuck you!’ he says. Then he starts callin’ me names. Shyster, Asshole, One-Eye, you name it!”

  “Polack?”

  “He skipped that one. The little son of a bitch! And after I’d helped bail him out with my own friggin’ money!”

  “Sorry, Herm.”

  “I’m not done yet. Then he starts goin’ on about some guy named Shork. Top of his lungs, screamin’! Made a hell of a scene! Says he’s gonna bash the guy’s brains in! I thought they were gonna re-arrest him for the ruckus he was makin’, but the cops just threw him out! Can you believe it, Eddie? Even the Raymond Street Jail doesn’t want this kid!”

  “Sorry, Herm.”

  “I’m still not done, Eddie! We’re on the sidewalk finally, and I’m tryin’ to explain the conditions of his bail, and he asks, ‘Who the hell sent you?’ So I make a big mistake and tell him you did. And you know what he does?!”

  I didn’t ask.

  “You know what he does, Eddie?!”

  I knew.

  “The little prick spit in my face! And I’m billin’ you for it!”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Ihad the dream again that night. I was back under the Brooklyn Bridge, hanging by my bleeding hands in the early morning cold. The two goons who’d shown up at Shork’s office were there. One of them had Herm Kowalski s face. He was playing Superman’s part, crushing my fingers under heavy, hob-nailed boots. When it was Calamari Breath’s turn to stab me, Herm did that, too, with an eager smile.

  Then Arnold entered, just as before. He leaned over me and whispered, “You poor, dumb, fuckin’ dago. Still haven’t figured it out, have you?”

  “Figured what?”

  “I’m just like you, Lombardi. But I’m better”

  My mouth filled with blood as I cursed him. I felt myself falling again, heard his demonic laugh follow me, and waited once more for the hard impact of the East River.

  The ringing of a telephone woke me. I studied the blurred face of my nightstand clock until the luminous little hand focused into a three and the big hand into a five. I fumbled for the phone in the same muddled moment and picked up. There was cop noise at the other end.

  “Morning, Eddie,” said Nick DeMassio.

  “Uhh.”

  “Good morning, Eddie.”

  I stared at the clock again. It seemed to hover in blackness above the nightstand. “Jesus, Nick, it’s still the middle of the night.”

  “Sorry to wake you, but I figured you’d want to know.”

  “Know?”

  “That guy Shork at Victory Wrecking.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Somebody got more than mad at him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He’s lyin’ on the floor in front of me with the action end of a ball peen hammer through the back of his skull. You wanna look?”

  Somebody popped gum at DeMassio’s end. I sat up. “Where are you?”

  “His office. Victory Wrecking.”

  “Jesus! Be right over.”

  “Make it quick, okay? We’re all gettin’ bored.”

  . . .

  Victory Wrecking was lit up like a hookers’ convention. A half dozen prowl cars were parked outside the yard, their revolving cherry lights washing garish purple over Shork’s dilapidated blue shack. Across the street, red-eyed reporters waited like starving jackals.

  DeMassio’s car was at the curb half a block down. I parked behind him, gave my name to the uniformed cop at the gate, and walked in. The police photographer and the fingerprint guys were packing up their equipment while the meat wagon driver and two attendants played gin on top of a waiting gurney.

  A second uniformed cop stopped me at Shork’s office door and popped his gum in my face. DeMassio called out, “He’s okay.” I blew the cop a mouthful of air, grinned a “Fuck you, too,” and went inside.

  Shork was face down on the floor beside his desk, his head framed by a dark halo of coagulated blood. The hammer that had killed him was still embedded in the back of his bloody skull.

  I nodded DeMassio a quick hello. “Your case?” I asked. “Or is it just fun to look?”

  “My case.”

  “How long’s he been dead?”

  “Since ten, or thereabouts. Night watchman found him.”

  “How come he’s still decorated?” I was looking at the hammer.

  “It’s wedged in between a coupla pieces of skull. Coroner doesn’t want to fool with it here. He’ll wait till he gets to the morgue.”

  “Took a lot offeree to drive it in that deep.”

  “A lotta anger, too.” He stared expectantly at me. A smile should’ve come to my lips, considering what we were both thinking, but it didn’t. Instead, a full squadron of moths fluttered in my stomach.

  “Arnold?”

  “Who the hell else?” said DeMassio.

  My eyes drifted to the rectangular red metal box behind the open door. DeMassio watched me look. “Kid’s hammer, too,” he added. “Name’s stenciled on the toolbox. Know anything about it?”

  “I was here yesterday afternoon. Shork said he was gonna ram that box of tools up Arnold’s ass. Too bad he won’t get the chance.”

  “We picked the kid up a couple of hours ago. At home. You know what he told the arresting officer? ‘Stupid fuckin’ mick. Served him right.’ When he heard his own hammer was the murder weapon, he just laughed. He laughed all the way back to Raymond Street. That’s where he is now.”

  “Kid offer an alibi?”

  “Yeah. A humdinger. Said he’d been ‘out,’ and this right after his old man swore he’d been home, in his room, ‘playing Monopoly.’”

  “By himself?”

  “They don’t even own the game.”

  I leaned over the body for a closer inspection. There was fingerprint powder on the handle of the hammer, and plenty of prints. Most were smudged, especially low on the grip, but there were enough partials and even one or two higher up that were close to pristine.

  “Wanna guess whose?” asked DeMassio.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Kid uses his own hammer, doesn’t even wipe the prints. Pretty stupid if you ask me.”

  “Pretty stupid,” I echoed. I studied Shork again and walked behind his body to the desk. The wide top drawer was open. Except for a few pencils, scraps of note paper, and a ruler, it was empty. He’d either just opened it or was ready to close it when he got hit from behind. He’d turned his back, carelessly, on his murderer, as if getting a ball peen hammer in the brain were the last thing he’d expected.

  “You wanna see anything else?”

  “Naah,” I said. “Haul him away.”

  I followed DeMassio outside as the attendants rolled the gurney in.

  “Well?” he asked finally.

  “Well what?”

  “Is this your case? Or is it just fun to look?”

  My heart and my head weren’t in sync, so I couldn’t give him an answer. I couldn�
�t even give myself one.

  “Well? What’s the situation, Eddie?”

  “I don’t know yet, Nick. Honest to God.”

  “Kid’s a lost cause. Open and shut case.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Should be.”

  We walked back to our cars, DeMassio’s face moving through a series of slow contortions, like something was puzzling him. I had the same feeling, but I was managing not to show it.

  “What is it, Nick?”

  “One thing I can’t figure. The kid’s facin’ a murder charge, he practically signs his name to it, and he’s laughin’ when he’s picked up.”

  “You don’t know Arnold,” I cracked. But even to me the words sounded empty. The smile of certainty I’d planted on my face wasn’t convincing either, but DeMassio was too cold and bored to see through it.

  “The little bastard can’t be that stupid,” I said under the hard cranking of DeMassio’s engine.

  The wind gusted as DeMassio drove away. Then, just as suddenly, the air became as still and soundless as the inside of a bell jar. The laughter that rang in my ears was from inside my own head. My chest tightened, the sound of Arnold’s mockery grew bolder and more cruel, and the squadron of moths in my stomach found new wings.

  CHAPTER

  8

  I got back home around five-thirty. It was still dark, but I wasn’t ready to go back to sleep. Or dream.

  So I made coffee.

  At seven-thirty, my two closest goombahsy Tony and Angelo, came by.

  I’ve known them my whole life. They’re as dumb as barber poles, as guileless as window glass, as true as still water. Only occasionally do they make me crazy. They’re the best arguments I know for living an honest, slow-witted life. If there were more people with Tony and Angelo’s kind of stupidity, this world would be a much better place.

  It was Saturday, so Angelo didn’t have to open up St. Margaret’s School, where he’s the custodian. Tony should’ve been on his shift for the Yellow Cab Company, but you never know with either of them.

  “We saw your light on, Eddie,” said Angelo as I let them in. “We figgered you was awake.”

  “You figured right. So, Tony, you takin’ the day off?”