by Max Lockhart
"You call this sharkskin?" Mickey asked the tailor, pointing to a swatch of material. "We don't call this sharkskin where I come from."
The tailor just nodded, a look of resignation in his eyes. Cleary could think of at least a dozen places on Mickey's anatomy where he wished the tailor would stick his pins. But then Mickey would stomp the tailor into a grease spot, and Cleary didn't wish the man ill. The poor guy was just trying to make a living.
Mickey Gold turned to Meyer. "Tell the bloodsucker fifteen grand and we'll cut him a percentage. A small one," he added under his breath.
"I'm sure we can go as high as fifteen thousand, and we'll take care of you out of our end," Meyer translated.
"Hang up, Meyer."
"Got to go," said Meyer obediently.
Mickey pulled his pant leg away from the tailor and grabbed a piece of cake off a nearby dessert cart.
"Borrow money, you got to pay it back, Cleary." He slid into a booth with tufted gold velvet seats. "Why does a smart guy like you want to get mixed up with a shnorer like that?"
Cleary shrugged his shoulders. He might have known that Mickey saw him the minute he walked into the Black and Tan. He also should have guessed the mobster would have known who busted up his legbreakers. When it came to trouble on his turf, Mickey Gold had eyes in the front, back, and sides of his head.
"Take a walk," Mickey said to the tailor. "And I need that suit no later than six o'clock tonight."
The frustrated tailor looked for a moment as if he could sink a pin into Mickey's ample rump, but instinct for survival stopped him. Cleary sympathized. Survival influenced a lot of men's choices.
Mickey forked a big slice of cake into his mouth, masticated like a mean-eyed bull, then gestured to the waiter. "Oooo, this is wonderful. What is it, chocolate caramel swirl?" He turned to Cleary. "You want some?"
Cleary mostly wanted Mickey to stop talking with his mouth full. It didn't help his bellyache. "I want Quinlan off the hook, Gold."
"Off the hook? I'm not running a charitable organization here. I'm a businessman." He acted insulted at the very idea, but with an audible sigh like a put-upon executive, turned to Meyer. "What's this guy owe?"
Meyer turned to a page in a ledger. "Borrowed two thousand on the first of last month"—ran his finger across the page to another column—"no payments."
"Always has a song and dance," interjected Sidney from the bar. Cleary noticed the legbreaker's voice sounded weak. Must be having trouble with his chest. A leather-soled wingtip did that to a man.
"Owes four thousand five hundred as of last night, with the interest compounded daily," continued Meyer in his dryest accountant's voice. Cleary figured Meyer was out of place. He ought to be a banker specializing in throwing widows and orphans out of their homes.
"Twenty-five hundred in vig on a two-thousand-dollar loan?" asked Cleary.
Mickey looked offended again. "It's business."
"Come on, Mickey. Quinlan's no tourist. Let's work something out."
The mobster ignored him, and Cleary felt a rage begin to build like steam in an unvented engine. "I can still make a lot of trouble for you, Gold, badge or no badge."
Mickey picked through cloth swatches on his table, but Cleary knew the mobster had heard him and was merely buying time.
Mickey held up a cloth swatch. "Does this look like eggshell to you?" he asked Meyer.
"I'm out of patience, Gold," said Cleary. "Do we deal, or do I kick your teeth out at the earliest opportunity?"
"What is this Quinlan guy to you anyway?" asked Mickey.
"I operate on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know," replied Cleary. Gold was going to deal, his gut instinct told him so. He leaned over the table and pointed to the eggshell-colored swatch. "Don't pick that color. It wouldn't flatter you."
Skates flashed across the slanted wood oval at a tremendous rate of speed. A loud grunt and a body hit the wood, ass first, knocking the wind out of the bouncing figure as he slid down the embankment. Cleary dismissed the figure with a sympathetic wince of pain and focused instead on the padded, bandaged, taped-together, beaten-up gladiator body of Joe Quinlan. Cleary wondered how much longer Joe's body would hold together.
Head down, digging in, skating far ahead of the other skaters, intent, in his element, clearly enjoying the raw speed, Joe bore down on a pack of skaters slashing across the oval. Clasping hands with a huge, ponytailed Thunderbolt defense man who catapulted him forward as two Indians, muscled up and taped like defensive linemen, fell back like two pit bulls waiting to disembowel him. Or at least break something vital, like both legs and his head.
Joe speed-skated to the top of the oval, hung there like an ominous beast of prey, and then suddenly swooped down at forty mph, dipped inside on one wild-swinging Indian defensive man, then popped up and leveled him with a tomahawk chop of his padded cast. Cleary decided Roller Derby and street fighting had a lot in common.
Two Indian defense men caught Joe in a vise, both whaling away at him as they skated, knocking his helmet flying. With a wild war cry of his own that Custer would have recognized, Joe threw back both arms and sent the two Indians crashing back in tandem. Speeding toward the last two Indians, he darted left and then right, came up behind them, and hip checked one into the infield. With a lightening fast move, he bashed the other Indian with a head butt, sending him flying into the rail with a bone-rattling thud. Cleary figured Custer could've used Joe Quinlan.
Joe did a three-hundred-sixty-degree turnaround on the rail in front of Cleary and skated around the oval with his arms raised in victory' as the announcer gave the score.
And it's all tied at ten to ten
at the end of the first period.
Let's hear it for Wild Man, Joe Quinlan!
"That's your buddy?" asked Johnny Betts as he watched Joe skate into the infield.
Cleary nodded, amused by Johnny's wild-eyed look.
"What do ya feed him? Raw meat and gun powder? I seen alligators down in the Louisiana swamps that look friendlier than him."
"Funny you should mention that," said Cleary, lighting a cigarette. "Joe used to wrestle alligators down and eat them raw, then have a rock and roll singer for dessert."
Johnny's eyes were a little rounder. "You're kiddin' me. Aren't ya?"
Cleary took a drag off his cigarette. "Yeah, kid. He just broke the singer's arms."
Johnny opened his mouth to retort, but the announcer interrupted.
Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen,
get ready for the little ladies.
Johnny smoothed down his Brylcreemed, gravity-defying pompadour. "Little ladies, huh? I think I'll stick around for this."
Cleary grinned. "Turn around and say hello to the 'little' ladies, Betts."
Johnny turned, and Cleary shifted to one side to watch the younger man's face. He wouldn't miss seeing this for a night with Marilyn Monroe. Well, maybe he would. But Marilyn was busy tonight. "My, what big eyes you have, Grandma," he said to Betts.
Johnny's mouth was gaping open as he looked at the flaming redhead and the Blond Bombshell standing next to him, waiting their turn to go on. With their helmets, padded uniforms, and roller skates, both Amazons towered over him. Cleary managed to swallow back his laughter as Johnny's eyes bulged out of his head when the blonde adjusted her size D cups with both hands.
The redhead caught Johnny staring like a fish with a goiter and elbowed her partner. "Hey, you got a spectator."
The blonde glared at Johnny from icicle-blue eyes. "Hey! Whatta you looking at?"
Johnny swallowed, then vapor locked.
"My friend here's a big fan of yours," said Cleary.
"Oh, yeah?" asked the blonde, checking Johnny out with a head-to-toe look that stripped him down to his jockstrap. Or maybe less. She liked what she saw. "Then maybe you ought to stop around after the match, doll face." She squared her shoulders and stuck her chest out like the prow of the Queen Mary.
Cleary decided
Johnny needed a few lessons on how to keep a poker face. His expression said plainly that bullmastiffs and Chihuahuas were mismatched. The young man finally managed a choked smile. "Thanks, uh, I'd really like that, but"—he cast Cleary a frantic glance that Cleary pretended not to see—"the fact is I'm kinda previously occupied work-wise for my boss here."
Johnny smiled desperately in Cleary's direction. Cleary ground out his cigarette under his heel and clapped Johnny on the back in his best Dutch-uncle fashion. "I've never been one to stand in the way of young love, kid." He pasted a benevolent, ball-busting grin on his face. "Hell, take the whole night off."
The blonde snapped on her chin strap. "Well, now that that's settled—"
The redhead interrupted her with an elbow. "There's Blanche Weston..."
The blonde's expression turned murderous, and Johnny's turned desperate. "Let's kill that bitch," she said to her partner.
She glanced down at Johnny and her expression did a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to coquettish. "I'll be looking for ya, sugar." She waggled her finger, then she and the redhead rocketed off, fangs bared for Blanche Weston's blood.
Cleary figured if he were iron ore, Johnny's look would smelt him. "That was mean-spirited," said Johnny between gritted teeth.
Cleary shrugged and pushed the young street hustler in the direction of the locker room. "Think of it as a challenge, kid. See if you can rise to the occasion."
"Hey, man, she'd swallow me whole."
Cleary weighed Johnny's words against his expression, choked back his comments, and then pushed open the locker room door and walked past Thunderbolts sprawled out on the benches in the drab room of institutional green walls and battered lockers. Cleary breathed in the tart scent of analgesic, the acrid smell of cigarette smoke as players lit up, the sour odor of beer as cans were punched open and passed around. Permeating the room, overlaying all the other odors, infiltrating the air, was the musky smell of sweating male bodies.
And what bodies they were: ex-pro-football players, boxers past their prime, men paid to give and take beatings, scarred veterans of a lifetime of contact sports. Each one was dealing with pain in his own way. Some adjusted tape on knees, wrists, elbows, ankles. Others checked equipment in a futile effort to pad their battered bodies against that one hospitalizing blow. A few just lay back gazing at the ceiling. Cleary instinctively knew those were the ones who were looking into the future. And not seeing one.
Johnny checked out the human wrecks washed up on the benches like flotsam on the beach, and shook his head. "Why do they do it?"
"It's all they know, kid," answered Cleary, looking around for Joe. He saw him gazing into the mirror over a chipped sink and bandaging his cut chin.
Slapping the bandage haphazardly in place, Joe grabbed a whiskey bottle out of a passing player's mouth and took a long pull. He looked around, a sneer curling up his lip. "You look like a bunch of godforsaken losers. C'mon. Let's give them a show. We can skate circles around these bums." He took another pull of whiskey and wiped his lips, sneering again as the players refused to meet his eyes.
"Hairy-assed pansies," he muttered as he skated over to Cleary and Johnny, slapping repeatedly at his bandage as it repeatedly peeled off. "These slobs from upstate always go for the cheap shots. They can't deck Joe Quinlan by cloutin' him in the chin." He grinned at Cleary. "What did you think of the game?"
Cleary ignored Joe's smile. "I talked to Mickey Gold."
"Gold? What'd you have to do that for?" he asked, shuffling his feet like a kid asking his mother why she talked to his math teacher without telling him first.
Cleary lost patience. "Damn it, Joe, I'm trying to keep your ass out of a sling."
"I never asked you to."
"It's a habit. I'll try to break it. In the meantime, we're going to meet Gold at The Crescendo at midnight tonight. He's dropping the vig. All you gotta do is pay fifty a week and everything is squared. And it might be a good idea if you buy his bodyguards a drink as kind of an apology."
Joe looked puzzled. "Apology? What for?"
Cleary mentally counted to ten. With a profane expression between every number. "Well, for rubbing one guy's face in the pavement. Braining another with that plaster of paris club of yours."
Joe grinned and waved his cast in the air. "Yeah, it really put his lights out."
"Joe," said Cleary, his teeth beginning to ache from being clenched together.
"You shouldn't have gone out on a limb for me, Jack."
"I already did. A long time ago," he added softly as the Thunderbolts skated noisily out of the locker room.
"Hey, Joe, come on," one of them called.
"I gotta go," said Quinlan, putting his helmet on.
"Midnight, okay, Joe?" asked Cleary, holding his gaze for a meaningful half beat.
Joe raised his hand and blasted outside, adjusting his pads as he left. The announcer's voice filled the empty locker room.
Look out! There's Rosey McGuire
and the Blond Bombshell pummeling
Blanche Weston to a pulp.
"Mind if we go out the back way?" asked Johnny, his face a shade paler than a minute ago.
TWO
Cleary stood at the bar feeling like Prince Charming when Cinderella didn't show up in her glass slippers. In fact, The Crescendo Club reminded him of a ballroom that the fairy godmother skipped. The guests were gone, Scotty was stacking chairs on the tables, another bartender was polishing glasses with a dirty dishrag. Soon everybody would turn into mice and lizards and scurry back to whatever traps and watering cans they had been hiding in before a magic wand transformed them. Except for the rat. Mickey Gold was holding court for a young starlet draped in an apricot chiffon dress that did nothing for her modesty. Judging from the ripeness of her upper structure, Cleary decided she was playing the pumpkin.
Mickey talked and waved his arms, his plump cheeks jiggling, while a bruised Sidney Bloom hovered nearby. Cleary nodded to himself. All Mickey Gold needed were long whiskers sticking out by each corner of his mouth to look just like a rat. He watched Gold point to the dessert cart, and Sidney handed the mobster another cherries jubilee. Gold started shoveling the dessert in his mouth in between sentences, and Cleary wanted to gag. At least a rat kept his mouth shut when eating.
"... now it cost close to fifty Gs to have it bullet proofed. Used half-inch steel—that'll stop a bazooka—and the Beverly Hills cops won't let me drive it 'cause it's too heavy for the roads..." He stopped to take a bite, suddenly realized what he was doing, and pushed the half-eaten cherries jubilee away. "Damn it, Sidney, I told you I'm on a diet."
"Sorry, boss," mumbled Sidney. His voice still sounded odd, and Cleary wondered if he hadn't managed to unstick his lungs from his backbone yet.
Mickey glanced at his watch, then at Cleary, a satisfied look in his eyes. "We had a deal, Cleary. A very generous deal I wouldn't make with just anybody. But your buddy's not going to show, so now we do it my way."
Cleary let him get halfway up before speaking. No good reason except he wanted to see if the mobster needed a hoist. "Keep your shirt on, Gold. He'll be here."
"Yeah," said Joe, entering the bar with a fresh bandage on his chin, face flushed with drink, and the afterglow of competition in the form of fresh bruises. "Where's the fire, Mickey?" He saw the young starlet and grinned. "Your pants hot or something?"
Ignoring Mickey's rapidly purpling face, he walked over to Cleary. "Sorry I'm late, Jack. Martinez broke his femur in three places so we had to run him over to St. Paul's." He shook his head like a husband explaining why he was three hours late for dinner. "I had to help him kill off a fifth of bourbon before he'd let 'em set it."
Cleary could believe it. Joe's breath had enough alcohol on it to catch fire if you held a match in front of his mouth.
"Where the hell's my money, Quinlan?" demanded Mickey, his nose twitching. Just like a rat's, thought Cleary.
"Relax, will ya? I'm talking to my friend." Joe snatched the bo
ttle of champagne out of the cooler and poured himself a glass. He dumped a handful of crumpled bills on the zebra-striped table top. A couple of coins scattered across the wood. "What say we all have a drink," he continued in the cheerful voice of a Boy Scout at a wiener roast.
"Get the money, Sidney," commanded Mickey.
"Help yourself," said Joe, sipping his champagne as Sidney counted the crumpled bills.
"All he's got is eleven bucks," said Sidney in disbelief.
Joe leaned closer to Cleary, who wished he hadn't. "I had to front Martinez some dough for the hospital bill."
Mickey's face began to swell. "You come to me with eleven lousy dollars..."
Joe touched the coins on the table. "And sixty-two cents. Nearly two-thirds of a dollar. Don't get your bowels in an uproar. I'll pay you next week."
Mickey's eyes burned as if a fire were smoldering somewhere in their mean depths. "There ain't going to be any next week, you broken-down has-been. Sidney, check his pockets. Bastard's probably holding out on us."
"I'll front him the rest, Gold," said Cleary quickly, smelling more than alcohol and Mickey's cologne in the air. There was the metallic odor of violence, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Sidney reached into Joe's inside jacket pocket, and Joe pushed him away, his face revealing suppressed rage aggravated by alcohol. "I don't think you want to do that," he said to Sidney. He gave Cleary a sideways glance. "I'm trying to be nice, Jack."
"I'd advise you to back off, Sidney," warned Cleary, his gut beginning to tighten as he caught sight of the wild glitter in Joe's eyes.
In addition to being as angry as a gorilla on a bad day, Sidney also demonstrated he was too dumb to recognize good advice when he heard it. He roughly reached into Joe's outer pocket and discovered that Roller Derby players were blessed with fast reflexes. Joe spun around and grabbed the huge legbreaker who demonstrated further stupidity by going for his gun. Joe beat him to his own shoulder holster, pulled out Sidney's .38, and leveled it at him.