01 The Big Blowdown

by George Pelecanos

  “What difference does it make?” said Gearhart, his hands folded in his ample lap. “We’re going to hit them both eventually.”

  Burke turned, eased himself down into the seat behind the desk. “Yes, that’s true. But the impression you make the first time, it dictates whether the rest of the players on the block fall in step or not. It’s very important how the first one pans out.”

  “Neither one of those guys is gonna lay down,” said Recevo. “You realize that, don’t you? We’re not talking about some frightened immigrants here.”

  Reed had been pacing the floor throughout the conversation. He stopped, leaned against the glass-fronted case that held the Thompson gun. “We’ve dealt with Greeks before. Greeks can be pushed like anyone else.”

  “Not these Greeks.” Recevo tapped some ash off his cigarette. “Stefanos and Pete Frank, they’re Spartans. You gotta understand—”

  “Christ,” said Reed. “Now you’re gonna tell me that there’s men that can’t be pushed.”

  “Relax,” said Burke.

  Reed pushed off the cabinet, straightened the jacket of his sharkskin suit against his broad frame. He put his hands into his trouser pockets, began to pace. He passed beneath the overhead fixture, the Vitalis in his hair gleaming in the light.

  “We’ve met resistance before,” said Gearhart.

  “Of course we have,” said Burke. “It’s the nature of the business.”

  “Well.” Gearhart wheezed as he pushed his three hundred pounds up from his chair. He began to move himself into his overcoat. “You know, there is something we could do, just in case it doesn’t go the way we planned.”

  “What’s that?” said Burke.

  “We could use that trick we used on those Jews, when we hit that liquor store of theirs, uptown. Send a second, more sympathetic team of men in after the first. Offer them a bit of a discount, make them feel as if they’re getting a bargain. Play that game.”

  Reed snorted. “You could make a wig out of all the gray hair growin’ on that gag.”

  “It’s an option, anyway,” said Burke.

  “Well, it’s not in my area of expertise. I thought I’d bring it up.” Gearhart made a short tip of his head to the others in the room. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

  Reed made a clownish gesture with his mouth, tried to catch Recevo’s eye. Recevo did not look up.

  Reed said, “Got a date, Gearhart?”

  “Goodnight,” said Gearhart.

  He walked slowly to the door. Recevo listened to the creak of the floor beneath his weight, the horse-clomp of the two-toned gibsons on the fat man’s feet. Gearhart closed the door behind him.

  “Where’s he off to so fast?” said Recevo.

  “He’s going out to find some release,” said Burke, pouring a healthy shot of bourbon whiskey into the thick tumbler that sat on his desk. “Gearhart and his whores.”

  “He better find a big one that can take his weight,” said Reed, with a smile. “But I guess he knows what he’s doin’. He ought to, long as he’s been around them. They say Gearhart’s mother—”

  “Shut up. Reed,” said Burke. “We don’t need to be getting into everyone’s family history here. I would think that yours would have the makings of a good dime novel, too. I don’t fault Gearhart for finding his pleasures out on the street. Every man needs a receptacle, I suppose.”

  Receptacle. Recevo listened to the smoothness of Burke’s voice, the fancy words that he liked to use. He watched Burke take a long drink of the bourbon. The smoothness, the fancy words, that would all begin to wash away now with the drink. He’d better settle this quick before Burke turned mean. Burke always turned mean and sloppy when he crawled into the bag.

  “Let’s talk to Pete Frank,” said Recevo. “Frank’s the one we ought to go to first.”

  “I’m inclined to disagree with you,” said Burke. “There’s more men over at Stefanos’s place, so I’ll grant you that it’s going to be a tougher job. But if we took on Stefanos as a client first, the rest of the block would tumble.”

  “Mr. Burke—”

  “Karras works for that Stefanos character,” said Reed, turning to Recevo. “That have anything to do with why you want us to keep our hands off?”

  Recevo did not reply. He took a drag off his cigarette.

  “Reed, go downstairs. Round up a couple of the men.”

  “Don’t I have a say in this?”

  “Do it.”

  Reed went quickly out the door, stared meaningfully at Recevo one last time. Recevo kept his eyes straight ahead. He took in a last lungful of tobacco and crushed the cherry in the ashtray.

  Burke swallowed the rest of the bourbon, poured out four more fingers’ worth. He swirled the whiskey around in the glass.

  “You happy here, Joe?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ve done all right with me, haven’t you?”

  “I got no complaints.”

  “How do you like your new car? It’s an Olds, isn’t it?”

  “A fastback ‘88. I like it all right.”

  “And that suit you’re wearing. A Fruhauf, right? It must have set you back fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty and change. I like nice things.”

  “Sure you do. You got a real nice girlfriend, too. How’s she doin’, anyway?”

  “Lois is fine.”

  “Yeah,” said Burke, “you’re doin’ all right.”

  Recevo coughed into his fist, looked around the room.

  Burke got out of his chair, took his glass with him. He stood in front of the window, looked at nothing in particular out on the street. Recevo suppressed a smile, Burke thought he looked pretty good, standing there framed against the glass. A big shot, giving it the big pause to lead into the big finish.

  And here was the pitch: “Things are going to get even better for you, Joe. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Thanks, Mr. Burke.”

  “I mean it. You think I’m just blowing smoke up your skirt?”

  Recevo shook his head.

  “Well, I’m not. Take a look at the other men I’ve got in the organization. That alone should tell you that you’re at the top of the list. You’re going to go far with me.”

  “Those other men you’re talkin’ about. They been here longer than me.”

  “They don’t have the qualities I’m looking for in my right-hand man. Gearhart is fine as far as counsel goes, but he’s a strange one, and he doesn’t have the guts. Reed has the guts but not the brains. And I’m getting tired of him bringing attention to us with his outside activities. That thing in Lafayette Park last year, where he beat those two fairies to within an inch of their lives—”

  “I heard about it.”

  “A perfect example. Gearhart got him off, of course. But the point is, I can’t control him much longer. I need someone levelheaded who can stand next to me, help me make the tough decisions. The man who can do that, it’s going to be very good for him.”

  “I’m here whenever you need me, Mr. Burke.”

  “That’s all I wanted to know.” Burke turned to face Recevo. “So, that brings us to tonight.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I want you and Reed and a couple of the men to go over to the Stefanos hash-house. I want you to explain to that Greek how things are going to be from here on out. Now, I know that your friend Karras works in that place. I want to make sure you don’t have any problem with that. You don’t, do you?”

  “I work for you. If you say go, I go.”

  “Good boy,” said Burke. “Let me know how things turn out.”

  Recevo took his topcoat off the chair where he had draped it, put it on. He smoothed out the brim of his hat, placed it on his head, cocked it right. He nodded to Burke and headed for the door. Burke kept his eyes on Recevo, tipped the glass of whiskey to his lips.

  In the foyer. Face sat in a chair trying to make a ball on a string fall into a cup. Reed stood in front of a mirror, watching his reflection as he
smoked a cigarette. Recevo came down the stairs.

  “All right. Reed. Get two men together and let’s go.”

  Reed smiled, walked into the living room where a half-dozen men sat around having highballs and trading wisecracks with a couple of women who smelled of house booze and off-brand perfume. He returned with a large Welshman in a blue twist suit and a medium-sized man in a double-breasted gray plaid. They arrived shoving revolvers into their waistbands, then retrieved their topcoats from the hall closet.

  “We’ll take my car,” said Recevo.

  “We going to Stefanos’s place?” said Reed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now you’re talkin’.”

  Recevo felt the eyes of Face upon him.

  “Who’s Stefanos?” said Medium.

  “Some guy who can’t be pushed around.” Reed smiled, glanced at Recevo as he punched Medium in the shoulder. “Come on, fellas. Let’s go have us a little fun.”

  * * *

  Mike Florek crossed 14th Street, kept an eye out for traffic as he looked through the plate-glass window of Nick’s. Nick and Costa were there, talking to a group of large white men wearing coats over suits who were standing spread out around the customers’ side of the counter. Through the glass of the door Florek could see the big brown arms of Six, hanging loosely at his side. There didn’t seem to be any Negro customers in the place, though that was not unusual, as it was Berle night anyway, and the ten o’clock fights had ended long ago. Florek decided not to stop by to shoot the breeze or anything like that; if Nick and the others were with their friends, having some laughs over a few bottles of beer, maybe they wouldn’t want him around.

  Florek went to the entrance of his building, opened the door, and headed up the stairs.

  He didn’t mind being alone tonight, not after the time he had had with Kay. He had gone by People’s in the early evening, made like he was surprised to see her working, and then, after the necessary small talk, suggested they take in a show. To his relief, she agreed without a fight of any kind. Despite the fact that she was dressed for work—a sweater and skirt, with a string of fake pearls around her long neck—Kay looked lovely to Florek, as lovely as if she had prepared for him all day. He watched her take a sampler atomizer and spray some perfume on her wrists and behind her ears before she ended her shift. On the way out the door, Florek gave a smart chin-nod to an unsmiling Mr. Simms.

  “What do you call that stuff?” said Florek, as they walked south. “I can smell it, even out here in the breeze.”

  “It’s ‘Evening in Paris,’” she said. “You like it?”

  Then Kay put her hand up to his nose, and the two of them stopped walking as he breathed her in.

  “I like it fine,” said Florek, and he lightly kissed the pulsing vein on the inside of her wrist. He didn’t know why he had been so impulsive and forward—it was not something he had done on a first date back home with any girl before—but Florek felt older here, living on his own, more privileged in some natural kind of way. Thankfully, Kay laughed and patted his cheek; Florek knew he was in like Flynn.

  The movie was okay, light and fairly plotless and easy to follow, which was okay by Florek. He and Kay sat in the balcony at the Warner, and by the end of the first act his arm was around her shoulder, and the arm was still there when the credits rolled and the house lights had come up. They both agreed that the new girl, Patricia Neal, had something to her, though Florek thought Jack Carson was the standout in his usual sidekick role. Carson always made Florek crack up.

  Jackie Harris, the bartender Karras had recommended, was behind the stick at the Crown, and Florek and Kay had two rounds of cocktails there after the show. It went cheaply and without a hitch, though Florek noted with some dismay that Kay could hold her liquor better than he. It was she who had to figure out the tip, after Florek could not do the simple arithmetic in his head. They left three on a two-forty check, and went out into the night.

  The two of them walked to a stop at 13th and F, waited for Kay’s uptown bus. At a pause in the conversation, he found himself staring at her, admiring the light freckles showered on the bridge of her nose, the way her red hair fanned out in the wind. She took his face in both her hands and kissed his mouth, her tongue sliding against his. When she was done she butted her forehead lightly on his, then drew back and smiled.

  “You were shaking, Mike.”

  “It’s cold out, I guess.”

  Kay laughed, kissed him once more as the bus pulled to the curb. The doors opened and she went up the steps. Florek waved her off, thinking, he should have gotten on the bus himself. But he was very happy walking home, noting as he neared R Street that he had not thought once about the route he had taken in his journey from downtown to Shaw. He was beginning to know this city—its streets and bus lines, the best cups of coffee, the biggest slices of pie, where to walk to save time and where not to walk late at night—and he was beginning to like it, too. And then he thought: I haven’t called my mother in the last week. I’ll have to do that tonight, as soon as I get in.

  Going up the stairs to his room, Florek felt a wash of guilt, imagining Lola, wherever she was, alone in this town without family or friends. Florek, he had friends, and it could be that now he had a girlfriend, and with Karras looking out for his sister, maybe, for the first time in months, he had a little bit of hope. He wanted to turn around, go back down the stairs, ask Karras exactly what he planned to do to help him find Lola. But Nick and the rest of them, they were down there talking to some of their buddies, and tonight was not the time to interrupt. Florek would just have to wait, ask Karras about it the next day.

  Chapter 22

  From the kitchen, Karras watched the Olds fastback pull to the curb in front of Nick’s. He watched the men get out, a man he didn’t know and the medium-sized man from the night in the alley and, behind him. Reed. Recevo stepped out of the driver’s side next. Something dropped in Karras’s stomach at the sight of him, a feeling that was neither fear nor hate but something in between. It was funny, how he felt at that moment, happy almost—but also sorry, like finding something you lost as a kid, many years later, and realizing that finding it no longer meant a thing.

  Karras followed Recevo’s track to the door. Joey, you finally got your fancy car.

  The door chime sounded as the four men entered the grill. Costa and Stefanos were behind the counter, and Six was on his chair by the door. The only customer, an old Negro who had stayed past the fights for one last beer, turned his head and had a look at the men, all in topcoats and suits. They were standing there spread apart, not making any kind of movement at all.

  “Almost closing time, friend,” said Stefanos, who had recognized the dark one with the expensive clothes as Karras’s friend, the Italos. Dime-store gangsters, all of them. What the hell did they want with him?

  Stefanos spoke to the Italian: “What can we do for you, eh?”

  “We got time for a quick round of beer?” said Recevo.

  “If it’s quick,” said Stefanos. “We gotta get this place closed up.” He glanced over Recevo’s shoulder, met the steady brown eyes of Six.

  “Four beers, then,” said Reed. “Make ‘em Red Caps.”

  Costa had been rubbing his hands slowly on a damp rag, watching the pig-eyed Americanos with the mean face. He looked at Nick, who nodded one time.

  “Beera, Costa. Ande, re.”

  Costa went to the cooler, extracted four Carlings. He jacked each bottle against the Coca-Cola opener screwed into the side of the cooler. He took his time.

  Reed looked at the medium-sized man in the badly tailored suit, then jerked his head in the direction of the huge Negro who sat by the door. Medium dragged a stool to within four feet of the bouncer, had a seat. He opened his topcoat and let the tail of it fall over one thigh. The grip of a revolver showed then where it had been slipped beneath the waistband of his trousers. Medium brushed his fingers against the grip, stared at Six. Six looked straight ahead, showing nothing o
n his face.

  Reed and Recevo stepped up to the counter, slid onto a couple of stools. The Welshman moved to the plate-glass window, put his back against it, opened his coat. He spread his feet wide.

  It was quiet for a while as the old Negro drained his beer, dropped some coin on the counter, and left the store. Then the only sound was the sucking pop of the last cap, the hollow sound of it hitting the floor, and the tick of the Blatz Beer clock over the door.

  Costa gathered up the beers and a couple of glasses. He put beers up for the Welshman and Medium, neither of whom stepped forward. He put a beer in front of Recevo and one in front of Reed, and glasses up for both. Costa slipped a hand into his right pocket.

  “Costa,” said Stefanos. “Siga.”

  Reed lifted the Red Cap off the counter, threw his head back and drank. Costa studied Reed’s muscled neck, the Adam’s apple bobbing just below the shadow of beard. He fingered the switchblade in his pocket, which he had oiled earlier that day. It would be easy to bring the knife out fast, right now, and cut the throat of this American, a quick thrust in and then a clean, vicious red slash from left to right. Cut him down to the windpipe real good and quick.

  “Costaki,” said Stefanos. “Ochi tora.”

  Costa removed his hand from his pocket. He stepped back, picked the rag up off the sandwich board, began to wrap it tightly around his hand. Recevo lighted a cigarette, poured beer into his glass, drank down half of it at once.

  Karras stepped forward so that his eyes cleared the swinging doors of the kitchen. He saw Nick’s .38 lying on its side next to the bus tray beneath the counter. Nick’s eyes went to the .38, then back in the direction of Recevo.

  “You guys want somethin’,” said Stefanos. “What is it?”

  “Just came by to warn you about something,” said Recevo.

  “Warn me about what?”

  “Some bad elements in the neighborhood we been hearin’ about, that’s all.”

  “Uh,” grunted Costa.

  Reed laughed.

  Over the doors, Karras got his first good look at Joe: Recevo had kept his weight down, had gathered no gray in his swept-back hair. His eyes had begun to fall at the edges, but he looked pretty good. Karras almost grinned, looking at the velvet-banded fedora on Joe’s head, the dent perfect, the hat cocked just right. Joe was still the sharpest of the bunch. He had always been the sharpest, in the old bunch and in this one, too. Joey and his hats.