“Why are you calling me here?”
“It’s just that when I saw the news in the paper, it made me think about you. I called your home first, see, but your wife said you weren’t back yet, so I figured I might catch you at your mother’s place.”
“What do you want?”
“To be your friend. So you go take a look at the paper and then maybe if you want to talk about the news, we’ll be in touch.”
He hung up. I told my mother that I was going downstairs to get the paper. She asked me who had telephoned.
“I’ll get the paper,” Beau Jack said. “You stay with your mother and grandfather for a while.”
“Come here.”
My grandfather was beckoning to me with a finger. Beau Jack left the apartment. My grandfather lifted the small blanket so that I could feel the fur, admire the stitching, the black satin lining. He bit off some thread. I turned to my mother, thought of asking her how he could bite off thread if he didn’t have his teeth in.
“Do you want your room back?” my grandfather asked.
“Davey got his own place now, Poppa,” my mother said. “He got a beautiful wife and daughter, remember? And you lived to see it.”
“You’re right. I forget things sometimes. I’m an old man. Abe visited me yesterday—did you know that?”
“Yes.”
My grandfather nodded once. Then his eyes closed, his chin slumped to his chest. His eyes were black slits. Slit trenches, I thought. That was the name for the holes the German soldiers would hide in to snipe at G.I.s after our men had passed over them. I went to the kitchen with my mother. She told me that when she was with Sam she always thought of the actor from the movie The Best Years of Our Lives, but she didn’t know why. Did I remember seeing the movie with her and my father, at the R.K.O. Kenmore?
“The guy I mean is the one who had mechanical claws instead of hands. Is that crazy, do you think? Because that was my favorite movie that I ever saw—I never cried so much—and I always thought afterwards that I could love a man like that more than anyone else in the world—a man who could be as gentle as he was strong, who didn’t know how to quit on life. Do you remember going with us?”
“Yes. The actor’s name was Harold Russell.”
Her eyes brightened. She held my hand, her cheeks wet with tears. I recalled trying to imagine what it would be like to live without hands, to have to draw with stainless steel claws. I recalled practicing with a ball and glove, imitating Pete Gray, the one-armed outfielder for the Saint Louis Browns—tossing a ball in the air, tucking the glove under my left armpit, catching the ball in my bare hand, throwing it….
“You don’t hate your mother no more. I can see that. You don’t hate me too much, do you?”
“Why should I hate you?”
The door opened. Beau Jack came toward us, his face the color of ashes. I reached for the paper, but my mother snatched at it, pulled it from Beau Jack’s hand.
“Davey should read it first,” Beau Jack said.
She spread the paper on the table, looked down, screamed. I pushed her aside. She kept screaming. She backed up against the refrigerator, one hand to her mouth, palm forward, the other hand in her hair, like a rake, pulling.
I looked at the photograph of Mr. Rothenberg on the front page of The Daily Mirror. He was lying on the floor of his kitchen, his feet tucked under him. His wheelchair was halfway into the picture, tipped upwards as if somebody had lifted it like a wheelbarrow to let him spill forward. He wore a dark business suit. There was a patch of blood on his cheek that ran from his left ear to his chin, and the shape, a long irregular triangle that tapered toward a point, made me think of a contour map of Mexico I’d made in the fourth grade. His body seemed to be folded at the waist. I stared at the tiny dots of black ink that flowed evenly through the map of blood on his cheek, and I thought of Mr. Rothenberg’s power leaking from his ear, clotting.
UNDERWORLD FIGURE KILLED IN HOME
“Abe! My baby brother Abe! Abe! Abe! Oh Abe…!”
My mother backed up to the windowsill, bit down on her right hand until pinpricks of blood appeared. The blood stained her teeth. She had one leg lifted, knee bent, as if she were trying to keep herself from urinating. Beau Jack was talking to her softly, trying to soothe her.
“Stay here,” I said. “Don’t go out of the house. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Davey!” I moved to the door. “Oh my little Davey! Don’t leave me—”
When I heard the window slide up, I turned. My mother had her head out and was screaming my name down into the street, calling me to come home. I grabbed her, pulled her back, slammed the window down. She screamed louder and I looked down quickly, afraid for a second that I’d shut the window on her fingertips. My grandfather stood in the doorway, smiling. He held a glass in one hand. His false teeth were in the glass, a small white tablet next to them, the water fizzing, the tablet sending a spray of bubbles upwards.
“They should all rot in hell,” he said. “The earth should open and swallow him up, but they should cut him down from a tree after one day, do you know why?” His small eyes were clear now, like a young man’s, like Abe’s. “Because an evil man is a reproach to God. That’s what God said about Korach, why they should cut him down after they hanged him.”
“Stop!” my mother cried. “Stop talking crazy!”
“I’m an old man.”
My mother dug her nails into his wrist. The telephone rang and I grabbed at it before anyone else could.
“Davey—is that you?”
“It’ s me.”
“Listen, hey—this is Vincent again. I wanted to call and give you my condolences, see. I mean, you didn’t call me so I figured now that you got the news I’d be big about it and I’d call you. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a dead man.”
“Nah. Come on—let’s not talk like that. I mean, you’re all upset and worried, which is why I called. You must be very scared about your uncle. We’ve been trying to reach him, see—to get the news to him too, but nobody can find him, so we thought maybe you could help us out. Can you help us out, Davey?”
“What do you want?”
“Just that if you see him, you tell him Mr. Fasalino’s still waiting.”
“Didn’t he show up at five—?”
“It’s why we’re all so concerned. It’s why I called you. I figured you might need a good friend now.”
The line went dead. My mother started screaming again. Beau Jack asked if I was all right.
“I know what to do.”
“You be careful now. You use my place downstairs if you have to. Do you have a gun?”
My mother tried to punch at Beau Jack’s chest. He grabbed her wrists.
“No.”
“I have one there. It’s in a space outside the fuse box, to the left. You got to move a piece of two-by-four.”
“You’ll take care of her while I’m gone?”
“Yes.”
My mother shrieked and her hands were on my shoulders, her nails tearing into me.
“Will you be all right?” I asked.
“A lot you care. You and your big shot uncle. My big shot brother.” She was suddenly calm, and it was her calmness that terrified me. “Listen. I’m sorry if I got so carried away, only I had a real throwback, see, looking at him in the picture, to when he was alive and how it all started. Momma never knew what he did for her, how he saved her. Abe made me swear never to tell Poppa either, see, so…”
Beau Jack sat next to my mother, told her that everything was going to be all right, that I was a smart boy.
My mother patted his hand. “So why should I cry so much, right? Didn’t I cry enough for one lifetime?” She closed her eyes, tipped her head to one side, spoke in Yiddish, then translated: “‘If you dance at every wedding, you’ll weep for every death.’ Poppa taught me that.”
“I’ll be back,” I said.
My mother followed me to the door. “Listen. M
r. Rothenberg was an old man anyway. I mean, how many years did he have left? The way I look at it is that if you’d picked up your things right away after you moved out, I wouldn’t have had to throw them out. But who am I, the Acme Storage Company? I mean, how much notice did you give me that you and your little girlfriend were already married, that you’d knocked her up, you should forgive my frankness?” She turned to Beau Jack. “Would you put another record on? To me she’s just like my own daughter, only when a girl lets herself get into the worst kind of trouble and the boy marries her, then we know who the sucker is, yeah? So to show you how I got no hard feelings, I’ll phone her now with the news about Mr. Rothenberg so you’ll see I ain’t carrying a grudge.”
I knocked the phone from her hand. It swung back and forth on its black cord, tapping against the wall. She smiled at me, as if it made her happy to see me angry.
Beau Jack put a hand on my forearm. “You’ll be all right, Davey? You won’t do anything foolish?”
“I’m all right. Abe told me what to do, in case.” I tried to smile at him. I wanted to ease the hurt I saw in his eyes, to make him believe that everything would be fine. “Do you know what I just thought? I just thought that if things get tight, I’ll try to imagine what Jackie would do if he were in my shoes.”
“I don’t understand.”
My mother was showing us the newspaper. “Hey look—they got a picture here of Mr. Rothenberg from when he was on TV in those hearings, talking with Senator Kefauver. See how handsome he looked? He always dressed like a real Beau Brummel and he wasn’t even that much younger. What was it, four years ago? Five? He got old very fast.” She put the paper on top of the refrigerator. “I remember when he came to the store and how he would never look at the mugs who held the car door for him. Like they didn’t exist. Remember how distinguished he seemed compared to all those other gangsters—like he was one of the senators himself. He had class only, like Sol used to say, everybody got a number, and when your number’s up, it’s up. This is it and this is it, yeah, Davey?”
“You go on,” Beau Jack said. “I’ll take care of things. She’ll be all right. You call when things are okay.”
“I mean, maybe the truth is that his own men did it to him. Who knows? Maybe Abe went and did it himself so he could be in charge now and avoid trouble later. And Davey, my precious, that reminds me that before you come to visit next time I’d appreciate it if you’d call first. Also if you could maybe bring Emilie, only without your wife for a change.”
I opened the door and she began pounding on my back, screaming that if I left she knew she would never see me again. Beau Jack tried to pull her backwards and she smashed him in the cheek with her fist, told him to get his filthy black hands off her. She was my best friend, she cried. She had tried to save me, hadn’t she?
“Did I try or did I try?”
“You tried,” I said.
Her body sagged. She looked towards Beau Jack as if she might apologize to him. “Did I really like Abe?” she asked. “Who can tell? I mean, how can you not like your own brother?”
“Lots do, Evie,” Beau Jack said.
“Really?”
I kissed my mother goodbye and headed down the stairs. She cried after me that she was my best friend. I was her only son! I was the light of her life….
One flight down, I stopped and waited. Should I telephone Gail? If there were no need, I didn’t want to alarm her. Could I dare try to get her and Emilie out of the apartment and to her parents’ home? Would Fasalino’s men trail me, hoping that I had a rendezvous with Abe? I took a deep breath, moved down from the second to the first floor, looked into our mailbox. No message. I stopped. My head was spinning with questions, with pictures, and I felt that if I could only get one clear picture in my head at a time, and fix it there and stare at it—if I could imagine scenes before they happened—then I could be ready for anything.
I stepped down from the landing, into the front lobby, and before I felt my heart tumble, and before I realized how stupid I’d been to go out the front way, I heard the breathing that was not mine, felt the hands grip each of my arms, the gloved palm press my lips back against my teeth so that I couldn’t call out. Two men dragged me into a corner. Vincent came toward me. He wore a dark topcoat, and under it, in the dim light that came from the courtyard, I saw him smile, saw his gold medallion swing lightly from one side to the other.
“Hey Davey—you sounded so upset on the phone, I figured I’d get here right away to see if I could help.”
There were no lights on in the lobby. Why hadn’t I noticed that when I came around the second floor landing or when I squinted into the mailbox? The men frisked me. I told myself not to resist. Vincent apologized for having to use force, said that sometimes you couldn’t take chances, even with guys you trusted, even with family. He told the two men to take a powder, that they would all meet later at the party. Later? I kept my eyes on Vincent’s eyes. He talked softly, telling me that he was upset too, because he’d had to break up with Sheila. Hadn’t I heard the news from Abe? Maybe, in time, they’d be able to get back together. Mr. Fasalino was his uncle the way Abe was mine—did I know that? Mr. Fasalino had been good to him the way Abe was good to me. Mr. Fasalino had helped him out of a lot of jams.
I let him lead me to the front door. I looked through the iron curlicues, the plate glass. I thought of Beau Jack unlatching the large glass panels, letting them swing open so that he could wash them down with ammonia, rub them with rags and newspapers.
Then we were on the street, Vincent’s hand on my elbow, guiding me. He talked about his two big problems—gambling and women—and how his uncle had always bailed him out, but that—wasn’t it always the same?—he had to perform some small services for his uncle to pay him back. He hoped I’d understand. Didn’t everybody owe something to somebody in this world?
We crossed Rogers Avenue. On the next block there were no people walking, no kids playing, no one sitting on the brick stoops. A car cruised by slowly, moved to the curb. Vincent nudged me in the ribs, told me to do myself a favor and get in, that we could all go to the party.
“No thanks.”
Something hard whacked me between my ribs and my belt. I looked down, saw the black barrel of his gun. He smiled, told me to come anyway, that he had nothing against me, that he was just doing what he was told to do. He got nervous sometimes, he said, and he didn’t want to be forced to do anything we’d be sorry for later.
As soon as I was in the car there were hands on me again, pinning my arms, jerking me backwards by the hair, tieing something around my eyes that cut into my skin.
“Listen,” Vincent said, his mouth close to my ear. “I give you my word of honor I’d do things different if it were up to me. I mean, like I said, I think of you as a friend—like a kid brother, see? So just give me your word you’ll cooperate, okay? Do it for me—”
I said nothing. A hand was on the inside of my thigh and it squeezed so tightly and suddenly that my back arched, my rear end left the seat. Vincent told the guys to lay off, that I was a personal friend.
“He just became a father too, see, and he got this real cute little baby girl he loves, so we wouldn’t want to do nothing we’d be sorry for later.” His lips touched my ear. “Be careful. Be real careful, Davey.” Then, louder: “Listen—my debt with your uncle that you were so worried about, remember? I want you to know it’s all taken care of. Wiped out. I got the news just before I come to talk with you.”
I tried to calculate the distance, the turns—to figure out where we were going, but Vincent kept talking in my ear, telling me about his gambling problems, and by the third turn I was lost. I tried to imagine how Ellen calculated distances. I thought of myself with Gail and Emilie and Ellen, in the woods. We had talked about going camping together next summer. I imagined Abe coming with us, helping lead Ellen around the woods and the lake, Ellen telling him the names of trees and flowers. I wondered what he would feel. I counted backwards from a hu
ndred the way I did when I was unable to sleep, when I tried to talk myself into drowsiness. Had we driven for two minutes, or twenty minutes? I’d lost track. The car stopped, somebody shoved me out onto the sidewalk, somebody else grabbed my arm, kept me from falling, pushed me through a doorway. I heard music, smelled beer.
Vincent removed my blindfold. “There you go, Davey. Sorry.”
I rubbed my eyes, looked up a steep staircase. There was no banister. The lobby was small and square, the ceiling low. There were no mailboxes, no name plates or buzzers. I could feel the heat our bodies gave off, as if we were packed upright in a wooden box. My eyes drew on the light from the street, sand-colored light seeping in through high, smudged door windows. I looked at the two men who were with us and tried to memorize their faces. Vincent told them to get lost, that he needed to talk to me privately.
They walked upstairs. The door opened. A fat man holding a rubycolored glass looked down at us, lifted his glass in a mock toast. His shirt was split open at the waist. He scratched his stomach. Vincent came closer, his shoulder touching mine. Upstairs the door closed, but not all the way. The light seemed heavy with yellow, as if there were tiny motes of pigment floating in it. Cigarette smoke hung on the upstairs landing like fog, then drifted toward us, and I thought of droplets of water sliding down our bathroom wall, my mother yelling at me to wipe the wall dry after I showered.
Was Abe upstairs? If he was already on his way to Cuba or Miami or Las Vegas, would he be safe? Had he planned—before I met Gail—to settle in one of those places, to leave the neighborhood to me? Gail suspected it, hated him more when he was away from Brooklyn. Vincent’s back was against the front door and he had a gun aimed at my chest. Why? He seemed embarrassed. I was certain he did not intend to use the gun against me. If he’d intended that, he wouldn’t have needed so many words, he wouldn’t have had to bring me here where people, passing by, might hear the shot.
The truth, I wanted to tell him, imagining the questions about Abe, was that what I knew about Miami and Cuba and Vegas came pretty much from the newspapers and the TV hearings. Abe never talked to me about what he did when he traveled for Mr. Rothenberg. Had he kept things from me because he wanted to protect me, or because—the thought had occurred before—he didn’t want me to see that, outside our neighborhood, he was small-time, nothing more than a delivery boy for Mr. Rothenberg? Abe always liked being a big fish in a little pond, my mother said. Couldn’t I see that he needed me to worship him? Vincent put the gun back inside his coat, told me how smart I’d been not to fight. He laughed. Nobody wanted me to cry uncle, right?
Before My Life Began Page 34