West 47th

by Gerald A. Browne

  “Yeah.”

  “So why?”

  “You don’t treat me right,” she complained matter of fact.

  “How don’t I?”

  “You never give me a little something extra.”

  “I give you a hundred. I can remember when you were fifty.”

  “I’m not talking about money.”

  “What are you talking?”

  “You gave Maxine a nice bracelet. You haven’t given me shit.”

  “That was over a year ago with Maxine. I don’t even see her anymore.”

  “All the more reason.”

  “You want a bracelet?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll give you a fucking bracelet,” Ralph voiced gruffly. He got up. His erection was half lost. From a drawer of his dresser he got a pair of heavyweight leather work gloves. He put them on and went across the room to a Japanese ceramic planter that contained, of all things, a cactus. A variety generally known as a barrel cactus due to its stumpy, symmetrical shape. It was about fifteen inches in diameter at its girth and had countless needle-sharp prickers protruding from its skin. Not at all a friendly plant.

  The leather gloves permitted Ralph to painlessly lift the cactus out. He placed it on the floor while he rummaged around in the bottom of the planter. Finally, he replaced the cactus. It looked none the worse from having been disturbed.

  “Here’s your bracelet,” he said begrudgingly, tossing it to the woman.

  It was a man’s ID bracelet.

  With SHORTY engraved on it.

  The woman hardly looked at it before tossing it back to Ralph. “Keep it, Ralph,” she said derogatorily, “it describes you.”

  “Don’t be such a smart-ass cunt.”

  Silence was the extent of her apology. She reached for her panties, determined the back from the front.

  “Okay,” Ralph said, “you really don’t want a bracelet. What is it you really want?”

  “A Rolex. An eighteen K blue face, oyster with diamonds around the dial.”

  “I ain’t got a Rollie right now, but I will, sooner or later. First one that comes in is yours.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll save it for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t believe me what the fuck can I do?”

  “I’ll settle for a hair,” the woman said.

  “How about a mink jacket?”

  “How about a full-length chinchilla?”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  They went out of the room, out of Mitch’s view. When they returned the woman had on a full-length silver fox coat.

  She didn’t know furs. While going through the pile she’d passed over a Russian sable and a Russian belly lynx. If she’d latched on to either of those Ralph would have had to throw her out and neither of them would have gotten satisfied. As it was the fox was worth about thirty-five hundred off the rack new, which it was about six years from being, and Ralph figured he’d be lucky to get five hundred for it come cold weather. As swag, it had cost him a hundred.

  She didn’t take off the coat.

  Ralph got back in position on the bed and she went about getting him a second hard-on. When she’d accomplished that she swung a leg up over him, found herself with him and settled on him. “Full length,” she uttered and did some blandishing gasps and exhales.

  It wasn’t going to be that easy for her. Her extortionate intermission had cost Ralph much of his mental momentum. At about the fifteen-minute mark she was still in a straddle, sliding back and forth and performing her best pelvic ovals.

  Both Ralph and the woman were so caught up in trying they were unaware that three guys had entered the room.

  Three of Riccio’s have-arounds.

  They appeared so all at once it was as though they had materialized, Mitch thought, as he observed from overhead. He knew these three from their having been around with Riccio on 47th.

  The tall, extremely round-shouldered one was Bechetti. The equally tall heavyweight with boxer’s ears was Caselli. The shorter Fratino was slick and nervous. Like all Riccio’s minions they came off as old-mob sorts with old-mob ways. They wore wide trousers with overly roomy seats, sleeveless knit shirts and sports jackets too one thing or another: tight, long, loud.

  “Get rid of the bimbo,” Bechetti said. Evidently he’d been given charge of this business.

  The woman had already dismounted Ralph. She’d instantly taken the temperature of the situation and knew it was too cold for her. She thought about asking Ralph for her hundred. Only thought about it, as she gathered up her things and was hurried off, barefoot in her fur.

  Ralph remained face up on the bed. He reasoned he’d be less liable to be knocked down if he was already down. He felt exposed and more vulnerable however because he was naked. His cock had rapidly retracted. What little could still be seen of it was glistening wet.

  Bechetti stood on one side of the bed, Caselli on the other side. Like they were visiting a hospital patient. They just stood there without saying anything for a while letting Ralph’s imagination get up speed.

  Bechetti did a smile. “Where you been, Ralph?”

  “I been here. What do you mean where have I been?”

  “You ain’t been on 47th lately.”

  “I been nowhere. I got food poisoning or something.”

  “People wonder why you ain’t been around.”

  “I was going to be down on 47th tomorrow.” Ralph managed some indignance. “What is this, you come busting into my house?”

  “People figure you’re stiffing.”

  Ralph knew who people was. “I didn’t promise anything to Riccio,” he said.

  “Who said anything about a promise? Promises don’t mean shit,” Caselli said.

  “Riccio expects,” Bechetti recited.

  “Tomorrow,” Ralph said, “I’ll be on 47th tomorrow.”

  “That’s a promise,” Bechetti pointed out.

  “Tomorrow is late, Ralph.”

  “That’s why we’re here tonight.”

  “For what?”

  “For what you haven’t been to see Riccio with.”

  It occurred to Ralph that these guys might be there on their own. That they were just cowboying, shaking him down. Possibly Riccio didn’t know anything about this move. Not that that improved the situation. Anyway, he wasn’t about to give up swag that would bring him a million and a half or two. “I ain’t got much,” he said, “just a few things, nothing big.”

  Bechetti reached quickly and took a clamping hold on Ralph’s upper lip with his thumb and first finger. He pulled sharply upward. Ralph went with the pain rather than resist and cause more of it. He came up like he was on springs. It hurt so much he skipped two or three breaths. Now they had him standing.

  Bechetti hardened about a thousand percent. “Listen you piece of shit. We know what you got. What we want is where you got it.”

  “How can I show you where I got something when I ain’t got it,” Ralph contended. “What am I, a fucking magician, I can make things right out of the air?” The inside tissue of Ralph’s upper lip was ripped from where it joined his gums. Blood was filming his teeth. “Look around all you want. Take what you find,” he told them.

  Mitch, meanwhile, peering down, hoped Ralph would stick to the lie. How was it, he thought, Riccio knew Ralph had the Kalali swag? That was easy: Peaches was now in police custody, the police had taken her statement, and that information, quick as a phone call, had found its way into Riccio’s ear.

  A more puzzling question was why should Riccio be so eager to get hold of that particular swag? Sure, he’d enjoy having the goods, but it wasn’t like him to use so much lean. Normally, he tried to keep on good terms with fences such as Ralph and, although the fences didn’t consider Riccio good people, they brought to him peacefully and he paid peacefully. What was happening in the bedroom below was definitely out of order and definitely for some important reason, Mitch decided.

  Fra
tino returned to the bedroom from having seen to the woman. “He tell yet?”

  “No.”

  “He’s a fucking spuce. I’ll make him tell.”

  “I ain’t got nothing big,” Ralph insisted. “I don’t know who said otherwise but I ain’t got nothing big.”

  “He’s a lying scumbag.”

  “What is it you want Ralph, you want Frat to give you a fifteen-minute fist fuck?”

  “Bend him over,” Fratino said.

  “You want him to ram his fist up your ass?”

  “See if there’s some cold cream or something in the bathroom,” Fratino said, as he took off his jacket. He also took off his wrist-watch. “Bend him over.”

  Nothing from Ralph. He’d heard about Fratino. He never thought it would happen to him.

  Caselli grabbed Ralph by the back of the neck, needed only one of his huge, broken-knuckle hands to shove Ralph’s upper half face down on the bed. Ralph’s knees buckled and went to the floor.

  “That’s good,” Fratino said. “Just like that is good. And never mind the cold cream. I’m going to fuck him dry all the way up to my elbow.”

  Bechetti was amused. “Maybe that’s where he’s got the stuff, up his ass. That where you got it Ralph?”

  Ralph was out of struggle. “Please,” he pleaded.

  “Where you got it?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Goodbye recovery, Mitch thought. So long six hundred thousand. Once the Kalali swag was in Riccio’s hands it would be reduced to mere precious stones and disappear into that abyssal aspect of 47th dedicated to refashioning.

  Mitch hated to see it. Ralph was going to go over to that planter and remove that fat cactus.

  However, Ralph didn’t. He didn’t give that hiding place as much as a glance. He asked could he put on his trousers and Bechetti said no and he asked why and Bechetti told him forget it and called him a piece of shit again and Ralph went obediently from the bedroom and Bechetti and the others followed along.

  It occurred to Mitch that they might be coming up. He was relieved when he heard their steps on the main stairs as they went down to the first floor.

  Ralph was stalling them, Mitch thought. Playing them for time, probably hoping for a chance to bolt. If Ralph could just keep them on the first floor long enough …

  Mitch went swiftly but stealthily down to Ralph’s bedroom. The leather work gloves were right there. As he put them on he realized how charged he was, now so close to stealing the swag. No matter that he was stealing it back, it was stealing.

  The cactus was heavier than it appeared. It almost slipped from his hands. He placed it on the floor and looked into the planter, Ralph’s secret repository.

  Apparently it wasn’t Ralph’s only secret repository. On the inner bottom of the planter were a few modest pieces of gold jewelry, manufactured stuff with a touch of diamond pavé, and a couple of rings set with semiprecious stones. Altogether not worth more than three thousand.

  So, where was the Kalali swag?

  Ralph really was leading them to it, Mitch thought. He might as well find the safe way out and head for home while everyone was distracted.

  He pulled off the gloves and threw them across the room. He felt like kicking the cactus. He went from the bedroom and down the second-floor hall. He didn’t feel like being sneaky. He had to repress the urge to stomp. He could hear them downstairs. Ralph doing a lapse of memory, saying he was trying to remember where he put the swag, then a commotion as they smacked him. There was the smell of meat cooking. The roasts in the microwave. What if he’d been right about the swag being inside that meat? Jewelry roulade. To hell with it.

  At the end of the hall he unbolted the door that gave to the balcony above the enclosed porch. The porch railing was weathered rotten and a section of it broke away when he leaned over it to see what he’d have for help. No vines, nothing, and no shrubbery below.

  It was about a sixteen-foot drop. He hung on to the edge to make it a nine-foot drop. At the very moment he let go he heard them come out. Perhaps that’s what caused him to land wrong.

  He got up quickly. In a moment they’d be rounding the corner of the porch. He had only one way to go. He made a dash for the swimming pool area. It was possible they’d seen him. He crouched behind the small shed that housed the pool equipment. What a night, he thought, he’d be glad to get home. What a way to make a living.

  They were headed for the pool area, coming straight at him. The naked Ralph leading, complaining when he happened to step on something sharp. What were they doing out here?

  They kept coming. All the way to the shed. They were on the other side of it, no more than six feet from Mitch for a moment, when Ralph threw a switch that turned on the pool light.

  The scummy green surface of the water, now illuminated from underneath, looked deceivingly attractive. Like an emerald of impossible size. There was no clear opening. The bottom of the pool wasn’t visible. The scum covered from side to side and end to end. It had such a putrid odor in its calm that surely it would smell a lot worse if it was ever churned up.

  Ralph gazed down at the water and walked back and forth along one side of the pool. The have-arounds waited. Ralph walked around the pool. Four times.

  “How about it, Ralph?” Bechetti pressed.

  “Give me time,” Ralph said.

  “I’ll give you maybe another breath.”

  “He’s fucking with our heads,” Fratino said. “There ain’t nothing out here. Why are we out here? What a stink. In a minute I’m going to throw up.”

  “This is all just shit,” Caselli said. He’d had enough. As Ralph passed by him on the fifth time around the edge of the pool, Caselli grabbed him by the throat, got him with one of his huge, broken-knuckled hands.

  Ralph didn’t resist, knew better, just suffered it, stiffened and went up on his toes.

  Bechetti interceded. “Let him go. Don’t kill him yet. Let him go.”

  “Maybe the fuck wants to go for a swim,” Caselli said. He released his grip with a shove.

  Ralph went into the deep end of the pool backwards.

  Into the green scum.

  There was no splash. The scum was like an instantaneous healing membrane the way it came together to mend the place where Ralph’s weight had torn through it.

  Surely he was drowned.

  Trapped beneath a surface as unified as ice.

  But then, he broke up through it, flailing at it, fighting it, coughing and spewing. “I can’t swim,” he managed to shout.

  The have-arounds laughed.

  Ralph only knew how to float. In desperation, he brought his legs up and kicked little kicks, extended his arms and worked his hands. His thirty pounds of overweight helped his buoyancy. He wasn’t however going anywhere. The thick blanket of scum had him locked in place.

  “Okay, Ralph, tell us where,” Bechetti said.

  “I was trying to show you,” Ralph told him.

  “You don’t have to show, just say.”

  “Get me out,” Ralph begged.

  “We will, after you say.”

  Ralph knew better. Perhaps he suddenly accepted his doom. “Fuck you,” he shouted with bite.

  “What kind of attitude is that? I always took you for smart. All you got to do is say.”

  “Fuck you,” Ralph said again more emphatically, as though he enjoyed the words.

  Fratino took out his pistol. So did Caselli. They hurriedly threaded on silencers.

  Fratino got off the first shot. It caused a sharp sucking sound as it struck the scummy surface close by Ralph.

  “Don’t pop him yet,” Bechetti said behind his hand.

  Fratino nodded. “I’ll just put a little lead in his pencil.”

  They aimed for Ralph’s genitals. They fired rapidly, as though competing for hits. Each used up an entire clip.

  Ralph realized their target. He shielded his genitals with his hands. His upper body sank. He used his hands to keep afloat. His genita
ls were exposed. It was either-or like that for him until the slugs slammed into his upper thighs, groin and lower abdomen.

  He went under, started breathing water.

  The bright red of blood bubbled up amidst the green. Ruby and emerald.

  “I told you not to pop him,” Bechetti reprimanded.

  “I was trying not to,” Fratino said.

  That was also Caselli’s excuse.

  “Now we got to find the stuff on our own.”

  “No sweat. It’s in the house some fucking place. We’ll find it.”

  Bechetti turned off the pool light. They headed for the house.

  When they were surely inside Mitch came out from around the shed. He’d had some difficulty not feeling sorry for Ralph. He’d even considered doing the heroic, stepping out with Beretta leveled, confronting the three, rescuing Ralph. His better judgment asked if he disliked living that much. Ralph wasn’t the kind he should put himself on the line for.

  So, it had been a perverse, one-act play that he’d experienced from the wings. His view had been the back of the performances, the mistakes.

  Something peculiar he’d noticed about Ralph: the way Ralph had walked around and around the pool and each time around when he came to a particular spot there’d been a slight hitch in his walk, the merest hesitation, as though he was ambivalent about whether to stop there or continue on.

  If there was one thing Mitch knew about fences such as Ralph it was how they loathed losing swag once they had it in their possession. Sell it, yes. That was their reason for being, but to have it taken from them or having to give it up was unthinkable. Attesting to that attitude was Ralph dead beneath the scum.

  Those hesitations of Ralph’s had been very subtle, but now Mitch’s recollection expanded them, made them obvious, definite. And possibly, meaningful.

  He went around to the other side of the pool to where he believed the hesitations had occurred. He kneeled and ran his hand along the tiles just above the scum line.

  He found it.

  A cleat cemented to the tile, the sort of small cleat to which normally a drop line and thermometer would be attached to ascertain water temperature. A length of twine was tied to the cleat. It was ordinary, hemp packing twine. Mitch tried pulling at it. It wouldn’t just come up. There was something much more substantial than a thermometer attached to its submerged end.