by Norman Green
“He does a lot of that for the Church. He says they are too trusting. He says every organization needs an asshole, and they don’t keep anyone around who’s mean enough. So when they need an asshole, they call him.”
Silvano regarded the back of his hand. “Couple of nuns I can think of,” he said, “plenty mean enough, they’re still alive.”
She laughed. “No doubt, but most men are too proud to listen to a woman. Anyway, Sean thinks his uncle spends so much time on his church activities that he isn’t taking care of business here, and it means more work for everyone else. He and Sean had another screaming match here this morning. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it next door. I think you probably could have heard it from New Jersey.”
SEAN TOOK THE on-ramp to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and got in line for the exit to the Brooklyn Bridge. He shook his head, looking around at the traffic. “Shoulda took the local streets.”
Silvano relaxed, savoring the comfort of the soft leather passenger seat. “Where we going?”
“There’s a place on the Lower East Side, sells gold leaf and shit. I got to pick up an order that my uncle made and run it down to this chapel he’s working on, St. Whoever-the-Fuck, I forget the name, way down on Rockaway someplace. He don’t like me going to this gold leaf joint by myself, he says the locals keep watch, see if they can rob somebody coming out.” He made a face.
“See, that’s nice,” Silvano said. “He’s worried about you.”
“It ain’t that,” Sean said. “He just don’t wanna have to pay for his shit twice.”
“Oh. You carrying?”
“No, I ain’t got a permit. It ain’t like that, anyhow, gold leaf ain’t really worth that much. It’s like this thin foil, so thin you can’t believe it, comes on these little sheets of tissue paper. The way they use it, they paint this glue on whatever it is they wanna cover, right, and then the gold foil sticks to the glue. Sorta like painting, except you gotta polish it up, after. So anyhow, the gold leaf isn’t worth the bother, if you’re like a professional crook, but if you’re a bum on the street and you don’t know any better you might be tempted. So what I’m saying is, you got nothing to worry about, just, like, hang out next to the car, keep me from getting a parking ticket.”
“All right.”
The stop in the city went quickly. Silvano got out of the car and sat on the trunk while Sean made his pickup, and a minute later they were on their way again.
“See, that was easy,” Sean said. “Now we gotta fight our way all the way down the Belt Parkway to get to this fucking place. You know, I wouldn’t mind doing this kinda shit, but I got things I hafta do, you know, back at the ranch, and wasting all this time means I won’t get out of that place until who knows what time tonight. And my uncle don’t care about that, he don’t think anybody’s got anything else to do, because he’s got no kinda life, don’t understand why I want one. He don’t care what time he gets home.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to go home to his wife.”
“Wife? He ain’t got no wife, he had one once but she left his ass, he ain’t social enough to handle a pet fucking parakeet, forget about a wife. I’m telling you, he ain’t got no life at all. Guy’s got more money than God, right, lives all by himself in this apartment house he owns out in Douglaston. I don’t even know for sure he’s got a television. He drives a Ford Maverick, for chrissake. You ever see the guy go out for lunch? Brown-bags it every stinkin’ day, don’t see the point of going out. Don’t take vacations, don’t do shit. Wasn’t for this church obsession, he wouldn’t come out of his hole at all.” The kid was mad now, gritting his teeth. “I don’t understand him. He started this construction project at work, got all you guys putting up a new building, and then he just seemed to lose interest. It’s like he doesn’t pay attention at all.”
“Maybe he’s just comfortable. Maybe he’s made enough money already, don’t care anymore. Nice problem to have.”
“Oh, bullshit.” The kid was still steaming. “I would never want to trade places with him, no matter how much money he’s got, and neither would you. He’s all worried all the time about what’s a venal sin and what’s the other kind, the worse one, I forget what they call it . . .” He looked over at Silvano.
Silvano shrugged. “Whatever.”
“A mortal sin, that’s what it is. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t touch your thing unless you hafta take a whiz. What the hell kind of way is that to live? You really think God is that much of a cock teaser, fill up the world with all of this good shit and then tell you that you can’t have any of it?”
Silvano had to laugh, and Sean looked over at him, and then he laughed too, his mood broken. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to go off on you. But lately, I’ve really begun to think my uncle is losing his mind.”
“This is all your fault, you know.”
“How the hell do you figure that?”
“Look at you. Guy says jump, what do you do? You jump. Sure, you might bitch about it, but he’s used to that. What if you put the shoe on the other foot? Suppose you went off and pissed the day away instead of the other way around, left him there by himself. Maybe then he’d have a better understanding of how it feels.”
“Oh, man.” Sean looked mortified.
“I bet you weren’t even going to stop for lunch. I bet you were gonna go running right out there, deliver your package, and come running straight back.”
Sean looked at his watch. “Well,” he said, “I got so much work to do . . . You hungry? You wanna stop someplace to grab a bite?”
“I ain’t grabbing nothing. I eat my lunch like a man, I sit down at a table and eat with a knife and fork. You know, Sean, I’m going to give you another piece of free advice. Okay? Very important for a man to learn when to say ‘Fuck it.’”
Sean looked over at him, stared for a few seconds. “You know a place?”
Silvano permitted himself a half a smile. “Used to be a nice place down on Baxter Street, in Little Italy. Let’s go see if it’s still there.”
It was. Silvano palmed the waiter a ten to let them use the room in the back of the restaurant. The room was painted white, had Astroturf on the floor, vines stenciled on the wall, plastic grapes hung from a trellis surrounding a huge skylight, which was open, admitting the air and the sounds of Manhattan. Silvano ordered in Italian, starting them off with a big antipasto and two bottles of Orvieto, followed by the main course and another bottle, Chianti this time. By the time the waiter cleared the table, Sean was plotzed.
“I think I’m fucked up,” he said.
“Not yet, you’re not,” Silvano said, winking at the waiter, giving him two hundreds. The guy left, came back promptly with two glasses and a bottle of brandy and then left them alone. Silvano still had the two plastic baggies he’d taken from the guy in the garage stairwell in an inside pocket. He took one of them out, tore a piece of paper off one of the placemats and rolled a huge joint.
“Oh, geez,” Sean said, stumbling over the end of his tongue. “Whass that shit?”
“This,” Silvano said, holding up the finished product, “is proof that there really is a God. You ever do this before?”
“High schoo’,” Sean said. “Once or twice.” He looked doubtful.
Silvano fired it up but didn’t hit on it. “All right,” he said, handing it over. “This shit is pretty lame, okay, so you gotta take a nice big hit. Inhale, inhale, that’s good. Now hold it, hold it in . . .”
Sean coughed out a big cloud of smoke, giggling when he saw it. He handed the joint back to Silvano, who just held on to it for a minute before passing it back. “Here you go,” he said. “Nice big hit.”
“I am really ffffff, oh, shit. I am fffff . . .” Sean had an idiotic grin on his face.
“Yeah, you are. Now you are fucked up.” Silvano moved his chair around next to Sean, took a picture of Noonie out of his pocket. “I want you to do me a favor,” he said. “I want you to see if you recognize this gu
y. Look at the picture. You know him?”
Sean tried hard to focus. “Nnnnoomie,” he said after a minute. “Nnnoomie, my pal. Poor fffuck.” His face wrinkled up and he started to cry. “My besss fren,” he said, reaching for the picture. “Besss fren I had.”
“What happened to him? Do you know what happened to him?”
Sean shook his head. “Sick inna head,” he slurred. “Happiess mothafucker I ever met.” The tears were rolling down his face. “Never wan nothin’, never got nothin’. You give him somethin’, he juss give it away to the nex guy.”
“Do you know where he went? Where is he now?”
Sean was shaking his head. “Livin’ onna street,” he said. “Dinn have nobody taken care of em. Prolly dead, someone prolly kill em, take his money.” He lowered his head and sobbed.
The joint was probably overkill, Silvano thought. “But they never found his body,” he said. “Right? Nobody ever saw him again.”
“Maybe he wen away,” Sean said, wiping his face. “Maybe he got losss . . .” He looked over at Silvano, and a light went on somewhere in his sodden brain. “Silvie?” he said. “You Silvie? He loved you, man . . .”
“Yeah, I’m Silvie.”
“You come too late, Silvie. Noomie’s gone.” He shook his head, collapsed onto the table. “Nnnoomie’s gone.”
SEAN O’BRIAN LIVED in a basement apartment in a brownstone in Sunset Park. Silvano found his address on his driver’s license and left him there passed out on his couch. He stood there, looking down at the kid, wondering how much he’d remember when he came to. Not that it mattered. It had happened before, his gut feelings could be wrong, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. He’d been so sure that Sean knew something, but there was no way the kid could be that messed up and not give himself away. It didn’t seem that he knew much, though, other than the fact that he hated his job, and that his uncle had his head up his ass. Silvano turned and walked out.
He walked for a while, giving the air and the sun and the exertion time to burn off whatever alcohol was left in his system. He had been careful, feeding most of it to the kid. He felt lousy about it now, but it wasn’t the first rotten thing he’d done in his life, probably wouldn’t be the last. He caught a cab when he got to Fourth Avenue.
JOSEPH O’BRIAN WAS BACK, because the Maverick was parked in the lot.
Silvano was better prepared this time. His shopping bag with wino clothes in it was on the floor beside him. He sat in the garage stairwell and sipped at his coffee while he watched the comings and goings at Black and White through his binoculars. If anyone missed him and Sean, you couldn’t tell from this distance, the business of the day went on as it had before, with the exception that Joseph O’Brian had to find someone else to let him out of the gate when he went on his bike ride. Silvano stashed his glasses high up on a ledge and headed down the stairs while the elder O’Brian stood inside the gate waiting. He crossed the street and headed up Atlantic, glancing back over his shoulder. O’Brian started out on the other side, stopping for the lights as he had before. Silvano didn’t stop when O’Brian did, this time he kept up a nice steady jog, and O’Brian didn’t pass him until they were nearly to Flatbush. He stopped on the far side of the street, watched O’Brian chain his bicycle to a parking meter. There was a bar on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, place looked like a real bucket of blood, exterior painted flat black, door, windows, and all. Silvano, wiping the sweat from his face, watched in disbelief as Joseph O’Brian went inside.
Can’t be, he thought, there’s no way this guy rides his bike all the way down Atlantic Avenue just to go have a beer in that dump. He stayed where he was, watching the street, waiting to see if anyone else had been trailing O’Brian, and then he walked across the street and headed for the bar.
There was a small vestibule, also painted flat black, with a pay phone on one side, set of stairs heading down into the basement on the other, and a set of swinging doors in the center. The windows on the swinging doors had been pasted over with posters advertising a free concert in the park. Silvano didn’t recognize the names of any of the bands, and the date of the concert was a little better than a year past. He pushed the door open and went in.
The place was dark inside and it smelled bad, the essence of beer, urine, and vomit mixed in the undercurrent of decay. The only light came from a couple of frosted globes and some neon beer signs. There was a group of guys collapsed around a table in one corner, but none of them was Joseph O’Brian. None of them looked conscious. Silvano walked over to the bartender, a heavily muscled white guy who had both arms covered with tattoos, one running up the side of his neck.
“Looking for someone,” he said. “Weaselly-looking guy, wearing green work clothes.”
The bartender crossed his arms and looked at Silvano coldly. “Can’t help you.”
“Yeah, all right.” He walked away, looked over at the guys in the corner, but they weren’t going to be any help. He went past them into a little corridor in the back where the bathrooms were, both of them smelled even worse than the rest of the bar, but O’Brian was not in either one. There was a small door at the end of the corridor, probably led out into the back alley, but it was chained shut. He turned and went back out into the main room. The bartender, looking irritated, came out from behind the bar holding a baseball bat in his hands.
“Hey, asshole,” the guy said. “You got a problem?”
Silvano was not in the mood. “No, but you do,” he said, grim-faced. He peered behind the guy to see if there was anyone hiding down behind the bar, but there wasn’t. “You shoulda sawed the knob off the handle of that bat.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“That way it won’t hurt as much when I shove it up your ass.” He could feel it building up, waiting to go off. The bartender saw something in him, looked at the end of the bat, decided not to chance it.
“You done in here?”
Silvano looked around the dingy room one more time. “Yeah,” he said.
“Good-bye.”
He walked on over to the swinging doors but stopped when he heard footsteps clomping up the cellar stairs into the vestibule. He waited, but whoever it was did not come into the bar. He cracked one of the swinging doors open and peered out in time to see Joseph O’Brian bent over, unchaining his bicycle.
GOING DOWN INTO HOLES in the ground was not one of Silvano’s favorite activities. There was no light switch that he could find, and he didn’t even have a match or a cigarette lighter with him. Breathing heavily, he went through the door at the foot of the cellar stairs, let it swing shut behind him. He waited for his eyes to adjust. The darkness smelled like mice and damp cardboard. It seemed that no light leaked in from anywhere, though, and he began to make his way by feel, an inch at a time. He made them out with his hands, random stacks of cases of beer. Off somewhere in the darkness a refrigeration compressor clicked into life, hummed for a few minutes, shut down again. Got to be a light over there, he thought. Guy had to run power to the compressor, stands to reason he’d put in a light, too. Counting his steps, he made his slow and silent way around the piles of boxes into the corner where he’d heard the compressor. The thing kicked on again when he’d gotten close and the noise guided him the rest of the way. A string brushed against his cheek, it was attached to a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Turning his face away, he pulled the string.
It was a vast relief to see with his eyes what he’d seen with his hands and nothing more, none of the images from his raging imagination, just a cellar, just cases of beer, compressors for the coolers upstairs, dirt, dust, shadows, rat turds. What would O’Brian want down in this hole, he wondered, but there was nothing. Fuck it, he told himself, maybe the guy sneaked down here to take a leak, there’s nothing down here, get out. He plotted his course back to the door, hit the light, made his way gratefully back out onto the street.
Silvano headed back. He shook his head. The guy has a heart condition, he’s trying to get in a little e
xercise. Just trying to stay alive. That’s why the feebs don’t follow him. There’s nothing here.
Back in his stairwell, he watched through the glasses as quitting time came for the construction crew and they all packed up and trooped through the gate. Not long after that, the trucks began showing up in ones and twos, parking in the lot in front of Black and White’s building, and the drivers went inside to do whatever they had to do to settle up. He changed into his wino clothes and headed off.
SPECIAL ED HAD BEEN half out of the mold when the die came down; he was badly stamped, misshapen, twisted, gnarled, poorly served by fate, and anyone who made eye contact with him could tell it was eating at him from the inside. Walking behind his shopping cart, he barely came up to the handle, and from the rear he appeared to have been knocked into a half-moon crescent, in the shape of a backward C from his ankles to his shoulders. He had thick, black, furry eyebrows that seemed to have lives of their own. They were always in motion, squirming across his forehead as he squinted first one eye shut, then the other, depending on which way he was looking. He never had both eyes open at the same time, even staring straight ahead he would peer through one eye and squinch the other one shut, and he would twist his mouth as far as he could in the direction of whichever eye was closed. The effect was that he did not so much look at you as chew at your consciousness, furiously demanding your attention, although he did not seem to enjoy it. “The fuck you looking at,” he would yell angrily at anyone who stared too long. “The fuck you looking at?” Spraying spit, showing a lot of small teeth in his lower jaw.
He hung on to the back of the cart, holding himself semi-erect with thick stubby fingers and corded forearms. He kept some cinderblocks in the front of the cart, underneath whatever swag he’d happened to have scored that day, so that when he sold his load to the junkman he didn’t lose all of his ballast. He was going bald on top, and what was left writhed from the fringes of his skull like Van Gogh’s trees.
He saw Silvano coming in his direction, wearing his wino clothes and carrying his shopping bag. He yanked an aluminum baseball bat out of the cart, and he hung on to the cart handle with one hand and he smacked the side of the cart with the bat with the other. “Lemme alone,” he growled, trying to sound tough, but he had a thin, reedy voice. “Lemme alone. The fuck do you want?” He looked at Silvano out of one eye and then the other, his face doing its scowling dance as he did. “I don’t got nothing, I don’t know you. Lemme alone!”