“Just coffee.”
“You can’t have just coffee,” the daughter said.
“You got to have gravy. We got to build you up,” Mariani said. “Genoese gravy. You ever had it?”
“I don’t know this gravy,” Teenager said.
“You don’t know what living is until you had Genoese gravy my way,” Mariani said.
As this might have been taken as an invitation to dinner, the daughter stiffened.
“I thank you very much, Louis, but I cannot stay today,” Teenager said.
The daughter relaxed.
Mariani’s son, who was about seventeen, came into the kitchen.
“You know Teenager.”
The son’s face was embarrassingly pretty, with pink cheeks and large soft eyes. “I think so,” he said.
“You think? You don’t know Teenager?”
“You got very big, Ralphie,” Teenager said.
“I play baseball,” Ralph said.
“What team is it?” Teenager said.
“School team.”
“He goes to DePaul Academy,” Mariani said. “I go to the game and see him hit the ball. I say, geez, my own son can hit a ball like this?”
“I get a tryout with a scout next year my pop says.”
“He got to finish school first,” Mariani said. “But he don’t mind that. This kid got school spirit. It ain’t like when I went to school. All I cared about was gettin’ into the girls’ room. This kid, you ought to see this kid, he got school spirit. He goes to school, he wears the school jacket with the name of the school right on it. That’s one of the biggest things a kid could have. School spirit. Ralphie, get us a drink. Me and Teenager need a boost up.”
Mariani went to the stove. “Teenager, you got to excuse me for a second. I’m just in the middle of making the gravy. See these? Neck bones. That’s what I use. I put neck bones in here. Three pound of neck bones to every pound of linguini. Neck bones, three pound of onion. Someday you eat this with me. Eat my way. You’ll die. I make baked sausages with peppers to go with this.”
“That sounds delicious.”
“What are you, kidding? I’m speaking to this guy the other day, Barker. He got some car insurance business. He says to me that his wife has him eat macaroni with American cheese on it out of a can. I says to him—Madonna!—you ought to put your wife’s head in the oven.”
His son Ralph brought in brandy. Mariani, wiping his hands on the towel, held out his glass.
“A salud.”
Teenager nodded and sipped the brandy. “You know what respect I have for you,” he told Mariani.
“You listen to me, you’ll become rich. You’re smart. You not like these other Spanish guys.”
“I try to use my head to see what is coming,” Teenager said.
“That’s what I mean. You think. You’re not like the rest of your people.”
“I got to make money.”
“You listen to me, you’ll make millions.”
Mariani’s wife said, “You should see the people makin’ money today. People got no class at all are getting rich.”
Mariani wiped his hands on the apron. “Here, let’s get out of here so we talk.”
He led Teenager down the hall and into a study whose shelves were lined with porcelain figures. Two chess tables with hand-carved ivory figures flanked a large television set. Mariani sat in a large chair. Teenager leaned against the wall. Nicki walked past the door, on her way to the back of the house.
“They don’t know nothing about what I do,” Mariani said. “Keep the women and children out of it. They’re nice. Let them live nice. Right?”
Teenager nodded. “Right,” he said.
“We’re men,” Mariani said. “We have to do what we can do. But that don’t mean you bring in the wife and the children. Only scum do that.”
“That’s right,” Teenager said.
“So what do you want?” Mariani said.
“I want to do some business with you.”
“Babania,” Mariani said.
“You have?”
“I got.”
There was a small noise in the hall. Mariani held up his hand. “Ralphie.” There was no answer from the hall. Mariani’s hand came down.
“I got the best white in a long, long time.”
“Uh huh.”
“You could step on it seven times.”
“Seven.”
“That’s right. Seven times.”
He held up his hand again. “Ralphie!” This time there was a squeak in the hall.
“I smack out his brains,” Mariani said. He smiled at Teenager. “You could hit my stuff seven times.”
The one particular of arithmetic that Teenager had been carrying in his mind, in prison cell and mess hall and exercise yard, stirred in his mind. A kilogram is one thousand grams. A gram is a thousand milligrams. This makes a kilogram a million milligrams. Thirty milligrams is a dose on the street. Take one kilogram and step on it, how many times is that you step on this one, seven? Step on this one seven times and you have, what is it, 230,000 doses to sell? This is over two million dollars. Business.
“Seven times is very good,” Teenager said.
“Very good?” Mariani asked. “This will make you rich.”
“Thank you. I won’t forget.”
“You better not. Because I’m helping you.”
“Yes.”
“So what are we talking about?” Mariani said.
“A unit.”
“That much? You always go an eighth maybe. From an eighth down.”
“This time the whole.”
“That costs fifty.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Fifty.”
“I thought like forty for pure.”
“This is pure. Ninety-seven five.”
“Ninety-seven five? To this city it doesn’t come,” Teenager said.
“It does this time.”
“Ninety-seven five for forty you say?” Teenager asked.
“I said fifty.”
“That’s too much money for me. I just come out of jail.”
“What can I tell you?” Mariani asked, shrugging politely.
“Couldn’t you give me a little less of a price?”
“It’s out of my hands.”
“Whose hands could it be in? The clouds in the sky? You are the highest man on earth.”
“I speak the truth. It’s out of my hands.”
“Such a figure to pay when I just came out of jail.”
“So you’ll wait until you have it. This stuff don’t come by subway. It takes time to get here. I got guys everywhere waiting for it. Guys down your way. Pedro Torres’ been begging me.”
Teenager made certain his face showed nothing when Torres’ name was mentioned. Pedro Torres was on 149th Street, and while Teenager was in jail, Torres had told people that he, Torres, would take over the entire South Bronx. Teenager had said that he would slap Torres in the face for such talk. But this made it different. This was beyond talk: Torres was dealing directly with Mariani.
Mariani said, “You know him. He’s a nice boy. I help him out if I can. I help out a lot of people. No poca di petrosino fabone duti di putiminestra.” Mariani laughed. “You know what that means?”
“No.”
“Sicilian. It means, I’m like parsley. A little parsley makes all kinds of salads good.”
Teenager smiled and held out his hand. “Fifty.”
“You’ll make a million,” Mariani said, shaking the hand.
“I can get it today?” Teenager said.
“Give me the money. Then leave your car at the Sunoco station on Castle Hill Avenue. You know the place. Where Paulie stays. Leave the car there, somebody picks it up. They call you, tell you where the car is. The unit’ll be in the car.”
“I pay you soon,” Teenager said.
“Fine. Then you’ll get the car back soon.”
“I wanted the car back tonight.”
“Then pay the money before tonight.”
“I give it to you soon.”
Mariani held out his hands.
“I’m reliable in business,” Teenager said.
Mariani smiled.
“Wasn’t I reliable in how I helped out Ronnie in jail for you?”
“My son-in-law’s not here in this room with us,” Mariani said. “Ronnie’s got nothin’ to do with this.”
Teenager shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You’re a smart boy,” Mariani said. “You can see that I just can’t do it.”
“How am I going to get my business started unless you help me?” Teenager said.
“I will,” Mariani said. “An eighth. Tonight, you could have an eighth. You want the whole thing, I can’t do it.”
“For an eighth I could have time?”
“All the time you want. In fact, I tell you what. Don’t even leave the car for an eighth. Tell me where you want it and I’ll have a guy bring it to you.”
“At the bar,” Teenager said.
“When?” Mariani said.
“Tomorrow. Just give it to Benny in the bar if I’m not there. He is as good as me.”
“Beautiful,” Mariani said.
“How much do you give Torres?” Teenager said.
Mariani held out his brandy glass and tapped Teenager’s. “Let’s be nice.”
“Could I use your bathroom?” Teenager asked.
“Sure, go right outside down the hall. The second door on the left. Guest bathroom.”
Teenager went to the bathroom and Mariani walked the opposite way, to the kitchen. When Teenager came out, he walked soundlessly down the hall.
“What does he think you got, Louis, a delicatessen?” the voice of Mariani’s wife said.
“Will you shut up?” Mariani’s voice said. “He got it in him to bargain. He don’t know any different. The Spics is like Arabs. They got to bargain.”
“You said it was the best you had in a long time, didn’t you, Dad?” the son’s voice said. “You told us you could step on it six times, right?”
“Seven,” Mariani said.
Teenager made noise now and the talking stopped. They all smiled at him as he stepped into the kitchen.
“Could I trouble you for the phone?” Teenager said. “I just want to call my wife to tell her I am coming home.”
There was no answer at home. Lydia probably had the kids out for a walk, he thought. “I go now,” he said.
Now, Nicki walked into the kitchen, hand out, the protective smile wide on her mouth. “I feel terrible that you couldn’t even stay and eat with us,” she said.
Teenager held out his hand in farewell and walked out of the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Nicki pick up a washcloth and begin to rub hard on the receiver that he had just used.
Nicki crumpled up an empty pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table, paced about looking for a full pack and began muttering when she could not find one. She was bothered, as she always was, by this empty Sunday of cigar smoke and garlic, a day made all the more uneasy by the meaningless Saturday that had gone before it and by the Monday that was ahead, with its lonely drive to prison. Waiting through a weekend for the humiliation of standing in a jailer’s gaze.
She picked up sunglasses from the kitchen table, pushed them atop her head and went to the front door. Her father and Teenager were still standing there talking. Teenager had his hand on the door, but Nicki knew this was meaningless; gangsters rarely have anyplace to go after meeting each other, and their notion of terminal ability is to spend a half hour exchanging afterthoughts.
“Where are you going?” her father said to her.
“To get cigarettes.”
“Got money with you?”
“Yes.”
“Then get out of here.”
Mariani and Teenager laughed, and Nicki went out the door and her long cheerful body tripped down the stoop. She was going to cut across the lawn to her father’s car in the driveway, but instead she strode all the way to the front sidewalk.
As she walked closer to Maximo she saw a good leather jacket, a knit shirt and a gold chain. She was conscious of the look Maximo gave her as he looked up from his book. It was not the domineering, possessive look that always came from her husband; this one was pure sex. She was about to turn on the sidewalk and walk over to the driveway when Maximo smiled at her.
He looks like a fucking movie star, Nicki thought to herself.
Her eyes met Maximo’s and stayed on them.
“Hello, I’m Maximo.”
The accent, as slight as it was, caused her to flinch. It reminded her of dirty little Spics with thin greasy mustaches huddled in doorways, or leering at her on the subways, and of all the things she had heard about what Puerto Ricans do to their women.
“Your friend should be right out,” she said coldly.
“Thank you,” he said. Said it with this glad face and sexy eyes.
“What are you reading?”
She was ready for him to bring up some gang-bang magazine. Instead he held up this thick textbook. The Uniform Commercial Code for the State of New York.
“My law book.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“No, look. That’s what it is.”
Even the Ivy League hadn’t fully erased a slight “thas,” a sound that caused the chamber of Nicki’s ear to flinch. If there was one thing she could not stand about Spics, aside from nigger hair, it was that they said “thas” and “New Jessey.” When she glanced at the pages of the book Maximo was holding, she saw that it was some kind of law book all right.
“Trying your own case?” Nicki said.
“No, I’m studying for the bar exams.”
“Sure you are.”
“Unfortunately, it’s the truth.” He smiled at her.
Just don’t say New Jessey, she thought. Oh, you’re a fucking movie star.
“That’s fine,” she said. “It was a pleasure to have met you.”
Maximo watched her walk up to the Cadillac parked in the driveway. What does she smell like, Maximo thought.
Nicki dipped elegantly, provocatively into the Cadillac. She slid out with a pack of cigarettes in her hand.
“Saved me a drive,” she said. “Right on the dashboard.” She walked back, opening the cardboard box of cigarettes and stuffing the cellophane into a jeans pocket.
“Want one?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, I’m going in now. It was nice to have met you.”
“I love your shirt,” Maximo said.
She wanted to retreat behind the lighting of a cigarette, but she had no matches. “Isn’t it pretty?” she said. “I just got it Friday.”
“You should go shopping every Friday.”
There was such a strong sexual undercurrent being caused by his eyes that she felt it pushing against her ankles, causing her to dig with her toes to prevent herself from being lifted off the bottom and floating helplessly.
“Maybe I will. Right now I have to go in.”
“You never told me your name.”
“Nicki.”
“I will see you again, Nicki.”
Boldly, unblinking, he kept his brown eyes riveted on her. She felt herself basking. This was not a look coming from a pair of raw streetcorner eyes that reached out and ripped her clothes off. This was a softer look, one that could not be brushed away, a look that was gently, but firmly helping her to undress.
Inside the house, Nicki took the cigarette cellophane out of her pocket and dropped it in the garbage. She pulled the towels off the trays of food. On each tinfoil covering was a piece of paper with her husband’s name and prison number. Ronald Schiavone 327C19. The prison demanded that the food be delivered in this form, so that it could be checked for guns or knives or more important contraband, such as packets of cocaine. The guards were very watchful for drugs, because so much of a prison-town economy is based on gua
rds selling drugs to inmates for outrageous prices that any interference with this process causes greater anger than an escape. The three trays Nicki was taking to prison this time contained lasagna, sausages and peppers, and chicken scarpariello, which meant that Ronald the prisoner would be eating like Palermo royalty.
This time, there even would be wine, for Nicki’s visit was going to be an overnight stay with her husband in the trailer parked outside the prison fence—“the fuck truck,” the inmates called it—and for twenty dollars to a guard, the arriving wife always could bring in a few bottles of wine.
When she had told her girlfriend Angela about these periodic visits to the trailer, Nicki had said, “For two days all you do is drink wine and get raped.” But it had not been exactly that way. It had been more, bring him his running suit, iron his clothes, serve him food and listen to him complain. On the last visit, he had put on the Kelly green Adidas jogging suit she had bought for one hundred thirty dollars in Bloomingdale’s basement and sauntered around the trailer in it. When Nicki said that he looked terrific in it, that the color was nicer on him than that of the crimson jogging suit she had brought up to him on the last visit, Ronald said, “Yeah, and look where I got to wear it.”
“Come on, Ronnie, it’s a lovely day.”
“I got to wear this like I’m a dog in a kennel. Guys are out on the street making fortunes of money, and I got to eat and sleep with niggers.”
“Ronnie.”
“Ronnie my ass. You could talk. You sitting home like a queen. Where am I? I’m stuck in with niggers. Do you call that fair?”
If, as Nicki had been brought up to believe, a friend in need is a pest, then a husband in need turns out to be a carrier, passing his troubles onto her as if they were the flu; insisting that she suffer with his ailment, coughing full in her face to bring it about. Ronald complained for nearly all of the remainder of her visit, and at one point, three hours before she was to leave, Nicki went into the small shower because she had to be alone and she let the water run off her long body while she stared at the wall. “I’m the one that’s in jail,” she said.
On the drive home, she played an FM station so loudly that even with a feline howl, she could not make her voice sound above the music. Nor did the music have any effect upon her feelings. She considered herself a woman on her way back to a girls’ camp.
Forsaking All Others Page 4