by Con Lehane
Before the cab pulled away, he spoke to me out the window. “We’ve fought these people before. You have to be smart and you have to be careful. But it can be done.” His expression was pure defiance.
“You’re telling me I should take on the gangsters in the union?”
Pop leaned farther out the cab’s window, sizing me up. “These hooligans work in the dark. They’re like cockroaches. When you turn on the lights, they scatter for cover.”
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, eh, Pop?”
“Harrumph!” said Pop.
I went to work.
After visiting Barney in the hospital and Pop in Brooklyn, and spending an hour digging through garbage bins, I was more out of sorts than usual as I set up the bar, until I noticed that tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-something Betsy Tierney was the bar waitress for the evening. Seeing her, I cheered up considerably. It makes a difference who the waitress is. A few are pains in the ass; most are okay; some, like Betsy, downright exciting. Besides being a great waitress and lovely to look at, she had, under Barney’s tutelage, become part of our rank-and-file insurgency. Brooklyn born and bred, she was the salt-of-the-earth-type New York City woman you don’t run across unless you live and work in the city. She’d grown up in an isolated enclave at the far end of Brooklyn where Avenue U meets Sheepshead Bay. Gerritsen Beach looks like a fishing village, with fishing boats sliding by in the bay mornings and evenings, the kind of place where bungalows and two-family houses predominate, and families have statues of the Virgin Mary in their densely foliaged, tiny front yards, where married daughters live down the street from their mothers, grandmothers are not far off, and everyone has a dozen cousins in the neighborhood. It has as much to do with glitzy and gentrified Manhattan as it does with Mars.
Like too many city girls, even those from Gerritsen Beach, Betsy grew up too fast and got married too soon, in her case to a guy from the neighborhood, who became a cop and who later provided her with a child, still a baby, and a great deal of grief. He’d been in the bar a few times, watching over her as she worked, and was easy to clock as possessive, jealous, and dangerous, with that edgy violent streak you see in some cops when they’re starting out and hope they grow out of before they kill someone. He sat at the bar as cold as ice, putting his hands on her whenever she came near him—touching her ass or her breasts, looking at me as if to say, look at what I can do, daring me to touch her. I didn’t care about his threat since I didn’t think of Betsy that way, and even if I did, I’d known men like her husband before and recognized his kind of perverted possessiveness that passes itself off as love. I knew from Betsy this guy had a houseful of guns and that he hadn’t come down yet from his recent brief tour of duty in the desert during the Gulf War. To put it another way, I knew better than to get involved romantically with Betsy Tierney, even though it was clear she needed to break with her husband and was looking for a guy to help her do it.
Barney was either braver or more foolish—or both—than I was. I saw how he stopped what he was doing to watch each time she sashayed away from the bar with her tray of drinks, how her lips brushed his ear when she placed her order above the happy-hour din. Even though I didn’t think it had come to anything yet, I saw where it was heading and knew I should warn him.
Of course, this night, Betsy wanted to know everything I knew about what happened to Barney. She was hovering around the bar as soon as I got behind it, she and Mary Donohue, one of the dining room waitresses. They had been talking about Barney when I arrived and wanted to hear the latest from me. Mary, Irish, like Barney, was beside herself with worry about him. She was like that, excitable and motherly, trying to take care of everyone in a way that reminded me of my mother, though she was closer to me in age. She’d already been to the hospital to see Barney and make sure the nurses and doctors toed the line in taking care of him. Mary’s concern was contagious. When she was worried, she needed everyone else in the hotel to worry along with her, and we did. As far as Barney was concerned, Betsy was certainly holding up her end in the worry department—there were tears in her eyes each time she said his name—so I began to sense that this thing between them might have moved along faster than I’d thought.
“There’s something you should know,” Betsy said, when Mary had gone to wait on a table. “Someone else should know now after what happened. I’m afraid Barney might get deported if the police look into the attack too closely. He’s here in America under a false name.”
I shushed her and sent her away after she blurted this out. I figured Barney should know better than to blab about being illegal. He’d told her and already she’d told me. That wasn’t much of a secret anymore. What if she got cold feet about him and told her husband? The Irish have a thing about betrayal—they hate an informer—but this didn’t mean they didn’t get betrayed. I was mad at Betsy telling me and mad at Barney telling her. A secret like this brought you trouble.
When the kitchen closed that night, the bar was slow, so we held a short meeting of the rank-and-file group to talk about Barney and what we could do. Francois the chef, Hector the Ecuadorian sous chef, who didn’t speak English and was probably an illegal, and one of the dishwashers, who certainly was an illegal, came, as did a busboy and two dining room waitresses. Without Barney, there was a leadership vacuum, and I got sucked into it, given my tenure with the union and my big mouth. One thing Barney had going for him as a leader was his fearlessness, which made everyone else, including me, braver in turn. Given that the recent turn of events had scared the bejeebers out of me, this bravery thing was going to be in short supply on my watch.
“Isn’t there anyone we can turn to?” Mary Donohue asked. A longtime Savoy worker, she was of the North Bronx Irish, having come over in the ’60s with that decade’s wave of Irish immigrants. Her husband was a cop, and they were sending their son to Fordham on a cop’s and waitress’s pay, with her working a lot of double shifts and banquets over the years. As I said, she worried over all of us, especially Barney, and was more determined than any of us to set things right. “What about going to Pete Kelly?” She returned our stares of incredulity without batting an eye.
Pete Kelly was president of the hotel union council that included our trusty Local 909. He was ultimately responsible for the pricks we were plagued by. Whatever Kelly thought of Eliot and his indiscretions, we were a bigger menace. Kelly believed Barney and I, and the rest of the rank-and-file movement, were trying to steal his union from him. That he thought the union belonged to him and therefore could be stolen from him went a long way toward explaining why there was a rank-and-file movement. I didn’t need to explain this to Mary Donohue. She had his number. As Pete approached where we were standing during the St. Patrick’s Day parade last year, carrying his GIVE IRELAND BACK TO THE IRISH banner, she’d hollered at him, “Give the union back to its members, you fat son of a bitch.”
“Why would he help us?” Betsy asked. “He hates Barney and the rank-and-file folks. That’s why he put Barney and Brian over here. I’m sure he wishes someone would get rid of all of us.”
“But Pete Kelly isn’t the kind to chop a man’s fingers off,” said Mary Donohue.
Given a run-in we’d had not so long ago, I wasn’t sure this was true, but I didn’t debate it. He wasn’t much of a democrat, but he was a union guy in his own way. He put up with the crooked locals because they supported him when he needed them, and, I suspected, because he knew if he took them on he’d most likely end up in a vacant lot in Canarsie. This kind of crappy local couldn’t be good for him, though, and he might help if we did the heavy lifting. Failing that, he might at least put a leash on the thugs running it.
“It might be worth a try,” I said. “Who wants to go talk to him?”
One of the features of our little group I liked best was that we didn’t have the problem of folks falling over one another to volunteer for something. I actually couldn’t remember a time when one of us did volunteer for anything,
with the possible exception of Barney. In our group, you did something when you were talked into it by the rest of the group.
“Ah, go on,” Barney would say. “Is there a better man in the place than you for the job?” And so it went this time.
“How about you, Mary?” I suggested.
“Ah, go on, Brian. What would I say to the man? I’d be speechless in front of him. You’re the man to go, Brian. You’re accustomed to these kinds of talks. He already knows you.”
“Knows him is right,” said Francois. “He tried to have him killed once.”
Everyone looked at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s a long story. He sent a couple of goons to scare me out of running for office a year or two ago.” That episode and some things that happened at the time brought back too many painful memories, so I brushed off the rest of the questions. “A friend of mine back then arranged to have him talked out of it.”
chapter three
I agreed to talk to Kelly, but only if someone came with me, and that someone turned out to be Betsy. As usual, things didn’t go as planned. When I called the next morning to make an appointment with Pete Kelly, a brisk and businesslike but not unfriendly secretary told me to take up my problem with my business agent.
“I need to see Mr. Kelly personally,” I said. “If you would tell him this is Brian McNulty and I’m calling on behalf of Barney Saunders about a couple of hundred hotel workers who need help, maybe he’d have a few minutes to chat.”
“Mr. Kelly doesn’t take this kind of phone call, hon. I’ll connect you with one of the organizers.”
“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll get back to you.” Over the years, I’ve learned you can’t argue with someone who’s been given instructions.
“I’m nervous,” Betsy said the next day as we made our way across 67th Street from the subway stop on Broadway, past tinkling bells and muted Christmas carols drifting from the store we passed, to the Central Park Inn. Tall and statuesque to begin with, this afternoon she looked like a Greek goddess, her long black coat unbuttoned and flowing behind her, wearing high heels and a long black skirt with a slit up the side and a low-cut scoop neck that made her neck look really long—and accentuated her breasts so that they now seemed to be pushed up and leaning forward, about to tumble out of the dress through the scooped neck; her hair was up in a bun and back from her face, so her blue eyes sparkled and her skin seemed soft and fresh as a child’s. I didn’t expect her to look this good. She looked good enough in her worn and faded waitress uniform in the dim light of the Savoy bar. Here on 67th Street in the December chill, with a flush on her cheeks from the frosty air and the slight exertion of walking, wearing fresh vibrantly red, sparkly lipstick, she looked too good. I’d glance over at her every once in a while, and my eyes would lock there looking at her, so she’d smile, and that would make it worse.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked with a giggle.
I snapped my eyes away and grumbled, something bartenders usually can get away with with waitresses because there’s a bar between you and them and you can walk to the other end. This time there was no walking away, so she hooked her arm through mine and hugged herself toward me, her rambunctious right breast bumping against my arm as we walked.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked. “I’m scared and excited at the same time. What do you think he’ll say?”
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but it was the only one I had. The union grapevine placed Peter Kelly in the Central Park Inn, a union establishment, for lunch every Wednesday. He ate by himself, but the owner, the manager, and the chef would stop by to pay tribute, and undoubtedly comp the lunch, treating him as a labor statesman as payback for labor peace.
My idea was for us to be there when he arrived, finish our lunches—which would not be comped—before he finished his, and stop by his table as we were leaving, to pay our respects. Betsy’s role was to watch my back and look gorgeous, which she handled with aplomb.
Sure enough, just after our lunch was served, Pete was ushered into the garden room, which was decked out in opulent Christmas finery; the glass and the crystal and the white tablecloths had been given a seasonal touch with poinsettias and vases of ornaments, and Christmas greens were draped among the chandeliers. Betsy ate salmon with a lemon butter sauce. I had a hamburger and a beer. We were seated at a deuce against a wall, not far from the entrance to the kitchen. Trying to act natural and keep a conversation going, I made the mistake of asking Betsy if she’d been to see Barney. She looked away guiltily, and when she turned back, her eyes had reddened, as if she would cry.
“I’m afraid to,” she said.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked without thinking about what I was saying.
Now her lip trembled.
“Look,” I said. “This is an expensive lunch. Don’t start sniveling and getting tears and snot all over it.”
It was a weak attempt at humor, and she produced a weak smile in response. “Oh, Brian, what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to stop sniveling and go powder your pretty nose; then we’re going to talk with Pete Kelly, and you’re going to smile and nod a lot, and when the time comes you’re going to look fiercely determined. From there, you can play it by ear.”
She grimaced, curling her lip and lowering her eyebrows. “I meant about my life.” She drilled the message into my eyeballs. Thankfully, the crisis had passed. Her eyes cleared up and she went back to taking dainty bites of her salmon. I decided not to risk any more questions, so we sat there oblivious to one another, like a married couple.
I couldn’t see what Kelly was eating, but whatever it was it took up a lot of room on his table and required a number of trips by the waiter, busboy, and captain to deliver it. True to form, the restaurant owner, a society man-about-town, who owned more than one of these glitteringly appointed restaurants, also stopped in to the Central Park on Wednesdays and made it a point to stop by Peter’s table. With handshakes, pats on the back, a bit of banter, and a few chuckles and guffaws, they shared their bonhomie, letting the world know they enjoyed the good life, living high on the hog off the backs of the workers, as Pop would say.
When the owner moved along to his own party, Betsy and I finished our lunch. While I paid the check, she went to the powder room, then walked resolutely over to Kelly’s table, which he almost knocked over when he jumped up to suavely greet her. By the time I moseyed over, Betsy’s laugh was tinkling and Kelly’s eyes were bulging. He made no attempt to hide his irritation as I sidled up to Betsy and she took my hand in hers to introduce me.
“Brian’s a member of your union, too,” she said. “He’s stuck in this awful local, just like I am.”
Kelly eyed me shrewdly. He was short and stocky, with what used to be called a flattop haircut back in the ’50s. He looked as tough as he was reputed to be. I noticed he was drinking Perrier with lime and eating a whole fish that had lemon slices on it. His voice was gruff, and while he might have been smitten by Betsy, he wasn’t making a fool of himself.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, eyeing me in a way that suggested he was trying to place me. “But where you work now, that’s Local 909’s jurisdiction and nothin’ I can do about it.”
“What if we helped you take them on?”
Kelly looked surprised, both suspicious and curious. “Why would I do that?”
I took a deep breath. “You know what happened to Barney Saunders?”
His expression didn’t change and his eyes stayed locked on mine. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Brian McNulty. I was a steward at the Sheraton. I ran for executive board.” There was a bit more to this that I didn’t want to go into, having to do with a Labor Department charge some of us filed against Kelly.
He brought it up anyway. “You and Saunders think you should be runnin’ the union, right? Except the workers keep electin’ me.” His expression hardened. “Why you comin’ to me now? T
ake your girlfriend and get the fuck out of here, before I get up and throw you the fuck out.”
He didn’t make any menacing movements or gestures, but his voice was a low growl—the kind you hear from big, mean dogs—so I believed he would do what he said.
“Give me five minutes.” I tried to sound calmer than I felt.
He took a drink of his Perrier, picked up his knife and fork, and bent to his fish, giving no indication he listened. Still, he wasn’t chucking me out the door, so I went on.
“What this guy is doing is wrong, Pete. The pay’s below scale; the benefits are lousy. The boss walks into the kitchen and fires workers on the spot. That’s not the kind of union you run.”
Kelly continued his meal, as if I weren’t there. It’s unnerving, being ignored in a public place. You get the sense that everyone knows it, too, that you’ve been hung out to dry.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Betsy, grabbing her arm. She resisted. I pulled on her arm a bit harder, so she resisted harder. A fine kettle of fish. Pompous asshole, king of the domain, wiping his puss with a linen napkin, and now the beautiful princess, ignoring me tugging her arm, while the Christmas lights shone, the chandeliers twinkled, the crystal glittered, the silverware sparkled, and the upscale diners watched me, saying to themselves, What’s with this asshole causing a scene, spoiling everyone’s lunch, making a spectacle of himself?
We Irish embarrass easily. Most of us don’t like to call attention to ourselves—at least not when we’re sober. A thousand times when I was growing up, I heard from my mother, “What will the neighbors think?” For my mother, that was the worst part of the Red baiting, what the neighbors thought. I pretend to myself I don’t care what people think, but the truth is it’s hard to get out from under your upbringing. Now here I was the center of attention in one of New York’s spiffiest restaurants. I didn’t know what to do. For openers, I wanted to backhand Betsy, but that wouldn’t do, so I stood there about to internally combust, until Betsy said, in her gentle, lilting voice, “Wait, Brian.” Her pretty blue eyes smiled, holding in them comfort and steadfastness and encouragement. Having calmed me, she turned to Kelly. “Mr. Kelly,” she said in a tone that would lull lions to sleep, “we came here because we believe in you.”