Walk on the Wild Side

by Bob Mayer

  “What about the Gentleman Bankers?” Kane asked.

  Cohn shrugged. “Maybe if Fat Tony isn’t interested in the deal any more, the Gentleman Bankers won’t be any more. Since you say others who are the truly guilty party are in your sights. Who knows? Now get the fuck out. I got work to do.”

  Kane took the steps two at a time, eager to be free of this foul-smelling nest of vipers. Sofia’s limo was around the corner, out of sight.

  He opened the door and got in. “I need to take a shower.”

  “You’re still breathing,” Sofia said. “That’s a good sign. What did he say?”

  “He took the money, so I assume that means your deal is good.”

  “And the contract?”

  “I told him to give me the contract since I’ve already killed, wait, retired, two of the guys who kidnapped Clark and retired Marcelle.”

  Sofia laughed as the limo edged into traffic. “That’s rich, Kane. Really. And you say you don’t know how to negotiate?”

  “He told me to talk to Fat Tony Salerno.”

  Sofia nodded. “That’s good. That means if you can talk Tony outta killing you, the Gentleman Bankers will let it go.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You’re on a roll, Kane,” Sofia said. “You’ll figure it out. You got to trust in yourself. I’ll set up a meet.”

  5

  Wednesday Evening,

  10 August 1977

  GREENWICH VILLAGE,

  MANHATTAN

  Noting that the match he placed inside his door jamb as a warning against intrusion wasn’t in place, Kane had his forty-five in hand when he pushed open the door to his basement apartment. He decided to shoot any Flint Boy yielding a knife to get it over quickly so he could get some sleep before taking care of the corpse in the yard tonight.

  His first indication of who was inside was the faint aroma of Toni that triggered memories from sixteen years ago when Ted, his Beast Barracks roommate, allowed him to read letter from his older sister their first night at the Academy. Kane lowered the forty-five as he entered the small sitting room.

  Toni was standing near the narrow, street level window, the last rays of daylight silhouetting her. Her beauty took Kane’s breath away for a second, especially after having just come from Roy Cohn’s pit.

  “Will.”

  The tremble in her voice alerted him and he brought the pistol back up and turned toward the door to the bedroom. Standing just inside was Yazzie, empty hands raised. “I’m here to talk, not fight,” Yazzie said.

  “Will?” Toni said. “Please?”

  Kane looked from Yazzie to Toni, then back. “You let him in my place?”

  Yazzie walked across the small room, hands still raised, to stand next to Toni. Very close to her.

  “Fuck,” Kane said. He turned around and walked out.

  Toni caught up to him before he made it to Washington Street. “Will. Listen to me.” She reached out and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop and face her, next to a phone booth on the corner. Yazzie hadn’t followed.

  “Why?” Kane said. “Why did you bring him to my place?”

  “He watched one of the movies you gave him,” Toni said. “I showed him what father had on Crawford. He’s on our side.”

  “Is that all you did?” Kane asked. He didn’t wait for an answer he didn’t want. “’Our side’, Toni? What’s our side?”

  “The blood feud is over for him.”

  “Really? What about his brothers?” Kane’s arm was vibrating under Toni’s grip.

  “He said they’ll be loyal to Crawford.”

  “Right. Did you go in the back yard and see the body of one of his so-called brothers?”

  “That’s what he’s here for. To take the body and bury his brother. That’s it. That’s all he wants.”

  “What about the ledger?”

  “What ledger?”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes.”

  He jerked his arm out of her hand, causing her to stumble.

  Toni caught herself. “Damn it, Will, you have to—”

  Kane reacted, punching, only a last split-second of sanity slowing his fist before it hit the plexiglass of the phone booth. Despite that awareness, the graffiti-covered plastic cracked, a spiderweb spreading out from the point of impact.

  Kane pulled his hand back, looking at it as if it belonged to someone else. He closed his eyes, internally reciting a mantra Master Pak had given him. It took ten seconds. He opened his eyes and Toni was staring at him. He could see the fear in her eyes and he winced. He spoke in a monotone. “Get the body and get out of my place. Saves me having to deal with it.”

  Toni looked up at him. “Will, listen—”

  “Take the body and go.” Kane turned away from her. “I need to get some sleep. Tell Yazzie he’s got fifteen minutes. If he’s around when I get back, there will be blood. He’ll understand that.”

  A half hour later, Kane returned. He checked the yard and the body was gone. He looked in on Pope and found his landlord passed out in bed, snoring deeply. He barricaded both doors, since sleeping in the garden hadn’t been the soundest idea against Navajo intent on bodily harm.

  Kane walked around the tiny apartment, considering the tight fields of fire from various positions. Saw the copy of Godfather spread open on the nightstand from the actress Truvey’s brief immersion into the literary world, picked it up, and snapped it shut, relieving the pressure on the spine.

  “Fuck it,” Kane said. He grabbed his poncho liner, stuffed it in the rucksack along with the Swedish K submachinegun, a few other lethal goodies, and headed out, via the backyard and hopping the fences.

  YONKERS, NEW YORK

  “Well, you got me. How come it took you so long?” David Berkowitz sat in the driver’s seat of his car, a NYPD detective holding a gun to the side of the killer’s head through the open window, another detective pointing a gun through the passenger window.

  From the shadows across the street, Omar Strong wasn’t impressed with the tactical maneuverings of the two officers making the arrest that should have been his. They were as likely to shoot each other as Berkowitz. Strong had his gun drawn but had instinctively known from the moment Berkowitz walked out to his car that this would go down easy. The curly haired postal worker of below average height and with a husky build was wearing jeans and a light blue shirt and Strong hadn’t spotted the bulge of a gun at his waist as he opened the car door.

  Berkowitz’s car, a 1970 Ford Galaxie was parked in front of his apartment building on Pine Street, here in Yonkers, just north of the Bronx. A quick search of the car had revealed a rifle in the back seat and a threatening letter addressed to the head of the Omega Task Force. The officer in charge had decided to wait on a warrant for the apartment and for Berkowitz to exit, rather than charging in, a decision Strong disagreed with, but hadn’t voiced. They’d still been waiting on the warrant when Berkowitz walked out.

  “Now that I’ve got you,” the detective at the driver’s window asked, “who have I got?”

  “You know.” Berkowitz had a low, soft voice and Strong could barely hear him.

  “No, I don’t. You tell me.”

  Berkowitz turned his head and smiled. “I’m Sam.”

  Omar Strong put his gun back in the holster. He whispered his Langston Hughes mantra to himself: “’Life is for the living. Death for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid’.”

  He walked away from the burgeoning arrest scene as more cops swarmed the area, all eager to be in on the finale of the horror that had gripped the city for over a year.

  6

  Thursday Morning,

  11 August 1977

  WEST SIDE HIGHWAY,

  MANHATTAN

  Kane sat on a wood crate across from Mac and sipped awful coffee from of a battered and dirty canteen cup. The old man was a bit higher in his folding lawn chair with fraying straps. Wile-E was the third point of the triangle surround
ing the small fire over which the #10 can containing the dark elixir hung. He was perched on an empty roof-tar bucket. Lucky lay to his side, muzzle on his one front paw, eyes closed. It was still dark and the lights of New Jersey were visible to the west across the Hudson from this abandoned portion of the elevated highway. It was almost quiet, that pause between night and day, the same time that Dale had tried to kill Kane twenty-four hours ago. It was almost peaceful, but it was still New York City.

  Ever since 1973 when an overloaded dump truck fell through the highway just north of where they were, this section had been closed and given the city’s fiscal problems, was unlikely to ever be repaired. Many believed it was part of the beginning of the end for New York City. The Blackout and rioting the previous month hadn’t changed that opinion.

  “How’d you sleep, Cap’n?” Wile-E asked.

  “Great,” Kane answered honestly. “I’ve always slept better outdoors.” And not worried about someone coming to kill him, he didn’t add. “Thao says you’re thinking of building a place on top of the diner.”

  Wile-E looked uncomfortable and Kane belatedly realized his faux pas.

  “You moving away?” Mac asked.

  “It’s where I work,” Wile-E said. “I’m just thinking about it.”

  “It’s what, three, four, blocks away,” Mac pointed out. “Getting too good for us?”

  Wile-E backpedaled. “No, it’s just—”

  “I’m screwing with you, son,” Mac said. “You’re living under a tin sheet that’ll blow away in a strong wind. I’m not worried about you, but Lucky needs better accommodations.”

  Lucky lifted his head at the mention of his name, gave them a baleful look, and then lowered it.

  “Hey, Mac,” Kane said. “Why don’t you join us for breakfast at the diner? On me.”

  Mac looked at the #10 can, then at Kane. “Your coffee as good as mine?”

  “Not quite,” Kane said, “but it’s not bad.”

  “Heard you got a gook cook,” Mac said. “I don’t eat that slop.”

  “He’s a Montagnard,” Kane said. “One of the mountain people. He can rustle up pretty much anything you want. Even apple pie.”

  “It’s good food,” Wile-E added.

  “Let me change my shirt,” Mac said. He got up and walked stiff-legged to a plywood, cardboard, plastic conglomerate covered by a tarp that he called home. He opened a battered pink suitcase. Pulled his dirty shirt off, revealing wrinkled, drooping, mottled pale skin, splattered with tattoos. One in particular caught Kane’s attention.

  “The fire going to be all right?” Kane asked as he and Wile-E stood.

  Mac spoke through the somewhat cleaner t-shirt he was pulling on. “It’ll go out. Then I’ll start it again. Need more wood anyways. It’s just a fire, son.”

  “Come,” Wile-E said to Lucky. The dog hopped to its three legs and fell in with them as they walked north, around the hole where the truck had gone through, toward the on/off ramp on 19th Street in the center of the highway. A few of the other homeless gave a greeting or wave to Mac as they passed.

  “I saw your tattoo,” Kane said to Mac as they walked down the ramp.

  “Gonna have to be more specific than that, young fella,” Mac said.

  “Marine Raider.” Kane was referring to the faded image of five stars on a blue field surrounding a red diamond with a skull in the center which was over Mac’s heart.

  “Toughest sons-a-bitches in the Corps and that’s no bullshitting, I tell you that.”

  “Were you at Makin?”

  “Hell, no.” Mac spit. “Fucking commies. That was Second Battalion under Carlson. Gung-ho and all that Hollywood bullshit. I was with Edson and the First. Where the real fighting was on the ‘Canal. We held the Ridge. Colonel Edson, he stood there, in the line, while the rest of us were hugging the ground like we was fornicating it. He held us together while the Japs came at us, wave after wave. He saved the Ridge, which saved Henderson Field, which saved the entire damn island. Might have saved the war.”

  “He was awarded the Medal of Honor, wasn’t he?” Kane said.

  “Sure, but all everyone talked about later was Carlson and his gung-ho crap, which is Chinese commie bull. Makin was a royal cock-up from what I heard. If anyone ever deserved the Medal, it was Edson. At least they got that right. You know they gave MacArthur one for bugging out of the Philippines?”

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “His father had gotten one in the Civil War so I think there was some compensation going on there.” Memories were stirring for Kane as they reached street level. “Had a chaplain get the Medal in one fight I was in.”

  That caught Mac’s interest. “A chaplain? How did that tune go? Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition? What this chaplain do?”

  Kane’s mind usually fogged when he tried to remember the past, but that final image of Chaplain Watters giving Last Unction to a dying soldier, silhouetted against the blast of the friendly bomb that killed him and many others and ripped shrapnel into Kane was vivid. “He kept bringing wounded in from outside the perimeter while under heavy fire. Like you say, everyone else was hunkering down, but he kept going out there. He deserved it. Unfortunately, it was posthumous.”

  Mac nodded. “Sounds like he did. Those who ain’t been shot at don’t understand you either be crazier than shit or brave as all get out to stand up under enemy fire. I had two firing positions the entire war: prone or the flying prone when I got shot at while I was on my feet and then diving for the ground.

  “But Edson stood up there on that ridge all night. Amazing he didn’t get hit. I ain’t afraid to admit I looked over every so often and seeing him there kept me from skedaddling when them nip bastards came right into our line. It was bayonets, steel pots, bare hands at times. Every man for himself.” Mac shook his head. “Crazy. Just crazy. Now we buy radios and TVs from them. Tell you the truth, I think a lot of them had to be drunk to charge us the way they did. We mowed them down and they kept-a-coming. Them banzai charges were awful things to face.”

  “Gyokusia,” Kane whispered, more to himself.

  “What was that?” Wile-E asked.

  “It’s a Japanese term,” Kane explained. “Means jewel breaking. Sort of.” He saw the looks that Mac and Wile-E were giving him. “From an old saying: ‘a true man would rather die as a shattered jewel, than live like an intact brick’. Basically, it means the men charging were preferring an honorable death in combat to other options.”

  Mac spit once more. “I don’t know about honorable. But, Jesus, it was a terrible thing.” He gave Kane a sharp glance. “You speak Nip?”

  “A few words,” Kane said. Which got him back on topic. “Did you have any Navajo code-talkers with you on Guadalcanal?”

  “A few.” Mac nodded. “Good men. The Raiders were the first to get them assigned.”

  Daylight was creeping across the streets with long shadows as dawn broke over Manhattan. The lights of Vic’s Diner glowed and through the windows Morticia was visible, smiling and chatting with some truck drivers. Thao was behind the counter, pouring coffee for some ladies of the night. Vic’s looked inviting and homey in a New York kind of way. Kane lost a step.

  “You okay, Cap’n?” Wile-E asked.

  The warmth of the diner’s windows slammed into the fist around his heart every time he thought of ‘Lil Joe. Kane nodded. “Yeah. I’m all right. Just remembering someone.”

  They entered the diner and Wile-E and Lucky headed for the kitchen while Mac took command of a stool at the far end of the counter. Kane went to his usual booth in the corner.

  “You look better,” Morticia said as she deposited coffee and water/two cubes.

  “Mac’s on the house.”

  “Feeling magnanimous this morning?” She didn’t wait for an answer as customers entered.

  Kane wrapped his callused hands around the mug, letting the warmth sink in. He scanned the crowd. Watched Thao come out to work the counter, giving him a wave, which Kane returned. Thao
immediately began talking with Mac while he poured the old man coffee.

  Dave Riley bustled by with a couple of plates. “Hey, Mister Kane.”

  “Dave,” Kane acknowledged. He leaned back and the new vinyl, courtesy of Morticia’s suggestions for improving the place, crinkled. He finally noticed there were new napkin dispensers and ash trays, despite the fact they’d been there for a week.

  Detective Omar Strong entered via Gansevoort. Morticia diverted to him and gave him a peck and a loud “Congratulations!”

  Strong couldn’t hide the grin as he sat across from Kane. “You get your paper yet?”

  “Nope, but I’m a guessing Son of Sam is no longer a problem?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “No doubt?”

  “No doubt. We have the gun. Ballistics match. He confessed before they even slapped the cuffs on.”

  “They being the hero cops who did the leg work to actually figure out who this guy was, right?”

  Strong shrugged, the success taking the edge off being pulled from making the arrest. “He’s not going to be shooting anyone else. He’s going away for the rest of his damn life.”

  Kane nodded. “Good job, Omar. The City of New York thanks you.”

  Morticia brought a cup of coffee. “The usual?”

  Strong shook his head. “Spent all night at headquarters. Now I’ve got to go out to the Island. We’re disbanding the Task Force. I’ll probably be the only guy there this morning who isn’t still drunk or hung over.”

  “Or even shows up, I bet,” Kane said. “What next for you?”

  “Back to my old job.”

  “No promotion?”

  “It’s about doing the right thing, not the reward.”

  “Right.” Kane indicated Wile-E who was bussing some tables. “Found him. You can call off your hounds.”

  “Good,” Strong said. He hesitated. “Listen, Kane. You and I haven’t seen eye to eye on things, but I wanted to stop by and thank you.”