Buddy stepped sideways to the edge of the perch stained white and bluish green with parrot shit. His mom could offer Buddy a sunflower seed from her puckered mouth murmuring, “Kisser mom, kisser mom,” and Buddy would peck the seed out of the red goo of her lips, crack it and eat it without thinking twice. Teddy, all he had to do was approach the stand—there in the living room on spread newspapers—even offer a peanut, and Buddy would shit and become edgy. Why?
“ ‘Ey, I ain’t gonna eat you. Here, walk onto my hand . . . Okay, don’t then. I don’t care. The heck’re you nervous about?” Teddy hunched down to look into Buddy’s eyes as Buddy side-stepped back the other way now. It would show if Buddy saw something in his eyes. Did he? It was hard to tell with a parrot.
He had looked into the eyes of convicts, wondering if they saw something, and had got propositioned, proposed to and finally picked by a big colored guy, Monroe Ritchie, to be his old lady. But he had never seen the look in any con’s eyes like the look he had seen in the cop’s—that morning when they woke him up busting through the door and the cop held the gun in his face.
Not a look of hate exactly, it was more a look of knowing something.
Then saw the look in the cop’s eyes again, on the car ferry down in Puerto Rico, this time the cop holding the curved end of a walking stick in his face. This was like confirming it, he hadn’t just imagined the cop saw something that first time. No, seven and a half years later the cop still saw it.
Teddy said to Buddy, “How would you like it? Guy thinks he knows more about you than you do? Like he can look in your head and see things that make him want to blow your head right off. I mean a guy that shows he wants to kill you. What would you do, let him?” Teddy hunched in close to Buddy. “I make you nervous, don’t I? Huh? Would you like to peck my eyes out so I can’t look at you no more? Would you? ‘Ey, then you know what it feels like.”
He had watched Monroe Ritchie’s eyes cloud. “No, I don’t see nothing.” Then go milky soft. “ ’Cept my sweetie.”
He would lie spooned in Monroe’s arms on the lower bunk in darkness, Monroe’s bulk against his spine, Monroe’s big arm lying dead across him, Monroe’s sleepy breath on the back of his neck. “I want to kill him, Monroe.” And would hear Monroe say, “Do it, honey, and hurry back.” But how? Many conversations about that part. Monroe would say, “Walk up behind the man, what you do, and shoot him right here.” Teddy would feel Monroe’s finger poke into the groove at the base of his skull. Monroe told him where to buy a gun in Miami. Do it and throw the gun in the ocean. Told him a little .22 was all he needed.
But when Teddy saw the Colt .38 Super he couldn’t resist it. That was the start of what was becoming an expensive proposition. The gun, air fare to Puerto Rico, the hotel, the car . . . now back home and his mom wouldn’t give him any more money.
She actually believed he had worked for International Surveys, because he’d showed her the business cards he had printed and there was the company name and his own name with Research Representative under it. So when she asked him if he was going to get a job he told her he’d probably go back with I.S., they were a good outfit, offered a generous bonus plan and other benefits. His mom said, “That’s nice.” He told her, not right away though, he needed to readjust himself to the world, try to put the nightmare of prison out of his mind. He told her he had met other innocent men in there, like himself, unjustly accused. His mom patted his head and said, “My fine boy, treated like a criminal . . .” But would she break into one of her CDs or Treasury Bills and give him a few dollars, just a couple hundred say? No, her mind had more locks on it than her front door when it came to discussing money. She had given him $1,200 dollars and that was all he was getting, no more. “No. No. No,” his mom said. “Do you know what no means? It means no.” He said to her, “I met boys in there who turned to crime for less reason. Had to.” She wouldn’t budge, the old bitch.
What he’d have to do now, get next to some little old lady scooping a jackpot out of a slot tray. Offer to be of help and kid around, tell her he loved her blue hair. Take her for a nice walk on the Boardwalk. One good score might make him enough. He didn’t know how much time he had, how long the cop was going to hang around. He would like to walk in the cop’s hotel room, wake him up with a gun in his face, just like the cop had done it. Look in his eyes and say, “What do you see?” Look in his eyes first, then tell him to roll over and stick the barrel against that little groove at the base of the skull.
Tomorrow, though, he’d have to see about getting hold of some operating cash.
12
* * *
WHEN MOOSLEH HAJIM JABARA was sixteen years old, in his second year at Southeastern High School in Detroit, he changed his name to DeLeon Johnson. So people would look at his name and know he was American.
When he first arrived in this country, still a little boy, his father’s cousin’s uncle by marriage, who taught in the high school, looked at him with wonder and said, “My God, boy, you know who you are? You know where you’ve been?” All Moosleh knew was that someone would die, first his mother and father, and he would cry and be sent someplace else to live. His father’s cousin’s uncle, Mr. Johnson, showed him a map and said, “Look, my God, where you were born. Ethiopia, the kingdom of Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah. You could have his blood in you from your father’s side. Your mama’s mama was raped by an Italian—don’t you ever forget it—and your mama came from that. They say her people killed him with a spear.” Mr. Johnson said, “It’s all right, it’s not your fault he was your granddaddy. But he was a big strong Italian fella and I see you’re going to have size on you.” He pointed to the map. “Now look here. You left this place called Djibouti, went up to Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, to live in Ismailiya, love that name, and was put on the boat, little fella eight years old to come here. Look at you.”
He loved Mr. Johnson and took part of his name and part of the name of the guy he read somewhere went to Florida to find the Fountain of Youth.
This DeLeon went there too from Michigan State to the Miami Dolphins, played defensive end five years till a knee and cocaine tripped him up, ruined his desire and size wasn’t enough. The coke got him six months in the Dade County stockade and some community-service work, talking to kids. When Jackie Garbo offered him good money to guard his body DeLeon took it. There was nothing to the work. What he didn’t care for was the way Jackie spoke about him to people right in front of him, like Jackie had bought him off a slave block. Jackie always called him the Moose; so most people thought of DeLeon as Moose Johnson, named that because of his size.
At this moment DeLeon stood at the big window in Jackie’s office looking down at the Boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean working its way in, getting mean. He was thinking about Puerto Rico, wishing he was there. He liked the people, he liked the food. He remembered the first time he went there to the casino, saw the spade dome and felt drawn to it, with the desire to go inside and pray. Some Muslim sounds still in his head from when he was a little boy. Had he stayed there in Ismailiya, man his size, he’d be loading ships ‘stead of wearing a $400 sharkskin suit, pearl gray, and working for this little Hymie fool . . .
“Hey!” calling to him now.
DeLeon turned from the window to see Jackie behind his desk, his phone buzzing, Jackie picking it up and jabbing the air with his other hand, stubby finger pointing. DeLeon walked over to the glass cocktail table and picked up the phone there to listen in, like Jackie wanted. See, then Jackie would have a witness if somebody was trying to fuck him. Man had to trust somebody. So he trusted his Moose with secrets, even trusted him with his woman, like the Moose was his palace eunuch in a pearl-gray suit.
DeLeon eased down into the couch, low, laid his head back against the cushion as he heard the voice on the phone say:
“They picked up Ricky this morning, eight a’clock they come in his house, take him to Northfield.”
DeLeon grinned. Beautiful. Nail his ass.
&
nbsp; Jackie’s voice on the phone and Jackie in the room said, “For what?”
“Come on, Jackie. The voice very patient. “They take him over to the green room there they want to talk to him.”
Slow husky voice with that South Philly street guinea accent, that tough-guy shit they learned when they were kids. Frank Cingoro speaking. Chingo. Frankie the Ching. Frank the Wheel. Capo, or something like that, under Sal Catalina, big in the dope business.
And little Jackie trying to sound just as tough, man, saying, “Yeah? Talk to him, okay, about what? They could talk to Ricky, they could talk to him about anything went down the past year could a been Ricky.”
DeLeon grinned. Love it. Throw the little motherfucker in the hole. Then stopped grinning as Frank Cingoro came on again.
“They talk to him about the little girl, Jackie.”
There was a silence. DeLeon looked at Jackie who would be wondering all of a sudden if he should be talking like this, wondering where the Ching was calling from. Bar on Catherine Street in South Philly? He hoped to Christ not. That social club on Hutchinson? Either place could be wired. The Ching must have read Jackie’s thoughts in that silence. He said, “I’m way the fuck and gone out the White Horse Pike, Jackie. Talk to me.”
Jackie the Fatty was standing behind his desk now, moving like he had to go to the toilet. Jackie said, “Well, Ricky won’t say nothing.”
DeLeon thinking he could make him talk; make him tap-dance.
“I know Ricky won’t say nothing,” the Ching said. “We not talking about Ricky, we talking about the little girl. Those guys in Northfield, they’re busting their ass. I want to know what they’re gonna find, Jackie. Then I’ll tell you why.”
“How’n the fuck do I know?” Jackie said. “You think I had anything to do with it?”
“Benny says he never touched her.”
Benny?
“I know he didn’t,” Jackie said. “I was with him every fucking night, getting him something.”
Benny, DeLeon remembered now, that was what the Ching called Benavides, the cat from Bogotá, the South American grass man, that scary, snake-eyed greaseball.
“Where’s he at now?”
“Left this morning. The Moose put him on the plane to Miami.” DeLeon watched Jackie glance over, man’s eyes wide open so he wouldn’t miss anything said to him.
“Talk to me,” the Ching said. “Who pushed her off?”
“You asking me for?” Jackie sounding desperate. “I didn’t even know the broad was there. Everybody cleared out, I left, it wasn’t fifteen minutes after you did, Benavides went in a bedroom there with the broad, gave her a jump, that was it. We brought him back to the hotel.” Looking up at the mass of photographs on his wall now—all the gold-framed celebrities, the film stars, comics, entertainers, the has-beens—like he was seeking help or inspiration, and DeLeon had to grin at those folks with the perfect teeth smiling back at Jackie, like they were enjoying the Ching doing a number on him. The Ching saying:
“Here you got a dead little girl you don’t even know what happened to her. I know she wasn’t one of our girls—”
“Tommy found her.”
“Tommy, what I understand, don’t know shit. He don’t watch the girl, she decides to do some business there and gets a freak wants to ball her hanging off the fucking balcony or some fucking, thing. You get your freaks, the girl isn’t protected she takes a chance every time she takes her pants off. I’m not too concerned about the little girl, Jackie, but the cops are. You see my point?”
Ignorant man, DeLeon thought, believed he was wise because he wasn’t dead. Man, there were some fools in the crime business. But mean motherfuckers. Some of ’em could make good ballplayers.
“The cops, say all they find out you’re running a game there, it’s still your ass, Jackie.”
Man will put you to sleep, DeLeon thought.
“The cops, the least they’ll do is tell the DGE. Right? The DGE tells the Control Commission and they pull your license, that’s what they do. You see my point? ’Cause you got careless, didn’t keep track of this little girl, you could be outa business.”
“Wait a minute—” Little Fatty sounding amazed now, can’t believe this shit he’s hearing. “Who’d I set it up for? You stick me with Benavides—I didn’t want any fucking part of him!” Little frantic now.
“All I saw was you raking in those pinky-white chips,” the Ching’s voice said. “What’d you take off him, about two fifty?”
Jackie said, “Yeah, and I can stick it up my ass a buck at a time waiting for the fucking roof to come down on me. This is not my fault, no way—” Turning from the pictures on the wall and stopping right there. Jackie’s voice, lower, said, “I gotta go,” and there was a loud click in DeLeon’s ear.
Mr. and Mrs. Donovan were in the doorway, coming in without knocking, Tommy Donovan saying, “Moose! Hey, man!” But Mrs. Donovan, carrying a manila envelope in her hand, was leading her husband and she said, “Would you excuse us?” before DeLeon could answer him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Got up and gave her a little bow, eyeing her slickness, the effortless way she was eyeing Jackie. Nothing to it. DeLeon walked down the executive hallway in his pearl-gray suit, realizing he had glimpsed something for the first time. It was the lady had the juice around here, not her husband. She looked like she could bust any man’s balls she wanted. Do it with her little finger.
They sat at the conference table in the Major Crime Squad’s interrogation room, Vincent wearing his new tweed sportcoat, smoking a cigarette, halfway into the pack, Dixie Davies reading from a computer printout.
“Aggravated assault with a knife, Philadelphia, May of eighty-two. Charge dismissed. Homicide, November eighty-two, Ricky stabbed a guy to death was an official of Local Fifty-four, Bartenders’ International, following an argument in Cous’ Little Italy, restaurant in Philly. Copped to voluntary manslaughter, did eighteen months in Trenton. Contempt of court, refused to testify before New Jersey State Commission of Investigations on loan-shark activities, sixty days, in and out. Questioned in regard to four, five, six homicides in the past two years. Witness saw him shoot a guy in the back of the head three times, cut the guy’s shlong off and stick it in his mouth. This’s an inside witness agrees to flip. He disappears and we find him a couple months later, bullet in his head, cock in his mouth. Here’s one, charged with the illegal lending of money at interest rates as high as a hundred seventy-five percent. Another loan-shark case they tried to get him, guy was behind in his payments so Ricky chopped him with a hatchet, severed his spine. The guy’s a paraplegic, never walk again, but he won’t testify against Ricky ’cause he’s afraid for his fucking life.”
Vincent stubbed out his cigarette, flicked an ash off the lapel of his new sportcoat. “You didn’t get anything at all?”
“I got almost an hour of him on tape. You want to hear it?”
“He let you tape him?”
“Why not? He didn’t say nothing. He didn’t see nothing, nobody came in or out. Unless they did when he happened to fall asleep a couple minutes. He took the job ’cause he needed money. Only security guard I ever heard of drives a Cadillac Eldorado.”
Vincent said, “Let me just hear what he sounds like.” He got another cigarette ready while Dixie went over to the recording machine and pushed a button. As Ricky’s voice came on Dixie said, “This’s a few minutes into it. Little prick—listen to him.”
RICKY: . . . construction business, remodeling. We’d do rec rooms, uh, you know, or like enclose a porch. But Sal, he got, since he got sent there to Alabama that was the end of the business.
DIXIE: You draw unemployment?
RICKY: Fuck no. I look like a jig to you?
DIXIE: I won’t say what you look like. There’s a nice young lady has to transcribe this shit . . . Who was up in that apartment?
RICKY: Where the broad was? It wasn’t even the same night, man. That night I wasn’t anywhere fucking ne
ar that place. I was up in Brigantine, at a party.
“That’s good,” Vincent said. He watched Dixie shut off the machine. “What would you say, I have a talk with Ricky? Ask him a few questions of my own.”
“As what?” Dixie came back to the conference table. “Cop or civilian?”
“An interested party. I wouldn’t show him a badge, try and bullshit him and it comes back, jams you up. But I wouldn’t have to be as nice to him as you are, would I? Read him his rights, anything like that.”
A smile played in Dixie’s big mustache. “You wouldn’t have to be nice to him at all.” There was a silence in the room. “But I can’t let you do it. Look at his sheet, he’s crazy.”
Vincent said, “I won four hundred seventy bucks last night playing blackjack. It took about three minutes. Won the money and quit, walked away.”
“I admire that,” Dixie said.
“I bought this sportcoat—you like it? And rented a car. Nice one, a Datsun. Tan with a brown interior.”
“Match your jacket,” Dixie said. “What else’s new?”
“Let’s see—there was a crap game in that apartment,” Vincent said, “two nights in a row. Iris was there to entertain the shooter. Guy from Colombia, staying at Spade’s. I don’t know what his name is but I’ll find out if I can talk to Ricky.”
Dixie didn’t say anything.
“You can ask him, he won’t tell you. Why should he? He doesn’t have to open his mouth. Let me ask him in a different way, see what he says.”
There was a silence again. Dixie, staring at him, said, “You got to the roommate. Linda.”
“Anything she can tell you is hearsay,” Vincent said. “You can’t use it, so why get her upset? Anybody you talk to about this who knows anything,” Vincent said, “isn’t gonna say a word. You know why? Because the guys who were up in the apartment that night scare the shit out of people. You tell me about a witness, you find the guy shot in the head. You tell me about a guy gets whacked in the spine, paralyzed, he still won’t say anything. You get a good witness—can you guarantee protection? You say you will. I’ve said it I don’t know how many times. You get cooperation on homicides when it’s mom and pop or commission of a robbery, guy comes in the store with a gun, customers in there see him, they testify. But you don’t get any cooperation with these guys. I mean when they’re involved—Ricky and guys like that, because they’ll kill you if you come in to tell on ’em. You’ve seen it happen and the witnesses you might have on this one, they know it happens, they been reading about it. Okay, if Ricky was on the door then you know that a guy who’s bigger than Ricky and probably doing business with the Colombian was upstairs with him. Guy who arranged the crap game, got him a girl, Iris—guy’s entertaining his supplier who’s bringing him all the good shit, making him rich. Isn’t that how you see it?”