Jake gets out of his Cadillac, knowing the hubcaps are safe. There is no thievery on this street. And no muggings, no littering, no graffiti. Maybe the cops drive through once a week, but the locals take care of everything.
There are a few geezers in the front room, playing cards and drinking red wine. They don’t look up when the door opens. But the mastodon behind the bar eyeballs Steiner and pours a waterglass of whiskey, splash of water, no ice. Jake pulls out a fat roll of bills, peels off a twenty, hands it over.
“For your favorite charity,” he says.
“Yeah,” the bartender says, and moves his head toward the back room.
Steiner carries his whiskey through a doorway curtained with strings of glass beads, most of them chipped or broken. There is one round wooden table back there, surrounded with six chairs that look ready to collapse at the first shout. The tabletop has a big brownish stain in the center. It could be a wine spill or it could be a blood spill; Jake doesn’t know and doesn’t wonder.
Two men are sitting there: Vic Angelo and his underboss and driver, Mario Corsini. They’ve got a bottle of Chivas Regal between them, and their four-ounce shotglasses are full. Only Vic gets to his feet when Steiner enters. He spreads his arms wide.
“Jew bastard,” he says, grinning.
“Wop sonofabitch,” Jake says.
They embrace, turning their heads carefully aside so they won’t mash their cigars. They look alike: short, porky through chest and shoulders, with big bellies, fleshy faces, manicures, and pinkie rings.
“Hiya, Mario,” Jake says.
Corsini nods.
“How’s the family?” Angelo asks, pulling out a chair for Jake.
“Couldn’t be better. Yours?”
“Likewise, thank God. So here we are again. A month gone by. Can you believe it?”
“Yeah,” Steiner says, taking a gulp of his drink, “I can believe it.”
He tugs a white envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and slides it across the table to Angelo.
“My tax return,” he says.
Vic smiles and pushes the envelope to Corsini. “I don’t even have to count it,” he says. “I trust you. How long we been good friends, Jake?”
“Too long,” Steiner says, and Mario Corsini stirs restlessly.
“Yeah, well, we got a little business to discuss here,” Angelo says, sipping his scotch delicately. “Like they say, good news and bad news. I’ll give you the bad first. We’re upping your dues two biggies a month.”
Steiner slams a meaty fist down on the table. It rocks; their drinks slop over.
“Two more a month?” he says. “What kind of shit is this?”
“Take it easy,” Vic Angelo says soothingly. “Everyone in Manhattan and Brooklyn is getting hit for another grand.”
“But I get hit for two? That’s because I’m such a good friend of yours-right?”
“Don’t be such a fucking firecracker,” Vic says. He turns to his underboss. “He’s a firecracker, ain’t he, Mario?”
“Yeah,” Corsini says. He’s a saber of a man, with a complexion more yellowish than olive.
“You didn’t give me a chance to tell you the good news,” Angelo says to Steiner. “We’re giving you a new territory. South of where your dump is now. Along Eleventh Avenue to Twenty-third Street.”
“Yeah?” Jake says suspiciously. “What happened to Pitzak?”
“He retired,” Vic says.
“Where to? Forest Lawn?”
“I don’t like jokes like that,” Corsini says. “It’s not respectful.”
“What the fuck do I care what you like or don’t like,” Steiner says. He swallows whiskey. “So the bottom line is that my tariff goes up two Gs, and I get Eleventh Avenue down to Twenty-third Street. Right?”
“And all the garbage you can eat,” Corsini says.
“Listen, sonny boy,” Jake says. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. You’re drinking Chivas Regal. That’s where it comes from-my garbage.”
“Hey hey,” Angelo says. “Let’s talk like gentlemen. So you start on Monday, Jake. You can handle the business?”
“Maybe I’ll need a new truck or two. Let me see how much there is.”
“You need more trucks,” Vic says, “don’t buy new ones. We can give you a good deal on Pitzak’s fleet.”
“Oh-ho,” Steiner says. “It’s like that, is it?”
“That’s the way it is,” Corsini says. “You take over Pitzak’s district, you take over his trucks. From us.”
“I love you wise guys,” Jake says. “You got more angles than worms.”
“If you’re shorting,” Angelo says gently, “we can always make you a loan to buy the trucks. Low vigorish.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Steiner says bitterly. “I wouldn’t touch your loans with my schlong. I’ll manage.”
“One more thing,” Vic says. “We want you to take on a new man. He’s been over from the old country six months now. Strictly legit. He’s got his papers and all that shit. A good loader for you. A nice young boy. He’ll work hard, and he’s strong.”
“Yeah?” Jake says. “He speaka da English?”
“As good as you and me,” Angelo assures him.
“What about the union?”
“It’s fixed,” Vic says. “No problem.”
“If I’m taking over Pitzak’s organization,” Steiner says, “what do I need a new man for?”
“Because he’s my cousin,” Mario Corsini says.
They drain their drinks, and Jake rises.
“It’s been a lovely evening,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”
He nods at them and marches out, leaving his empty whiskey glass and chewed cigar butt on the table.
“I don’t trust that scuzz,” Mario says, filling their shotglasses with scotch. “He’s got no respect.”
“He’s got his problems,” Vic says. “A crippled wife. A fag son. And his daughter-who the hell knows what she is. What a house he’s going home to.”
“Only he ain’t going home,” Corsini says. “He’s going to Brooklyn. He keeps a bimbo on Park Slope. He bought a co-op for her.”
Angelo stares at him. “No shit?” he says. “How did you find that out?”
“I like to know who we’re dealing with. You never know when it might come in handy.”
“A young twist?”
“Oh, sure. And a looker. He makes it with her three or four times a week. Sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at night.”
“The old fart,” Vic Angelo says admiringly. “I never would have guessed. I wonder if his wife knows.”
“I’ll bet that smartass daughter of his knows,” Corsini says. “I can’t figure her. You never know what she’s thinking.”
Manhattan comes across the bridge, the harsh and cluttered city where civility is a foreign language and the brittle natives speak in screams. Sally Steiner loves it; it is her turf. All the rough and raucous people she buffets- hostility is a way of life. Speak softly and you are dead.
She dropped out of Barnard after two years. Those women-she had nothing in common with them; they had never been wounded. They were all Bendel and Bermuda. What did they know about their grimy, ruttish city and the desperate, charged life about them? They floated as Sally strode-and counted herself fortunate.
Her brother lives in Hell’s Kitchen on a mean and ramshackle street awaiting the wrecker’s ball. Eddie works on the top floor of a five-story walk-up. The original red brick facade is now festooned with whiskers of peeling gray paint, and the stone stoop is cracked and sprouting.
His apartment is spacious enough, but ill proportioned, and furnished with cast-offs and gutter salvage. But the ceilings are high; there is a skylight. Room enough for easel, taboret, paints, palettes, brushes. And white walls for his unsold paintings: a crash of color.
He has his mother’s beauty and his father’s body: a swan’s head atop a pit bull. When he embraces Sally, she
