A Piece of the Action

did something right. That way he’d get used to being successful. He’d get conditioned.

“Eat your eggs.” Sarah Leibowitz banged the plate down so hard, the salami omelet bounced several inches into the air, then settled back on the plate with an audible plop.

“You still pissed off, ma?” Jake knew the answer to the question. He was sorry he’d asked it before the words were out of his mouth.

“He asks am I angry?” Sarah hugged her enormous belly with both arms and rocked from side to side.

“Don’t do a speech, ma,” Jake begged. “For cryin’ out loud. Give it a rest.”

“He asks am I angry,” she repeated, ignoring him altogether. “Here is a boy goes out and buys himself a two-hundred-dollar overcoat when his mother is wearing a rag. A rag, mind you, that’s not even wool. It’s a cotton rag without a lining. Here is a boy who puts lambswool on his back …”

“Cashmere, ma. It’s called cashmere.”

“Lambswool on his back when his own mother is wearing a twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents winter coat she got off the sales rack at Klein’s. So why should I be angry that my son thinks he’s gotta be Prince Jake, but it’s okay his mother should freeze her tuchis off whenever she steps out of the house to go shopping for his dinner? Why, I’m asking?”

Jake wolfed the eggs down as fast as he could. He had work to do and he didn’t want to distract himself by fighting with his mother. She never lost a fight, anyway, because she mostly ignored whatever he said.

“You’re going where today?” Ma Leibowitz asked.

“Mamaleh, mamaleh.” Jake gave his mother a hug. She accepted his arms, but he knew what was coming next, so what he did was take three quick steps back after letting go. Ma Leibowitz’s right hand just missed his face.

“Hugs are for cheapskates,” she shouted. “Fur coats are for mamalehs.”

Jake paused at the apartment door long enough to throw his new black overcoat a wistful glance, then took his navy peacoat off the hook and put it on. The peacoat was the cheapest coat in his closet, but it was warm and completely inconspicuous. There were thousands of them walking around the streets of New York. All on the backs of ordinary workingmen. Jake had nothing but contempt for wage slaves, but when he pulled the black watchcap down over his head and checked himself out in the mirror, he had to admit his mug would look perfectly normal behind the wheel of a truck.

The effect was exactly what he was looking for and he remembered to reward himself before he walked out the door. “You done all right, kid,” he said, nodding the way his father would’ve nodded. If he’d had a father.

Jake felt good enough to take the four flights two stairs at a time, but when he opened the outer lobby door, the cold hit him like a hammer. It was twenty-four degrees in New York and the wind was blowing out of the northwest at twenty miles an hour.

“Damn!” Jake’s eyes began to tear before the door closed behind him. He blinked rapidly for a moment, then opened them to find Abe Weinberg lounging against the side of the Packard as if he was basking in the July sun. Abe was wearing his favorite black leather jacket which he hadn’t even bothered to zip up, because he wanted everyone to see the white T-shirt he was wearing underneath it. Abe, or so he’d told Jake, had seen The Wild Ones eighteen times.

“Whatta you, a fuckin’ snowman?” Jake asked.

“You shouldn’t talk that way in front of my new girlfriend,” Abe said defensively. “It ain’t right.”

“Your new what?” Jake noticed the girl for the first time. She was also wearing a black leather jacket and black motorcycle boots. And she couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old.

“This is Maria Roccantelli. She lives on MacDougal Street.”

“Pleased to meetch’ya,” Maria said, extending her hand.

“Likewise.” Jake allowed his fingertips just to graze hers. He was familiar with the term jailbait and he was pretty sure it didn’t apply to touching alone, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “Don’t you gotta be in school or something?”

Maria giggled. “I just come by ’cause Abe said I should meet ya.”

Jake looked at Abe, who was leaning against the car again. “Wake up, Abe. It ain’t Rock-Around-the-Clock time. Say goodbye to ya girlfriend and let’s get outta here.”

“See ya later, alligator,” Maria said jauntily.

“Take off,” Abe hissed out of the side of his mouth.

The reason Jake held it in as long as he did-five endless minutes-was that it didn’t matter much anyway. Maybe it made things harder, but it wasn’t going to change the spots. He told himself that what’s done is done, but what he said was, “How can you be so stupid as to bring your girlfriend along when we’re goin’ out on business?”

Abe, who was working on his pompadour with a long black comb, looked over in surprise. “We’re only goin’ out to check locations, right? It’s not like we was doin’ somethin’ wrong.”

“I don’t give a shit. There’s times when you’re workin’ and there’s time when you’re social. I been tryin’ ta tell you that for the last six months. What I don’t understand is how a guy who’s been in the joint could be so goddamned casual. And that broad ain’t even a broad. That broad is a kid. She can’t be no more than sixteen and she looks like twelve. Here we are killin’ ourselves to get in with the wops and you wanna pump some guinea’s sixteen-year-old daughter. You gotta be stupid and I don’t need stupid.”

Abe Weinberg slouched down in the seat and drew his lips up into a sulky pout. It was the same pout Elvis had used in Jailhouse Rock, but it had no apparent effect on Jake Leibowitz.

“C’mon, Jake, smile. Ya gotta smile.” Abe torched a Lucky Strike and blew a thin stream of smoke at the windshield. “Maria’s seventeen, Jake. She graduates in June. Her parents like me.”

“Do they know you’re thirty years old? Do they know you’re a gangster?”

Abe didn’t answer and Jake didn’t bother to pursue it, because it didn’t matter anyway. Abe Weinberg was the kind of problem that could give Jake and all his efforts a bad name. It wasn’t about putting on a show. It was about low profile. It was about doing what you had to do without the whole city knowing your business. Guys who got too much attention-who got their names and faces in the goddamned newspapers- ended up in a Jersey swamp. Which was exactly where they were going.

“You up for this?” Jake asked.

They were passing through the toll on the far end of the Lincoln Tunnel. Abe was practicing the art of curling one corner of his mouth into a sneer and the question caught him by surprise.

“Whatta ya mean?”

“I’m talkin’ about what we’re gonna do.” Jake shook his head in disgust. If he didn’t know Abe Weinberg was a Jew, he wouldn’t believe it. “You’re probably adopted, right? Tell me you’re adopted. Your real parents were Okies who made a wrong turn and ended up in New York instead of California.”

“C’mon, Jake. I just wasn’t expectin’ the question.” Abe cracked the vent window and lit another cigarette. He liked the way he looked with a cigarette dangling from his lip, but the smoke was hurting his eyes. “The answer is, yeah, I’m ready. Like I already told ya when you first brought it up.”

“You’re ready to pull the trigger?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure you could do it?”

“If the money’s right, I’ll machine-gun Madison Square Garden on fight night. That answer your question?” This time he got himself so far down in the seat that his knees were up against the dash. “Didn’t I do the fuckin’ spic?”

“That was in a panic, Abe. That was stupid. I’m talkin’ about doin’ it cold.”

Jake paused, waiting for a reply, but Abe stared out the window and began to hum the melody from Chuck Berry’s tune, Rock and Roll Music.

“This is an honor the wops are givin’ us here,” Jake continued. “We do this right and we’re on our way.”