A Piece of the Action

Jake a call? I’ll go wherever he is, pick him up and get him into the station house before guys like Dominick Favara and Carmine Stettecase know what’s happening.”

“You think I’m a schmuck? You think I don’t know they’ll kill him in the jail?”

“I’ll see that he’s protected.”

“Now you’re the commissioner?”

“Jake’s still in town, isn’t he?” Moodrow abruptly changed the subject. “If he’d already skipped town, you wouldn’t be talking to me at all.”

“I’m not saying I know where he is.”

Moodrow turned to face Greta. Ignoring the outrage in her eyes, he shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know why I bothered coming here,” he said. “It’s better this way. Dying in the street is too good for the prick. I hope the mob gets him and I hope they take their time. Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me how you’ll protect my Jake.”

Moodrow repeated the offer he’d made to Greta Bloom a few minutes earlier. “It’s the best chance he’s got. It’s the only chance he’s got.”

“I couldn’t call him. He’d just run out into the street. My Jake, he’s stubborn like a rock.”

Moodrow slowly turned around. Sarah Leibowitz was staring up at him. Her eyes held neither fear nor hate. They were as cold as glass.

“Jake buy you that coat?” he asked.

“What’s it to you?”

“Where is he, Mrs. Leibowitz?”

“He’s in the project on Madison Street.”

“Which one? The La Guardia Houses?”

“No, the Vladeck. Building A, apartment 678. It’s where my sister used to live before she went into the hospital. I been holding onto it in case she got better.”

Moodrow repressed a smile. The Vladeck Houses were a block from Henry Street.

“You did the smart thing, Mrs. Leibowitz,” he intoned piously. “You won’t regret it.”

Thirty-four

When the phone rang, Jake Leibowitz was having the time of his life. He was in the bathroom, trimming his mustache, a mustache he could actually see for a change. One of the first things he’d done upon arriving at his Aunt Golda’s apartment was rummage through the drawers and closets. He’d done it more out of habit than anything else (after all, what in the world could he possibly find that’d help him out of this pickle), discovering an ancient pair of wire-rimmed spectacles in a night table drawer. The glasses were so thick, Jake’d had to put his face right up against the mirror in order to see anything, but, still, once he’d done that, his mustache had leaped into sharp focus.

It’d been amazing. Like being down at the track with a good pair of binoculars. Just spin the little knob and … Pow! Individual black hairs had jumped out at Jake Leibowitz like neatly stacked prison bars. He hadn’t minded the fact that he could barely get the scissors between his face and the mirror. Nor the fact that the scissors were so dull they refused to cut, pressing down on the hairs like a tiny curling iron. Seeing was enough to keep him happy.

What he’d done was sharpen the scissors against the concrete sill outside the bathroom window. It’d been a slow process, but he had nothing, but time, anyway. Besides, the work had reminded him of the old days in Leavenworth.

How many shivs had he made? Only to have them eventually confiscated? Only to make another?

“I must’a made a hundred of ’em,” he’d said out loud. “I must’a made a thousand. One for every day I done in the hole. What’s the old saying? ‘Better the man should catch me with it, than the boys should catch me without it.’ I don’t know who made that up, but he must’a been a fuckin’ genius.”

Once he’d gotten the mustache looking halfway decent, he’d gone to his teeth. Taking them one at a time. Polishing each tooth as if he was washing windows in the Leavenworth administration building. Then he’d gone to the small hairs in his nose, then to his eyebrows, then to his ears.

When the telephone rang, he was so deeply engrossed that he jumped back as if he’d been slapped. Aunt Golda’s glasses slipped off the bridge of his nose, crashing to the tile floor. He knelt quickly, ignoring the phone. Scooping up the glasses and holding them against his forehead as he anxiously peered into the mirror.

“Jeez,” he said, “that was a close one.”

But it was all right. Only a small crack up a corner of the right lens. Which was just as well, because he didn’t have his mustache perfect yet. Not quite perfect.

The phone continued to ring and Jake continued to stare at his reflection. He wasn’t in any hurry, because he already knew who it was. Anyone but his mother would’ve hung up a long time ago.

“Awright, awready,” he called, sliding the spectacles into his shirt pocket.

Mama Leibowitz had been calling every few hours. Detailing her adventure with Santo Silesi. Hadn’t she ever heard of tapped phones? If the flatfoots were listening, she’d be a candidate for the electric chair. Despite the wound in her skull. Despite being a fat old lady with a heart condition.

But he couldn’t discourage her, couldn’t get through. She talked about killing Santo Silesi the way she’d talked about her new fur coat. Bragging about it.

“Jake, you should have seen the look on his face. Like he opened the closet and out came Dracula.”

Jake strolled over to the phone and picked it up. “Yeah, ma,” he sighed.

“Jakeleh, I told them where you are. The coppers. I told them.”

“Jeez, ma, what’d ya do that for? I was thinkin’ about skippin’ town.”

The real question was why he’d hung around with her all this time. That was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Bigger than tryin’ to get in with the guineas. Hangin’ out with a crazy woman must’ve made him crazy, too.

“They beat me, Jake. They burned me with cigars. They kicked me when I fell on the floor. It was terrible, Jake. I could barely walk.”

“Ya forgot the rubber hose.”

“Pardon?”

“What I’m sayin’ is ya sound pretty good for a cripple.” Not that it mattered.

Crazy people did crazy things. Look at him. What he should’ve done was go out to Los Angeles. He should’ve done what Steppy Accacio told him to do. Hell, he should’ve done what that drill sergeant told him the day he’d stepped off the bus at Fort Dix. But the past didn’t matter, either. The cops were coming and he was gonna die and that was that.

“Jake, nu, you should consider giving up.”

“Good advice, ma. I’ll be sure to take it.”

Jake could see his mother arriving at Sing-Sing to witness the execution. Wearing a shapeless black dress beneath her fur coat. Stopping to pose for the cameras.

“My poor Jakeleh. He was such a good boy. Like an angel. With curls you wouldn’t believe. I still have my Jakeleh’s curls. I keep them in a locket.”

“Awright, ma, I gotta go and get ready. I don’t wanna die in my underwear.”

Jake hung up and walked into the bedroom. He rummaged through his Aunt Golda’s closet, pushing her dresses out of the way. What he wanted was his absolute best. Silk tie, silk shirt. His beautiful gray suit; his shiniest black shoes.

“Should I wear a hat?” he asked himself. A hat didn’t make any sense, because he wasn’t going anywhere. Only he didn’t really feel dressed without a hat. Of course, maybe he shouldn’t wear the suit, either. If the flatfoots shot up his good suit, he was gonna have to be buried in an off-the-rack from Macy’s.

But, no, the suit didn’t matter, either. There was no way he was gonna be buried like a