Immaculata, indicating she should serve everyone-that's what bar girls do, right? But Immaculata never flinched- she took Max's bowl off his plate and spooned in a generous helping, being extra-careful to serve it properly, a full measure of all the ingredients, not just the thin stuff on top. Mama smiled at her-the way the coroner smiles at a corpse just before the autopsy.
'You serve man first, not woman. Chinese way, yes?'
'Not the Chinese way, Mrs. Wong-my way. To me, Max comes first, you see?'
'I see. You call me 'Mama,' okay? Like everybody else?'
Immaculata said nothing, bowing her head ever so slightly in agreement. But Mama wasn't finished.
'Immaculata your name? I say that right-Immaculata? Is that Vietnamese name?'
'It's the name the nuns gave me-a Catholic name-when the French were in my country.'
'Your country Vietnam, yes?'
'Yes,' said Immaculata, her eyes hard.
'Your father and mother both from Vietnam?' Mama asked innocently.
'I don't know my father,' Immaculata responded flatly, 'but I know what you want to know.'
The table was dead quiet then. Max watched Mama, making up his mind-Mama had survived two wars but she was never as close to death as she was at that moment.
Max pointed one steel finger at my face, then opened his hands, asking a question.
I knew what he wanted. 'No,' I told him, 'I don't know who my father was either. So what?'
Max wiped his hands together: 'All finished,' he meant. The discussion was over.
But he wasn't going to pull it off that easy. 'You want to know my father's nationality, yes?' asked Immaculata.
'No,' Mama said, 'why I want to know that?'
'Because you think it would tell you something about me.'
'I already know about you,' Mama snapped.
'And what is that?' asked Immaculata, the air around us crackling with violence.
But Mama backed away. 'I know you love Max-that good enough. I love Max-Max like my son, right? Even Burke-like my son too. Have two sons-very different. So what, yes?'
'Yes, we understand each other,' Immaculata told her, as Mama bowed her agreement.
'You call me 'Mama'?' the dragon lady asked.
'Yes. And you call me Mac, okay?'
'Okay,' said Mama, declaring a truce, at least when Max was around.
10
B SUT MAX wasn't around now, so I'd have to leave the money with Mama. No big deal-anytime I make a score, I stash some of it with Max or Mama. It's not that I have such good savings habits-it's just that it's a long time between decent scores for me. I didn't mind working without a license, but I wasn't going to try it without a net.
The last time I went back to prison changed everything. When you're raised by the state, you don't think about the same things citizens do. You find out sooner or later that time is money-if you don't have money, you're going to keep on doing time. Most of the guys I came up with were doing life sentences on the installment plan. A few years in-a few months out.
I thought I had it figured out before I took my last fall. Up to then, I kept making the mistake of involving citizens in my business. There's a different set of rules for them and for us. You stab a man in prison, you might end up in the Hole for a few months-you stick up a liquor store on the street and you're looking at telephone numbers behind the walls, especially if you've been there before. I'd taught myself some things by then, and I knew better than to work with partners who wouldn't stand up. And I knew where the money was-if I wanted to steal without making citizens mad at me, I had to steal from the bad guys. Back then, the heroin business was strictly European-the blacks were only on the retail end and the Hispanics hadn't made their move. The Italians were moving pounds and pounds of junk all through the city, and they weren't too careful about it-they had no competition. Max wanted to hijack the gangsters when the money changed hands, but that wouldn't work- the Italians transported the dope without a care in the world, but they got paranoid as hell when it came to cold cash. Too many bodyguards-I wanted a nice smooth sting, not the O.K. Corral.
Finally, I came up with the perfect idea-we'd hijack the dope, and then sell it back for a reasonable price. It worked fine at first. Max and I watched the social club on King Street for a few weeks until we saw how they did it. Three, four times a month, a blue pastry truck with Jersey plates would pull up to the front door, and the driver would offload the covered trays of pastries and the metal tubs of tortoni and spumoni. Within a couple of hours, a dark blue Caddy would pull up outside and the same two hard guys would get out. They looked enough alike to be twins: short, muscular, with thick manes of dark hair worn a little too long in the back.
Max and I watched them walk up to the dark-glass front of the social club. If a couple of the old men were sitting outside-always wearing a plain white shirt over dark suit pants, polished shoes, talking quietly-the young guys would stop and pay their respects. They were muscle all right, but family muscle, working their way up the ladder.
The young guys would go in, but they wouldn't come out for hours. It didn't add up-boys like that might be allowed in the club to get an assignment, or on a special occasion, but the old guys wouldn't let them just hang around.
Max and I learned to be patient in different places, but we both learned it well. It took another few weeks to work our way around to the back of the club and find a spot where the constantly watching eyes in that neighborhood couldn't see what we were doing. Sure enough-ten minutes after they went in the front door, the muscle boys went out the back. One carried a suitcase, the other held a pistol parallel to his leg, barrel pointed down. The guy with the suitcase tossed it into the open trunk of a black Chevy sedan, slammed it closed, and got behind the wheel while the gunman watched the alley. A minute later, the Chevy took off with both of them in the front seat.
I didn't have the Plymouth then, so Max and I followed them in a cab-me behind the wheel and Max as the passenger. I didn't mind taking some reasonable risks to make some unreasonable money, but I wasn't about to let Max drive.
The muscle boys took their time-they cruised up Houston Street to the East Side Drive. When they crossed the Triboro into the Bronx, I looked a question at Max, but he just shrugged his shoulders-they had to be going to Harlem sooner or later. Sure enough, they circled Yankee Stadium, hooked onto the Major Deegan Expressway, and took the exit to the Willis Avenue Bridge. At the end of the exit road all they had to do was make a quick right and they were back over the bridge and into 125th Street, the heart of Harlem. Another few minutes and they parked in the back of a funeral parlor. We didn't follow them any farther.
The next two runs followed the same route-we just had one more piece to check out and we were ready to operate. We met in Mama's basement-me, Max, Prophet, and the Mole.
'Prof, can you get a look at how they transfer the stuff? It's in the back of the Golden Gate Funeral Parlor on Twenty-first,' I said.
'The next time the move goes down, the Prof shall be around,' he assured us.
