was processing and shipping meat. It was a place most people avoided. Can you blame them? It wasn’t exactly a fun spot for a Sunday picnic. I guess that’s why so many criminals made their homes down here. It was the kind of place that even the cops avoided.
Yet here we were, Spader and I, walking right down the street like we belonged there. Believe me, we didn’t. The further west we walked, the more I felt the hot stares of people’s eyes on us. This was the kind of neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else. A stranger stood out like a brilliant light bulb in a dark cave. People watched us from doorways and windows and from passing cars. A few people even whistled. It was their way of taunting us, knowing that we were headed for deep trouble.
“I feel like we just arrived at a party we weren’t invited to,” Spader said nervously.
“Or like it’s feeding time at the zoo…and we’re a couple of pork chops.”
Our destination was an old packing plant that was built onto a pier over the Hudson River. Max Rose told us exactly where it was. It was the place where Winn Farrow and his gang spent most of their time, when they weren’t out slitting people’s throats, that is.
After walking for a very tense five minutes, we found ourselves in front of a big brick building with the wordsWILD BOAR MEATSpainted in two-foot-high faded white letters over the green, garage-style door. ”This is it,” said Spader. “What do we do, knock?”
The answer came quickly. Somebody had walked up behind us. I turned to see that it was more than one somebody. There were five guys, all wearing greasy clothes and worn caps. Their sleeves were rolled up to reveal huge, Johnny Bravo-style arms. I also saw that their hands and arms were stained with dark-brown blotches. I’m guessing these guys worked in the meat-packing plant, which meant those brown stains were actually, gross me out, dried blood.
None of them looked happy to see us. They all had scowls that told me they didn’t like strangers and would probably make us pay for invading their turf. Looking at their hands again, I really hoped that those blood stains came from working in the packing plant and not from pummeling bozos like us who wandered into their neighborhood.
“Do you guys work here?” I asked, trying to sound like I wasn’t about to pee in my pants.
They didn’t answer. Their expressions got darker.
“We’re looking for Winn Farrow,” Spader said.
Those were the magic words. But it was bad magic, because as soon as they heard the name “Winn Farrow,” they circled us, cutting off any hope we had of escape.
“We’ve got to see Farrow,” I said. “We got a message for him.”
The thugs started to tighten the circle. Spader and I went back to back. We didn’t stand a chance in a fight against these brutes. I could see them clenching their fists, which made the knotty muscles in their forearms flex. Now that they were in close, I could smell them too. Didn’t these guys know about deodorant? It was getting real ugly, real fast.
“It’s a message from Max Rose,” I said in desperation.
The thugs stopped. I actually saw hesitation in their focused, killers’ eyes. We were seconds away from adding to the stains on their hands, but hearing Max Rose’s name made them freeze. Better, they looked scared. Up until that moment we had only heard about what a tough guy Max Rose was. Seeing these thugs turn all Jelloat the sound of his name confirmed it. Max Rose wasn’t somebody you messed with.
Suddenly the garage door of the building flew up and four more guys stepped out. These guys were just as vicious looking as the smelly guys surrounding us, except they wore gangster-looking suits. They also had shotguns. I suddenly felt safer with the guys who only worked with their fists. One of the new thugs-I’ll call him Shotgun- motioned toward us. Instantly the smelly thugs frisked us up and down, looking for guns. Of course they came up empty.
“We have a message from Max Rose to Winn Farrow,” I said. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Shotgun looked back at the other thugs and laughed. The smelly thugs laughed with him. “You don’t want any trouble?” Shotgun laughed. “Well, golly gee-whiz, we wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble!”
The thugs laughed even harder. Great. Not only were our lives in danger, we had to be insulted, too.
Shotgun then barked, “Inside!” He motioned toward the garage door with his gun. Spader and I walked inside. The shotgun boys followed close behind us, but the smelly thugs stayed outside. I wasn’t going to miss them.
Inside we saw what was once a busy slaughterhouse. Luckily for us, it wasn’t in operation anymore. It was a big, open warehouse room that stretched up for three or four stories. There was a track running on either side of the ceiling with ugly metal hooks hanging down. My guess was this was where they strung up the cattle when they did the yucky stuff. There were cement troughs in the floor that I’m sure caught most of the yuk. At the end of the track were long rows of wooden tables where all the slicing and dicing happened. Yuk. It’s impossible to overuse the word “yuk” when it comes to this place. I like hamburgers as much as the next guy, but I never wanted to see where they came from.
“What is this place?” asked Spader.
“You don’t want to know,” I answered.
“Pipe down!” shouted Shotgun. They marched us through this big room to the back of the building, where there was a large, open metal door on the back wall. “In there,” ordered Shotgun.
I was starting to get nervous. Okay, I was already plenty nervous, but now I was getting close to that hairy edge of panic. I had a fleeting thought that we were being marched to a quiet back room where these guys would start blasting away.
“Max Rose sent us,” I said again. “We want to see Winn Farrow.”
I was cut off when Shotgun poked me in the gut with his gun, pushing me into the next room. Spader shot forward and grabbed the gun, but the other thugs jumped him and threw him in the room after me.
The next room was almost as big as the first. There was a big stack of wooden crates full of I don’t know what. There were also hundreds of metal hooks that were evenly spaced along the walls and ceiling. A flight of metal stairs led up to a catwalk that ringed the walls over our heads. I’m guessing they stored the sides of beef high and low in here. There were only two doors-the one we came through and another off the catwalk above us. There were no windows.
“Tie their hands,” ordered Shotgun. One of the other thugs pulled out a length of rope and immediately started tying our hands together.
“If Max Rose finds out you wouldn’t let us talk to Winn Farrow, there’s going to be trouble,” I said, trying not to sound too pathetic and desperate.
“Really?” said Shotgun without a trace of concern. “And how’s he gonna find out?”
“Oh, he’ll find out,” was all I could think of saying. Great comeback. I’m not a good bluffer. The thug finished tying our hands so Spader and I were now roped together at the wrists.
“I’m saying this for the last time-” I said.
“You got that right,” came a voice from the door we had just come through. “You’re doing a lot of things for the last time.”
Spader and I shot a look at the door to see a man standing there. I knew instantly that this had to be the one and only Winn Farrow.
It’s not that he looked like the tough gangster we were expecting or anything. It was more the way the other guys reacted to him. They all backed off like they were afraid to be in his way.
To be honest, Farrow didn’t look all that intimidating. He was a short guy. I’m guessing no more than five feet. No joke. He looked more like a gangster doll, than a gangster. Of course, I wasn’t about to tell him that. He had on a suit that was probably nice at one time, but now looked kind of shabby. The material was faded and the elbows were worn through.
That pretty much described all of Winn Farrow’s gang. Even though they wore suits, they all looked ragged. Where Max Rose’s gang was all spiffed out with expensive, handmade clothes, Farrow’s gang looked like they’d been wearing these same outfits for a long time. I guess that’s the difference between being a successful uptown gangster and a hungry downtown crook. This was definitely the B team of gangsters.
Farrow entered, followed by two more of his gang. When Farrow walked, he took quick, short strides. He had to. His legs were so short that if he wanted to cover any ground quickly, he had to walk really fast. It was kind of funny looking, like a cartoon. But I wasn’t laughing. Oh no. That would have been suicidal.
