The shrug.
The doctor stepped in. ‘That’s all.’
Petey became agitated. He wanted to speak. I guessed.
‘The Driscoll girl might know something? Might be trouble?’
A quick affirmative.
Then there was a strange movement. The doctor bent over the ruin that was Pete Vitanza. I watched. The doctor straightened.
‘Passed out. Everyone out. Out!’
Lieutenant Marx left a man outside the door. Marx and I walked out of the hospital to find that it was still hot, still summer, and still early afternoon. I felt that it should have been night and winter. At the moment I did not care about Jo-Jo Olsen or Tani Jones or Patrolman Stettin or law and order. I cared about Pete Vitanza and the kind of men who could beat a nineteen-year-old boy that badly. I did not want justice, I wanted them. It’s like politics with me: I don’t care about Antipoverty Programmes with capital letters, but I care about the poor. Then, too, I care about myself. These men were after me. I did not want men like that walking around where I walked.
‘Take good care, Fortune,’ Marx said as we parted.
The way the lieutenant said that made me stand there in the sun across from Loew’s Sheridan and stare after the squad car as it took Marx away. The lieutenant knew something that he was not telling me. Just as Gazzo had known something. I felt that it was about Tani Jones and her killer and why the killer would not fence his loot.
There was something else in all this. A third force of some kind, you might say. I was sure of that now. A third force that had shown so far only as two shadows on a dark street and as two unknown men who had beaten a boy and asked questions. They could be the same two, or a different two. How many there were and who they were, I did not know. I did not like that. As I said, unanswered questions are like lurking monsters. I wanted the answers. At least, as I stood there in the sun I thought I did. It was not long before I was not so sure. I was about to get part of an answer sooner than I had expected.
I went to find Marty. I needed company after Pete, and I wanted to talk about Tani Jones. Marty was out of bed now, and bushy-tailed. She had forgotten the two shadows. They were not in evidence. We went to the sidewalk cafe of O. Henry’s. Marty had a Pernod on ice. I had a beer and a good view of one of the best sights in New York: Marty in a short skirt.
‘You are a dirty old man, Dan Fortune,’ Marty said.
‘Is there another kind? You beautiful young girls won’t let us men grow old properly.’
‘Am I beautiful, baby?’
‘You are to me,’ I said, ‘and on stage. That’s what counts: to your man and in your work, you’re beautiful.’
I got a nice smile. She’s not really beautiful. She’s pretty enough, and she has the body to make any man stare for at least a few minutes. But the real thing is that she is exciting. Pretty is a dime a carload, but exciting comes scarce. She’s alive. She never stops moving, not even when she is doing nothing. She keeps me busy — body and mind. But today I had some other problems.
‘Did you know Tani Jones, Marty?’
She shook her head. ‘No. You know I don’t hang around with the girls. She was the girl killed by the burglar, wasn’t she? One of the girls was talking about her a few days ago. I never met her. The Blue Cellar is two blocks away. What a shame, Dan. I mean, what a stupid way to die for a young girl.’
‘Have any men been hanging around the girls?’ I asked.
‘Men are always hanging around, I…’
Marty stopped. Her wide eyes became wider. She was facing Sixth Avenue, and I had my back to the avenue. I turned to look.
‘Hello, Danny.’
He came up and sat down across from me at that postage stamp table. Andy Pappas. The innocent people strolled along only inches away, and Pappas sat there and smiled. Beyond the price of his suit, which had to be at least three figures, Pappas looked like any other man. His homburg was a dark blue, his tropical suit was dark blue with the faintest of conservative pinstripes and a natural-shoulder ivy-league cut. His shirt was good blue-and- white-striped oxford cloth with a relaxed button-down collar as befitted the afternoon and early evening hours of a businessman. His tie was a regimental stripe, and his shoes were a soft and informal black leather. No gun bulged under the slim suit coat.
It’s good to see you, Danny. Share a round, right?’
I’ve known Andy Pappas all my life. We’re the same age. We grew up together here at the edge of the river. We learned to like girls at the same time. We graduated from high school in the same class. We danced at the Polish dances and drank wine at the Italian street festivals. We stole together in those early days. Andy knows how I lost my arm. It was his tip that sent Joe and me to the Dutchman ship that night. It was Andy who would have arranged the fencing of the loot if I had not broken my arm.
Maybe all of that is another reason why I tell stories about the arm instead of the truth — the fact that Andy Pappas is a major reason why I am still thought to be in any way regular, the reason I get the benefit of some doubt. In Chelsea no one would, or could, understand that a man could know Andy Pappas and not offer up prayers of thanks every night. That is why Andy survives, grows richer. We were kids together, yes, and that was where it ended. Joe is poor and hard-working. I am poor and work for a living, if not too hard. Andy is rich, and no one alive knows for sure what his work is.
‘The same for my friends, and a little Remy Martin for me,’ Andy said to the waiter. The waiter was polite. Andy was polite. He smiled at me again. ‘Say hello, Danny.’
Andy Pappas is a boss. A boss, that’s all. For the record and the newspapers Pappas is boss of a big stevedoring company on the docks. For the record, and for the sake of all the public people who are supposed to have the power, Pappas runs a good, efficient, profitable, and useful company. Off the record Andy is the boss of something else. There are those who say that he is the boss of everything else. Some even say it out loud. Andy does not worry about that. Everyone knows that what Andy is boss of is illegal, a racket. Only no one really knows just what that racket is, except that a major part of it is keeping the river-front peaceful. Pappas gets the ships unloaded in peace and quiet — for a price. The general guess is that Andy has all, or a piece, of just about every illegal enterprise there is. Of course, the true occupation of Pappas, the true occupation of any boss like Andy, is extortion. That is what a racket is — any activity, legal or illegal, where a major part of the method of operation is fear. Whether it is heroin or just asphalt that the racketeer sells, his main selling method is fear, the fear of harm; extortion.
‘Hello, Andy,’ I said. I nodded to Marty. I wanted her to leave. Andy smiled.
‘Let the lady stay, Danny. I’ve seen her work. She’s too good.’ Andy has a nice voice, low and even, and his speech is very good for a boy who only barely got out of high school. Everyone says that he took lessons, but I remember that he always had a good voice. ‘Besides, we’re old friends, right, Danny?’
‘You don’t have a friend, Andy,’ I said. ‘You’re the enemy of everybody.’
Pappas nodded. He did not stop smiling. It was an old story with us.
‘You don’t soften up, do you, Danny?’
‘You never change, do you, Andy?’ I said. ‘This isn’t a social visit.’
I nodded towards the lamp-post a few feet away from the table of the tiny sidewalk cafe. It was one of those old gaslight lamp-posts O. Henry’s has put up for atmosphere. Leaning against it now, pretending to watch the little-girl tourists pass, was Jake Roth. Roth was not watching girls; he was watching me. Andy Pappas never carries a gun, everyone says, but Roth goes to bed with a shoulder holster under his pyjama top. Roth is Andy’s top persuader. Across the street I saw Max Bagnio. Little Max is the second-best gun, and now was trying to read a newspaper in front of a stationery store by spelling out the words one at a time. Actually, Bagnio was watching me in the store window. And just up the block towards Sheridan Square I saw Andy’s long, black car parked in front of a Japanese knick-knack shop. The driver sat behind the wheel with his cap down and his arms folded. I did not need to guess that a gun was hidden under those folded arms.
Pappas had followed my glances at his men. He shrugged.
‘You said it, Danny. Everyone is my enemy. A man has to protect himself.’
‘That isn’t exactly what I said, Andy, but let it pass. What’s on your mind?’ I asked.
