I could have kissed the cripple.
'Naw, man,' Jackson said. 'Frank gone big time now. He only sell by the crate to the stores. He say he don't want no nickels and dimes.'
'You don't sell fo' Frank any more?' I asked.
'Uh-uh. He too big fo'a niggah like me.'
'Shit! An' I was lookin' fo' some whiskey too. I gotta party in mind that need some booze.'
'Well maybe I could set a deal, Ease.' Jackson's eyes lit up. He was still turning now and then to see if Lenny was coming.
'Like what?'
'Maybe if you buy enough Frank'a cut us a deal.'
'Like how much?'
'How much you need?'
'Case or two of Jim Beam be fine.'
Jackson scratched his chin. 'Frank'a sell by the case t'me. I could buy three an' sell one by the bottle.'
'When you gonna see'im?' I must've sounded too eager because a caution light went on in Jackson's eye. He waited a long moment then said, 'Whas up, Easy?'
'What you mean?'
'I mean,' he said, 'why is you lookin' fo' Frank?'
'Man, I don't know what you mean. All I know is I got people comin' to the house on Saturday and the cupboard is bare. I got a couple'a bucks but I was laid off last Monday and I can't spend it all on whiskey.'
All this time Zeppo was shimmying there next to us. He was waiting to see if a bottle would materialize out of our talk.
'Yeah, well, if you need it fast,' Jackson said, still suspicious, 'what if I get you a deal somewhere's else?'
'I don't care. All I want is some cheap whiskey and I thought that was the business you did.'
'It is, Easy. You know I usually buy from Frank but maybe I could go someplace he sells ta. Cost a little more but you still save some money.'
'Anything you say, Jackson. Just lead me to the well.'
'M-m-m-m-me too,' Zeppo added.
20
When we got to my car I drove down Central to Seventy-sixth Place. I was nervous being so close to the police station but I had to find Frank Green.
Jackson took Zeppo and me down to Abe's liquor store. I was glad that Zeppo had come along with us because people who didn't know Zeppo kept their eyes and attention on him. I was banking on that to hide any questions I asked about Frank.
On the way down to the liquor store Jackson told me the story of the men that owned it.
Abe and Johnny were brothers-in-law. They came from Poland, most recently from the town of Auschwitz; Jews who survived the Nazi camps. They were barbers in Poland and they were barbers in Auschwitz, too.
Abe was part of the underground in the camp and he saved Johnny from the gas chamber when Johnny was so sick that the Nazi guard had selected him to die. Abe dug a hole in the wall next to his bed and he put Johnny there, telling the guard that Johnny had died and was picked up, by the evening patrol, for cremation. Abe collected food from his friends in the resistance and fed his ailing brother-in-law through a hole in the wall. That went on for three months before the camp was liberated by the Russians.
Abe's wife and sister, Johnny's wife, were dead. Their parents and cousins and everyone else they had ever known or had ever been related to had died in the Nazi camps. Abe took Johnny on a stretcher and dragged him to the GI station where they applied to immigrate.
Jackson wanted to tell me more stories he'd heard about the camps but I didn't need to hear them. I remembered the Jews. Nothing more than skeletons, bleeding from their rectums and begging for food. I remembered them waving their weak hands in front of themselves, trying to keep modest; then dropping dead right there before my eyes.
Sergeant Vincent LeRoy found a twelve-year-old boy who was bald and weighed forty-six pounds. The boy ran to Vincent and hugged his leg, like the little Mexican boy clung to Matthew Teran. Vincent was a hard man, a gunner, but he melted for that little boy. He called him Tree Rat because of the way the boy crawled up on him and wouldn't let go.
The first day Vincent carried Tree Rat on his back while we evacuated the concentration camp survivors. That night he made Tree Rat go with the nurses to the evacuation center, but the little boy got away from them and made it back to our bivouac.
Vincent decided to keep him after that. Not the way Matthew Teran kept the Mexican boy, but like any man whose heart goes out to children.
Little Tree, as I called him, rode on Vincent's back all the next day. He ate a giant chocolate bar that Vincent had in his pack and other sweets the men gave him.
That night we were awakened by Tree's moaning. His little stomach had distended even more and he couldn't even hear us trying to soothe him.
