beer. You know about that?”
“He’d stopped drinking,” I said.
“Said he was an alcoholic, which I could believe, the way he used to put it away. But then we all did back then, you know? We were kids, we partied hard, we got in trouble. Crazy shit. You grow up and it changes.” He considered. “Or you don’t and it doesn’t. Whatever. So okay, you don’t want a beer, how about a cup of tea? But he doesn’t want anything, he just wants to get down to business. To make things right, except there was another word he kept using.”
“Amends.”
“Right, amends. I don’t think I ever heard anybody use that word outside of the context of, you know, an amendment to the Constitution. Amends. You know what he did? You know what this was all about?”
“Something about a burglary,” I said. “He sold something to you and stole it back again, something along those lines.”
He was silent for a moment, thinking about it. Then he said, “What I was, I was a receiver. I never went away for it, I never even got arrested for it. You needed to sell something, I’d buy it for cash. You were looking to buy something, if I had it you’d be getting a bargain. But cash, no receipts, and don’t ask where it came from. Like, you know, stolen goods.”
“Not usually a young man’s business.”
“Well, I had someone to teach me the ropes. You ever know a man named Selig Wolf? My uncle, my mother’s younger brother. Uncle Selig had a new car every year, always dressed nice, money in his pocket. Used to slip me a couple of bucks whenever he saw me. ‘Here, Marky, you don’t want to walk around with empty pockets.’ I’m out of school, I’m drifting from one dead-end job to another, and I team up with Jack and we do a snatch-and-grab at this credit jeweler’s on Queens Boulevard. Now what do we do with this shit we stole? So I take it to Uncle Selig, and first he gives me hell, and then he gives me a decent price for what I brought him, and finally he gives me advice. ‘Marky, you can kick in doors or hold people up, and have empty pockets most of the time, and sooner or later you get shot or do time, and what kind of life is that for my sister’s boy?’ Or I could buy and sell, the way he did, and he sat me down and showed me how.”
“And that’s what you did.”
“And that’s what I did, and I was no genius, but I did all right at it. I had this three-bedroom river-view apartment on Haven Avenue up in Washington Heights, and two of the bedrooms were my store. And the word got around. Next time I run into Jack, I tell him I’m in a different part of the business. So a couple of times he brings me stuff, and I take it off his hands. And another time he shows up, and have I got a nice fur? Because there’s a girl who let him know that’s what she wants. It happens I do, and he buys it from me.
“And then I come home one night, I’ve been out celebrating one thing or another, and I’m cleaned out. No damage to the locks, so I always figured somebody had copies of my keys. And I was right, because when he was making his whatchacallit, his fucking amends, he told me right off. He swiped a set of my keys, had copies made, then got my keys back where I kept them. And waited until he knew I was out, and came back with a partner, and cleaned me out. Even knew where I kept my cash.”
“And you suspected Jack?”
“I had a feeling. A couple of names came to mind, and he was on the top of the list. I went to him, not to confront him but just to see, you know? And he was full of plans, what I got to do to get the stuff back. There’s this saying about junkies, that first they steal your wallet and then they help you look for it. It was like that with him. He stole my wallet, and now he was helping me look for it.”
“So you were out a lot of money.”
“I was out of the business, man, and for a while there I was out of town, because I’d just bought a ton of jewelry and financed the deal by borrowing money from the shies. They don’t know from excuses. ‘Sorry for your troubles, it’s a hell of a world, and by the way you owe us money.’ And it’s not like I can call my insurance agent, put in a claim. Everything’s gone and I’m on the hook for it.” He shook his head at the memory. “Uncle Selig helped me work it out. Pointed me in another direction, said I was good with numbers, had me learn bookkeeping. Been doing it ever since. A couple of clients, I keep two sets of books for them, and if that ever came to light I could probably get in trouble. But aside from that I’ve been completely legit for years.”
“So Jack showed up—”
“And copped to what he’d done. ‘You were my friend and I stole from you.’ And this rage came over me. Like, not just how could you do such a thing, but how can you stand here and tell me about it? And smile while you do it?”
“So you hit him?”
“ ‘Mark, tell me what I can do to make it right with you.’ I said I ought to punch his lights out. ‘Mark, go ahead, if that’s what you want.’ And he stands in front of me with his face hanging out, like he’s fucking daring me to throw a punch at him. You ever hit anybody in the face?”
“Not recently.”
“First time for me. Oh, kids on a playground, you know. I gave somebody a bloody nose once, got one myself a time or two. Nine, ten years old. Never since then, until I hit Jack.”
His face darkened at the memory. “He just stood there,” he said. “Maybe took a half step back but that’s all. I split his lip and there was a little trickle of blood, but it didn’t stop the crazy bastard from smiling. I asked him if that was what he wanted, words to that effect, and he said I could keep going. ‘All you want, Mark. Whatever it takes to make it right.’
“And I fucking lost it. I hauled off and hit him again, and he kept standing there and I kept swinging. I don’t know how many times I hit him.” He looked at his bandaged hand. “Each time with the right hand. Three, four, five times? I don’t know. I beat the shit out of my hand but I never felt a thing at the time. Later on, Jesus, whole other story.”
He stopped, and I might have spoken if I could have thought of something to say. I heard a clock ticking. I hadn’t noticed it before.
He said, “The last time I hit him he came close to falling down. His knees buckled anyway. I looked at him and there was something different in his face, and all I could think was he looked like Jesus Christ. I’m Jewish, so what the hell do I know about Jesus? Crazy what goes through your mind.
