Bugsy Malone (13 page)

B
UGSY WHISTLED TO
himself as he ran up the stairs to his apartment. Correction – for apartment, read room with an alcove to wash in. It wasn't a fancy place, or a snazzy neighbourhood, but it suited him – and at one dollar ninety it suited his pocket. As he turned the corner on the stairs, he passed his upstairs neighbour with her child. He raised his hat to the lady and smiled at the little girl. The courtesy to the mother was genuine enough but the smile was false. The little horror whose hand she held had kept Bugsy awake too many nights with her screaming for him to like her.

He moved toward his own door – and suddenly pulled himself up dead in his tracks. The door was ajar. He could see a crack of light spreading across the carpet outside. He stepped softly backwards towards a small cupboard at the end of the hall. In it he found a small, sawn-off broom which he grasped tightly in his hands. He eased back towards the door. Taking a deep breath, he burst through it – and tripped over a well-placed suitcase which launched him headlong into the room. He landed by a pair of shoes. A pair of ladies' shoes. The roller-blind snapped up and light flooded in, filling the room with sunshine. Bugsy looked up from the shoes and saw that they belonged to Tallulah.

“I like my men at my feet,” she said.

Bugsy smiled with relief, helped himself up and sat down in the wickerwork chair at the side of the bed.

“What are you doing here, Tallulah?”

“I've got a message for you.”

“What's wrong with Western Union?”

“I thought you'd... er... like the company.”

Bugsy gulped with embarrassment. Tallulah was always too quick for him. “When I get lonely, I walk around Central Park,” he joked.

Tallulah rather enjoyed seeing him sweat.

“You gonna fix me a drink?”

“I'm right out.”

She gave up. “Come on. I'll buy you a drink.”

“Where?”

“Fat Sam's place.”

Bugsy suddenly had visions of being caught talking to Sam's girl in Sam's place. That was madness... that meant a knuckle sandwich at least from Fat Sam, not to mention a broken nose. And Bugsy told himself he was far too pretty to have his face messed up. It wouldn't be fair to the world.

“Won't Fat Sam be there?”

“He sure will.”

Bugsy couldn't believe his ears. He wasn't going to risk having his neck broken.

“Maybe I'll stay home.”

Tallulah sighed heavily and picked up her fur. “Don't flatter yourself, tiger. He's the one who wants to see you, not me.” She straightened his tie and brushed a mock fist across his nose. “Come on. Let's go, before your suspenders strangle you.”

Bugsy blew out a deep sigh of relief as Tallulah moved towards the door. He picked up his hat and used it as a fan. In the last few minutes he'd got a little hot under the collar.

 

In the speakeasy, Fizzy slopped water over the floor and whistled as he slid his mop to and fro. Behind the bar, the barman was polishing glasses. Fat Sam walked slowly up to the counter. He shouted at Fizzy without even looking at him. “Quit whistling, Fizzy. It makes me edgy.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

Sam leaned heavily on the bar, took a toothpick from a glass and snapped it viciously between his fingers. He beckoned the barman with a click of his fingers. The barman stopped his glass-polishing immediately.

“Yes, Boss?”

“Get me a double on the rocks.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

The barman scooped crushed ice into a glass and pulled the cork out of the ‘green special' bottle. Then he made a big mistake.

The flower in Sam's lapel was a bedraggled, pathetic specimen of horticulture, two days overdue for being thrown away. The barman sniggered. Fat Sam fixed him with a dangerous glare.

“So what's funny, buster? You find me amusing?”

“No, Boss... I wasn't smiling at you. Honest I wasn't.”

“You find my suit amusing or something?”

“No, Boss. It was... it was... your flower.” The barman pointed nervously to the drooping snowdrop.

Fat Sam looked down at it and smiled. At least, he seemed to smile. “Oh, yeah. It's kinda droopy, ain't it?” He beamed as he said it and the barman also started to smile.

“Yeah, a little, Boss,” he giggled nervously. He thought it was strange to find Sam in such a good mood. Sam laughed even louder.

“In fact, it's very droopy!” Sam bellowed with laughter and so did the barman. He couldn't believe his luck. No one had ever got on this well with the boss before. Maybe he was in for promotion.

“Yeah, Boss. Very droopy,” he giggled.

Sam took the floppy flower from his lapel and handed it to the barman.

“Here, hold it a minute, will you? It needs a little water.”

Still smiling, the unsuspecting barman took the flower in his hand. Sam picked up the jug of water that stood on the counter and threw the entire contents at the flower – with the result that it, and the barman, were completely drenched. Sam grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and yanked him across the counter, scattering empty bottles and glasses. Suspended inches from Sam's nose, he caught, head on, the verbal broadside that spouted from Sam's mouth.

“Now don't let me see you laughing at me again, you hear? I'll ram that smile right down your throat. I'm Fat Sam. Don't ever forget that. Number one man. Top dog. Mr Big. Always have been. Always will be. Now get out of here.”

The barman bounced from side to side as he was propelled by Fat Sam in the direction of the exit.

The fat hoodlum brushed his hands down his suit and poured himself another drink. He was still the number one man – the Mr Big around this joint who always managed to keep his head up. But not for long – because he walked into Fizzy's shiny wet floor, broke the world record for the heavy fall, and landed on his backside with a thundering crunch that would have bruised him more had he not been blessed with a back-end that nature had thoughtfully built to take such shocks. Fizzy was terrified. He blurted out a warning that was as pointless as it was late.

“Be careful, Boss. The floor is wet.”

Quite simply, Sam went mad. He grabbed a table and pulled himself up. Fizzy didn't waste a second. He scuttled around the table in the opposite direction. Sam cleared the upturned chairs with one sweep of his hand. They clattered around Fizzy's ears, but he still kept running. Sam ran after him and up the stairs to the stage. If he'd caught the little janitor there's no telling what he would have done with him, but, luckily for Fizzy, at that moment the door opened, and in came Tallulah and Bugsy.

“Here he is, honey. As promised.”

Fat Sam stopped, and his face turned from rage to pleasure. “Bugsy, how are you? How you been?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Oh, a little difficult at the moment, Bugsy. Why don't you pull up a chair and sit down? Tallulah, honey, fix him a drink, will you?”

“What's your pleasure, Bugsy?” said Tallulah with a smile.

“Special-on-the-rocks, Tallulah, please.”

Bugsy and Sam pulled up chairs. Sam pushed his closer to Bugsy and dropped his voice to an intimate whisper.

“Bugsy, I need your help. I'm in a jam. Dandy Dan's breathing down my neck and any minute now he'll be taking over my entire organisation.”

Bugsy found it hard to believe. After all, there was still the speakeasy. Bugsy could see it with his own eyes and in the evenings he could see how much money it made, too. He said, “You've still got all this.”

Sam replied with a gesture that could only have been learned in Naples.

“Not if Dandy Dan gets his way. I won't have a dime for a shoe-shine.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a red cent.”

Tallulah returned with the drinks. She put Bugsy's down in front of him and then pulled herself up a chair.

“Tallulah,” Sam said sharply, “Can you leave us for a minute? This is men's talk.”

Tallulah stroked Bugsy's hair. “It's all right. I'm unshockable.”

But Sam was insistent. “Tallulah, go fix your make-up.”

“I've already fixed it.”

“Then go and make yourself even more beautiful than you already are.”

“But you know that's impossible.”

“Tallulah.” Sam was getting angry. He glared at her with a look that could have cut a man in half. It bounced off Tallulah. She stood up.

“All right. All right. I'll go manicure my gloves.”

She stormed across the speakeasy floor and up the stairs to the girls' dressing room.

Fat Sam turned to Bugsy. “Bugsy, I need help. My gang's all gone. My friends don't want to know me. My business is in ruins. I'm a wreck. In short, Bugsy, I need you.”

Bugsy was more than a little taken aback.

“Me? Why me?”

“'Cause you're no mug. You've got brains up there, not pretzels.” He tapped his head to make it quite clear where he admired brains.

Bugsy was not impressed. He'd spent his whole life keeping out of trouble and he saw no reason to get involved now.

“No, it's not my line.”

Fat Sam leaned even closer and held him firmly, if not affectionately by the arm. “Help me, and I'll give you two hundred bucks to go with the two hundred I already gave you.”

But Bugsy shrugged once more. “Impossible.”

This surprised Sam, who said, “I thought you were smart?”

“Impossible, because I've already lost the first two hundred.”

Sam was amazed. “Have I misjudged this Bugsy Malone?” he thought.

“You lost two hundred bucks? Gambling?”

“No, I was mugged.”

Fat Sam shrugged with his face, as only Italians can. He was as sympathetic as a hood could be who regarded mugging in the same way as a world series baseball player regards a pitch and catch match in the local park. Sam said nothing more and got out his wallet. He peeled off dollar after dollar, counting them on to the table. “Two hundred green ones, plus the two hundred you lost.”

Bugsy couldn't believe his eyes. “Four hundred bucks!”

Sam was impatient. “Do we have a deal?”

Bugsy felt the crisp, new, green and black notes crackle between his fingers. He whistled to himself as he weighed up the price of keeping his independence against the possibility of those precious dollars vanishing into Fat Sam's pocket, lost to him forever.

“Well?” Sam pushed him.

Bugsy couldn't resist. “You have a deal.”

They shook hands and smiled at one another. It was then that the telephone rang. Tallulah answered it upstairs.

“Bugsy, it's for you. It's Blousey.”

“Excuse me a minute, Sam.”

“Sure thing, Bugsy. Take your time. Use the phone all you want. Be my guest. Phone home. Phone Europe. Phone wherever you please. If Dandy Dan takes over this place he'll have to pay the phone bill. Ha ha ha.” Sam's laugh fooled no one.

Bugsy counted the money as he walked up the stairs. Tallulah blew him a kiss as she handed him the phone. Bugsy smiled coyly. He stroked his eyebrow with his finger as a token gesture of embarrassment. But he also was fooling no one. Certainly not Tallulah.

“Hello, Blousey?”

 

Blousey had waited patiently. She had sat on a stool by the phone in her apartment house hallway for a good twenty minutes before she'd plucked up courage to phone the speakeasy. The wind zipped down the New York streets and rattled the ill-fitting window panes, sending a draught whistling past Blousey's door. She had wrapped herself in the pink and blue dressing gown her Auntie Mary from Wisconsin had made for her. It kept her warm and made her look even sadder, flopping as it did in neat folds around her thin legs and slippered feet. She'd flicked through the Manhattan and Bronx phone book in search of Bugsy's favourite pool hall. She'd even left a message with the janitor's wife in his building. In desperation, she'd rung the speakeasy. Tallulah's voice on the other end of the phone was not a welcome sound. “Sure he's here. I'll get him for you, honey.”

Blousey couldn't pretend it didn't hurt. She had set her heart on getting out of New York and away to the coast and fame. She'd always been a dreamer. And while her fantasies seemed so much nicer than her real life, she saw no reason to make excuses for it. Maybe Bugsy being nice to her was a fantasy too. A daydream that would disappear when the rumble of a heavy truck or the elevated railway snapped her out of it. She didn't have to wait more than a minute for Bugsy to answer, but it seemed like a week and it made her realise how much she wanted him to be genuine.

“Hello, Blousey?”

“Bugsy? Is that you? What are you doing there?”

“Just business.”

“With Tallulah?”

“With Fat Sam.”

“Did you get the tickets?”

“No, not yet. Something's come up.”

He saw no point in lying to her, though he didn't want to hurt her. But to someone with hopes as big as Blousey's, one small step backwards to a normal person is a whole flight of stairs. She took it on the chin.