Hot-Wired in Brooklyn (3 page)

“Like?”

“Like, did the kid make any kind of statement?”

“Oh, yeah. Almost forgot about that. He threatened the yard foreman at Victory Wrecking.”

“Shork?”

“Yeah. Told the arresting officer that Shork was, and this is a quote, ‘a goddamn fuckin’ mick liar.’ Kid kept insisting it
was Shork who told him to drive the car up to Manhattan.”

“Anything else?”

DeMassio laughed. “Yeah, and this is the best part. He said he was gonna bash the guy’s head in as soon as he got sprung.”

“‘Sprung,’ huh? Is that what he said?”

“Accordin’ to this report.”

“He’s learnin’ the vocabulary quick enough.”

“These young punks, they just
talk
like tough guys. You put a little scare in ’em, they crap their pants.”

“I don’t know about this one, Nick. He’s got a little somethin’ extra.”

“Time’ll tell.”

“Long as it’s not
my
time. Thanks, Nick.”

“No problem. Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“Just one little question. Where do you find these assholes?”

“In my dreams, Nick. In my goddamn dreams.”

I hung up and had a bite of lunch in my little kitchen. Prosciutto and provolone on Italian bread, a few hot peppers on the
side and a cold bottle of Schaefer to wash it all down. A working man’s lunch, and real food for thought. I was already thinking.
Arnold was a liar, but he was a creative, polished liar. Joe Shork, from what little I’d heard on the street, was a liar
ordinario.
Neither of them had Pinocchio’s nose, so which liar could I believe?

Something else gnawed at me. Shork was strictly a smalltime hoodlum. Confidence games, petty blackmail, a little smuggling.
He was absolutely nobody. How did he rate the job of yard foreman at Victory if he wasn’t Italian and didn’t belong to the
Mob?

Because Victory Wrecking did. Big Dom Scarpetti, a lesser star in the Mafia’s secret constellation, owned the operation. His
older brother, Alberto, was one of the most successful hoods in Brooklyn; but Big Dom had made enough stupid mistakes in his
callow youth to be banished to the farthest corner of Alberto’s far-flung criminal empire. That corner, at Stillwell and Avenue
T, was Victory Wrecking.

Victory dismantled cars, but they weren’t wrecks when they got there, and they didn’t belong to Victory Wrecking. It was hot-wire
heaven. Everybody on the street knew what went on. The beat cops knew, too, and even some higher-ups in the police department.
But Big Dom always gave them enough green reasons not to complain. Over the years, Alberto’s failed younger brother had made
a tidy profit down there on Stillwell, slowly building a little empire inside the big one. There was talk that he had other
fish frying, too,
with some important people. In paunchy middle age, all on his own and after years of living down his earlier mistakes, Big
Dom was finally looking like a comer.

It was no surprise that Arnold worked at Victory. The Scarpettis employed dozens of young punks to steal cars for parts and
hijack trucks for their cargoes. Punks were always expendable. If anyone got caught and considered singing, one of Alberto’s
lethal emissaries paid a visit to his house. Arnold was a jerk, but he wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t sung; he’d turned on Joe Shork
instead. Two practiced liars, but one of them had to be telling the truth.

Before going up to Harlem, I decided to stop off at Victory Wrecking, just for laughs.

S
hork was in his office, a dark blue clapboard shack that sat like a bruise at the entrance to the wrecking yard. He was ogling
a girlie magazine as I walked in. When he saw me, he turned it around for show-and-tell.

“Some babe, huh, pal?” he said, as if we’d been chummy for an hour. The babe was in her mid-forties, overweight and melon-breasted,
her lower torso contorted to display her sagging back porch at the same time.

“Not your type?” Shork asked when I didn’t react.

“I prefer ’em live and with a little more class.”

Shork put the magazine down, marking the page. “So, what can I do for ya?” I didn’t answer because I was studying his face.
It was on the pale, pasty side and small-featured. He had the standard number-two-pencil mustache that was all the rage with
petty grifters, and his skin was pitted with acne craters. That, or somebody had peppered his face with buckshot. Considering
his line of work, the buckshot seemed just as likely.
“Ya need parts? Ya wanna sell a wreck?” he prompted.

“Came to talk about Arnold.”

Shork exploded out of the chair and spat a litany of expletives that made my heart glow. I took a seat next to the desk, smiled
engagingly, and enjoyed the moment. When he’d finished, he muscled himself back into the chair, his face red as a new turnip.
“Fuckin’ little prick!” he said in closing.

His expression changed suddenly, as if a stray second thought had intruded. “Yer not a cop, are ya?”

“Nothin’ like that.” I explained about Mr. Pulaski. “Believe me, Joe, I’m just doin’ this by the numbers.”

Shork put on an outraged face. “Can ya
believe
the little bastard? He steals the goddamn D.A.’s car and says
I
put him up to it! Can ya believe that shit?! Fuckin’ little wiseass prick! Shoulda never took him on. Hey, ya want a drink
or somethin’?” He was already rummaging in one of the desk drawers.

“Sure. Whatever you’ve got.”

Shork brought out a bottle and two shot glasses and poured us each a double. “It ain’t Johnnie Walker, but it burns good goin’
down.”

The door swung open as he finished pouring. The two goons who entered looked strangely familiar. They were big and broad-shouldered
and wore heavy coats. Their fedoras kept their eyes in shadow. Shork’s own eyes grew wide and fearful as he tried, poorly,
to hide that fear. He gestured, as if to summon them, but they didn’t move. I kept trying to place them. The Barracuda Brothers,
possibly, but until I saw two mouths full of pointy teeth I couldn’t be sure.

One of the goons shut the door and blocked it as his partner
approached Shork. The partner gave me a passing glance, then leaned over and whispered in Shork’s ear. It was a lengthy message.
Shork did a lot of nodding, streams of sweat rolling down his pale, cratered face.

When the big goon was through whispering, he saw Shork’s fear and grinned. The goon at the door matched him. Not the Barracuda
Brothers, I realized. More like Superman and Calamari Breath, the faceless phantoms from my nightmare.

When they sauntered out, Shork and I both breathed a little easier. We made small talk and drank for a while. A minion or
two knocked on the door to present an invoice or paper for Shork to sign. As if to prove he was still in charge, Shork snapped
at each of them. Finally, a little pie-eyed, he gave me another suspicious look.

“What’d ya say yer name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Lombardi.”

“And yer helpin’ this little jerk?”

“Uh uh. Just goin’ through the motions for his father, like I said.”

“So, what ya want?”

“Well, one thing puzzles me. Why’d he
give your
name to the cops?”

“Like
I
should know?”

“Oh, come on now, Joe. Why you? Why not somebody else?”

Shork’s voice turned whiney. “He’s always bustin’ my balls, ya know? Him and his pals, they think they’re hot shit wiseguys.
Little Johnny Dillingers, every one of ’em. Like they’re workin’ here just for kicks. They act like I’m nobody,
so I ride em, ride ’em hard, every day. I show ’em who’s fuckin’ boss here.”

“How many pals we talkin’ about?”

“The three of ’em. All wiseasses.”

“Names, Joe.”

“Chick Gunderson, Teddy Mitchell, that’s the other two.”

“They around?”

“They didn’t come to work the next day, and I ain’t seen ’em since. Good riddance. Let ’em
all
go up the river.”

“Ever have ’em steal cars for you, Joe? Strictly on orders from Big Dom, of course, you bein’ an honest and upright guy.”

Shork’s pasty, pock-marked face turned nasty. “Who
are
ya?”

“Name’s Lombardi, like I said. Don’t have a heart attack over this, Joe. I don’t care if you steal ’em first or wreck ’em
first, as long as they don’t belong to me or anybody I know. I just wanna find out why the kid picked you, that’s all.”

Shork poured himself another drink and downed it. He didn’t offer. “I could have yer mouth shut, talkin’ like that.”

I grinned. “You could sure try, Joe.”

“Ya saw those two guys.”

“Uh huh. And I’ll bet they do whatever you tell ’em.”

“That’s right.”

“Whenever they tell you to tell ’em.”

Shork put his empty glass down and challenged me with a testy look.

“Relax, Joe,” I said. “I’m tryin’ to be on your side.”

The hardness in his eyes softened suddenly, and a little admiration crept into his voice. “Lombardi… Now I remember
yer name. You was in that Santini business a while back.”

Jimmy Santini was a
capo
who lived in Gravesend. I’d done him a service and been in his good graces ever since. Everybody in the Mob knew it, including
his two homicidal sons, the Barracuda Brothers.

Shork poured himself another double. I put my hand over my empty glass when he tried to pour me one. “Gotta be at a dance
recital at four,” I explained. “Little girls in tutus. One of ’em’s my godchild.”

Shork nodded approvingly, bumped back the double shot, and I got up to leave.

“Gonna smash the little prick’s face in when he comes back,” Shork volunteered as I headed for the door.

“What makes you think he’s gonna come back, Joe?”

Shork pointed a wobbly finger at a small, rectangular red metal box beside the door. “The little prick’s tools. When he comes
back to get ’em, gonna shove ’em up his skinny Polack ass, one at a time.”

“Remember to get his pants down first, Joe.”

“Fuckin’ little greasy-haired son-of-a-bitchin’ prick!” he snarled as I closed the door behind me.

A symphony to my ears.

T
he Marcus Garvey Elementary School was on Lenox Avenue, a block away from the two-bedroom apartment that Watusi rented on
128th Street. Going into Harlem could be a fatal misadventure for a white man, but I was protected there, too. My patron was
an eccentric gang lord known as the King of Africa. I’d solved a problem for him, uncovered a traitor in the process, and
had enjoyed the King’s blessing ever since. I could now park my yellow Chevy convertible safely, day or night, on any street
within the King’s domain. Even the pigeons left it alone.

The King wasn’t entirely a criminal. Some of the money from his pimping and numbers operations had started the school that
Desiree attended. Watusi and I had no problem with that. It was as good as any Catholic school, and there were no catechism
classes.

Watusi met me outside. At six-foot-seven, he stands out
like a stilt walker at a midgets’ convention. He’s strong enough to break a heavyweight like a twig and smart enough to teach
the classics at Columbia, if they’d let him. He’s also the perfect gentleman, as long as he’s on your side.

“Good evening, Eddie,” he said, his diction immaculate as always.

I reached out to take his extended hand. “Hi, Tooss.”

“Desiree was concerned that you weren’t coming.”

“I had some business.” I started to explain about Arnold and the wrecking yard when a stocky, middle-aged colored woman dressed
as an usher shooed us toward the door. She winked at Watusi as we went in, and I smiled back for him.

“That’s Desiree’s teacher,” he said.

“Looks like she’s got eyes for you.”

“Don’t encourage her.”

“It’s okay, Tooss. Women like to look, too. Just don’t reciprocate.”

That stopped him. “Are you studying vocabulary again?”

“Intermittently.”

We took seats at the back of the auditorium. It wasn’t a full house, but the back row suited Watusi’s height. Desiree wasn’t
performing in the first dance number, so I railed about Arnold again, starting with the nightmare and ending with Joe Shork
and the D.A.’s stolen car.

“Would you like a new word for your vocabulary list, Eddie?” he asked at the end of my tirade.

“What?”

“Obsession.”

“Obsession?”

“About this teenager, Arnold.”

Watusi studied my face. “I see you don’t agree,” he said. “Let me advance my argument further.”

“Go ahead.”

But he didn’t continue. The audience applauded the end of the first number, and Desiree and five other chocolate-colored nine-year-olds
burst onto the stage. Skittish as spooked cats, caroming off each other like billiard balls, they were more vaudeville slapstick
than ballet; but the audience was as attentive as an opening-night crowd at Carnegie Hall. Watusi and I were, too. To dance
in the ballet had been her mother’s dream, and now Desiree was just maybe on the way to fulfilling it. She’d bolted on stage
with the fixed smile her teacher had prompted; but the more she flew across the boards, the more genuine and easy the smile
became. When she finished her solo at the end of the program, the audience was on its feet.

We met her out front. “Eddie!” she called, ran to me with arms open and crushed me in an embrace. Watusi, standing behind
me, beamed down a reserved, paternal smile.

“Shall we go for ice cream?” he asked.

It was past nine when we returned to Watusi’s apartment. Less in the Spartan style than his old place, it was decorated mostly
with Desiree’s artwork and “A” papers from school. She got dressed for bed, I tucked her in and kissed her, and Watusi read
her the myth of Persephone until she fell asleep. Java, the orange cat I’d given her, curled up purring under her chin.

Watusi and I adjourned to the living room. I helped myself to a beer from the refrigerator, and he picked up where he’d left
off about obsession. “Have you ever seen a dog chase its own tail?” he asked.