The Big Kiss-Off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery (9 page)

“I like Sunnyside, but I know what you mean.”

“You’re not so dumb.” Rubine slapped my knee. There was a lot of perspiration on his upper lip and he needed a shave. “Just kidding, Jack. You’re one of the smartest guys in the business.”

“I was coming to that. What do you want from me?”

“Not from, Jack, for. I want you to drive me to New Kingston, New York, that’s five, five and a half hours from here. There I got the films stashed away in a farmhouse that Fenton’s aunt lives in. I left my car in Margaretville. That’s five miles away. You get the films, I pick up my car and disappear.”

“Why didn’t you drive down here?”

“I was afraid of getting tailed to your house. Nobody’s tailed me yet but it’s bound to happen and I’m scared for real, pallie. So I dropped the car off on a side street in Margaretville and caught the late bus down here. It’s summer season starting, so they run a couple of buses to the city every day.”

Rubine was filling me with useless information. With my brain still clumsy, I groped for the right questions before getting completely lost.

“Al, why are you giving me those films?”

“I can’t think of nobody else, sweetheart.” He had a lot of things to call people. “You’re an interested party, right? You were the guy came all the way out to Smithtown, so take ’em. And it’s a nice ride up there.”

“At 3:30?”

“It gets light out early these days.”

I had nothing better to do and after three cups of potent coffee I could have gone over Niagara in a barrel faster than I could have gone back to sleep, so I shuffled into the bedroom and got dressed in brown corduroy pants, a yellow pullover sport shirt, my ancient khaki jacket, and a camel-colored cap. When I returned to the living room, Rubine was all ready and waiting by the door. And pointing a gun in the general direction of LeVine’s generous and forgiving heart.

“Goddamn son of a bitch,” I said, angrier at myself than at Rubine.

“Hey, don’t get mad, pallie, it’s just too risky without. Like I said, you could make a lot of dough taking me to the right people.”

“Especially if I don’t know who they are.”

“Maybe you don’t, maybe you do. What do I know, right? Put yourself in my position; you got to watch yourself, am I right?”

“You’re afraid I’ll take you to the cops. That’s it, isn’t it, Al? You probably had a thousand reasons for knocking off Fenton. Once they grabbed you, the case would be closed.”

“Sure. That’s why I’m giving you the films, because I wanted them so bad that I killed my own partner for them. You’re talking stupid, Jack.”

“Maybe you wanted the films all for yourself and then found you were in too deep. Maybe you’re not giving me the films at all. Maybe you’re just a prick who likes to flash guns around.” I turned my head to the right very fast and suckered Rubine into doing the same, giving me the chance to grab his wrist with both hands and slam it into the steel doorknob. The gun fell to the floor and Rubine didn’t even go for it.

“It isn’t loaded, Jack,” he said, looking like a dog caught crapping on the rug.

“Then you’re a bigger schmuck than I thought, Al. You can get hurt threatening people with empty guns.” I put the little Colt in my pants pocket. “You still want to go to New Kingston, or is this going to spoil the whole trip for you?”

Rubine rubbed his wrist and shook his head. “No, I still want to go. Last night, I realized I didn’t have anything to put in the gun. And I need it, believe me. I’m not being chased by no nuns.” He stared at me with sad brown eyes. “This might sound stupid after what just happened, but could you lend me a little ammo?”

“How about I just give you five thousand bucks to buy some and trust you for the change. Let’s get out of here already.”

“I’m serious, Jack buddy.”

“Maybe I’ll help you out once I’ve got the films and you’re ready to scram over the border. But nix until then, Al. I seem to remember your once pulling a gun on me.”

He ran his left hand through his bit of hair and stuck the injured hand in his jacket pocket for a rest. “Don’t think I don’t understand, Jack.” He fussed with his collar. The guy was scared, that was no act. But he was as predictable as a hophead in the five-and-ten. “I just don’t want you to think I don’t understand,” he repeated.

“I think you understand. Okay?” I nodded toward the door and he opened it. I shut the lights and locked up. We walked down two flights of stairs into the quiet little blue-and-marble lobby of my building and out to the street. The sky had lightened almost imperceptibly, from black-blue to blue-black. It was nearing four o’clock and except for one gray tomcat, the street was as deserted as the far side of the moon.

“Christ, you can hear yourself think,” Rubine said.

“Can you hear anything?”

“Hey Jack, don’t break my balls. Things are bad enough, I don’t need that.”

“I’ll be a regular angel, you’ll see. My car’s across the street, the white Buick.” We walked over and I opened the door on the driver’s side. Rubine slid in, lit up a cigarette and started whistling “It’s Only a Shanty in Old Shantytown” while I started the engine. We embarked: two unlikely playmates off to New Kingston, New York, at 3:55
A.M.
on a Saturday morning. You figure it out.

I
T’S A LONG TIME
getting up to the Catskill mountain region where Rubine had stashed Kerry Lane’s films. Not an unpleasant drive, to be sure. On a brilliant afternoon in May with a good woman, it’s probably a hell of a way to spend your time. Before dawn, with a whistling blackmailer afflicted with bad breath and the fear that most people wanted to kill him, it was something less than a joyride.

“You probably want to know how I got into this racket,” Rubine said as we entered the Palisades Parkway in New Jersey—a right turn off George and Martha Washington’s bridge. He hadn’t said anything until then, about forty minutes, and I’d hoped he was asleep.

“Not unless you’re going to tell me about this case, Al.”

“I might,” he said, suddenly cheered by the knowledge that he did, after all, have some information of use to me, suddenly feeling like something more than a third-rate shyster on the lam. “I might if you’re good to me.”

“What do you want me to do, lick your ear?”

He lit up an Old Gold. “Jack, stop being a goddamned hardboiled egg and enjoy yourself. I can do you some favors.”

“So do them. Why were all those newspapers scattered around that house in Smithtown? You working for the War Department on the side?”

Rubine started coughing and managed to rasp out, “Hit my back,” which I did until he wheezed and hocked to a stop.

“Wheew. Smoke went down the wrong pipe.” He coughed quietly a few times, his face going from red to white, like one of those fancy jukeboxes with the swirling color changes.

“Al, the newspapers. You were going to help me out.”

“Not on that, pallie. You’ll figure it out, though. It won’t take you long. Not a guy with your rep.”

“You’re making me blush.”

Rubine chuckled.

“You know how I got into this racket?” he said again, like it was the first line of a song. “Funny thing, I hardly know myself.” He shook his head, in acknowledgement of the mysteries of life. “How old you think I am?”

“Eleven.”

“Come on, serious.”

I took a quick look.

“Mid-forties.”

“I’m thirty-five years old, Jack. Ain’t that a pisser? Thirty-five years old.”

“You don’t look so hot, Al.”

“That’s for goddamn sure. I been going with this tomato for four years. When she met me, I had a full head of hair. Now you can use my scalp for a mirror. All the time she’s on me about it. Wants me to get a toup. You get that, Jack? About the hair? You’re a little thin up there. You got a girl bothers you about that?”

“No. She likes it. Reminds her of a beloved uncle.”

“Well, you’re a lucky guy.”

“That’s what everybody tells me.”

“Yeah. I got to agree with them.” Rubine fell silent, then cranked up his life story again. “When I was eighteen, eighteen years of age, I left New York and went to Detroit to help my Uncle Irv, who was bringing in hooch from Canada. I was a dumb kid from Bensonhurst and that was just fabulous back then,” His voice grew soft and wistful. “Plenty of cabbage, plenty of broads, house right on the lake. Private dock. Sound good?”

“Fabulous.”

“I don’t know if you’re serious or not, Jack. It’s hard to tell with you.” Rubine shook his head, trying to figure out why I was such a bastard. He gave up and went on: “Then Prohibition ended and we were out on our asses. No more broads, no more parties, no more house right on the lake. A lot of shines were starting to move into Detroit, so Uncle Irv figured he’d get some action on the numbers and loan-sharking. But he didn’t figure fast enough and wound up in the driver’s seat of a Chevy parked on the bottom of Lake Superior.”

“Tough break.”

“He was a great guy, my Uncle Irv, a straight shooter. Not like this son of a bitch I’ve been working for.”

I was quiet and Rubine picked up the note of expectancy in that silence, and realized he was talking too much. He lit up another cigarette and inadvertantly blew some smoke across my face. I coughed.

“Jesus, Jack, I’m sorry. I thought you were a smoker.”

“I am.” But he had already thrown his Old Gold out the window.

“When you’re driving, it’s tough enough without people gassing you, am I right?” Rubine asked, and despite myself, I was really starting to feel sorry for this poor little chump. So full of apologies and regrets. A born pawn. A born messenger boy.

“So to make a long story short, I just got out of Detroit pronto after Irv was nailed and came back to New York. That’s ten, eleven years ago. And ever since, it’s been a buck here, a buck there. But never like it was in Detroit. I ain’t had it that good since.”

“That goes for everybody, Al. Everyone has a Detroit somewhere along the line and then it all turns to vinegar.”

He shook his head very gravely, like I had just summed it up for the whole universe, and said no more. A few minutes later, we were entering Route 9W and Rubine fell asleep.

He slept like a baby for the next couple of hours. The sun was rising when I turned off 9W for the last leg of the journey to New Kingston.

Which is when I noticed the patrol car.

I wasn’t going much faster than forty-five as I got on Route 28, but there was a red glare bouncing off my rear view mirror. The car’s light was flashing and I saw a beefy arm extending out the driver’s window. The arm was waving for me to pull over. There was no siren, just the flashing red light. And the arm.

When I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, Rubine woke up.

“What’s going on?” he yawned.

“The law.”

Rubine turned a further shade of pale and started shaking as I turned to see a very big man with blue jowls, dark glasses and a wide trooper’s hat leaning in through my window.

“Way too fast, mister. Way too fast.”

“Forty-five is way too fast?”

“That’s correct.” He had a hard, flat voice, a disinterested voice. His partner came over: a medium-sized man with shoulders you could use for a dance floor. He was also wearing a trooper’s hat and dark glasses.

“Everybody’s wearing glasses,” I said, making pleasant conversation.

“Both of you gentlemen please step out of the car,” said the tall trooper. The other stood maybe five paces behind him, his arms folded across a wide chest.

Al Rubine looked at me like a trapped animal. There was a note in the sound of the trooper’s command that didn’t have anything to do with speeding tickets. Maybe these guys really were troopers, but I wouldn’t have laid a dime on it.

“Jack, we got to get out of here,” Rubine whispered.

“Please, both you gentlemen step out of the car.” Rubine whimpered, there’s no other way to describe the sound he made, and pushed open his door. He was rubbing his jaw, like he expected to get hit there. I got out and hitched up my pants, like I was a tough guy.

“Both of you gentlemen on this side of the car, please,” the tall trooper stated. He sounded as matter-of-fact as a stock clerk doing inventory.