Tough Luck (15 page)

18

MICKEY STOPPED HOME to drop off his car and to change into jeans and a sweatshirt. Walking to work, turning off Avenue J onto Flatbush, he saw Angelo Santoro.

Today Angelo was wearing his usual dark suit, walking past Vincent’s Fish Market, about fifty yards ahead of Mickey. Mickey walked faster, trying to catch up.

Angelo turned the corner onto Avenue K. Mickey started jogging, then running, and turned the corner himself.

“Angelo!” Mickey called out, suddenly out of breath, even though he’d only run a short distance.

The man ahead of him turned around, and Mickey realized he’d made a mistake. From behind, the guy had looked like Angelo with his stocky shoulders and black suit, but this guy had a full graying beard and looked about sixty years old.

“Sorry,” Mickey said, “I thought you were somebody else.”

Mickey walked slowly back toward the fish store, then he stopped, trying to pull himself together. When he entered the store Charlie was busy with a customer.

“What’s up?” Charlie said.

Without even looking at Charlie, Mickey went through the swinging doors to the back. He put on his apron and washed his hands then returned to the front. The customer was gone.

“How was the funeral?” Charlie asked.

“Like any funeral, I guess,” Mickey said.

“You don’t look too good,” Charlie said. “Your eyes look like you got beat up. You should think about takin’ a vacation. Seriously, man. You’ve been goin’ through some rough shit lately. You should take your woman and go away someplace romantic.”

Suddenly angry, Mickey said, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”

“Damn, I was just making a suggestion,” Charlie said. “I just thought you should get away someplace, to an island or something. You ever been to Jamaica?”

Mickey shook his head.

“You gotta go to Jamaica, man,” Charlie said. “My father was Jamaican, so I still got all my relatives there. I used to go in high school, but I haven’t been in like five years. Man, I wanna go back so bad. They got these beaches on the north side of the island. Sunsets, palm trees, the drinks with them little umbrellas inside—just like the postcards.”

Mickey looked away toward the door, where a customer was entering the store. Mickey took the woman’s order then got a large container from behind the counter and said, “Sorry, did you say shrimp or scallops?”

“Scallops,” the woman said.

Mickey scooped a pound of scallops into the container then filled the rest of the woman’s order. The total came to twenty-six dollars and change. At the register, Mickey looked to his right at Charlie. Charlie was only a few feet away, but he was busy, cutting fillets. Mickey opened the register and gave the woman change for thirty dollars, but kept the twenty and the ten in his hand as he shut the register. As the woman left, Mickey slid the bills into his pocket.

“Another place you should go is Cancún,” Charlie went on to Mickey. “I went there with my cousin for a week when I was eighteen. We went for spring break. That was crazy. Drinking, dancing. The girls down in Cancún, they know how to dance. They dance all night, never stop. I think I slept two hours the whole time. You been to Miami?”

Mickey was behind Charlie, rinsing knives in the sink.

“Nah,” Mickey said.

“You know you can take a cruise from Miami to the Caribbean,” Charlie said. “That’s what I’d like to do—go on one of them cruises. You can party all the time, all night and day. I’d like to go to a lot of places. All the Caribbean islands, Puerto Rico, Europe, South America. What about you?”

“What about me?” Mickey said.

“Where’re some of the places you been to?”

“I haven’t been anywhere,” Mickey said.

“What do you mean?” Charlie said. “You must go on vacation sometime, right?”

“No, not really,” Mickey said.

“Not even when you was a kid?”

Mickey shook his head.

“You kiddin’ me? You never been anywhere? Not one time?”

Mickey shook his head again.

“You never been on an airplane?”

“No,” Mickey said.

“
How
old are you?” Charlie said.

The bell above the door rang and Harry entered the store. Harry pointed at Mickey and said, “All right, asshole, get the fuck over here.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Mickey asked.

“I said get your ugly fuckin’ ass over here,” Harry said.

Mickey came around the counter and stopped a few feet in front of Harry.

“What’s goin’ on?” Charlie said.

“Just get back to work,” Harry said. Then he said to Mickey, “All right, lemme see what you got in your pockets.”

“My pockets?” Mickey said, trying to come up with a way out of this but knowing there was none.

“You got a marked ten and a marked twenty in one of your pockets,” Harry said. “Just gimme my fuckin’ money, you little piece of shit!”

Mickey hesitated. He looked over at Charlie and saw Charlie’s confused expression. With his eyes Mickey tried to tell Charlie, Just keep your mouth shut.

“Come on, let’s go, I know you have it,” Harry said. “That was my cousin Barbara in here before. She saw you open the register and take my fuckin’ money. Show it to me!”

Slowly, Mickey reached into his right front pocket, removed the two bills, and held them out for Harry to take.

Harry snatched the money from Mickey and said, “You little fuckin’ son of a bitch, I should kick the shit outta you right here. You think I’m stupid, huh? That it? You think I’m fuckin’ stupid? Tellin’ me business is slow, you son of a bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” Mickey said.

“Fuck you,” Harry said, his eyes bulging. “You think I care if you’re fuckin’ sorry? I’d like to send you through the fuckin’ wall, what I’d like to do.”

“Yo, Harry, man, I think you’re making a mistake,” Charlie said.

“There’s no mistake,” Mickey said, rushing to cut Charlie off. “I took the money, I admit it, but I’ll give it all back.”

“Damn right you will,” Harry said. “You’re gonna give me back every fuckin’ cent you stole from me,
plus
interest, you fuckin’ thief. But no way you’re gonna get off that easy. I already called the cops on you. They’re on their way over here right now. I’m pressin’ charges against you. You’re scared, huh? That’s right, be scared. I don’t give a shit if you’re scared, you fuckin’ scumbag. How long’s this been goin’ on? Since you started working here? You been stealing from me for three fuckin’ years?”

“No,” Mickey said.

“No, what? What the fuck does ‘no’ mean?”

“No, I just started stealing . . . recently,” Mickey said, staring at Charlie who still looked confused.

“Why should I believe anything you tell me, you little piece of shit?” Harry said. “You’ve been lying to me for . . . for how long?” Harry turned to Charlie. “You know I thought it was you at first. Sorry, but that’s what I thought. So I asked Pinocchio here if he thought you’d steal and he says, ‘No, Charlie would never steal.’ Meanwhile, it’s this little fuck who’s the thief. How stupid am I, huh? How fuckin’ stupid?”

A few minutes later, two police officers entered the store. Harry explained to them that he’d caught Mickey stealing and that Mickey might have stolen hundreds or thousands of dollars over the past few years. The older officer asked Mickey if what Harry said was true and Mickey said he’d only taken a few hundred dollars. The officer placed Mickey under arrest and the other officer handcuffed him. As Mickey was being led out of the store, he looked over at Charlie and Mickey blinked once slowly, trying to say, Don’t worry about it.

Passersby stopped and watched as the officers led Mickey to a police car parked up the block. They took him to the police precinct on Lawrence Avenue, where he had to wait in a holding cell for about two hours before he was fingerprinted and photographed. They made him wait in the cell for another two hours, then he was taken downtown to Central Booking, where a guard led him through a maze of large cells the guard called the tombs. The cells had no windows and were lit by fluorescent lights. There were dozens of prisoners in each cell, packed tightly, and it was very noisy, with all the prisoners talking and yelling. The dank air smelled like piss.

Mickey was put into a cell with about thirty other guys who all looked like hardened criminals. Mickey knew he should probably be afraid, but he didn’t care about anything. He sat Indian-style in the corner of the cell with his eyes closed, hoping the whole world would disappear.

A group of six black guys at the other end of the cell were laughing loudly; Mickey opened his eyes and saw they were looking in his direction. Mickey could only make out an occasional word—“white boy,” “bitch,” “faggot.” He looked away, trying to ignore them, but when he looked over again the guys were coming toward him. One tall guy with a close-cut Afro and a gold tooth was walking ahead of the others. The tall guy stopped a few feet in front of Mickey and said, “What’d you do, white boy?”

Mickey looked away again, when the tall guy kicked him hard in the shin. Mickey keeled over, grabbing his leg. The guys were laughing harder.

“I said what’d you do, white boy? You rape somebody? Put your little white dick up somebody’s ass?”

The guys laughed again.

“Look at me, white boy,” the tall guy said. “Yo, I said look at me.”

Mickey, his shin still stinging, looked up. The tall guy spit in Mickey’s face. The guys laughed harder as Mickey wiped his cheek and forehead.

“I know what you did,” the tall guy said. “White boy took the money from the bank. That’s why he here. White boy took the money from the bank.”

The tall guy started poking Mickey with his index fingers, saying, “White boy took the money from the bank.” The other guys joined in saying, “White boy took the money from the bank,” as Mickey held his head down and closed his eyes.

The tall guy kneeled down in front of Mickey and started slapping him in the face, softly at first, then harder, and Mickey’s face started stinging. Mickey tried to push the tall guy away, but the other guys lifted Mickey up by the arms and held him as the tall guy continued slapping Mickey saying, “White boy took the money from the bank. White boy took the money from the bank. White boy took the money from the bank. . . .”

Finally, two guards came into the cell and pulled the guys away. Mickey’s lower lip was bleeding and his face felt bruised. The cops took Mickey down the hallway to another crowded cell. Mickey sat in the corner, staring blankly. About an hour later, one of the cops brought him some wet paper towels for his face.

A man came around with dinner for the prisoners— salami sandwiches. A few hours later, around midnight, a bored-looking guy in a wrinkled suit who said he was with the Criminal Justice Agency came to talk to Mickey. The man asked Mickey questions about his case and Mickey answered them. Mickey said he wanted to plead guilty.

Mickey had to wait until the next day before a judge was able to see him. He tried to sleep, lying on the floor, but it was impossible under the bright lights, with all the noise, and with his face still throbbing.

At around two the next afternoon, Mickey was brought to the courtroom. He was assigned to a lawyer who told the judge Mickey was pleading guilty to the charge of grand larceny. Since this was his first offense, the judge, a woman who reminded Mickey of Mrs. Litsky, his third-grade teacher who’d always hated him, agreed to let Mickey go without bail. A hearing date was scheduled for late December, and the judge ordered Mickey to stay away from the fish store and from Harry Giordano.

It was after four-thirty in the afternoon when Mickey was finally released from Central Booking. Beat up, exhausted, and squinting against the bright setting sun, he stepped out onto Schermerhorn Street. It was much colder and windier than it had been yesterday, and Mickey was freezing in a sweatshirt and no jacket.

He walked over to Flatbush Avenue and took the bus home. He fell asleep with his head sagging to one side, and when he woke up he realized that he was on Avenue T, about six stops past where he’d meant to get off. Mickey took a bus back in the opposite direction and by the time he got home it was almost six o’clock and pitch-dark.

Mickey went right to his bed and collapsed. It seemed like just a few seconds later the doorbell was ringing. Mickey ignored the sounds, figuring it was happening in a dream, but the bell kept ringing and he gradually realized he wasn’t asleep.

Still wearing the clothes he had been wearing for the past two days, with a sudden splitting headache, Mickey went downstairs. Blackie was barking like crazy and someone had their finger on the doorbell. Mickey opened the door and saw the two detectives, Harris and Donnelly, who had questioned Mickey about Chris’s death.

“We didn’t wake you, did we?” Harris asked. “It’s only nine-thirty—we didn’t think you’d be asleep yet. Then again, we understand you had a rough night.”

“Lemme guess,” Donnelly said, “you got that fat lip in the pen down at Central Booking. You’re lucky that’s all you got. A kid like you, deer-in-the-headlights-kinda look, might wind up in the ICU on life support.”

Blackie’s barking was making Mickey’s headache even worse.

“So what’s going on?” Mickey asked.

“What’s going on is we need to ask you some questions,” Harris said. “We can either do it here or at the precinct. Your choice.”

Wondering how his life could possibly get any worse, Mickey said, “Come in.”

The detectives followed Mickey upstairs and into the kitchen. There were two chairs at the table. Detective Donnelly and Mickey sat while Detective Harris remained standing.

“So a funny thing happened this afternoon,” Harris said. “I was just checking up on some people I’d talked to about Chris Turner’s murder, and what do I find but a rap sheet on you. Your first arrest, just yesterday afternoon. Talk about timing, huh?”

“That has nothing to do with Chris,” Mickey said.

“Nothing, huh?” Harris said. He looked at Donnelly. “Funny, I don’t think it has nothing to do with it, how about you Matt?”

Donnelly shook his head.

“See,” Harris went on, “when a guy I questioned about a robbery pleads guilty to another robbery I can’t help thinking there’s a connection. You were with Chris Turner that night, weren’t you?”