"I'm here. Don't hang on me. I want something to eat already," said Vassily.
"You're always so thoughtful. Never thinking of yourself, Hal. Always me first. Of course we'll get something to eat."
"Right," said Vassily.
"I love you too, precious," said the woman. Her name was Liona. Her mind had taken over the job of telling herself what she wanted to believe. This Hal she was in love with apparently had a nice way with words.
Vassily never had a way with words, least of all English words. So he told her what he wanted, and she heard what she wanted, and they got along fine all the way into the biggest, busiest, dirtiest city he had ever seen. New York. And she bought him lunch. And took him to her apartment. And made violent love to him, screaming, "Hal, Hal. Hal."
"So long," said Vassily.
"You're wonderful, Hal."
"Sometimes. Sometimes I'm this guy Morris, who is awful," said Vassily, but he knew she didn't hear that. He had been three Morrises in his life; none of them had ever been good lovers. Once he was a Byron. Byron was terrific. He liked being Byron.
Vassily, untrained in war and the strategies of war, could not imagine he would ever be a danger to anyone. When you had the powers of his home village of Dulsk you really didn't have to worry about dangers from the outside.
But as he left the apartment, something bad happened. The worst fears of Russian planners were realized, though not in a way they might have expected.
In this fine country, in this land where store windows were filled with plenty, Vassily Rabinowitz was mugged. They were three teenagers. They were of the oppressed black race. Vassily, whose only knowledge of American racial matters was the historic injustice done to these people and the daily persecutions they suffered, felt an immediate sense of brotherly compassion.
In the midst of his compassion he suffered contusions about the eyes, lacerations of the head, a broken left wrist, and a damaged kidney. When he got out of the hospital he was told to check his urine for blood.
This could never happen in Moscow. A drunk might take a loose swing at someone, but never would anyone so blatantly assault another.
Coming out of the hospital, Vassily Rabinowitz knew he was going to have to take care of himself. In every aching part of his body, in every accidental brush against a wound, he knew he was never going to allow this to happen to him again. He would create a fortress Vassily. He would trust no one to take care of him. He would do everything for himself. He would protect himself, he would set up a business for himself, and foremost, he would never again expose himself to the vicissitudes of brotherly love. He was going to get his own police force, to substitute for the people dressed in blue who called themselves police, whom he had never seen hit anyone on the head with a nightstick. He was going to get himself the strongest, deadliest, most powerful protection available in this new country.
Rabinowitz wasn't quite sure what that was, but he knew how to find out. And so he began protecting himself. He talked with a policeman. The policeman thought he was talking to his father.
"Dad," said the policeman, "the toughest man in the city, the one I would hate to be left alone with, the one I would walk miles to avoid, has got to be Johnny 'The Bang' Bangossa. "
"Is a strongy, huh?" asked Vassily.
"Pop, that man has been breaking bones for a living since he was twelve. I heard he beat up four patrolmen by himself when he was sixteen. By the time he was twenty he had made his bones."
"What is this making of bones?" asked Vassily.
"Dad, how long have you been on the police force, that you don't know what making your bones is?"
"Talk to your father already," said Vassily. They were in a luncheonette. Some of the food Vassily recognized from Russia. The rest he wanted to eat.
People were looking strangely at them. Vassily could sense that. He didn't care. The man had red hair, blue eyes, and was six feet tall, almost a half-foot taller than Vassily. He was also by any reasonable estimation a good ten years older than Vassily.
"Pop, making your bones is killing someone for money."
"So where does this Bangossa fellow live?"
"Queens. He's been under surveillance for a month. And he knows it. Word on the street is he's going crazy 'cause he hasn't busted anyone's skull in a hell of a long time. Everyone's waitin' for him to break."
Vassily got the address of the stakeout, took a large sugary roll from the counter, told the counterman his son would pay for it, and headed out for Queens, New York, and the address of the stakeout.
When the wife of Johnny "The Bang" Bangossa saw a little fellow with sad brown eyes come up the walkway to their brick house in Queens, she wanted to warn him to stay away. If he did not stay away, Johnny would mangle him, the police stakeout that everyone knew was in force would close in, and Johnny would be incarcerated, using the remnants of the sad-eyed little fellow as evidence, probably for a lifetime, leaving Maria Venicio Bangossa virtually a widow. A woman without a man. A woman who could not marry again because in the eyes of the Church she would still be married.
Maria Bangossa opened the door.
"C'mon in," she said. "Have you come for Johnny Bangossa?"
"Indeed 1 have," said Vassily Rabinowitz. He was amazed at how much red brick was used in this house. Someone would think this was a bunker. The windows were small and narrow. The roof was low, and nothing but brick reinforced by brick was used in the exterior.
Inside, furniture glistened with a sheen he hadn't seen anywhere else in America except on luncheonette counters. Suddenly Maria Bangossa realized she was talking to her mother.
"Ma, he's in a lousy mood. I just leave some pasta by his door three times a day. I don't go in. You gotta get outta here."
Maria saw her mother shrug.
"Don't worry already. We'll be all right, and everything will work out. Just show me where the animal is."
"I'm fine, Ma, and Johnny's in his room. But he's sleeping. He's even worse when he wakes up. I rush out of bed because I don't want to be near him when he opens his eyes."
"It's all right, Maria. Your mother will be fine," said Vassily.
The carpeting was a deep maroon and looked like bad imitation fur. The lamps were porcelain figurines holding facsimiles of fruit. The stair banister was made of chrome. Airports were better decorated than the home of this Johnny Bangossa.
When Vassily got to the room, he knocked on the door and called out.
"Hey, Johnny Bangossa, I want you should talk with me awhile."
Johnny Bangossa heard the foreign accent. He heard it in his house. He heard it outside his room. He heard it while he was asleep and when he awakened from that sleep. The first thing he did was swing wildly, hoping someone was near him and would be crushed by the blow. But his fist met only a piece of the wall, shattering plaster.
The voice had come from the door. Johnny grabbed the corners of the door and ripped it away. Standing there in front of him was a little man with sad brown eyes, probably a Jew.
Johnny reached for the Jew. His anger almost blinded him.
Vassily Rabinowitz saw the big, hairy hands come down toward him. Johnny Bangossa filled the doorway. He wore an undershirt. His massive shoulders were covered with hair. His face was hairy. His nose was hairy. Even his teeth and fingernails seemed to be hairy. He had small black eyes that looked like coal nuggets, and a wide face that underneath the hair was very red.
Vassily sensed he was going to die very soon. And then he locked eyes with the massive man.
The hulk paused, then cringed.
"Hey, Carli, leave me alone. C'mon, Carli," whined Johnny Bangossa, covering his head and retreating into the room.
"I'm not going to hit you. I need you," said Vassily.
"Don't hit," said the large man, and he winced as though he was being struck on the head.
"I need you for protection," said Vassily. "You will be my bodyguard.'