Vignettes: shopping in C-Town; crazy men yelling in the two-dollar cinema; drinks in the Four Provinces; evening collections with Scotchy; Fergal dinging a gypsy cab and having a go at the cabbie; a black girl’s body in Marcus Garvey Park; two lads going at it with a knife on 191st Street; Bridget leaning over and kissing me for the first time as we changed the kegs; an empty lot bursting with trees and life on MLK Boulevard, and opposite, a hurt guy on a bike splayed in front of the Manhattanville post office; rows of fresh fruit in West Side Market; flattened rats; pepper trees; whole plazas of urine; me and the boys extorting some guy in Fordham into giving us a ton a week for doing precisely nothing; the bakery on Lenox; soul food at M &G; delivering a sofa set for Darkey to some cousin in Yonkers, up two flights and past a goddamn corner; the Nation of Islam screaming at me at the A train stop on 125th; the doe-eyed girl with her boyfriend in the hall; Sunday service all along the hot street in the morning, Christ’s children in a merry wee conspiracy of happiness; choirs; the tiny, forgotten synagogue on 126th; the Ethiopian lady wandering half-naked in the lobby; Ratko’s Santa laugh as another bottle opens; rice and beans on 112th; KFC; McDonald’s; rice and beans at Floridita; M &G again; the Four P.; Bridget; Bridget again…
The whole summer’s events compressed into a single point. Eight weeks in one second. The colors, smells, humidity, tastes, all of it condensed into a moment, folded and pushed together like an old-fashioned brass collapsing telescope.
An instant. Held. So much brighter than Belfast. Faster and richer, too, and not in the sense of money.
Life flashed, and I was momentarily stunned. I got down.
Hit the deck.
Hit the deck.
Yelled.
Holy fuck.
Noise.
Breathed.
Breathing…
I was breathing hard, sweating, and then, to my horror, I realized that I’d been shot in the left hand, a ricochet. A chunk of flesh had been ripped away behind the knuckles, leaving an angry gash that was just figuring out that with this level of injury it really should be starting to bleed.
They must’ve got me when I’d stuck my hands up over my face and it had taken me and the hand some time to realize what was happening. What was happening, of course, was a cock-up of tremendous proportions, a cock-up perhaps just as big and scary as the multifarious and diverse fifteen-year-old-boy cock-ups I’d gotten myself into in North Belfast and Rathcoole. It didn’t, however, necessarily have to be a fatal cock-up, because we were all very close to the door and Dermot had blown the gaff by not having a man cover behind us to cut off an exit.
It was five days after the Shovel incident, and I was in a shoot-out at the long-postponed meeting at Dermot’s place. When I came on board, Scotchy had promised that there would be the occasional shoot-out. The way he said it was the way kids would tell you about a game of Cowboys and Indians. Scotchy said he’d been in Bandit Country and I’d been in North Belfast, so neither of us should be strangers to gunplay, but in America there was a glamour that attached to things. He and Fergal could talk up a storm about some shindig they’d gotten into in Inwood Park a year or two back: bullets whizzing, Fergal taking one in the foot, two black guys running for the hills by the end of it. The details were vague and unconvincing and informed, seemingly, by years of TV and the movies.
But this, unfortunately, was the real deal. Eight months working for Darkey, and the worst I’d seen was Scotchy and Andy giving some boy a powerful, coma-inducing hiding. No, be honest. The worse I’d seen was actually me and Shovel. I mean, I’d hit a couple of recalcitrant types myself, but mostly our actions could be implied with menaces. But now in the space of a few days I’d delivered Old World violence into a New World setting, and now I was in a real honest-to-Jesus firefight, one that conceivably I might get killed in. It was some kind of apotheosis, some kind of tear in the fabric of things, and if I was of a suspicious nature I might have been suspicious.
I was behind the bar with Sunshine, and on the other side in a more exposed position were Fergal and Scotchy. Andy, of course, was out in the car, and if he’d any sense at all in that thick head of his, that’s where he’d stay. Andy was only out of hospital that morning, and Scotchy, instead of letting him rest, had brought him down with us to a potentially hazardous assignment.
I really should have known to stay in bed, because today already had been atypical. The trains had all come promptly, the weather had taken a cooler turn, and although not a big believer in omens, I’d won twenty bucks on a scratch card in the fake bodega on 123rd. Unpleasantness was sure to follow.
Our original plan was to have Andy’s coming-off-the-sick party all day today but Sunshine had put flies in that ointment with his patience suddenly collapsing in the face of Dermot’s singular insistence that he was fucking “quits with you, Sunshine, and if you and Darkey know what’s good for you, you’ll be keeping out of my fucking way.”
Now Dermot’s men were shooting at us with automatic weapons, big ones, too, and they were carving up the bar above us and making a hell of a lot of noise, enough noise to grab the attention of the neighborhood and lure it away from the Yankees game. Sunshine was shaking like a Jell-O-molded pudding that has somehow attained sentience and is being shot at with machine guns. He was staring at me in abject terror. I was breathing.
What the fuck are you doing? Sunshine asked.
I was in no mood to give him an answer. Sunshine’s fabled brilliance with intelligence had let us all down here. There were at least two shooters and Dermot himself and maybe a bloody barman, and Sunshine had failed to warn us about any of this.
I’m centering my chi, I said.
What?
Centering my chi.
You’re centering your fucking chi? Sunshine asked, frightened.
Aye.
How long will that take?
Not too long. My life was flashing before my eyes earlier, I said, a little less angry with him now and hoping to calm his nerves.
It was?
Yeah.
And now you’re centering your chi?
Aye.
The big Kalashnikovs, or whatever they were, were shooting at us from semidarkness in the lounge bar a good fifty feet away from our position. What Dermot’s plan had been was none too clear, because it didn’t seem to be the ideal place at all for an ambush. More than likely Dermot had told his boys to let us come completely into the pub and then open up on us from oblique angles; but the boys must have been inexperienced or jumpy or cracked up because they’d started as soon as we’d walked in. Sunshine and I had dived for the bar. Fergal and Scotchy had ended up near the tables. About a minute and a half had gone by, and I’d spent all of it flashing my recent life before my eyes and lying on the floor with Sunshine trying to figure what was going to happen next. It seemed to boil down to three possibilities: they’d get us, we’d get them, or maybe we’d all get nicked.
I mean, although shooting was not uncommon after dark in this part of town, even if it was just guys firing off.9mm clips into the air, it would really be expecting too much for the average lazy, frightened copper to ignore this palaver. Although this was Washington Heights, it was midmorning and these were machine guns. The nonincarceration window of opportunity couldn’t be more than about five to ten minutes.
Scotchy was signaling at me from across the room. The shooters almost had a sight line onto him and Fergal, and he was making some kind of gesture for me to stand up behind the bar and let them have it to draw their fire, enabling the two of them to get in a better position, maybe scramble over to us.
I had a.22 revolver, and there was no way I was standing up anywhere and firing at anyone with that. The.22 was there to intimidate a little bit and wasn’t really a gun you’d shoot. Not that I’d have a semiautomatic anyway, because the only time you’d ever need it, the thing would be sure to jam on you. Your revolver, your serious Yankee revolver, a.38, will shoot clean, dirty, waterlogged, and arse-deep in a blanket. Sunshine had a.38, and I suppose it was conceivable that I could have carried out Scotchy’s dubious plan with Sunshine’s gun, but really the smarter play was to pretend not to understand what Scotchy was talking about and just to nod and do nothing.
I did this and Scotchy started miming again, more furiously. I looked at Sunshine, but he had his eyes closed and was muttering what I took to be the Rosary. It surprised me. He’d always seemed the scientific, agnostic type, but I suppose atheists, foxholes, all that.
I could see through the door that there were people outside now, the usual eejits who show up and get killed by a stray bullet, but I knew that at least none of them were calling the authorities. It was a mental couple of blocks, but it knew when to keep its mouth shut. Malcolm X had been assassinated just around the corner, and there had been a six-person homicide just last month, so we weren’t Halley’s comet or anything, but if things went on like this for much longer, you knew that an annoyed new mother trying to kip would call it in, and some wanker would eventually turn up to lecture us through loudspeakers and then teargas us out and lift us. It was all fucking inevitable-well, unless Dermot’s boys got their shit together and killed us first. Either prospect was less than pleasant, and I knew that perhaps I really would have to do something. What, exactly, I wasn’t sure, but something, a withdrawal by sections or a mad dash for the door or a truce, something. Sunshine’s mutterings got louder, and Dermot’s boys stopped shooting and shifted a wee bit and started getting an even better angle on Scotchy behind the overturned table, churning up the floor with huge slugs that sent burning splinters all the way over here. I thought for a moment or two, and cleared my throat.
Dermot, Dermot, you Fenian wee cultchie, motherfucker, parley, fucking parley, I shouted. There was no reply, so I shouted it all again with increased vehemence. But still nothing.
Dermot Finoukin was a new boy in town from Toome in County Antrim. He was something of a smoothie-NEXT suits, holidays in Ibiza, charm, a midnight blue MG midget-but he’d done the wrong boy’s daughter and upped and left for the New World under sentence from a top player. He’d opened a bar in the tiny Irish neighborhood around the 160s and Broadway. It was a disastrous and foolish scheme, because the Micks were leaving for better places in the Bronx or Jersey or Queens and Dermot didn’t encourage patronage from Dominicans or Puerto Ricans. The bar, when we went, was always empty. Sunshine had loaned Dermot a bucket of money at 50 percent a month on the collateral of Dermot’s knowledge of and access to a cache of weapons compiled for the Provos somewhere upstate in 1988 and then abandoned because of the arrests of the principals in the case. Sunshine was no fool and expected the bar to fail in about three months and then we’d get our hands on the guns and move them on to people who needed them most, people who, coincidentally, generally lived in Dermot’s neighborhood. But as it turned out, Dermot’s strategy wasn’t as stupid as it looked because he made his payments every month and even gave us a good bit of the capital back; in fact, sleekit wee Dermot didn’t give a shite about the bar, and the whole time he’d been manufacturing crack cocaine in the basement under license from a local boy known only as Magic Man. Magic Man, it turned out, was really a fellow called Ramón, and Ramón would, much later, be a helpful little bee to me, too.
Anyway, Dermot’s was a nice setup and perplexed young Sunshine for quite a while until somehow someone ratted and Sunshine had insisted on accompanying us on a visit to Dermot’s to investigate these claims for himself. What was even better was that the rat was probably Dermot himself and this wee operation was a move to bring us down there and wipe us out with a minimum of fuss and then move his crack factory to new premises in a whole building on St. Nicholas. It was supposed to go something like this: kill us, dispose of us, set fire to the bar, disappear, and then when Darkey investigated, there wouldn’t be a trace. Dermot would be debt-free, well established as a cool customer, and he could sit and make his fortune, giving the odd handsome donation to the Provos in the Bay State who would thereafter provide him additional insurance cover. It wasn’t a bad plan as harebrained, unworkable, ill-thought-out schemes go, and the killing-of-us bit was the most doable part of the operation and at this point, I’d say, had about a fifty-fifty chance of coming off, unless one of us could think of a way out.
Dermot, you cultchie cow-fucking bastard, parley, are you fucking deaf? Parley, I yelled again.
The shooting went on for another few seconds and then abruptly stopped.
There was a pause, and then Dermot yelled out from somewhere:
What?
Dermot, listen, it’s Michael, listen, bloody listen. Peelers are gonna be here in a minute. Your boys fucked up, fucked up big-time, can’t get us from where you are.
See about that, Dermot said, menacingly.
Wait, you fucking wanker, wait. You’re not getting us and we’re not getting you, and the peels are gonna show up sooner or later, and then what? Slammer, five years, and then deportation. Is that what you want?
One of Dermot’s boys yelled something in Spanish and the shooting started again. Sunshine grabbed my arm and was having some kind of asthma attack. I looked over at Scotchy sarcastically, asking him to get a load of this, but Scotchy’s face was contorted with rage, either at me or his predicament, you couldn’t tell. The shooting stopped.
What do you suggest? Dermot shouted.
Cease-fire and withdrawal. You let us go and we’ll give you twenty-four hours to get to pastures new, I said, and looked at Sunshine to see if that was ok with him. Sunshine seemed to understand and nodded.
Who says I want to go anywhere? Dermot yelled.
Listen, Dermot. What was the idea, were you going to kill all of Darkey’s boys? You must be heading somewhere. You can’t sit it out here, you’re not that powerful.
There was a long silence and in it we could hear sirens.
All right, Michael, your word. You’ll give me twenty-four hours if I let youse out? Dermot said.
My word and Sunshine’s too, I yelled.
I turned to Sunshine.
Tell him, I whispered, tell him.
My word too, Sunshine yelled, somewhat shrilly.
Ok, Dermot said.
Ok, I said.
What now? Dermot asked, uncertain.
Uhhh, we get up and you don’t shoot us, I said.
Scotchy was shaking his head at me and mouthing “Fuck no,” but he didn’t say anything. He had that much sense, at least.
Ok, that’s all right, Dermot announced.
So we get up and you don’t shoot us and we back out to the car and get away before the peelers come, ok, all slow and simple like, ok?
That’s ok. I agree, Dermot said.
Sunshine was tugging at my sleeve. I crouched beside him.
What? I asked.
Are you sure this is going to work? he asked.
I think so.
How do you know he won’t shoot us as soon as we get up? Sunshine said nervously.
He will shoot us as soon as we get up. That’s the whole plan, I said and took his.38.
Sunshine paled.
I looked over at Scotchy and did a little pantomime of my own now. I leveled the.38 and showed that I was going to keep it by my side and then bring it up fast to full extension and shoot. Scotchy looked at me quizzically, and then he seemed to understand. He whispered to Fergal, and Fergal shook his head before Scotchy pulled some sense into him by the hair. It was really just a copy of Scotchy’s dim-witted plan that I’d dismissed earlier as completely ridiculous, but there didn’t seem to be anything else. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been shot at; as it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last, either. I had the bottle to do it. If Scotchy had it too, we might just be ok.
Ok, Dermot, we’re getting up, no shooting now, I said, and then in a whisper to Sunshine: You better stay down.
I looked over at Scotchy. He was psyched. Say what you like about Scotchy being a dick and all, but he comes through for you when you need it.
I nodded.
He nodded.
Scotchy was ready and, shit, was that boy a fast one. Fergal you could discount, but Scotchy might do something.
The problem as I saw it was that with our handguns there was no way we could get in a decent shot at the opposition without exposing ourselves. With a machine gun you can spray at random, but a handgun needs a target. I’d figured-and Scotchy had telepathically agreed-that the boys with the heavy equipment would open up as soon as they saw us. The muzzle flash would show us where they were, and we could try to take them out with our pistols. Scotchy was a shot and I wasn’t bad myself, but the whole plan depended upon Dermot’s boys being an awkward squad and not really able to control a big gun like a Kalashnikov, which was hard enough to aim for a pro.
It was risky.
This won’t work, Sunshine said.
It’ll work, I said.
I nodded at Scotchy; he nodded back. We started getting up, and it all took place in an instant. Sunshine, of course, was right. It didn’t work.
Sure enough, we stood and the boys opened up, and they were so excited the weapons rose and tore big holes in the ceiling above our heads. I took the fire on the right-hand side and let go three rounds. Scotchy took the left and got off his whole clip. I wasn’t sure about him, but I might have hit something. It wasn’t enough, though, and both of us had to hit the deck again as the gunfire starting getting our measure.
You didn’t get them, Sunshine said.
I shook my head.
And it is true we didn’t kill them, but Fortune, however, had not completely neglected us. We had hit someone, and after a moment we could hear him yell. An argument began in Spanish.
The sirens now were even closer.
Dermot, can’t you see we’re all fucked? Completely fucked. You have to let us go. You go out the back way and we go out the front, I yelled.
Kill them, Dermot was screaming.
Fucking come on, Dermot, you fucking brainless cunt, Scotchy contributed.
I waited for the reply, but the argument was still going on, and then there was more gunfire. Scotchy leaned his gun over the top of the table and shot back blind. The shooting from their side lasted only another second, and then it stopped.
Jesus, Dermot, can’t you see we’ll all be in the shite? I yelled again.
I listened for any response, but this time there was complete silence. I looked at Scotchy and he shrugged his shoulders.
We heard the back door bang, and immediately Scotchy stood up.
They’ve fucking scarpered, he said.
It was all very fast now.
I pulled up Sunshine. Scotchy, suddenly all business, made a break for the back office to get cash and any papers relating to Darkey before the boys in blue got there. I followed, but before we got back there we saw Dermot lying sprawled on his side, bloody and quite dead on the floor. There were several big holes from the AKs.
Accident? Friendly fire? I asked him.
Scotchy shook his head, either to say he doubted it or didn’t know. I stood and looked at the body for a moment or two, paralyzed. It was the first corpse I’d seen since working for Darkey. Fergal snapped his fingers in front of my face.
Come on, he said.
To be told off by Fergal was just too much. I followed him to the back office. There was a blood trail that led to the back door. It began to fit into place. We’d hit one of the boys, the boys had wanted to go, Dermot had been against this proposition, and you don’t get into an argument with a couple of lads with Kalashnikovs. At least not at point-blank range.
The sound of sirens was close, a few streets off. There was a mini-safe in a false cupboard by the wall. Scotchy, whose talents I sometimes underrated, had already searched the drawers, found the safe, and was shoving it out.
You’re going to have to help me carry it, no time to open it, Bruce, he said.
Fuck it, I said.
Bruce, listen. Can’t leave anything for the cops. Give me a hand.
Thing must be twenty stone, I protested, but I was already putting away the.38 and crouching down.
Knees bent, keep your back straight, Scotchy was saying, calmly, as the sirens got still closer.
Do you want a hand? Fergal asked.
Get Sunshine out to the car and come back and then give us a hand, Scotchy ordered Fergal.
Fergal went off and we lifted up the safe. It was a complete bastard, and we got about ten feet before dropping it.
Fucker, come on, Scotchy yelled.
We picked it up and got it as far as the door before Fergal showed up to help.
Crowd, he said.
We carried the safe outside, and there was a bit of a crowd. About twenty, all men, some yelling in Spanish, most mute.
Get the boot open, Fergal, I yelled, and he went and opened it. Andy was revving the engine, nervous, shitting himself, no doubt. We dumped the safe and got in the car, Scotchy in front, all the rest of us in the back.
Is everybody here? Andy asked.
Drive, you fucking fuck, Scotchy yelled at him.
Some people clapped, and a man from the crowd told us to do a U-turn, ’cause the cops were coming from the other direction. He cleared the people and directed us down towards the river. I knew when the peelers did show up, he’d point them in exactly the opposite direction. Helpful bastard.
Andy was panicked and got us on the West Side Highway and then almost over onto the George Washington Bridge, but he got himself together and took us east and up into Inwood. We stopped the car and adjusted the safe so that the trunk closed properly and then Scotchy, Fergal, and Sunshine got out and took the train up in case they were looking for five people. I had to stay with Andy because I was still bleeding. Indeed, after all that, I was the only one hurt (not counting Dermot or his boy).
Andy was still close to hysterics and almost got us into three or four accidents.
You know, we drive on the right in America, I told him as he turned left into the left lane of an intersection.
Been here longer than you, he said huffily and got us on the correct side of the road.
Yeah, but I didn’t lose half my brain cells in a coma, Andy, I said.
Neither did I, Andy said, angrily.
True, half of nothing is still nothing, I said.
You’re a very negative presence, Andy said, fuming.
But it had worked. I’d distracted him, and for the rest of the trip he huffed and calmed down.
We went over the bridge onto the mainland of North America and up Broadway and out of that weird cut-off bit of Manhattan, and we were safely back at the Four Provinces before Pat even heard the first of the reports on the police radio.
My hand hurt, and it woke me. Mrs. Callaghan had bandaged it because bloody Bridget Nightingale had been off with dickhead Darkey at some poxy place in Long Island. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, and it made me wonder if the ardor was fading or whether Darkey was getting more protective.
It was a pisser. Andy’s party had had to be postponed. Everyone getting shot at had spoiled the mood a bit. It was rescheduled for tonight.
I’d got the 1 train back, gone to the apartment, slunk to the sofa, slept. I felt awake now and in pain and dirty. Fucking shooting people for a living. What kind of a life was that? Bloody ridiculous. Jesus, I wasn’t fourteen anymore. I was practically twenty. In a couple of weeks, in point of fact. Maybe it was time to turn over a new leaf. I wondered if I’d paid off my plane ticket yet. Jesus, but what would I be going back to? Nothing. Bloody nothing. Fucking rain.
It was late afternoon now, so I dialed the number, put on an accent that I hoped was Jersey Shore.
Is Bridget there?
Hold on, Mrs. Pat said.
A long pause and then that voice:
Yes?
I haven’t seen you in forever, I said.
It’s been impossible. Our schedule has been so busy, but, uh, don’t think I haven’t been thinking about you, Bridget said.
I want to believe you.
It’s true. Listen, M-, listen, I can’t really talk here. I’ll call you, ok?
Ok.
She hung up.
I looked at the phone for a half a minute.
I stripped and went into the shower.
I felt filthy. I scrubbed and soaped myself and scrubbed again. I sat down on the floor and let the water come over me. I banged the floor and cursed for a minute or two. I remembered what I’d said to Sunshine about my chi and laughed. I washed my hair and got out. I was absolutely bloody famished, so I decided to go down into Harlem to get some Chinese. It was hot now, so I dressed in shorts and a cotton T-shirt and desert boots. I still had the.38 and there were slugs out of it, probably in some crime lab right now being looked at by some bespectacled fuckwit. Somehow, I’d have to get rid of it. I wiped it and washed it and put it in a plastic bag. I got my backpack and put the gun inside with a book and a water bottle. I went downstairs. In the hall, steam was again escaping from the heating. I dodged the jets, put on my sunglasses and Yankees hat, and turned right towards Amsterdam.
There was a building Dumpster on the corner. The street was empty, so I took out the bag with the gun and threw it in. It was as dumb a place as any, but whoever found it around here would probably keep it.
I went by the projects, crossed 125th, buzzed the Chinky door, and Simon let me in.
I told him I’d waved to him last week but he hadn’t seen me. He apologized. The place was clean, and there was a new calendar with views of Hong Kong Harbour. Simon looked well. He stared at me from behind the bulletproof glass.
Wha happ your han? he asked.
I cut it, banged into something, hurts like a bastard, I said.
You gey stiches?
No, I didn’t. I bandaged it up myself.
Go to emergence room Sin Luke, no quessions. They do it, quick, no quessions.
I thought you had to fill in lots of forms and stuff.
Do, fill in fake name, Simon said, as if he knew all about it, but really, someone must have told him and he was just passing it on.
I’ll think about it, I said, knowing full well I would never be so stupid as to go to the emergency room with a heavy-caliber gunshot wound the same bloody day as a major shooting involving heavy-caliber weapons. Besides, it would be a cool scar.
When, much later, I had been betrayed twice, lamed, severely traumatized, and had a.22 slug in the gut, and I thought I was fucking dying, my scruples, however, somewhat lessened and I actually did take myself to trusty old Saint Luke, painter, Greek, bit of a fabulist, and, of course, doc.
But that was still to come, and for now I could afford bravado.
Fuck it, Simon. Useless quacks will take your bloody hand off by accident or something, I said.
Simon laughed, and I could sense his brain filing away the word quack for later use.
I ordered curried pork with fried rice and sat in the corner with the three tabloids I’d bought. I’d already read the Times, so these would do for lunch. I ate some pork and rice and drank some of my Coke. It was another hot one.
The air-con above the door was hardly making a difference.
Hey, Simon, you wouldn’t put the air up a wee notch, would ya? I asked, but he wasn’t coming out from behind that bulletproof glass if it was World Peace Day and it was the pope and the Dalai Lama asking him. He nodded and went back to watching a Bob Ross painting show on his black-and-white TV. Bob’s stoner voice relaxed me.
Before I could open the papers, the door opened and Freddie, our mailman, came in. I knew him quite well, because we’d talked about getting me into the postal service as a casual when I’d first arrived. Bureaucratically, it was impossible, but we’d talked and he’d helped get me a bar job. He was a huge black man in his forties, three hundred pounds at least, stereotypically jolly, and seemingly happy with his lot. Even on a day like today when the heat must be murder for him.
Michael, he said, shaking my hand, I haven’t seen you around.
No, I’ve been working, Freddie.
Shit, man, where you working? At Carl’s?
No, Freddie. Don’t you pay any attention? I was only there for a week, just until they fixed me up, up in the Bronx.
Freddie grinned and ordered an egg fried rice and a sweet-and-sour chicken and spring rolls and sat down beside me. His mail cart was outside, and on 125th Street you’d think that someone would have wheeled it off, but no one did.
That was some funny shit, you working in Carl’s, you know, the only white dude in the whole joint. You musta taken some.
I did, I agreed, but I still go in there sometimes, Freddie, not regular, but I go.
Carl’s was a bar a few blocks east of here. I’d worked there while Scotchy checked me out and passed me up to Sunshine for final approval. It wasn’t called Carl’s anymore, and I didn’t go in there ever, but I wanted Freddie to think I was a cool customer.
Freddie, though, didn’t give a shit whether I was a cool customer or not. His grub was up. He ate his food with gusto and we chitchatted about this and that, mainly sports. We ate and talked, and Freddie finally had to leave. I was sorry to see him go. He was a good presence in people’s lives. A horrible, lazy mail carrier, but a good man and about the only black guy I knew in the city. He was a steady bloke and knew a bit, and I would have liked to get his perspective on one or two things, but daylight wasn’t the time and we were both sober and it was too soon after recent events to be levelheaded about them.
Listen, if I’m at Carl’s this Friday, will you be around? I asked him as he was going out.
No man. Apollo. Monday, Tuesday maybe, he said.
Really, Tuesday? I don’t want to go down there and stick out like a sore thumb and you not show up.
Michael, what’s on your mind? Women, huh? Freddie asked with a huge grin.
I nodded and said I’d see him, but of course by Tuesday I was in fucking Mexico and not destined to be back in Harlem for quite some time.
I finished my food, which was so loaded with MSG I was starting to see visions.
I said a pleasant cheerio and went outside and fixed my shades and my hat. Freddie was chin-wagging with some Costa Rican guy, and he introduced us and then he disturbed the hell out of me by asking if I was still seeing that big-chested, redheaded girl, which could only be Bridget, and here I was thinking that I was Mr. Secret Agent Man with her, but if the goddamned postie knew then half the fucking city knew.
I told him no, I’d never been seeing her and that he was mistaken.
I went down to the 125th IRT stop. I thought about calling Mrs. Shovel (her name was Rebecca); she wanted me to call, she would be waiting. But no. In New York, at least, Bridget was my girl. She was mine. It was all her. Darkey would fuck up. He’d hit her or get drunk; she’d come to me, we’d fly away together, over the ocean. Safe. Aye, oh aye…
The train came, and I took it to the Bronx.
It troubled me that now I was mixed up in a killing. We were implicated in the death of Dermot and surely this would amount to something. Surely the cops would be on my trail, pounding doors, relentless. That’s how it was on TV. But, in fact, Dermot’s death barely even registered. It made no difference whatsoever. A drop in the bucket. No one stuffed him with straw, so it didn’t even make the evening news.
I was still concerned, though, for if you look at the newspapers of the early nineties, they’re absolutely full of stuff about organized crime in New York. There were over three hundred FBI agents working on breaking the Mob’s power in New York City, and to your average reader it seemed that every bloody cannoli shop was bugged or videotaped and every second dough tosser in your local pizzeria was a bloody federal agent. You saw rat after rat and trial upon trial on TV, U.S. Attorney and later Mayor Giuliani grinning in the Sunday papers and boasting about how he was sticking it to the Families. It wasn’t him alone, by any means. I mean, there were the cops, the FBI, treasury men, state police, tax guys, even the fucking Royal Canadian Mounted Police. So you’d think with all this that it would be impossible around then to run an operation like Mr. Duffy’s or like Darkey’s, but it wasn’t.
It wasn’t at all.
For as exciting as the Mob story was in New York in the early nineties, the grander narrative wasn’t their decline, their collapse, their self-immolation. No, the big story was the drug-addled slaughter taking place nightly in Harlem and the South Bronx and Bed-Stuy. The big story was who was moving into the vacuum created by the decline and fall of the Mafia.
And the truth was that above 110th Street the rules were different. No one seemed to care about what happened up there; certainly, in all the time that I was in Harlem and Washington Heights, I never came across a single agent, a single narc, a single goon.
Not that it would have made much difference even if the Feds had ventured north of 110th, because Darkey was very smart. Very goddamned smart. Darkey concerned himself only with recent Irish immigrants, the poor wee illegal weans fleeing 30 percent unemployment and a civil war and of whom there were tens of thousands in Riverdale, Washington Heights, and the odd wee pocket in the Bronx. Those boys and girls weren’t going near the cops, never mind the United States government. It wasn’t Boston and it wasn’t San Francisco, but look at the INS figures for Irish immigrants to the United States in the late ’80s and multiply that by about a dozen and you’ll have some idea of the scale of what I’m talking about.
Of course, the Micks weren’t just going uptown. Woodside was a big draw in Queens, and there was Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper East Side around Second and Third. But that was someone else’s space. Not Darkey’s, but probably still under Mr. Duffy. The point of all this is, I suppose, that despite the FBI and despite Mayor Dinkins and despite the cops, Mr. Duffy and Darkey weren’t having any bother at all. I shouldn’t have worried about the peelers looking for me. Jesus, I was nothing. I was protected, and Darkey had them confused and bent. I was safe as houses. Sunshine would look out for us all, and our Darkey was charmed and on to a sweet thing. He had no legal concerns; potential enemies were destroying themselves; the Micks kept coming. He had his girl, his crew, his skinny guardian angel, and but for that flabby and slightly pockmarked face of his you could say he was sitting pretty. So, as I sat there later that night in the public bar of the Four Provinces getting hot and drinking vile Harp Lager and feeling a wee bit sorry for myself and a wee bit anxious about the morning’s events, I had to admit to myself that I really shouldn’t be that concerned. We were fine. And I told myself that things were going to be ok and go on that way for the old foreseeable. Darkey was raking it in and it would trickle down to us and we’d get fatter and richer and maybe we’d retire in a year or two and get to a university or have a bar ourselves somewhere.
And sure enough, events might just have gone that way but for a process already in motion that three of our little crew knew about, but crucially not me and not Scotchy.
But again, that’s the future and this is now, and at the minute I was getting a bit eggy about the death of some wee shite called Dermot and getting all existential about organized crime and the racial nature of policing policy in NYC.
You look troubled, Andy said.
Do I?
Yes.
Oh.
What were you thinking about?
I was thinking that we’re bloody lucky we’re uptown, otherwise the peelers would be down our fucking necks.
Yeah.
You ever see that film Across 110th Street? I asked him.
No.
No, me neither, but I bet it makes some pretty good points about organized crime and the racial nature of policing policy in New York. Peels don’t care what goes on up here, fucking don’t care, I said.
Andy cocked his head.
What’s the matter with you today? he asked. Do you want to be fucking caught?
No.
Well, Jesus.
All right, forget it, excuse me for thinking, Andy. Big mistake around here. Forgot who I was talking to, I said.
Andy looked hurt.
Joking mate, joking. Sorry. Tell me, big fella, how ya feeling? I asked him.
Andy started telling me how he was feeling, and I sat there. Keeping it in, nodding my head, making him think I was interested in the bollocks he was spieling me. Sighing, scratching my arse, Andy jabbering, me drinking, listening, and neither of us had a clue that Scotchy was going to come down the stairs in ten minutes and blow all of my concerns about the cops, the city, and every other aspect of my present life not just out of the water but out of the universe in which water can even exist as a molecule of bonded hydrogen and oxygen.
Yeah, it’s coming. And I should have been up there at that fucking meeting to register my protest and see Darkey in the face, but I wasn’t because I’d gotten there late.
The meeting was still going on, but Andy was down here now because all the smoke had been making him a bit sick. He was telling me about the stuff I’d missed, and apparently it had been exciting.
Fireworks, Andy said, and went on to explain that Darkey (a bit unreasonably, I thought) considered the whole Dermot thing a complete cock-up because Dermot was dead and the peels were involved. Darkey had exploded at Sunshine and given him a really big seeing-to. He must have been really furious or else this was the standard Andy exaggeration. I looked at old And. He was big and blond and dopey-looking. He wasn’t a complete idiot, but he wasn’t going to be invited to the Institute for Advanced Studies anytime soon. He was really sweet, though, and he didn’t deserve that beating the other day. Scotchy needed a beating, Fergal did, but Andy didn’t.
Turn your head, I said.
He turned his head. He had a few bruises on him but he looked ok.
You don’t look too bad, you big eejit. Want a pint?
Aye.
I went up and bought him a Guinness. I got myself a bottle of Newcastle Brown and came back.
Have you seen Bridget? I asked him.
Aye. She told me this joke.
Was it about parrots? I asked.
Yeah, it was funny.
Where is she now? I asked.
Think she left with Darkey, going to the opera or something, Andy said.
They’ve both gone already?
Andy nodded.
Says she’s thinking of changing her name.
What?
Yeah, to Brigid. Pronounced the same, but it’s the Irish spelling, apparently. She’s the patron saint of Ireland, along with Patrick. Bridget says that she was the earth goddess, mother Eire, that the early Christians co-opted to-
I never heard anything about this, I interrupted him.
Oh aye, you’re out of the loop, Mikey, Andy said, and his mind jumped to other things: Tell you it was wild, boy. This morning, I mean. I mean, Jesus, I was keeking it. Really, keeking my bloody whips. I had no clue. No clue at all what was going on. Just sitting there revving. And waiting for the peels. All those bloody people. You’d think it was a parade or a free show or something. Me just sitting there. All in Spanish. I have it, you know. The lingo. Too fast, though. Christ, Michael. Look at you, all calm. You’re cold, man. You and Scotch standing up and shooting, cool plan.
Didn’t work.
Sure it did. You must have got him.
His own boys shot him, I said.
Not the way Sunshine sold it. Said you were aces. You and Scotch. Jesus. Cold. Super cool. Why didn’t you think they’d shoot you? You boys. I didn’t know, though. I was just sitting there. They say that’s the worst. The waiting. At least you were doing something. Ha, I’m sure you boys were thinking up excuses for the meeting with your Maker. Is this Guinness? Tastes funny. Hey, and you know I heard what you did to Shovel, thanks for that. Thanks for getting him.
It was nothing, I said. I tried to think of something to change the subject, but nothing came, and on he went about his driving.
And on my first morning out of the hospital, too. I mean, you have to admit it was impressive.
It was impressive.
It was, wasn’t it? he said, his eyes wide and excited.
Aye. And you’re feeling ok, big lad?
I’m ok. I could have been out yesterday, but they were covering themselves, Andy said.
Nice nurses?
Not really, although there was this one girl from, like, Jamaica or something. I thought I was hitting it off but she was just being nice, I think.
You get her number or anything? I asked him.
Nah, nothing like that. Here, you want some chocolates? he asked.
I wouldn’t say no to chocolates. These wouldn’t be a present by any chance, would they? I asked.
Aye, behind the bar for safekeeping, Andy said, grinning.
I let him get another round and the chocolates, which I had contributed five bucks towards, so they better be pretty fucking special. He came back. I was drinking lager now, because of the heat. It was extraordinarily bad stuff, but easier going down than the Guinness.
What you do after? he asked, giving me my pint.
I picked out a hazel log and a couple of caramels and a nice nougat one. I shoveled a couple in at once.
What? I asked him.
What did you do after this morning?
Uh, nothing. Slept.
I couldn’t have slept, could you? he asked.
I just told you I slept.
Tell you, you’re cold, man.
Thanks.
I was pumped. Pumped. Suppose for you it was all automatic, but I had to sit there, just sit, you know. Then drive afterwards. How’s your hand, by the way? Scotchy says you were the only one stupid enough to get himself hurt.
Scotchy said that?
Aye, when he was telling Mr. White and before the fireworks. He was dead calm at first, you know, Mr. White, I mean, he just listened, and then goes all ape and starts yelling at Sunshine-
What exactly did Scotchy say about me? I interrupted.
Nothing. Just said typical Bruce got himself a nick to show the girls. It was jokey, like.
That bastard Scotchy. He was lying on the floor keeking his whips, and I was the only one doing anything, I muttered.
Sunshine appeared at the top of the stairs. I nodded a hello and he came straight over. He was smiling. He’d had what was left of his hair cut, shampooed, and plastered on his scalp. Must have needed the attention after this morning’s debacle. He didn’t seem perturbed in the least by Darkey’s firestorm, and I wondered if Andy was completely yanking me.
Michael, I want to talk to you, he said.
Sure, go ahead, Sunshine.
Over here, Sunshine said, and led me over to the bar.
This is for you, he said and gave me an envelope. I wanted to be cool and not look, but I couldn’t help it. I opened it and there were ten fifty-dollar bills inside. More than twice (after Darkey’s taxes) what I got in a week.
What’s this for? I asked.
For this morning. If you hadn’t talked with him, we all would have been arrested. Or worse. You convinced his employees, not him. But that was enough. You saved my bacon, Michael.
Our bacon.
Yeah.
Well, look, thanks for this, I said.
It’s not much.
No, thanks, anyway.
Scotchy made the report, but I told Darkey what you’d done, Sunshine said, significantly.
Aye, I know. Andy was just after telling me, I replied, sounding pissed off.
Listen, I made sure Darkey knew what happened, Sunshine whispered.
He looked at me; he seemed odd and off-kilter. Still shook up from the morning. He wouldn’t go on a job again in a hurry, I thought. Conditioner wafted at me from his strands of hair.
Uh, again, thanks for putting in a word, I said, finally.
Michael, we’re very much alike, you and me. I think you’re a bit underappreciated around here, but don’t worry, I know what you did. Anyway, enjoy yourself with that.
Ta, I will, I said.
Don’t mention it. Literally, don’t mention it, he said.
Ok.
He wanted to say something else, I thought, but instead he just nodded and went back upstairs. I had to run after him.
Listen, Sunshine, I got rid of your piece, but I’ll need mine back.
He looked at me and grinned as if this level of competence was unheard of.
Well done, Michael, always thinking. That hadn’t even occurred to me. Of course I’ll get your.22 back or anything else you want.
The.22 will be fine. I don’t think we’ll get in anything like that again.
We won’t, he said, firmly.
Ok.
He padded up the stairs and then stopped halfway. He came back down again.
Michael, look, whatever else happens, I just want you to know that, that… I’m really grateful and sorry. Thanks.
He turned and went back up again.
How fucking weird, I thought.
I stuffed the envelope inside my jacket and dandered back to Andy.
What was that all about? Andy asked.
Uhh, nothing, um, gave me a bit of roasting for being late, nothing major, but he didn’t want to do it in front of you, didn’t want to embarrass me. Considerate, I suppose, I said.
Aye, he’s like that sometimes, Andy agreed.
Yeah.
See the state of him, though. He got a manicure, you know, like a fucking poofter, Andy said.
I must say, Andrew, I disapprove of your homophobia, I said.
My what-a-phobia? Andy said, having never heard the term before.
Most of the great generals have been gay or at least bi. Alexander, Caesar, Octavian, Marlborough, the list is long, I said with an air of world-weariness.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you saying Sunshine’s gay? Andy asked.
No, I don’t think so. There was some talk of a girl, but anyway you’re missing my point, Andy, my point is-
Jesus, you don’t think I’m fucking queer? Andy interrupted, but before I could reply Scotchy and Fergal appeared on the stairs, both of them grinning like a couple of banshees. They went to the bar and came back with four pints and chasers.
Pick up your Bushmills, Scotchy said, sitting down and giving us one each.
We picked up our shorts dutifully. Scotchy took a breath for what promised to be a long-winded toast:
Gentlemen, raise your glasses and listen up. Because of our recent good works and our years of dedicated service (in your case, Bruce, nearly a year of dedicated service) and our recent near brushes with death and the forces of law and order, we have been given the fucking plum of fucking plums. Drink.
We drank, and Scotchy sat there grinning at us. He filled our glasses again and winked at us. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, but Andy cracked.
Well, what is it? Andy whinged, desperately.
Andy, my boy, you are lucky you are off the sick because, my young friend, you and me and young Fergal here and even Bruce (and unfortunately Big Bob too) are all off to the climes south of the border to the sunny Republic of fucking Mexico.
Mexico? Andy said.
Ayeup, Mex-eee-co. Girls, tequila, beaches, music, more girls, you name it, we are there, boys. Sun, sand, and fucking R &R. Glasses up and down the hatch, Scotchy yelled.
I brought the glass up, but I couldn’t drink.
Sometimes, occasionally, now and again, a hint of the future will leak into the present. Not often, but it happens once in a while. You feel it in the back of your neck or your toes or fingertips. At that institute in Princeton that Andy’s not getting invited to, they’ll tell you that events take place at the quantum level and the light cone from these events extends backwards as well as forwards along time’s arrow. And sometimes, if you’re attuned, sensitive, you get a hint. This was one of those times. As soon as Scotchy finished his toast, a shiver like Baikal ice went down my spine, as if in premonition.
Scotchy shoved me.
Drink up.
I looked at him, ignored the message from the future, and drank up.
Somebody walked on my grave, I muttered.
Aye, well.
What’s the job? I asked him, to cover any embarrassment.
Job, nothing. The job is the smallest part of it. The job, Bruce dear, is your proverbial slice of pie, forget talk of the job. Think rather of long walks on the golden sandy beaches of the Caribbean Sea with charming señoritas and a room of your own in a luxury villa to take her back to. Think of booze and pot and swimming and lasses by the score. Uncle Scotchy has fixed us up.
When do we go? Andy asked.
We leave Saturday, Fergal said, excitedly.
What if your passport’s not in order? Andy moaned.
Then you can’t fucking go, Scotchy snapped.
Andy looked at us gloomily.
I’m not sure I’m allowed to leave the country while my INS status is being investigated, he muttered.
Andy, of course, had been silly enough to enter the system while all the rest of us had let Sunshine get us passable work permits and visas.
Don’t go, Andy. More girls and booze for the rest of us, Fergal crowed.
Andy looked on the verge of tears. Last week and this morning and now this.
Don’t worry, you’ll go, Andy. Sunshine’ll sort it, won’t he, Scotchy, I said, giving Scotchy a look.
Oh, oh aye, aye, don’t worry, Andy, only joking. ’Course you’ll go, can’t do it without big And, Scotchy said, hurriedly.
Really, we’ll fix it? Andy asked me.
We’ll fix it, And, I said, and he smiled.
We all looked at one another and grinned, and then we started to laugh. We were getting out of town. Getting away from the daily grind. Going to bloody Mexico. We were laughing, and the tears were running down our faces. It would be such a relief. The timing couldn’t have been better. All the tensions evaporated and we drank and talked, and even when Bob showed up, he couldn’t dampen things, and we bought the bastard a round and stayed so late Pat had to throw us out so he could get his weary arse bones to bed.