Chances

  “I don’t feel so good,” Aldo mumbled. “Why couldn’t we go back to our room?”

  “Enzio’s right. We gotta get straight out of town. The less we’re known here the better.”

  “I should be in a hospital,” Aldo complained.

  “Come on.” Gino led him inside the station. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  “What are you, a friggin’ doctor all of a sudden?”

  “Stop bitchin’. It’s a scratch. If you had a bullet in your arm you wouldn’t be walkin’ around.”

  “Holy shit. An expert I’m with.”

  Once in the men’s room, Gino stripped off Aldo’s jacket and shirt and was relieved to find he was right. There was no gaping hole, just a lot of blood from a substantial nick. He tore a towel from the wall and bound it tightly around the damaged arm. “That’ll hold ya till we get back,” he said.

  Aldo was ungrateful. “I should be in a hospital,” he repeated darkly. “If Barbara was here she’d see I was.”

  “Yeh. Barbara would have your scrawny balls for breakfast. Get your shirt back on and let’s go find a train.”

  Aldo put his bloodstained shirt on and covered it with Enzio’s jacket, which was somewhat large on him. He fumbled in the pocket and came up with a bundle. “Get a load of this!” he exclaimed. It was two thousand dollars in worn hundred-dollar bills.

  “He must have forgotten to take it out,” Gino said.

  “Either that or it’s for us.”

  “It ain’t for us,” Gino replied harshly. “We’ll give it back to him. Put it away.”

  But he knew that Enzio had left the money purposely. After all, two thousand bucks was a fair payment for killing a man, wasn’t it?

  Once safely back in New York, Gino made his plans. Life was short. Just how short he knew only too well. And the newspaper headlines were not slow to remind him.

  FIFTEEN SLAIN. GANG MASSACRE IN CHICAGO SPEAKEASY.

  It could well have been him lying in a Chicago morgue. Unfucked for over a year. A sucker waiting to get married. Waiting. It was a dirty word. No more waiting for Gino Santangelo.

  He went straight to see Mr. Pulaski. The old man was in a bad way. He had been attacked and robbed in the street during Gino’s absence. The robbers had taken his gold watch, the only item he possessed of any value, and three measly dollars. In return they had given him two broken ribs and a kicking that left him black and blue from head to toe.

  “Who did it?” Gino demanded. “You recognize who it was?” Mr. Pulaski grimaced. He was too old and too tired to want to cause any trouble.

  Gino was leaning over his bed, a wild look in his eyes. “Tell me who it was.”

  The old man sighed. “Some people don’t know any better…. Boys, they don’t understand things…. I would like my watch back….”

  “Who were they?”

  “The Morrison boy…. His friend… Jacob, I think they call him…. Two others…. I don’t know who they were….” His voice trailed off, and he closed his eyes. He was eighty-three years old and he didn’t like the way the world was changing around him. There was no respect any more…. Why, only the other day a mere slip of a girl had stopped him in the street and invited him to have relations with her. Very young: fifteen, maybe only fourteen…. His eyes fluttered open. “You want I should write a letter for you?”

  Gino was no longer there. Gino was already out on the street, his step purposeful. Little fuckers. He knew who they were. Terry Morrison and Jacob Cohen. Two neighborhood kids not more than fourteen years of age but always causing trouble. He would personally beat the shit out of them, teach them a hard lesson about life, get Mr. Pulaski’s watch back, and then go get his letter written.

  What a day! Wasn’t it enough he had had Barbara Riccaddi screaming at him all morning? Blaming him for Aldo’s injury. Screaming insults about what a bad influence he was. How if it wasn’t for him Aldo would never dream of being involved in anything illegal. And all the while, Aldo, behind her back, laughing and making faces. Her whiplash tongue tried but failed to castrate both of them.

  He headed for the Cohen household first. A walk-up tenement building next door to Catto’s family. He hadn’t seen his friend in over six months. Catto didn’t approve of the way he ran his life, and so they had drifted apart. If Catto wanted to waste his life shoveling shit that was his problem. Gino had offered him a chance to come in with him, but the mug had refused. Funny thing was that Catto thought he, Gino, was the mug. What a laugh!

  A thin harassed woman answered his knock, “Whatcha want?” Her voice was listless.

  “Jacob,” he replied.

  Her glassy eyes flickered nervously. “He’s at school.”

  He pushed past her into the crowded room. “Like hell he is.”

  A baby crawled among the mess on the floor. Asleep on a sofa bursting its stuffing was Jacob. Gino woke him with a sharp kick.

  “What the…” Jacob sat up and stared.

  “I wanna talk to you,” he declared, “so let’s go out the back.”

  Jacob glanced quickly at his mother. She averted her eyes. She was no fool. He was just like his old man, a basin full of trouble.

  Jacob scowled at Gino. “What makes ya think I wanna talk to you?”

  Gino’s hard black eyes narrowed meanly. “Because I said so, punk. Move it!”

  An hour later Gino was back at Mr. Pulaski’s bedside.

  “Here, pop.” He handed the old man his gold watch.

  The veined and liver-spotted hands clutched at it tenderly. “You’re a good boy, Gino,” the old man crooned in a weak voice, “a boy who understands things.”

  Yeh. He understood things. Only Jacob Cohen’s story had been somewhat different from the old man’s. He claimed that old man Pulaski had been flashing it at his twelve-year-old sister for months. “So she don’t mind so much, figures he’s a bit cuckoo, but then the other day—in daylight, I swear to ya it was daylight—he sneaks up behind her in the street and opens up full fire all over her only dress. The old pisser hadda get taught a lesson, didn’t he?”

  Fucking marvelous, wasn’t it? Gino checked out Jacob’s story and it was true. Turned out that he was the only one in the neighborhood didn’t know Mr. Pulaski was a dirty old man.

  In the circumstances, beating up on Jacob and his friends didn’t seem right. Instead, he bawled the shit out of them and recovered the watch.

  “Shall I do your letter now?” Mr. Pulaski inquired weakly.

  “You feel up to it?” he asked anxiously. “Only it’s the big one, pops. I wanna send for her. We’re gonna get married. I want this letter to be a real big masterpiece. Think y’can do it, pops?”

  “Of course I can, Gino,” Mr. Pulaski replied solemnly. “It will be the most romantic letter that you and I have ever composed together.”

  Sure it would. Was there any law that said an old flasher couldn’t write one hell of a romantic love letter?

  Carrie

  1928

  Whitejack was an evasive man. He had a bad habit of not answering questions, saying, instead, a plaintive “Shee… it,” as though that explained everything.

  Carrie could not stay mad at him for long. He was all she had in the world. He was her man, and even though he expected her to go back to work without so much as asking her—well, that was just his way. And nobody could say he wasn’t generous. Since leaving Madam Mae’s he had paid for everything for all of them—Lucille included—with no complaints.

  Now it seemed they needed money, and it was only fair that she and Lucille work for it the only way they knew how. It wasn’t like it hadn’t been the plan all along.

  Whitejack didn’t change toward her. He still gave her plenty of lovin’ whenever he felt in the mood. But somehow, if the mood took him just when she had finished with a john, she didn’t feel like it. In fact it was an effort to moan and groan the way she knew he liked, and to pretend to be having a good time, when the truth of the matter was she was tired, her pussy was
sore, her back ached, and all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

  “Whassamatter with you, woman?” he asked harshly one day. “You used to be the hottest, sweetest piece around. Now all I get is cold ass.”

  “I’m just worn out,” she replied. “I’m turnin’ more tricks than when I was at Madam Mae’s—and for less money. I thought we were goin’ to have a house, do things properly.”

  “We need plenty dough ’fore we get us a house. Ain’t my fault that bitch Mae cleaned out the bank account ’fore I could get out my share.”

  “I didn’t know she did that,” Carrie exclaimed.

  Triumphantly Whitejack said, “You see, woman. I don’t bother you with my problems, so why you bother me with yours?” He got up from the bed and stretched. “Whyn’t we take ourselves out on the town?”

  She sighed. She would have liked to go out, get away from the small rented apartment, but she had a john coming, and it was important to get regular customers again. “I can’t, but you go.”

  “Sure. I’ll go. Find us another girl to help you and Lucille out.” He scooped up the twenty dollars that her last John had left on the table. “How about me gettin’ us a big white platinum blonde? How about that to go with you and Lucille, huh? The three of you do a show we could really be into dough.”

  “A show?” Carrie did not know what he was talking about.

  “A show, baby, is three chicks suckin’ each other off, playin’ with each other. Y’know, the kinda stuff you musta done out on the island a thousand times.”

  She froze. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  There was no animosity in his voice, just a natural friendliness. “You a whore, woman. You do anything.”

  She watched him dress. She watched him go. Then she lay on her stomach and sobbed until there were no tears left.

  She didn’t hear Lucille come into the room and was only aware of her presence when she felt a comforting hand massaging her back.

  “You think he was Prince Charming, honey?” Lucille asked sympathetically. “He’s a pimp, babe, and we are his women. We all got each other, so no need to fret yourself. You really want to cry, try thinkin’ about what it’s like bein’ me.”

  She sat up and stared at Lucille. “You don’t understand.” Her voice was breaking. “You’ve always been that way. I could’ve had a good life, but I was forced into being a whore by my own uncle. He locked me in a room and sent men in one by one while my grandma sat in the next room collecting the money. I was thirteen years old. There ain’t nothin’ left for me ’cept this life.”

  Lucille blinked. “I was six when my poppa realized I just weren’t gonna get any bigger. So he sold me to the freak show passin’ through town, and by the time I was eleven I was servicing every goddamn freak in the show. Whitejack found me when I was sixteen. You could say he saved me. Kidnapped me right out of that hellhole and made me want to live. Madam Mae’s was paradise compared to what I was used to.”

  Carrie listened intently, gradually forgetting about her own troubles.

  “These last few months with you an’ Whitejack bin the very best of my whole life,” Lucille continued. “You both treat me just like anyone else, not like some freak ’cos I’m a small person. I’d do anything for Whitejack, he’s a good man. An’ honey, you should feel the same. He bin good to both of us.”

  Carrie nodded. He had.

  “So what you cryin’ ’bout?” Lucille asked, “Cos you’re a whore?” She shook her head defiantly. “So what? I’m a whore—it don’t bother me no more. Whitejack’s a pimp, it don’t bother him none. Come on, honey, dry your tears an’ let’s get back to work.”

  Carrie got off the bed and walked to the mirror. She looked awful, her eyes all puffed out, her makeup in streaks down her face. But she felt better. Lucille was right. So what if she sold her body. It was only a job.

  “Good gal.” Lucille clucked. “Start prettying yourself up. We got work to do—an’ I just know that fella comin’ to see you don’ want no truck with no midget. See! I can say midget—it don’t mean nothin’. You can say whore—same thing.”

  She managed a weak smile. “Thanks,” she said softly.

  Lucille shrugged. “Nothin’.”

  Carrie started some repair work on her face. She had left Madam Mae’s to get a little more control over her life. What had she really expected? Whitejack to take a job and marry her? What kind of soft thinking was that? Just a couple of months of good lovin’, the first loving she had ever enjoyed, and she was forgetting her ambitions. Whitejack was right. They needed money to get a house. And if that is what they needed that is what she would get.

  Any way Whitejack said. Any way at all.

  She couldn’t wait to tell him. She knew he was getting fed up with her lately, always complaining and bitching. But now that she had decided to accept the fact that they were back in business, things would be different.

  She dealt with her john quickly and efficiently, sending him back on the street with a kiss and a promise—“You-all come back, now, for an even better time.”

  “Sure will!” he agreed with enthusiasm. And raced home to his wife and three children.

  Carrie washed, brushed her hair, which was starting to grow back nicely, and took a reefer from the small stash Whitejack kept under the mattress. She lit up and inhaled deeply. It made her feel mellow and relaxed.

  She put a Bessie Smith record on the Victrola and lay back on the bed.

  Soon she fell asleep, and she did not realize Whitejack had not come home until she awoke at ten o’clock the next morning.

  Gino

  1928

  Gino was aware of a great feeling of relief when the letter to Leonora was finally written and mailed. He had waited so long and now, at last, he was able to put things in motion.

  Mr. Pulaski had come through with the goods. A letter so romantic and loving that Gino was almost embarrassed to put his signature on it. After all, maybe Leonora would expect him to talk the same way. He didn’t want to disappoint her.

  He kept on imagining her face when she read the letter. That face… so delicate and innocent.

  Along with the letter to Leonora had gone the one to her father, the polite formal one requesting her hand in marriage. Everything correct and aboveboard. If all went according to plan, he would soon be on a train to San Francisco and married in a matter of weeks.

  Meanwhile there was business to take care of. Bonnatti had not been long in keeping his word, and contact had been made. There was a load of legal alcohol waiting to be picked up from a company outside of Trenton, New Jersey. Bonnatti himself spoke to Gino on the phone. “You handle this good an’ it’ll be a regular supply. Take your own truck an’ contact the foreman at the plant. He knows the action, an’ he’s bin taken care of this end. No money changes hands. When you do your deal in town, keep my split. I’ll be in to pick it up the end of the month.”

  “You’re very trusting,” Gino joked.

  “Sure I am.” Enzio was not amused. “I figure you’re fond of your balls. I also figure you wanna hang onto them.”

  Gino laughed. “When you pick up your dough I got the two thou you left in your jacket pocket. I got your jacket too—had it cleaned an’ pressed.”

  “The money was a payment.”

  “For what?”

  “Cut the crap, Gino. You know for what.”

  “Hey, Enzio. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. But I don’t want you t’get the wrong idea. I don’t wanna work for you. With you, yes. But not for you. You understand what I mean?”

  There was a short silence while the line from Chicago crackled ominously. Then Enzio said, “What about Aldo? He don’t wanna take the money?”

  “He can do what the fuck he likes. He brought me to you an’ we’re partners, but I want to clear our position up—so ya know I ain’t some employee. O.K.?”

  Now it was Enzio’s turn to laugh. “I heard tell you was a hothead. Yeah, yeah. O.K., I understand. Give me back the d
ough if it makes you happy.”

  Around the 110th Street neighborhood, Gino and Aldo had acquired a lock-up warehouse where they housed cases of liquor awaiting delivery, two trucks, and a beat-up old Ford. The trucks were plastered with DINUNZIO MOVING AND STORAGE, and once in a while they would be used for such a purpose. But this of course was only a front, and the real purpose of the trucks was to transport booze.

  The beat-up old Ford, which looked like it would hardly make it from one side of town to the other, had an engine under its hood that would do justice to a new Rolls-Royce. Gino had personally and lovingly fixed it. He was a master mechanic when it came to souping up old cars.

  Twenty-one years old, he was doin’ pretty good. He had no complaints. Of course he wasn’t in the big time yet. He wasn’t no Lucania, but he was on his way, and one thing was sure—no one was going to stop him.

  He decided to drive the truck himself on the Trenton job. Hijacking was becoming more and more rife, and to lose this load would mean losing face with Bonnatti—not to mention his balls.

  Pinky Banana rode shotgun, and Aldo took the wheel of the Ford. They were all armed and expecting trouble. But none came. It was a perfect run.

  Once the goods were unloaded and delivered to grateful customers, Gino, Pinky Banana, and Aldo went to Fat Larry’s to celebrate. The place was really becoming fashionable, with society ladies and their escorts bumming their way up from their Park Avenue brownstones.

  “The joint is sure jumpin’ tonight!” Pinky Banana exclaimed. He bit on a hangnail and with his other hand snapped his fingers for a waitress.

  A weary little redhead showed them to a table in the back.

  “This ain’t no good. Where’s Larry?” Pinky Banana questioned in loud aggressive tones, hanging onto the string of her decorative apron so she couldn’t retreat.

  “‘Scuse me, sir,” she snapped. “Mister Larry is not here tonight.”

  “Mister Larry!” mimicked Pinky Banana. “I knew Mister friggin’ Larry when he was just plain friggin’ Fatso!”