Shamrock Alley (46 page)

“I don’t even see a bar,” Mickey muttered, following Jimmy through the restaurant. Jimmy paused to talk to a silver-haired man in a dark suit and tie who must have been in his early seventies. The man nodded once, glanced over Jimmy’s shoulder at Mickey, then pointed to a set of wooden doors at the back of the restaurant. Jimmy thanked the man and motioned for Mickey to follow him through the doors.

They stepped into a dark, brick-and-mortar room with a low ceiling and an unoccupied stage, complete with stripping poles, at the center of the room. Booths lined the walls in a semicircle around the stage, and an unattended bar stood against the far wall. The lighting was poor—mostly dimmed overheads and candlelight—but Mickey could make out a few people huddled together in one booth, playing cards, smoking, and sipping cocktails.

He and Jimmy approached the booth, Jimmy in the lead. One of the men seated on the outside of the booth glanced up at them. He was overweight and balding, most likely in his mid-fifties, with thick patches of fleshy skin beneath obsidian eyes. His nose was enormous and looked porous, like a sponge. Mickey recognized him from a newspaper photograph Jimmy had showed him some time ago: Angelo Gisondi.

“Jimmy,” Gisondi said, breaking into a crooked smile. His teeth were perfectly even and bleached white. “Good to see you. I’m glad you came.”

“This is my partner, Mickey O’Shay,” Jimmy said, nodding in Mickey’s direction.

“Nice to meet you,” Gisondi said.

Mickey nodded, disinterestedly.

“Come on,” Gisondi said, pulling himself from the booth with some effort. He knocked a large, bejeweled pinkie ring against the tabletop and urged his companions to continue their poker game without him. Leading them to another booth toward the back of the club, Gisondi said, “Can I get you boys anything to drink?”

“No, thanks,” Jimmy said, and slipped into the booth opposite Gisondi. Mickey, unimpressed, sat beside his partner, slouching in his seat, the greasy fingers of his right hands drumming the tabletop.

Gisondi set his own drink down in front of him. “Jimmy,” he said, “I have to say, I’ve been impressed with some of the things I’ve been hearing about you.” Smiling, the old man turned his eyes on Mickey. “The
both
of you. You guys are young, getting your hands in a lot of things—and in a lot of people. That’s good. Again, I’m impressed. Like anything else, you start out small and gradually … you spread your wings. You learn who to trust and who to keep an eye on. You learn a lot of things.” Still smiling, Gisondi held up one finger. It was plump as a sausage. “You learn just how important money and friends are. Am I right?”

To Mickey, this sounded like a steaming load—who was this guy, anyway? Did he think he and Jimmy were a couple of street hoods who’d been jacking hubcaps for the past two years?

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, nodding.

“Because those are things you cannot afford to take for granted,” Gisondi continued, “no matter how much money you make or how many friends you
think
you might have.”

Across the club, Gisondi’s friends broke out in laughter and someone lit a cigar. Mickey could hear poker chips being counted and slid across the tabletop.

“Jimmy,” Gisondi went on, “I want to work with you guys. I’m willing to bankroll specific operations, even supply you with some protection, in return for a percentage. I think this could be good for all of us.”

“How much percentage?” Mickey asked, looking up sharply from the table.

“Something reasonable,” Gisondi provided. “We can work out those details at a later date. Now, there are more pressing issues to discuss. Do you mind if I’m honest with you?”

“Sure,” Jimmy said.

A small, lizard-like tongue darted from Gisondi’s mouth, moistened his lower lip, then disappeared back into place. “Some of your behavior has raised eyebrows with a few of the men I work with. In truth, not everyone believes we can profit from our union. I think they’re wrong, but I
do
think you should take something into consideration for this relationship to prove lucrative.”

“What?”

“This isn’t the 1920s, Jimmy. Days of shooting up saloons and killing people in the streets are over. Men like us do not operate that way anymore. That’s for niggers up in Harlem. You have to be selective. Too much attention from the wrong people is a very bad thing, Jimmy, and it doesn’t make the work any easier. Talents like yours deserve to be respected and used properly, not flaunted all over the city for bravado’s sake. What I’m telling you is the truth. Sometimes, subtlety is more persuasive.”

“Okay, “Jimmy said, “you make sense, Mr. Gisondi. I appreciate it. Me and Mickey are gonna discuss your offer. In the meantime, would you mind doin’ me a favor?”

“Name it, Jimmy.”

“There’s this guy we been dealin’ with, fella named Johnny Esposito from Brooklyn. You ever heard of him?”

Smacking his lips, his eyes shifting from Jimmy to Mickey, Gisondi slowly shook his head. “Esposito? Not familiar.”

“We’d appreciate it if you’d ask around about him, see if any of your guys recognize the name.”

“This guy been giving you trouble?”

“No,” Jimmy said, “just a new face on the scene. I like to know who he is—that’s all.”

Gisondi smiled. He looked like a shark. “That’s good,” he said. “Sure, Jimmy, I’ll ask around, see what comes back.”

Jimmy shook Gisondi’s hand. Turning with his hand still extended, Gisondi looked at Mickey. That shark-like grin was still on his face. Nodding, Mickey shook the old man’s hand and slid quietly out of the booth.

“One more thing, Jimmy,” Gisondi said, still seated in the booth. “There’s a loan shark, Horace Green, who does business up your way. He’s been missing for some time now. No one’s seen him around, you know? I was wondering, maybe you guys heard something, know something …”

“Horace Green?” Jimmy said. Shaking his head, he added, “Nope. Never heard of him.”

“E
SPOSITO BUY THOSE SILENCERS LAST NIGHT?”
J
IMMY
asked, seating himself beside Mickey in a corner booth at the Cloverleaf. They’d driven back from Gisondi’s restaurant mostly in silence, the car radio on and turned low, Mickey sipping from a bottle of bourbon wrapped in a brown paper bag. Like the tide, their relationship hinged on a veritable ebb and flow of conversation. Even between each other, they hoarded words the way misers hoard gold coins, and rarely spoke when there was nothing to say. Tonight, however, it was evident Johnny Esposito was on Jimmy’s mind.

“Bought all five,” Mickey said, then gave his partner a brief recount of the events on the roof. When he’d finished, he was discomforted by the look on Jimmy’s face. “What?” Mickey demanded.

“This guy,” Jimmy muttered. Around them, the Cloverleaf was unusually crowded and noisy. On the jukebox, Dean Martin was doing a lilting rendition of “You Belong to Me,” and a woman’s laughter briefly rose above the din of surrounding conversation. “This goddamn guy,” Jimmy went on. “Something about him don’t sit good with me, Mickey.”

“You worry too much.”

But Jimmy did not look worried. Rather, his brows were knitted together in deep thought, his eyes narrowed and focused on the tabletop. Behind him, a group of young guys laughed loudly at some joke, and one of the guys accidentally bumped Jimmy’s shoulder, but Jimmy hardly noticed.

No, he was not worried at all.

He was
thinking
.

“We’re making money off him,” Mickey continued, displeased that his evening of drinking and smoking and zoning out had been interrupted by his partner’s paranoid concerns. “What the hell difference does it make now?”

Jimmy did not answer. Lost in concentration, he pulled himself from the booth and meandered over to the bar.

The Cloverleaf’s door opened, and Mickey could hear traffic skirting along West 57
^th
Street. Patrick Nolan entered with a good-looking brunette, smiled and held up a hand to the few faces he recognized around the bar, then led his woman over to the only unoccupied table in the joint. Mickey watched as the couple exchanged a few lines of conversation, then Patty Nolan departed for the restroom.

Mickey stood.

In the restroom, Patrick Nolan found himself alone in the cramped little room. Humming a Prince tune under his breath, he relieved himself with gusto, then hopped over to the sink to wash his hands and examine his teeth in the water-stained mirror. His mind was still fully occupied with the brunette sitting at the table outside. The furthest thing from his mind at the moment was his trip to Miami and Harold Corcoran’s counterfeit money.

The restroom door eased open. A slice of Mickey’s reflection appeared in the mirror above the sink, and Nolan looked up, then turned around and faced him.

Staring at Patrick Nolan made all the events of the past year rush back to him: Horace Green; the counterfeit negatives and plates; the printing presses; Johnny Esposito; Douglas Clifton and Harold Corcoran; the way Corcoran had cried out like a wounded dog while Mickey cut the man’s tongue from his mouth. And now … Patrick Nolan.

He knew Nolan from the neighborhood, had worked some bullshit deals with him in the past, and had at one time respected the reputation the man was trying to shape for himself. But that was some time ago, and things had changed. Now the bullshit deals Patty Nolan orchestrated were small-time and, in all honesty, rather pathetic. Nolan was in his thirties and looked maybe a decade older than that. With some hard work, the right hookups, and a bit more motivation, Nolan could have grown to become a powerful entity within Hell’s Kitchen. He’d done his share of robberies, extortion, even murders—but he was a smalltime street hustler at heart and had never managed to break away from that.

“Patty Nolan,” Mickey said from the restroom doorway, grinning. “Ain’t seen you around. Been hiding out?”

“Mickey …” Nolan spoke the name slowly. He returned Mickey’s grin, then turned back to the sink. He glanced up once at Mickey’s reflection in the mirror while continuing to wash his hands. A vein throbbed along the left side of his head. “Shit, guy, how you been?”

“Not bad. Where you been, Patty?”

Nolan kept his eyes on the sink. He turned off the water and rubbed his hands together like someone trying to start a fire, shook water into the basin. “Had some business out of town. You know how it is.”

“Yeah?”

“You know …”

“Some good-lookin’ broad you rolled in with. You pick her up out of town?”

Nolan laughed nervously. “Jimmy around?”

“Don’t know,” Mickey said.

“Well,” Nolan said, moving toward the paper towel dispenser, “you tell him I said hey. And Merry Christmas. You too, Mickey.” There were no paper towels in the dispenser. Seemingly struck by this—as if he were disappointed in the lack of bathroom supplies—Nolan snorted and forced a second grin while wiping his hands down the length of his pants. Turning toward the door, he nodded once at Mickey, brushed past him, and moved down the narrow hallway.

Mickey watched Patty Nolan leave. Then, before stepping back out into the bar area, he turned and looked at his own reflection in the mirror above the restroom sink. He could feel his migraine coming on again, bubbling up from the base of his neck and up over the top of his skull in an arch. In the mirror, his reflection appeared blurry and unfamiliar. Squinting, he tried to make out his features … and found that he couldn’t.

He grinned.

Winner
, he thought.

Back at the bar, the jukebox was rumbling through some psychedelic 1970s number. The lights had been dimmed and the clamor of numerous conversations mingled with the chime of clinking beer bottles. Corky McKean was behind the bar, smoking a fat Cuban cigar and still wearing his mistletoe necktie. Corky enjoyed working nights during the holidays: the tips were slightly more generous.

Mickey spent the remainder of the evening in a corner booth surrounded by a few guys from the neighborhood. He drank modestly, which was unusual for him, and smoked only one cigarette for the duration of the festivities. One by one, the Cloverleaf’s patrons dispersed into the night, stumbling home along the dark, wet streets beneath a winter sky. At one point, Mickey saw Patty Nolan’s girl rise from the table, squeeze Nolan’s shoulder, and slip out the door. Nolan remained, pulling himself from his table and staggering over to the bar. There, he met with a number of his friends. Drinks were bought and passed around. Someone shouted something about the Yankees, but Mickey could not make out the words.

A few more people left the bar. Christmas Eve, and the dregs of Hell’s Kitchen all had someplace to be. Mickey O’Shay’s most vivid memory of Christmas was when he was fifteen and spent the holiday in a juvenile facility upstate. He recalled a snowfall from a window in the cafeteria and how some grotesquely fat kid eating beside him had started throwing a fit, screaming for his mother—his mother—where was his mother? Some of the inmates had snickered at the fat kid, some had cursed at him and thrown things at him, and some had simply stared in mild amusement. Mickey, too, had stared … but there had been no amusement on his face, no compassion, and no ridicule. He’d just stared, hypnotized by the way the fat kid’s body shook, the way the flesh hung in winged flaps from his arms, the way two guards dragged him out of the cafeteria. That night, as a Christmas present to himself, he replayed the image of the trembling, shrieking fat kid over and over again in his head. And enjoyed it.

At eleven o’clock, Mickey slid from the corner booth and moved down the narrow hallway toward the trapdoor stairwell that led to the underground club. Dragging one hand along the wall, he descended the stairs and remained below ground for some time. When he finally emerged, not too far behind him was Jimmy Kahn, straightening his sport jacket.

“Killian’s,” Mickey called to Corky McKean, slapping one hand on the bar and sitting in the empty stool beside Patty Nolan.

Nolan turned and eyed Mickey up and down, then focused his eyes further down the bar where Jimmy Kahn stood leaning against the jukebox.

Corky McKean disappeared from behind the bar and returned a moment later with Mickey’s beer. Swinging a dishtowel over one hunched shoulder, Corky turned and headed for the Cloverleaf’s storage room.