The Amboy Dukes (5 page)

“And I don’t like the way you look,” one of the other Puerto Ricans said to Frank.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Larry Tunafish advised the stranger. “No one’s asking you what you like.”

Crazy Sachs pushed his way forward. “Where you from? Where you guys from?”

“Fulton Street.”

“Fulton near where?” Crazy wanted to know.

“Near Stuyvesant.”

“Ocean Hill jerks,” Bull Bronstein observed.

“What the hell makes you Brownsville guys think you’re so hot?” the fellow who had been tripped asked them. Then he realized he had made a mistake and he clamped his lips together. They were only three against five, and Bull Bronstein, squat and powerful, with a prominent jaw that set off the heaviness of his cruel lips, looked like the kind of slugger who could take care of two ordinary guys by himself. And the guy who kept jiggling and hopping around in that nervous shuffling way looked as if he were slightly nuts and a cutter. “We don’t want no trouble,” he said, and motioned for his two friends to start walking. But Bull and Mitch barred the sidewalk.

“Just a minute,” Mitch said. “What the hell are you guys doing out here anyway? Maybe you were looking for a
shul
to chalk up with some swastikas?”

“We never done anything like that!” The third Puerto Rican, who had been silent, spoke.

“How the hell do we know?” Frank asked belligerently. “Maybe you’re the guys who chalked ‘Dirty Jew’ and ‘Jew Christ Killers’ all over the shul on Douglass Street last week!”

“We didn’t do nothing,” the Puerto Rican said.

“Maybe you didn’t, but maybe your gang did,” Frank persisted. “What’s the name of your gang?”

They were silent.

“Come on.” Frank pushed the fellow he had tripped. “What’s the name of your gang?”

“Yeah,” Crazy added, “talk up!”

“The Sharpsters.”

“I never heard of you,” Mitch said. “You must be a bunch of heels. Why’d you guys chalk up the shul? You guys know I got a brother in the Army? You know he was wounded in the Liri Valley and is still in the hospital? How do you think he feels about you guineas coming into Brownsville and marking up our shuls?”

“We didn’t do nothing.” The second Puerto Rican tried to edge away, but Crazy blocked him.

“That’s what you say,” Black Benny said. “You look like the guys who must’ve done it. What the hell else would you be doing out here?”

“We’re coming from a party in Canarsie. Honest.”

“So why’d you go around chalking up shuls?”

“We didn’t!”

Crazy Sachs approached them and grabbed one of them by the tie and yanked him forward. “You calling us liars?” The Puerto Rican struggled to break free, and Crazy hit him a short jab in the stomach that knocked the wind out of him.

That was the signal. Frank went for the fellow he had tripped and kicked him in the right shin. As the fellow winced and doubled up with pain Frank’s knee caught him under the chin and he was knocked cold before he even hit the sidewalk. Then Black Benny kicked him in the face, and they turned to gang up on the other two boys, who were trying to defend themselves. Bull Bronstein was slugging one of them with looping roundhouse rights and lefts, and finally they were down, bleeding from their noses and mouths.

“You see, you bastards,” Crazy panted, “what happens when you get tough! Now I am gonna finish you off!”

He drew his spring knife and approached one of them and jabbed him in the arm and ripped down. The boy screamed with pain, and Crazy kicked him in the face. Then he started to run and the Dukes ran after him.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Mitch said to Crazy, “what did ya cut him for?”

“Because he’s a guinea and painted swastikas on shuls.”

“Aw, shut up!” Mitch replied, and saved his breath for running.

They ran for a couple of blocks, and when they felt safe they turned back up Douglass Street to Pitkin Avenue. Crazy was walking in front and singing to himself, and every once in a while he would skip a couple of steps and shake his head. Then he walked along with one foot on the sidewalk and one in the gutter and told them that he was crippled. Frank turned away from him with repugnance and dislike.

“Boy,” Crazy said as they stood on the corner, “we sure had us a time tonight. Getting laid and everything. Though we shouldn’t have let her get away with the dough.”

Frank looked at him. “Can’t you stop talking?”

“What the hell’s eating you?” Crazy replied. “I’m not botherin’ you.”

Suddenly Frank hit him flush in the mouth and knocked him to the sidewalk. Crazy was dazed and shook his head, but before he could get up Frank hit him another smashing blow in the jaw, and as he fell prone Frank kicked him twice in the kidneys. Crazy was through.

“That,” Frank said to them, “is what he gets for fooling around with my sister.”

“Did he do that?” Larry asked him quietly.

“The son of a bitch, he did. This morning the kid was looking out of the window and she was wearing her nightgown, and Crazy saw her and did something. He can’t do that to my sister.”

Mitch helped Crazy to his feet, and Frank turned to him. “I’m warning you,” he said to Crazy, “if you ever bother my sister I’m gonna cut you into ribbons. Understand?”

Crazy rubbed his jaw. “You hit me when I wasn’t lookin’.”

“I’ll clout you again, you goon.” Frank drew back his fist, but Black Benny held him. “You just don’t bother my sister. If I ever catch you looking at her I’ll ruin you. I’m just warning you and I’m not kidding.” Then Frank shook Benny’s hands from his arm and walked down Amboy Street to his tenement.

He felt lousy. Almost one o’clock in the morning and his eyes ached and he didn’t know how the hell he was going to get up in the morning, and he knew that Alice was going to wake him to go to school.

The hall was dark and the musty smell was more pronounced since the weather had become warmer. Slowly he climbed the steps to the third floor and quietly opened the front door to the flat. He took off his shoes, tiptoed into the kitchen, and gently shut the door. He stopped to listen to Alice’s even breathing and quickly placed the gun, cartridges, and Ramses inside the pillowcase on his bed, where they would be safe until morning.

Frank stretched and yawned as he put on his pajamas and then he shook Alice gently.

“Wake up, kid,” he whispered.

“Frank?” she whimpered.

“Ssh,” he said. “Listen, Crazy Sachs’ll never bother you any more. I just clouted him around and warned him to let you alone.”

“You been fighting!”

“Naw.” He laughed quietly. “He didn’t even get a sock in. Now go back to sleep. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Frank started to get into bed and stopped. He went back to the kitchen, lit a match, and approached the kitchen table. In the center of the table lay another note and some bills and change. That meant they were working late again tomorrow. Poor kid, Alice, he felt sorry for her.

Frank had every intention of going to school Tuesday morning until he descended the tenement steps and saw Benny sitting behind the wheel of his brother’s convertible Dodge, grinning so that his mouth seemed to cover his whole face. Benny was pleased with himself, and as he pressed on the horn the clear golden notes were a call to freedom, to swift driving in the sun, away from the dull red walls of the school. The car was a smooth-looking job: light blue, red leather seats, white-wall tires, fancy fog lights, and all the other extras that Benny’s brother Sam could buy. With Benny sitting behind the wheel of the Dodge and twelve gallons of gasoline in the tank that had been purchased with counterfeit coupons, school was out. With much laughter they had driven around Prospect Park, lain on the grass to get an early sun tan, and lunched in the Canton Inn on Flatbush Avenue, where they were able to kid around with a couple of good-looking girls who went to Erasmus and who were so impressed by the blue Dodge that they asked Frank and Benny to telephone them soon. These girls from Flatbush in their tweed suits and small jaunty hats had class and assurance, and Frank told Benny that they would have to work them easy, but Benny laughed and told him that there wasn’t any difference. Three or four stiff drinks would soften up any babe, and if she smoked a reefer, that was all. And if she didn’t smoke, a couple of aspirins in a rum cola would send her rocketing to the moon.

In many ways Frank was still naive, and the thought of getting a girl drunk or high made him squirm. But a guy couldn’t get along by being soft, and if he didn’t take advantage of the situation someone else would. And anyway, he thought, giving a babe a reefer wasn’t bad. Hell, he smoked three a day now, though he wasn’t going to smoke any more than that if he could help it. Some guys were so hopped up on tea they were rocking on their heels. Reefers were like drinking or getting laid or anything else that he got a kick out of. But no matter what it was, nothing was going to get the better of him.

It was almost three o’clock in the afternoon when Frank and Benny opened the door of the Winthrop Billiard and Recreation Parlor and greeted some of the Tigers who were shooting a game of rotation on the first table.

“H’ya, guys.” Black Benny placed his hat on a hook. “Wanta see the car I’m driving?”

The Tigers crowded to the open door and whistled.

“That’s a smooth job,” one of them said. “Boy, with a load like that, would I have me a time.”

“Yeah,” another one agreed, “a babe would have to come across to ride in that car with me. I wouldn’t bother with nothing else. How about it?” He turned to Benny. “It must be easy to get tail with that car.”

“It belongs to my brother,” Benny replied, “and he doesn’t have any trouble. So I guess we won’t have any.”

“You mean to say you haven’t broken that car in yet?” the houseman asked Frank. “You kids’re slow.”

“Look what’s talkin’.” One of the Tigers laughed. “Feivel couldn’t get it up with splints.”

“Shut your mouth, stinker,” the houseman warned him, “or I’ll nail it shut with my fist.”

“I was only kidding.” The Tiger chalked his cue nervously.

Feivel, the houseman, grumbled and went behind the sandwich-and-cigarette counter. Feivel was a former pug, a lightweight who had battled it out with Lew Tendler and Abe Attell, and he had been a first-rate drawing card in his day. Under the counter he kept a scrapbook bound in leather with his name tooled in the cover, and each page of the book was carefully sheathed with white celluloid covers which protected the clippings and pictures. The book was the most valuable possession Feivel had left, for his money had been spent as quickly and as violently as he had made it, and his last deal, buying a third interest in a summer hotel in the Catskills, had cleaned him. All he had now were his job as houseman, his cauliflower ears and broken nose, his precious scrapbook, the bitter memories of his former glory, and an insane temper. None of the Tigers or other guys who came into the Winthrop fooled around with him the way they did with other housemen, because Feivel could still hit, and his hands were tough and hard, although he was now a scarred and stitched caricature of the boxer he once had been. He was only five feet four inches tall, but when he bobbed and weaved around for the guys, jabbing an imaginary opponent with short solid lefts, he still seemed to have plenty on the ball. But the boys said that Feivel had no sense of humor, for he got sore if one of the guys even gave him a little hot-foot, so they left him alone and practiced their jokes on more affable and less dangerous subjects.

“We’ll be calling those babes soon,” Benny said.

“Right.” Frank nodded.

“Where’ll we take them?”

“Your house?”

“Sure.” Benny slapped him on the back. “That’s what I said we’d do yesterday. Come on, I’ll shoot you a coupla games o’ blackball.”

Feivel racked up the ball and Benny gave him a dime for the first game. Feivel still was muttering and grumbling under his breath, and suddenly he turned to the two strangers who were playing on the table behind them and told them to stop making jump shots.

“Cut it out,” he said to them. “For a lousy sixty cents an hour don’t think you’re going to tear the cloth.”

“Aw, shut up,” the first stranger said. He was about eighteen years old and with a long scar on his left cheek that extended from his forehead to his chin. Ignoring Feivel, he stood hard and compact as he bridged his hand on the table for high right English on the cue ball.

Feivel approached the table and confronted the fellow who had answered him. “All right,” he said, “put your cue in the rack and blow.”

The fellow held his cue tight. “The clock says we’ve got this table for another forty minutes. Now cop a walk, you’re screwing our game.”

The poolroom became quiet, and Frank placed his cue on the table and stepped back. These two guys didn’t know who Feivel was.

“I’m telling you to get out before you get hurt,” Feivel said to the first stranger.

“Come on”—his partner placed his cue in the rack—“let’s go.”

“No,” his friend said.

Feivel raised his voice and clenched and unclenched his hands.

“I’m telling you to blow before you’ll be sorry. Get out!”

“What’s the matter?” the stranger asked him. “Are you supposed to be a hard guy?”

“Hey, buddy,” Black Benny interrupted, “I wouldn’t pick an argument with Feivel. He’s tough.”

“Is he?” The fellow looked mockingly at the irate houseman. “He looks like a punch-drunk pug to me.”

“You bastard”—Feivel tensed—“don’t you call me punch-drunk! I can still lick punks like you with both hands tied behind my back!”

“Take it easy, Feivel,” one of the Tigers taunted him, “or you’ll strain a gut.”

“Shut up!” Feivel swung around and then turned back quickly to the stranger. “I’m giving you your last chance. Are you gonna get out or do I have to knock you around?”

“Why don’t you guys go?” Frank said to them. “Go ahead,” he said anxiously to the fellow who had hung up his cue, “get your buddy out of here.”

“Come on, Lenny,” the fellow said, “let’s go.”

“I’m staying.” Lenny took off his wrist watch and dropped it into a trouser pocket. “Now”—he turned to Feivel—“you son of a bitch, let’s see if you can do anything besides talk!”

Feivel spit on his hands and clenched them tight. “You asked for it, you bastard!” He hunched his left shoulder and tucked his chin behind it. Then he began to shuffle forward, moving his fists in small circles, moving his head in short arcs as he advanced toward Lenny. His eyes were narrowed and he flicked his nose with his right thumb, but there was no spring in his legs, no swiftness of movement, no hint of speed or sudden change of pace.

Lenny watched him circle about and waited for Feivel to rush him. When Feivel moved in Lenny danced aside and clouted him on an ear. With a roar Feivel came in for a clinch, but Lenny maneuvered away from him and ran toward the front of the poolroom where there was more space. Again Feivel rushed him, and Lenny side-stepped and Feivel ran into the wall. For a moment he hesitated, and in that instant Lenny hit him a chopping blow in the back of the neck. Feivel’s head rammed into the wall, and when he turned around his nose was a bloody mess and pain made his eyes wobble.

Now the guys could see that Feivel was worried. He wiped his nose with his left hand, and the blood left a sticky smear on his cheeks and chin. Slowly he shuffled toward Lenny, trying to recall the skill which he had used more than twenty years ago when he had been good and could have killed a kid like this Lenny in less than one minute of the first round. As he inched in he realized for the first time that he wasn’t the man who had battled it to a draw with Lew Tendler. The ease of movement, the artful co-ordination of mind, body, legs, and arms, the swift smile of confidence as he had moved about the ring, happy in the knowledge of his skill and the power of his right hand—all were gone. All he had been doing for the last ten or more years was to talk about how good he’d been and to drag out the old scrapbook and show it to people. That had been enough to keep people afraid of him. But he hadn’t had a workout since he had tried to manage Young Lerner way back in 1933. Now he knew he was slow and through, and what hurt most was not that his nose kept dripping and that the back of his head felt as if it had been rammed by a pile driver, but that the kids in the poolroom, those snotty little Tigers, were watching him take a beating from a kid, and not one of them said anything or tried to stop it. They wanted to see him get a beating—he knew that—for now they saw that he was just a bag of wind, a guy with a big mouth, a punch-drunk pug, a has-been. And that was why he was going to be careful and try desperately to beat the hell out of this kid who stood facing him the way he used to stand a long time ago, waiting for a nervous kid who was new at the game to step in close or rush him. He had to beat this kid, and he wondered if he could. He had to beat this kid or he would never know another moment’s peace in the poolroom.

“What’re you waiting for?” Lenny taunted him. “Come on, I’m waiting.”

Feivel did not answer him. Now he realized how the raw kids who came up against him must have felt. He moved in slowly, his left out and his right moving in a small circle. He tried a tentative jab, but Lenny blocked it easily. Feivel tried the jab again, and in his mind the signal of hope flashed an alert as he saw that the kid covered up all right but that he dropped his right hand just a little. Again the jab, and again the block, and now he saw that Lenny looked a little nervous. In another minute he would try an offensive of his own. Now the kid was set up—about four feet from the wall and with his back toward the telephone booth. Simultaneously, as Feivel shot the left jab and Lenny lowered his guard, Feivel threw his right and the blow caught Lenny in the pit of the stomach. As he involuntarily bent over from the pain and shock Feivel’s hard left fist smashed into his jaw. Lenny straightened up, and Feivel’s right catapulted into his face and he fell against the telephone booth, glanced off, and was met by two driving fists that hit him in the stomach and jaw. Sick and blind with pain, Lenny tried to cover up, but Feivel’s fists kept driving him into the wall, tying him up, smashing him in the stomach and ribs and face, nipping and tearing into bone and muscle and flesh. Lenny’s eyes were puffed and he was almost blind, and now his head was rocking wildly as the fists kept piling into him. Feivel was transfigured. Now he knew it: he could still battle, still hold his own and beat hell out of the stinkers that came into the poolroom, beat hell out of the amateurs who hung around Beecher’s, still have something real like his fists and the remnants of his skill, his knowledge of what to do and how to do it and how to find out what a guy was a sucker for. He could still battle, and now this was going to be it. The right cross had everything he had in it. It started from his hip as he shifted for the punch, went up through his shoulder and into his biceps and forearm, and exploded against Lenny’s chin. Then he stepped back and watched the kid slump to the floor.

No one spoke, and as he turned around and looked at Lenny’s friend the kid backed out of the door, with his lips quivering and his face and eyes filled with horror and nausea.

Then Feivel turned to the Tigers and Frank and Black Benny. “See,” he puffed, “what happens when a bastard like one of you kids gets tough with me? You thought he had me,” he puffed, and wiped his face. “You thought he had me! You thought I was through and that he was going to knock the crap out of me!” He leaned against the first table and breathed heavily with his mouth open. “You thought he had me.” He laughed. “Now look at him! How does he look? Maybe one of you guys wants to look like him? Huh? Maybe? All right, you snotnose little bastards. You little sons of a bitching bastards who think I’m too old to do anything. All right. Maybe one of you wants to do something?”

“No one wants to do anything,” Benny said softly. “We ought to clean that guy up. He looks bad.”

“Sure”—Feivel nodded—“clean him up. But not in here!”

“Be a sport, Feivel,” Benny said, “we’ll take him into the toilet and clean him up.”

Feivel clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. “No, you won’t. All of you”—he suddenly began to scream hoarsely—“get outa here! Get out before I kill you! Get him out too!” Feivel’s voice broke and he gasped as if to keep from crying. “Get him out before I kill all of you!” Then he turned and stumbled toward the counter.

Silently Frank held the door open while Benny and the Tigers carried Lenny into the street.

“You guys better take him down to your club,” Frank suggested.

“Maybe a drugstore would be better,” Benny said.

“No. Because maybe the druggist’ll call the cops and they’ll nab Feivel,” Frank reminded them.

“The son of a bitch deserves it,” one of the Tigers who was helping to carry Lenny said. “He’s crazy.”

“But we don’t call the cops, do we?” Frank asked sharply.

“No,” the Tigers agreed. “We’ll take him to our place and straighten him out.” They turned to Benny. “Can we take him in your car?”