The Hoods (29 page)

With a friendly smile she said, “So, you're Noodles? You're notorious, aren't you?”

I shrugged with indifference. “You know,” she said, “I've worked as a hostess in many speakeasies in my day and I find out it's true.”

“What's true?” I said tonelessly.

“You bad boys are always soft about something. You develop a terrific attachment for a woman, a horse, a dog, a child, a mother, something. It's peculiar how you boys attach yourselves.”

“It's peculiar? Ain't we human?” I whined.

She patted my hand. She smiled apologetically.

“I didn't mean that. I meant it's odd, in a nice peculiar way.”

“Yeh, but I'm not nice. I stink. I tried to rape a girl, my girl.”

I began to pound the table.

I blubbered, “I'm no good. I stink. I'm a bastard.” Tears of self-pity poured into my whiskey. I couldn't control my crying jag. I sobbed openly.

“Sh-sh, people are staring. Please,” she whispered.

“Leave me alone. I only want my Dolores,” I wept.

“Boy, have you got it bad. Excuse me.” She left in a huff.

“Come, Noodles, get hold of yourself.”

It was Helen. I didn't know how long she had been sitting beside me, watching me cry. She wiped my wet face with a napkin.

“Liquor and melancholy songs only make you feel worse. They're like a wind that blows the torch into flame. You've had yourself a good cry. Now go and smother the torch.” She patted my cheek. “You know with what, a pretty girl. I'm surprised at the state you're in. You want me to get you a pretty little girl?”

“No,” I mumbled, “I can get my own.”

“Then go ahead, get some air. Moping around here will only make you feel worse.”

“Yeh,” I muttered.

I dropped a bill on the table without looking at the denomination. I walked out.

I walked east on 52nd Street. A girl fell in step with me.

She smiled and said, “Good evening; out for a good time, mister?”

I said, “Are you Dolores?”

She smiled and nodding understandingly, “For $10 I will be your Dolores.”

She took me under the arm and led me to her place, a small hotel on 47th Street.

In her arms, I let myself go sobbing, “Dolores, Dolores, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Through a $10 proxy I made love and imagined it was with Dolores. But after I was satiated and had paid her more than her fee, I felt depressed and weary. I left, disgusted for having defiled the memory of Dolores.

I looked disheveled and beaten as I walked into Fat Moe's next morning. My entrance interrupted their conversation. I had a feeling I was the topic of discussion.

Max had a half smile and a quizzical look in his eyes.

“We were just talking about you, Noodles.”

I had guessed right: they were discussing me. Behind my back?

“What about?” I growled.

“You look like something the cat dragged in.” Cockeye stood up. He walked all around mockingly examining my appearance in detail.

“You smell pretty ripe, too.” In an exaggerated manner he sniffed as he circled around me.

I was getting peeved. I looked angrily at Cockeye.

Patsy snapped, “Cut the clowning, Cockeye.”

“Lay off Noodles,” Max chided. He turned to me with a sympathetic smile. “You dropped into that spot on 52nd Street last night?”

“Yeh?” I questioned.

“Well, Helen sent this back.” It was a thousand-dollar bill. “She said you dropped it on the table. You were on a bender, and you had a crying jag over a broad.”

I didn't answer.

His voice was soft and placatory. “She said you were carrying a torch over some girl.”

“I was drunk,” I muttered.

“She forgot the name of the broad you were raving about,” Cockeye added. “Anybody we know?”

“Look, Cockeye—” I snarled.

“Cut the crap, Cockeye,” Maxie cautioned. “So Noodles was carrying the torch. So what?” he answered consolingly. “He's entitled.”

He poured me a double. After I had drunk it, I felt a little better. I sat down. Max poured me another. That one changed my point of view. I smiled at Cockeye.

He slapped me on the back. He was apologetic.

“You know I was only kidding, Noodles?” he said.

“Yeh, I deserved it. I guess I was foolish last night.”

Now I was able to think about last night's actions somewhat objectively.

“She must be a pip,” Patsy smiled questioningly.

“Yeh, she's a pip,” I agreed wistfully.

“Funny thing,” Maxie mused, “a guy like you, that knows the score and women inside out, to be affected like that. And after all the women you had.” He shook his head in disbelief. “How many women did you have, Noodles? Starting with Peggy.”

Maxie laughed at his question. Can't count that much.” I shrugged sheepishly.

“That goes for all of us,” Maxie mused. “Well, what the hell, anyway you ought to know by this time, a woman's just a woman.” He puffed on his Corona. “But a good cigar's a smoke.”

Somebody said that once before,” I said laconically.

“Somebody did?”

Max couldn't believe it. “That guy who said it must have been a smart guy, as smart as I am.” Max chuckled.

He leaned back expansively, spreading out in his chair. He puffed rings of smoke up at the ceiling.

He soliloquized, “Smart guys like us ought to know better than anybody else; we had all kinds of broads, all shapes, all sizes, all colors, all nationalities. Yep, you turn them all upside down: you got the same thing.”

Max hesitated, he watched the smoke rising to the ceiling. He was at a loss for words.

He turned to me. “Ain't that right, Noodles?” He chuckled. “Ain't that right?” he repeated. “A woman is a woman. You turn them all upside down, and you find the same thing.”

“Not all the time,” I answered drily, “not when you turn a hermaphrodite over, then you get a surprise, hey, Maxie?”

He laughed uproariously at the thought.

Cockeye asked, “What's a hermaphrodite got, Noodles?”

“Everything,” I laughed.

That laugh and Maxie's disjointed talk on women in general did me good. I sat smoking and taking stock of myself. What was this silly feeling, this supposed love for Dolores? It was hard to define. Like every emotion I felt, I tried to analyze it.

There were days, weeks, months when not even a thought of her would enter my mind. And even if it did, I would give it cursory attention or dismiss it. At other times, like the other day when she called Moe and I spoke to her, her voice acted like magic inside me. It released something. Best thing is never to allow myself to hear of her, about her or anything. The hell with her, for good.

Maxie looked at his watch. “Okay, let's get moving.”

“What's stirring, Max?” I asked as we walked out.

“Oh, I forgot you didn't know. I got a call from the office last night. We got to be at Frank's house.”

“Have you got an idea what the Big Guy wants?” Patsy asked as we drove uptown.

Max shrugged. “I don't know. I got the message last night from the main office. All they said was 'Be prompt at Frank's house at Central Park West.'”

Cockeye at the wheel said, “I thought he was still in New Orleans.”

“Hey, Max,” Patsy's voice sounded incredulous. “You mean to say the Boss is up early in the morning taking care of business, already?”

Maxie said, “That guy is the hardest working man in the Combination. His day begins before seven and he works until one, two, three in the morning. I've heard that sometimes he works all around the clock.”

Cockeye asked, “Does he pay himself time and a half for all the overtime he puts in?”

“He does all right for himself,” Maxie assured him. “He draws ten grand a week on slot machines alone.”

I whistled.

“That's half a million a year on slots alone,” I said.

“How about the booze, beer, gambling casinos, dog tracks, night clubs, real estate and other legit businesses he operates?” said Maxie.

“Goddamn,” Patsy said. “What do you think his entire take is, Max?”

Max shrugged. “Who knows? I bet he don't know himself. I'd take a guess anywhere from ten to fifteen million a year.”

Cockeye scoffed, “Can a guy live on that?”

Maxie said reminiscently, “Do you remember, Noodles, when he first started in as a guard at the floating crap games for fifteen bucks a night?”

I said, “Yeh.”

Max continued, “Then he started operating his own games. I can tell you guys something. Whoever played in any of his games was sure of a fair shake of the dice. Nothing phoney in the places he operated. Everything was on the up and up. He had the goods to get where he is today. He's got balls. Plenty of character. When that man gives his word on anything, he'll keep it, even if it means his life or ten million bucks. Ain't it right, Noodles?”

“Yeh. He's quite a guy,” I agreed. “He never welshed on anything in his life.”

Cockeye turned into Central Park West. We rode up a few blocks.

“That's the house, under the awning,” Max said.

Cockeye stepped on the clutch, pushed the shift lever into neutral and taxied the big Caddy smoothly under the canopy.

The doorman of the tall, pretentious apartment house opened our door with a pleasant smile of recognition. The four of us got out with Big Maxie leading the way.

In the outer lobby, two husky hall-men in gray uniforms came towards us. They nodded pleasantly.

One of them said, “Just a minute, fellows. Orders are orders. I have to get the okay from upstairs first.”

He went to the house phone, put in the plug and whispered a few words into the mouthpiece. He turned back to us with a smile and said, “Okay.” He escorted us through the inner lobby into the elevator. We shot to an upper floor.

Maxie pushed the button for the apartment. A smiling colored man in a white coat opened the door with a cheerful “Good morning, gentlemen.”

He took our hats and waved to the bar, asking “Something from there, or some coffee? The Boss will be out in a few minutes.”

Max said, “Well have an eye opener.”

“Certainly, Mr. Max, this way, gentlemen.”

He led us into the barroom. It was as luxuriously and tastefully furnished as any of the most exclusive cocktail lounges in New York. The bar itself was built of imported blue tile from Italy. At one end was a familiar object which seemed incongruous with the rest of the expensive furnishings—a slot machine.

The colored houseman poured our drinks.

“Ice, soda or water, gentlemen?”

“Nothing. Just plain, thank you,” Maxie replied. “How have you and your wife been?”

“We're both in the best of health, thank you, Mr. Max.”

This colored houseman and his wife had been with Frank a good many years, since his rise to affluence. An unpretentious staff, I thought, for a man of his position and wealth. What the hell. He's probably never home, and this doesn't look like such a big apartment anyway. I understood he had about ten other apartments and homes in different parts of the country. This was sure a different set-up from the old, dark, railroad flat he was brought up in. Yeh, this was a long way from the heart of the slums of East Harlem.

Our backs were to the door. On our second round of drinks, I heard someone enter the room.

Then a low-pitched pleasant voice said, “Hello, there. How are you boys?”

We turned around. There he stood, both arms outstretched, a smile of welcome on his tanned, cleanly shaven, swarthily handsome face. He was dressed in a royal purple dressing gown with a sash tied around his slim waist. It accentuated his wide shoulders. A white monogrammed kerchief stuck prominently from his upper left-hand pocket. His black hair was sleeked back from his forehead.

Somewhere, in some art gallery, I have seen a picture of a medieval king. There was the same confusing combination of coarseness and fineness in this face, the same prominent nose, the same piercing, intelligent and understanding eyes.

He was a king, all right. He was the kingpin hoodlum of the world at whose command an army of several thousand desperadoes, in every city and state in the country, would rise and serve. In every action, in every word, he exuded supreme confidence in himself.

“Francisco,” Big Max exclaimed as he saw him.

They embraced warmly. Obviously there existed a genuine affection between them. He gave each of us a warm, firm, lingering handclasp, and greeted us by name. He had a slow smile accompanied by a sharp discerning look. He joined us at the bar. We drank to his health. His manner was gracious. His bearing was suave, alert and rough, all at once. In a subtle way he asked Max leading questions. Max gave him a full resume of our activities. He nodded approval. His speech was the speech of the soup school alumni. He often substituted the letter “d" for “th”. He was direct and to the point.