“Yo, Franky Novalino. Long time, ya prick. How’d ya get my number?”
“Ya sister. That street corner sideshow would suck the anal warts off a the queer-ass pope for a dime.”
She was the only one of my family to have that number. I told her not to give it to them but didn’t say nuthin’ about guys like Nova.
“Nova, insult my sister and break my heart.”
“Hey, I was just dickin’ wit’ ya. Bonnie is cool. Ricky, listen, no jokin’ …” I hear him breathing hard and halting. “I been shot and Jaw is dead.” Jaw was a crackhead speed freak who’d been doing time in Dannemora. I didn’t even know he was out. I hated that Nova is hanging with him.
“What the fuck you two do? No bull, Nova.”
“We ripped off some Jew jewelers about six months ago. Big score.”
“Nova, ya dumb knucklewit, those are the Jews with who you do not fuck.”
“No lectures, hah, I’m in severe pain. We been hidin’ out in Vegas. Somehow the bastids found us.”
“Somehow? Jesus. Why didn’t ya take a ad out on America’s Most Wanted?”
“It was like they hired the Israeli secret service the way they come at us.”
“What the fuck you want me ta do?”
“Put me up and get me a medic. Fast. My thigh been bleedin’ for hours. Ya know I can’t go ta no hospital. I’m takin’ vycs for the pain. I’m parked in fron’ a phone boot’ in a Vons parkin’ lot on Alvarado off a the Ten.”
“Did you leave Jaw in Vegas?”
“No, he croaked on the way, so I left him on the side a some nowhere exit off a the Fifteen.”
I’m thinking he is one lucky douche bag, ’cause Alchemy has access to a doc twenty-four/seven for Salome. “Okay. Don’t fuckin’ go nowhere. And don’t call no one else.”
“Ricky, I’ll be in the Camaro.”
“Be there in twenty, thirty minutes.” I’m frustrated, but I can’t strand the poor schmuck. He was one of the few dudes who stood up to my dad when he was beating the crap outta me.
I wave to Alchemy, who is now slo-mo soloing with the trampoline. He reads my face that says I got an SOS call. We step outside onto the front lawn. I explain the dilemma. His head’s shaking in disbelief. Still, he gets it right away and surveys the options. “You go. Call me immediately. We’ll meet at the Pantera.” The Pantera been closed by then, but Falstaffa and Marty still live above it. “Don’t use his car. If we can fix him up, maybe we can get him on a boat at the marina and out of here.”
He follows me to my Escalade. “You aren’t holding, are you?
“No.”
“Give me your knife. I’ll keep it in the house.”
I hesitate.
“Give it to me.” I hand him my mettle. “Where’s your Colt?”
“In my room.”
Alchemy tells everyone I got an emergency but gives no other facts. He calls off the Absurda intervention for the night.
I race to the Vons and I spot the Camaro in a deserted corner of the lot. I bang on the fucking trunk. He don’t move. I look in the window and start screaming, “Fran-kee, Frank-ee Fuckin’ Novalino!” I think maybe he passed out. The door ain’t locked so I reach in and — goddamn it, the poor bastard is dead. I kick in the side of his damn car. I’m embarrassed to admit, I want to toss my cell and get my ass outta there, but that’s cowardly shit. I must do right by my man.
I phone Alchemy.
He says, very calm, “Call nine one one. You tell them this. Exactly this: He called you and said he was in deep shit. You tell them he said something about the jewelers, that they were after him. Only he never, never mentioned being shot. Got that?”
“Yes.”
“Never to anyone. Not even me, ever again.”
“Got it. I got it.” We keep that under wraps ’cause if we hadn’t, they would’ve jumped on us for not calling the cops right away, and we — I didn’t need that.
Alchy is on top of the situation. Andrew and a shyster meet me at Parker Center that night. He gets the PR people ready because this hits the news big time, insinuating that I’m involved with all kinds of gang shit.
Alchemy was stand-up through everything. He never blinked. Or talked about tossing me out. At least, not to my face.
41 THE SONGS OF SALOME
Let’s Not Make a Deal
After the performance I felt so high, younger, and more vital than I had in years. I was infatuated with Berlin life and didn’t want to return to America. I needed to. Hilda, who was phobic about flying and had no curiosity about the world beyond Orient, turned down my invitations to join us for Christmas and then again at Easter, which upset me more for Alchemy than for myself. He and I flew back to the States for a month in July.
The city repelled me. I sensated that the inquisitions of friends or former fucks could undo me. I avoided Gibbon and the Hamptons, that summertime G-spot of the self-anointed elite. Xtine drove me to Collier Layne to see Ruggles; he was pleased with my “progress.” I brought a copy of the Teumer photo. “It’s real.”
He raised his eyebrows and fingered his mole. “And?”
“I still mourn for myself and the child, only not in the same fashion. I found renewed faith my body. I forgive myself that indiscretion.” He only nodded.
Before going back to Orient, I crashed for two days with Xtine. We avoided the downtown cliques and ate dinner at the Supreme Macaroni Company. After dinner, the summer air stifled and my head felt as if it were encased in a plastic bag while I gasped for breath. We lolled inconspicuously down Ninth Avenue back to the Chelsea. Before we entered the lobby, from behind I heard an unmistakable voice. “Salome! Salome, please wait.”
Under the dim streetlights and headlights of the cars zipping across 23rd Street stood Lively with his saddle-sized sideburns and shiny cowboy boots. He hovered between the sidewalk and a double-parked black sedan. “Look, Xtine.” I poked her with my elbow. “It’s the archangel of Bad News.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“I do, Laban, so why don’t you — whoosh — vanish.”
“I have tried to help you in the past.” Of course there was a reason he told me about Gus. “And I don’t think what I have to say will qualify as bad news. Can we go somewhere to talk?”
“No.”
He blew his meaty nostrils into a white handkerchief, stuffed it in his pocket, and shook his head in disgust at the sloth around him. “Suit yerself.”
“So, surprise me with your good news.”
“Do you know why Nathaniel chose to go to Berlin?”
“The delicate cuisine?” I asked. He almost smiled as his molten features relaxed. “That’s not it? Hmmm. So tell me.”
“I’d say it’s due to his involvement with underground political groups in East Berlin. Smuggling money in and photographs out. Some of which were published in the West German magazine GEO.”
I’d never read it. “I don’t see how printing photos in a magazine is illegal.”
“It is in Communist Germany. I’d like to help him.”
“Your help he can do without.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. In this case we are both on the same side. There’s an old saw, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. The Stasi is both of our enemies.”
“You will never be his ‘friend.’ ”
“Ally, then.”
“You want me to help you to help him help you?”
“I wouldn’t have phrased it in such a way, but yes.”
“He’ll never pass information on his friends to you.”
“No need. His friends need funds. Supplies. They use a hand-cranked press to print their pamphlets. We can help them upgrade.”
“Why should he trust you? Why should I?”