Benny thought he did.
He thanked Ganucci for allowing him the opportunity to work in a nice city like New York, especially in a nice location like East Harlem, and then he took a walk over to Thirty-first Street, and looked down at the canal and said ten Hail Marys, aloud, to make sure somebody heard him.
We all make mistakes, he thought, but it did seem he was making more than his share of them lately. He should have told Nanny that she had picked someone who was really too small a potato to be handling the job of getting back Ganucci’s little bastard of a kid. That was what he should have done in the beginning. But, failing that, he should never have tried something as stupid as holding up a card game, especially when somebody as dumb and as sneaky as The Jackass was involved. He wondered where that dumb, sneaky jackass was right this very minute, and then he looked at Azzecca’s ominous envelope and decided he had better open it and find out what was in store for him. He still had $216.00 in the bank, and that would certainly take him to Schenectady at least, if not Hawaii or India. Benny had an aunt in Schenectady who ran a hero stand.
He sipped some more coffee, put down the coffee cup, apprehensively picked up the envelope, and slid off the rubber band.
There seemed to be fifty thousand dollars in the envelope, in hundred-dollar bills.
There also seemed to be a round-trip ticket to Naples in the envelope.
And also a letter:
Benny read the letter again. He counted the money again. He looked at the ticket again. He now had the fifty thousand dollars some madman of a kidnaper had demanded for the safe return of Carmine Ganucci’s son. The only trouble was Carmine Ganucci wanted the money taken to Naples.
For the second time in twelve hours, Benny wanted to weep.
The best fence in town was a man named Bloomingdales, not to be confused with the store of the same name minus an apostrophe. Bloomingdales, the man, had an apartment on 116th Street, just off Lexington Avenue, and it was conceivably the busiest little bargain walk-up in all of East Harlem. People came from near and far to view the merchandise on display in Bloomingdales’ four-room railroad flat. It was rumored that Bloomingdales had once exhibited a stolen grand piano in his kitchen, but Dominick the Guru had never actually seen the Steinway, and was disinclined to accept the story on faith alone. Dominick had, however, seen goods of every conceivable description in those four brimming rooms, and had on occasion been tempted to merely trade his own stolen merchandise for one or another item on display. Radios, television sets, toasters, gold watches, gold pen-and-pencil sets, stereos, umbrellas, cloth coats, fur coats, lamps, gold necklaces and rings, musical instruments, chessmen and boards, a complete set of the novels of Charles Dickens bound in hand-tooled leather, crystal, china, bicycles, tricycles, and once even a Honda, all of these and more, much more, could be found in Bloomingdales’ upstairs bazaar at any day of the week, Saturdays and Sundays included. A person was unlikely to discover silver watches, rings or necklaces, sterling flatware or even silver plate in Bloomingdales’ stock because he generally laid such items off on The Silver Fox, who was expert at determining their value, and who catered to a clientele exclusively interested in sauceboats, ladles, serving platters and other silver pieces in any shape or size. But anything else, ranging from the smallest transistor to the largest combination washer-dryer, with prices starting as low as five dollars and ten cents, and soaring as high as three thousand dollars (the reputed asking price for the Steinway Dominick had never seen) was available to the bargain hunter who didn’t mind running the risk of being charged with violation of Section 1306 of the New York State Penal Law, succinctly defined as Buying, receiving, concealing or withholding stolen or wrongfully acquired property. Moreover, the thieves themselves — shoplifters, pickpockets, burglars, and assorted holdup men and robbers — found it rewarding to deal with Bloomingdales because he was uncompromisingly honest, and paid top dollar besides for whatever they brought to him. The only complaint Dominick had was that Bloomingdales was all the time yelling about his appearance.
“Why don’t you cut your hair?” Bloomingdales said. “Nice Italian boy like you.”
“I like my hair this way,” Dominick said.
“You look like a pansy queer,” Bloomingdales said.
“Lots of girls like the way I look with my hair this way,” Dominick said.
“Lots of girls are crazy, too,” Bloomingdales said. “Why don’t you get a nice haircut like mine?”
“Well, that is a nice haircut,” Dominick said, “but I like the way I look, too.”
“You look like a fruit faggot,” Bloomingdales said.
“Well, lots of girls think I look very masculine with my hair this way.”
“Lots of girls are crazy bull dyke daggers, too,” Bloomingdales said. “You’re a very good burglar, why do you have to wear your hair like that?”
“Well, you want to look at what I brought you?” Dominick asked.
“You know who wears their hair like that?” Bloomingdales asked.
“Who?”
“Crazy fruit pansy faggot queer freaks, that’s who,” Bloomingdales said.
“I got a lot of nice things here,” Dominick said, and opened the large suitcase he had carried up the three flights to Bloomingdales’ apartment. True to his word, he did have a lot of nice things there, including a tortoise-shell comb-and-brush set, a large diamond engagement ring, a radio-alarm clock, a gold choker, a silver tea service...
“I don’t take silver,” Bloomingdales said.
“I thought you might be able to lay it off on The Silver Fox. Isn’t that what you usually do?”
“Usually. But we had a few words, The Silver Fox and me.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dominick said.
“Mmm,” Bloomingdales said. “He called my sister a no-good whore.”
“Why, she’s a very good whore,” Dominick said.
“Don’t I know it? So where does he come off casting aspersions?”
“Well, everybody’s a little crazy every now and then,” Dominick said.
“The Silver Fox is crazy all the time, you ask me,” Bloomingdales said. “Anyway, I don’t take silver no more. This, this, this, and this you’ll have to bring to him directly.”
“How much for all the other stuff?” Dominick asked.
Bloomingdales opened a drawer in a cabinet against the wall, one of the few legitimately purchased pieces in his apartment. He withdrew from it an adding machine that had been stolen from Goldsmith Bros., and quickly ran off a tape. He studied the tape, looked over the material again, nodded, hit another set of tabs, pulled the lever again, looked at the tape again, and said, “Two hundred and six dollars for the lot.” He looked up at Dominick. “Excluding the engagement ring, which I want to have appraised a little before I set a price on it.”
“At least give me an estimate,” Dominick said.
“I think maybe it’s worth another two bills to me, I’ll let you know.”