It was a perfect way to handle payouts. Even if we got caught with the drop money, there wasn't anything the law could do about it. Nobody was going to jail for simply handing somebody a paper bag. Especially a kid.
Not long after I began work for King Benny, I was walking across 10th Avenue, a paper bag filled with money nestled under my right arm. The spring afternoon was warm and cloudless; a mild threat of rain had disappeared with the lunchtime traffic. I stopped at the corner of 48th Street, waiting while two trucks drove past, leaving dust and fumes in their noisy wake.
I didn't notice the two men standing behind me.
The shorter of the two, dressed in tan slacks and a brown windbreaker, leaned across and grabbed my elbow, pulling me closer to him. The second man, taller and stronger, locked one of his arms into mine.
'Keep walkin',' he said. 'Make a sound, you die.'
'Where are we going?' I asked, trying to disguise my panic.
'Shut up,' the shorter man said.
We had shifted direction and were moving toward the waterfront, walking down 47th Street, past a car wash and an all-night gas station. The shorter man tightened his grip on my arm as we walked, his foul breath warm on my neck.
'Here we are,' he said. 'Get in there. C'mon. Stop stallin'
'You guys gotta be nuts,' I said. 'You know who you're takin' off?'
'Yeah, we know,' the tall man said. 'And we're scared shitless.'
The tall man ripped the paper bag from under my arm and pushed me crashing through the front of a tenement doorway. The inside hallway was dark and narrow, blood red walls cold to the touch. A forty-watt bulb cast the stairs and cement floor in shadow. Three garbage cans, lids on tight, were lined up alongside the super's first-floor apartment. Down the far end of the hall a wood door, leading to a cluttered back yard, creaked open.
I was on my knees, watching the two men count the money from the paper bag. They stopped when they saw me staring.
'This is a lot of money for a kid,' the tall man said, smiling. 'Don't know if I would trust a kid like you with this much money. What if you lose it?'
'It's only money,' I said, looking behind me, at the door which led out the back way.
'Whatta ya' get outta this?' the short man asked me. 'What's your cut?'
'Don't get a cut,' I said.
'Then you ain't nowhere as smart as you think,' the short man said.
'Lots of people tell me that,' I said, getting to my feet, rubbing my hands against my pants legs.
The tall man rolled the money back up, rubber bands holding the two bundles in place, and put them in the paper bag. He crumpled the bag again and shoved it inside the front pocket of his jacket. The short man had turned his back to me, checking out the street traffic through the open doorway.
Then the super's door clicked open.
The super, an old man in a sleeveless T-shirt and brown corduroy pants, stood in his doorway staring at the three strangers in his building.
'What you do?' he said in a husky Italian accent. 'Answer me. What you do here?'
'Relax,' the tall man said, his words tight, controlled. 'We were just leavin'. Okay with you?'
'What you do to the boy?' the old man asked, stepping out of the doorway, his arms by his side, walking closer to me.
'They took my money,' I said to the old man. 'They followed me and took my money.'
'You take money?' the old man asked, his voice an angry challenge.
'Kid's talkin' trouble,' the tall man said. 'Don't listen to him.'
'It's in the bag,' I said. 'The money they took is in the bag.'
The super's eyes moved to the paper bag, stuffed inside the tall man's jacket.
'Lemme see the bag,' the old man said.
'Fuck you,' the tall man said.
The old man brought a hand to the small of his back, his manner calm, his eyes steady. The hand came back holding a cocked.38 caliber pistol, its shiny silver cylinder pointed at the tall man's chest.
'Lemme see the bag,' the old man said again.
The tall man took the bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to the old man, careful not to make a sudden move. The old man tossed the bag to me.
'Get out,' he said. 'Use the back door.'
'What about them?' I asked.
'You care?'
'No,' I said.
'Then go.'
I turned around, shoved the bag under my arm, and ran out the building. I jumped the short back fence, cut through a small alleyway and came out on llth Avenue.
I never looked back, not even when I heard the four shots that were fired.
'I need somebody with me,' I said to King Benny. 'What if that old guy hadn't showed?'
'But he did,' a man to King Benny's left said. 'And he took care of it.'
'Maybe next time we don't walk into the wrong building,' I said, sweat lining my face.
'There ain't no next time,' the man said, lighting a cigar.
'Maybe you just ain't up for the work,' another of King Benny's men said. 'Ain't as easy as you was thinkin'.'
'I'm up to it,' I insisted.
'Then there's no problem,' the man behind me said.
King Benny brushed a stream of cigar smoke away from his eyes. His look was cold and steady, his black jacket and slacks sleek and tailored, a large-faced Mickey Mouse watch strapped to his left wrist.
'Whatta ya need?' he asked me, his lips barely moving as he spoke.
'My friends,' I said.
'Your friends?' the man behind me asked, a laugh to the question. 'What do you think this is?'
'It won't cost you extra,' I said. 'You can take the money out of my end.'
'Who are these friends?' King Benny asked,
'From the neighborhood.' I looked directly at him. 'You know their families, just like you know mine.'
The guy behind me threw his hands up in the. air. 'We can't trust no kids.'
'These kids you can trust,' I said.
King Benny brushed aside a fresh stream of cigar smoke, pushed his chair back and stood.
'Get your friends,' he said, then turned and walked toward the rear of the room. 'And Tony,' King Benny continued, without looking back, his shoulders straight, his walk slow, his damaged right leg sliding across the floor.
'Yeah, King?' the man with the cigar in his mouth asked.
'Never smoke in here again,' King Benny said.
FIVE
Fat Mancho was the meanest man in Hell's Kitchen and we loved him for it. He owned a candy store sandwiched between two tenements in the middle of 50th Street. His wife, a dour woman with a thin scar across her right cheek, lived on the second floor of one building. His mistress, who looked to be older than his wife, lived on the third floor of the other. Each woman collected monthly social security checks based on false disability claims. Both checks were signed over to Fat Mancho.
In the back room of the candy store, Fat Mancho ran a numbers operation, keeping for himself a quarter off every dollar that was bet. The store was owned, on paper, by Fat Mancho's mother, who allegedly lived in Puerto Rico and was never seen by anyone in Hell's Kitchen. Fat Mancho, who collected monthly welfare checks, also owned a piece of an open-air parking lot on West 54th Street, near the theater district. Fat Mancho was only in his mid-thirties, but because of his large bulk and unshaven face looked at least ten years older. He cursed at anyone he saw, had trust in only a handful, and made it his business to know everything that went on in the streets around him. Fat Mancho lived the American dream, without ever having to do a day's work.
In Hell's Kitchen, the fast way was the preferred way.
We were standing in front of Fat Mancho's Candy Store waiting to turn on the johnny pump. I had the heavy wrench hidden halfway down the back of my pants; my T-shirt hung out, covering what the jeans could not. John was next to me, an empty can of Chock Full O'Nuts coffee in his hand, both ends cut out. Behind us, two Puerto Rican rummies were giving Fat Mancho heat over the price of a can of Colt.45 Malt Liquor.