“Frank Digiacomo,” Robinson said. “He owns the place.”
Without taking off their hats or overcoats, the six men sat at a large round table near the front.
“I hear he owns this part of Harlem,” I said.
Robinson shrugged.
“When Bumpy Johnson was around,” I said, “the Italians stayed downtown.”
“Good for colored people to own the businesses they run,” Robinson said.
A big guy sitting next to Digiacomo stood and walked over to our table. Robinson and I were both close to two hundred, but this guy was in a different class. He was thick bodied and tall, with very little neck and a lot of chin. His face was clean shaved and sort of moist. His shirt was crisp white. His chesterfield overcoat hung open, and he reeked of strong cologne.
“Mr. Digiacomo wants to buy you a bottle of champagne,” he said to Robinson.
Robinson put a bite of steak in his mouth and chewed it carefully and swallowed and said, “Tell Mr. Digiacomo, no thank you.”
The big guy stared at him for a moment.
“Most people don’t say no to Mr. Digiacomo, Rastus.”
Robinson said nothing but his gaze on the big man was heavy.
“Maybe we can buy Mr. Digiacomo a bottle,” I said.
“Mr. Digiacomo don’t need nobody buying him a bottle.”
“Well, I guess it’s a draw,” I said. “Thanks for stopping by.”
The big guy looked at me for a long time. I didn’t shrivel up and blow away, so after a while he swaggered back to his boss. He leaned over and spoke to Digiacomo, his left hand resting on the back of Digiacomo’s chair. Then he nodded and turned and swaggered back.
“On your feet, boy,” he said to Robinson.
“I’m eating my dinner,” Robinson said.
The big man took hold of Robinson’s arm, and Robinson came out of the chair as if he’d been ejected and hit the big guy with a good right hand. Robinson was a good-sized guy in good condition, and he knew how to punch. It should have put the big guy down. But it didn’t. He took a couple of backwards steps and steadied himself and shook his head as if there were flies. At Digiacomo’s table everyone had turned to look. The only sound in the room was the faint clatter of dishes from the kitchen. It was so still I could hear chairs creaking as people turned to stare. I was on my feet.
“Sit down,” I yelled at Robinson.
“Not up here,” Robinson said. “I’ll take it downtown, but not up here.”
The big man had his head cleared. He looked at the table where Digiacomo sat.
“Go ahead, Sonny,” Digiacomo said. “Show the nigger something.”
The big man lunged toward Robinson. I stepped between them. The big man almost ran over me, and would have run over both of us if I hadn’t hit him a hell of a left. It was probably no better punch than Robinson’s, but it benefited from the brass knuckles I was wearing. It stopped him but it didn’t put him down. I got my knee into his groin and hit him again with the knucks. He grunted and went down slowly. First to his knees, then slowly toppling face forward onto the floor.
The place was like a tomb. Even the kitchen noise had stopped. I could hear someone’s breath rasping in and out. I’d heard it before. It was mine.
The four men at Digiacomo’s table were on their feet. All of them had guns, and all of them were pointing at us. Digiacomo remained seated. He looked mildly amused.
“Don’t shoot them in here,” he said. “Take them out.”
I was wearing a Colt .45 that I had liberated from the U.S. Marine Corps. But it was still on my hip. I should have had it out when this thing started.
One of the other men, a thin tall man with high shoulders, said, “Outside” and gestured with the .38 belly gun he carried. He was the gunny. You could tell by the way he held the weapon, like it was precious.
“No,” Robinson said.
“How about you, pal?” the gunny said to me.
I shook my head. The gunny looked at Digiacomo.
Digiacomo said, “Okay, shoot them here. Make sure the niggers clean up afterwards.”
The gunny smiled. He was probably good at it. You could see he liked the work.
“Which one of you wants it first?” he said.
At the next table a small Negro with a thin mustache, wearing a cerulean blue suit, said, “No.”
The gunny glanced at him.
“You too, boy?” he said.
At the table on the other side of us a large woman in a too-tight yellow dress said, “No.” And stood up.
The gunny glanced at her. The small Negro with the mustache stood too. Then everyone at his table stood. The woman in the too-tight dress moved in front of Robinson and me. Between us and the gunny. The people from her table joined her. The people from mustache’s table joined them. Then all the people in the room were on their feet, closing on us, surrounding us, making an implacable black wall between us and the gunny. I took my gun out. Robinson stood motionless, balanced on the balls of his feet. From the bar along the far side of the room came the sound of someone working the action of a pump shotgun. It is a sound, like the sound of a tank, that doesn’t sound like anything else. Through the crowd I could see the round-faced bartender leaning his elbows on the bar aiming a shotgun with most of the stock cut off.
The gunny looked at Digiacomo again. They were an island of pallid faces in a sea of dark faces. Digiacomo got to his feet for the first time. His face was no longer amused. He looked at me through the crowd, and at Robinson, and seemed to study us both for a moment. Then he jerked his head toward the big man who had managed to sit up on the floor among the forest of Negro feet. Two of the other men with Digiacomo eased through the crowd and got the big man on his feet. They looked at Digiacomo. Digiacomo looked at us again, then turned without speaking and walked out. The gunny put his belly gun away, sadly, and turned and followed Digiacomo. The other men, two of them helping the big guy, went out after him.
The room was as still and motionless as Sunday in Antarctica. Then Robinson said again, “Not up here,” and everyone in the room heard him and everyone in the room began to cheer.
“Lucky thing this is a baseball crowd,” I said to Robinson.
He looked at me for a moment as if he were somewhere else. Then he seemed slowly to come back. He smiled.
“Yeah,” he said. “Lucky thing.”
F. X. Toole
Midnight Emissions
From Murder on the Ropes
“Butcherin’ was done while the deceased was still alive,” Junior said.
See, we was at the gym and I’d been answering a few things. Old Junior’s a cop, and his South Texas twang was wide and flat like mine. ’Course he was dipping, and he let a stream go into the Coke bottle he was carrying in the hand that wasn’t his gun hand. His blue eyes was paler than a washed-out work shirt.
“Hail,” he said, “one side of the mouth’d been slit all the way to the earring.”
See, when the police find a corpse in Texas, their first question ain’t who done it, it’s what did the dead do to deserve it?
Billy Clancy’d been off the police force a long time before Kenny Coyle come along, but he had worked for the San Antonia Police Department a spell there after boxing. He made some good money for himself on the side — down in dark town, if you know what I’m saving? That’s after I trained him as a heavyweight in the old El Gallo, or Fighting Cock gym off Blanco Road downtown. We worked together maybe six years all told, starting off when he was a amateur. Billy Clancy had all the Irish heart in the world. At six-three and two-twenty-five, he had a fine frame on him, most of his weight upstairs. He had a nice clean style, too, and was quick as a sprinter. But after he was once knocked out for the first time? He had no chin after that. He’d be kicking ass and taking names, but even in a rigged fight with a bum, if he got caught, down he’d go like a longneck at a ice house.