Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [78]
There was a basketball game on the courts on Sixth Avenue. A large crowd was gathered around the high Cyclone fence, watching a group of big black men in sweats and T-shirts running up and down the court. When somebody made a basket, the crowd erupted with cheers of approval and cries of exasperation. Harvey stopped to look, but his view was blocked by taller, wider people in front of him. He checked his watch again and continued walking down Sixth, eventually turning east on Spring Street. He rounded the corner and crossed over to the downtown side of the street. A block away from the Dreadnaught, a voice called out to him from a dark green Buick parked in front of a hydrant at the curb.
"Harvey!" said the voice. He stopped, took a few steps back, and approached the car. He leaned over to look inside. Sally Pitera's oversize hand darted out the passenger window and fastened itself to Harvey's collar. He was yanked off his feet, losing a loafer in the process, and pulled, headfirst, into the car. "OW!" he exclaimed.
His face came to rest awkwardly on the floor of the Buick, pressed up against the mat. His feet still stuck out the window at an angle. Sally pulled him up off the floor and into a disheveled but upright position in the seat. Sally slapped him hard across the face. Then he slapped him again, twice. Then again and again as he snarled, "Motherfucker. Motherfucker. Dirty little kike. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna cut out your fuckin' heart. You know what you done? You know what you done, you dirty little prick? You know what you done to me?"
"What? What? What?" Harvey whined. "I didn't do anything!" He put his hands up in front of his face, but Sally pushed them away and continued to hit him.
"I didn't do anything!" protested Harvey.
"The fuck you didn't," said Sally. He grabbed Harvey's upper lip between thumb and forefinger and twisted it around in a tight corkscrew. Harvey squealed. Still holding him by the lip, Sally swatted him across the ears.
"What did I do? What did I do?" implored Harvey.
Sally let go of the lip and began to run his hands around inside Harvey's blue blazer. He moved his fingers up Harvey's back, around the sides, down his front, over his stomach. He felt inside Harvey's thighs, he patted his crotch. He felt inside his pockets, turned them inside out, pulled his shirttails out of his pants.
"Wha', wha', wha'd I do?" asked Harvey, again.
"Are you wearing a wire?" demanded Sally. "Are you wearing a fuckin' wire, Harvey?"
"No!" protested Harvey, in an indignant tone. "What are you talking about?"
"I'll tell you what I'm fuckin' talkin' about," said Sally. "I'll tell you what I'm talkin' about. I'm talkin' about money. Money is what I'm talkin' about. You piece of shit. Cocksucker. Brooklyn money. That's what I'm talking about, you piece of crap. You little ball a dried-up shit!"
Sally hooked his beefy fingers around Harvey's throat and forced his head back, over the seat. Harvey's face, already red, became even redder, turning bright crimson, his eyes bulging out of his head and sweat breaking out over his forehead. "Sop it! Stop it . . ." he gurgled.
"How much?" asked Sally, squeezing harder and pushing Harvey's head further back over the seat. "How much a their money you take?"
"Twenny . . . " gasped Harvey. "Twenny, I took twenny."
Sally released his grip. Harvey coughed into his hands, struggling to breathe.
"Twenty thousand dollars . . . " said Sally. "You go to them for twenty thousand dollars when you owe me. When I told you . . . when I told you to stay away from those guys. Didn't I tell you that before? Didn't I tell you to stay away