Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [61]
Petrosino looked around. “You never know. The Black Hand is everywhere. Little Italy. Up in the woods past 100th Street, on the East Side. Why not right on the Ladies Mile with the rich Episcopalians?”
“What?” the squat man behind the bar called to them.
“Two beers,” Dutch replied.
“Grappa,” Petrosino said.
“One beer, one grappa,” Dutch said.
“No grappa, this ain’t no wop house. What I got is a jug of dago red.”
Petrosino nodded, Dutch said, “Okay.”
“I’m not showing off with this getup,” Petrosino said.
“I just came from the Hudson River docks on 23rd Street watching them unload a ship. The Black Hand is stealing some of those shipping companies blind, but I haven’t been able to catch them at it. What can I tell you?”
Dutch drank his beer. “Do you hear about unusual knifings?”
Petrosino didn’t react. “When I pose a question like that to a suspect, it usually means I’m more interested than I want to let on.”
“If you’re that transparent,” Tonneman said, “I would suggest you don’t pose your questions like that.”
“All right. You have your secrets, I have mine.” He rotated the tumbler of wine on the table. “The Black Hand has those who take care of any who cross them. I hear one wields a fine stiletto.”
“I must say, you Italians talk real pretty at times.”
The two smiled goodnaturedly at each other.
“We must have more of these talks in the future,”
Petrosino said. “Who knows what one might know that could facilitate the other?”
The Sicilian sun was warm and good. The young girl had smooth olive skin and big tits. With moist fingers she peeled the grapes and fed them to him. He savored the tart flesh.
Suddenly the grapes were stones. The pain drove him awake.
Marie was always with him, singing a sweet sad love song, promising her tender kiss.
Tony seized the bottle of grappa on the floor next to his bed and filled his mouth with the coarse brandy, then clutched his jaw in agony. He swallowed, took another drink, guiding it away from the left side of his mouth.
He poured tepid water from pitcher to basin and tried to shave. The only place he could stand the feel of the blade was under his chin. He would let his beard grow.
The nick on his throat didn’t bother him, though it was most unlike him, for he was a perfectionist. He knew that only a little pressure and the artery would feel the blade. Death would come in minutes. And for his suicide, he would burn in hell.
He laughed. “What makes you think you won’t burn anyway?” he asked the image of his father in the mirror.
Dressed, he brushed his suit with the damp cloth and reached for the hand organ near the wall. He hesitated. No. Not today. Today he needed to move fast, unencumbered.
One final swallow of grappa. He was going among the micks. That meant he’d have to subsist on watery beer or tasteless whiskey. He would have to be wary because he didn’t look like them and he didn’t talk like them. They would consider him the enemy.
The Harp on Bleecker Street was the fifth mick bar he’d been to. This hole in the wall was near the precinct, where he knew the cops came for the free lunch served with the drinks. He stood at the end of the bar listening.
Next to him was a mick with breath as foul as the dead goat beard on his ugly face. He was running at the mouth about his friend Mulroony and the windfall he’d found in a vacant lot, a nugget of gold. A gold tooth, no less.
Everyone clustered round the goat, some actually drooling.
The goat pushed through the group to relieve himself out back, then returned and lurched along the bar drinking the dregs from glasses. He bumped against Tony, who did not move away. The goat gave him a bleary, pale-blue stare.
“Tim Noonan’s the name. You can call me Wingy.”
“Tell me about Mulroony and I’ll buy you a beer.”
A shrewd glint came into Wingy’s clouded eyes. “I’m fair thirsty. A thirst only whiskey can quench.”
“Beer.”
Wingy sighed. “Beer ’tis, then.”
Tony raised a hand.
Jimmy Callahan took Tony’s measure.