Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [34]
“You got no eye, kid. Honest to Christ. A fork. Did you at least get the spoon?”
“Fuck you.”
“You need to start boosting jewelry.”
“That shit’s all locked up.”
“You need to put together a crew. When I was your age, I stole with five, six other guys. A girl with a cute ass. She bats her eyes, the clerk opens the case.”
“I don’t want to get put away again.”
“At your age? What’d you get, like three months? In kiddy jail. That’s nothing. That’s the cost of doing business.”
“It sucks. It’s boring. The big kids fuck with you and steal your shit. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
“How old are you? Jesus Christ, you’re in the prime of life. You should be boosting everything you can get your hands on. Steal every fucking thing and run like a jackrabbit.”
“Why don’t you?”
Porter’s eyes got big. “I’d go to real jail, kid, and that’s no fucking joke. Not like Henry Avenue.”
“You think I want to go? Back to jail?”
Porter looked around, his eyes going back and forth. “Kid, I got to tell you. Living like this? In this rathole? It’s not that different than prison.”
The night he stole the bag from the Imperial he didn’t smoke, but sipped at a bottle of peach brandy that had been in the apartment when he moved in. He stood in the window a long time, looking down at the cars and the river and working himself up to it. The brandy tasted weird, and he wondered if that was how peaches tasted. He ate a cupcake he’d gotten at Major Wing Lee’s, the little store on the corner. He leaned on the window frame and looked up and down Ridge. The road was busy, and it was getting a little dark, which he liked.
He pictured how it would go, flitting through the shadows, the bag sliding across the table to him like a magic trick. Him and Grace Lei together, dumping out the money onto his mattress, maybe five or ten thousand bucks, and him seeing her smile for the first time, maybe the first time since she came to America. He cupped his hands in front of himself, mentally calculating how much might fit in the bag.
Coming out onto the street he could hear a rising scream, the siren from one of the trucks starting up across the street, and he pressed himself flat against the door like a bug caught in the light. He moved sideways, looking left and right, his back flat against the storefront of the hair place next to the restaurant. He had his watches on and looked at his wrist. Three minutes more, give or take. He stood at the edge of the window and looked in.
Grace was standing at the counter, her back to the street. He looked east up the street for the Chevy but there was a line of cars stretching away toward Philly and he couldn’t tell if it was coming. At the same moment that he saw the bright grillwork of the old Chevy, Luis came out of the back, swinging the bag. The Chevy approached, a few cars back from the light at Midvale. Jimmy’s eyes went back and forth, back and forth, while the car inched along and Luis took his fucking time getting to the front table.
Jimmy crabwalked along the front of the Gardens, his head on a swivel. Luis seemed to be looking out the front door, and Jimmy was ready to drop to his shaking knees if Luis swung his head around. The Chevy was there, three cars back from the intersection, and Luis was still standing at the door. Jimmy could see the Asian kid in the front seat, his cap bright red. Jimmy was breathing hard and mumbling under his breath, Come on, come on. There was a gap open in front of the Chevy and Luis still hadn’t dropped the goddamn bag.
The light changed, going yellow and then red, and the Chevy stopped hard. Luis opened his hand and dropped the bag, turning to the counter. Jimmy took two steps, three and stuck his head in the door. Luis was close, his back turned. There was a line of sweat baked through his massive white T-shirt and he smelled like starch and fried food. Jimmy put his hand out and touched the bag, his hand formed into a hard L shape that scooped it off the table. Luis said, “Hey,” and Jimmy looked up to see who he was talking to and it was Grace, who cocked her head as