Mike.” Teddy loosened his belt a notch and closed his jacket. “Anyway, I haven’t got time to worry about it right now. I got Jackie and Sal coming down from New York to talk about something next week.”
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know. Something to do with the Commission. Some fuckin’ thing where they want to make a ruling.”
“Jackie. Ha?” Vin scratched his ass and looked impressed.
“Twenty-five years ago, guys from his crew would come into town and make me run to get their cigarettes.” Teddy patted his abdomen like he was trying to calm an anxious child inside. “We come a long way. Now they treat us like equals.”
“The way it should be,” said Vin.
“I remember when the old man Ang from Philly used to come into town with Johnny Blowjob and they used to treat us like their shoeshine boys.”
“Somebody shoulda put a bullet in his head long time before they did,” said Vin.
The old lady flushed the toilet and came out, barely acknowledging the two men as she went back to her bedroom.
Teddy took out an unfiltered cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. “You know what the problem was with that old greaseball?” he asked Vin. “He was like a pay toilet. He wouldn’t give a shit for nothing. He had dozens of young guys like you and me doing work for him, but never showed any gratitude. From ’57 to ’76 he wouldn’t open the books and make anybody. Remember? We were prisoners.” Teddy squinted through the smoke, still smarting from the memory. “He wouldn’t move any of us up in the organization. Oh, he was an old hard-on.”
Vin shrugged and sat against the rusty sink. “Well, now you know how Anthony feels,” he said to Teddy. “He’s a young guy, just like we were, and he don’t have any way to move up and make some money.”
Teddy gave him a look that was meant to cut like a buzz saw. “Don’t give me any more grief about that, Vin. I’m under enough pressure already.”
He coughed three more times and spit something else into the toilet. Before Vin could see what it was, Teddy flushed it down.
“Will you at least think about it, Ted?” Vin pleaded. “We been together a long time. It would mean a lot to me. At least let him handle the envelope.”
Teddy let the cigarette dangle out the side of his mouth, Humphrey Bogart-style. His face was splotchy and there was no luster in his slicked-back hair. “I’ll think about it. If you’ll think about getting him off my welfare roll. It’s embarrassing having to support my own niece.”
Vin looked like he would have fallen on his knees and kissed Teddy’s pinky ring if the floor hadn’t been so damp.
“Thanks, Ted. I feel more a man after talking to you.”
Teddy took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it warily, as if it had done something to offend him.
“You’re a good father, Vin,” he said, putting a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “That kid don’t deserve you.”
5
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Larry DiGregorio’s murdergrew like a fungus in my mind. I couldn’t get rid of this image of him lying there with his wig off and the ice pick in his kidney. I kept thinking the police were going to come by my house at any minute and take me away from my kids. I loved Vin, but I had to get away from him and his crew. Their lifestyle was contaminating me.
And then I got my chance.
I had an appointment on a hot Monday morning with a guy I knew named John Barton. We were supposed to meet at the local P.A.L. and talk about some drywall work he wanted me to do on his garage.
He was a funny kind of guy, John B. He had a long angular face, coalblack skin, and tinted aviator glasses that made him look like some bad-ass pimp hustling girls on Pacific Avenue. But once you got to know him, you realized he was actually a very sweet, soft-spoken guy who painted boats for a living. He was so pathetically shy that he almost never looked you in the eye, and when he talked you had to lean in because he swallowed half his words.
Except when the subject was his older brother Elijah, former middleweight boxing champion of the world. When he talked about Elijah, John B. suddenly got the heart of a lion. Everything he said became clearer and more articulate. Even his posture changed, so he stood up an extra six inches and looked you straight in the eye.
I found him hanging out by the doorway, trying to feed a crumpled dollar into a vending machine. I traded him for a smoother bill and asked him how he was doing.
“Fine,” he said in his regular mealy-mouthed voice. “Wanna meet my bro?”
“Say what?”
“I’m askin’, do you-all wanna meet my brother?”
That was the other thing about John. Every time you saw him, he’d ask if you’d like to meet his brother. It was kind of sad. He just assumed that was the only reason anyone would want to talk to him.
“Sure. I’d like to meet your brother someday.”
“He’s here today, man,” said John B., who wore a baseball cap with the name of a battleship his brother once fought on.
I looked around the gym and saw a skinny black kid jumping rope on the scabby red floor and an out-of-shape cop doing situps on a crusty slant board. Finally, I noticed a middle-aged man standing in the boxing ring near the back, red-gloved hands on hips, trying to catch his breath. I didn’t recognize Elijah Barton at first. He was about twenty pounds heavier than I remembered him and his face was barely visible under his headgear. But here he was, slowly beginning to move around the ring with a strong-looking kid who had to be half his age.
By my calculations, Elijah had to be at least forty-three. He hadn’t been champion for nine years. I hadn’t even seen his last six fights. But as he ducked under one of the younger kid’s punches and swung his arms like a woodsman about to chop down a tree, he didn’t seem overly frail.
“What’s he doing here?” I moved closer to get a look. “Trying to get in shape?”
“He gonna make a comeback.” John followed me, sounding protective. “He gonna move up to light heavyweight.”
I watched as the younger kid moved forward and hit Elijah with a sharp jab that he should’ve seen coming when he woke up that morning.
“You sure he wants to do that?”
“He’s just got to get hisself back to being the way he was—you understand what I’m saying?” said John B., unfazed, as the words whistled through a space in his teeth. “Been away a long time.”
I noticed how little resemblance there was between the brothers, even though John B. was just a couple of years younger. Probably the benefit of not getting beat up night after night.
“Well listen. What about this drywall work?”
“Wha?” he said, swallowing his words again now that the subject wasn’t his brother anymore. “I don’t remember what I said to you.”
“Drywall. The job we were talking about. The one I was gonna bring in for twelve hundred for you?”
“Oh” His face went slack. “Well I been askin’ around. And, uh, I talked to a man said he could bring it in for eight hundred dollars.” He seemed embarrassed about getting a better price.
All right fuck you, I was going to say, but something stopped me. I was watching his brother. He was right up against the ropes, about ten feet away, when the younger fighter hit him with a solid left hook. Elijah’s head snapped back. But by standing this close, I could see the blow wasn’t as devastating as it might have been. Elijah had turned his chin just enough to take the force off the shot.
“He always take a punch like that?”
“Last five years,” said John B., “he learned to take three for every one he throws. Kept his career alive.”
