-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Squad
Michael Milan
Rose Ann Levy and Shadow Lawn Press�1989
Shapolsky Publishers, Inc.
136 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 1001
ISBN 0-944007-52-X
304 pps. � First/only edition[there is also a UK printing] -- Out-of-print
--[3]�
Boss of All Bosses
It was 1947 and I had been out of the Navy for two years, my chest still
popping buttons 'cause we'd won the war. At first I just knocked around the
streets, picking up action here and there and letting friends of friends know
I was back in town and looking for work. I sold used cars off the books for a
local gas station owner I knew from before the war. It was a legit cover for
putting new paint and plates on the buggies his friends had snatched for
their out-of-town heists. I made unannounced visits to merchants in the rag
business who were not paying their vig to my clients on time. And I settled
disputes between the boys from Little Italy and the few Jewish businessmen
who still stayed on the Lower East Side. Today you'd call me a financial
consultant. They paid me for keeping the peace. I'd been working indirectly
for one of Frank Costello's underbosses at the time, but I didn't know it.
I had never met Frank Costello, but I'd certainly seen him and heard about
him from people I knew. He had a reputation for hardly ever speaking to
anyone in public. Mostly he spoke with his hands and his eyes. He would
point. He would make a fist and shake it at someone. He would turn his thumbs
down. To make a comment, sometimes he would shrug his shoulders and grunt
from deep inside his belly. And when he spoke in words, he growled like it
hurt him to breathe. Or he hissed in a whisper that was like a knife.
"You don't talk to Frank Costello," old Sam Koenig once told me years before
as Mr. C.'s limousine pulled up to the curb. It was a warm spring day and the
first time I'd ever seen Mr. C. in person. "You don't even look at him unless
he looks at you." I was twelve years old then and had just started collecting
the skim from Meyer Lansky's crap games. I kept a good count and was always
on time with my deliveries. Mr. Lansky had told me that he was going to move
me up in the organization. Sam Koenig and I were watching Frank Costello get
out of a car in front of Pollack's fruit stand on Essex Street. Mr. Costello
was a round man with short arms and legs, and he needed the help of his two
button men just to make the step down from the car's running board. A small
crowd had gathered, but they pretended nothing was happening. Frank Costello
shaded his eyes with his hat brim as he pushed his way along the sidewalk. He
stopped in front of us, paused just long enough to look Koenig directly in
the eyes, and then swaggered up to the fruit bins. He motioned quickly with
his hands at the crates of fruit, making two's and three's with his fingers
over each fruit as if he was putting a hex on 'em or something. Then he
inspected each paper bag as Pollack handed them over. Mr. Costello dug around
in a bag of apples, pulled out an orange, held it up to his face, handed it
back to Pollack, and looked over at Koenig who seemed to nod before turning
away. Frank Costello went back to his car without looking back in our
direction and drove off towards Delancey Street. That was the only time I saw
him in person before we had our first meeting.
Now it was early November and the weather had just turned chilly. I was
twenty-three. My life was about to change because Frank Costello wanted a
sitdown. I didn't know why he wanted to see me, but I wasn't worried because
the message was delivered with a basket of strawberries. Strawberries were my
favorite fruit and the button man who brought them, a pal named Augie from my
Grand Street Boys Club days, knew it. It was the Family's way of saying
you're not in any trouble. The heads of the syndicates always sent messages
with fruit or flowers because it was their way of throwing cops or Feds off
the scent. Augie didn't even have to say anything. He just handed me the
strawberries and motioned to a car in the street. Then he rolled his eyes all
the way back and nodded big. That told me it was either Mr. C. or somebody
close to him.
We drove back to my place where I got dressed for the occasion. I knew it was
important and asked Augie to do me a favor and wait while I put on my special
white-on-white linen shirt and searched for my best ruby cufflinks, the ones
that sent red sparkles on the ceiling when they caught the light. I picked
out my new black suit and wore a gray fedora with a little feather in the
band. Anything less would have been a sign of disrespect. I was spending a
lot of time in front of the mirror and knew that Augie was getting restless.
He grunted a few times and paced real loud outside my bedroom door while I
straightened my tie just right and slicked down my hair. I was proud of the
way I looked and still wanted the chance to go out to Hollywood and show my
stuff. I knew I was taking too long getting dressed, but I wanted to get a
good crease in the tie. I strutted back and forth in front of the mirror like
Jimmy Cagney in The Roaring Twenties, until I could hear Augie's shuffling in
the next room getting louder and louder.
"I have to pat you down before we get into the car, Mike," Augie said when I
came out of the bedroom. We'd had our share of street fights in the past, and
I could tell he was a little scared about challenging me. "No insult, you
understand. It's the house rules." He held out his hands and I turned around.
He ran his hands around my wrists, under my arms, around my chest, and all
the way down my legs to the ankles. He was looking for a knife as well as a
gun. "They might pat you down again when we get there just to make sure I did
my job."
I shrugged my shoulders and let him know without speaking that I understood.
More than a few of the old dons had been rubbed out by messengers who'd been
well paid for a one-in-a-million hit. I really wanted to know where this guy
was taking me, but it was against the rules to ask. Also, to ask would have
been a sign of cowardice or at least a lack of trust-something that a
Sicilian would take very personally. From the minute he handed me his basket
of strawberries, I knew that I was being watched very carefully. Whatever
this was, it had to be important.
We drove very leisurely across Houston Street towards Delancey, letting the
trucks pass us and staying close to the curb. The wheelman didn't want to
draw any attention or wind up in any scrapes. And when we pulled up in front
of Marshioni's soda fountain, I knew that Mr. Costello bad chosen the place
to make our meeting as private as possible. This was not one of his regular
stops. The car pulled up short and I waited for Augie to open the door. I
knew all the rules: make no moves on your own, let them take you where you're
supposed to go, and keep your fucking mouth shut.
On the street in front of Marshioni's there was nothing out of the ordinary.
I saw two of Mr. Costello's men wearing overcoats with the collars turned up,
their hands stuck in their pockets like they were wrapped around the handles
of ice cold revolvers. Two older men were playing bocce ball near the corner
like they were still on a farm in the old country. One of them looked up to
see who was getting the treatment. It was "Tommy Ryan" Eboli, an old
caporegime from Prohibition days. He was allowed to break the rules
"You're coming up in the world, young man," Mr. Eboli said, and I suddenly
felt unprotected. I didn't know Tommy Ryan and I could have sworn he didn't
know me. Or maybe he didn't have to. He only had to know that anybody who
gets limoed up to meet the Boss of all Bosses is going somewhere in the
world. He was right. I didn't know what was in store for me, but I knew
things were changing quickly. The driver opened the door to Marshioni's and
mybutton-man friend motioned for me to sit at the counter. He left. I waited.
My mouth was dry and I would've loved to put away a strawberry ice cream
soda, but the kid behind the counter didn't come over. He had his orders,
too, I figured, so I just sat there counting the paper napkins in the metal
holder. I really wanted a soda.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door to the back room slowly open. I
didn't turn around to face it, but cocked my head slightly so I could keep it
in view while I pretended I was playing with the napkins. One of Mr.
Costello's men peeked around the door, saw where I was sitting, and ducked
back inside. Then a different man came out and walked toward me, making sure
that no one was looking at him. He stood behind my stool and grunted, making
a sound like was clearing his throat. When he caught my eye, he motioned with
his head toward the back room. I got up, and he followed me to the back.
The room was darkened, with only daylight coming through a wire-screened
window with a frosted-glass pane. Through the shadows I could see that there
were three men all standing around a table, but no Frank Costello. They
motioned for me to sit, and I did, glancing around the room quickly to see
the men's faces and what they were doing with their hands. You can't ever let
button men see that you're watching their hands because then they get edgy. I
put my own hands on the table and waited without trying to shift around in my
chair too much. Another test. If I was too nervous, they would tell that to
their boss. On the other hand, I couldn't be too cocky and look as if I
didn't have a care in the world because they would tell their boss that I had
no brains. Nobody who sits down the with the biggest boss in the city can be
cocky. I figured I had to show that I was a little nervous because that was a
sign of respect. It meant I was being careful around people I had to be
careful around.
I had grown up in Marshioni's but had never been in the back room before. I
also realized while I was sitting there that Mr. Costello must have known
that it was part of my neighborhoodnot his-and had set our meeting there as a
sign for me to interpret. He expected me to understand that. That was an even
greater sign of respect. Now I knew why he was the Big Boss. I really was
coming up in the world.
The rear door opened, throwing a bright shaft of afternoon light into the
darkened room. My eyes didn't adjust in time to see Mr. Costello swagger
through the doorway. I only saw his outline standing over the table as the
door closed behind him. I stood up and took his outstretched his hand.
"Bongiorno, padrone," I said as I held his hand and looked down.
He motioned for me to sit and then pointed to one of his men who hustled out
of the room. He said nothing, but looked me up and down as if he was
inspecting me or something. I knew that the suit I put on was the right thing
to have worn for the occasion. Mr. Costello's man returned with two small
cups of thick, black Sicilian coffee and put them down in front of us. I
waited until Mr. C. picked up his cup and held it out over the middle of the
table. I did the same with mine, but kept it lower than his.
"Salude," he said and slurped his coffee. I waited until he drank and then
put the hot, steaming cup to my lips. The coffee burned the insides of my
mouth and I felt my eyes tear, but I took a slow drink as if I felt nothing.
Mr. C. put his cup down and leaned forward across the table. "You have
friends among the Good People, and they have told me what you did in the war
and what you are doing now." His voice was almost a whisper, harsh and broken
as if it was hurting him to speak. He nodded, giving himself approval for
what he had just said. "But everything you have done is in the past. It has
only brought you to this table. From now on you will be judged by what you
will do for me. It is your future we talk about now." He paused again. His
lips moved, but he made no sound.
Frank Costello took another long swallow from his coffee cup. He drained it
dry, put it back on its dish, and pushed it across the table towards the man
who had brought it. Then he waved it away with a gesture that meant there
would be no second helping. He looked at me again. "I am going to ask you to
do something for me. If you are successful, I will ask you to do other
things."
One of Mr. Costello's men handed him a small bag of oranges which he turned
upside down so that they all rolled across the table. "When you have done
what I ask you to do, you will buy some fruit," he whispered, pointing with
the edge of his finger out the window to Pollack's fruit stand a few blocks
away. "If the fruit you put in one bag is of all the same kind, I will know
that you have succeeded. If you mix the fruit in any way, I will know that
you have not succeeded."
Now he leaned forward across the table, rested all of his weight on his
elbow, and pointed his little finger directly at me. The ring on it was only
inches away from my nose. His breath was thick and you could hear the
rumbling of congestion deep in his chest. He was a man who had chained up his
emotions, but you knew that his dark, heavy Sicilian blood raged inside of
him. He lived, like all of us, between a controlled fury and a grinding fear.
"You and 1, we will never talk. But people who know you and who you trust
will tell you what I want." He took a deep breath and grabbed me by the shiny
lapel of my black sharkskin jacket, pulling me in even closer so that no one
else could hear us. "Very soon now, someone I send to you will you show you a
line between our side and their side. He will say that you must walk that
line. Walk it, Michael my Enforcer, but never cross it." Then he sat back in
his chair and wiped his dripping mouth. Without another word, he drew his
finger through the air between us, signalling the end of our sitdown. Then he
looked away quickly and got up. The meeting was over. I would see him plenty
oftimes after that, but I would never speak to him again.
Augie waited in the room until his boss had left. "You hungry, Mike?" he
asked. Hungry? I coulda pissed right down the leg of my new black suit. "You
wanna drive over to Ratner's or something? Maybe we have a little abboccamento
with someone the boss thinks you should meet. You tell me what to eat there,
huh?" he said.
I just wanted a fuckin' soda, but I knew this guy had more business with me.
"Yeah," I said. "What the hell, we'll get some blintzes."
"That's right, blinsiz," he laughed, haw-hawing as if I'd told him he'd have
to wear a skirt and bra to his next hit. "Well eat blinsiz." So we left
Marshioni's in the same car that we came in but with a different wheelman.
He said nothing as we drove down to Delancey again where we made a left
toward the Williamsburg Bridge. We made a U-turn across Delancey and parked
around the corner from the restaurant. As we got out of the car, Augie
pointed his finger at the wheelman and then motioned to the curb. He was
telling him to wait for us. That meant we were still on company time.
Ratner's wasn't crowded at that time in the afternoon. The regulars who ate
lunch there had gone and it was still too early for the regulars who ate
dinner. In fact, there were more waiters than customers and not one of them
was under seventy. They were all stooped over and shuffling back and forth
like old men in a rest home on their way to the bathrooms. Augie motioned to
the waiter nearest us that he was going to a small table in the back of the
place far away from the door and facing the front. There was a man in a
pinstripe suit already sitting there reading a newspaper. He must have been
waiting for us to arrive.
The waiter looked at the man sitting down and back at us. Then, as he slowly
handed us the menus, Augie waved them away and barked, "Just bring us
blin-siz and coffee and leave us alone." The waiter kept on nodding as Augie
gave him orders, tucked the menus back under his arm, and then through his
thick glasses, looked directly at me with a blank expression that seemed to
be asking:
�Nu, Mendel, bischt einer Mensch?
He didn't stay long enough to find out whether I was going to act like a mensc
h or not. Instead, he shuffled off to the kitchen to order the blintzes.
Augie and I walked to the table where he sat down and motioned for me to do
the same. The person who was already sitting there said nothing. He didn't
even look up from his paper.
"Blin-siz," Augie said to himself like he was trying out the word in his
mouth so he could remember how to say it later. "Blinsis. Hey, these better
be good Mikey 'cause you're one of us now."
The waiter came back with pickles, water, and a basket of bread. He plopped
them in front of Augie with a thud, making sure that some of the water
splashed on the tablecloth. It was a Jewish waiter's typical reprimand. Augie
turned to him with a slow glare.
"Didn't I tell you to just bring the food and leave us alone?"
Again the waiter looked at me like I was to blame. I leaned over to Augie.
"Probably doesn't speak English," I said. "Wouldn't understand what we're
talking about."
Augie nodded. It made sense. He motioned to the man in the suit sitting
across from us. "Mr. C. wants you to meet someone, Mikey," he whispered. "His
name is not important. Just listen to what he says and do what he tells you
to do."
The man in pinstripes put down his paper and looked at me. "We want you to
talk to someone for us. The man's name is David Balin and he runs a small
brokerage house down on Rector Street called Murphy Simpson and Associates."
He paused to let me get all these my names in my head. Then he continued:
"The Murphy Simpson company has been doing business with the other Families
for years. We just want them to work for us exclusively. If that means we
have problems with the other Families, we can take care of that ourselves."
"I don't have to tell you that you never write anything down, right?" Augie
interrupted. "It all stays in your head. Names, dates, phone numbers,
figures, everything. The boss wants nothing in writing. That way when you
tell the cops you don't remember nothing, the DA can't shove some piece of
paper in your face and hang you on your own handwriting." I already knew
about that from Meyer Lansky.
The man in pinstripes continued. "The person we are all working for has a
number of businesses that are completely legitimate. He wants investors for
them. He wants a brokerage house that he controls to manage issues of public
stock, find underwriters for it, handle our employer's own accounts, and that
sort of thing. He needs to trust the people that handle his money." This guy
had to be a lawyer, I said to myself. Why was I here? I didn't know what the
fuck he was talking about. "Needless to say," he said anyway, "we're looking
for a brokerage house small enough and private enough where our business can
get special attention. Eventually, we might want to become partners with that
brokerage house. Eventually. But we want a partnership option at the outset
in case we want to exercise it in the near future." I still didn't know what
he was talking about.
"That's where you come in, Mikey," Augie said, holding a dripping sour pickle
in his fingers and looking for the best end of it to bite. He closed his eyes
and chomped off the tip like it was a cigar. Then he put it down as
Pinstripes handed him a brown envelope. He talked and chewed his pickle at
the same time. "We want you to take this to Balin, push it under his nose
and. .." Pinstripes shifted in his chair, nervous and jumpy. He cleared his
throat and glared and Augie shut up.
"Mr. Balin, who has represented the company ever since Murphy Simpson died,
has done business with some of our associates but never with�" he paused, and
I got his meaning, ". . . but never directly with us. We've spoken to him
through lawyers, but now we feel it's time for a more straightforward
approach. Someone he's never seen before. Someone young who won't attract a
lot of attention. A war veteran, like yourself, who isn't really associated
with the rest of the company."
It was all clearing up. No one knew me outside of the neighborhood and I had
never been in any real scrapes with the cops. Mr. C. didn't want to send his
muscle down to the Street because they'd be spotted before they even got out
of the car.
"The trick is to get you inside his office without kicking down his door or
announcing that you're there on behalf of our company," Pinstripes said,
picking up his newspaper and showing me a want ad. "This was in yesterday's Wa
ll Street Journal." I started reading the ad. "You can read it for yourself
on the way down," Pinstripes sniped, grabbing up the paper." It simply says
that Murphy Simpson and Associates is looking for a young man�preferably a
veteran to train as a runner and eventually as a salesman. That's you." I
preened.
"You walk in there, Mikey, like some honest Joe Dogface answering the ad. You
don't have any experience, but you�re a war veteran and you're willing to
learn, get it?" Augie said. "So the old broad outside Balin's door thinks
you're a real looker that she wants to see in the office every day. So she
says to her boss that there's a, a. . ." He turned to Pinstripes, who said:
"A bright young man?" "That's it," Augie agreed. "A bright young man. She
says to her boss: 'There's a bright young man out here who's answering our
ad.' He lets you into his office, you go in, you take this envelope out of
your pocket, and put it on his desk. You tell him you�re our delivery boy and
that this is his last chance to stay in business. He reads what's inside and
he'll get a partner that'll make him a lot of money. He refuses and he's out
of business for good. You don't argue with him. You don't even have a
conversation with him. You give him the envelope, turn around, and scram."
The waiter walked up with a plate of cheese blintzes and sour cream. Augie
paused while the waiter put the food down. Then he continued. "We coulda
given this to anyone, Mike, but Mr. C. wants you to do it. You know, he wants
you to get broken in on the up-and-up side of things." Augie looked down at
the plate of cheese blintzes and sour cream. "We'll eat and then we'll all
drive down there in the same car." He picked up a blintz and looked it over
like it had just fallen out from under a car. He took a bite. "Blin-siz," he
said slowly, as he chewed.
We ate, finished our coffee, and got in the car. We reached Rector Street
where we parked a half a block away from the building. Augie handed me the
envelope and patted me on the shoulder.
"He's up on the fifth floor," he said, and pointed to one of the hundreds of
windows in the buildings in front of us. "Do it just like we told you. Don't
threaten him in any way and don't you even put a finger on him. Well wait
here."
I walked up the street and turned into the wide, polished glass entrance of a
tall limestone building. The walls were all marble on the inside and I could
hear my steps echoing on the tile. Everything was shiny like some museum
painting, reflecting the pretty yellow light from the overheads. It reminded
me at first of the inside of a school, except it was much bigger. I looked
along the walls for the numbers of all the offices upstairs-the building
directory-and found Murphy Simpson, 503. Balin was in 503A. I followed the
signs to the elevators that stopped at the fifth floor and stepped into one
that was filling up with a small group of people. I waited for the elevator
man to close the metal cross-hatcbed doors before I looked around at who was
in there with me. Suddenly there was a woosh and a jerk. The elevator started
and stopped and the man was yanking open the cross-hatcbed doors again. We
were on three. I didn't even have time to get a good look at the secretaries
who were in the car with me. If I bad been on my own time, I would've bad the
names and numbers of those cuties before the elevator reached the next floor.
And I would've shown them some good times, too. The elevator man called out
my floor and I stepped off the ride.
Balin's place was around the comer from the elevator. It was an office with
very big, very wide, thick glass double doors with heavy brass handles. I
opened them a crack and could hear the clack of typewriters, ringing
telephones, and the loud ticking of the tape machine from inside. It sounded
like an East Side bookie joint. I opened the door all the way and saw two or
three guys at desks. They were wearing shirts and open vests, and one of them
had his sleeves rolled up and was smoking a cigarette. It was hot inside,
even though the windows were open and the fans were blowing. I could see the
words MR. DAVID BALIN painted in gold on a glass door all the way in back.
I walked up to the woman sitting at a desk in front of the glass door. She
made like she didn't even want look up at me, but I could tell she was
peeking. The other girls were giving me the once-over, too. A couple of the
real young ones were giggling. I loved it. Girls always looked at me like I
was something they wanted to take home from a store. It's been that way all
my life. If you understand that about yourself, you can always get what you
want. Movie actors know it, too, and I knew I had what it took. That was one
reason why I always wanted to be an actor. I knew I had the stuff.
I smiled my "we won the war" smile until she finally looked up at me. She
smiled back, pointed to another desk in a far corner of the room, and said,
real bored, "If you're here about the job." There were these two
guy�Joe-college types-standing in front of a polished wooden bench against a
wall next to the desk and some eighty-year-old grandma was yelling at them to
use pens instead of pencils for filling out the job application sheet. One of
them was a blond and the other looked like an Irish carrot top. Then they
took their papers and went to empty chairs on opposite sides of the room. I
better work fast, I figured, or I was going to be there all afternoon.
I like to think of myself as a guy who can scan all the angles right away and
come up with a plan. You always start by deciding what you want and then work
backwards. That ability saved my ass more than once in the OSS when I had to
think my way out of tight situations. As I looked at the two other guys in
the office looking for a job ahead of me, I knew I had to get them out of the
way and show Balin that I could walk right into his office anytime I wanted.
Getting them out of the way without causing a ruckus was the trick. Then I
had an idea.
"Do you know where the bathroom is?" I asked the secretary in front of
Balin's door.
Without looking up, she pointed with her pencil to the main doors and said
almost like one word: "Out those doors and to your left then three doors on
your right."
"Thanks," I mumbled and walked out to see how many people were in the halls
and in the bathrooms and then to count the shitstalls in the men's room. The
halls were deserted at that end of the building. All the people from the
elevator seemed to be heading down the other hallway. At least I would have
the privacy I needed. I also noticed that there were three stalls in the
men's room. That should be enough, I thought, even if another person was on
the can. I had to work fast because I knew I didn't have much time to bring
everything off.
I slid back into Murphy Simpson and Associates and leaned over next to the
blond guy who was looking for the runner job.
"Do you have a girlfriend outside?" I whispered in his ear.
"Me?" he whispered back. "No. Why?"
"There's a skirt out there who stopped me on the way back from the can. She
says she's looking for you."
"How do you know it's me?" he whispered again. "Did she ask for me by name?"
This guy was getting to be a pain in my ass. "No," I said. "She just said
tell the blond guy on the bench in there that she has to talk to you for a
second. She said it's important. As far as I'm concerned I just did you a
favor. I really don't care what you do because she's a looker and I'll go
talk to her myself if you're too busy." I got up to leave when the kid tugged
at my arm.
"No, it's OK," he said. "Please show me where she is."
"She's just outside," I said. I pushed open the door and he and I stepped out
into the hall. "That's funny," I said to myself but loud enough so that he
would hear. "She was just here. Maybe she went around the corner to wait."
And I pointed in the direction of the bathroom. I followed him around the
corner, making sure that there was no one in the hall, and when he turned
around to look at me, I belted him right in the stomach. He doubled up and I
hit 'em a good shot to the side of the head where he wouldn't be cut open and
bleed all over the floor and me. He went down in a heap. I helped him to his
feet and got him into one of the shitstalls in the bathroom. I sat him on the
toilet, closed the stall, straightened myself out in the mirror, and went
back to the office.
The carrot-top was still sitting on his seat; he hadn't been called in yet.
It worked the first time without a hitch so I did it again and it worked out
just as well. As soon as carrot-top poked his head around the hall and turned
around to complain, "Is this a fraternity prank?" I hit him so hard in the
stomach that he passed out cold right there in the hall. I had to drag him
into the men's oom, sit him on the next toilet, and hit him again. I heard
blondy groaning from the first stall. If he got up and staggered back into
the office, it could throw a monkey wrench into my plan. So I made sure
carrot-top wasn't going anywhere and then I went back to blondy and belted
him especially hard across the top of his head with my fist and he went back
to dreamland where he was gonna stay for the next two days if nobody bothered
him. Now with the two of them out of the way, I had my clear shot at Balin. I
took off my jacket in front of the mirror and washed up. Then I slicked back
my hair and straightened my tie. I didn't want to look all messed up when I
stood across from Balin. Then I went back to the office where the old bat was
looking around like somebody had lifted her keys. She wasn't sure anything
was missing, she kept on telling the other girls, but she could have sworn
that there were three boys here and now there were none. And Mr. Balin had
wanted to interview them this afternoon. He told her they just had to hire
someone and now she was gonna catch hell from the boss.
'They had to go maam," I said, walking up to her desk.
"Both of them?" she asked.
"One of them said he had another job interview and the other said his
girlfriend was waiting for him. They said it was taking too long. But I
really want the job, ma'am," I said. "I can wait here for the rest of the day
if you think I have a chance."
"Hmmph," she snorted, turning up her nose. "I think there are too many jobs
available these days," she complained, and handed me an application form to
fill out. "Just start filling this out, young man, and I'll tell Mr. Balin
that you're the only one out here. You can fi nish your form after you talk
to Mr. Balin. You walk right over to that desk," she said pointing to the
desk in front of Balin's office, "and wait. It will only take a minute."
Before I even got to the desk I could hear Balin's buzzer on the other side
of the door.
"Oh, all right. OK I'll see him and get it over with," I heard Balin say.
Then the intercom on the desk in front of me went off.
"Send the young man in, please," the intercom said.
"Excuse me, Mr... ?"The secretary asked.
"Milan, ma'am."
"Mr. Milan. This way please." The secretary stood, opened the door, and
showed me inside.
I looked around the office: big windows that opened up on the little people
walking along the street below; thick, brown-leather couches and chairs that
smelled like the inside of a new car, and a giant color photograph of some
guy in a white sailboat on bright blue water. Nice life. I could get a
hard-on for this, I thought, and sat down without being asked. I figured I'd
just make myself at home and push the guy a little and maybe I could get him
to tell me how I could get into a classy setup like his. I knew if I got him
to sign on the dotted line instead of just dropping off the envelope and
standin' there like a deaf-mute, the boys'd think I had something special.
Besides, I wanted to know why this creep rated so high. What did he have in
the brains department that I didn't?
David Balin was sitting behind his desk, staring at a thick ledger book and
copying numbers into it from a long piece of paper tape. He looked over at
me, scowled that I was sitting down, stood up, and stuck out his hand. I
carefully took it in mine, measuring my grip around his knuckles, and shook
it firmer than I had to. I could feel Balin cringe as I applied pressure,
then I let go quickly. I took the envelope out of my pocket and put it on his
desk.
"Mr. Mi-LAN?" Balin said as he opened the envelope and saw the name of Mr.
C.'s company on the agreement.
"I'll make this short and sweet, Mr. Balin," I said. "I'm only here to
deliver a message and walk out." Balin turned to reach for the phone, but I
grabbed his hand before he could move it and wrapped my fingers around his
knuckles. I had him locked in a vice grip and squeezed the knuckles against
one another with a grinding motion. I felt him tense up along his entire arm.
I also saw the grimace seize up his face. "I can crush it as easily as I can
let it go, Mr. Balin. It doesn't matter to me at all. But just so that you
know why they call it 'knucklebreaking.'" I steadied the pressure but didn't
release his hand. Then I went into my pitch. "They told me to tell you that
theirs is a straight deal. Their company is a hundred percent on the
up-and-up and you'll make a lot of money if you go along. You've already
worked with some of their people so this is just the same thing you've been
doing before. I don't know how the deal is supposed to work because they
didn't tell me. They only said to tell you that you'd make a lot of money and
so would they. If you don't go along with them, you won't stay in business
much longer."
"Is that a threat, Mister Milan?" He said through clenched teeth.
"It's what they told me to tell you, Mr. Balin," I assured him, so nobody
could say I made a threat. That's all I gotta say. I think it's a good deal
because who wants to lose his business?"
"OK," he said. "Let me go."
"No phone calls?"
"Only a simple question," he said, real snotty. I released his hand. "What am
I supposed to do with this?" he asked, pointing at the agreements like they
could give him the clap. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, but since he
asked me a direct question, I figured the polite thing was to answer it.
"I leave them on your desk. You can tell me what you're gonna do if you want.
Or you don't have to say a thing. All I'm supposed to do is put those in
front of you and say: 'Mr. Balin, my friends are making one last offer. If
you accept it, you'll make a lot of money. If you don't, then you won't be in
business much longer.' That's it, Mr. Balin. The agreements are there.
Somebody else will be talking to you soon, I guarantee it."
"Wait just a goddamn minute," he said. "Mrs. Flynn told me there were other
job applicants out there. But now she tells me that you're all alone. What
happened to the others?"
"They're in the can," I told him. "They'll be there for awhile."
"You did this in the middle of a business day?" he asked as if he figured I
dragged the two guys out by their hair while everybody just stood around and
watched. "Just like that?"
"Just like that, Mr. Balin." I said. Why spoil it for him? The Families have
always used what people feared most about them to their best advantage. You
don't even have to lift a finger if someone already believes you can move a
mountain. "It's only a matter of time before you'll have to go to the can
yourself," I told him. "If you get my meaning." I could see that he did. I
could see in his eyes he had already given up. It was a look I had seen
plenty of times in the ring just before a fighter got his beating. You could
always see it in the eyes first. "Mr. Balin,"I said, seizing the advantage
that I knew was there, "if you got something they want, they're gonna get it
in the end no matter what else happens. You can either make your money while
they make theirs or watch them make theirs while you get nothing. Either way,
they're gonna get it. I'm outta line for sayin' this, but if you sign those
papers now and give 'em back to me, you won't have to see any of us again.
You'll come out ahead and I'll look really good. I just done you a favor."
He looked down at the papers. "It doesn't much matter what's in here does
it?" he asked.
"I don't know, sir," I answered, sincere and nice. "I really don't."
He picked up his pen and signed the papers with a quick couple of strokes.
"Now get the fuck out of here," he said. "I feel crummy enough."
I yanked the papers off his desk before he had any more time to think about
what he was doing. All I knew was this was going to look great. I folded them
up and put them in my suit pocket, left his office, and grabbed the elevator
for the lobby. The elevator man and the broads in the car with me never knew
why I was smiling like a jerk all the way down to the first floor. I almost
ran through the lobby and out into the street. I looked down the block. There
they were, Augie and Pinstripes sitting in the car like a couple of Wall
Street swells who'd just made a mint. They had, but they didn't know it yet.
"What took ya so long, Mike?" Augie asked as I climbed in the car. "We
thought he had a gun on ya." And he laughed.
"He was ready," I said, handing him the papers. "I figured it was better to
seal the deal on the spot."
"You talked to him?" Pinstripes asked. "I thought we said. .
"Holy-fucking shit, look att his,"Augie said to Pinstripes as he opened the
papers. "The cocksucker signed."
"I've been pushing him for weeks," Pinstripes said as he stared at the
signature.
"How'd ya do it, Mikey?" Augie asked, belching pickles.
"He just wanted to talk," I answered. "So I talked to him. Anyway, he figured
that a sap who could walk straight into his private office was not the kind
of person he could get rid of so easy. So he took my advice and signed up
with us."
"I dunno, Mikey," Augie said. "But I guess it's OK"
The wheelman started the car. We drove back to my neighborhood where they
left me off in front of Pollack's. As I got out of the car, Augie called out
to me: "We already got the papers, Mike, so you don't have to do nothin'
else. You know what I mean?"
I didn't answer him. I walked up to the fruit bins and motioned to old man
Pollack to fill up a small bag with oranges. He did�all oranges-and held out
the bag for me to inspect. I nodded, he nodded, and I turned to see Augie and
Pinstripes smiling at me from the car. Then I handed over the oranges to
Augie and said, "Now the job is done." Augie didn't answer either. He took
the bag of oranges and put them on the seat beside him. The car pulled away
from the curb with a screech and headed west towards Little Italy.
pps. 21-37
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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