Toughs Page 5

  Flo leaned over the table toward Vince. "You must be hitting the pipe," she said, "if you think Legs Diamond'll partner with a guy just tried to kill him. That's all I got to say."

  Vince said, "We heard you, Florence. I'm thinking about it. Meanwhile," he said to the rest of the table, "we need to stay out of sight till today's mess blows over."

  "Yeah," Mike said. "We're not too popular right now."

  Patsy said, "I heard Loretto was there. I heard he saved some kid's life or something."

  "What do you mean, Loretto was there?" Vince stubbed out his cigarette.

  "That's what I heard."

  Frank took a drag on his cigarette, and when he exhaled, he said, "I saw Loretto come up the street behind us after the shooting was over."

  "And you didn't say nothin'?"

  "Why should I? He didn't see the shooting. He came up the street after it was all over."

  "What's that got to do with anything?" Flo said. "Did he see who was in the car or didn't he?"

  "Ah, for Christ's sake," Mike said, "half the city of New York seen us in the car."

  "But they won't talk to the cops," Flo said. "They're Sicilians in that neighborhood."

  "Loretto won't talk to the cops, either," Mike said. "We know him since we're kids. He's your friend, right?" he said to Vince. "You got nothing to worry about."

  "Did I say I was worried?" Vince pushed his chair back from the table. "All right," he said. "Enough palaver."

  At that, the others all rose from the table as if they'd been released from school.

  Patsy started for the back room to get Maria. At the entrance to the hallway, he hesitated and turned to Vince. "I'm thinking," he said, "I might get out of the city for a few days. Maybe go to my aunt's place on Long Island."

  "That's a good idea," Vince said. He had slipped his arm through Lottie's and was starting for the door. "Just be sure either Lottie or Sally knows where to find you." He tipped his hat to Maria as she came out of the hallway and threw her arms around Patsy. To Maria, he said, "See you, doll," and he winked at Patsy.

  "Come on, Vince, my dogs are killing me." Lottie pulled Vince out the door.

  In the alley behind the apartment building, where Lottie had parked the roadster next to a padlocked cellar door, Vince stopped and held his nose while she slipped off her high heels. "Smells like rotten eggs back here."

  "Probably that's what it is." Lottie gestured toward the metal garbage pails lining the wall beside her. "That's better," she said once the shoes were off and dangling from her fingertips. "Come here, handsome. You're not letting a lady walk to the car in her stockings, are you?"

  Vince was looking up at a bright quarter moon hanging over the alley. Most of the lights in the apartment buildings on either side of them were off, though a scattering were on here and there, throwing a dull yellow light over the red brick of the opposite wall.

  Lottie, leaning against the door, wiggled her toes, calling for Vince.

  When he heard more footsteps descending the stairs, he kissed Lottie on the neck, picked her up, and carried her to the car, where he deposited her on the roof while he opened the door.

  Mike came into the alley looking like he was in a hurry but stopped at the sight of Lottie sitting on the car. "Hey, Vince," he said, "you're not worried about Loretto, are you? You know he's a square guy."

  "Sure," Vince said. He pushed Lottie's foot away as if annoyed when she tickled his chest with her toes, but he couldn't hide a smile. "If you see Loretto, though, tell him I want to talk."

  "Yeah?" Mike said. "About what happened today?"

  "Do I need a reason?" Vince hoisted Lottie off the car, dropped her

  into the passenger's seat, and closed the door. "Just tell him I want to see him."

  Mike was holding his hat in hand, playing with the brim. He put it on and said, "I'll tell him."

  Vince patted him on the shoulder as he moved around the car to the driver's side. "Tell Loretto I know where to find him." He added, "Tell him I'll be around." He tipped his hat to Mike and got in the car.

  Lottie, stretched out in the front seat with her dress up around her thighs and a playful smile on her face, pushed her toes under Vince's legs as he stepped on the starter. The engine chugged once before it turned over, and Vince drove slowly out of the alley and onto an empty street. He pulled his fedora down low on his forehead.

  "Where we going?" Lottie slid one foot out from under his leg and moved it toward his zipper, feeling her way with her toes.

  "Got us a room at the Corned Beef Arms."

  "Are we Mr. and Mrs. Moran again?" she asked. Before he could answer, she yelped, "What's this!" and her toes pressed down on and wrapped around the bulge in his pants following a straight line up toward his belt.

  Vince leaned back as he drove, making it easier for Lottie. Outside, the streets were dark and empty, the lights mostly out in the surrounding buildings. Here and there a car was parked along the sidewalk, and the light from lampposts pooled over the slate curbs and black streets. Beside him, Lottie grinned as her toes probed and pressed, her calves stretching to form a straight dark line toward the shadows under her dress. "You don't quit it," he said, "I won't make it till we get back to a big, comfy bed."

  "Yeah?" Lottie pressed down harder. "Then we could just do it this way," she said, and she put her hand between her legs.

  Vince pushed his hat back so he could see better. He gazed a long moment at Lottie with her hand under her dress, her fingers disappearing into a dark triangle of shadows. "Baby," he said, turning his eyes back to the road, "you got no shame."

  "Somebody seems to like it," Lottie answered, digging deeper with her toes.

  Vince slowed the car and scanned the streets for an alley.

  "Handsome," Lottie said, "you think Legs'll go for our deal?"

  "He might." Vince had spotted an alley and was heading for it.

  Lottie pulled her dress up to her waist and undid her garters as Vince parked alongside a coal chute. "I'm sure he'll go for it," she said. Vince cut the engine and threw off his jacket. "And once you're running the upstate operation," she added, "the Combine'll have to work with you."

  Vince undid his belt and got to his knees over Lottie.

  "We'll be the ones making millions then," Lottie said, "and Dutch and the Combine can go to hell." She helped Vince get out of his pants and pulled him into her.

  Behind them, on the street outside the alley, they heard a car approaching. They stopped and held their breath and were still as the brick walls surrounding them. Vince craned his neck to look out the window. When the car appeared and then rolled by, they laughed and kissed gently and went on.

  Wednesday - July 29, 1931

  12:38 a.m.

  Tucked into the slip of space between Augie's and Freddie's beds, Loretto, on his back with his arms folded under his head, listened to the slow metronome of Mama's snoring, soft and distant, coming from behind a closed door on the other side of the apartment. It was late and Augie and Freddie were sleeping soundly on either side of him, their backs turned to each other, both in their boxers, covering sheets kicked down to clumps at their feet. Loretto was also in his boxers, with a folded-over blanket under him and a thin white sheet alongside him on the floor. He ran the heel of his hand along tufts of hair on his chest and wiped away a pool of sweat. It was too hot to sleep and his thoughts anyway were crowded and messy, moving from bleeding kids in the street to memories of Vince from Mount Loretto to concerns about Sister Mary Catherine, who would have heard about the shooting by now and be worried. He found the slow rhythm of Mama's snoring comforting, and he wondered how his life might have been different had he grown up in a home like this, with brothers on either side of him, a sister in the next room, and Mama like an anchor lodged solidly behind the closed door of her bedroom. Sometimes at night in the orphanage, in his single cot among an ever-rotating flux of boys, he'd get to feeling like he was drifting, like his cot was a narrow boat and he might fl
oat away out an open window into the night. He imagined it would have been different in the Barontis' home.

  Beside him, Augie flung an arm over the edge of the cot before he tucked his folded hands between his knees like a child. Loretto slipped into his pants and undershirt and went to the kitchen for a drink of water. He found a glass in the drain tub, and when he turned the ancient brass sink handle, the pipes groaned and rattled and shook the floorboards at his feet. He quickly shut the faucet, having managed to get only a sliver of water in the glass, and waited with his eyes closed for someone to complain about the noise. When no one did, he drank his sip of water and left the glass in the sink.

  "Here," a voice behind him said softly, "I'll show you a trick."

  Loretto turned to find Gina approaching him wearing only a flimsy white slip that clung to her breasts and the flat of her stomach. She brushed past him and put the palm of her hand on the faucet. "If you press down hard and turn slowly, like this—" She rose up on her toes and pushed down on the faucet. "No rattling," she said, and she filled Loretto's glass as well as a glass for herself.

  "Now I know." Loretto took the offered water glass. He was whispering, as was Gina.

  In the kitchen's web of shadows, illuminated dimly by street light from a window over the sink, Loretto and Gina, side by side, sipped from their water glasses. Loretto looked straight ahead. When he had first seen Gina approaching, his eyes had snapped to the lace work of her slip where it dipped around the curves of her breasts. He was pretty sure she had noticed his gaze lingering there.

  "Too hot to sleep," Gina said. "Want to go up on the roof?"

  Loretto took another sip of water to give himself a moment to think. There was no telling what Augie or Freddie would do if they saw him and Gina climbing up to the roof, Gina with hardly anything on. "What about the boys?" he said when he took the glass from his lips. "We might wake them."

  "It's Mama we need to worry about. She's got ears can hear the grass growing." She took Loretto's hand and started toward the back bedroom. "The boys sleep like the dead."

  Augie was still on his side with his hands between his knees when Gina entered the bedroom, pulling Loretto along behind her. Freddie was also lying on his side, facing Augie, with his hands steepled and wedged between his cheek and the pillow.

  Gina stopped between the two cots. "A couple of tough guys," she said to Loretto. She smiled slightly as if she were both amused and disdainful. At the ladder, she put one hand on a metal rung, started to climb, and then stopped, looked down at her slip, and cocked her head. "You first," she said to Loretto and stood aside.

  "Too bad," Loretto whispered, and Gina hit him on the shoulder playfully with the palm of her hand.

  A flock of pigeons perched on the roof ledge startled and flew away as Loretto pulled himself up onto the tar paper and then offered Gina a hand. The thick clouds from earlier in the evening had passed over, leaving a black sky threaded with wisps of cloud against a background of faint stars. The familiar smell of bread wafted up from the street and a nearby bakery.

  Once on the roof, Gina took Loretto's hand again. "Over here," she said, and she pulled him past the wire and scrap wood of the empty pigeon coop to a shadowy narrow space between two black chimneys. She leaned back against the flat wall of one chimney, leaving room for Loretto to slide in front of her.

  "Cozy back here," Loretto said.

  "Isn't it?" Gina put her arms around Loretto's neck and pulled his head down as she rose up and kissed him.

  Loretto laughed, hesitated, and then held her around the waist and kissed her hard as he pulled her close. She didn't, as he had expected, resist. He thought she was toying with him, and he meant to show her that he should be taken seriously. It was too passionate a kiss, too intense and too fast, and he expected Gina to push him away. Instead, she pressed her body into him and her hands slid down his stomach and undid his belt. He took her by the wrists. "What are you doing?"

  "What do you think I'm doing?"

  "I didn't come up here for that." Loretto turned as if he could see through the chimney and down the skylight into the apartment. "Your family is right here."

  "We're out of sight." Gina took his hand. "It's dark." She glanced toward Loretto's open belt. His excitement was obvious.

  Loretto leaned into Gina and kissed her while the fingers of one hand went up and into her hair and the other hand slid down from her shoulder to her breast, slipping it easily out from under the delicate lace.

  Gina pulled back a little so that she could undo Loretto's zipper.

  Loretto said, "Stop." He was still holding her breast in his hand, his heart jumping at the softness of her skin.

  "They won't hear," Gina said. She sounded like she was reassuring a child. "No one will see."

  "That's not it," Loretto said. "That wasn't what I was thinking."

  Gina looked at Loretto with curiosity. Her eyes dropped to where he was holding her breast. "Well," she said, "what exactly are you thinking, Loretto?"

  Loretto let her breast fall back under the lace of her slip. He pulled her shoulder strap up and fixed it in place.

  "You're a strange one, aren't you?" When it was clear Loretto wasn't going to say anything, she went to the roof ledge, near the pigeon coop, and took a seat in a folding chair.

  Loretto pulled up a chair alongside her. "It would have been too fast," he said. He put his feet up on the ledge.

  "Too fast for what?" Gina tucked her legs under her, cuddling up in her seat. She took a deep breath. "Sometimes the smell of baking bread makes me sick," she added, "and sometimes there's nothing better in the whole world."

  "Just too fast," Loretto said. "I'd like something more between us before—"

  "Before what?" Gina continued making herself comfortable. "What do you mean, something more?"

  Loretto didn't answer. He wanted to touch her again. He closed his eyes as if that might help him find something to say.

  "Do you like me?" Gina asked. Her voice was sleepy and the way she was curled up, it was like she and Loretto were side by side in bed.

  "Sure," Loretto answered. "I like your whole family. I like all you Barontis."

  "You like me the same way you like my brothers?"

  "No. I just meant that I like your whole family."

  "But you don't want to make love to me?"

  "Sure I do," Loretto said. "You're beautiful."

  Gina sighed and pulled herself upright in her seat. "Listen, honey— I just got divorced." She took Loretto's hand, squeezed it, and let it go. "All I want is some fun."

  "All right," Loretto said. "Nothing wrong with that. I like having fun, too." He slid his chair closer to Gina and did his best to sound cavalier. "I'll take you on a date," he said, "and then we can go back to my place."

  "Oh, you will?"

  "Sure." He slid his leg over on the ledge until it was touching Gina's leg. "First, tell me about yourself. What are you doing now that you're divorced?"

  "That's too dull," Gina said, and then she threw in, "I've been looking for work mostly."

  "Not the best of times to be looking for work."

  "No kidding, kiddo."

  "What about your husband? You getting something from him?"

  "Ex-husband," Gina said. "All I get from him is aggravation."

  "How come? Don't you get alimony when you get divorced?"

  "Don't marry a lawyer," Gina said. "Especially one whose friends are all lawyers." She seemed to think better of what she'd said and added, "I got some money from the divorce. Enough to hold me for a while. But I'll need to find a job eventually."

  "Did he treat you bad?" Loretto turned Gina's face toward him. She'd been looking off at the stars.

  "Nah," Gina said. "He didn't do anything."

  "Yeah? What happened?"

  "I don't want to talk about this." She touched the birthmark over her lip with the tip of a finger and then quickly pulled her hand away as if self-conscious about the gesture. "I should have ne
ver married him. He was thirty years older than me," she said, "and he was boring. I thought I liked him enough, but . . . I guess not."

  "So why'd you marry him? He was really thirty years older than you?"

  "I was sixteen and he was forty-six. Mama was furious."

  "How long were you married?"

  "Six years."

  "So?" Loretto asked again. "Why'd you marry him?"

  "Why do you think?" Gina said. "Don't be a baby." She got up and started for the skylight.

  "Don't go yet." He patted her chair. "We can talk about something else. I'm not tired enough to sleep."