Headstone City

FIVE

His daddy, large in Dane's mind but not in his life, took on a greater shape and made himself known again. The man, wherever he was, looking at Dane from the other side of the void and giving him a run along now pat on the ass, just so he wouldn't forget there was unfinished business to be taken care of.

The past gained greater momentum, reckless in its approach but carrying him along, bringing him up to speed. If you don't fight this kind of current, it would take you wherever you had to go. He could feel himself catching up a little more, fitting back in. The trouble was making sure you didn't jump the track and completely derail.

Dane walked the mile to the Olympic Cab & Limousine Company. Looking through the window of the inner office, he saw that Pepe Morales had been promoted to manager.

Pepe was sitting at the back of the office chattering on the radio, huge pictures of his wife and kids on the large metal desk. He was telling a story that Dane had heard maybe twenty-five times, about the night when Pepe picked up the two lesbian hookers over by Sheepshead Bay and one went crazy with a straight razor on the other. The laughter grew so loud on the speakers there was feedback.

Pepe had been the only one from the neighborhood to visit Dane in the slam. You could count on him making the holidays something special even behind bars. Pepe would show up on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve, bringing a bunch of gifts. Books and magazines mostly. He'd spread them around to the nine or ten buddies and relatives he had in the joint, and sometimes even brought something for the bulls. Keeping everybody in a good mood, even the guards drawing the shit shifts, who couldn't be home with their families.

Dane moved to the counter, where a harried young brunette with mussed hair fidgeted in a chair, filling out blue forms and chewing a toothpick to splinters. Without glancing up she said, “Yeah?”

“I'd like to talk to Pepe.”

“He's busy.”

“I'm a friend,” Dane said. He grinned but she still hadn't lifted her head. Maybe he was starting to lose some of his charm.

“All his friends are locked up.”

“I know, but I just got out.”

“Well, isn't that just fuckin' great for the rest of society.”

“It made my grandmother happy,” Dane said, giving the smile all he had even though his lips were starting to get tired.

“A respectable woman.”

“Yes.”

“Upon whose house you bring shame.”

“Actually, I bring her a lot of cannoli.”

She flipped through more papers and spit the shreds of toothpick on the floor in front of Dane. “I told you, he's busy.”

“So are you and you're talking to me, honeybunch.”

It got her attention. She swiveled in her seat and glowered from beneath a jumble of loose curls. Bloodshot eyes, the seething tension there sharpening into instant hatred. At least she was looking at him.

“You a mouth?” she asked.

“No.”

“You got something you want to say? Am I going to have trouble with your ass? You think I'm putting up with that shit?”

Dane could never quite figure out why everybody was always so pissed, showing disapproval over any small thing, ready to jump into a stranger's face. Everybody in the joint was much more relaxed.

“I'd just like to speak to Pepe.”

“I already told you twice now, he's got work-”

It was already too late to defuse the bad atmosphere. Dane stared beyond her and tried to make eye contact with Pepe. He was up to the part in the story where one of the working gals is slashing like wild, her girlfriend screaming with her cheek sliced open, blood everywhere, and while Pepe is struggling with the slasher they wind up driving off the pier. He couldn't swim and almost drowned, sucking down half the East River, shouting for somebody to save him. But this version of the tale had a happy ending, because the whores made up while they were giving him CPR.

She reached under the counter and got hold of something heavy, maybe a bat or a tire iron, gaze locked on Dane the whole time, getting ready to pounce.

Willing to kill him but not willing to go knock on the goddamn door. People drew very strange lines in the sand.

Pepe turned around and spotted Dane, and let out a cry of delight. He walked out of the office and stopped short, frowned, and made a pleading gesture to heaven. “Fran, put down the nine iron, will you, please?”

“No.”

“C'mon!”

“I don't like this one,” she said.

“Almost nobody does, but I'm still sending you for stress management courses. You don't even drink coffee, what's the matter with you?”

“He's got those smirky eyes.”

“He thinks he's being charming.”

“He's not.”

Smirky eyes? Did he really do that? Dane thought he knew just what she meant, but he'd never heard it about himself before. It was the kind of thing he despised.

“Take over for a while,” Pepe told her. “All right? I'm going for a fifteen-minute smoke.”

Lips tugged out of whack like they were being yanked by fish hooks, Fran caterwauled, “Fifteen minutes! Like hell! What're you smoking out there? Cubans? Be back in five, I've got enough shit to do around here.”

“Ten.”

Pepe came around the counter with his arms open. He clenched Dane around his waist and picked him off the ground. The guy still weighed under 120 but it was all sinew and muscle. After a quick twirl in the air, Pepe set him down gently and gave him a quick hug, rubbing him softly on the back the way Dane's mother used to do when he was a kid. They walked out to the back of the garage together.

The stink of grease, oil, and transmission fluid struck Dane like an old lover embracing him.

“You need to cut her hours back some,” Dane said. “That one in there.”

“Ah, it's her just her office personality.”

“You ever get any repeat customers?”

“Franny's a sweetheart, but she's got an instinct for trouble. In this place, it comes at her from all sides, makes her a little paranoid.”

“Okay.”

Pepe had been a lightweight champ and still moved like he was stepping into the ring. Light, fast, and with his arms loose in case he had to snap a jab into somebody's face. He'd been born in Spanish Harlem, back when there was such a thing. When he was about thirteen his family moved to Headstone City and Pepe fell in with Dane and the other Italians of the neighborhood. He had no Puerto Rican accent anymore, and spoke with the same hand gestures that Dane used himself.

“I'm off at six. We'll go out and have a few beers and get you laid.”

“I've got plans tonight,” Dane said.

“What?” Drawing his chin back and peering into Dane's face, taking a good look, trying to see what could be seen. “You've been in the bucket for two years and there's something else you wanna do on your first night out?”

“It's sort of a matter of necessity.”

“So's getting your pipes cleaned. Okay, so you're not in the mood for fun, you fuckin' killjoy.” Pepe squared his shoulders, a sign that he was serious. “What are you after? A gun? You know I'm not your man for that.”

“I already have one.”

“I should've known.”

“I need a job,” Dane told him.

“You got to have a license first.”

“I do.”

That threw Pepe, made him twist around. His hands started moving all over the place. “How's that possible? You ran over a fuckin' cop!”

“Yeah, but he was only a traffic cop.”

Dane's father had always told him to stay clean because the first bit of dirt he got on him would just keep growing. He'd been right. Dane had been nabbed stealing cars a couple of times in his teens, then got tagged for vehicular assault the day he bumped the traffic cop while Angelina Monticelli was dying in the back of his cab.

Pepe dropped his chin, gave Dane the look he was starting to get used to. “Listen, maybe you shouldn't stay in the neighborhood for too long. For your own good.”

“Did Vinny tell you not to hire me?”

“Not exactly. A guy came around who likes to talk out the corner of his mouth and clean his fingernails with a butterfly knife.”

That'd be Joey Fresco, the big hitter.

Playing with his fingernails, Pepe mimicked him pretty well. “He tells me that if I see you, I should give the Monti crew a call, it would be in my best interest. They'd consider it a favor. If I didn't, it'd be a show of disrespect. Since Puzo's book, that word hasn't had the same meaning for you guineas. So he wags the knife around for a while, scrapes it along his throat like he's shaving. Not even doing the slit slit you're dead motion, no, this guy's too hep for that.” Pepe broke out of the performance, stood there smiling again. “He didn't give me the number though. Like I'm going to walk up to the front door of the Monti mansion and knock. Ask for the hitter who shaves with a butterfly blade.”

“Okay,” Dane said, and started to walk by.

“Wait a minute, I didn't say I wouldn't hire you. Jesus, you're as neurotic as Franny! You should both be in group therapy. I was only explaining the situation.”

“I know, but you don't need to deal with their shit.”

“You're still too sensitive. How the hell did you survive twenty months in the bucket, man?” Pepe thought about it, rubbing his chin, trying to figure every angle the way he always did. “How about this? I'll give you eastern Long Island, all right? The Hamptons and Montauk run.”

It was a straight ride at a specified price, $99 to the end of the Island, nearly three hours one-way with no fare back. He could make five times more driving for any other cab company in the five boroughs.

“No,” Dane told him.

“What?”

“The season's over. Nobody's even going out to the Hamptons this time of year.”

“They still go. Plenty of them.”

“Besides, I want to stick closer.”

Getting brash now, getting paternal. “You take what I give you or you can go throw fish down at Fulton's.”

He knew Pepe was doing it to help him, to keep him out of the neighborhood and on the road. Like he didn't have to go home at night.

“I need to earn a living.”

With the fingers again, this time ticking off each point he had to make, Pepe said, “You live with your grandmother, you got no rent. She feeds you four-course meals, you don't gotta pay for your food. You got no kids, you got no wife, you got no ex who wants alimony or child support.” Now on to the left hand. “You got no habits, no vices. You don't drink, you don't throw dice, you run away from the whores. In fact, you run away from the nice girls too. The hell do you need money for?”

“A stake.”

“A stake? What's that mean, you want a stake? For what?”

“To get things rolling,” Dane said.

“Jesus.” Easing out this grumble from the back of his throat, showing dissatisfaction without actually having to pull a face. “Fran's right, you know it? I never noticed it before but you do have smirky eyes. And it's not so cute.”

He was really going to have to do something about that. “When can I start?”

“You got a suit?”

It was a dumb question. Every guy in Headstone City had a black suit for funerals. “Yeah.”

“Tomorrow if you want. So long as your hack license is actually up-to-date.”

“It is.”

“Christ, you got off easy. Except for, well… for the mob wanting your ass and all.”

There was still that. “One more thing. I need a car.”

Pepe doing his classic freeze, the head cock, the eye roll. More like a Jewish mother than a Puerto Rican grandfather. He should be doing dinner theater. “You expect a lot.”

“Anything will do.”

“I got an '87 Buick GN. A junker I fixed up pretty good. It's not the most gorgeous thing on the road but it'll get you around. I can let it go for a grand.”

“Take it out of my pay.”

It got Pepe's chin firmed up, his lips crimped. He was having trouble holding himself back from putting it on the line. Saying that Dane might not live long enough to pay him the money.

“If I catch two in the head, you can have it back,” Dane told him. “Where's the keys?”

Pepe grinned at that, his own eyes kind of smirky. It really was ugly.

“How about if we just call it a loaner for now? And don't run over any cops while you're in it, okay?”