Hell's Kitchen

THIRTEEN

Standing in the ugly, concrete park across the street from the Javits Center.

Wondering if the man would show or not?

Or more to the point, Pellam reflected, if he does show, will he shoot me?

He studied this part of Hell’s Kitchen, where even the blaring sun couldn’t mute the bleakness. Here, in the valley between the Javits Center and the towering gray aircraft carrier – the Intrepid, converted into a floating war museum – the blocks were stubbly lots and one-story buildings long abandoned or burnt-out, a graveyard of chopped cars, razor-wire-topped fences, weeds, old boilers and factory machinery melting into rust.

After ten minutes of hypnotically studying the boat and barge river traffic on the Hudson he heard a cheerful voice call out, “Hey, you crazy fuck.”

Well, the man had showed.

And no gunshots. So far.

The man was walking toward him through heat ripples rising from the concrete. Despite the temperature he still wore the long black leather jacket. And he still looked like a monkey.

He slipped the cigarette he held into his mouth and muttered, “Jacko Drugh.”

“John Pellam.”

They shook hands. “You got some balls, Pellam, giving me the high sign right under Jimmy C’s nose.” He said this with the boisterousness of a born loser.

Drugh was exactly the sort of fish he’d gone trolling for at the 488 Bar and Grill. His point in going there wasn’t to get information from Jimmy Corcoran, who was exactly the petty little weasel he’d expected, if somewhat more psychotic. No, he’d been after a snitch. “You looked like somebody I could trust.”

Read: buy.

“Ah, sure. Jacko’s somebody you can trust. To point, my man. Up to a point.”

Pellam offered a slight smile. And slipped him the five hundred, the amount they’d agreed to when Pellam announced it in the bar and Drugh had handed him a soggy napkin with the name of this park on it when he’d brought Pellam the soft drink.

Drugh didn’t look at the money. He shoved the wad into his pocket with the air of someone who’s rarely, if ever, cheated.

“So, your boss? Is he going to try to kill me?” Pellam asked.

“Don’t know, do I? Any other time, you’d already be swimming in Hell Gate in four different GLAD bags. But lately, the old J.C.’s playing stuff close to his chest. He don’t do mucha the wild stuff no more. Which I don’t know why. Thought it was a woman at first but Jimmy don’t usually go nuts over pussy. Least not rump-bunny like that Katie you seen him with. So, I dunno. Maybe he’ll forget about you. Hope so. For your sake. If he wants you dead you’ll be dead and there’s nothing you can do ’bout it. I mean, you could leave the state. But that’s all.”

They sat on a bench. The heat made his back itch fiercely. Pellam sat forward. Drugh finished his cigarette and lit another.

Pellam stroked, “So, you’re the one really in charge, right?”

Drugh shrugged. “Some of the time.”

“You’re a lot cooler than he is.”

The downward glance and smile bespoke considerable mutiny in the ranks. Pellam guessed that either Drugh or Corcoran would be dead within six months. Pellam decided the smart money was on Corcoran as survivor.

“We don’t got things like capos and shit, you know. But I’m number two, yeah. And I stand in for Jimmy a lot. ’Specially when he loses his head. His brother’s a lightweight. The elevator don’t stop at every floor.” Reflecting, Drugh added, “But I’m careful. I know the line. See, Jimmy’s crazy fuck a lot of the time. But when he’s not, he looks out for his people. And he’s got a fuck of a lot of friends.” Drugh looked him over. “You don’t got an accent. You didn’t come over.”

“No, I was born here.”

“You know the Emerald Underground?”

“No.”

“See, somebody comes over from Ireland and there’s this, you know, network of people look out for ’em till they get on their feet. Jimmy, he does a lot for ’em. He’s got ’em job lined up and an apartment ’fore they’re outa customs at JFK. Men in construction, girls in bars or restaurants. Making good money too. He arranges marriages for the card, loans people money.”

“Keeping some for himself.”

“Oh, Jimmy’s a businessman, isn’t he?”

Drugh was gazing at the black Javits Center, functional and boxy – as if it were still in a packing crate. He laughed. It became a cough and as if this reminded him it was time for another cigarette he lit one. “You really making a movie?”

“Yep.”

“I never knowed anybody done that before. I like movies. You see State of Grace?”

“Sean Penn and Gary Oldman. Ed Harris. Good movie.”

“It was about us,” he said proudly.

“Which one played you?” Pellam asked. Joking. The movie had been about a gang in Hell’s Kitchen but it was fictional.

“A guy I’d never heard of,” Drugh responded, dead serious.

There was silence for a moment. Then both men knew the social pleasantries were over. Time for business. Pellam lowered his voice. “Okay, the arson on Thirty-sixth Street. There’re some rumors that Jimmy was behind it.” He was recalling what Hector Ramirez had told him.

“Jimmy?” Drugh asked. “Where’d you hear that shit? Naw. He don’t burn the old buildings.”

“What I heard was there was a witness living there, this woman. Jimmy wanted to get even with her for testifying.”

Drugh nodded but it was a gesture of dismissal. “Oh that? You mean when Spear Driscoe dropped cap on Bobby Frink. That whosie whatsis spic lady saw it. Carmella Ramirez? Well, sure she was a witness and sure she testified. But Driscoe was so wasted on the old Black Jack that he waxed Bobby in the front of a corner deli on Saturday night. There was like ten witnesses. Even if the spic lady hadn’t talked, there was no way Spear wasn’t gonna go play with the jiggaboos in Attica for ten to fifteen.”

Pellam vamped. “But I’ve heard that Corcoran’s burned buildings before.”

“Sure. But not the old places. The new ones. We all do that. Fuck, it’s like they take our homes away, whatta they expect? The Cubano Lords and us, we bombed that new place, that office building on Fiftieth Street.”

“Ramirez did that?”

“Sure. ’Bout the only thing we agree on. And me too, my man. Oh, Jacko throws a good cocktail, he does. But see, it’s okay.” Drugh said this earnestly. “We used to have the whole west side. From Twenty-third up to Fifty-seventh. It was ours. Man, we don’t got nothing left now. We’re defending our homes is all we’re doing. From spics and niggers and real estate assholes. People who’re from east of Eighth.” Drugh pulled long on his cigarette. “Naw, naw, Jimmy didn’t burn that place. I know.”

“Why’re you so sure?”

“Jacko knows. See, J.C.’s got something going.”

“Something?”

Drugh explained that Jimmy Corcoran and his brother had bought some property and were involved in a big business deal. “Something gonna make him million bucks or so he says. The last thing Jimmy’s gonna do is draw attention to the Kitchen by burning buildings. J.C.’d definitely ice anybody torching places in the neighborhood. He and Tom, that’s his brother, don’t want no, you know, uhn…” His thoughts failed him.

Pellam supplied a word.

“Exactly. They don’t want no disruptions.”

Pellam tended to believe Drugh. He said, “Let’s say it isn’t Jimmy. Who might it’ve been?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? Where you been? They collared this old nigger lady.”

“Forget about her for a minute. Any other rumors?”

“Well, yeah, you hear things. Jacko hangs out, Jacko hears things.”

“Such as?”

“’Bout this weird kid. You pay him money, he’ll torch anything – a church or school, it don’t mean nothing to him. Kids, ladies, he don’t care, does he? Was hanging out on Thirty-sixth the past few weeks.”

Pellam shook his head. “I’ve heard about him. You know who he is?”

“Nope.”

Discouraged, Pellam asked, “There’s also a boy I’m looking for. Blond. Seventeen, eighteen. A hooker. Calls himself Alex but it’s not his real name. Sound familiar?”

“That narrows it down to, maybe, a thousand.” Drugh squinted young-old eyes and stared at the flat plain of the Jersey horizon. “You listen to Jacko. It’s Ramirez did it. Hector el spic-o. Guarantee it.”

“But his aunt lived there.”

“Aw, she was probably gonna move. Or get evicted, more likely. Spics never pay their rent. That’s a true fact, it is. I’ll bet he’s already got her a better place.”

He was right, Pellam recalled. Ramirez had.

“I know it’s him. See, Ramirez rousted Johnny O’Neil.”

“Who’s that?”

“Guy we sometimes do business with. Johnny rents apartments around town and stores things there.” Drugh’s voice dropped. “You know what I’m saying?”

“Well, up to and including the part about renting apartments around town.”

“Shhh, my man. Not a word. Jacko’s putting you on your honor.”

“Fair enough.”

“O’Neil’s trades in guns, doesn’t he? He had a apartment in that building.” He gestured toward Ettie’s tenement. “Oh, yeah, my man. A safe house.” He said this as if every New Yorker ought to have one.

Pellam remembered the burnt guns that the fire investigators had found in the basement.

“The other day Ramirez jacked one of O’Neil’s trucks and had him sucking on a Glock. Told him to keep the armament out of that part of the Kitchen.”

“What’d O’Neil say?”

“What’d he say? He said, ‘Yessir, Mr. Spic. I’ll stop.’ What’d you say you got your pearlies ’round a nine millimeter? So my money’s Ramirez heard about the guns from his auntie, shit a brick and hired that spooky guy to nuke the place.”

Pellam shook his head. So Ramirez had told him some but not all of the story. “Do me favor? Put the word out about Alex? I need to find him.”

“Oh, Jacko’ll keep his eyes peeled for you. I’ll ask around. People talk to me. If there’s a little something in it for me Jacko gets the right answers.”

Pellam reached for his wallet again.

But Drugh shook his head. The young man seemed to grow embarrassed. “Naw, naw, I don’t mean that. You paid me already. What I’m saying, when you make that movie of yours, you keep me in mind, you do that? You give Jacko a call. They made that movie, that State of Grace, they shoulda called me. I mean, there oughta be laws about them using your life and not asking you ’bout it. I mean, fuck, I didn’t wanta be the star or nothing. I just wanted to be in the fucking movie. I’d be good. I know I would.”

Pellam made sure not to smile as he said, “If we ever get to casting, I’ll call you, Jacko. You bet.”

Ettie Washington stared out the window of the Women’s Detention Center.

It was high above her head and the glass was so filthy you couldn’t see through it. But the light was comforting. She was thinking back to Eddie Doyle, remembering how much the two of them liked to be outside, walking around the neighborhood. Saying hi to their neighbors. Her second husband, Harold Washington, didn’t like being indoors either though he was a sitting kind of man. The two of them, when he was home and more or less sober, would sit on the steps and share a bottle. But living by herself Ettie had discovered the pleasure of a good rocking chair and a window. A joy that now seemed to be gone forever.

Mistakes, she was thinking of mistakes she’d made throughout her life. And secrets and lies… Some serious and some not so. How slightly bad things you did grew into very bad things. How the good things you tried to do faded away like smoke.

And she was thinking of Pellam’s face when that bitch in court told everybody about her conviction. Would he ever come to visit her again? she wondered. She guessed not. Why should he? Oh, this thought cut her deeply. But what she felt was pain, not surprise. She’d known all along that he’d be vanishing from her life. He was a man, and men left. Didn’t matter if they were fathers or brothers or husbands. Men left.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

“Mother,” Hatake Imaham cooed, “how you feeling? You feeling good?”

Ettie turned around.

Several of the prisoners were standing behind the large woman. They all approached slowly. Six others stood at the far end of the cell, looking out into the corridor. Ettie couldn’t figure out why they were in a line like that. Then she realized they were blocking the guard’s view of the cell.

A cold feeling pierced her. It was just like the feeling that sliced through her when the two policemen showed up at her door and asked, grim-faced, if her son was Billy Washington. Could they come inside? There was something they had to tell her.

Hatake continued in a calm voice, “You feeling good?”

“I’m okay,” Ettie said, looking uneasily from one woman to another.

“Bet you feeling better than that boy, Mother.”

“What boy?”

“That little boy you killed. Juan Torres.”

“I didn’t do it,” Ettie whispered. She drew back, against the wall. “No, I didn’t do it.”

She looked again toward the door but she was completely hidden by the line of women.

“I know you done it, bitch. You kill that little boy.”

“I didn’t!”

“An eye for an eye.” The large woman stepped closer. She had a cigarette lighter in her hand. The woman next to her, Dannette, had one too. Where had they gotten those? Then understood. Dannette had purposely gotten arrested again and smuggled in the lighters.

Hatake stepped close.

Ettie shrank away then suddenly lunged forward, swinging her cast into Hatake’s face. It connected with her nose, loud thud. The woman screeched and fell back. The other women gasped. No one moved for a moment.

Then Ettie took a deep breath to scream for help and found herself tasting sour cloth. Someone had come up behind her and flipped the gag over her face. Hatake was on her feet, wiping blood from her nose, smiling cruelly.

“Okay, Mother, Okay.” She nodded to Dannette, who lit a cigarette and tossed it onto Ettie’s shift. She tried to kick it off but two other women held her down. She couldn’t move. The ember began to burn through the dress.

Hatake said, “You shouldn’t be smokin’ in here. ’Gainst the rules, Mother. An’ accidents happen. Them lighters, they spill sometimes. Get that stuff inside, that gas, all over you. Burn up yo hair, burn up you face. Sometime it kill you, sometime it don’t.”

Hatake stepped closer and Ettie felt the icy spray of the butane on her scalp and cheek. She closed her eyes, trying to twist away from the women who held her.

“Lemme,” Hatake snapped, snatching the lighter out of Dannette’s hands. She muttered something else but Ettie couldn’t hear it over her own squealing and muttered pleas. There was a snap and a hiss and the huge woman walked closer and closer, holding the lighter like a beacon.