The Christmas Kid

Changing of the Guard

SANNO SAT FOR A long time in the Eldorado with Ralphie Boy, both staring at the lights of the restaurant across the street. They were parked on a pump, the lights out, the engine running so the wipers could peel back the rain. Sanno rubbed his eyes, wishing he could go home to Brooklyn, get in bed with Marie, watch Johnny Carson. I’m sixty-two years old, he thought; I should be on a bench somewhere in Florida, not sitting here in the rain.

“I don’t like it,” Ralphie Boy said.

“Neither do I,” Sanno said wearily. “But what the hell.”

“Anyway, Junior’s in there,” Ralphie Boy said. “And Sidge. And Tony Dee. The guy tries anything, they destroy him.”

“He won’t try anything,” Sanno said. “He’s too smart.”

“He’s a freaking maniac,” Ralphie Boy said. “All them Cubans are maniacs.”

“He’s Colombian, Ralph,” Sanno said. “That’s a different country from Cuba.”

“Cuba. Colombia. They’re all maniacs. Women, children, girls. They hit anybody. They don’t care. Look at them nuns was killed down in Nicaragua.”

“It was El Salvador, Ralph.”

“You know what I mean. They’re all freakin’ nuts.”

Sanno glanced at his watch. “I better go in.”

“I’ll be right here.”

Sanno got out and hurried through the rain to the restaurant. There was a bar to the right and then an entryway into a large room with booths along the wall to the left, tables filling the room, a trio playing tepidly at the far end. Sanno gave his hat and coat to the hatcheck girl and turned to the maître d’.

“Carlos,” Sanno said, and the maître d’ nodded and led him through the crowded room to the booths. The Colombian was sitting alone. He was tanned, clean-shaven, and as he rose slightly in the booth and extended his hand, Sanno thought: a banker. Sanno shook the man’s hand and sat facing him. A Rolex gleamed on his left wrist.

“Good to meet you,” Carlos said, in slightly accented English. “I hear about you a long time.”

“I heard about you, too.”

Carlos laughed. “Hey, don’t believe everything you hear, okay?” He waved to a waiter. “Drink?”

“Scotch would help. Ice. Soda.”

Carlos ordered in Spanish. Sanno turned to look at the trio, which was playing “We’ll Be Together Again.” He saw Junior eating alone at a small table. Sidge was at the bar, facing the mirror. He couldn’t see Tony Dee.

“The other one’s down in the john,” Carlos said, smiling. “He should be back soon.”

Sanno stared blankly at the younger man. One waiter brought the Scotch and soda and placed it before Sanno on a plate. A second waiter brought Carlos a fresh cup of coffee.

“What do you want?” Sanno said.

“Everything.”

Sanno felt the whiskey burn its way through him and then settle and grow warm.

“You really are crazy,” Sanno said. “Like they said.”

“You asked a question, you got an answer.”

“You better study a little more English, pal,” Sanno said. “Like that word ‘everything.’ I don’t think you know what it means.”

“It means the jukeboxes. It means the loan-sharking in the produce market. It means the line to Montreal. And, oh, yeah, it means the union, too. I like that part mos’ of all. I like the union. I like everything.” He sipped the coffee. “One of my favorite words.”

Sanno laughed and sipped some more whiskey and looked around. Junior was gone. Tony Dee was at the bar with Sidge.

“You seen too many movies, Carlos,” he said. “This is the real world. This ain’t The Godfather. This ain’t Scarface.”

“You saw Scarface? What’d you think?”

“Too violent. But I liked the girl, Al Pacino’s sister.”

“Beautiful.”

“She’s Italian,” Sanno said. “Like Pacino.”

“Don’t put me on.”

“You could look it up,” Sanno said.

“I like the movie,” Carlos said.

“It ain’t a documentary, Carlos,” Sanno said. “It ain’t even a training film.”

“Yeah, but it gotta point, man. I think you know what it is.”

“No. What is it, Carlos?”

“It’s our turn now.”

“That’s the point? What are you, a critic, too?”

“No, but I read history. First the Irish had it. Then the Jews had it. Then you people had it. Now we’re gonna have it.”

“What’s ‘it,’ Carlos?”

“Everything,” he said, and laughed.

A waiter came over with two plates of marinated shrimp, placed them in front of the two men, bowed, and went away.

“Suppose I tell you to get lost,” Sanno said.

“Mistake.”

“I’m thinking just sitting here’s a mistake.”

Carlos tested one of the shrimps, then chewed it in a distracted way. He gazed out at the trio, which was now playing “Yesterday.”

“Don’t worry,” Carlos said. “We’ll take care of business. And we make you a deal. You get a percentage the rest of your life. You move down t’ Florida someplace, you get a condo, you go to the track every day, you get a tan. You need girls, we get you some girls. You need a driver, we get you a driver. You be like a consultant. The percentage goes anywhere you want it. A bank here, a bank down there. Switzerland. The Caymans. Don’t matter to us.” He sighed. “It’s easy. You just get outta the way, and tell the right people it’s ours.”

“Suppose I tell the right people to blow your head off?”

Now he could see Junior, at the end of the bar, acting as if he didn’t know Sidge or Tony Dee. Carlos took a pack of Benson & Hedges from his inside coat pocket. Nothing moved in his face, and his eyes were cold and unblinking.

“Look, I’m tryin’ to make this easy,” Carlos said. “We could come in, fight you for it. What happens? Lots of dead people. And we win that. Know why? We know you, and you don’t know us. You don’t know where we live. You don’t know nothin’. But you know we’re here. You’re not dumb, Sanno. You wouldn’t’ve lasted this long. But why have a mess? Why have a war?”

“Maybe I’d just like to see you with a hole in your head.”

Carlos smiled, and began to recite addresses. In New Jersey, in Brooklyn, in Lido Beach, in the North Bronx. Even in Huntington Beach, California. And Sanno knew who lived in all those places: his wife, his two daughters and his son, each of his grandchildren.

“Now, if anything happens to me, something bad happens to the people that live in those houses,” Carlos said, smiling thinly. “Not just you. Not just the three dummies at the bar, and the other dummies you got workin’ for you. Everybody. Wives, children, babies: don’t matter. War is war, right? Anyway, they all been livin’ off what you made, so they’re part of it. We got one rule: hurt us, we hurt you back worse. Know what I mean?”

He was serious. Sanno was certain of that. He struggled to contain the old instincts, the street rage, the urge to strike and hurt. But he showed nothing. He took another sip of Scotch, then glanced at his watch. He saw Marie, watching television. Then covered with blood.

“I gotta run,” Sanno said.

“Stay and eat.”

“Not with you, pal.”

Carlos speared another shrimp, and said: “So?”

“I’ll get back to you,” Sanno said, and started easing out of the booth. Carlos touched his forearm, and Sanno paused.

“The girl, Al Pacino’s sister,” Carlos said. “She’s really Italian?”

“You could look it up,” Sanno said, getting out of the booth, nodding at Junior at the bar, going for his hat and coat, thinking: Yeah, it’s their turn. He looked out at the cold winter rain and saw palm trees and white sand and could hear the long slow roar of the sea.