Where Is It?
“So you just propped him up because he was stumbling around drunk?”
“That’s right.”
“Aren’t you the Good Samaritan.”
Ted whipped his head around and fixed Anthony with a fierce glare.
“That true? You weren’t trying something on our innocent nephew, were you?”
Anthony’s face twisted like he’d bitten into something foul. He waved a hand as if the whole business bored him to death.
“The kid’s telling the truth, so if you wouldn’t mind letting me go now.”
“Where do you think you’re off to at this hour?”
“Where else would a lone wolf go?”
He looked about mid-twenties. Without so much as a glance in my direction, Anthony walked off into the dark away from the boarding house. I watched his back and asked Uncle Ted,
“Who is he?”
“Came from Chicago. Got his reasons for staying here. Kieran, he lives in a different world from you, so you don’t need to be curious.”
“Just one thing. Grandfather said the rent sometimes gives him a headache. Is everyone paying on time?”
Ted laughed and shook his head.
“Anthony only pays half. In return he collects everyone else’s rent for me. That’s why I brought him in.”
Using a rough, violent man like Anthony as the face of rent collection, and cutting his room rate in half as payment—it was a pretty rational way to handle dirty, thankless work.
Still… Anthony was supposed to be dangerous?
That only made him more interesting.
For all the warning, he seemed to get along well enough with Ted and Grandfather. And the fact that he came from Chicago—that was worth noting.
In the Prohibition era, Chicago was where Al Capone had piled up his enormous fortune.
I still had no connection there at all.
“By the way, Uncle Ted, which precinct do you work?”
“Me? Harlem.”
Upper Manhattan. Harlem.
During the Revolutionary War the British had burned Harlem to ash, so it developed more slowly than other districts. Only after the Civil War, once the New York & Harlem Railroad and the IRT arrived, did it really start to grow.
It had always been a poor area, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants. Lately the Black population had been rising fast, but they still made up only about ten percent, concentrated in Central Harlem.
“Isn’t it dangerous working Harlem?”
“That’s rich coming from someone who lives in the LES. Crime’s climbing there too, sure, but it’s still better than the Lower East Side.”
I sometimes forgot I lived in the worst crime neighborhood in Manhattan. Uncle Ted gave me a simple breakdown of the difference.
“Organized and heavy-hitting—that’s the LES. Personal and petty—that’s Harlem. No real gangs of note yet.”
The Sicilian outfits cast a wide net, but Harlem wasn’t their main stage.
“It’s freezing out here. What are you two gabbing about?”
Derek, the cigarette salesman and my youngest uncle by marriage, appeared with a smoke already between his lips.
“Kieran, you smoke?”
“Underage smoking’s illegal in New York.”
True to form for a cop, Ted cut in. Then he chuckled and held out a cigarette anyway.
“Like I’d bust family. Go ahead and light up.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“That so? What about booze?”
“Don’t drink either.”
Ted and Derek both let out a long “Whoo-ee” and gave me the thumbs-up.
“Raised real clean.”
“Your mother’s a little scary, though. She used to beat the hell out of me when we were kids. Whenever your chest gets tight, come see this uncle. I get it.”
I wasn’t sure what he thought he “got.” Ted and I clearly had different views of my mother.
Where else would you find a woman as strong as her and still so gentle and warm?
Derek asked,
“Hey, Kieran. I’m swinging by the LES this week. You’ll be at the shop during the day, right?”
“Yes. If you don’t see me, just tell one of the girls.”
“Okay. Lunch, then.”
A brief silence settled. It felt like the two of them had things to talk about, so I headed upstairs first. Halfway up the stairs their voices drifted up, low.
“Any new joints opening in Harlem lately?”
“If there were, I’d have told you already. Why, business slow?”
“Business, sure, but the real headache is the stock getting lifted. Fuck, I can’t take it. Couple days ago they even started shooting in Hell’s Kitchen.”
Derek loaded the truck himself and delivered straight to his accounts. Cigarettes were easy to turn into cash, light, and simple to steal—so salesmen like him were prime targets for stick-up men.
“Maybe I oughta start running lottery numbers. I hear that’s big in Harlem these days.”
“The Black folks are going crazy over it as a group. Must be that lucrative—hell, even I’m getting a little grease off it.”
“Grease” was slang for a bribe.
So Uncle Ted was a dirty cop taking payoffs from the lottery operators.
“Think I could run a numbers game myself?”
“Hard without someone watching your back. Even among the Black operators in Harlem the competition’s cutthroat.”
“Nothing’s ever easy.”
“Just stick to what you know. You gonna throw away all the accounts you already worked? Catherine’ll kill you.”
“Ugh, scary. Suddenly freezing. Let’s get inside.”
I had stopped midway on the stairs; now I started walking again.
Through that accidental eavesdropping, one long-standing question finally made sense.
I thought I understood why Mother had closed her eyes so quickly and compromised with my criminal life.
My guess: the Irish traditions, pride, and culture mattered to them in their way, but the maternal side of the family had never been especially moral or preachy about it.
Ted and Derek proved it. And Grandfather, who used a rough customer like Anthony to collect rents, was no saint either.
Thud.
“Anyway, anyone who messes with the truck, you just hose ’em down with lead. Larry, you’re a manager now—if the boys under you don’t listen, you put the boots to them, no mercy.”
“Already got a few names who used to look down on me. Think I’m just gonna let that slide?”
“Retaliation’s got to be clean and hard. That’s how they stop thinking you’re a joke.”
Uncle Noah and Uncle Larry were showing promise too.
May the family become a true family.
Seeing them all crowded together made my chest swell.
Luckily Derek and Catherine lived right next door. We split the bodies half and half and turned in for the night.
And the next morning.
We demolished breakfast like soldiers at a field mess and I was chatting with the cousins when someone knocked.
Anthony stood at the door.
“What brings you by? What’s that in your hand?”
“Figured I owed you for the help yesterday. Bought some bread.”
“Who helped who?”
Anthony pointed at me with a knowing look and jerked his chin—step outside a minute.
Using bread as bait to lure me out, slick as anything?
The second we were on the stoop his expression flipped.
“What the hell are you?”
“I’ll throw that right back at you. What were you doing in Chicago before you came here?”
“Shut it. I can tell just from your eyes. You’ve killed people.”
Anthony locked onto my gaze hard. I took a step closer; he gave the same distance back.
“You said you live in the LES. You in a gang?”
“Talking about gangs—so you’re Chicago Outfit?”
“Not even close. I work alone.”
Even better.
“If you’re looking for work, come find me. I handle interesting jobs.”
I pulled two business cards from my pocket and handed him one.
“Antimo… lingerie shop? Fuck, you kidding me?”
“You said you could tell from my eyes. Does this look like a joke?”
Anthony’s eyes narrowed.
“So what’s your name?”
“Kieran.”
He pocketed the card and went on,
“I’ll be heading back to Chicago soon… but I’ll drop by before then.”
“Then who’s gonna collect the rents around here?”
“Not my problem.”
He spat the words and turned. Then, almost as an afterthought, he let the next line trail out long and easy.
“I already made the point crystal clear. Nobody’s gonna have the balls to run late on rent. And the old man—your grandfather—he’s no pushover either.”
“Fair enough. Oh—almost forgot.”
Anthony glanced back over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Merry Christmas.”
“…… Fuck, you a psycho?”
With that he vanished up the stairs.
— It’s so good having everyone together. From now on we gather every Christmas, you hear?
— Don’t worry, Mom. Even when it isn’t Christmas I’ll come by often.
After Grandmother and Mother’s goodbyes we parted from the rest of the family.
With the old wounds mended, Mother wore a happy face the whole way home. Roa and Liam, who had met the cousins in a very different spirit from mine, looked bright as well.
“I almost lost Teddy, but really, this was the most wonderful Christmas for Roa!”
Clutching Teddy tight, Roa declared she wished every day could be Christmas. Then she started listing every cousin’s name; whenever she slipped even a little, Liam corrected her.
“Not Ross—Ruth. Not Tornado—Sinéad.”
“Yeah, that. On Aunt Anna’s side it’s Jessie, Andrew, Delburn.”
“Devon.”
“Yeah, that.”
I couldn’t keep them straight myself. Luckily the younger ones seemed smarter than me.
On the road home Mother, still fretting about her police-officer younger brother, asked carefully,
“Did you get a chance to talk with Ted?”
“Of course. Nice having a solid uncle like that.”
“Think it’ll be all right going forward?”
“Honestly, I’d like us to get even closer.”
Mother smiled faintly and nodded.
“I already told him we should see each other more often.”
She seemed to understand that it would be good for me and for our family.
I pushed a little further and showed my greed.
“Same with the other uncles. Nothing stronger than blood, right?”
“Mm. I’m sure they’ll be a help to you.”
Even if that help involved crime, Mother didn’t seem to mind.
How was I supposed to read that?
Unshakable faith that I would never put the family in danger? Or had she simply grown numb to crime itself?
Either way, her words settled something quiet and calm inside me.
The morning after Christmas.
In the office I went over the store sales figures.
The lingerie shop and the dance hall had both turned in satisfying numbers right through Christmas Day.
The problem was the gambling den—yet somehow it had logged sales too.
“Don’t tell me the flies started gambling.”
“Please. I put the word out for one day and real customers actually showed. Now we just hang onto the ones who already walked in, turn them into regulars, and grow from there.”
Even the gloomy gambling hall was finally letting in a little light. With positive energy flowing, my head started spinning faster.
“Lenny, you once said you went broke running a numbers game. Walk me through how it worked.”
Lenny rubbed his temple like the memory still stung.
“I designed the system and tried it with the boss of the first place I dealt for. Managing it was a nightmare.”
Lottery was illegal. To run it you had to grease the cops and withstand pressure from other gangs.
Even among illegal rackets a gambling den was a closed room you could control. Numbers meant dealing with the general public.
“Plus you need deep pockets. Payout money for the winners, incentives for the sellers—it all adds up.”
In the end I confirmed it was still too early.
At the same time I was reminded, sharply, of what I still lacked. To make money, you need money—the simplest principle in the world.
Current profits alone weren’t enough to buy New York’s real politicians and police.
I was already thinking about one big score after sending Lenny out when Ida came up to the second-floor office.
“Boss, you’ve got a visitor.”
Uncle Derek already?
My guess was wildly off.
The man who walked in was the owner of the company that supplied hooks to Mother’s factory. Not long ago I had warned him not to sell to the outfit making knock-offs.
Apparently the problem had flared up again.
“This morning I got threatened—told to deliver the hooks.”
“Where is it?”
I listened to the address and my face tightened.
The former labor slugger who had reinvented himself as a garment manufacturer.
Dopey Benny Fein—the same man who had raised a toast to Johnny Spanish’s death.