Big Man Read online

  But it came up, and it broke the nice pattern of things being quiet, of going places during the day with May, having lunch with her, looking for the apartment, doing things like that. I didn’t mind being married at all, actually. It was kind of nice. It changed the minute the jewelry store job came up.

  The jewelry store was on Fifth Avenue. I know right away that when Fifth Avenue is mentioned everybody falls into the trap of thinking it’s Fifth Avenue, Fifth Avenue. Everybody right away thinks of Lord & Taylor, and Tiffany’s, and the Doubleday Book Shop, and Saks because this is what Fifth Avenue means to most New Yorkers and even to out-of-towners. I guess especially out-of-towners.

  Well, Fifth Avenue is a long street. It starts down in the Village and it goes up past the department stores around Thirty-fourth Street and then the buildings where all the publishing brains hang out, and the fancy jewelry shops, and past Fifty-seventh Street where all the art galleries are, and then it runs alongside the park all the way up to 110th Street, and then Fifth Avenue changes and becomes Spanish Harlem.

  The change is a very quick one. It don’t look too bad around Ninety-seventh, and it don’t look too bad either around 105th, and then you’re on 110th and whammo! there’s Harlem. It’s the same wide street, but all of a sudden it’s a poor street. All of a sudden, there’s tenements and stores with Spanish signs, and there’s kids running in the streets, and there’s a housing project up around 112th, 113th, and it’s Harlem. That’s the only way to say it. It’s Harlem. And Harlem is a lot farther from Saks Fifth Avenue than the lousy fifty blocks or so that separate them.

  This jewelry store we were going to knock over was in Harlem. The guy who ran it was a Puerto Rican who didn’t make very much money, but we didn’t go for this Robin Hood bit of stealing from the rich. The shop figured to be a pushover. Mr. Carfon thought two guys could handle it, and maybe we would realize a couple of grand on the job and that was it. But the risk was pretty small, and the job would be a real quickie, so it was worth taking the gamble for the few grand.

  Weasel and me were the two guys who were going to knock over the shop.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I said to Mr. Carfon.

  “Why not?”

  “Weasel and me ain’t exactly the best of friends,” I said.

  “The shop is wired,” Mr. Carfon said. “I need Weasel for the alarm.”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “Would you rather I sent someone else in your place?”

  “I ain’t trying to chicken out, Mr. Carfon. It’s just—”

  “I’ve already spoken to Weasel,” Mr. Carfon said. “He’s rather ashamed of the way he behaved that night of the card game. He’s admitted that he was needling you, and that he probably deserved what he got.”

  “Well …”

  “Of course, I can send someone in your place. There’s this new kid, Georgie. I think he’s going to be valuable, and he can use experience. Shall I send him?”

  “No, Mr. Carfon,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  May started up with me that night when I was getting ready to leave.

  First she wanted to know where I was going.

  “On some business,” I told her.

  Then she wanted to know what kind of business.

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” I said.

  “I do worry.”

  “Well, don’t. This is going to be a pushover.”

  “Is it a holdup?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “A burglary?”

  “Come on, May. What difference does it make?”

  “Are you going to carry a gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you use it?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  “Will you have to?”

  “How the hell do I know? Look, don’t worry about it. I can take care of myself.”

  “Frankie?”

  “What?”

  “Is it worth it? Is what you have to do worth the money you bring home?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s worth it.”

  “You could … you could get a lot of jobs,” she said. “You’re smart. You’d do a good job no matter who hired you.”

  “Doing what?” I said. “Running an elevator? Delivering groceries? What did you have in mind?”

  “You don’t have to deliver groceries,” May said. “A lot of businesses have training programs.”

  “Starting at what? Sixty-five bucks a week?”

  “We could get along on sixty-five a week. I could take a job, too.”

  “My wife don’t work,” I said.

  “Frankie—”

  “I’m making a hundred and a quarter a week now, and this is just the beginning. How’m I supposed to get along on sixty-five?”

  “You’d be doing honest work,” May said.

  “What’s so honest about big business? They steal from the customers, and they steal from the government when it comes tax time. I don’t see any difference between big business and what I’m doing.”

  “Don’t you ever think ahead, Frankie?”

  “I always thing ahead. You know what Andy Orelli pulls down? Four bills a week. That’s more than twenty grand a year! And I’ll bet Milt Hordzig is already in the forty-, fifty-thousand-dollar bracket.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Frankie.”

  “No? What did you mean?”

  “I mean … don’t you ever think of what you want?” She paused. “Out of life?”

  “I want all I can get,” I said flatly.

  “Don’t you want a home and—”

  “How’m I gonna get a home on sixty-five a week? Sure I want a home. Don’t you think I want to live in New Rochelle in a nice little house with a sprinkler going on the front lawn? Don’t you think I want a new car in the garage, and a dishwasher, and nice clothes for you? I want all those things, May. I want them so bad, I can taste them! And this is the way to get them. This is the only goddamn way.”

  “It isn’t the only way, Frankie.”

  “No? You think my old man was a lawyer who was going to take me into the firm? You think I got sent to medical school? You think I had my own little car when I was seventeen? You think I ever knew anything but the streets of Harlem? Don’t be stupid, May. For guys like me, there ain’t no gray flannel suits. I do it my way, or I don’t make it at all. I’ve got to get what I want and need. And I need all I can get.”

  “And what about your children? How will they feel when they know their father is a—”

  I turned on her quickly. “You’re not …?”

  “Not what?”

  “You’re not … you know … we’re not having a baby, or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,”

  “But when we do have—”

  “We’ll worry about it then,” I said. “For now, let’s drop it.”

  “No, let’s not drop it. Let’s talk about it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I do, Frankie, and—”

  “It’ll have to wait. It’s midnight, and I’m supposed to meet Weasel downstairs.” I went over to her and kissed her. “Come on, grin.”

  “Be careful,” she said, but she didn’t smile.

  “I will.”

  In the car, Weasel said, “We got a job to do, Frankie. In case you got any ideas I hold hard feelings, I don’t.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

  “Sure, it’s all water under the bridge. I just want you to know, I don’t hold any hard feelings. Okay?”

  “Fine,” I said, and we drove to knock over the jewelry store.

  The store was on Fifth Avenue, in the middle of the block. The back of the store opened on a little courtyard which you could reach by going behind the apartment house which was on the corner of the side street. I don’t know if you’ve ever been underneath or behind a tenement. The way it works is there are steps leading down from the sidewalk to a little alle
y where the super puts the garbage cans. There’s like a covered section under the front stoop, and then this alley that runs back on the side of the tenement. There’s always a stink under the stoop and in the alley. There’s a chain hanging from two iron posts on either side of the steps. The chain don’t stop nobody from going down. Most of the time, the chain is just used like a swing by the kids. Every tenement has this chain and the steps and the alley, and they come out into a big common backyard which is divided with fences, but the fences are easy to climb over.

  We didn’t go down the steps of the corner tenement because, even at twelve thirty, there was some teenage kids hanging around on the front stoop, talking Spanish. I was hoping maybe they belonged to one of the hot-shot street gangs. I would have liked to start up with the strangers in their territory, just so we could have mopped up the street with them. But they didn’t say nothing or do nothing. They just hung around mushing it up with the girls with them.

  We kept walking up the side street until we came to a tenement where nobody was on the stoop. We went over the chain and down the steps, and then to the alley. The clotheslines were flapping over our heads. They usually run from the kitchen windows to a wooden pole alongside the fence that separates one building’s backyard from the next. There was a pretty strong wind that night, and the clothes were flapping like bastards. It was eerie. We went down the alley quick, and then jumped up to the stone wall where there was a little ledge that the fence was set in. Then we climbed the fence, and I kept hoping there wouldn’t be no dogs in any of the back yards. I got a fear of dogs. This fear comes from once I was going to church on a Sunday morning and this little mutt comes in my way and just stands there on the sidewalk and bares his teeth and makes that sound in his throat like he’s getting ready to put away a leg of lamb. “Get out of my way,” I said to him, but he kept growling.

  So I started to walk around him, and that was when he bit me. I don’t mean he just took a nip and then ran away. I mean he sank his teeth in and started to gnaw away and the way I finally got him off was to punch him on his nose hard with my closed fist. That opened his jaws, and then I kicked him as hard as I ever kicked anybody or anything in my life, and I think maybe I killed the little bastard, I ran away from him bawling, with my pants all torn and my leg bleeding and, naturally, there was a visit to the clinic, always the goddamn clinic. They had to give me a rabies shot, and if you never had one, don’t. That’s why I got a fear of dogs. Dogs to me mean only one thing—pain. When the Russians shot that pooch up in the sky—even though I naturally hate the Russians and the Communists, who don’t?—I was tickled to death. I kept hoping they would send up a big doghouse with all the dogs in the world in it. Then the comets could blast them all to pieces, goodbye Charlie.

  So, as we climbed those fences between the yards, I kept wishing there was no hounds around. A hound would have fouled up that job as sure as a cop would have. Thank God, no hounds appeared. We got to the back of the jewelry store and Weasel sniffed around a while before he found the alarm box, and then he went to work on the wires and poof, he has the thing knocked off in about three seconds. We went to work on the back door then which was like a fire door, heavily covered with metal. But if you know how to bust open a lock, it don’t matter if a door is made of concrete and steel forty feet thick—and we knew how to bust the lock. Which we done. Then we went into the store and closed the door, and started picking up whatever was around.

  There was a safe in back, but this wasn’t a safe job. We didn’t have time to get the really priceless gems—ha! in a lousy two-bit jewelry shop!—that was in the safe. We just cleaned out all the cases, taking the watches and the pen-and-pencil sets and the bracelets and necklaces and whatever there was around. We put all the stuff in a satchel Weasel had. It was pretty simple.

  We were getting ready to leave when we saw the cop.

  He was just a regular uniformed cop who was making his rounds, trying all the front doors of the shops. It always strikes me ridiculous that the cops try the front doors. Do they really think a crook’ll go in that way and then leave the door open? I think it just gives them something to do on the graveyard shift. Anyway, here came this cop trying all the doors. Naturally, Weasel and I ducked behind the counter. The cop came up to the door and pushed on it, and then he stuck his hands alongside his head and peeked through the window, past the grillwork on it.

  He was moving away from the door when something hit me on the back of the head and I went crashing into the glass display case.

  8

  If you never been inside a police station, don’t go, because it ain’t much kicks. Don’t, in fact, ever get involved with the Law, not even on a speeding ticket. Cops are absolutely the worst possible people in the world, especially if you are poor. This is the truth. If a rich man kills somebody, the cops come to his house and are usually a little apologetic for busting in at this time of night, Mr. Gotrocks, but this is our duty, we are sure you understand. If you’re poor, and you spit on the sidewalk, a cop will bust your head just as soon as look at you.

  My head didn’t need no busting that night. Weasel done a fine job of busting my head. He must have hit me with all the power of his arm behind the gun. I felt an explosion at the back of my head, and then I pitched forward and I must have crashed right through the glass top of the case because my hands and my face were all cut up when I came to. Where I came to was in the Detective Squad Room of the precinct house.

  I’m exactly six feet tall, not an inch shorter and not an inch taller, but every bull in that squad room towered over me. I think sometimes they hire bulls only if they are big. They certainly can’t hire them for brains. There is nothing a bull likes better than to sink his claws into what he thinks is a hood. Bulls are like generals. Generals ain’t no good if there’s no war on. So bulls are worthless if there ain’t no crooks. When they get a hood in the station house, they figure this is a good time to prove we’re worth something, this is a good time to show crime don’t pay, we better take advantage of this skirmish because Christ knows when we get a chance again.

  I came to because somebody threw water in my face. I jumped up out of the chair, and a big beefy paw clamped down on my shoulder and shoved me back again, and then of course I realized I was surrounded by bulls.

  “Well, well,” one of the bulls said. Him I didn’t like right off. He was Irish. I knew that the minute he opened his mouth. He didn’t have a brogue or nothing, but I can tell an Irishman right away.

  “What’s your name?” another bull said.

  “Frankie Taglio,” I told him. “I want to make a phone call.”

  “Relax, Frankie,” the Irish bull said. “You got all the time in the world to make your phone call. You got a record, Frankie?”

  “No.”

  “You never been in trouble before?”

  “Never.”

  “This is the first time you been on a burglary?”

  “Who says I burgled anything?” I asked.

  “Maybe he didn’t,” the Irish bull said. “Fellers, maybe the owner of the store just forgot he was there and locked him in when he went home. Is that right, Frankie?”

  “Maybe.”

  He slapped me across the mouth, and the other bulls didn’t do nothing to stop him.

  “I suppose the owner of the store cut his own alarm system, huh, Frankie?”

  “I don’t know nothing about it,” I said, and he slapped me again, and I said, “Keep your friggin’ mitts off me,” and he slapped me again. I jumped out of the chair and went for him, and this time he hit me in the gut, doubling me over, and then punched me in the mouth, knocking me back in the chair.

  “Lay off, Pete,” one of the other bulls said.

  “What for?” Pete the Irish bastard said. “He cut himself on the display case, didn’t he? We didn’t lay a hand on him.”

  “We ain’t getting anything else out of him, anyway,” the second bull said.

  “No? Who was on the job with you, F
rankie?”

  “What job?”

  “Who ran away with the loot?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Pete the Irish bastard got ready to hit me again, but the second bull said, “Lay off,” and so he laid off. I guess he was tired, or maybe it was time for his coffee break.

  Instead of hitting me, they booked me and then took me down to the detention cells on the ground floor. The next morning, a police van came for me and they took me to the lineup at Headquarters downtown on Centre Street. What they do there, they put you on this stage, and bulls from all over the city are there to look you over while the Chief of Detectives asks you questions. I knew enough not to say anything. Everything he asked me, I just said I didn’t know what he was talking about. By this time, they’d already checked and knew I didn’t have no record. So I figured I’d be all right as soon as I could get to a phone and call Mr. Carfon.

  I called him right after the lineup. He said he would have a lawyer there immediately, and I was not to go for my arraignment until the lawyer showed up. He asked me if I had admitted anything, and I said no, and he said good, don’t. I barely managed to get in he should have somebody call May to tell her what happened. Then he hung up.

  As it turned out, May already knew what happened, that’s how fast the word goes in Harlem. But of course they weren’t letting me have no visitors right then, what the hell I hadn’t even been arraigned yet. So the first guy I saw was the lawyer Mr. Carfon sent down.

  His name was David Lipschitz—a name which always used to break me up whenever I heard it as a kid, but which didn’t break me up now because he was there to help me. He was a little guy who walked with little jerky movements like a bird. He moved his hands like a bird, and his head like a bird, and he kept pursing his lips. He must have been about sixty years old, but he didn’t look a day over ninety. His eyes were very shrewd, though. Well, maybe that’s a crock. Since that time, I met guys who I thought had shrewd eyes, and they turned out to be close to morons who could hardly speak two straight words together without babbling. And I met guys who had stupid-looking eyes, sleepy eyes, dopey eyes, and they turned out to be as sharp as a Caddy’s fins. So I don’t really believe you can tell nothing from the eyes. Eyes is just an accident of the face and got nothing to do with what’s inside the head. But Lipschitz had eyes that looked shrewd, and it turned out he was pretty shrewd, too.