Big Man Read online

  “You’re in trouble, boy,” he told me—as if I didn’t know.

  “What’d they book me for?” I said. “Grand larceny?”

  “No, not grand larceny. They may have had a choice, true. In your case, grand larceny could have applied. Stealing property of the value of more than five hundred dollars, in any manner whatever, in the nighttime. But they’ve got a stronger charge.”

  “What? Breaking and entering?”

  “Unlawfully entering a building, do you mean?” Lipschitz said.

  “I don’t know,” I told him.

  “That’s only a misdemeanor,” he said. “Section 405 of the Penal Law. ‘A person who, under circumstances or in a manner not amounting to a burglary, enters a building or any part thereof, with intent to commit a crime.’ No, they haven’t got you on anything as simple as that. No misdemeanor, young man.”

  “What’s the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony?” I asked. It may sound funny that I didn’t know, but who the hell ever thinks of such things?

  “A felony is a crime which is punishable by death or imprisonment in a state prison. Any other crime is a misdemeanor. Most misdemeanors are not very serious. Speeding, for example, is a misdemeanor. So is spitting in the subway. You are charged with a felony.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “Third-degree burglary.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Well, it could have been a lot worse. Let me explain it to you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Explain it.”

  “There are three types of burglary. First degree, second degree and third degree. The maximum penalties for each respectively are thirty years, fifteen years and ten years. Do you understand so far?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “All right. Burglary in the first degree is defined as breaking and entering, in the nighttime, the dwelling house of another, in which there is at the time a human being. You can be armed with a dangerous weapon or you can arm yourself therein with such a weapon, or you can be assisted by a confederate actually present.”

  “That don’t sound so good,” I said.

  “You were armed with a dangerous weapon,” Lipschitz agreed, “and they can assume you were assisted by a confederate. But that still doesn’t amount to first-degree burglary because there was no other person in the store. Second-degree burglary also has in its definition the presence of another human being. There was not, am I right, another person in that store when you entered it?”

  “No. Nobody was in it.”

  “That’s why the charge is third-degree burglary. You broke into or entered a building, or a room, or any part of a building with intent to commit a crime—”

  “How the hell do they know what my intentions were?”

  “They don’t have to. The second part of Section 404 of the Penal Law states, ‘or, being in any building, commits a crime therein and breaks out of the same.’”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t break out. I was carried out.”

  “Unfortunately,” Lipschitz said.

  “So where do we stand?”

  “You’re charged with third-degree burglary. The fact remains, you see, that a burglary was committed, property was removed from that store. That’s why you weren’t charged simply with unlawful entry. The court must assume the store was entered with burglary in mind, and that your accomplice—if such he was—made off with the stolen property. We’re lucky no one was in the store. In The People vs. Hickey, 1923, it was upheld that an essential ingredient of the crime of burglary, first degree, is that breaking and entry must be in the nighttime, into the dwelling of another, in which there is at the time a human being. We’re lucky.”

  “Yeah, but we’re also unlucky.”

  “That’s true. Please don’t forget that you were carrying a weapon and that you do not have a permit for that weapon. Do you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s an offense,” Lipschitz said. “A misdemeanor.”

  “I thought it was a felony.”

  “Only if you’ve previously been convicted of a crime. You do not have, I understand, a prior criminal record.”

  “No, I don’t. How much can I get for the gun rap?”

  “The Penal Law sets no sentence for this particular misdemeanor.”

  “So what do I get?”

  “The court will set its own sentence for the gun violation. I doubt if it will exceed more than a year in a county workhouse. It could be ninety days, or sixty days or—in a first offense, such as this—you may receive a suspended sentence, with or without probation.”

  “The real thing to worry about, then, is the burglary, right?”

  “Yes. You can get a maximum of ten years for that. If we admit that you were a party to the burglary. But I believe we can get around that.”

  “How?”

  “By maintaining that you were in that store trying to prevent a burglary!”

  “Prevent one? Who the hell would—”

  “Yes. You heard noises in the store. You went in and tried to stop the burglar. He hit you. The police arrested you while the real burglar got away.”

  “I see.”

  “This is, of course, in direct contradiction to the facts. Weasel has already told us how you tripped and fell into one of the display cases just as a policeman—”

  “What! Why, that two-bit phony! He slugged me from behind! He was the one responsible for—”

  “Shhhhh, shhhhh,” Lipschitz said.

  I lowered my voice. “Is that what he told Mr. Carfon? That I tripped and fell?”

  “Yes.”

  “That lying son of a bitch! When I get out of here—”

  “Let’s get you out first, Frankie.”

  “All right,” I said, still burning. “We say I was trying to stop a burglary, right? What about the gun?”

  “We will admit that you were carrying the gun without a permit. This is not an uncommon occurrence in low-income neighborhoods.”

  “And for that I’ll get ninety days, huh?”

  “You may get as much as a year, but I doubt it. My guess is ninety days.”

  “That still sounds lousy,” I said. “What do we do now?”

  “We go across the street to the Criminal Courts Building for arraignment. The arraignment is simply a hearing of the charges against you. It will be determined then whether or not the charges will be dismissed or prosecuted. You can take my word for it that the charges against you will be prosecuted.”

  “Will I go to jail?”

  “To await trial after the arraignment? No, I don’t imagine so. Bail will undoubtedly be set for you.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then your case will eventually come to trial.” He paused. “Of course, we may get the right judge.”

  “What do you mean, the right judge?”

  “Mr. Carfon knows a great many people, Frankie. Justice may be blind, but she instinctively knows where to reach for the long green.”

  “Ain’t that dangerous?”

  “Not with the right judge, it isn’t.”

  “You think Mr. Carfon knows the right judge?”

  “I an assure you that he does indeed.”

  “And he’ll go to bat for me?”

  “He sent me, did he not? And he’s ready to pay your bail. But knowing the right judge, and wanting the right judge, and even being willing to pay the right judge, doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get him. Court calendars—”

  “I understand, I understand,” I said.

  “Let’s get the hearing over with,” Lipschitz said. “Please don’t say anything now which will contradict any later statement you will make at the trial. You were in that store to prevent a burglary, remember that.”

  “I’ll remember it,” I said.

  They took us across the street, and I got arraigned. The charge was third-degree burglary. A bail was set and a bondsman Mr. Carfon sent down paid it. I went home and waited for the trial, hoping we’d get the right judge.<
br />
  Well, we got the right judge.

  I got sixty days in the workhouse on Riker’s Island.

  9

  There is nothing like a liberal education.

  In those sixty days, I got a liberal education. I also missed Christmas and New Year’s at home. We got turkey on Christmas Day. Also May came to visit. Where you get the ferry for Riker’s Island is off Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx. You go down 138th Street and the ferry is over on 135th or 136th, I can’t say exactly because it’s right on the river and who looks at the signs? There are big rats there on the wharf. I swear to God, they are the biggest rats I ever saw in my life, they look like tomcats. I lived in a lot of different Harlem apartments, and they got their share of rats and mice and every other kind of crawling thing, but the rats in Harlem looked like cockroaches—of which there is also plenty in Harlem—compared to the rats on the dock where the ferry goes to Riker’s. The same ferry also goes to North Brother Island which is where they keep the junkies. May told me she got talking with the mother of a young kid who is on North Brother and how what a pity it was the kid was hooked and all.

  It seems the kid started when he was eleven years old and that, man, is some kind of a record, I guess. He’d been on the junk for six years before his old lady tipped to the fact that maybe something was rotten in Denmark—that is what I call a remarkable and observant old lady. I guess she tipped because her son was floating up around the ceiling of the room one day, full of H, and she figured my it is strange how Sonny is floating around up there near the ceiling. I think I will ask him what is wrong. So she finally learned her son had been shooting poison in his body since he was practically old enough to walk, a great mother, that old lady. And she blew the whistle on him, and now he was going the cure on North Brother.

  From what I could see on Riker’s, there was an awful lot of junkies who managed to get out of their teens without their mothers blowing the whistle, and who were still shooting themselves full of poison. I never knew there were so many junkies in all the world. I also never knew there were so many drunks. Or vagrants. Or fairies. Or thieves of every kind you want to name, guys who done things so disgusting I don’t even want to talk about it. To tell the truth, it was an entirely disgusting experience being shut up on Riker’s Island for sixty days with this crawling bunch of humans. It taught me a lesson, all right. When I got out of there in January, I had it all straight. I knew exactly what was right and what was wrong.

  It was wrong to get caught.

  I made up my mind that I was never gonna get caught again.

  I also made up my mind that I was gonna kill Weasel as soon as I got the chance.

  I didn’t tell none of this to May.

  There is the joke about “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who likes institutions?” This is a very popular joke among crooks because institutions are an occupational hazard, so to speak, and everybody always jokes about what is most dear to the heart. Only when you are really married, I was finding out, it ain’t such a joke. I no sooner got out of the jail on Riker’s than May began to give me the business.

  I hope you learned a lesson, she would say, and when are you going to quit, she would say, and didn’t you see enough bums on Riker’s, she would say, and finally we had a really big argument which was saved from becoming a beating by the telephone call from Mr. Carfon. I swear to God, I was ready to knock her head against the wall if it hadn’t been for that telephone call.

  It started when I came around that night. It was about eight o’clock. She had found an apartment in the Bronx while I was away, and it was a nice little dump and she furnished it pretty good with the money Mr. Carfon had gave me together with what we had managed to save. I got to say for Mr. Carfon that the hundred and a quarter went to May every week like clockwork all the time I was away. I got to say for myself, too, that I’m a valuable man and he was probably figuring all that. Nobody gives nothing for nothing.

  May was in the living room watching television when I came around. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her, and she just sat there and kept watching the program.

  “What you doing?” I said.

  “Watching television. What does it look like?”

  She was wearing a sweater and slacks, and I have to admit she looked pretty good. I went to touch her, and she moved away from me.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “May,” I said, “why don’t we turn off the television and go in the other room?”

  “I don’t want to,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yeah. I heard you. Why not?”

  “Because I don’t like the work you’re doing, and I’ve asked you a hundred times to quit, and you won’t. And if you won’t do anything for me, I sure as hell won’t do anything for you.”

  “Now don’t be silly, baby,” I said. “A husband—”

  “I don’t care what a husband—”

  “A husband has rights!” I said.

  “And so has a wife!” she said.

  “A wife’s rights don’t include telling her husband how he should make a living.”

  “All right, they don’t,” May said. “If that’s the way you want it, fine. But don’t expect anything from me because you’re not going to get it.”

  “Baby,” I said, “I don’t like the way you’re talking. Any time I want anything, and I mean any time, and I mean anything, I’ll get it. Now don’t forget that.”

  “Big man,” May said, and that was all she said.

  I went to reach for her again, and she stood up and walked away. I caught her hand and pulled her back to the couch, and I grabbed for her sweater and started unbuttoning it, and she twisted away and yelled, “Leave me alone, goddamn you! Don’t you understand? I don’t want to have anything to do with you!”

  I pinned her down to the couch holding one arm across her body. I grinned at her and said, “Now that’s too bad, May, because I want to have something to do with you,” and with my free hand I began unbuttoning her sweater all the way down while she wiggled and tried to get free. I got the sweater open, and then I grabbed her rough, just to let her know I wasn’t taking any crap from her, and the minute my hand touched her breast she shoved me off, twisting her body and getting free and getting up off the couch. She turned to me with her eyes really flashing. She looked sexy as hell with the sweater open down the front, and the bra all twisted, and she yelled, “You rotten son of a bitch! Leave me alone! Get an honest job, or leave me alone!”

  That was when I got up off the couch ready to cave in her head.

  That was when the phone rang.

  I answered it, and Mr. Carfon said, “Frankie? Get over here right away.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I hung up. I turned to May. “This ain’t finished, you know,” I said.

  “Frankie, please,” she said, “please don’t let me hate you.”

  Mr. Carfon was pretty sore. I never seen him sore like that before. He was wearing a smoking jacket, and he kept walking up and down the room in front of the couch, mad as hell. There was a blonde on the couch. She had on a tight silk dress, and no shoes. Her legs were tucked up under her on the couch. She was a very expensive doll, you could see that just by looking at her. She was dressed the way I wanted to dress May, now what the hell kind of a way was that to behave? Didn’t the stupid idiot know I loved her? Didn’t she know I was doing what I knew how to do so that she could dress the way Mr. Carfon’s blonde on the couch was dressed? Dames, Jesus, I can’t understand them.

  This dame kept sipping at her drink all the while Mr. Carfon paced in front of the couch. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, that was this dame. All she knew from was sipping at her drink.

  “I just received a telephone call,” Mr. Carfon said, and the blonde didn’t listen. She looked a little bored, as if this business had interrupted what was a pretty good pa
rty.

  “Who from?” I asked.

  “Andy Oretti,” Mr. Carfon said.

  “What’s on his mind?”

  “He wants to leave the organization,” Mr. Carfon said. “In fact, he has left the organization. He and Celia have rented a house in the Bronx. Apparently Celia’s going to have a goddamned baby and Andy—”

  “A baby!” I said, and I remembered the talk I had with her that day long ago.

  “Yes,” Mr. Carfon said. “A baby.” He turned to the blonde. “Louise, get out of here,” he said.

  “Where do you want me to go?” the blonde asked.

  “The bedroom, the office, the bathroom, I don’t give a damn. Just go.”

  The blonde swung her long legs over the edge of the couch. She didn’t bother putting on her shoes. “Nice meeting you,” she said to me, and I nodded. We both watched her as she trotted out of the room barefoot. Mr. Carfon waited until the bedroom door closed behind her. I knew better than to make any comment about the blonde.

  “A baby!” Mr. Carfon exploded. “Celia! Of all people!”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “It upsets me because I didn’t imagine Celia wielded such power, and it upsets me because I misjudged Andy. Also, there are further complications.”

  “Like what?”

  “Andy knows the workings of this organization quite well. He has seen our books, he is familiar with almost every phase of the operation, he is able to name dates and places and amounts, and he can identify almost every man in the outfit, including many out-of-town people. At the risk of sounding stereotyped I think it would be completely accurate to say, ‘Andy knows too much.’ Do you understand me, Frankie?”