Sleepers. Part 6

"I saw the doctor at least once a week," Tommy once told me. "When I was sick and when I wasn't. He'd come over, sit at the kitchen table, have a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, and figure out what was wrong with me. Half the time he didn't even check me out. It was a great system. My mother would buy groceries from her end of the insurance money and the doctor eventually bought a house with his. Makes you wonder why they ever gave up house calls."

From the youngest age, a h.e.l.l's Kitchen child was told it was wrong to steal from anyone who lived in the neighborhood. The church was also sacred ground. Street muggings were rare, and the price for attacking an elderly person was steep.

Rumor circulated about one tough guy who robbed an old lady. He didn't hit her, just took her purse and the eight dollars it held. Word got out and the mugger was found. He had both his arms and legs broken and two fingers of each hand were removed. After that, when kids saw old ladies in the street, they gave gave them money. There were rules on those streets. Serious rules. them money. There were rules on those streets. Serious rules.

When my friends and I were young, h.e.l.l's Kitchen was run by a man named King Benny.

In his youth, King Benny had been a hit man for Charles "Lucky" Luciano and was said to have been one of the shooters who machine-gunned "Mad Dog" Coll on West 23rd Street on the night of February 8, 1932. King Benny ran bootleg with "Dutch" Schultz, owned a couple of clubs with "Tough Tony" Anastasia, and owned a string of tenements on West 49th Street, all listed in his mother's name. He was tall, well over six feet, with thick dark hair and eyes that never seemed to move. He was married to a woman who lived outside the neighborhood and had no children of his own.

"He was fourteen when I first met him," my father told me one night. "Wasn't much of anything back then. Always getting the s.h.i.+t kicked out of him in street fights. Then, one day, for who knows what reason, an Irish guy, about twenty-five years old, takes him and throws him down a flight of stairs. King Benny breaks all his front teeth in the fall. He waits eight years to get that Irish guy. Walks in on him in a public bathhouse, guy soaking in a tub. King Benny looks in a mirror, takes out his front teeth, lays them on a sink. Looks down at the guy in the tub and says, 'When I look in a mirror, I see your face.' King Benny pulls out a gun and shoots the guy twice in each leg. Then says to him, 'Now when you take a bath, you see mine.' n.o.body ever f.u.c.ked with King Benny after that."

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THE LARGE ROOM was wrapped in darkness. Three men in black jackets and black sport s.h.i.+rts sat at a table by an open window, playing was wrapped in darkness. Three men in black jackets and black sport s.h.i.+rts sat at a table by an open window, playing sette bello sette bello and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Above them, a dim bulb dangled from a knotted cord. Behind them, a jukebox played Italian love songs. None of the men spoke. and smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Above them, a dim bulb dangled from a knotted cord. Behind them, a jukebox played Italian love songs. None of the men spoke.

At the far end of the room, a tall, thin man stood behind a half-moon bar, scanning the daily racing sheet. A large white cup filled with espresso was on his left, a Kenmore alarm clock ticked away on his right. He was dressed in black s.h.i.+rt, sweater, shoes, and slacks, with a large oval-shaped ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. His hair was slicked back and his face was clean shaven. He chewed a small piece of gum and had a thick wood toothpick in the corner of his mouth.

I turned the k.n.o.b on the old wooden door that led into the room and swung it open, thin shafts of afternoon sunlight creeping in behind me. No one looked up as I walked toward King Benny, the heels of my shoes sc.r.a.ping against the floor.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked, standing across from him, on the far side of the bar, my back to the three men playing cards.

King Benny looked up from his racing sheet and nodded. He reached out for his coffee, raised it to his lips, and took a slow sip, eyes still on me.

"I would like to work for you," I said. "Help you out, do whatever you need."

King Benny put the cup back on the bar and wiped his lower lip with two fingers. His eyes didn't move.

"I can be a lot of help to you," I said. "You can count on that."

One of the men playing cards slid his chair back, stood up, and walked toward me.

"You the butcher's kid, am I right?" he asked, his three-day-old beard growing in gray, the bottoms of his teeth brown and caked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Well, what kind of work you lookin' for?" he asked, leaning his head toward King Benny.

"Whatever," I said. "It doesn't matter."

"I don't think we got anything, kid," he said. "Somebody musta steered you some wrong info."

"n.o.body steered me wrong," I said. "Everybody says this is the place to come to for jobs."

"Who's everybody?" the man said.

"People from the neighborhood," I said.

"Oh," the man said. "Them. Well, let me ask ya, what the f.u.c.k do they know?"

"They know you guys got jobs," I said, moving my eyes from the old man and back to King Benny.

"Smart a.s.s," the old man said, turning away, heading back to his chair and his game.

King Benny and I looked at each other, the coffee by his side growing cold.

"Sorry I wasted your time," I told him, looking away and heading toward the door.

I pulled the k.n.o.b and opened it, letting in some gusts of air, letting out wisps of smoke.

"Hold it a minute," King Benny finally said.

"Yeah?" I said, turning my head to face him.

"Come back tomorrow," King Benny said. "If you wanna work."

"What time tomorrow?"

"Anytime," King Benny said, his eyes back on the racing sheet, his hand reaching for the cold cup of coffee.

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MY FIRST JOB for King Benny paid $25 a week and ate up only forty minutes of my time. Twice a week, on Monday mornings before school and Friday afternoons after dismissal, I went to the large room on 12th Avenue, where King Benny conducted his business. There, one of the three men would hand me a crumpled paper bag and direct me to one of the two nearby police precincts for its delivery. for King Benny paid $25 a week and ate up only forty minutes of my time. Twice a week, on Monday mornings before school and Friday afternoons after dismissal, I went to the large room on 12th Avenue, where King Benny conducted his business. There, one of the three men would hand me a crumpled paper bag and direct me to one of the two nearby police precincts for its delivery.

It was a perfect way to handle payouts. Even if we got caught with the drop money, there wasn't anything the law could do about it. n.o.body was going to jail for simply handing somebody a paper bag. Especially a kid.

Not long after I began work for King Benny, I was walking across Tenth Avenue, a paper bag filled with money nestled under my right arm. The spring afternoon was warm and cloudless; a mild threat of rain had disappeared with the lunchtime traffic. I stopped at the corner of 48th Street, waiting while two trucks drove past, leaving dust and fumes in their noisy wake.

I didn't notice the two men standing behind me.

The shorter of the two, dressed in tan slacks and a brown windbreaker, leaned across and grabbed my elbow, pulling me closer to him. The second man, taller and stronger, locked one of his arms into mine.

"Keep walkin'," he said. "Make a sound, you die."

"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to disguise my panic.

"Shut up," the shorter man said.

We had s.h.i.+fted direction and were moving toward the waterfront, walking down 47th Street, past a car wash and an all-night gas station. The shorter man tightened his grip on my arm as we walked, his foul breath warm on my neck.

"Here we are," he said. "Get in there. C'mon. Stop stallin'."

"You guys gotta be nuts," I said. "You know who you're takin' off?"

"Yeah, we know," the tall man said. "And we're scared s.h.i.+tless."

The tall man ripped the paper bag from under my arm and pushed me cras.h.i.+ng through the front of a tenement doorway. The inside hallway was dark and narrow, bloodred walls cold to the touch. A forty-watt bulb cast the stairs and cement floor in shadow. Three garbage cans, lids on tight, were lined up alongside the super's first-floor apartment. Down the far end of the hall a wood door, leading to a cluttered backyard, creaked open.

I was on my knees, watching the two men count the money from the paper bag. They stopped when they saw me staring.

"This is a lot of money for a kid," the tall man said, smiling. "Don't know if I would trust a kid like you with this much money. What if you lose it?"

"It's only money," I said, looking behind me at the door that led out the back way.

"Whatta ya get outta this?" the short man asked me. "What's your cut?"

"Don't get a cut," I said.

"Then you ain't nowhere as smart as you think," the short man said.

"Lots of people tell me that," I said, getting to my feet, rubbing my hands against my pants legs.

The tall man rolled the money back up, rubber bands holding the two bundles in place, and put them in the paper bag. He crumpled the bag again and shoved it inside the front pocket of his jacket. The short man had turned his back to me, checking out the street traffic through the open doorway.

Then the super's door clicked open.

The super, an old man in a sleeveless T-s.h.i.+rt and brown corduroy pants, stood in his doorway, staring at the three strangers in his building.

"What you do?" he said in a husky Italian accent. "Answer me. What you do here?"

"Relax," the tall man said, his words tight, controlled. "We were just leavin'. Okay with you?"

"What you do to the boy?" the old man asked, stepping out of the doorway, his arms by his sides, walking closer to me.

"They took my money," I said to the old man. "They followed me and took my money."

"You take money?" the old man asked, his voice an angry challenge.

"Kid's talkin' trouble," the tall man said. "Don't listen to him."

"It's in the bag," I said. "The money they took is in the bag."

The super's eyes moved to the paper bag, stuffed inside the tall man's jacket.

"Lemme see the bag," the old man said.

"f.u.c.k you," the tall man said.

The old man brought a hand to the small of his back, his manner calm, his eyes steady. The hand came back holding a c.o.c.ked .38-caliber pistol, its s.h.i.+ny silver cylinder pointed at the tall man's chest.

"Lemme see the bag," the old man said again.

The tall man took the bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to the old man, careful not to make a sudden move. The old man tossed the bag to me.

"Get out," he said. "Use the back door."

"What about them?" I asked.

"You care?"

"No," I said.

"Then go."

I turned around, shoved the bag under my arm, and ran out the building. I jumped the short back fence, cut through a small alleyway, and came out on 11th Avenue.

I never looked back, not even when I heard the four shots that were fired.

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"I NEED SOMEBODY NEED SOMEBODY with me," I said to King Benny. "What if that old guy hadn't showed?" with me," I said to King Benny. "What if that old guy hadn't showed?"

"But he did," a man to King Benny's left said. "And he took care of it."

"Maybe next time we don't walk into the wrong building," I said, sweat lining my face.

"There ain't no next time," the man said, lighting a cigar.

"Maybe you just ain't up for the work," another of King Benny's men said. "Ain't as easy as you was thinkin'."

"I'm up to it," I insisted.

"Then there's no problem," the man behind me said.

King Benny brushed a stream of cigar smoke away from his eyes. His look was cold and steady, his black jacket and slacks sleek and tailored, a large-faced Mickey Mouse watch strapped to his left wrist.

"Whatta ya need?" he asked me, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

"My friends," I said.

"Your friends?" the man behind me asked, a laugh to the question. "What do you think this is, camp?" camp?"

"It won't cost you extra," I said. "You can take the money out of my end."

"Who are these friends?" King Benny asked.

"From the neighborhood." I looked directly at him. "You know their families, just like you know mine."

The guy behind me threw his hands up in the air. "We can't trust no kids."

"These kids you can trust," I said.

King Benny brushed aside a fresh stream of cigar smoke, pushed his chair back, and stood.

"Get your friends," he said, then turned and walked toward the rear of the room. "And, Tony," King Benny continued without looking back, his shoulders straight, his walk slow, his damaged right leg sliding across the floor.

"Yeah, King?" the man with the cigar in his mouth asked.

"Never smoke in here again," King Benny said.