Bloodbrothers (29 page)

"Then you should have a dollar sixty-four up there. What if I only came in here with a dollar-fifty?"

The girl looked away. "I'm very busy, ma'am, you want to talk to the manager?"

"Forget it." Marie dismissed her, turning to Phyllis. "Snotty bitch, I'm not comin' in
here
anymore."

"You know, we had sex five times since Wednesday?" Phyllis whispered.

"You braggin' or complainin'?" Marie dug into her purse.

"Something feels really weird about it. After we're finished, he keeps askin' me if I came, if I came, if I came. He's always askin' me if I love him."

Marie looked up but didn't say anything.

S
TONY WAS
in a good mood. Wednesday. Two days to go. Monday, back to Cresthaven.

"You know, you got a really good voice." Stony smiled curiously at Malfie, who was busy feeding cable into the mouth of a pipe. Malfie made like he didn't hear Stony and kept singing in a high, yet throaty tremolo.

Stony bent down and continued pulling cable from a similar pipe. Malfie was the best-looking guy Stony had ever seen. He had a tight and smooth profile that seemed almost manicured with high cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, thin, perfectly defined lips and glittering blue eyes. He combed his dirty blond hair high and straight back. When he was finished feeding cable he stood up. Tall and thin. A real killer.

"You ever hear a the Convoys?" he asked Stony. Stony stopped working and turned to Malfie.

"Yeah, they did what...'Rock 'n' Roll Serenade.'"

Malfie nodded slightly. "Yeah, I used to sing with them."

Stony stopped working. "You shittin' me?"

Malfie casually threw out a couple of powerful ooh-wahs that echoed throughout the cavernous level where he, Stony and about ten other electricians were circuiting wire through a field of pipes.

"Goddamn! Whatta you doin' here?"

"I quit two years ago." He moved to another pipe five feet away, knelt down and started shoving the braided multicolored strands down its mouth. "It's comin' out up there." Malfie tilted his head at a short pipe protruding from the poured concrete ceiling. The head of the cable peeked out where Malfie indicated, and he waited for Stony to climb a stepladder and pull out the wires before he continued feeding his end of the pipe.

"Wha'd you quit for?" Stony grunted. The wires were snagged somewhere in the invisible network of conduit. He teased and tugged the cable until it came loose.

"Lucy," Malfie sang something in husky Spanish.

"You know Spanish?"

"
Si, por supuesto.
"

"You're fuckin' amazin'." Stony stopped for a second to adjust his work gloves, flexing his fingers for a tighter fit.

"My father knew seven tongues." Kneeling, Malfie bounced Tightly on the balls of his feet to keep his circulation going. He tied the end of the cable with a few deft movements.

"French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese and English. He met my mother in Cuba."

"Your mother Spanish?" The wire pulled taut on Stony's end and Malfie tied it off for him.

"From Havana, we lived there until Castro came in." For the first time Stony noticed a slight staccato clip in Malfie's speech. "Had maids an' everything. My father was head croupier in one a the biggest casinos down there. El Gato Negro." Malfie finished tying the wires, stepped back and extracted a pack of unfiltered Kools.from the chest pocket of his beige workshirt. Stony declined the offered pack, taking out one of his own Marlboros. Malfie held out a red see-through butane lighter under Stony's cigarette. None of the brickwork had yet been started on the exterior walls, even though the small octagonal concrete foundations for the terraces jutted out over the edge of the building. They stood twenty stories high between two layers of concrete overlooking the Hudson. The vast floor was a maze of chalk lines and markings noting the outlines of walls and apartment partitions yet to be installed. Every thirty feet or so sat a bathtub and a toilet bowl—which wouldn't fit through the narrow doorways once the walls were built. It was a gray day and the somber light lent the place the mood of a deserted underground garage. Augie ambled over to one of the protruding borderless terraces, stood spread-legged, whipped out his dick and pissed into the Hudson.

Malfie sneered. "Animal."

Stony looked over the field of toilets and shrugged.

"My father knew Batista." Malfie spat neatly. "We had everything, man. I even had my own fuckin' horse, until that scumbag with the beard came in." He picked his front teeth.

Stony leaned against the ladder enjoying his smoke.

"You know, my father was French." Malfie delicately scratched a raised eyebrow. "So I got French blood. That's why I'm light and that's why I'm tall." Then he added almost as an afterthought, "It's good to be tall, because in a fight you can't get to my face. Look, I don't give a flying fuck what a guy does or says to me but nobody touches my face. He makes one move to hit my face, I'll kill him. The only time I hit Lucy was once she went to slap me. I don't take that from nobody, even her. The only person I let hit me like that was my mother, and she only did it once." Malfie spoke calmly and earnestly. Stony made a mental note never to bash in Malfie's face.

"I hit your face and take the back a your head off." Augie walked over to the ladder, rested a boot on the second rung, his elbow on his knee. He looked like Fred Flintstone—big, lumpy and hairy.

"Then I come after you with a gun." Malfie didn't blink. Augie laughed, winking at Stony. "I ain't kiddin'. I'll blow you apart." Malfie's voice kept rising. He took a step toward Augie.

"Relax, hah?" Augie examined a chunk of snot on his pinky.

"I ain't fuckin' around wit' you, you guinea prick." Malfie lightly touched his high cheekbones. His face was getting red. He took another step toward Augie. "You
touch
me, I'll tear your heart out."

Augie affected a yawn. He knew he could break Malfie in two, but he was an easygoing guy who enjoyed razzing excitable people. Malfie was crazy and had no sense of humor. "See ya, Malfie." Augie flicked the snot off his finger and strolled away.

"I'll
kill
that motherfucker." Malfie's eyes were buzzing with rage as he pointed a quivering finger at Stony.

Malfie had Stony pulling wire at a furious pace the rest of the morning. There was no more conversation. Malfie stormed around the pipes muttering incoherently, occasionally barking orders at Stony.

At noon, the electricians returned to the shanty to pick up their lunches. Stony got ready to go to the traffic island with his father and some of the other guys.

"Malfie, you comin'?" he forced a friendly tone.

Malfie ignored him, roughly shouldering his way through a half-dozen electricians loitering around the shanty door. He walked rapidly to a beat-up old pink Cadillac parked by the entrance to the site. A young Puerto Rican girl sat in the passenger seat. Malfie got in on the driver's side, slammed the door and screeched onto the Parkway.

"That's the last we'll see a
him
today," Artie La Russo bitched, watching the Cadillac disappear. "That fucker bastard pulls that on me one more time I'll have him on unemployment so fast." The electricians knew Artie was talking out of his ass. He was afraid of Malfie and said that every time Malfie took off in the middle of the day.

"That fuckin' kid's ready for the couch," Tommy said.

"Let's eat!" said Augie.

"
T
OMORROW'S
it,
baby, I put in my time." Stony tore off his greasy T-shirt and unlaced his boots. "I'm a free man."

Tommy hovered over him, ballooning with desperation. "You're really goin' back there?"

"Look, you said two weeks, and two weeks you got." Stony pulled off one boot with a grunt.

"You're really walkin' out on me, huh?"

"Aw, Pop!" Stony tossed the boot under the bed. "Gimme a break, hah? We had a deal." He got to work on the second boot.

"You know. Stones, you really fuckin' disappoint me."

"Well, don't make the feeling mutual."

Tommy lunged at Stony, cracked him across the mouth. Stony flew back on the bed, his hand to his bleeding mouth. Tommy towered over him, his huge hands shaking with rage. When the stinging jolt subsided, Stony felt cool. Twenty-twenty vision. "Thanks a lot, Pop." He licked the blood from the corner of his mouth. "You just made everything a lot easier."

***

"I'm quittin', Chub." Stony had developed the habit in the last few hours of gingerly touching the bloody crust on his mouth. "I just don't wanna do it."

Chubby clasped his hands in front of him on the dinette table. "It's on you. Stones, it's your life."

"Don't I know it."

"I'll tell you though, I think you're bein' hasty. Whynchoo give it a few more weeks?"

Stony flushed with panic. "No way! Come Monday morning you can catch my act at
Crest
haven!"

Chubby sighed, shifted his weight on the high Formica-backed dinette chair. "You know, you may not be able to get in the union ever again."

"I'll live."

"Yeah, you'll live, but—"

"Hey look, my quittin' ain't no reflection on you an' Pop. It's just—"

"But it
is,
Stony, don't you see that? What's it gonna look like when your old man shows up for work without you Monday morning?"

"It's gonna look like I quit."

"You're killin' your dad, Stony," Chubby said sadly.

Fear hit Stony inside like a strobe light. He stared at his thumbnails pressed side by side in front of him. "Chubby," he whispered huskily, "lemme breathe."

***

On Friday, the last day, Stony and Tommy drove into work boycotting each other, Tommy staring straight ahead, Stony, his head at right angles with his body, staring out the side window.

After Stony changed into his gear in the shanty, he started taking coffee orders, but Jimmy O'Day stopped him.

"Let Phillip do it today."

"Who?" Stony, poised with paper and pencil, followed Jimmy's stare to a far corner of the shanty where a red-headed kid about Stony's age struggled with his utility belt. Stony glared at Jimmy, but Jimmy just winked.

"Hey, kid." Blackie smiled. "We're gonna start you off easy. You know what a gofer is?"

"Huh?" Phillip looked up, embarrassed at the difficulty he was having with the buckle.

"Hey, take that off," Blackie said. "Stony, give 'im the list. Just take everybody's coffee order an' go over to the Greek's. You know the Greek's?"

"The luncheonette?"

"Hey, this kid's on the ball!"

Phillip smiled, pleased he was off to a good start.

"Lemme go with him," Stony said.

"He can handle it himself." Eddie took the paper from Stony and handed it to Phillip.

Phillip wrote down every word of the orders, abbreviating nothing. Stony and Malfie didn't want anything.

"Make sure you get Artie's order in the trailer," Tommy added, bending down to lace his boots.

Phillip ran from the shed wearing his hard hat, the money in one hand, the order slip and pencil in the other. After he'd scampered across the street, Eddie dragged out an open gray cardboard box with rows of coffee in Styrofoam cups and stacks of cellophaned Danish.

"You fuckin' guys." Stony scratched his head. Everyone grabbed a coffee and a Danish and filed out to the building.

Stony and Malfie sat on upended cable reels smoking and staring over the smog-shrouded rooftops.

"Hey, Stony!" Vinny's head appeared in the stairwell. "C'mon, he's comin' back!" Vinny's fat face looked twice as wide with that gap-tooth grin. Sighing, Stony crushed his cigarette with his boot.

"Malfie, you comin'?"

Malfie indicated no with the slightest motion, not taking his eyes from the antennaed skyline.

"I guess I'll go, make sure the kid doesn't have a breakdown." Head down, Stony broke into a light trot across the littered concrete floor.

The men had congregated on the twenty-first level, sitting on upended cables or on a hip-high green metal trash bin.

Stony leaned against the bin, his back to them. Phillip trudged up the stairs, his milky face blotched with red. The legs of his chinos were matted to his skin with spilled coffee.

"Where was you guys?" Phillip puffed and panted. "I thought you..."

"Vinny, what time is it?" Eddie scowled. Vinny looked at his watch, cursed and showed the time to the men. Stony chuckled in spite of his contempt.

"You know how much money you just cost the contractor, kid?" Tommy folded his arms across his chest.

"What!" Phillip looked like he was going to cry. Just like Stony had the first day.

"You know how much money and time you just wasted?"

"Don't even fuckin' bother." Blackie waved in disgust. "The fuckin' kid's a jerk-off, I knew it the minute I saw him with that fuckin' belt."

"Yeah," Stony added almost inaudibly. He had walked around the bin and was standing next to his father.

"I ran!" Phillip's Adam's apple was going like a bubble in boiling water. He stooped to set down the box, splashing out half the coffee.

"Now the little prick's washin' the floor with our breakfast!" Vinny slapped his leg in exasperation.

"Wait! Artie didn't complain! Iran!" Phillip scratched his face nervously.

"Artie didn't complain!" Tommy mimicked nastily. "The fuckin' kid's an ass-kisser, sure! Artie's the boss. I can see it now, this kid's gonna be another Carlos."

"You think so?" Blackie squinted.

"Sure! Two days from now we'll find the kid behind the trailer with his pants down his ankles playin' drop the keys with Artie."

"Yeah! How you think he got the job to begin with?" Jimmy O'Day pouted.

"My father got me the job!" Phillip's voice was starting to crack.

"Uh-uh."

"Right."

"Sure."

They each picked up a coffee cup and in fifteen seconds all the cups had been dashed to the ground, the men cursing and bitching. Stony found himself pouring out a cup on the floor.

"This kid's got to go." Vinny smirked.