Sugar Pop Moon (22 page)

Now Gazzara's eyes are wide—they're filled with the same panic that gushed through Tommy Sudnik's veins as he lay hog-tied in the basement of Saint Mark's bleeding from his jawbone.

The trumpet is fucking screaming and the rage seeping out of my palm is drenching the wooden handle of my revolver.

The tender calls out behind me. “Hey, pal,” he shouts. “Let's calm down or I'm calling the cops.”

“We're way past the cops,” I say, keeping my eyes trained on Gazzara.

I know the tender doesn't have a prayer of reaching the phone. The champ grabs his striped shirt, pulls him over the bar like a sack of rusty hardware, and works him over as if he were an untethered dummy bag.

I pin Gazzara to the back of the booth with the muzzle of my gun and watch the champ pummel the tender with one left hook after another, knocking him across the room three feet at a time. It's a horrifying dance accompanied by Fats's incessant banging. Only now the record is skipping and that same trumpet note is shrieking over and over again.

I nod toward the champ and ask Gazzara if he wants a shot at the title.

“Laugh it up, wise guy,” he says. I've got the gun pressed so hard under his chin, he's talking through clenched teeth. “You're a dead man if you pull that trigger.”

“And if I don't? You'll only hack my legs off?”

“So go ahead and shoot, you blanched freak of nature.”

This time I pull up on the gun so hard I practically lift him out of his seat. Still, I can't bring myself to squeeze the trigger.

The front door bursts open with Hector behind it. He races toward my father and grabs his left arm, pinning it behind his back. Now the tender is punching at my father with what little steam he's got left. I'm watching the champ throw haymakers with his right hand, but the punches are too limp to carry any weight.

A blinding pain suddenly shoots up my forearm. I wheel around to find Gazzara stabbing at it with the point of a blade. The sleeve of my shirt is soaked with blood and I'm losing feeling in my fingertips. My elbow feels like it's in the clenches of a rabid dog's teeth.

Hector pulls out a blackjack and pelts the champ across the back of his head, spilling him to the floor as if he were a bucket of mop water.

Johalis and Santi crash through the back entrance and head toward my father. Johalis swings at the tender and Santi jumps on Hector's back to pull him away from the champ. The music box is still blasting that one incessant chord and the horn is wailing that screechy note on top of it. Gazzara's cursing at me, calling me a stained nigger zero and sticking me in the arm with his knife. I picture Tommy Sudnik tied up, waiting to be sacrificed for God knows what. I remember Denny telling me not to touch his brother, and I hear Tommy's mother pleading for justice. My eyes are jumping and Fats is banging away on those same fucking piano keys.

I can't take it anymore. I grit my teeth and pull the trigger, the pain from my slashed forearm shoots up beyond my shoulder and into my ear. The gun goes off with a deafening bang and the back of Gazzara's head explodes like a smashed pumpkin, splattering brains, blood, flesh, hair, and bone across the back of the booth. He falls forward, blood pouring onto the table like spilled soup as his soul plummets to hell—or wherever in God's name it was heading—leaving nothing but the stench of gore and gunpowder in its wake.

The tender's fumbling with the chamber of a gun, trying to load it in his shaking hands. Hector's got a pistol trained on Santi and he's inching backward to the door, his slimy hair hanging over his forehead. He's going to shoot Santi when he reaches the doorway but I can take him down before he gets there. I raise my revolver and squeeze, but my finger is numb and slips off the trigger. I hear a gunshot but it's not coming from my piece. Santi gets hit above his left eye and slumps to the ground.

I yell out Santi's name and my voice sounds as if it's coming from the far side of a canyon. The tender has his pistol in his fist and he's raising it toward me. Grabbing my gun with my left hand, I shoot at the tender and Hector, leaving my right arm to dangle and drip blood onto the floor. I squeeze off all five shots left in the cylinder. The third one plugs the tender in the cheekbone. Two shots later, I nail Hector between the shoulder blades as he runs for the exit. They both fall instantly, dead before they kiss the floor.

I rush to the champ, who is still out cold from Hector's blackjack. Johalis is slapping his face, trying to revive him.

When the champ finally comes to, Johalis kicks into gear. He runs around the club using a handkerchief to wipe down any surfaces we might have touched.

I can't take the noise another second. I yank the plug and put Fats out of his misery. The joint turns as silent as a monastery. Now Johalis is behind the bar, he's got his ear to a small safe and he's working the lock with his blade.

My father looks around and surveys the carnage. “What happened?” he asks, his speech as thick as wet cement.

“We got to get outta here,” Johalis says. The safe is open and he comes over to me with a roll of cash in his hand. He shoves it into my pocket and then wipes my prints off the music box.

“Santi?” my father says, crawling over to my young friend's broken body.

I want to explain, but instead of speaking, I vomit, splashing twenty-three years of rejection, crime, and sin onto an ashtray standing next to the doorway.

And while retching, I weep. Tears run down my face as I look at Santi, lying on the floor. He was too young to realize what a misfit he'd chosen to champion. I've killed three men. I've shot a man in the back. I've got a pocket full of blood money.

And now I've got to go the Hy-Hat and tell one of the few angels of Harlem that I've brought his only son to his death.

Walter made his way through the streets of Hoboken, trying his best to blend in with the men who were congregating on the street corners. He was grateful for the cover—he knew Albright wouldn't be happy when he got hold of the day's paper.

Walter's story had finally appeared in ink and it was hot news. Not only was the morning edition stacked up at corner newsstands, it could be found in every populated intersection of Newark, clenched in the extended fist of a screaming newsboy. Walter had made it—he'd landed in bold type on the front page of the
Evening-Star
. Better yet, the article brandished the byline, “Walter J. Wilkins,” which meant that he'd finally graduated from the slapdash sports page.

Thanks to Louis Hoenig, Walter had remained a step ahead of Albright. He'd fleshed out his exposè on Richard Canfield in the protective refuge of the old supply room in Glenny's office, pecking away at his boss's Underwood typewriter, the one that rarely saw the light of day due to its sticky
Y
key. Walter worked for hours, imprisoned in the windowless room, surrounded by old newspapers, notebooks, carbon paper, and typewriter cartridges. He left the
Evening-Star
only to check important details with the records at city hall. And he'd dodged Albright, knowing his story would blow the lid off of the phony commission. Now, so many eyes would be on Albright, the crook would have to think twice before making Ernie his patsy. The only way Higgins would get the title would be to strap on his gloves and beat Ernie in the ring.

Walter strode down Grand Street, making his way past the boys loitering outside the public house and arriving at the cigar shop underneath Ernie Leo's room. He had the collar of his topcoat hiked up and a copy of the
Evening-Star
tucked under his arm. He realized Ernie couldn't read the paper, but he figured the boxer would enjoy hearing what it said.

Ernie sat on an iron bench in front of the shop; he filled out a maroon blazer and had a cigar poking out from between his lips. He puffed the stogie and carefully flicked its ashes into an empty bottle of pop that sat on the bench beside him, seemingly oblivious to the winter chill that had begun to set in throughout the Northeast.

“Ernie!” Walter shouted as he crossed the street.

When Ernie looked up, Walter's stomach tumbled. The right side of the champion's face looked as if it had gone ten rounds with a nightstick. He had a gash under his eye and the dark brown skin on his temple was puffy and tinged with purple.

“What the hell happened?” Walter asked, knowing full well.

Ernie puffed at his cigar. “I got in the ring with the wrong guys.”

Hoenig had been right: Albright's boys wanted a rematch and they weren't going to take no for an answer.

“This was the Higgins gang, wasn't it?” Walter asked.

“I'm done talkin',” Ernie said.

“I'm on your side, Ernie.” Walter meant it, even though he'd started this mess.

“I said I'm done talkin'.”

“Then I'll talk. Albright's thugs showed up and they forced you to take a rematch.”

Ernie didn't say a word but his glare told Walter he'd hit a nerve.

“I know it's true, Ernie,” Walter said. “I've got the goods on these thugs.”

“It doesn't matter,” Ernie said. “They're never gonna get a rematch, not from me, not the one they want. You want to print somethin'? Print that.”

“I already did, or close to it,” Walter said, holding up the morning's headline,
Crooked Commission Linked to Canfield.
If Ernie could read, he surely would have appreciated seeing it in print. “This blows the lid off the whole thing.”

“All that means is when they come back, they'll be lookin' for you, too.”

Walter took a look at Ernie's temple. If that's what they'd do to a boxing champion, he could only imagine what they'd do to a newspaper reporter.

“So let's say they don't take no for an answer,” Walter said. “What are you going to do?”

“Already doin' it,” Ernie said, rolling the stogie between his puckered lips with his thumb and forefingers. “When they come, they come. But this time, I'll be ready.”

Walter thought about reasoning with Ernie. Even a champ couldn't outfight a pack of armed men, and if the police got mixed up in it, they'd undoubtedly arrest the Negro. But Ernie had made a decision and Walter didn't bother trying to undo it. In fact, he admired Ernie for standing up against the bastards—and felt too responsible for Ernie's mess to let him do it alone.

He walked into the shop and bought himself a Tansill's Punch. Then he came back outside, dumped his copy of the
Evening-Star
into the wooden garbage receptacle, sat down next to Ernie, and lit up.

And that's where he stayed, puffing his Punch cigar, waiting with Ernie for Higgins's roughnecks to show up and demand a rematch.

Saint James the Less Catholic Church was empty. Father Stafford sat with Dorothy in the front pew, mere feet in front of the altar. His face took on a greenish hue as it bathed in the glow of the stained glass mural that hovered over the tabernacle.

Stafford was a short, skinny man of about thirty; his black shirt hung loosely from his wide shoulders. He had light skin and small teeth, the bottom row stained from coffee. Powdery dandruff speckled the wiry hairs that sprung from his ears.

Meeting the priest alone in the church made Dorothy feel special, like she did when she was fourteen and her teacher, Miss Madigan, started lending her books after she'd made the honor roll.

“You haven't changed your mind, have you?” Stafford asked, his collar biting into his clean-shaven neck and leaving a series of looping red lines around his Adam's apple.

“No, I'm going through with it,” Dorothy said.

She had been hoping for some other advice, but Father Stafford had echoed the feelings of Father Jennings: God would not allow her to rid herself of the child. Father Stafford also told her, in no uncertain terms, that it was a sin to carry a Negro man's seed inside of her. So by keeping the baby, she was sentencing herself to the lesser of two evils. She would live in holy disgrace for five more months instead of cleansing herself of the child and facing eternal damnation.