Sugar Pop Moon (26 page)

He walks back to the gravesite, looks up toward me, and nods. The heat is off for now. I've got the day to grieve for Santi. It's not much, but I'll take it.

The Nash is in the shadow of the mausoleum when its brake lights shine. It makes a U-turn, drives around the site and climbs the tree-lined service road that curves like a coiled snake. Gazzara's goons must have spotted me because they're headed our way. And even Jimmy can't stop them now.

I get up in a hurry and scramble to the Auburn. The snow feels greased beneath my boots and my right foot slips beneath me. I stick out my bandaged arm to break my fall but I slam the ground with my right shoulder. I feel as if I've landed on a live grenade.

“Jesus,” Johalis says.

He jumps out of the Auburn, plods through the snowy embankment, grabs my left arm and helps me to my feet. The Nash continues up the hill as we get back in the car. I collapse into the rear seat, clutching the stitched hole in my shoulder, and Johalis takes off down Riverside Drive.

By the time I look out the back window we're a half mile south of the cemetery. The Nash is on us and we're about as hard to spot as a white face on 125th Street. Not only is our taillight shattered, the trunk is branded with eleven fresh bullet holes.

Frank leans out the passenger window of the Nash, a machine gun in his arms, and opens a round. The patter of gunfire rips through the air and is echoed by the ping of bullets striking the back of the car.

“Son of a bitch!” my father barks.

I reach for my gun, but before I can get it out of the holster, Johalis is rolling down his window and shouting for us to hold on. I grab the back of the driver's seat as he slams on the brakes and makes a U-turn, the Auburn's tires skidding in the snow and the engine whining under the stress. Then he pounds his boot back onto the accelerator. We're speeding directly at the Nash.

“Grab the wheel,” Johalis yells at my father and pulls his pistol from the sun visor.

The champ starts to protest but he stops in midsentence with his mouth hanging open.

“Grab it!” Johalis yells.

Trying his best not to put any weight on his ravaged leg, my father holds the wheel and steers the car from the passenger seat. We're still aiming at the Nash, but now we're teetering from side to side.

Johalis's boot is pinned to the accelerator when he reaches out the window and squeezes off six shots, four of which hit the Nash's windshield. The Nash goes in a tailspin and winds up in a frozen snow bank on the east side of Riverside Drive. We race past the dead car, quickly passing the puffs of black exhaust that pour out of it.

“This is gonna end once and for all,” the champ says, more to himself than to me. “I got one move and I'm gonna take it.”

Johalis doesn't say anything and I don't either. We just let the champ grumble. As we loop around and speed toward the Cozy Cottages on the other side of the river, I wonder if the champ actually has a plan. If he does, it better call for hitting Denny Gazzara with some serious muscle, because at this point—what with the champ's leg plugged and my shoulder torn up—I don't have any choice other than to jam my revolver into Gazzara's stuttering mouth and blow his brains to the sugar pop fucking moon.

Sunlight streamed through the
Evening-Star
's office windows as Walter dug out his file on Barry Higgins. Now that he was rid of sports, he was more than happy to hand off his notes to Crager.

“You think the Higgins–Spurlock fight is dirty?” Crager asked as he took the stack of notebooks.

Walter didn't need to be working the bout to know it reeked. Once Ernie had given up the title, the commission had handed the belt to Higgins, telling him, in an effort to save its own face, that he had to defend it against a Negro, Jack J. Spurlock. Yet Albright had already booked Higgins to fight Tommy Burns for the world heavyweight championship in two months. Spurlock didn't stand a chance.

“Albright wants to get at Burns for the world title,” Walter said, sipping his second cup of coffee. “He's not going to let fair play get in his way.”

Crager walked back to his desk, opened the first notebook, and pinched his lips as he studied Walter's scribbles. Looking at Crager, you'd think sports suddenly got important because he was on the job.

“Nothing here seems too bad,” Crager said, scratching the stubble under his chin.

“Keep reading,” Walter said, rolling up his shirtsleeves and going back to his research.
And pray you don't cross Albright or you'll wind up spending a month at the dentist's office, like I did.

“Wilkins!” Glenny called from his office.

Glenny probably wanted an update on Walter's latest story, but Walter had little to share. He was working off a tip from an old high school chum, Jimmy Farley, who said the 107th Street mob was behind the body found earlier that week in Newark Bay. Walter was getting closer—he could sniff it—but he hadn't yet found anybody who'd talk.

“Wilkins!” Glenny shouted again.

Walter shot down his last inch of coffee and scooted past the other reporters to Glenny's office. Poking his head inside, he found his boss in his usual pose: seated in his high-back chair, reading through a pile of newspapers, and waiting to yell at someone. His wireframe spectacles rested on the bump of his pointed nose.

“Sit down,” Glenny said, nodding toward the pillowy armchair in front of his desk. The chair was covered by the day's proofs, so Walter dropped the ink-stained sheets to the floor and took a seat.

Glenny straightened his desk, first arranging his pens and then stacking a pile of loose carbon papers.

“Boss, I'm still chasing leads on the floater,” Walter said. “I'll have something soon.”

As Glenny shuffled through his desk drawer, Walter knew something was wrong. Nothing bothered his boss more than one of his reporters coming up empty, but Glenny's typical barrage of curses never came. Walter would have to wait this out, but the clock was ticking. He checked his timepiece; he had fifty minutes to get to the station and meet up with Farley.

“Listen,” Glenny said. “The paper's in trouble. Circulation is down. So is advertising.”

Horseshit. The paper was doing better than ever, thanks in no small part to Walter, whose front-pagers were keeping the newsboys busy. It certainly wasn't due to Crager.

“I've got to, umm, let some people go,” Glenny said, yanking at his collar as if it had suddenly become a size too small.

Walter got the message. He was fired. He should have seen it coming. His piece on Canfield had knocked the
Evening-Star
on its ear. The publisher had had no choice but to pull Werts off the commission—so the slippery reptilian bastard had probably exacted his revenge and taken Walter down with him.

“You're a good newspaperman,” Glenny said. “But you've got to learn to handle the politics.”

Walter didn't stick around to hear the rest. He got up and walked out of Glenny's office, leaving his boss talking to an empty armchair. He had believed in Glenny, especially once the editor had gone ahead with the piece on the commission. Walter couldn't sit there and watch the man stumble over his words, trying to come up with an excuse that would make sense. He walked past the bullpen to his desk, grabbed his jacket, his derby, and his notes on the Newark Bay floater. Then he left the building, a newspaperman in search of a newspaper.

Ernie had been pushing Dorothy out of his mind since she'd left his dressing room ten months ago. If she'd shown that she had any feelings for him, he would have fought off a lynch mob to be with her. But he was finally coming to see what had been obvious all along: Dorothy couldn't handle the heat that the world was capable of dishing out. So when he walked out of the Grand Street cigar shop at closing time on a summery evening in May, the last person he expected to see was Dorothy.

“Ernie!” she called out through a wide smile.

Ernie's face turned hot when he saw how her milky skin still glowed; she was a stark contrast to the sweaty Hoboken street vendors who were grooming their horses behind her.

“Dorothy!” he shouted back, thankful that he was wearing a pressed suit and freshly shined shoes. He sucked in his gut and pulled back his shoulders, the same way he did at weigh-ins and photo shoots.

As Dorothy came closer, Ernie could see that her dark eyes lacked the confident shine they'd had back in Camden. She was carrying a blanketed bundle and lifted it; a baby peeked its white head out from the thin cloth, its cheeks as round and dimpled as Dorothy's. Ernie had a million questions but thought better about asking any of them.

“I've been busy,” she said, nodding her head toward her baby, who was now drooling onto Dorothy's stiff, lacy collar.

Ernie struggled with a surge of jealousy that somebody on earth was smart enough—and white enough—to build the life he wanted. “Yours?”

She nodded. “His name is Jersey.” With that, she handed the kicking bundle to Ernie who cradled it in his left arm, letting his broad round bicep serve as a pillow.

“Why Jersey?” he asked, moving the cloth off of the child's forehead to get a good look at the tiny boy. The baby was as white as the cotton that cocooned him. His eyes were light blue and a handful of platinum hairs sprouted out of his head.

“I named him after his father, in a way,” she said.

Ernie's throat turned as dry as leather. She must be lying, or mistaken. This boy was whiter than any mulatto he'd ever seen. Against Ernie's fingers, his face was a cube of sugar floating in a cup of black coffee. Then Ernie remembered his own grandmother, an albino who'd been ghostly white since the day she was born.

The baby looked up at him and gurgled. Ernie knew the infant was too little to recognize who was holding him, but he tried to convince himself otherwise. In a flash, he fantasized about raising the boy, keeping him safe, and giving him the kind of life he himself never knew.

“He's good lookin',” Ernie said, his eyes stinging as they welled up under his lids. He looked at Dorothy—her beauty, her character, his Achilles' heel.

“Why'd you bring him here?” he asked.

“I'm not sure,” Dorothy said as teardrops formed in the corners of her dark eyes. “I'll have him baptized. A priest I know has made arrangements for me to give him to the Sisters of Charity.”

“Don't I get a say?” Ernie asked. He wasn't sure what he would add but he knew he didn't want his kid taken away from him just yet.

Dorothy didn't answer, at least not verbally. She just bit her bottom lip and shook her head, clearly too choked up to form words.

“Why let me see what I can't have again?”

Ernie's bitterness stained his words. He fought the urge to run off with the newborn—the beautiful, gurgling, freakish boy—and hide him away from Dorothy and the rest of the world forever. Instead, he gave his child back to Dorothy, even though his arms nearly betrayed him and pulled the baby back to his chest.

Dorothy took Jersey and cradled him against her breast. Over her shoulder, the sun dropped behind the row houses that lined Grand Street, leaving the littered cobblestone road in shadow.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought you'd want to know.”

Ernie didn't acknowledge her; he was already walking back toward his rooming house, trying to hold on to the image of the baby—his baby—murmuring in his arms. He trudged up the stairs to his quarters, away from Dorothy and Jersey, into a life that now seemed emptier than ever.