Sugar Pop Moon (3 page)

Santi nods in agreement. “You don't have many other options.”

“I also don't have time. Jimmy's back on Wednesday.”

“That gives us six days,” Santi says.

“It gives
me
six days,” I say. I feel like Santi's older brother; I'm not about to let him catch a beating in Philly. “You have to watch the Pour House.”

“Let Diego run it,” he says. “You'll need me down there. The minute somebody needles you, you'll lose your sanity.”

“I'll be fine,” I say, even though he's got a point. I fly off the handle at albino wisecracks, and it's a safe bet I won't make it out of there without somebody taking a potshot at me. “I'll come home the second I settle up with Gazzara.”

“That might not be so easy,” Santi says. “I suppose there's a shot you could negotiate some kind of mutual reciprocity. But if Gazzara's half as mean as Jimmy, he'll cut your nuts off.”

“He can't be as bad as Jimmy. Nobody is.”

“True,” Santi says.

The way he looks at me reminds me of how he used to say he wanted to be like me when he grew up. I'll always love the kid for that, probably because he's the only one who ever said it.

“You're going down there without any backup at all?” Santi asks.

“I can handle Gazzara alone,” I say. And I almost believe it.

But I hate to go without the kid. If I were to leave him here, I'd be dumping the only ally I've got left. Pearl is already gone. When I went to kiss her last week, she backed off and scrunched her face. “We're friends, Jersey,” she said. “That's it.”

I didn't know what to say, because she'd gotten awfully friendly the night Old Man Santiago left us alone to close the Hy-Hat. We spent an hour in the kitchen, necking. “You don't taste albino,” she'd said, which, if I hadn't been so deeply in love, would have really gotten my goat.

When she pulled away from me, I felt like screaming and vomiting at the same time. I wanted to drive my fist through my own face and watch myself in the mirror as the blood poured out of my unpigmented skin. Ever since I was a kid in Hoboken, I've known that no woman would have me if she thought our kids might turn out like me. I'm not saying that's what flashed through Pearl's mind, but I'd have sure felt better if I'd been able to offer her a full set of genes.

I shoved her out the door, but as I pushed I was hoping she'd cry out that she couldn't live without me. She didn't. I watched her walk down 122nd Street and almost begged her to take me with her, just so I wouldn't have to be alone again.

Santi is staring at me, hoping I'll change my mind.

“I've got nothing to lose, Santi,” I say. “But you do.”

Again, we don't say anything. We sip our sodas.

Santi puts his glass on the table. “I'll lay low,” he says. “And I'll only stay until you find Gazzara. Then I'll come back, I promise.”

I know him, he's not going to let up until I cave. “Okay,” I say. “But I'm doing all the dirty work.”

“I'll just be there for backup,” he says, but he doesn't look me in the eye when he says it.

“I mean it, Santi. You're not part of this. Besides, I can take care of myself.”

Santi nods, but he knows I haven't been in a fight since my father taught me to box nearly a dozen years ago. Maybe I can still throw some punches, but the only real heat I'll be packing is a dusty revolver, a pair of brass knuckles, and a mouth that's far bigger than the bleached coon standing behind it.

“Don't worry about me, Santi.”

I lean back in the dark and hope the kid can't read the fear in my face.

I park the Auburn on Market Street across from the Broad Street Station. Santi's asleep; he nodded off as we were passing Trenton. His feet are pressed up against the dashboard and he's using his overcoat as a pillow. I nudge him on the shoulder and he stirs, rubbing his eye with his fist.

He squints up at the Excelsior. “Is this the hotel?”

“Yep. And that's where Gazzara got off the train,” I say, pointing across the street. “Let's check in and find a bar.” I'm figuring if anybody is going to know a bootlegger, it'll be the owner of a speakeasy.

I step out of the car and the cold December air feels like a plague of mosquitoes stinging my chapped cheeks. I'm wearing my chesterfield, so I pull the lapels up to cover my neck and jaws, then tug on my fedora to protect my exposed forehead.

A few seconds later Santi steps out, his hair still mussed. He's cold but his skin is immune to the raking chill of winter. He throws on his overcoat and we hurry along the bluestone to the hotel.

It's been dark for hours, but a few working stiffs are still heading home from their offices. This city seems busier than Hell's Kitchen, but I'll bet the job market's not booming down here either. A lamplighter is lifting his long pole to reach the corner lamppost. He's wearing a plaid jacket and woolen cap, but I can see his hands shaking in the cold. The poor guy has probably been freezing his nuts off all week for a lousy twenty bucks.

“You look like you could use a drink,” I yell over to him.

“You're telling me,” he says as the gaslight flickers to life. “I'm frozen stiff.”

On the far side of the lamppost a Santa rings a bell for the Salvation Army. I'm pressed for time, but I can't help myself. I unzip my leather bag and grab my flask. I'm about to pass the booze to Santa when he sees my patchy skin and winces behind his phony white beard. Fuck him. I throw the whiskey back into my bag and walk over to the shiny glass doors that lead into the Excelsior.

A doorman in a red hat and matching jacket hustles up to Santi and me. As he gets closer he stops in his tracks. I'm assuming the place shuts out colored folk, but this guy's not even twenty, so I ignore him and keep walking. The name Jimmy McCullough won't go far down here, but I've got another ace to throw down.

I take off my hat and shake the cold out of my bones. The space is so huge it dwarfs the people inside of it. It's two stories high with a pair of matching staircases that extend down from a small balcony on the mezzanine level. Between the stairs sits a towering Christmas tree done up in white lights and red bows.

A white-haired gentleman with a long face and bright blue eyes sits at a desk to the right of the tree. He's reading the
Inquirer
. His dark gray flannel suit and brick-red necktie scream out that he's in charge.

We walk over to him as his radio plays a brass choir's rendition of
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
, a stark contrast to the newspaper's headline about an occult killing in Rittenhouse Square. I suppose he finds the music calming but the photos of mangled bodies make my stomach roll. The blood looks like splattered engine oil.

Santi looks at the oak moldings that stretch across the ceiling. “Nice place,” he says.

“Indeed, it is,” the gentleman responds, giving us a look that says we don't measure up.

I spot a nameplate on his desk that reads
Robert Baines
. “Good evening, Baines,” I say. “We need a couple of rooms.” To let him know we're flush, I add, “Your best.”

Baines looks me over. He probably can't figure out if I'm black, white, or plaid.

“Can't help you,” he says, turning his attention back to his newspaper.

“But Denny Gazzara told me you could.” My breath tightens and my mouth goes dry. “He said to mention sugar pop moon.”

Baines's white eyebrows rise on his pink forehead. He's listening, but he's not convinced.

“You are Baines, aren't you?”

Baines scans me from head to toe. I'm trying to look calm but I'm jumpy as hell. He must realize I'm not an undercover Fed because nobody with a sane mind would hire me to be an undercover anything.

“All I've got are the suites,” he says, opening the desk drawer and pulling out two room keys.

The bellhop comes to take our bags; I hand him my coat and hat and tell him to take them to my room. Santi does the same.

“We're looking to wet our whistle,” I tell Baines as he hands us our keys. “We've been driving all day and we're dry.”

“You might try the drugstore on Twelfth Street, just past Lubin's Palace,” he says. “Maybe pick up some cream for that skin of yours.”

“Thanks,” I say as I start for the elevator. The drugstore is a front, for sure.

“Hey,” he says.

I stop and turn around.

“They're serious over there.”

“So am I,” I say.

The bellhop has our bags so Santi and I follow him into the elevator. He puts Santi in room 1213 and I get 1214.

When I open the door, I see I've got the honeymoon suite. The place is pure elegance, the white carpet is lush and the windows overlook the Philadelphia skyline. A bouquet of roses is on a nightstand at the foot of a brass bed. I toss the flowers into a blue glass wastepaper basket next to the doorway. Then I dump my bag on the bed, pull out my flask, and down a double shot. The whiskey burns going down but the sting in my chest makes me feel like I know what I'm doing. There's a small marble sink outside the bathroom, probably intended for a young bride to freshen up; I use it to splash some warm water on my face and soothe my skin. I dab my cheeks with one of the hotel's fluffy cotton towels, and then go next door to get Santi. I'll take him to dinner and then bring him back here before I head over to the drugstore. Gazzara doesn't have to find out that my only backup is a seventeen-year-old Spanish kid who plays a top-notch game of chess.

The drugstore isn't anything fancy. Standing behind the counter is a wrinkly old man with a few strands of curly white hair sprouting from the top of his head. He's wearing a lab coat but I don't spot a single vial of medicine in the place. There are six tall glass jars on a wooden shelf but they hold only hard candies; the other boxes are filled with kids' toys, like high-bounce balls and slingshots. The only medical implement I see is a thermometer. If this guy's a druggist, I'm a sunbather. When I reach the counter, he dons a pair of thick brown eyeglasses and takes a closer look at my face. I don't say anything; I let him stare.

“I don't think we've got anything for you, son,” he says.

“I think you might,” I say. “My problem isn't my skin, it's my tongue. I'm dry as a bone. Baines from the Excelsior sent me. He said you have some liquids I'd be interested in.”

When I mention Baines he nods knowingly. “In that case, head on back,” he says, pointing toward a door marked
Employees Only
.

I enter a small office. A typewriter sits on a desk along with a pile of blank paper and a stack of carbons. On the far end of the room is a closet door. I look behind me just to be sure I'm not being set up. If I'm going to catch a bullet, I'd rather not be standing in a bogus drugstore when it hits.

Everything seems copacetic, so I pull open the closet door and find three short steps leading up to a heavy red velour drape. From the other side of the curtain I hear voices. They're cheerful voices. Speakeasy voices.

Hiking the stairs and passing the curtain, I walk into the exact scene I'd hoped to discover: a speakeasy the likes of which would attract Philly's top bootleggers. Gazzara must help stock the bar because it's too big for local upstarts.

I push my hat back on my head and take a look around. The room is three times the size of the Pour House. In the front, there's a lounge area with three couches, an armchair, and a piano player who's pounding out a rag I've never heard before. Against the back wall is a curved bar with a mirror behind it. In front of the mirror, three shelves hold various liquor bottles lined up like soldiers at roll call. They glitter the way good whiskey should—just looking at them makes my mouth water. I make a mental note to tell Jimmy to hang a mirror behind the bar at the Pour House. I'm assuming, of course, that the next time I see Jimmy he won't be sticking a blade into my spleen.