Sugar Pop Moon (4 page)

Two bouncers stand like pillars on each side of the entrance. The one on the left has a face shaped like a cube and a chest as round as a barrel. His partner has meaty cheeks but a muscular neck that seems to reach past his jaw and stretch up to his ears. Whoever put these thugs at the door did it for show. They're big, but they don't look like they've had many brawls other than an occasional ruckus with a college Joe who's had too many whiskey sours.

I unbutton my overcoat and spread my arms so they can pat me down. They won't find anything—I knew enough to leave my metal back at the Excelsior.

I walk toward the far end of the bar, where a heavy fellow is pouring red drinks into stemmed glasses for a couple of drop-dead blondes. He's got his shirtsleeves rolled up and the look on his face says he considers himself a chemist. A dozen rummies are gathered at the center of the bar, drinking beer, so I have to inch my way through the pack. When I reach the bar I wave my hand to get the tender's attention and he walks my way.

He's got a hard edge. His eyes are the rusty brown of tree bark. His cheekbones are sharp and defined, his narrow lips pulled tight. I figure the only way I'm going to get anything out of this piece of stone is by striking first, but he hits me where I live.

“What are you, an albino or something?”

“I'm both,” I tell him. “I'm an albino and I'm really something.” I've got to calm down—it's only going to get rougher from here.

The tender's jaw tightens and he wipes down the top of the bar with a stained white towel.

“What do you want?” he says.

“You got any sugar pop moon?”

He stops cleaning the bar and looks over at the goons by the door. Suddenly, I wish I were with Santi back at the hotel.

“I got all sorts of moon,” he says.

“Sugar pop moon is made with beets—right here in Philly.”

“You want a drink, I'll get you a drink. I don't have any of that sugar pop garbage.”

“Fine, give me a whiskey,” I say and put a couple of bucks on the bar.

He reaches for the whiskey bottle and I feel something pressing up against my back. I turn and see it's the bouncer with the bulging neck. His breath stinks of old cheese.

“Everything okay here?” he asks me.

“I'll let you know when I taste my whiskey.” My heart is pounding; I hear it more loudly than my own voice.

“I'll be at the door if anything goes wrong,” he says. His cheese-breath is so close to my nose, my eyes are tearing.

“I'll give a whistle if I need you.”

He leaves, but not before giving me a look that says he'd like to go a round or two with me.

My whiskey is on the bar, so I down it. It stings my tongue and heats my gut—and gives me the balls to push harder. Gazzara's not about to come looking for a wallflower.

“Hey, bartender.”

He comes back with a bottle in his hand. His fingers are so hairy that a couple of strands pop out from under his wedding band.

“You ever hear of a guy named Denny Gazzara?” I ask.

“You ever hear of shutting your mouth and drinking your whiskey?”

I almost tell him that if I shut my mouth I couldn't drink my whiskey. Instead, I ask him again about Gazzara.

“Never heard of him,” he says. A smile crosses his face and his cheekbones actually seem to get sharper. “But then again, even if I did, I'd deny it.” He fills my glass.

“Good thing,” I say, swigging the shot and then leaning across the bar so only he can hear me. “Because he told me he's going to fuck your wife. And when he's done, he's going to bang on you so hard, you'll wish that smug face of yours was made of concrete.”

His eyes widen. I know he's not scared of me, so he must be terrified of Gazzara.

“That's right,” I say. I do my best to look him dead in the eye but my goddamn pupils are shimmying again. It doesn't matter—he's focused on my lips, no doubt afraid they'll keep moving.

“He's going to fuck you, your wife, your family, and anything else you love,” I say. “Then he's going to bash in those teeny white teeth, and while you're spitting out blood and maybe even pieces of your fucked-up tongue, he's going to open up your money box, take all your cash, and piss in your bottles of moon.”

A dropped jaw has replaced his arrogant smile.

“But I guess you don't have to worry about Denny,” I say. “Because you don't know him.”

I straighten my fedora and turn around and walk out. The tender must be shocked because he's not budging.

Before I reach the door, I stop by the goon with the rotting tonsils. He looks me over and chuckles.

“Denny doesn't think I'm so funny.”

He stops laughing and straightens his back. I've got my eye on his hands—if he clenches his fist I'm racing for the door. But he crosses his arms and returns to his military pose.

“That's better, musclehead. Just stand there and do nothing. Like a lamppost.”

I walk out through the drugstore as the piano player barrels through “Ain't She Sweet.” The old guy with the eyeglasses is sitting behind the counter. I nod to him.

“Hello, again,” I say.

I walk over to the counter and pick up a pen by the register. On the back of one of his business cards I write my name—Snowball—and the telephone number of the pay phone at the Pour House.

“Give me a call if you get any wonder cream,” I say before pulling up my lapels and walking out into the night.

I head up Twelfth Street but don't look behind me until I reach the jeweler's near Market. When I see the street is clear, I lean against the storefront and let my knees go weak. My breath is wheezing and I take a moment to steady myself.

My bet is that Gazzara will know soon enough that I'm in town, unless he confuses me with another albino bootlegger who came down to Philly to catch up with him.

I reach Market and see that Lubin's Palace is showing
Animal Crackers
. I'm tempted to buy a ticket for the late show. I love the Marx Brothers and I've got some time to kill while I wait for Gazzara to track me down. But I keep walking because Santi's back at the hotel, probably scared out of his wits that I've been shooting off my mouth and making things tougher for both of us. I don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

I'm about to enter the Excelsior when I hear a woman's voice. “You're cute,” she says.

She's standing at the corner and steps into the circle of light beaming down from the streetlamp. The “you're cute” was directed at me, which is only one reason I know she's a hooker. She's a platinum blonde, like Jean Harlow in
Hell's Angels
. I put her in her early thirties. She's pretty, but she looks tired. Her skin is pale, even whiter than mine, but makeup is helping her out. She's wearing loads of rouge and her lips are covered in ruby-colored lipstick. I can just imagine how I look, every exposed inch of skin as red as her lips, my entire face tenderized by the icy Philly air that I imagine she considers refreshing.

If Pearl were waiting for me in New York I'd walk away. But I'm on my own and a hooker just might lead me to Gazzara. Besides, when you look like I do it feels good to hear you're cute, even if you're paying somebody to say it.

“Where're you headed?” I ask her.

A flowered red dress peeks out from her open black woolen coat. It hangs just below her knee and I can't stop looking at her legs.

“I know a cozy little cellar club, honey. You can buy me a drink, if you don't mind breaking the law.”

She should only know.

“Sounds good to me,” I say. Any place crooks, moonshiners, and gangsters socialize is the kind of joint Gazzara would be interested in. Going with a woman only makes it better.

I think about running upstairs to tell Santi where I'm headed, but opportunity doesn't wait for a loyal man.

“Let's go,” I say. I'm gazing at those gams again.

She puts her arm around me, and for a brief second I feel like Gary Cooper. We walk along Twelfth Street, our breath turning to smoke in the December night. A bum asks me for a dime and I give him the three that I've got in my pocket.

She tells me her name is Margaret and asks me mine.

“Jersey,” I say, even though I should be spreading the name Snowball around town. I just can't bring myself to say the name that Jimmy gave me, not when I could give her the one I'd be using if I'd inherited my father's rich, brown skin. For once somebody is calling me Jersey, and I'm enjoying it too much to stop her.

“Jersey,” she says out loud, making a show of listening to the name as it rolls off her tongue. “Cute name for a cute boy.”

She leads me to an apartment house on Tenth Street. The building looks industrial. It's four stories high, square, brick, and has arched windows. There's an alley on the right side that separates it from a butcher shop. Margaret walks into it and pulls open a steel door next to a green dumpster that's still buried under frost from last week's blizzard.

I follow her down a hallway to the back of the building. The place is clean and lit by a lone brass fixture that hangs overhead. It's warm inside so I take off my fedora as she knocks on a metal door and then pulls it open.

The joint is decorated like a typical underground cellar club: not much furniture and lots of bar. Here, the counter is opposite the entrance and four small booths line the left wall. There's nobody in the place except for a bartender mixing drinks and two flappers seated on stools in front of him. The one on my left has short, straight black hair. Her friend has shiny red hair that curls into big looping
O
s and she's got a slender black cigarette holder between her lips. There's an exit door on the right wall, probably an escape route, and next to it, one of those music boxes. No music is playing, though. For a cellar club, the place is eerily quiet.

Margaret walks up to the tender, a gray-haired hulk with round beefy arms, and whispers something to him before pointing at me with her chin. He looks me over and nods. Then he puts two glasses on the bar and fills them with shine and ice. She picks them both up and hands me one.

“I've got a spot where we can be alone,” she says and leads me to a door next to the bar. We walk inside a small room that's furnished with nothing but a tiny brass lamp and a bare, stained mattress—both are resting on the floor. There's a window tucked in the corner but it's filthy. At this angle, nobody could look in and see us. I can't even see out.

I feel soiled just being here, like a hobo in need of a charity fuck. I can afford better than this. I make a decent amount of money, even though it comes to me through the bloody hands of Jimmy McCullough.

“We could have gone to my room at the hotel,” I say.

“You didn't invite me, honey.”

When she steps near the lamp, I can see that the makeup covering the bags under her eyes is so thick it's starting to crack like the plaster walls around her. She shuts the door and nods toward an iron coat hook screwed into the back of it.

“For your clothes,” she says.

I hang my chesterfield and hat. Then I down a swig of moon and put my drink on the wooden floor—it sits in a cluster of stained rings left by a succession of glasses just like mine.

Margaret gulps her shine and reaches for the hem of her red dress.

“Don't,” I say.

“Why else are you here?” she asks.

It's a good question. Unless she's about to tell me where Gazzara runs his outfit, I can't imagine us chatting and holding each other's interest.

“I don't know,” I say. I sound like a pantywaist.

“C'mon, Sugar,” she says, lifting the bottom of her dress. She hikes it all the way up to the spaghetti straps that stretch over her shoulders. “Come and bring me those lucky white bones of yours.”

She looks so pathetic, standing there showing off her bloomers, that I down the rest of my shine and walk over to her. It wouldn't be right to leave her high and dry, holding her dress in the air, slapped in the face by an albino.

I close my eyes and do what I came here to do, repeatedly telling myself that she likes me. When we finish I sit up and button my shirt. She turns her back to me for privacy, which I find a little odd considering what just took place. She stands half-naked in front of the window, pulling her bloomers back up around her hips.

“Well, I'll be going,” I say to the back of her head. She's already taken my money and I'm not expecting a receipt.

Margaret doesn't turn around and it hits me that something's up. My tongue goes dry and the rims of my ears burn.

I reach for the door but it flies open before I can grab the knob. Two Spanish-looking hoods wearing long woolen overcoats rush into the room. The small one has dark skin, waxed hair, and a thin mustache. The taller one is older—he's pasty white and has dark crescents under his eyes. And he's holding a foot-long cleaver.