Sugar Pop Moon (9 page)

His smile evaporates. “Who told you to come here?”

“A gentleman in New York gave me this card,” I say, showing it to him as if it's some kind of free pass. I hope he doesn't ask for the guy's name.

“Yeah, well, we sell Christmas trees,” Frank says. “I don't know anything about any sugar pop moon.”

I can't say I expected a different answer. I feel like everybody has a sugar pop membership but me—and it's really getting my goat.

Santi walks up next to me. “Find anything?”

“Frank here was just helping me pick something out,” I tell him.

Frank looks at me and then at Santi. He's gotten that we don't want a tree, but he can't seem to figure out why we're so desperate for a shot of moon.

He makes a show of examining some trussed trees marked
Blue Spruce
. Then he asks me, “Do you like these?” He says it loud enough for those around us to hear.

He keeps talking, so we must be getting somewhere, but I'm too jittery to waste more time. If I weren't so afraid the store was crawling with hoods, I'd drive my fist into his kidney and force him to tell us where we can find Gazzara.

“I'm looking for a tree that's away from these people,” I say.

I can tell he's as jumpy as I am but he's seasoned enough to keep it under wraps. In his world I could mean big business.

Santi points his chin toward a pair of double doors behind the till.

“Maybe back there,” he says, letting his coat drape open to show Frank he's not armed. If Frank knew the kid, he wouldn't be surprised. Santi rarely carries a gun—just holding one turns his knees to jelly.

Frank shakes his head; he's not bringing us by the till. He motions toward the front door, probably figuring it's safer to talk outside. He'll soon wish he could rethink that decision.

He walks out of the shop and we trail him into the blustery outdoors. My face feels like a corn fritter sizzling in a frying pan, but I'm too caught up in finding Gazzara to care.

The parking area is clear, the cars are gone, and our breath is turning to smoke in the frigid air. The father and son must be at home, setting up their tree, having a swell Christmas. I, on the other hand, am standing on the side of a highway trying to get a yellow-toothed tree salesman to finger the bootlegger who sold me a truckload of bogus sugar pop moon. From where I stand, the father and the son have got it made.

“What's your deal?” Frank asks me.

“What's yours?” Santi asks.

“I work here, remember?” Frank says, taking a step toward Santi.

I put my hand against Frank's chest. “Lay off.”

When he stops dead in his tracks I wonder just how scary I look.

“My deal is I want to find some sugar pop moon,” I say.

“That's a pretty specific drink.”

“I've got a pretty specific thirst.”

We're not that far from the highway, and cars are whipping past us. Each time one passes a gust of dirt sandblasts my face.

“Like I already told you,” Frank says. “You're in the wrong place.”

“And like I told you, I don't believe you,” I say. I reach into my coat pocket and slip on my brass knuckles. I don't want to use them but I will, especially now that we're standing outside the shop, alone.

“But you know what sugar pop moon is, don't you?” Santi says.

“Never heard of it.”

“So how do I get a drink?” I ask him.

“You get in your car and drive somewhere that'll serve you. And good luck. They don't serve your kind around here.”

“And what is my kind?” I ask him, feeling my anger race from my gut to my fists.

“Fuck if I know,” Frank says. “You ain't normal, that's for damned sure.”

I reach out, grab him by his lapels with both hands—the right one wrapped in raw brass—and push him into a telephone pole. I press my hands against his throat and he claws at them to get some air. His eyes are bulging, so I back off his neck and slide my hands down against his chest, keeping him pinned against the pole.

He's croaking as he sucks for air. “Do you know what you're doing?” he chokes out. “Or who you're doing it to?”

I'm too riled to think about the answer. “Santi, open the door,” I say.

Santi heads for the store.

“The car door,” I tell him. I can feel myself coming unhinged.

Santi rushes over to the Auburn and opens the passenger door and I shove Frank away from the pole. I can't move him more than a few yards because his feet are pressed against the ground and his knees are locked.

“Where are you taking me?” he asks me, still coughing.

It's an excellent question and I have no answer. I throw him back up against the pole.

“Sing,” I tell him.

“About what?” he asks.

“Denny Gazzara.”

“Never heard of him,” he says.

I need answers and my only hope is that Frank has them. I pin him to the post by pressing my left forearm against his chest. Then I hold my right fist to his face so he can get a close look at the dull, molded brass decorating the base of my fingers.

“You're gonna miss those choppers,” I tell him, my jaw tight.

Santi comes up beside me. He's got his hands in his pockets and he's nervously rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Jersey, this is irreparable,” he says, his voice charged with panic. “You've done some messed-up things, but this is unforeseen and irreparable.”

Frank's not saying anything—he's clutching my left forearm, which is pushing against his Adam's apple. He can't move my arm because I've got the leverage and I'm leaning all my weight into him. His eyes are fixated on the brass wrapping my right fist, which is poised in the air next to his left temple.

“Santi, lay a towel down and cover the back seat.”

Frank's eyes widen even more.

“Where's Gazzara?” I ask again.

“You're that albino freak,” he says, his words clipped by the pressure of my arm. “The one from Philly. They said you were white, not red.”

“It's the wind,” I tell him, as if he cares about my condition.

“We don't have a towel,” Santi says.

“Then find one,” I yell, surprised at the manic sound of my own voice. Desperation is driving me and, at this point, even I don't know how far I'll go.

“Where the hell am I going to find a towel?” Santi asks me. “Look where we are.”

“Go into the shop and get one of the blankets from under the trees,” I say. “I'll be damned if this cat-got-my-tongue peon is going to bloody up my seats.”

Santi runs off and Frank is still gasping for air. He's turning red and I get some satisfaction seeing that his face looks no better than mine.

His eyes bulge like golf balls and this time I don't back off.

“He's out back,” he manages to choke out through his gritted donkey teeth.

“What?” I ask, even though I'm pretty sure I heard correctly. I pull back just enough to give him some air.

“Gazzara, he's out back in the woodshed,” he says. “He's making moon. But you're a dead man if you go back there. And I'm a deader one for telling you.”

I take my hands off him and smile. Then I extend my hand—the knuckles still on it—for a shake.

“I won't say a word,” I say.

Frank is staring at me like I'm Nosferatu. The poor bastard's got to be spooked for sure.

“Really, pal, you're fine,” I tell him. “I'm a clam.”

Santi comes running out of the shop with a blanket.

“Dump it, Santi. We're going out to the woodshed. Frank's going to get us some sugar pop moon.”

Santi smiles and tosses the blanket onto the landing in front of the store. I'm sure he's relieved that we're not going to lay into Frank, but he probably hasn't considered what we'll have to do to Gazzara if he doesn't cough up our cash.

I'm on Frank as he leads us around a stack of bundled trees to the back of the store then takes us down a frozen dirt path that winds between two rows of Christmas trees. We walk the green corridor, which is covered with pine needles. The stiff iced branches scratch at our arms and faces. We don't go more than thirty feet before I start feeling lost, so I slip the brass back into my overcoat and pull out my revolver. I press its short barrel between Frank's shoulder blades.

“I know you're packing, you don't have to jab me with it,” he says. I pull it an inch away but keep it trained on his back.

After we've gone about a hundred yards, Frank points to a cabin partially hidden among a random collection of lush ten-foot tall Christmas trees. The place looks like it's made of logs; it's the type of cabin I imagine Abe Lincoln grew up in, except this one is bigger. It's two stories high and seems deep enough to house a few small rooms—or one large still—in the back. The front door is painted black and there's a plume of smoke coming from a brick chimney on the roof. I can't help but give Gazzara credit. It's a nice cover.

I motion for Santi to check behind the cabin. I'm not the smoothest operator, but even I know that distilleries have escape hatches.

As Santi heads around the place his footsteps fade out of earshot.

“Knock,” I tell Frank.

Frank walks to the door but it swings open before he raises his knuckles. A bald guy jumps out—he must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, and he's got a machine gun pointed right at me. He's wearing a suit and a dark red bowtie; his head doesn't have a hair on it and his neatly trimmed Vandyke is waxed into place. He's got the type of face you'd expect to see on a tin of shaving soap.

“You don't have to kn-knock, Snowball, we've been expecting y-y-you,” he says.

I don't know if I'm more thrown by his stutter or by the fact that he knew I was coming.

Frank sees that I'm confused and laughs out loud, his yellowed teeth looking as if they're about to leap off his gums.

“Surprise,” he says.

I'd love to send a bullet into the bridge of his nose, but I'd be dead before he starting bleeding.

“Frank, grab his h-heater,” Baldie says.

Frank takes the gun from my hand and then reaches into my overcoat pocket and snatches my knuckles, too. “He's got a buddy going around back,” he says as he points the pistol at my forehead.

Baldie seems unconcerned. “I'm d-d-delighted you took the trip,” he tells me. “I've heard such interesting things.”

There are times that sarcasm is hard to swallow; standing in the woods at the mercy of a stuttering bald goon definitely qualifies.

“How'd you know I was coming?” I ask.

“You better teach that boy of yours how to p-pick someone's p-p-pocket,” he says, walking into the cabin. “Freddy says your boy's hand is as g-graceful as a horse with five d-d-dongs.”

He heads into the cabin but stops in the doorway to kick off his shiny black leather shoes and slip his stockinged feet into a pair of red velvet slippers. They look ridiculous with his brown herringbone suit, but I keep my opinion to myself.

I follow him into the cottage and my eyes are so cooked from the sun that I can't make out many details. We're in a front room—I know that because there's a door on the back wall. I'm guessing the door leads to the still where the moon is fermented. A wooden table with thick legs sits in front of me; it looks like a slab of tree resting on four chopped telephone poles. The walls of the cabin are made of rough, unsanded wood, just like the outside of the place. If I didn't have a machine gun in my face, I'd find it a decent place to grab a shot or two.

Baldie rests his gun on the table but doesn't stray more than a step away. My only hope is that Santi is coming up with some kind of plan.

“That's a lot of metal,” I say, pointing my chin at the Tommy gun.

Baldie nods. “Thanks,” he says, as if I meant it as a compliment. Then he adds, “I see you've met Frank.”

My eyes are still smarting. I'm staring at two Franks and two Baldies. “Yeah, he's brighter than he looks.”

“Yes, he is,” Baldie says, wiping the top of his dome with a handkerchief.

Frank smiles behind my revolver, which he still has trained on my head.

“Where's Gazzara?” I ask Baldie.

Frank laughs.

“Is that funny?” I ask.

“It is to me,” Frank says.

“You're looking at h-him,” Baldie tells me.

Something's not adding up. “I mean Denny Gazzara.”

“That's me,” Baldie says. “Denny Gazzara.” He holds his palms in the air as if he were Harry Houdini.

The door to the back room opens and in walks Santi. He's got his hands over his head. Behind him, pointing a gun at his neck, is the hood from the Pour House. I now know that guy's name is Freddy.

“Sorry, Jersey,” Santi says to me.

I'm boxed, but I'd like to get that thug off Santi.

“If you're Denny Gazzara,” I ask Baldie, “then who the hell sold me the bogus moon?”

“You're Denny Gazzara?” Santi asks. He shoots me a look that says I should have given him a better description, as if I would have left out that Gazzara's as bald as a cue ball, wears a Vandyke, and stutters.

“There seems to be a misunderstanding about some b-bootleg moon,” Gazzara says to me. “I don't make bad moon. And I don't like f-fucking nigger albino gutter freaks like you, no offense, going around telling people I do. It m-makes me uncomfortable.” He leans his elbows on the table and lightly bounces the tips of his fingers together. “Although I do give you credit for balls. You've got a pair.”

“I bought eighty cases of piss off a Joe who said he was you.”

“And that's why you're not dead yet. You're going to sing, and I'm going to listen. Frank, p-pour some sugar.”

Two benches run the length of the table. Gazzara points at one and tells me to sit. I do, and Santi takes a seat on the bench opposite me.