The Old Turk's Load Page 15

  He found two glasses and filled them with the whiskey, watching her from behind as she worked. She seemed smaller than usual, stooped or in some way compressed. Kelly looked more carefully. Yes, something was wrong.

  Helen put a plate in front of him. “I couldn’t see very well what I was doing. If you eat with your eyes closed, we’ll be even.”

  “If I closed my eyes I couldn’t keep them on you.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’m trying to win your confidence.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “I’ve told you about my adventure. Let’s hear yours.”

  She tossed her head and tried to smile, but her lips made a tight line. Her eyes were brimming.

  “Come on, Helen.”

  “It’s just so—”

  She began to cry, making an unpleasant, arduous sound. He stood behind her. Smoothing her hair, rubbing the tightness out of her neck. “Easy, baby.”

  “It’s just been so shitty with Lloyd. I don’t need to tell you what’s going on with him.”Then she told him. It took quite a while. His ankle began to ache, and he sat across from her again, poured them another round. She paused, sniffled. “I watched him change until the Lloyd I fell in love with didn’t exist anymore. Now it’s like I’ve lost him, even though he’s still around.”

  The high cheekbones were what fascinated him. Half concealed by the fall of her hair, offset by the hurt pout of her lips, they made her seem violated yet intact. “You’ve been through a lot, Helen.”

  Suddenly they were standing. “I’m glad he’s gone. I’m glad you’re here.” Her hands were on his hips, her head tilted back. Her lips parted. He could feel her breasts against his ribs. For an instant he was afraid. Then it was sadness. This was going to be their night, the finish of the old dream. They kissed. The sadness left. Kelly became anxious for the finish. Already he was thinking of finishing twice.

  They took the bottle into the bedroom and found a nesting spot.They touched, spoke softly. Kelly began to unbutton her shirt. She arched her back. He untucked her shirttails and parted the material. She turned each breast to his touch. Her skin glowed in the candlelight, fragrant and soft. He could feel the heat it radiated against his cheek.That belly—so wide, enclosed by those long hips, its perfect bulge punctuated by the mysterious navel—disappeared discretely beneath the soft silk of her panties.

  “Don’t stop.”

  His balls ached.

  She made noises, twisted beneath him like a cat. He slid the panties down and she kicked them off. The curve of her belly and the lines of her hips converged. He kissed and kissed that place where they came together. Her knees moved around his head, her hips surged at his touch. He was inside. Her flesh was all around him. She was the ocean. He was swimming in her promise.

  Then, just as he began to come, he heard it. He recognized the tune the guy’d been whistling—it was the first few notes of “Tequila,”over and over—d’do do do do d’doohd oo. His brains were the only part of him that made it through the window, splattered by Woody’s bullet onto the lawn below.

  Kelly woke screaming.The candles were guttered in their plates and the first hint of dawn leaked through the bedroom window. He got his breathing under control and went back in the bathroom to towel the sweat away. He saw, once again, that an exceedingly thin, porous membrane separated dreaming from reality. He understood how careful, how aware of the always-flowing currents he needed to be at all times. One silly little incident, helping a German tourist, say, or the intention to cuckold a friend, could, with no warning, knock him off course. Fatally. The thought lingered.

  Eventually, strengthened by his musings, he buttoned his shirt, rolled up his sleeves, gathered the letter box and its contents, and took the D train to Bensonhurst.

  Aunt Kay greeted him at her door, a loving smile creasing her aged features. “Kelly!” Then a momentary frown. “What’s that awful smell?”

  Junko Partner

  T

  he Mailman didn’t even stop to pee. His mouth hurt from all the coke he’d gummed, and he swiped a 7UP from the cooler out front of the station in Connecticut where he gassed up. Leaving the engine running, he slapped a sawbuck in the sleepy attendant’s paw and peeled out before the guy could even give him shit for not shutting his car down. He was totally jacked on Lloyd’s speed, and even more cranked at the thought of—the feel of—the old Turk’s load in the door panel beside his left elbow. His ticket, his future. No more bullshit schemes for him. From the first moment Kelly had popped that suitcase open on Lloyd’s couch, he’d known exactly what he was going to do.

  There were some nervous moments, however. Outside of Beverly, just half an hour from home, the car began to overheat, lost power, bucked, and coughed. He figured he’d blown a valve, maybe the head gasket, and his heart started hammering so hard, he thought he’d black out. He rolled the windows down, turned the heat on full to help the cooling system, and nursed it the rest of the way in the breakdown lane, letting it coast down hills in neutral. He didn’t think he’d make it up the incline to his driveway on Webster Street, but the old girl gave it everything she had, rolled to a stop, sighed, and erupted in billows of steam and burned-oil stench. He took the suitcase of Fitz Hugh Lanes from the backseat, locked the car up, and walked down to the Historical Society. It was seven a.m. The streets were his, just like the old days.

  Soon the paintings were right back at the end of the bench, in their foam padding again, everything tidied up. He should have been exhausted—in fact, he did feel raggedy underneath—but he was just so damned glad to be in a mode where he was in control again. He savored that sensation, locking the building back up, standing on the sidewalk across from the Elks Club feeling the morning sun on his face, waving at Officer Randazza making his morning run down to Dulie’s Dory for doughnuts.

  He walked slowly past Mr. Manson Patillo’s handsome Civil War–era house, inhabited now by his crazy great-greatgranddaughter and her fifteen cats, down to Main, recalling that the post office had once dominated the corner of Main and Pleasant, before Brown’s Department Store took over that key spot. It wasn’t until the Depression that they built the new one, his post office, on Dale Avenue, as a public works project, Gloucester stonemasons doing all that lovely granite work.Those vaulting thirty-foot ceilings, like nobody knew enough to save space or heat in the Depression. Whenever Denny Mears crooned his doo-wop arriving, still drunk, for the morning shift, it echoed through the vast sorting room like he was singing in the shower.

  Down eastward, the morning sun shone stronger now, where urban renewal was destroying the funky old waterfront in the name of bogus chamber of commerce visions of yacht slips and seafood restaurants. Past the head of the harbor and the Main Deck, remembering June and the ump and all of it, just as if he’d straightened out and moved away and grown up and was coming back clean on a sparkling morning, walking the streets and recalling his youth. Up the Wall Street hill overlooking the harbor. Past Manny Perry’s elephantine tenement—three floors of apartments at $125 a month, with a view of the harbor that you couldn’t get in a millionaire’s house, to the chicken coop of a dump on Amero Court, across from Perry’s place. Up the rickety wooden fire escape, into Langer’s fetid drug den to cop a set of works. Langer was curled in a sleeping bag under the front window.

  “Langer. Langer.” Toe in the ribs.

  Finally the other man came around, his lips cracked and white, black stubble on his sunken cheeks. “Christ. You scared me.”

  The Mailman did his pantomime thing. Langer tumbled to it quickly, gathered up what was needed, and walked with him down Wall, over Eastern Avenue, up Webster, to his house. Papa Menezes was getting ready for his janitor’s job at Gloucester Engineering, with Ilda there on the front porch waiting to see him off. She smiled and waved. Langer and the Mailman waved back.

  All clear now. It was perfect. He’d take his cut in advance, just a little off the top of one of the bags out in the car. Have himself one l
ast party before Lloyd arrived to sell the shit. Take his share of that and go to San Francisco. They had clinics there. Get clean, start his new life on the post office pension.

  The old Turk’s load tingled.

  Langer tingled, too, waiting demurely while the Mailman disappeared, like it was some kind of goofy high school play. Of course he had the shit stashed in that wreck of a jalopy of his. Under a seat or in the glove compartment. He’d get high with the Mailman till it was gone, or drift off by himself if no more was forthcoming at the moment, then return late that night to check out the car, see if there was more. The Mailman would be pissed, but fuck him. He sure wasn’t going to call the cops.

  Presently the Mailman returned with a dentist’s office Dixie cup half full of smack. Langer’s eyes goggled. The guy had gotten into some bulk. Wow.

  He took out his works, cooked up a spoonful, and fired a questioning look at his junko partner, the Mailman, who now seemed to have All the Time in the World. The voiceless one smiled and waved him on.

  So Langer tied up, did himself, and jolted back when he let the rubber tubing loose. The rush came on as good as ever, but this time it did not stop. It crashed him through this sorry world and out—to where, he was amazed to realize, he truly wanted to be. This was the deal. This had been it all along. Just like going home. His eyes rolled to the top of his head, mouth went wide as the load climaxed. Then he stopped breathing and slumped off the chair, turned blue on the floor.

  The Mailman realized pretty quickly what had happened.The shit was uncut. Langer had cooked it up like cheap street stuff and OD’d.The Mailman prodded him, slapped him, pushed on his chest to try to get the breathing started. Nothing doing. He dialed 911 and tried to explain the situation, but of course the dispatcher couldn’t understand him.That didn’t matter.The system would automatically give them his address.

  He looked down at Langer. Hard. To fix the image in his mind for when he’d need it later. Then he went to the bank, cashed out the last of his savings, took a cab to Logan and a plane to San Francisco. They had clinics there.

  Walking out on a fortune in heroin was easy. The Load was death to him now.

  Of course it was too late by the time the cops responded to the Mailman’s call. But Langer, off with Smoot and Richard Mundi, didn’t mind. He looked compassionately down at his poor used-up body, fifteen feet below him now, with cops crawling over it like lobsters on a carcass at the bottom of the harbor. He was at peace, and peace was hard to come by, no matter what reality you inhabited.

  True to the profile of the Mailman’s life, no one realized he’d gone away until quite a while later.That was how he’d always wanted it, and in that respect he had greater success achieving his goals than most people do.

  Helen and Lloyd

  H

  elen returned from her Zen retreat in Vermont to find the apartment tossed and her husband passed out naked under a filthy towel, in the bathtub. He’d wet and shat himself, but the cleanup was pretty easy in the tub, and she was mellowed out from the retreat. By the time she’d straightened up the place Lloyd started to come around. She gave him two Miltowns and a glass of water. He looked at her for a long while, then thanked her.

  That surprised her. He was very quiet, as he sat watching her clean, which surprised her more. Lloyd almost never shut up. She continued putting objects back in drawers and sweeping up broken glass and crockery, waiting for him to explain. He asked her if she wanted a cup of tea—things were getting really wiggy now.

  “Helen . . . I know this is a bummer.” He hesitated, again uncharacteristically.“But I’ve . . . I’ve b-been getting my mind around some heavy shit lately . . . I want to go back to Massachusetts . . . I want to get c-c-clean.”

  That was it. He’d finally bottomed out.

  “I’ve just got a few—a few details to work out.”

  She looked at him, sighed. Same old bullshit. “I’m not sure I want to leave New York.”

  “No hassle.”

  She studied his face, trying to sort the crap from the reality. The bathtub scene had been kind of impressive. Maybe he really had hit bottom. But a few details to work out—how often had she heard that?

  Helen looked and looked, but she just couldn’t see to that bottom. She couldn’t see what he truly wanted to do. Even worse, she couldn’t see what she truly wanted to do. She’d been putting up with his antics for so long that she’d lost her bearings. She’d started out by falling in love with him, she knew that. But neither of them had ever wanted to take the hard way when it came to anything, so their relationship had just drifted along, with them having less and less in common. Leaving, though, seemed too much trouble. She’d been waiting for the inevitable end but was never resolved about it. Did she want the money or did she want Lloyd? Did she want him sick and gone, or healthy and here? She was as messed up as he, only not on drugs.The one immediate result of whatever Lloyd now wanted her to understand was that she was sick of his shit.

  She rose from the table, grabbed the backpack she’d just carried down from Vermont, and said, “Fuck you, Lloyd,” but quietly, under her breath.

  Jarkey’s Man

  J

  ust as Harry Jarkey was Kelly’s man, Neil Genzlinger was Jarkey’s man. He worked at the Times morgue and helped Jarkey do research for Kelly. But he also aspired to a writing career, and Jarkey was coaching him on getting his foot in the door. It was Genzlinger on the phone when Harry returned to his apartment on East Ninety-Fourth, hardly a thought in his head after two days with Irene. The ringing started when Harry was in the shower, and it kept up as he toweled off.

  “Hey! I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.” “You reached me, pal.”

  “I went to see Kelly yesterday,” Genzlinger told him. “He

  wasn’t there, but his office was destroyed.”

  “Right. Well, there’s been some stuff going on. Kind of dif

  ficult to explain.”

  “It doesn’t look so good to me, Harry. About the office, I mean.” “I’ll check it out and let you know.”He put down the receiver. Jarkey had to admit to some residual curiosity about Kelly’s

  next move. Did he have the drugs? What was he going to do about

  the Mob? He dressed and walked down to Sammy’s.

  Norbert, nervously toweling glasses, gave him a queer look

  when he walked in.

  “You seen Kelly?”

  The bartender’s color, Jarkey realized, wasn’t so good. Not that

  tending bar had enhanced it. Finally Norbert leaned toward him

  and said miserably, “It was me. I gave him up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Three gorillas were waiting when I came into work the other

  day—right before the blackout. They were looking for Kelly. I told

  them to go down to Lloyd’s. Couldn’t think of any other way to get

  rid of them. I knew Kelly had a thing for Lloyd’s wife, but I didn’t

  figure he’d actually be there.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “And . . . ?”

  “Helen called yesterday, asking if I’d seen him. Her place had

  been trashed, and Kelly’s hat and gun were on the floor. I can imagine him forgetting his gun, but he’d never go anywhere without

  the hat.”

  “You don’t know for sure they found him there.” “She’s talked to a neighbor who saw a guy nab him in front

  of the apartment and throw him in a car.”

  “Jesus.”

  Norbert, who hadn’t touched a drop in thirty-three years, now

  squirted a few inches of ginger ale into a glass and tossed it back

  in a gulp. Jarkey had intended to share a consolatory drink, but the

  other man had aroused the memory of Kelly’s last words—about

  how he had a surprise planned for the bad guys. He gave Norbert

  a reassuring pat on the shoulder and caught a cab down to the

>   Lower East Side.

  * * *

  THE OLD TURK’S LOAD 201

  He found Lloyd sitting on the edge of the bed in his apartment— serene, contemplative, above it all—gazing back at earth across light-years of drug-induced brain damage.There was a pair of folded jeans in his lap and a small suitcase on the bed beside him. He’d probably been trying to get packed all day.

  “Harry . . .”

  “Lloyd, what happened to Kelly?”

  “Oh.”Flat,emotionless,like he’d just heard his dry cleaning was

  ready. Long pause.“They got him.When I was out.They got him and wrecked my place.They’ll get you, too. But it doesn’t matter. Because that stuff is going to get you all. It’s evil . . .”His tone suddenly turned oracular. “I saw it last night.” He paused. “I understand now.”

  What Jarkey understood was that Lloyd was in a state of shock—chemical or otherwise. “When did they toss your place, Lloyd? Were you here?”

  “No. I was . . . out. Kelly was sleeping on the couch. But he was gone when I got back. Must’ve been when they nabbed him. Helen came but I sent her away. I didn’t want her to get hurt. I’m waiting for them to come back.”

  “Waiting for them?”

  “When they come I’m going to tell them where the heroin is, and they’ll get it and it’ll destroy them.”

  “That’s a terrible idea, Lloyd. They’ll kill you.”

  “You don’t understand, Harry. It’s more evil than they are. They’ll think I’m doing them a favor.”

  “Evil, right.”Jarkey was patient.“Where is it, Lloyd? You need to tell me, too.”

  “Yes.” He unfolded the jeans, shook them out, folded them again, and put them back on his lap.“Kelly and I put the stuff in the door panel of the Mailman’s car and he drove it to Gloucester. I used to live in Gloucester. I used to know the Mailman, too, except now he has a hole in his throat. We were going to go up there and help him fence it, like it came off the boats.Then I . . . changed my mind.”

  “I’m cool with that, Lloyd. But where is it? Where is it now?”

  “Thirty-one Webster Street. Bottom of Portugee Hill. The Mailman lives in the basement apartment. I used to live on the top floor. The penthouse.” He chuckled softly at some private recollection. “Get it if you want. It’ll destroy you, too.”