Thomas Adcock - Brooklyn Noir 3 - Nothing but the Truth

What if McEntee asked him where he was going? Would Loo-Loo confess? Kids could go to jail. The city was getting tough on juvenile delinquents. Loo-Loo had seen plenty of reform schools in the movies. Full of delinquents, mostly Irish kids who would beat the crap out of you if you looked at them funny. Especially if your name was something like Loo-Loo.

Loo-Loo passed Union Street now, and found himself in the repeat line of little shops. Then the big sign over the street like a movie marquee: Union Bakery . Loo-Loo dragged his heels over the pavement, shuffling forward. He didn’t want to move, but he was somehow moving anyhow.

What if it was true that gangsters had taken over the Union? Gangsters would know the minute Loo-Loo walked in that he was up to no good, that he was a spy for the Creamflake.

They’d grab him right there, take him in the back of the bakery, and tie him up, make him talk. So you won’t talk, huh? Hey, Tony, get a hot coal out of the oven and let’s burn a hole in his freakin’ head . Or else they’d stick the spout of the doughnut machine in his ear and press the lever, filling his skull with strawberry jelly. They did things like that, these gangsters. Loo-Loo had heard the stories, he’d watched the Kefauver hearings. And didn’t he faithfully study the crime blotter in the Daily Mirror , just the same as Al himself did during his long stays in the can?

But even if the Union guys weren’t gangsters, Loo-Loo reasoned, he was still doing something really wrong in buying their cake — clandestinely !

So when J. Edgar Hoover sat Loo-Loo Scharfsky down on Old Sparky, would the electrodes function properly? Or would smoke come billowing out of his head? Say — how about if Loo-Loo managed to escape to Coney Island and hide out in room 623 at the Half Moon Hotel? Would somebody toss him out the window, making it look like he did the old brain-dive?

Funny how the Union Bakery smelled just like the Creamflake. This was comforting for about five seconds. Things even looked alike.

Tall glass showcases displayed cakes and cookies, breads and rolls. Loo-Loo had never gone into this shop, of course — ever. It was off limits. Yet the merchandise looked so familiar, and the girls behind the counter looked so much like Manya.

A few customers were ahead of him, so Loo-Loo lingered at the counter, waiting his turn. What’s that? You say you can hear my heart beating, mister? That’s not my heart, it’s coming from the subway tracks. Get outta my way. I got business.

“What would you like, dear?” asked a cushiony Manya look-alike.

“A chocolate layer cake, please.”

“What size, honey?”

“Size?”

“Seven-inch or nine-inch?” The woman gave a nod of her head toward the showcase with the fancy cakes.

This was a monkey-wrench question, thought Loo-Loo, who felt as if he was suddenly coming down with a fever. If he hesitated, the woman would suspect. She’d send some kind of signal, and a couple of thugs would come bursting out from the back of the shop.

Loo-Loo studied the cakes. Don’t try anything, sister. My father owns a gun.

“Well, dear?”

“The nine-inch,” said Loo-Loo, figuring Mr. Horn would want as much as he could get.

Sister took the chocolate cake out from the showcase, slid it into a half-opened cake box, closed the sides, and deftly tied and bowed it with a curly red-and-white string that spooled down from the ceiling — just like the spool at the Creamflake.

“Two dollars,” she said. Loo-Loo dug in for the bill, passed it up to her, took the change, and ran like hell.

He shouldn’t have bolted out of the Union like that. He should have left slowly. But he couldn’t take it. They could probably hear his heart pounding in Brownsville, clear across the park.

Obviously, the woman suspected something fishy was going on. She’d be in the back by now, telling the hard guys. And then they’d come tearing out of the store after him.

If not the hard guys, then somebody. Cops maybe, or the FBI. Or even the dreaded “element.” It could be anybody, but one thing was for sure: Somebody was going to get Loo-Loo today.

It didn’t matter who. Loo-Loo was in too deep. He’d crossed the mob. He’d committed a federal crime. He was tangled in a clandestine web of lies. At least that’s how they talked when he listened to The Shadow on the radio. A web of lies.

But this was the real thing, not some stupid mystery show. Loo-Loo ran for his life, and the faster he ran, the faster the tears washed down his face. You big sissy! What are you crying about, you moron? The tears burned, and blurred.

The big hand seemed to come out from the sky.

It gripped his arm. It seized him powerfully and held fast, bringing the bawling Loo-Loo to a dead halt.

It was all over. The end of the line, and inspiration for the big block letters in tomorrow’s Daily Mirror: BLOODY DEAD KID SPLATTERED ALL OVER UTICA AVENUE .

Not quite.

McEntee’s shiny badge was slowly becoming visible through the big puddle of Loo-Loo’s eyeballs.

“Now where’s the fire, boyo? You looking for trouble?”

“No.”

“You know you almost ran into that bus? You trying to wreck a bus or something?” McEntee laughed. “You want to be more careful. You could hurt people, feller.”

“Sorry.”

“Watcha got in the box? Looks like a cake.”

Loo-Loo now sized up McEntee, noting with disgust how the big cop was smacking his lips. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s a cake.”

“How’s about donating a big piece to the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association?”

“It’s for my father,” said Loo-Loo, prepared to run like hell again. “Gotta go!”

McEntee laughed.

They were waiting for him at the Creamflake. Al and Mr. Horn and the Russians and Manya in her sweater.

Wordlessly, Loo-Loo’s father took the Union box and had the boy follow him to the back, where he plunked the parcel down on the baking table.

Mr. Horn picked up a huge knife. He cut the string and opened the box and slid the chocolate layer cake onto the surface, positioning it under a glaring overhead light, and there it sat: pristine, a work of the baker’s art and toil, a prize.

Then — whack! — in a sudden motion, Mr. Horn brought down the knife, like it was a six-pound meat cleaver, slashing the chocolate cake in two. Everybody watched as Mr. Horn surgically slit the layers.

There were three layers of dark chocolate, with viscous spaces defining them: one space filled with raspberry jam, chocolate buttercream in the other. Again like the careful surgeon, Mr. Horn scraped at the fillings, determining their thickness, their richness. He handed a layer to Al, who tasted it.

Then the Russian bakers closed in for a taste. All the men made knowledgeable comments as they probed and dissected and sampled the enemy booty. Mr. Horn took notes, writing on a brown paper bag, which he would later hang over the worktable.

“You did a good job,” Al said to Loo-Loo. “Just don’t mention it to your friends.”

“Why not?”

“On account of it’s nobody’s business. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

“How much change did you keep, Loo-Loo?”

“Three dollars.”

Al reached into the petty cash drawer.

“Here’s two dollars extra,” he said. “Go buy yourself a present at the Woolworth’s. Good job, kiddo.”

Loo-Loo heard the bleating siren of a cop car as it sped past the Creamflake, heading for Brownsville, no doubt, where somebody was holding up a liquor store or maybe a Plymouth exploded with somebody inside of it.

Loo-Loo studied the dollar bills, saying nothing. Five bucks in all. Pretty good. He stared at the engraving on the bills, particularly the triangle atop the pyramid with the one eye on it — staring back at Loo-Loo Scharfsky, as if it knew all about him.