Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

What I said was, ‘God bless the work.’

And got the look from him, supposed to strike fear in my gut. He asked, ‘You fucking with me, son?’

Son… the condescending prick, I was five years older, more probably. I raised my hands, palms out, said, ‘Would I do that? I mean, come on.’

Sean had the appearance of a starved greyhound, all sinewy and furtive. He didn’t take drugs, as the Organisation frowned on it, but man, he was wired, fuelled on a mix of hatred and ferocity. He belonged to the darkness and had lived there so long, he didn’t even know light existed anymore. He was the personification of the maxim, retaliate first, always on the alert. His eyes bored into mine and he said, ‘Just you remember that.’

Then he was up, asking the band for a request. I was pretty sure I could take him. As long as his back was turned and preferably if he was asleep. You don’t ever want the likes of those to know you’re coming. They live with the expectation of somebody coming every day, so I’d act the dumb fuck he was treating me as. The band launched into ‘The Men Behind the Wire’. Sean came back, a shit-eating grin in place, and as the opening lines began, ‘Armoured cars and tanks and guns…’ he joined with, ‘Come and take away our sons… ’ Leaned over, punched my shoulder, said, ‘Come on, join me.’

I did, sounding almost like I meant it.

Maybe he’s found out by now dat he’ll neveh live long enough to know duh whole of Brooklyn. It’d take a lifetime to know Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo. An’ even den, yuh wouldn’t know it at all.

Thomas Boyle said that in Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.

I’d never been out of Ireland but I was getting to know Brooklyn. I had a pretty good notion of it. In my bedroom there is a street map, place names heavily underlined in red. I’ve pored over it a hundred times, and with absolute joy Using my finger, I’d take a few steps to the corner of Fulton and Flatbush, check the border between Downtown and Fort Greene, I’d glance at Brooklyn’s tallest building, the Williamsburg Savings Bank, smile at the idea of taking it down, but I’d be a citizen then, running a small pastry shop, specialising in babka, the Polish cake. I learnt that from Seinfeld. Then maybe stroll on Nassau Street to McCarren Park, heading for the south end to the Russian Church of the Transfiguration, light a candle for the poor fucks whose money I stole.

As well as the books on Brooklyn, I managed to collect over a long period the movies. Got ‘em all I think.

Whistling in Brooklyn

It Happened in Brooklyn

The Lords of Flatbush

Sophie’s Choice

Moscow on the Hudson

Waited ages, for the top two to come on TV, I mean those were made in 1944 and 1942.

Saturday Night Fever?… Bay Ridge, am I right or am I right? Last Exit to Brooklyn, book and movie, yeah, got ‘em. Red Hook, a fairly barren place is…lemme see, give me a second here…Ah, that’s easy, On the Waterfront. Writers too, I’ve done my work.

Boerum Hill? Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper lived there. I’m on a roll here, ask me another. Who’s buried in Greenwood Cemetery? Too easy, Mae West and Horace Greeley.

When I was in the joint, other guys did weights, did dope, did each other. Me, I read and reread, became a fixture in the library. I didn’t get any grief from the other cons. Sean had my back, better than a Rottweiler. What happened was, he’d got in a beef with the guy running the cigarette gig, the most lucrative deal in the place. I heard the guy was carrying a shiv, fixing to gut Sean in the yard. I tipped off Sean only as this guy had come at me in my early days. He was trailer trash, a real bottom-feeder – if it wasn’t for the cigs, he’d have been bottom of the food chain. Mainly I didn’t like him, he was a nasty fuck, always whining, bitching, and moaning, bellyaching over some crap or other. I hate shivs, they’re the weapon of the sneak who hasn’t the cojones to front it. Sean hadn’t said a whole lot when I told him. He nodded, said, ‘OK.’

Effusive, yeah?

The shiv guy took a dive from the third tier, broke his back, and the cigarette cartel passed to Sean’s crew. From then on, he walked point for me.

Back in the Eighties, a song ‘Fade to Grey’, blasted from every radio – it launched the movement, ‘New Romantics’, and guys got to wear eyeliner and shit. You know they always wanted to, but now they could call it art.

Gobshites.

But I liked the song, seemed to sum up my life, those days, everything down the crapper, a life of drab existence as grey as the granite on the bleak, blasted landscape of Connemara. That’s when I met Maria.

Lemme tell you straight up, I’m no oil painting. My mother told me, ‘Get a personality ‘cos you’re fairly ugly.’

I think she figured the ‘fairly’ softened the blow.

It didn’t.

Nor was I what you’d call a people person. I didn’t have a whole lot of them social skills.

I was at a dance in Seaport, the massive ballroom perched on the corner of the promenade, the Atlantic hurling at it with intent. Now, it’s a bingo hall. That night, a showband, eight guys in red blazers, bad hairpieces, with three bugles, drums, trombone, and a whole lot of neck, were massacring ‘Satisfaction’. They obviously hated the Stones. Those days, there was a sadistic practice known as ‘ladies’ choice’.

Jesus.

Pure hell. The guys used it to nip outside and get fortified with shots of Jameson. I was about to join them when I heard, ‘Would you like to dance?’

A pretty face, gorgeous smile, and I looked behind me to see whom she meant. This girl gave a lovely laugh, said, ‘I mean you.’

Hands down, that is the best second of my life. I haven’t had a whole line of them, but it’s the pinnacle, the moment when God relented, decided, ‘Cut the sucker a little slack.’

‘Course, like all divine gifts, he only meant to fuck with me later. That’s OK, I’ve lived that moment a thousand times. And yeah, you guessed it, she was American…from Brooklyn. I loved her accent, her spirit; hell, I loved her. Miracle two, she didn’t bolt after the dance, stayed for the next one, ‘Fade to Grey’. A slow number, I got to hold her, I was dizzy.

Walked her back to her hotel. I stood with her, trying to prolong the feeling, and she said, ‘You’re kinda cute.’

Put it on my headstone, it’s all that counts. She kissed me briefly on the mouth and agreed to meet me at seven the next evening.

She didn’t show.

At 10:30, I went into the hotel, heard she checked out that morning. The clerk, a guy I went to school with, told me her surname, Toscini, and that she was travelling with her mother.

I palmed him a few notes and he let me see the register – the only address was Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York.

I wrote letter after letter, all came back with ‘ Return to sender, address unknown’. Like that dire song.

I began to learn about Brooklyn. I’d find her. Her not showing or leaving a note, it was some awful misunderstanding. Her mother had suddenly decided they were leaving and Maria had no way to contact me. Yeah, had to be that. I made it so. Got to where I could see her pleading, crying with her mother, and being literally dragged away. Yes, like that, I know.

Mornings, like a vet, I’d come screaming, sweating outa sleep, going, ‘Maria, hon, I’m on my way!’

Shit like that, get you killed in prison. They’re not real understanding about screamers, though there’s plenty of it.