Michael Collins - Act of Fear

It’s good to see you, Danny. Share a round, right?’

I’ve known Andy Pappas all my life. We’re the same age. We grew up together here at the edge of the river. We learned to like girls at the same time. We graduated from high school in the same class. We danced at the Polish dances and drank wine at the Italian street festivals. We stole together in those early days. Andy knows how I lost my arm. It was his tip that sent Joe and me to the Dutchman ship that night. It was Andy who would have arranged the fencing of the loot if I had not broken my arm.

Maybe all of that is another reason why I tell stories about the arm instead of the truth — the fact that Andy Pappas is a major reason why I am still thought to be in any way regular, the reason I get the benefit of some doubt. In Chelsea no one would, or could, understand that a man could know Andy Pappas and not offer up prayers of thanks every night. That is why Andy survives, grows richer. We were kids together, yes, and that was where it ended. Joe is poor and hard-working. I am poor and work for a living, if not too hard. Andy is rich, and no one alive knows for sure what his work is.

‘The same for my friends, and a little Remy Martin for me,’ Andy said to the waiter. The waiter was polite. Andy was polite. He smiled at me again. ‘Say hello, Danny.’

Andy Pappas is a boss. A boss, that’s all. For the record and the newspapers Pappas is boss of a big stevedoring company on the docks. For the record, and for the sake of all the public people who are supposed to have the power, Pappas runs a good, efficient, profitable, and useful company. Off the record Andy is the boss of something else. There are those who say that he is the boss of everything else. Some even say it out loud. Andy does not worry about that. Everyone knows that what Andy is boss of is illegal, a racket. Only no one really knows just what that racket is, except that a major part of it is keeping the river-front peaceful. Pappas gets the ships unloaded in peace and quiet — for a price. The general guess is that Andy has all, or a piece, of just about every illegal enterprise there is. Of course, the true occupation of Pappas, the true occupation of any boss like Andy, is extortion. That is what a racket is — any activity, legal or illegal, where a major part of the method of operation is fear. Whether it is heroin or just asphalt that the racketeer sells, his main selling method is fear, the fear of harm; extortion.

‘Hello, Andy,’ I said. I nodded to Marty. I wanted her to leave. Andy smiled.

‘Let the lady stay, Danny. I’ve seen her work. She’s too good.’ Andy has a nice voice, low and even, and his speech is very good for a boy who only barely got out of high school. Everyone says that he took lessons, but I remember that he always had a good voice. ‘Besides, we’re old friends, right, Danny?’

‘You don’t have a friend, Andy,’ I said. ‘You’re the enemy of everybody.’

Pappas nodded. He did not stop smiling. It was an old story with us.

‘You don’t soften up, do you, Danny?’

‘You never change, do you, Andy?’ I said. ‘This isn’t a social visit.’

I nodded towards the lamp-post a few feet away from the table of the tiny sidewalk cafe. It was one of those old gaslight lamp-posts O. Henry’s has put up for atmosphere. Leaning against it now, pretending to watch the little-girl tourists pass, was Jake Roth. Roth was not watching girls; he was watching me. Andy Pappas never carries a gun, everyone says, but Roth goes to bed with a shoulder holster under his pyjama top. Roth is Andy’s top persuader. Across the street I saw Max Bagnio. Little Max is the second-best gun, and now was trying to read a newspaper in front of a stationery store by spelling out the words one at a time. Actually, Bagnio was watching me in the store window. And just up the block towards Sheridan Square I saw Andy’s long, black car parked in front of a Japanese knick-knack shop. The driver sat behind the wheel with his cap down and his arms folded. I did not need to guess that a gun was hidden under those folded arms.

Pappas had followed my glances at his men. He shrugged.

‘You said it, Danny. Everyone is my enemy. A man has to protect himself.’

‘That isn’t exactly what I said, Andy, but let it pass. What’s on your mind?’ I asked.

‘Drink up first, Danny. You’re my friend, if I’m not yours. The lady seems thirsty.’

‘I don’t drink with you Andy, and neither does the lady,’ I said. ‘Those days went a long time ago.’

I know I go too far with Pappas. There was that glint in his cold eyes. They are dead, Andy’s eyes. The cold eyes of a dead man who long ago stopped asking himself what he really wanted or why he was living. I have seen eyes like that on generals. Perhaps too much looking at death can kill a man’s inside. It’s not brave to refuse to back off from a mad dog; it’s stupid. But with Andy I can’t help myself. I have to push him. It is one thing to hear about an Andy Pappas and hate him, and another thing to really know an Andy Pappas and hate him. Part of it is fear, of course. I fear Andy as much as anyone else who really knows him, and that deepens the hate. I sit and talk to him, and I fear him and what he is capable of doing, and so I hate him more than anyone.

Another part is guilt. I feel guilty around Andy because, in some way, I have failed and he is my fault. I have to share the blame for Andy. I can’t back off, tread softly as any man in his right mind should, because he is what is wrong with it all. A man like Andy Pappas is where we all went off the track. All the men like Andy who believe that all that counts is some advantage, some victory here and now no matter how it is done or who gets hurt. Any advantage, any victory. The men who will destroy us all just to win some small victory, if it is only to be King of the Graveyard.

‘All right, Dan,’ Pappas said at last. ‘I’ll make it short. Lay off Swede Olsen and his family.’

I won’t say that it hit me between the eyes. It hit a lot lower than that. My stomach took an elevator ride, and all of it down. There was part of an answer to a lot of good questions. Somehow, Andy Pappas was involved in the Jo-Jo Olsen affair. It explained a great deal. If I were the Olsens I would be worried. If Andy Pappas had a stake in this, and I was on the wrong side, I would have done a rabbit — a very fast and far rabbit. I’m not the Olsens, I knew nothing, and I was still worried.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Olsen works for me,’ Pappas said.

‘Olsen?’ I said. The question was clear.

Pappas shrugged. ‘Not much. Odd jobs, driving, errands, stuff like that. But he gets my protection, Danny.’

‘Does he need it, Andy?’ I pushed.

Pappas laughed aloud. ‘Look, Dan, I don’t know it all. I don’t even want to know it all. What I know is that Olsen doesn’t want you bothering him or his family. Okay?’

‘Did he tell you why I’m bothering him?’

Andy dried his hands fastidiously on the paper napkin that came with all drinks. ‘I didn’t talk to him. I got the request through channels, Dan. If it was anyone but you I’d have sent a punk to give the word.’

‘His boy’s done a rabbit,’ I said.

‘So it’s a family matter. Since when do you work for the cops?’

‘I’m not working for the cops. I’m working for a nice kid who wants to find his friend. A nice kid who was beaten ninety per cent to death today. I guess he didn’t have the luck to have grown up with you, Andy.’

I got a flash of the claws and the terror of Andy Pappas.

‘Back off, Dan!’

The dead eyes dilated with a flash of the essential insanity that must lurk deep inside Andy Pappas. Then they came back, and Andy smiled thinly.