Evan Hunter - Every Little Crook and Nanny

“Why don’t you cut your hair?” Bloomingdales said. “Nice Italian boy like you.”

“I like my hair this way,” Dominick said.

“You look like a pansy queer,” Bloomingdales said.

“Lots of girls like the way I look with my hair this way,” Dominick said.

“Lots of girls are crazy, too,” Bloomingdales said. “Why don’t you get a nice haircut like mine?”

“Well, that is a nice haircut,” Dominick said, “but I like the way I look, too.”

“You look like a fruit faggot,” Bloomingdales said.

“Well, lots of girls think I look very masculine with my hair this way.”

“Lots of girls are crazy bull dyke daggers, too,” Bloomingdales said. “You’re a very good burglar, why do you have to wear your hair like that?”

“Well, you want to look at what I brought you?” Dominick asked.

“You know who wears their hair like that?” Bloomingdales asked.

“Who?”

“Crazy fruit pansy faggot queer freaks, that’s who,” Bloomingdales said.

“I got a lot of nice things here,” Dominick said, and opened the large suitcase he had carried up the three flights to Bloomingdales’ apartment. True to his word, he did have a lot of nice things there, including a tortoise-shell comb-and-brush set, a large diamond engagement ring, a radio-alarm clock, a gold choker, a silver tea service...

“I don’t take silver,” Bloomingdales said.

“I thought you might be able to lay it off on The Silver Fox. Isn’t that what you usually do?”

“Usually. But we had a few words, The Silver Fox and me.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dominick said.

“Mmm,” Bloomingdales said. “He called my sister a no-good whore.”

“Why, she’s a very good whore,” Dominick said.

“Don’t I know it? So where does he come off casting aspersions?”

“Well, everybody’s a little crazy every now and then,” Dominick said.

“The Silver Fox is crazy all the time, you ask me,” Bloomingdales said. “Anyway, I don’t take silver no more. This, this, this, and this you’ll have to bring to him directly.”

“How much for all the other stuff?” Dominick asked.

Bloomingdales opened a drawer in a cabinet against the wall, one of the few legitimately purchased pieces in his apartment. He withdrew from it an adding machine that had been stolen from Goldsmith Bros., and quickly ran off a tape. He studied the tape, looked over the material again, nodded, hit another set of tabs, pulled the lever again, looked at the tape again, and said, “Two hundred and six dollars for the lot.” He looked up at Dominick. “Excluding the engagement ring, which I want to have appraised a little before I set a price on it.”

“At least give me an estimate,” Dominick said.

“I think maybe it’s worth another two bills to me, I’ll let you know.”

“I thought maybe three,” Dominick said.

“Maybe,” Bloomingdales said dubiously. “You going to see The Silver Fox with the rest of this?”

“Later today,” Dominick said.

“Tell him I hope he gets run over by a subway, that bastard.”

“I’ll tell him,” Dominick said. He put the silver items back into the suitcase, closed it, and then waited while Bloomingdales counted out two hundred and six dollars in crisp new bills; Bloomingdales always paid off in crisp new bills, which was another reason it was so nice to do business with him.

On the sidewalk downstairs, Dominick realized he had not shown Bloomingdales the watch that was still in the pocket of his blue jeans. He debated going all the way upstairs again, and then figured the hell with it.

At 12:35 P.M. that Friday afternoon, just as Dominick was walking away from Bloomingdales’ building, a trusted messenger was arriving at Benny Napkins’ place further downtown. He climbed the five flights of stairs, walked down the hall, and, wheezing, knocked on Benny’s door.

“Who is it?” Benny asked.

“Me,” the messenger said. “Arthur Doppio.”

“What do you want, Arthur?” Benny asked.

“I have something for you,” Arthur said.

“What do you have?” Benny asked.

“Something from Mario Azzecca,” Arthur said.

Benny lifted the peephole flap, peered into the hallway and saw Arthur holding up a sealed white envelope with a rubber band around it. “Just a second,” Benny said. He unlocked both Segal locks, slid the bar of the Fox lock to the floor, took off the night chain, and opened the door.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” Arthur said.

“I would,” Benny answered, “but Jeanette Kay is asleep, and I like her to sleep till she’s all slept out.” Even as the words left his mouth, Benny had the feeling he had lived through this identical life experience before, in the not too distant past. He took the bulging white envelope from Arthur’s hand. The envelope had a familiar feel to it.

“Well, some other time, then,” Arthur said, and tipped his hat and walked away down the corridor. Benny closed and locked the door. The feeling of déjà vu persisted. It seems, he quoted silently, we stood and talked like this before, we looked at each other in the same way then, but I can’t remember where or when, nor could he remember the rest of the song. He took the envelope into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and stared at the envelope for several moments, wondering what new trouble Mario Azzecca was sending him. At last he sighed, slipped the rubber band off the envelope, and ripped open the flap.

There seemed to be fifty thousand dollars in the envelope, in bills of various denominations.

There also seemed to be a round-trip ticket to Naples in the envelope.

And also a letter:

Benny read the letter again. He counted the money again. He looked at the ticket again.

He could only figure that somehow the computer had broke down.

Spectacles reflecting glints of silver plate and sterling, The Silver Fox sat behind a table stacked with stolen goods, and listened to Benny’s lament. It was now almost 1:30 P.M., and the plane for Rome was scheduled to leave at ten.

“What am I supposed to do?” Benny asked.

He had come to see The Silver Fox because he considered him his oldest friend and most trusted adviser, even though he continued searching for hallmarks all the while they talked.

“We first have to eliminate what you can’t do,” The Silver Fox said. “That’s the first thing we have to do.”

“Okay, what is it I can’t do?” Benny asked.

“You can’t send the duplication back to Azzecca.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody likes to be reminded that he made a mistake,” The Silver Fox said.

“But this is a very big mistake,” Benny said. “This is fifty thousand dollars involved here.”

“The bigger the mistake, the more nobody wants to be reminded of it.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Benny said.

“I remember one time,” The Silver Fox said, “when my brother Salvatore, which means Our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior in Italian, made the terrible mistake of laying Paulie Secondo’s arrangement who was living with him at that time on Greenwich Avenue, and the girl told Paulie about it even though she had been Irish and willing, and Paulie managed to hint to a police lieutenant he knows by the name of Alexander Bozzaris that my brother Salvatore had entertained a rape which was statutory, the girl having been only sixteen, and whereas they afterwards arrested him and he spent ten years in Sing Sing, and then when he got out somebody named Alonzo from Eighty-sixth Street made the terrible mistake of reminding my brother Salvatore that he had taken a fall for boffing that little girl, and whereas my brother cut him with a knife four times and was sent back to Sing Sing again. Nobody likes to be reminded of their mistakes, Benny.”