Len Levinson - Without Mercy

“I like green.”

“That must be because it goes with your eyes.” Rackman looked at the Hasid. “A green and black jacket for my friend, please.”

The Hasid made a face and climbed the ladder again.

“I really like green,” Doolan said drunkenly.

“You’re going to be the best-dressed man on the Bowery.”

The Hasid came down the ladder with a green and black jacket in size forty. “This what you want?”

Rackman looked at Doolan. “What do you say, champ?”

Doolan looked at it, nodded, and pursed his lips. “I like that one. Lemme put it on.”

“If he puts it on, he’s got to buy it,” the Hasid said.

“We’re going to buy it, don’t worry.”

Gingerly the Hasid helped put the jacket on Doolan who stumbled in front of a mirror and looked at himself. “It’ll do the trick,” he said, smiling at himself.

“How much is it?” Rackman asked.

“Forty-three ninety-five.”

“You take Master Charge?”

“You got some identification?”

Rackman whipped out his shield. “Will this do?”

“Better you should show me a driver’s license.”

Rackman and Doolan accompanied the Hasid to the front counter, where the transaction was made. Then they left the store, Doolan looking down at his new coat and touching it. In a few weeks when it was warm he might get five dollars for it at one of those used clothing stores.

They got in the car and Rackman drove around the corner, parking beside a vacant lot with a high chain fence around it. He reached under the seat and took out the second pint of wine. “Care for a drink?” he asked, wagging it in front of Doolan.

Doolan lunged for it, but Rackman pulled it back and pushed Doolan away. “Start talking, you motherfucker. Where’d you get the jacket?”

Doolan touched his sleeve. “You just bought it for me.”

“I mean the red and black jacket in the back seat.”

“Oh, that jacket.”

“Yeah, that jacket.”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’d better get sure, or I’ll take the one you’re wearing and keep it for myself.”

Doolan squinched shut his eyes and tried to remember where he found the jacket. No images appeared in the blackness. “I can’t remember,” he said.

“Can you remember when you got it?”

“A few days ago.”

“Where have you been for the last few days?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a real fuck-up—you know that, Doolan?”

“Yeah.”

“You said before that you thought you’d be able to remember where you found the jacket, didn’t you?”

“I did, but I can’t remember now.”

“Let’s take it one step at a time, Doolan. Do you think you found it in the Village around where you were picked up?”

Doolan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“And you already said you didn’t get it in Chinatown or Little Italy, right?”

“Right.”

“How about the Lower East Side?”

“I don’t like to go to the Lower East Side because the people like to pour gasoline on drunks and set fire to them.”

“That leaves the East Village. Did you find it in the East Village?”

Doolan thought for a few moments, then jumped as if somebody grabbed him. “Hey you know what?” he asked with a smile as the dawn of realization broke over him.

“What?”

“I think I got it around here.”

Rackman looked out the windshield. “Here?”

“I think so.”

“This street?”

“One of the streets around here, because I remember I was in one of them Ukrainian neighborhoods when I found it.”

“Would you say it was between Third and Second Avenue?”

“I’d say between Third Avenue and Avenue A.”

“That’s a lot of territory.”

“I’m doin’ my best.”

“Let’s narrow it down a little more. Was it below Fourteenth Street?”

“Yeah, because there ain’t no Ukrainians above Fourteenth Street.”

“Between Fourteenth and Houston?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go for a little ride. Maybe we’ll see something that’ll jog your memory.”

Doolan jumped up again. “Hey wait a minute!”

“What is it?”

“There was a newsstand on the corner. I remember because when I walked by I was thinking that I needed something to eat.”

“What did that have to do with the newsstand?”

“There was a lunch counter inside. I think it was on Second Avenue—or maybe it was First Avenue. No, it was Second Avenue. One of them Ukrainian newsstands where you can’t read most the newspapers because they got different print.”

Rackman started up the car. “Let’s take a ride down Second Avenue.”

“Can I have the other pint of wine now?”

“Not yet.”

“Aw come on.”

“I said not yet, and if you try to take it I’ll beat your fucking head in.”

“Aw shit.”

They drove west to Second Avenue and then turned downtown. Old tenement buildings lined both sides of the wide thoroughfare. “Was the newsstand on the right or left side of the street?” Rackman asked.

“I think it was the left side.”

Rackman veered to the left and crept along slowly passing tenement buildings, grocery stores, Laundromats, a funeral home, a Ukrainian import store, the local Democratic club, a kosher deli, and a few head shops left over from the days when the East Village was hippie capital of the East coast. Ahead at the Ninth Street intersection he spotted newspapers stacked under a canopy.

“Is that it up there?” Rackman asked.

“I can’t see that far.”

“Hang on a moment.”

Rackman crossed the intersection and coasted to a stop in front of the newsstand outside a Ukrainian luncheonette. As Rackman got out of his car, an old man in a white mustache came running out of the luncheonette waving his hands in the air.

“You can’t park there—you can’t park there!”

Rackman took out his shield. The old man tucked his head into his collar, turned around, and walked back to the luncheonette. Rackman went to the side door of the car and helped Doolan out, walking him to the curb. “Is this the newsstand and luncheonette you were talking about?”

Doolan looked at it and nodded. “This is it.”

Rackman widened his eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I think so.”

“So you must have got the jacket on one of the blocks around here.”

“I think so.”

“You think so or you’re pretty sure?”

“Well, I remember that right after I got the jacket I landed on this corner here.”

Rackman looked down Ninth Street. Old tenement buildings were on both sides of the street, garbage cans huddled in front of each one. He’d arrange to send policemen into every apartment on the block and surrounding blocks to see if they could find somebody who resembled the composite drawing of the Slasher. He turned to Doolan. “You’d better not be sending me on a wild goose chase, you old fucker.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, copper.”

“If I find out you’ve been fucking me around, I’m going to throw you in the East River.”

“I ain’t lyin’, because you been good to me. Better’n anybody in my whole life.” Doolan started blubbering.

Rackman patted him on the shoulder. “Okay Doolan, I believe you. You want that other pint of wine now?”

“That’d be real nice.”

Rackman walked back to the car, pulled the bottle out from beneath the front seat, returned to Doolan, and gave it to him. “Here you go, champ. Don’t drink it all in the same place.”

“I’ll drink it right over there.” He chinned toward a stoop next to the newsstand and unscrewed the cap.

Rackman reached into his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bill. “Go get yourself a hot meal.”