Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

Back at it. Until “Front Following” became automatic. Then they moved on to “The East Side-West Side,” where the tail stays on the opposite side of the street. (“Why does the chicken cross the road?” Graham asked. “So the chicken he’s following doesn’t make him.”)

Then they went to the two-man stuff: relays, pass-offs, front and back doors, peekaboos (“Peekaboo. I see you. You see me. But you don’t see him.”), and the ever-tricky “Fake Burn,” in which you let the mark give you his best move and “lose” you, while your unseen partner stays on the mark’s relaxed ass.

Neal loved the “Fake Burn,” loved it with an intensity that inspired him to create his own variation: “The Solo Fake Burn,” known in the Carey household as “Neal’s Very Own Special Fake Burn.”

“You can’t have a one-man Fake Burn,’ ” Graham replied with disgust when Neal announced his invention. “The whole point is that you have two men.”

“Not necessarily,” replied Neal with a degree of preadolescent self-satisfaction that might have aggravated a man more sensitive than Graham.

“Okay,” Graham said, “I’m going to walk out this door and be back in two hours, and I want you to tell me where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.”

Graham polished off his beer and headed out into the street. He made Neal about twelve seconds later, because the dumb little bastard was wearing red socks that could have given Ray Charles a headache. Graham made a mental note to correct the kid on that, and settled into the not unpleasant task of teaching him a lesson. He crossed Broadway against the light but stopped in the island, noticing with pride that Neal hadn’t jumped after him. Then he crossed the rest of the street and ducked down the IRT entrance on the uptown side of Seventy-ninth, bought a token, and walked back up the downtown side. Sure enough, Ol’ Red Socks was still with him. So he stopped at a newsstand, looked at a paper, reached into his pocket for a coin, changed his mind, and headed straight back at Neal, forcing him to front follow for a good fifteen minutes.

Now I’ve got him worn down, Graham thought, I’ll finish him off, and he checked to see the red socks back in a crowd at the cross-town bus stop. He got into the line to board the bus, and used the bus’s side mirror to see the red socks get into line about five old ladies back. When it came his turn to get on board, he stepped past the door and leaned against the front of the bus until he saw the red socks go up the steps.

Bye-bye, Neal, thought Graham as he stepped out across the street. See you later.

Graham ambled along the sidewalk, looking back to see whether maybe, just maybe, the kid had hung tough. But no red socks, no Neal, lesson administered. “The Solo Fake Burn” indeed.

An hour and a half later, Neal entered McKeegan’s to find Graham occupying his usual spot at the bar.

“You got your hair cut and had a BLT at The American. The bread was soggy. Next time, tell ’em take it easy on the mayo.”

Graham reached down and pulled up the boy’s pant leg. Plain old white socks.

“Reversible,” said Neal. “The key to The Solo Fake Burn’ is to make one man into two men. The first man had red socks. The second man didn’t. The rear doors of buses also help.”

“Neal Carey could follow you into the can and hand you the toilet paper,” a proud Graham told Ed Levine, “and you wouldn’t know he was there.”

Other subjects emerged, such as Photography 101. (“It is very hard,” Graham lectured, “to get the guy’s face and pecker in the same shot. But try, because if you just get the pecker, the guy will deny it’s his. Unless it’s humongous.”) Or Dirty Fighting. (“The basics of hand-to-hand combat, Neal, are simple. Forget this karate shit, like Levine goes in for. Just pick up something hard and heavy that’s not your pecker and hit the guy with it. And don’t always try to break his jaw, like on Rawhide. There’s time for that when he’s unconscious. Hit him in the knee, or across the shins. The elbow is always nice.”)

And thus the education of Neal Carey continued.

Neal‘s mother was home.

She looked like shit. Her eyes resembled blue marbles after a hard day’s play on the sidewalk. Greasy brown hair hung uncombed over her face, and her skin had the life and luster of chalk. She looked just like herself.

She was happy to see Neal. “Baby,” she said. “Baby, you look good. Mama’s missed you.”

“So where you been?” asked Neal, crossing over to the couch, where she sat slumped, to give her a peck on the cheek.

“Around and about, around and around.”

Neal heard soft sounds behind the closed bathroom door.

“Your pimp here?”

“He’s not my pimp, baby,” she said. “He’s my manager. Momma’s a little sick, baby, but she’s gonna be better soon.”

“Why don’t you stay this time? Get off that shit. I’ll help you.”

“Now isn’t that a touching scene?”

Neal turned toward the voice, to see Marco come through the door. The pimp wore a white linen suit and a sky blue shirt open at the collar. A single gold chain hung from his neck. His full black hair was greased and combed straight back. He was solid without seeming heavy. He held a syringe in his right hand.

“You’re Neal, right? Johnny, say hello to Neal.”

“Hello, Neal.”

Johnny was huge. He had both fat and muscle. You could land planes on his flattop. Make pancakes on his open palms.

Neal didn’t answer. He watched as his mother stretched out her arm. Johnny took off his belt and wrapped it around the woman’s arm until a vein stood out clearly. Marco squeezed the syringe until the tiniest drop glistened on the edge of the needle.

“Don’t do that,” Neal said.

“Quiet, Neal. The doctor is working.”

“I said don’t do that.”

“Yeah, and we all heard you. Now shut up.”

Neal slipped his hand into his right back pocket and pulled out a metal shoehorn. He slid the curl over his index finger and felt the cool metal settle firmly into his palm, the wide edge sticking out.

He waited for Marco to bend over to his mother’s arms and then he burst across the room. Lifting his arm over his head, he slammed the hard metal edge down right between the pimp’s eyes. Marco dropped to his knees as the blood pumped from his shattered nose onto the formerly white suit.

“Jesus! I can’t see! I can’t see!” Marco screamed as Johnny grabbed Neal and Neal’s mother grabbed the syringe. Marco pulled himself up on the arm of the couch, felt for the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, and wiped the blood from his eyes. His legs trembled as he made his way over to Neal and backhanded him once and then twice across the mouth.

“You think you’re a man, little shit?”

Neal’s mother watched from inside a fluffy cloud as the men stripped her son and held him down on the couch. Marco had gone at him with the belt for what seemed like a long time when she heard the boy’s first cry and thought she should go to him. But he was so far away.

Ed levine got quiet when he got angry. Graham was straining to hear him.

“Is this dink connected?”

“By a thread. An uncle in numbers. Nobody heavy.”

Graham had forced the story out of Neal, who had finally showed up for work two days late and barely able to walk. He had gently cleaned the boy off, medicating the cuts that threatened to become infected. He had seen some beatings as a kid, but he had never seen anything like this. Neal’s back and legs were a red and purple contour of welts and bruises where the pimp had lashed him with the buckle end of the belt.

“Nobody beats on one of my people,” Levine said.