Pete Hamill - North River

Delaney turned at the sound of groans and saw that the game was over. Frankie Botts swept up the pot. He was a lean man in his early forties, elegantly dressed, hair slicked back like George Raft. His shirt was, as usual for a big-shot gangster, white on white, with linen threads in diamond patterns adding luxury to a cotton base. And as usual, he was wearing a pinkie ring. His eyes were black under trimmed brows. He remained seated while the others stood up and moved to the far side of the room, where they took a table out of earshot.

“Sit down,” Botts said.

Delaney sat down, placed his beer beside him. It was going flat.

“You got some pair of balls, coming here,” Botts said, his mouth a slit.

“Mr. Botticelli, I never did anything to you.”

“Yeah? On the street, I hear you pissed off some people. On the street, I hear you saved Eddie Corso’s miserable fuckin’ life.”

“He saved mine. Twice. In France.”

Botts stared at him. His mouth got tighter.

“I don’t want to hear no war stories.”

Delaney shrugged. “Fine with me.”

Botts moved a spoon through his coffee, sipped, then yelled across the room: “Charlie, I need a fresh coffee.”

The one named Charlie hurried into the passage to the bar. Botts stared at Delaney.

“You was in France?”

“Yes.”

“My brother Carmine was killed in France. That’s him over there.”

He turned to the wall and pointed at a photo of a handsome young man. He seemed to have been photographed by the same cameraman who had pointed his lens at the Fischetti boy now on the wall of Angela’s restaurant. He remembered Packy Hanratty’s old advice: Don’t punch with a puncher. Box him.

“Where was he killed?” Delaney said politely.

“Château-Thierry.”

“That was a horror. What outfit?”

“The Sixty-ninth. What else? He was there three days and bang! Good-bye, Carmine. He was just nineteen. A fuckin’ waste.” He paused. “They didn’t just kill Carmine. They killed my mother too. She ain’t been right ever since.”

Delaney sighed, said: “I’m sorry for your trouble.” The Irish cliché. Then added: “Eddie Corso was shot too. Twice.”

“Yeah, but the prick lived.”

“That wasn’t Eddie’s fault. The Germans did their best.”

There was color now on the face of Frankie Botts. “Then, New Year’s Day, you save him, again. ” His eyes sunk beneath his brows. They took on a metallic sheen. “And you cause nothing but trouble for me.”

“Mr. Botticelli, I’m a doctor. It’s what I do. I’d do it for you, too.”

“Bullshit.”

“Try me sometime. You know where I live. Unfortunately.”

Charlie came in with a cup of coffee and placed it in front of Botts. His voice and manner were apologetic.

“Sorry, boss. Had to make a fresh pot…”

Frankie Botts waved him away. Without looking at Delaney, he sipped from the hot coffee, laid down the cup. The pinkie ring flashed.

Then looking up, the eyes still lurking below the brows, his body coiled as if to strike, he said: “So whatta you want from me?”

Delaney cleared his throat. “Tell your man Gyp Pavese to move to Minnesota,” he said. “He calls my house last night, two in the morning. He repeats a threat he made the other night. He’s a clown, a knife artist, a gunsel, a prime jerk, and you must know it. But he’s doing his act in your name.”

“Why should I give a fuck?”

“First of all, if this clown Gyp kills me, there’ll be open warfare. And you know it, Mr. Botts. I’m the only doctor they have over by the North River. They don’t have much money anymore, but they do have guns. A lot of them. There’d be piles of corpses. Some pissed-off Mick will shoot at your guys and hit a little girl going to buy day-old bread. One of your guys will shoot out the window of a cab and kill a woman who lost a son at Château-Thierry. The war here would be more senseless than the war in France.”

Thinking: Stop. You’re making a speech. Get to the goddamned point.

“There’s another thing,” Delaney said, lowering his voice. “The most important thing of all.” A pause. “I’ve got a kid living with me. He’s three years old. My grandson. His mother’s gone off. If anything happens to me, I don’t know what will happen to that little boy.” A beat. “And last night Gyp threatened to do something bad to the boy.”

In the eyes of Botts, a shift. Irritation with Gyp? Annoyance? Certainly not sympathy.

“And I promise you, Mr. Botticelli, if Gyp puts the snatch on that boy, if Gyp kills him, I’ll make sure Gyp dies. And a few other people too. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.”

“It sounds like a threat to me.”

He tamped out the cigarette and stood up, scraping his chair on the tiled floor. The wall clock said one forty-five. Delaney tensed. A nod to the other gangsters could kill him.

“You wanna end this?” Botts said. “It’s easy. Tell me where Eddie Corso is.”

Delaney looked directly at him.

“I told you I don’t know,” he said. “I assume he’s far away.”

A pause.

“You better get outta here,” Botts said. “While you can fuckin’ walk.”

Delaney went out the side door, pulling his hat tight against the bitter wind. He inhaled deeply, held his breath, then exhaled hard, making a small cloud of steam. His guts settled, as if he’d swallowed a gallon of vanilla ice cream. Nothing else was settled, but he had said his piece and was still alive. Frankie Botts knew better now what the stakes were. What could happen, if… He started walking west, glancing behind him. Nobody left Club 65. There were more people on Bleecker Street now, kids heading for school or home, women carrying groceries, men with slabs of lumber on their shoulders and others with toolboxes, hurrying along toward the Bowery or Broadway. He walked faster now, the sidewalk traffic thicker as he approached Broadway. And then he saw her, one hand inside the long blue coat, the other deep in a pocket, a dark wool hat pulled low over her ear, her men’s boots large and clumsy. Rose.

He stopped and waited for her to reach him. Her face was tight and concentrated, all vertical lines, two of them above the long nose. Then, six feet away, she saw him. Her eyes glistened.

“You’re here,” she said. “Right here on Bleecker Street.”

“Yes. And I still have a heartbeat.”

“God damn you,” she said, standing there, not taking her hands from the pockets of the coat. She looked smaller. Angry tears began coming.

“Why’d you go see Frankie Botts and not tell me? Why do I have to learn this from a note on Monique’s desk, when she goes to the bathroom? About if you don’t come back, call Knocko. Call Shapiro the cop. God damn you, Dottore!”

A few people turned their heads to look at them, and kept moving. Rose stepped back and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. He hugged her, patting her back.

“Let’s go home,” he said quietly. “We can buy ice cream for Carlito.”

WHEN THEY TURNED INTO HORATIO STREET, THE WATCHERS were still there. Two of Knocko’s boys. A plainclothes dick sent by Shapiro. One was facing the house from across the street, the others off to left and right, guarding the block, each with a view of the house. Delaney nodded to each of them. They nodded back, seeing Rose carrying the bag with the pint of ice cream. The shades were drawn in the Cottrell house, the boards still nailed shut in the house to the left, where so many Logans died in so few minutes.

They went into the front yard, and Delaney gave the watchers a little wave.