Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)(26)
Chink had assumed control of the location from Smiling Rick in a 1958 territorial expansion. As a souvenir, he kept the man’s picture on the wall, where Rick posed star-crossed and Zoot-suited in front of the Cotton Club. Chink’s runners dispersed over southeast Harlem, collecting slips from housewives and war vets, plumbers’ assistants and bail bondsmen, working men of every stripe, the doomed and the blessed alike, as they bet the three-digit combination that might unlock the Vault of Happiness. The money and slips traveled from the network into the back room. After the day’s races posted, determining which numbers had hit, the runners paid the winners their portion of that day’s take. The majority remained in Clyde’s back room until Thursday, when couriers picked it up to take to another of the gangster’s headquarters.
“If I could wait two days,” Munson said, “I’d really be in the money.” He lit a cigarette. “But I ain’t waiting around that long.”
Carney and Munson had been parked twenty yards down from the barbershop for half an hour. Clyde’s occupied the ground floor of a townhouse on Lenox off 121st. A residential block with a smattering of first-floor businesses. It got livelier up Lenox, as you approached 125th Street. Here it was quiet.
Carney asked what they were waiting for.
“You asked, what’s a stakeout? Sometimes it’s sitting and watching. Sometimes it’s the wait for one last confirmation of what you’ve already decided to do. A man appears. Someone leaves. And the switch is pulled and it’s time to go.”
The dark green M102—OUT OF SERVICE—chugged up Lenox, as bright as it was empty. May and John took the 102 sometimes to New Lincoln, in the more honest hours. Were they worried he wasn’t home yet, or glad for a night without parents? Who’d pay their tuition if Carney bought it tonight? He heard a whisper sometimes when he thought about Elizabeth’s trip, that goblin voice. How did Munson put it, about partners and spouses? They will drive each other batshit. Was she sick of him, was that why she split town? A work trip. Or a man from the old days who lived in Miami or Chicago now, maybe a colleague from a satellite office she dreamed of meeting in person. He didn’t detect anything when they talked on the phone. Still: the whisper. May and John’s dad turns up dead in the gutter, their mother has started a new life in Chicago with some slick motherfucker. No, she had sounded fine when she called from the hotel and sincere that she missed them. If he ended up dead tonight, she’d be home tomorrow to take care of the kids. An image of Buck Webb’s demolished face brought him back to 121st Street.
Munson probed his wound through his jacket. His finger came back dark and wet. “Whatever happened to that girl you used to have around the office?” he said. “Marie.”
“She got married. Had a kid. Left, came back.” A Munson envelope pickup, in the old days, was preceded by a short flirt with Marie. She feigned shock at the detective’s banter but wore her “nice earrings” and her special lipstick on collection days. When it came to her attitude toward Munson, you had to infer from details. She kept her mouth shut about various aspects of Carney’s store, and it was the same with her own business. It was clear her husband, Rodney, was bad news; whether she was capable of changing her life was less so.
“Husband’s no good, huh?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s how you said it.”
Carney had never met the cop’s missus. Taught art in an elementary school, if he remembered correctly. Brassy Irish broad in Munson’s characterization over the years, recognizing flaws, forgiving some, occasionally drawing a line. If she was out of the picture, it helped explain Munson’s behavior, the dishevelment and the cornered-animal aspect on display.
“Angela coming along with you on this trip?” The moment Carney said it, the thought popped up: He’s killed his wife.
Munson checked his gun. “My blushing bride has decided to visit her sister in Pittsburgh. Perhaps she will join me at a later date. You can’t force people into things.”
“But a gun helps,” Carney said.
Munson ignored him. “Even if I didn’t have a rain of shit coming down on me, who wants to live in this dump?” Munson said. His voice an exhausted growl. “Used to be the ghetto was the ghetto—now the whole city is the ghetto. Shitheels dumping newborn babies down garbage chutes. Thirteen-year-olds carrying their daddies’ babies. Woman gets put through the wall so many times she blows out her old man’s brains, then eats the gun herself. Old ladies chained to radiators while their grandchildren steal their welfare checks.”
“Cycle of life.”
They laughed.
“Asking about my wife,” Munson said. “Pissing me off like we’ve been riding around for years.”
“The gun. With Webb—it’s the one you took from the Liberation Army.”
“Yeah?”
“So you can plant it somewhere.”
“Here I was, doubting you.”
With that, they shut up for a time.
Once again he’d been swept up in someone else’s scheme. True, Carney had called Munson first, but the detective had taken advantage of his salesman’s personality, out to please. Seven years ago, Freddie spent his final days trying to undo a catastrophic robbery. Carney hadn’t gotten his cousin killed, but he’d been along for the ride. Like he was now, on Munson’s kamikaze run through Harlem, riding shotgun to his rampage. Hurt who you want, take what you want. Kill who you want. When Munson talked about ringolevio, he was talking about the thrill of impunity, of bending the city to his will, then and now. What were civilian rules to white cops like Munson and his ilk? The last two hours had proved it plenty times over: Nothing.