Carney tried to figure out if Freddie’s appearance was on account of too many good times, or too many bad.
“Biz is around,” Freddie said. “He’s always around. So what?”
“He’s sloppy,” Carney said, “and it’ll only be a matter of time before he gets nabbed again. He sells that stuff on the playground.” That last part was solid-citizen hokum, but he couldn’t help it.
“You’re reading too many papers,” Freddie said. “Does he try to make a buck? He doesn’t try to hide anything. Put on a costume, like you. Suit and tie every day, pretty wife and kids, trying to hide shit. He’s out there trying to run a hustle the same as you.”
“You working for him?”
“What?”
“Are you working for him?”
“How could you ask me that?”
“Are you?”
“We grab some food at the Chinaman’s and hang out. We go out drinking—so what? You know we’ve always been tight.” Freddie turned his face to the street and when he looked back at Carney he’d found his disgust. “I’m pushing for him, sure,” Freddie said. “Playgrounds and churches, everywhere. I find a baby, I stick that junk in their puss. I’m shooting up fucking nuns. They lift their skirts and they’re hollering for Jesus.”
Behind the counter, the waitress hacked up something wet from her lungs and the cook said, “Oh, boy.”
Freddie said, “Asking me that.”
Carney searched his face. Maybe that was Freddie’s lying voice, maybe it wasn’t. He wasn’t sure. You can change up your lying voice and lying face if you worked at it. “You make it so I have to,” Carney said.
“Asking me that,” Freddie said. “The fucking nerve. You’re the one who should be watching out. I got a little hustle, but you don’t see me on 125th Street, got me a big sign up that says, ‘Here I am, come and get me.’？”
An apparition appeared and banged and smacked on the glass next to them—a lanky white dude with long, greasy blond hair, dressed in a denim vest and trousers. He waggled his fingers at the window and grinned. His teeth were white and perfect.
Freddie gestured for him to wait outside. “That’s Linus. I gotta split.”
“That’s Linus?” Give him some bongos and he’d be a beatnik out of Life magazine.
“That’s what he looks like,” Freddie said. “Everybody gotta look like something.” His chair made a noise on the linoleum as he pulled away. He stopped in the doorway and said, “Now you can tell my mom you’ve seen me.” Freddie slapped Linus five and the duo swayed down the street.
The waitress had been staring. She caught Carney looking at her, raised an eyebrow, and wearily resumed refilling a napkin dispenser.
The cousins had diverged. Their mothers were sisters, so they shared some of the same material but had bent their different ways over the years. Like the row of buildings across the street—other people and the years tugging them away from the original plans. The city took everything into its clutches and sent it every which way. Maybe you had a say in what direction, and maybe you didn’t.
Almost four o’clock. This was his third visit to Big Apple. Was he a regular? This was not Chock Full o’Nuts, and the waitress was no Sandra. The staff decided when you were a regular, not you. Perhaps one day, she’d act more friendly. Recognize him, at the very least. Up here, he was not going to run into Pierce. It had been three weeks since he got the envelope from the Dumas Club. He’d pinned their note under the window to the showroom, next to the yellow slips identifying delinquent customers and installment plans gone awry. The paper made an exhibit of money owed him, debts to be honored. Customers, vendors—there’s some delinquent money, a hitch in the order, but once you get paid it’s back to business as usual. Other times, you get what’s yours, and you’re done with them.
At one minute before four o’clock, Wilfred Duke stepped out of one of the brownstones, number 288. The banker straightened his tie and patted the pockets of his gray pinstripe pants after his wallet. Some people, they walk out of a place they shouldn’t be and they look around to see if anyone has caught them. Slink away. Not Duke. He glanced at his watch and walked south in the direction of his office.
Carney had hired a man to shadow the banker and the information checked out: Tuesday and Thursday at three p.m., never more than an hour. He paid the check. Carney was a fast walker. He switched over to Amsterdam so he wouldn’t overtake the banker on the way downtown. Plus there was that new furniture store on 130th. Never hurt to size up the competition.