Munson returned to the crow’s nest to stub out his cigarette. He lit another. “What I don’t get is, where’s the apostrophe?”
Carney gathered he was supposed to join him at the window.
“The DONT WALK sign,” Munson said. “It goes WALK, then DONT WALK comes on and they forgot to put in the apostrophe.”
“I assume it was on purpose,” Carney said. “To save space.”
“All this time I thought it was a mistake and everyone pretended not to see it.”
The Ukrainian knocked on the door and Munson padded over to let him in. It happened quickly: Notch Walker and two of his men thundered out of the hallway and into the living room. One of Notch’s men wrestled with Munson, the duo banging against the walls until they crashed into the center of the room.
Notch sidestepped the mayhem when they got close to his feet, mouth wilted in disdain. “This cracker thinks he’s Bruno Sammartino.” Notch’s other goon kicked Munson in the stomach until he capitulated.
One man covered Munson with a small pistol while the other frisked him. Frisked him with conviction and purpose—Munson would approve—and directed him over to the wall. The detective squatted next to the statue of the imp, arms crossed, sadness and fury in his eyes like a beaten junkyard dog.
Two young men joined the party, leading a gaunt, middle-aged white man into the living room. The Ukrainian. He didn’t look scared; more curious. His red wool hat had gone askew. He straightened it. Carney gathered that they’d put his face in the peephole for Munson to approve, and rushed in once the door opened a crack, Notch’s men collaring the detective.
From their mirthless features and military attire, the two young men herding the Ukrainian were not Harlem hoods, who usually perked up at a burst of violence. Berets were a neon sign these days: We are throwing off our chains. Not Panthers, cool and slick in black turtlenecks and black leather jackets. These guys were BLA, training for the coming war. Race war, class war—they weren’t picky, long as it got going toot sweet.
The next time Carney saw the leader was in the newspaper months later: Malik Jamal of the Black Liberation Army. The accompanying photograph came from a bank’s security camera. In person, he was tall and lithe, with a soapbox voice strong enough to drown out passing trucks and heckling drunks on 125th.
“It’s me again, pig,” Malik said, confirming that the detectives had robbed him last Friday. The second BLA soldier had the build of a heavyweight boxer and wore a tight black T-shirt and camouflage pants. The lenses of his sunglasses were very, very dark, but he found his way around okay.
Munson looked at Carney, as if he wanted him to grab the detective’s gun from the coffee table and toss it over. Or start shooting. Carney kept his face as blank as cement.
Notch Walker grimaced as he appraised the messy apartment. Between his imperial poise and large frame, he seemed too big for the room. A long, burgundy leather trench hung on his shoulders like a tyrant’s cape. His shirt was untucked; he’d thrown some clothes on hastily.
“Detective Munson!” Notch said. “Look at you, with the exploits. Been hearing about you all night.”
Munson cussed, his voice regressing to a rascally Hell’s Kitchen accent. Notch’s men slapped him around to quiet him.
“You the furniture guy?” Notch asked Carney.
“Carney’s Furniture on 125th.”
The gangster frowned. “Got me out of bed,” he said. “Where’s the shit?”
Carney nodded toward the closed bedroom. He exhaled: sprung from jail.
Carney had asked the bodega clerk to break a dollar bill. The man claimed to be low on change. That left Carney with three dimes and little time before Munson got wise. No one answered the phone behind the bar at Nightbirds, which was unfortunate and exasperating.
The operator put him through to Donegal’s and the receiver lifted for a moment—raucous music and laughter—and then cut off again. He checked over his shoulder to see if Munson had come downstairs. Buford answered the second call.
Donegal’s remained the preferred watering hole and refuge from family for an older generation of uptown crooks. Carney’s father had been a regular, and on more than one occasion had left young Ray on a barstool for a few hours while he went out on “business.” The clientele was older, but Carney felt at home among these retirees and fellow dropouts from the game. They traded gossip about the big scores, the latest capers, and dispensed wise and rueful jokes about raw deals, bonehead crooks, and the nefarious workings of the metropolitan law enforcement apparatus.
Buford tended bar Tuesdays, but sometimes he didn’t. Carney finally drew a good card after a day of busted hands. Buford was an answering service for criminal associates, his yellow reporter’s pad by the cash register an almanac of crooked enterprise. If the cops had been able to break his code—which was not really a code but a species of atrocious penmanship—they’d close a thousand cold cases, decades worth of confidence games, executions, and hijackings big and small.
In this case, Carney asked him to deliver a message instead of taking one, and the bartender was glad to oblige, seeing as he owed Carney for a sweet deal on a dinette set last December. Buford had reconciled with his long-lost daughter and wanted to host a proper Christmas dinner for the first time since that “fateful winter of ’46.”
Carney had never seen the man outside Donegal’s. The barkeep shuffled sheepishly through the furniture store, ashamed to be caught in a square activity like browsing. Buford said, “I want classy, but not stuck-up.”
Carney said, “Gossamer by Egon.”
Buford’s ability to get in touch with Notch Walker’s people was self-evident. He’d suggested they hit Nicky Boots first, who’d settled up half an hour before and should’ve been home by then. “We’ll wake his ass up.” Nicky Boots was out of the game, unless some trifling penny-ante shit came up, which he found irresistible. He lived off his military pension. His sister’s boy was roguish and sold dope for Notch Walker. Nicky Boots thought his ten years in Sing Sing might deter his nephew but it proved unpersuasive. He’ll get the word through, Buford told Carney.
“Make sure they enter where they can’t be seen from the top floors,” Carney said. “He’ll be watching.” He propped open the interior door of the vestibule with an A&P flyer. Four minutes later he and Munson were eating ham and cheese.
Munson’s mouth worked silently as he reconstructed Carney’s betrayal. He shrunk. “I would have let you go,” he said. “I just needed a hand.”
Carney looked away, to the statue. Of Munson’s several errors this night, informing his captive that there was “probably a bounty” on the cop was particularly ill-advised.
Malik Jamal’s lieutenant covered the detective while Notch’s men looked for the money. They emerged with the briefcase and the sample cases and opened them up on the couch. Notch Walker whistled. “Anyone you didn’t fucking rob today, nigger?” He nodded to his men, which they interpreted as an order to toss the place. They started with the bedroom.
“They said you beat up Long James,” Notch said. Carney took this as a reference to the pimp on Lenox.