He had been fearsome. Chink Montague’s father had been a famous knife sharpener on Lenox, pushing his cart up and down the avenue and hollering the words on the sign: GRINDING & SHARPENING BLADES SAWS SCISSORS SKATES. He had tutored his son in the philosophy and bite of the blade. No small part of Chink’s legend coming up concerned his knife work. Lop this, snip that. Earlobes, nostrils, what have you. For many years word was he’d flayed Whitey Gibbs alive over the 125th Street numbers trade and tanned the skin for a wallet, but as the years passed it was more likely he’d merely saved some pieces in jars. That he’d never done a bid upstate, or at Alcatraz like Bumpy Johnson, testified to his survival skills. Still, his station had exacted a price, written in his posture as he drooped over the metal desk, his grayish complexion, and the dark grooves under his red-rimmed eyes. Like Lady Betsy’s: a faded institution taking up space.
His men were blind to his diminished state, or pretended to be. They jumped at his voice. “How’s it looking, Delroy?” Chink said.
“It’s a big fire.”
“Should we get our asses out of here?”
“We cool. For now.”
“I got insurance out the ass. Maybe rebuild and put a hair salon in here.”
“Make good money on a salon,” the bartender offered.
“That’s why I said it. White man ain’t killed me yet, a nigger can go into the beauty business if he wants to.”
Pepper squinted. Was this that Roscoe Pope routine?
Chink turned to him. “Fuck are you?”
“I work for Zippo.” He realized he didn’t know his employer’s last name. “I’m looking for Lucinda Cole.”
“So?”
“She’s gone. You talked to her the night she disappeared.”
“Did more than talk,” Chink said. Out in the street, a cop barked into a bullhorn. Chink pursed his lips. “I’m here because I’m waiting for a phone call. See if a man did what he was supposed to do.” He shook his head. “Better not have messed this up.”
Pepper wondered how you got access to the basement, and whether it was feasible to keep someone on ice there given the bar action above. Was she down there? He wondered how fast the fire was spreading and how long before he had to make a move.
Chink turned his attention to the bartender. “When we’re done with him, I want you to go out there and make sure all those motherfuckers pay their tabs. Running out on their bills because of a little fire.”
The bartender chuckled. Delroy looked uncomfortable. He had worked for the mobster for many years and knew there was a good chance he was serious.
“Go to their houses if you have to,” the mobster said. “Think they can cheat Chink Montague.”
Pepper sighed to get his attention. “The actress.”
Chink said, “I don’t know where Lucy is. I tried. Now I’m done.”
“You call her up,” Pepper said, “she disappears.”
“I’m going to pay a visit to that Zippo,” Chink said, “ask him why he’s telling niggers my business. What’d you say your name was?”
“Pepper.”
“Pepper?” Chink said. “I don’t get why parents name their kids after some shit they like.”
Pepper gathered the routine was on the comedian’s new record. It was hard to picture the mobster walking down those narrow steps to the basement of the Sassy Crow.
Chink chewed things over. “I remember you. They were doing the movie at the furniture store and you were watching outside. Money I put in, they can afford a real security guard. What do you do usually? Pump gas?”
Delroy and the bartender laughed.
Pepper blinked.
His host’s expression clouded as it sunk in that Pepper was not intimidated. Pepper had observed that strong personalities tended to get confused—then incensed—by his even keel. There was nothing he could do about it, even if he cared. Who you are is what you are.
“Pumping gas,” Chink repeated, as if Pepper had missed the insult. His captive remained impassive. It was like looking into a sewer grate, into the dark and unknown, and it got on Chink’s nerves. Who was this bitch? In the old days, a man in his position would be bawling, crying for his mama. They see the flash of Chink’s steel and piss themselves. But Chink didn’t pull out the blade much anymore. They’d see the shakes. Goddamn it, did everyone know he’s lost it? They must smell it, he must reek of weakness. He glanced at the telephone. It did not ring. Guineas cutting deals with his competitors, cutting him out of new action, little bitches like Notch Walker nibbling at his domain, a block here, a block there. It was all upside down. It was like when Lucy talked about the big Hollywood types controlling her life—the Italians had the same hold on him after all these years. Jump. Dance. A fucking puppet. Like a wooden dummy sitting on the lap of some dago bastard. Chink had been watching from the pay phone on the other side of 125th Street when Zippo handed her the phone. What had he expected to see when she heard his voice? See her face light up, that’s fucking what. Sweet Leanne. In that dumb movie costume but still her, from Maplewood, like the first night they met when she was out with her cousin in the big city, in the Black Rose, too sheltered to know the nightclub was not for good girls like her and so delighted when he sent over champagne. Leanne Wilkes? That’s the name of a schoolteacher or a nurse. She said she wanted to be in movies. Let me tell you about business, he told her. Doesn’t matter what line you’re in, the movies, the street—you have to have a good name. Let me think. Lucinda. That’s right. Lucinda Cole. Come a little closer and look in the mirror right there, you’ll see it fits.
In the old days he would have said: Rub them all out, remove them from the earth. Lucy, Pepper, his useless flunkies kissing his ass all day. Drop their corpses in the Hudson. The fire and the cops outside, waiting for the man to call him about the thing, and now this chump in his face asking questions—he popped a gasket.
“She doesn’t even exist!” he screamed. “Leanne Wilkes, that’s her goddamn real name! You don’t even know who you’re looking for, you stupid fuck. Leanne Wilkes. What kind of name is that for a movie star, that country shit? Country, suburbs—same thing. She’s from Maplewood, New Jersey. Can you beat that? We got those magazines to say she was from the ghetto and everybody believed it. First thing I told her, you got to know how to present your ass. I dressed her up fine. Took her around to people. Then I’m yesterday’s news.”
There was silence, then the sounds from the street returned, and a pounding from out front. Chink got a hold of himself. He blotted his brow with a green polka-dot handkerchief. Nodded permission for his men to check the noise. Delroy cracked the door to the lounge, careful to forbid a glimpse of the tableau in the office. “It’s a cop,” he said. Another cop, his voice more remote, commanded the bullhorn, calling for an evacuation.
“Check it out,” Chink said.
The bartender and Delroy exchanged a look: Delroy’s turn. The bartender’s pistol had dipped, and now aimed at Pepper’s shoulder instead of his face. An improvement in Pepper’s estimation.