Deacon King Kong(89)

“A lush, Joe. A drunk, dammit. The guy couldn’t see straight enough to shoot an elephant in a bathtub. Not to mention somebody on Vitali Pier in the middle of the night. How’s an old geezer gonna hit two young guys who are likely scrambling and shooting back in the dark? The guy can barely stand up. He’s a gardener, Joe. Works with plants. That’s why my mother got him. You know how crazy she is about plants.”

Peck considered this. “Well, she’s gonna need a new gardener.”

“I didn’t know he had anything to do with this kid. What’s his name? The kid that started it all?”

“Clemens. Deems Clemens. Honest kid. Didn’t start nothing.”

Elefante listened, aware of the irony. Honest kid. A dope seller. Didn’t start nothing.

“And the old guy?” he said. “What’s his name?”

“I was gonna ask you that. You got so much money, you don’t know who you’re paying?”

“My mother paid him! I can’t remember his name. He’s at the church there.” He nodded over his shoulder toward the next block, where Five Ends sat. Then he said it: “He’s a deacon.”

Peck looked puzzled. “What do deacons do?” he asked.

“Carry eggs around, pay bar bills, quilt spaghetti—I don’t know,” Elefante said. “That ain’t the question to be asking. The question is who’s behind it. If I was you, that’s what I’d be asking.”

“I know who’s behind it. Goddamn nigger bastard in Bed-Stuy, Bunch Moon’s been tryi—”

“I don’t wanna hear no names, Joe. And I don’t wanna hear no more about any shipments. That’s your business. My business is this dock. That’s all I’m concerned with. I can work with you on anything involving my dock. That’s it. As it stands, that thing at Vitali’s is gonna make me radioactive for a while.”

“What do you expect?” Joe said.

“You got a couple of birds down at the Seven-Six. I got one or two ants in that colony too. Let’s find out what happened.”

“We know what happened.”

“No we don’t. That guy was so old he sips his booze through a straw. He can’t shoot two young dope slingers. Even with a second old guy he couldn’t do it. Those young dope guys, they’re fast and strong. Whoever fed you that story is wrong.”

“A cop told me.”

“Some of those goons at the Seven-Six couldn’t fill in the return address on an envelope. Those kids were moving around unless they were tied up. Those boys from the Cause selling that crap are big, strong kids, Joe. I used to see ’em playing baseball against the Watch Houses. You ever see one of ’em with their shirt off? They’re gonna let an old man—or two old men, if it was two—tie ’em up and bang away at ’em? The only way they coulda aired those kids out was if those boys were necking like girl and boy.” He paused to consider. “I could see that. If it was two teenagers kissing or something, yeah, I could see it.”

“Well, he did say something about a girl.”

“Who did?”

“My bird in the Seven-Six. He read the report. He said the report didn’t say anything about a girl. But somebody mentioned a girl.”

“Who mentioned a girl?”

“Well, that’s the other thing I forgot to tell you. Potts Mullen is back in the Seven-Six.”

Elefante was silent a moment, then he sighed. “Gotta hand it to ya, Joe. When you bring trouble, you always bring it in threes. I thought Potts was gone.”

“What you blaming me for?” Joe said. “Potts was gone. My guy told me Potts got sent to One-Oh-Three in Queens, then crossed a captain out there by trying to be a supercop and got busted from detective back to blues. He’s a sergeant, or close to it. They say Potts was telling some of the guys in squad cars to look out for a girl shooter. Said he’d heard there’d been a girl at the dock.”

“How’d he find that out?”

“Potts told my guy he went into the old paint factory behind Vitali Pier and found a drunk back there who saw it all. The guy told Potts there was a girl.”

“You talked to Potts?”

Peck looked scornful. “Right. Me and Potts gonna sit down and sip ales and sing Irish ditties. I can’t stand that holy-rolling mick bastard.”

Elefante considered a moment. “Me and Potts go back a ways. I’ll talk to him.”

“You’d be dumb to try to grease him,” Peck said as a warning.

“I ain’t that stupid. I said I’ll talk to him. I’ll go to him before he comes to me.”

“Why you gonna ask for trouble? He’s not gonna tell you nothing.”

“You forget, Joe. I run a legitimate business here. I rent boats. I got a construction company. I run a storage place. My mother walks around the neighborhood looking for plants. I can ask him about a dead guy in the harbor around here, especially since the guy worked for me—for Ma, really.”

Peck shook his head slowly. “This area used to be safe. Before the coloreds came.”

Elefante frowned. “Before the drugs came, Joe. It’s not the coloreds. It’s the drugs.”

Peck shrugged and sipped his drink.

“We’ll work this one together,” Elefante said. “But you keep me outta that other business. And spread the word to those so-called honest kids of yours that my mother had nothing to do with that shooting at Vitali’s. Because if something happens to her while she’s walking around here picking daffodils and ferns and whatever the fuck else she feels a need to gather up, if she so much as falls down and scrapes a knee, they’ll be outta business. And so will you.”