Harlem Shuffle(71)

“That one about the orphanage, with the singing.”

“Miss Pretty’s Promise. She wasn’t bad at all in that. Should have been the lead, but they have their own way of thinking.” He smiled to himself. “I could tell them a thing or two about who she really is, anyone wants to listen.”

There was a poster of Sid the Sud King above the desk, him standing in a genie pose, as if he’d zapped the clean into the clothes of a mom and her two kids, who smiled grotesquely. The yard was one of those you saw in articles about those new Long Island developments, like Levittown or Amityville, that didn’t sell or rent to Negroes. Carney thought, Do I need a mascot?

“Never did find that property of hers,” Chink said, “but you and me started our association, so good came out of it, right?”

Carney nodded.

“You pull a big score, you best give me a taste. And if it turns out someone needs a fence, I might send him by that furniture store on 125th. Something falls into my lap and I think you’re the one to call, I call you, right?”

Their arrangement had paid for the expansion of Carney’s store and for the move to Riverside Drive. Carney and Chink had only talked face-to-face once before, six months after the Theresa job. Yea Big and Delroy swung by for the envelope and brought Carney out to a cherry red Cadillac parked outside. Chink was in the back. He rolled down the window, looked over his sunglasses, and gave Carney a once-over. “All right, then,” the mobster said, and the Cadillac pulled away. All right, then was a binding contract, signed in ink or blood, take your pick.

    “It’s been profitable,” Carney said. “And your end has always been reasonable. I hope you’ve been satisfied.”

“That’s why I told Delroy and Chet to be polite. This guy sells couches, bring him by the laundromat and we’ll have a chat.” He rolled up his sleeves. “It’s about your brother. He’s been messing around and I’d like a word.”

“Cousin.”

Chink glared at Delroy. “I thought you said it was his brother,” Chink said.

“Cousin,” Delroy said.

“That right?” he asked Carney.

“Yes.”

“I want to talk to your cousin.”

“Right.”

“Not ‘right’—where? Where’s he at?”

“I haven’t seen him for months,” Carney said. “He’s hanging out with a different crowd. Just talked to his mother because of the riot—she hasn’t seen him either.”

“His mother,” Chink said. “What do you think about it? All that running around everybody did last week?”

“It’s the same old thing. They get away with it, and then people want to be heard.”

“Know what I think? I think they shouldn’t have stopped. All these angry niggers up here. Everywhere. They should have burned the whole neighborhood down and then kept going. Midtown, downtown, Park Avenue.” The mobster mimed an explosion with his hands. “Torch all that shit.”

“Bad for business,” Carney said. “At least in my line—home furnishings.”

“?‘Bad for business.’?” Chink Montague rubbed his jaw. “You know anything about playing a number? Putting some money down? I see these suckers, I take their money, I know they want to burn shit down. I say, maybe don’t play the same number all the time. Play something else, see what happens. Maybe you been playing the wrong thing this whole time.”

    He nodded at Chet the Vet and Delroy. “You see your cousin, you tell me first. I want him.” Chink turned to the desk and struck up a lovelorn humming of “My Heart Is a Pasture (Theme from Miss Pretty’s Promise).”

Out on the street, Carney started for the Cadillac. Chet said, “Boss didn’t say nothing about chauffeur service.”

“I’ll see you in the car,” Delroy told Chet the Vet. The erstwhile veterinary student spat into the gutter and crossed the street.

Delroy checked over his shoulder and waved Carney close. “I’m going to tell you something,” he said, “because you gave me a break on that dinette that one time for Beulah. And I want you to listen. I’ve seen that nigger pitch a bitch, I’ve seen him at war. I’ve seen him cut a nigger’s eyelids off for blinking too loud. When he talks like that—weird and calm—shit is right and proper fucked up. You see your cousin, you better step up. For everybody’s fucking sake.”



* * *



*

The Cadillac turned east. Carney waited for it to disappear. Then he cut over to Amsterdam and walked up to 171st, where he switched back to Broadway.

It had been years since Carney visited this stretch of Broadway. Since he stopped buying used furniture. Why did Freddie choose to lam it up here? Because he wasn’t going to run into anyone from the old days. Although he’d been doing a good job of keeping out of sight, downtown with Linus. Then Carney saw it—the old movie theater, the Imperial. With the nickel double features. He and Freddie would spend all day inside, watch the double—cowpoke nonsense usually—and then look at each other: Let’s do it again. No need to speak. They rarely made it through four movies, as some dirty old man usually came lurching up the row to try something, whereupon they ran out screaming and laughing into the street.