A BUSINESS OF CONSEQUENCE

THE THIRD PART

“One hand washes the other, Mel, you know what I mean?” Diamond said through a forced laugh. I didn’t. He was always calling me Mel instead of “Nickels” like everyone else, or else “Buffalo”. It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered him being called “Legs”. He was watching Lanskey eating his pasta, looking at me like as if he was letting me in on a secret, and then I looked at Charlie who was gawking at me with a cold, bloodless stare that went right through me. I’d heard Charlie was starting a murder for hire business, but I wasn’t interested.

“You want I should bust your other nose, Legs?” I said, looking right at him. I could see Charlie smile, and Lanskey choking on his cannelloni out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn’t backing down from Legs. You got to be like that with a guy like him, or else he’ll come after you when you least expect it; I knew not to turn my back on him.

“Look, R,” I said, even though I knew he hated it when I called him that. “I want to make you an offer.”

“An offer?” Costello laughed. “Buffalo wants t’ make him an offer?”

“An’ is it an offer he can’t refuse?” Segal laughed.

“You wanna make me an offer?” Arnie asked, ignoring Costello and Segal. “So, make me an offer.”

“I wanna start me up a club. Nothin’ too fancy, mind; I just want me a place where I can blow horn if I want.”

“Do you seriously think Arnie’s gonna front you a club so you can blow that stupid trumpet of yours?” Lanskey asked, laughing through his cannelloni.

“It’s a coronet, and ain’t nothin’ wrong with blowing horn, Lance,” I said.

“He ain’t in it for the money, Lance, you know that,” Charlie said with a grin, and Lanskey shook his head, looking at me and telling me how he’d always known Jimmy was the smart one.

“Nickel an’ Dimes are wantin’ t’ move into the big times,” Costello laughed.

“That Jimmy’s too smart for his own good,” Legs said. “Gonna end up gettin’ hisself killed, he keeps thinking that way.”

“You sayin’ I ain’t?” I said, and they all laughed. “Smart, I mean. You sayin’ I ain’t smart, Legs?”

Arnie tossed his napkin down on his plate and stood up, ending the conversation. He looked at Lansky who dropped his napkin on the table like as if he was surrendering, and stood up to let Arnie out. Arnie stepped around Bugsy and Lanskey, walking around the table to stand beside me. He looked up at me; then he put a hand on my shoulder and walked me to the door.

Arnie was a big man, solid, with wide shoulders, and stood a head taller than Charlie and Lance, about three inches shorter than me. His hair was starting to thin out, and he kept it well oiled and combed back. He used to say that his brains were so big they were pushing his hair off his head. He had dark eyes, and he never looked you straight in the eye because he was always looking around, thinking maybe someone was gonna come after him with a gun or something. He carried a walking stick with a silver knob on the end, and I knew he’d used it on a few people to set an example, and I knew he’d use it on me if things didn’t work out. But he was always dressed good. He put his hat on and threw his overcoat over his shoulders just so he’d give a good impression in case anyone should see him outside talking to me.

Three of his geeks surrounded us as we stood on the sidewalk outside. I kept my eye on the door in case Diamond should think about making a play for me. It was stupid, and I knew it, but there was no love lost between us.

“You know I always conduct business out here, Mel,” Arnie said with a smile. He looked up at me and I sensed an honest hardness underneath all that clean smelling cologne, and it caught me off guard. “What you doin’ sayin’ shit like that in front of Lance for?” he said, giving a quick nod to his bodyguards. The geeks casually moved out of earshot. “I don’t like talking in front of people when it should be something ‘tween the two of us. And I sure as fuck don’t want Lanskey knowing what I’m doin’ or not doin’. Unnerstand? You go in there saying you wanna run a speakeasy so you can play your trumpet, that’s fine by me, but they’re not gonna see it like that. They’re gonna wanna move in on you twos an’ take over.”

“I don’t wanna run a speakeasy, Arnie. I wanna run a club, a real posh place.”

“Yeah, I know. But them guys in there don’t unnerstand that part of you like I do, Mel. They don’t appreciate the finer things in life, like music, an’ art. D’ya think Charlie knows anything that isn’t Italian? He likes Caruso and that shit, but he ain’t gonna be openin’ a opera house on the Lower East Side. But what you’re asking for is a business all the same, Mel, and you ain’t got a head for numbers the way Jimmy does. Those guys know that. They know you. They also know that they get rid of Jimmy, you got no one else to help you.”

“But Jimmy doesn’t know what I got planned for it to look like,” I said. “He don’t see it like the way I do.”

“Nobody sees things the way you do, Mel, and that’s all right by me,” Arnie smiled. “You want it your way, we’ll do it your way, but you gotta do things my way, too. I gotta business to run, Mel. I can’t just throw money at you without me getting’ somethin’ in return. Then again, I can’t let it not get done the right way either.”

“Sure Arnie,” I nodded.

“You’re gonna have to run Charlie’s girls as waitresses and such. You’re gonna need someone to cook, and not just a cook, but a real chef, like they got at fancy restaurants.”

“Jimmy ain’t gonna like it that you’re gonna wanna run Charlie’s girls through; he was thinking he’d like to start runnin’ his own girls.”

“Was he now?” Arnie said, and I thought maybe I said something I shouldn’t have. “Well, don’t you worry none about Jimmy. You just take care of the entertainment aspect of the whole thing, an’ I’ll set Jimmy to rights. I gotta different business idea I wanna run by him, an’ I gotta feeling he ain’t gonna be disappointed. You send Jimmy out this way and let me figure out the details. Don’t you worry yourself with the number end of things.”

“I was kinda hoping it’d be my club,” I said softly, and Arnie laughed.

“You want it to be your club? Tell you what, I’ll let you name it whatever you like.”

“Really? ‘Cause I gotta couple names I was thinking of already,” I said.

“You just make sure Jimmy comes up to see me, and I’ll make us all rich,” Arnie smiled.

Two years later, The Sarasoda Supper Club was the hottest spot on the Lower East side. People were constantly telling me that we spelled Sarasota wrong, and I laughed at them saying it’s not wrong if it makes you notice it. That was about the time when Lacy first came walking into the club, looking like as if she somehow belonged there. She was tall, and thin-–regal is a word I heard people use describing her, and striking, too-–with her long, dark hair pulled back tight into a bun. She had a thin face, tapered chin, with high cheekbones and thick, sensuous lips-–the kind made for sucking on, I’ve always thought–-with eyes the colour of a winter day, smouldering and grey. I think that was the thing about her people noticed first. And why wouldn’t they?

She stood in the doorway hugging a threadbare coat around herself, looking the room over like as if she was searching someone out with a real sense of purpose. I waited to see who’d be the first to call out to her, but there was something about the colour of her eyes that drew me in, and before I knew it, she was staring at the bandstand and I was thinking she was looking at me.

I’d been jamming with King Mace and his Courtly Coronets-–King and me were both blowing coronet. Even though he and his Courtly Coronets wailed through most of the night and it was now well into the morning, I would’ve let them play as long as they wanted.

I always joined them up on the bandstand after hours, when most of the customers were gone. There were usually two or three waiters who stayed behind to play cards with the hatcheck girl, as well as one or two of Charlie’s girls, one of the cooks, and a busboy. I could never figger out if they were there for the music, or the game. They’d sit under a cloud of cigarette smoke until they either ran out of money, smokes, or I closed the club.

Sometimes King would invite other musicians who’d come in from different clubs around town, and I’d be lucky to get me a few hours’ sleep before I had to  re-open the club again. But it was the only time I had for myself, and I grabbed at every chance I got when it came to standing up and throwing down on my horn. I’d blow a long solo and King would listen politely before throwing it back at me. I could blow a slow, mournful tune that seemed to come up from somewhere deep inside of me, like as if it was curled up around my balls, Del said. He played alto sax in King’s band. I’d close my eyes and pretend the house was full, thinking how everyone in it were there to hear me play–-like they went to hear that Satchel-mouthed Armstrong in Harlem – but when I finished blowing, it’d just be the five of them looking at me. They’d shake their heads, saying I was wasting my time with this gangster business. It’s what a man likes to hear.

Lacy saw Mookie standing beside me on the bandstand and waved at him.

“My God, Mookie, who’s that?” I asked. “An’ how’d ya get to knowin’ a white girl like her?” I added with a grin.

“Nickles! She’s my sister,” Mookie laughed, and jumped off the bandstand.

I looked at him for a moment, shaking my head as he looked up at me with a grin.

“Your sister?” I laughed, and turned to look at Del who was nodding his head.

“Yeah, Mookie,” I said as I opened the valve on my coronet and blew out the spit, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told ya this before, but have ya looked at yourself in the mirror? You’re not white.”

“She is his sister!” Del laughed. “Hey Lacy!” he called out to her. “What you doin’ shakin’ your money-maker ‘round this part of town?”

“You shut your pie hole, Del!” she called out across the dance floor. “Or I’ll be tellin’ your ol’ lady what you been doin’ up here ain’t really what you been doin’! I’ll tell her you’re up here with all these ten-dollar whores spending your money ‘fore you even got it!”

“Woman, what you flippin’ that at me for?” Del said, pretending to be hurt. Mookie led Lacy off to the side and I watched them talking like as if they had a lot of catching up to do.

“You can’t expect me to believe she’s his sister, Del,” I said, turning to look at him.

“Her momma was a Mulatto,” Del said, dragging the word out real slow. I’d never heard of it before, and Del explained it to me. “She coulda passed for white in a white man’s world—her momma, I mean. Lacy’s daddy was a white man, and he didn’t know—he never did—he died some time back. Lacy grew up white, while Mookie grew up with relatives down south somewhere.”

“So how come Mookie’s not white?”

Del shrugged. “I can’t rightly say I know the reason. It happens like that sometimes. Ya hear a lot more about things like that down in the Big Easy. It’s because the slaves used to come up through there to get sold up the big Muddy—sold up the river, get it?” he said with a grin. “Slavers, they liked their dark meat back then. Girls like Lacy’s momma, they can live a pretty good life in a white man’s world. It’s just that when they have a baby, sometimes they have little nigger babies.”

“But she’s white!”

“She’s just as much a nigger as I am. Girl like that ain’t gonna tell no man she’s not white, not if she’s wantin’ to get ahead in this world. Babies come out light sometimes, but there’ll be a dark one come along soon enough–-like Mookie. He’s what you’d call a deep, dark, family secret,” he added with a laugh.

Mookie left Lacy in the shadows, slowly coming toward me on the bandstand. He seemed nervous, and I kept looking over his shoulder at where Lacy stood waiting. The three waiters, the hatcheck girl, and the others around the tables looked up from their card game once or twice, but mostly kept playing. I could see them looking at her as much as they were watching me.

“What?” I asked Mookie and crouched down so as none of the others might hear. For some reason, I didn’t want word of her getting back to Jimmy.