MORTY
Morty took the bus from Penn Station to Liberty. He found a window seat in the back, put his small, battered valise on the shelf above, and sat staring out the dirty glass. His leg jiggled nervously. He kept glancing at the front of the bus, watching the men coming in and taking seats. He didn’t watch the women. They wouldn’t be looking for him.
There was a man, young like him, his hooded eyes glancing around, but he swung into a seat in the front of the bus and didn’t look back again. Maybe he wasn’t anybody Morty should be afraid of. A little girl and her father walked to the back and took the seat in front of Morty. The girl was chattering away, and she reminded him of Sylvia. He wondered when he would see her again. He wondered when he would see any of his family or friends again. Or Anna. He missed her already.
He leaned his head against the glass, closed his eyes, but then reminded himself that he needed to be vigilant. He opened his eyes again and kept them moving around the bus . . . right, left, right, left. Until finally the doors closed, and the bus pulled out. Then he allowed himself to breathe.
He took the note the boy had given him out of his pocket and read it for the fourth time. The note had been folded and refolded. It was grimy and sweaty from his hands gripping it, putting it in his pocket, and removing it again. It said simply: Leave Brooklyn. Take the bus to Liberty. Go to Frank’s bar on Main Street. Talk to Frank there. He’ll set you up. Go now. Tucked inside the envelope was a $50 bill. It was signed M. A. for Mickey Adler.
Morty had broken the bill to buy his bus ticket and now had $47.36. He had his wallet with the bills, and the change was loose, jingling in his pocket. He had no idea what was waiting for him in Liberty. He’d never been there. He was confused. He was excited. But mostly he was frightened. He felt that he had taken a pathway that would not let him go back home. What had happened? He’d been on the road to becoming an engineer. He still could be an engineer, get a good job, and marry Anna as he’d hoped to do. Now he was moving in another direction, a road he really didn’t want to go down but was going down anyway.
He stared out the window, mesmerized by the green of the trees along the road, the small-town bus stops, the scenery that gradually turned into hills and then mountains. He began to feel the tightness in his chest loosening, and he was breathing more easily. The bus stopped for twenty minutes at a rest stop, a big diner-cafeteria on Route 7 called Red Apple Rest, where he bought a hot dog and a Coke. When the bus started again, he relaxed, and gradually the vibrations of the bus lulled him to sleep, his head leaning against the grimy window. When the bus stopped in Liberty, he jumped up, terrified he had missed his stop. He was the last one off and walked quickly down the aisle and off the bus, clutching his valise.
He looked around the depot, uncertain where he was going. Finally, he read the note again, made sure he had the name of the meeting place, and asked at the ticket window for Frank’s Bar. He walked the two blocks to the bar and went inside.
Frank’s Bar looked like a lot of neighborhood joints in Brooklyn, and Morty had no trouble identifying the owner, who, big and burly, stood behind the bar occasionally swiping at the gleaming wood in front of him.
It was early evening, the first week of June, and still light out. Morty walked up to the bartender and said, “Frank?”
“You Morty?”
Morty nodded.
“Yeah, Adler said you’d be coming today. I’m going to get you set up with a place to sleep and some dinner, and then we’ll talk.”
Morty nodded. He figured he’d just let this man, Frank, take care of the way his life was going to go for the next few days. Then he would see.
It turned out it was for more than a few days. Frank fixed Morty up with a room in a boarding house down the road. It was clean and comfortable. A woman named Delia Stein ran the house and provided him with breakfast every morning, usually oatmeal and a cup of coffee, and dinner at night. She was a good cook. During the summer, Mrs. Stein rented out her rooms to people who were looking for a week away in the country and couldn’t afford to stay in the nicer hotels and boarding houses. Mrs. Stein took a liking to Morty and would sit with him in the morning, having breakfast and telling him how hard it had been in the early days of the Depression. Things seemed better now. She had reservations through all of July and a few weeks in August. Morty thought that boded well for the businesses in the mountains.
Adler’s orders were for Morty to pick up the slot business that Al Satella had started before he went back to Brooklyn. The main job was to collect the money from the hotel owners who had slot machines on their premises and make sure they paid every penny they owed.
The work was easy, Morty knew, because the hotel and restaurant owners had put in the slot machines several years earlier. All Morty had to do was collect the money. Morty was good at math. It was easy to keep track of what they owed. There was a meter on the back of each machine that totaled the money collected, and a percentage—a large percentage—of the take was owed to Mickey Adler. Morty showed the managers of the properties that he could calculate what they owed in his head. He knew how many machines they had—in their game rooms, in the hallways to the ballrooms where people could mingle, in the lobbies. If they tried to short him on the money, he would know it right away and would have to lean on them in some way.
Morty was not good at bullying, but he was good at presenting the slots as a business proposition. Most of the hotels already had them in their lobbies or social halls. If they had not placed them yet, Morty could talk to the managers about the competition from the other hotels, and then they willingly acceded. If they didn’t, Morty would mention his boss’s name. They were afraid of the name, Mickey Adler, and mostly came around.
Morty quickly developed a reputation for being good with the owners and not ruffling too many feathers as he collected from some and signed the few who were new to the business. But Morty felt the tension building every Monday morning when he woke to start his day. He tried stretching, breathing, doing some easy calisthenics. Nothing worked. His back and his neck would feel stiff and tight, and he knew it was pure nerves. He didn’t like this business.
He would dress in the morning, and to his surprise and horror, he would find his hand shaking as he buttoned his shirt. He knew he had to look sharp to do the work he was doing. He slicked back his hair with pomade, gave himself a close shave. He was thinking of growing a mustache and wondered how Anna would like it if he did. He imagined she would say it tickled when he kissed her, and just thinking about it, he would feel his heart speed up, and he had to shake the image away.
He went down to Mrs. Stein’s kitchen and sat at the table, eating his oatmeal, drinking one cup of coffee, and exchanging pleasantries with his landlady and, later, the other boarder in the house. He had been instructed by Frank, the bartender, to keep himself under the radar, not to do anything that would attract attention, so he didn’t have much conversation with the man. He didn’t want to have to answer any questions that might give his “business” away. He said, when asked, that he was a salesman.
The June mornings were sunny and warm in the mountains. If he was free, in the afternoons he would enjoy the weather, even go for a hike along some of the trails outside of town. He had never experienced outdoors in the country before, and he liked it.
He’d never been surrounded by so much green. The concrete of the city streets, the bits and pieces of trash blowing in the spring air, gray puddles of rainwater along the gutters—that was June in the city. He knew all the smells too. Rotten food spilling out of garbage pails, stacks of old unsold newspapers at the doorways of the candy stores, the sweetness of the bakeries with their breads and cakes and cookies, and the metallic smell of blood at the doorways of the butchers. There were only a few places where green showed or flowery weeds grew in the city: an open lot—unbuilt, waiting—and the beauty of the large expanses like the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and Prospect Park.
Here in Liberty, you could move through the small town and out to the country lanes. The houses were spread out, surrounded by green lawns and flower gardens. There was a lake not too far away. He imagined swimming there on hot summer days if he was still here during July or August. He hoped he wouldn’t be. But he knew he had to take care of business first.
On Monday morning, he would make his rounds. The job was easy. Just go from one to the other of the hotels, restaurants, and bars where the slots were. The Grossman Hotel. The Merryman Bar. The Western Steakhouse. They all had slot machines placed in their lobbies, or in the vestibules and hallways—some even in the main dining rooms. Slots were good business, both for the proprietor and for the guys like Adler who placed the machines. Morty liked to go in the morning because there weren’t many customers around, and he could deal with the manager quietly in the back room. He remembered his first job with Mr. Hansen and how he had watched the collector from the mob picking up money each week . . . protection money, he called it. Mr. Hansen had paid willingly, because he said he was afraid if he didn’t, they would burn his shop down like they had the tailor’s shop on the next block. And now, here Morty was, the very one doing the threatening, the collecting. It made him sick to his stomach. He calmed himself by saying, All I have to do is collect.
In the beginning, he didn’t want to get into a discussion with the owner or manager. He just wanted to check the slots to see how much had been collected, pick up the envelope with the cash, and count the money to make sure it was the right percentage. His quick math skills helped him make short work of the arithmetic, and only once, so far, had one of the managers tried to short him. That had been a trial for him. To walk up close, put his face next to the manager’s, and say, “I think you made a mistake in your addition.” He wasn’t sure what the man would do, but to his relief, the guy pulled out the additional bills. Morty had tipped his hat and said, “I trust there won’t be any more arithmetic errors in the future.”
When he left the hotel, he felt the tension lift from his shoulders. Maybe this wasn’t so hard after all. It was not what he had thought he would be doing this summer, but maybe it would be okay.
The second time he noticed that the math didn’t add up, he had to confront the manager of the hotel, a burly man half a head shorter than Morty who denied he had made a mistake. Morty left the hotel and walked. His stomach was in knots. He knew what had to be done, and he wondered if he could get Adler to send up one of his hoodlums to strong-arm the manager, but when he called, Adler just laughed. “What do you think your job is? You better get it done or everyone else up there will be cheating us.”
His heart pounding so hard he was sure Adler could hear it over the phone, he said, “Okay,” and hung up the phone.
Thankful that he had spent so many hours at the Boys’ Club learning to box, he went back to the hotel and waited in the shadows until the manager left to go home. He was not such a big guy or a young guy either. Morty thought, I’m stronger and taller, and he stepped out of the shadows and caught the man by surprise, landing a few good punches. He stood over the man, who lay on the road with a bruise on his cheek and a split lip. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. Then he walked away.
His heart was going a mile a minute. I’m not cut out for this, he thought. He walked quickly down the road into the darkness. He was sweating, almost gagging. How was he going to keep this up? To his enormous relief, when he showed up the next day, the manager, sporting a purple bruise on his cheek and a fat lip, was sitting in his office, and he sent a bellhop out with the money. The envelope he delivered was fat and full.
Morty was relieved. Adler was right. Once this manager paid up, word got around not to mess with Morty. After that, Morty was in good shape. He thought he wouldn’t have to get physical with any of the other owners once the word got out, and he was right. But he was flooded with shame.
At night he lay in his bed and wondered how he had ever gotten into this dilemma. He was going to be an engineer, marry Anna. Now he was caught up in the underworld workings of gambling and slot machines and graft. Each time he tried to figure out how he had arrived at this place, he came to the same conclusion: his father’s pleading had pushed him here. To save his father, he had made a bargain with Rudy, taken the route to crime, and now found himself even more connected to gangs than he had been when Rudy was alive. At least when he was reporting to Rudy, he could argue about what he was asked to do. Now he had no one to argue with. Sometimes he thought about the guy who had been up here before him, Al Satella. Had he really gone back home? He hoped it was true, because if it was, maybe Morty could go back to Brooklyn too.
Every week through June and early July, one of Adler’s men would come up to Liberty and collect the money Morty had for him, counting it carefully before he got into his car. Morty made him sign for how much was in the envelope, just to make sure that none of it was missing when the envelope was delivered to Adler. It had to be correct to the penny. Adler wouldn’t tolerate one of his boys cheating him. He remembered Rudy telling him that if you cheated, you would wind up floating in the river.
After he had been there for three weeks, Adler came up to check things out. Little Jiggy was sitting beside him in the passenger seat. He nodded to Morty as he moved from the front seat into the back. Morty took his place. Adler was a good ten years older than Morty and had once been slim and handsome. Now, after years of good living, he’d put on weight, and his face was round with a double chin. Somehow the softness of his face was more menacing than if he were still young and good looking.
It was unnerving to Morty, knowing that Little Jiggy was behind him, silently listening and watching, all the while bouncing his leg against Morty’s seat back. After they had taken a drive around the town, they sat parked in front of Mrs. Stein’s boarding house. Morty still wanted to know if he had to stay in Liberty beyond the summer. He thought he would start by asking Adler if he could go home to Brooklyn for a visit.
Adler eyed him. “I like you here,” he said. “You’re good for business. I’m going to get you a car.”
Morty was surprised. He remembered that Adler had bought Rudy his first car. He said, “I don’t need a car.”
“Yeah, you do. Too much space here. You need a car. I got plans for you. We’re going to spread out some. Otherwise, we’ll lose the business to some other gang. And I don’t want to lose the business to another gang. You understand?” Morty nodded. “You know how to drive?” Morty nodded again. “I’ll get you a car.”
Morty figured a car would be all right. “But after the summer . . . then I can go back to Brooklyn? I need to go back to school.”
“You don’t need to go to school . . . you’ll make a lot more money if you stick with me.”
Morty’s hands were sweating. “It’s not about the money. I’ve always wanted to be an engineer. I only got into this business because Rudy did my father a big favor. And then Rudy got killed.”
“Yeah, that was unfortunate. I liked Rudy.” He reached into his pocket, took out a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and lit one, blowing the smoke toward the open window at his side.
Morty hesitated for a minute, and then he asked the question that had been on his mind since he heard about Rudy’s murder. “What happened? Who killed him?”
Adler shrugged. He stared out the window. “Well, I don’t know. There are lots of guys on the street.” He turned and eyed Morty. “You know Rudy didn’t only work with me. He sometimes worked with Lepke and Reles.” Adler paused. “You know who they are?”
Morty took a deep breath and nodded. This explained a lot. Everybody in Brooklyn knew who they were. Louis Lepke and Abe Reles were the bosses of Murder, Inc. To Morty it was suddenly very clear why Rudy was always taking those trips out of New York—to Chicago and Detroit and little Podunk towns around the country. He would always say he was “taking care of business,” but he never explained what the business was. Now Morty knew what he had been doing on those out-of-town trips. It wasn’t called Murder, Inc., for nothing. He could feel his heart racing at the thought of his old friend as a cold-blooded murderer. “You think they had him murdered?”
Adler didn’t answer. They sat in silence while Adler smoked. Morty felt his heart pound. The vibrations of Little Jiggy’s leg seemed to pick up speed. Morty stared out the window at the green trees, the flower beds in Mrs. Stein’s front yard. It was peaceful and pretty, and it was hard to believe he was sitting in a car with two gang members talking about murder.
Adler flicked his cigarette out the window. “Which reminds me, you also need this,” he said. He reached over Morty, opened the glove compartment of the car, and pulled out a gun, which he offered to Morty.
Morty shook his head and put up his hands. “I don’t want that. I wouldn’t even know what to do with it.”
“You might need it. Take it.”
Morty’s heart was pounding. He was shaking his head. “I don’t want it. I’ll take the car, but no gun. I don’t want a gun.” He worked hard to make his voice convincing, strong.
Adler stared at him. He put the gun back in the glove compartment. “There’ll be a car for you in a few days. Don’t ask any questions. Just take it. Jiggy here will bring it up with one of the other guys.”
Morty breathed with relief. He nodded. Morty took the car Jiggy brought him, a black 1936 Chevrolet that looked almost new. He was glad it wasn’t a Ford, but he knew none of the Jewish gangs would buy Ford cars. Henry Ford was a notorious Jew hater, and Morty didn’t know a single Jew who would buy a car from Ford.
Before he started driving the car, he looked at the glove compartment several times, wondering if there was anything in it. He finally opened it. There, on top of the registration, was a small black handgun. He slammed the glove box closed and sat, staring straight ahead. The bastard. I told him I didn’t want a gun, and Adler left it anyway. He wouldn’t touch it. Never. If he did, he was doomed. His stomach was churning in rage. He shuddered. What if Adler is setting me up? What if the gun was used for a murder, and Adler expects me to touch it and put my prints on it? He’s a bastard, Morty thought again. Breathe, he told himself. Just take it to the bedroom and think it through. I don’t know where the gun was before, and I just need to get rid of it. But not anywhere it can be found.
That night, Morty took a paper bag, went to the car, and opened the glove box. Careful not to leave any fingerprints, he picked up the gun with his handkerchief, placed it in the bag, and put it on the seat beside him. What would he do with it now? He could bury it. He could throw it in one of the big garbage bins outside the bar on Main Street. Or at a hotel. Even if someone found it, they couldn’t trace it to him.
He went to his room with the bag and put it in the back of his closet. I’ll think about it later. Later took longer and longer.
He hated to admit it, but he loved having the car. He began to drive around the back roads of Sullivan County, enjoying the green grass everywhere, the dairy farms with cows grazing in the fields. It was some compensation for not being able to go home, but not enough. He still missed Anna. He wondered how his family was doing. Now he wanted to check in with them. He wrote a letter to his parents, telling them he was okay, and he’d hopefully come home for a visit later in the summer. By return post he received three letters, from his mother, his father, and Sylvia. All of them begged him to come home as soon as he could. The letters made him more homesick and sadder than he had been before.
He had already written to Anna and received a letter back from her. Now he wanted to ask her to come up to Liberty, but he knew that would mean an overnight because the trip was too far for one day. He wondered how she would manage that and wasn’t sure she’d be up for it. He wrote to Anna, enclosing enough money for her to come up by bus and visit him.
Anna wrote back. She wouldn’t come for an overnight. It would cause too much of a commotion in her house. Couldn’t he come into the city for a visit? For the first time Morty used the telephone number she had given him. Anna picked up on the first ring. Hearing her voice on the phone made Morty want to see her even more. He told her his backup plan. If staying overnight wouldn’t work, he would meet her halfway. It took between three and four hours for the trip from New York City to Liberty. Halfway up to Liberty was the Red Apple Rest, the way station where the bus had stopped when he first came up to Liberty. He knew that Anna would be able to get off and spend a few hours with him before she had to turn around and go back to Brooklyn. She agreed, and they made a date to meet in two days.
When Morty drove down to the Red Apple, the sun was shining, the air balmy. He waited anxiously where the buses stopped to let the passengers out. At least one bus came and went, and Anna was not on it. He paced around the parking lot until the next bus arrived.
Morty craned his neck as the travelers disembarked. And there she was. He could barely swallow. She stood on the step of the bus, looking around until she finally saw him, and a small smile lit her face. She flipped her hair back and showed her ivory neck over her yellow V-necked dress. They stood motionless, staring at each other, until the person behind Anna impatiently tapped her on the shoulder, and she jumped and quickly came down the last steps. Morty felt as if he were moving through a fog. They stood facing one another, and, unable to resist, he reached out and embraced her.
Anna buried her head in his neck. He rocked her back and forth. “Oh God, I missed you so much! So much.”
When she looked up at him, he saw that her violet eyes were glistening. “I feel like crying,” she said.
He took her hand, and they walked away from the bus, toward the crowds at the restaurant.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Maybe a Coke?” She smiled at him shyly. “Or an egg cream?”
Morty laughed. “I don’t know if they make egg creams out here in the country. For sure I can get you a milkshake.”
Morty went into the cafeteria, and after waiting in line, he came back to Anna with two hot dogs, a cardboard square of french fries, and two milkshakes. He walked Anna back to where his car was parked and suggested they could eat at one of the rustic picnic tables around the parking lot.
“You got a car?” Anna asked in disbelief.
Morty smiled. “Yeah, I need it for my work.” He led her to a table, spread out his handkerchief on the wooden surface, and put the food on it. Each of them picked up a hot dog and bit into it.
“This is good,” Anna said. “It reminds me of Coney Island . . . Nathan’s, you know?”
“Yeah,” Morty agreed. He sucked his milkshake through a straw. “This is good too.”
Anna nodded. She took another bite of her hot dog and chewed slowly. Then she said, “What are you doing here, Morty? What kind of work?”
Morty hesitated for a minute. “I’m in business, sort of. I place slot machines in hotels and restaurants, and we share the profits.”
Anna stopped eating. “I was afraid it was something like that.”
“What? Why?” Morty asked.
“Don’t play me, Morty,” Anna said. “Remember the guy my uncle wanted me to marry? Did I say no to him because he’s in the business, and not to you? The business with the gangs isn’t safe. Stay out of it.”
Morty stared at her. “Look, Anna. Maybe it’s a little dangerous. But only a little. Nobody else is up here doing the business. It’s good for the owners of the hotels too. They get a cut.”
“It won’t last. Sooner or later, there’ll be some other gang wanting to have their slot machines in the hotels. And you’ll be fighting for your life. Please, Morty, get out of this.”
Morty sat quietly. He didn’t know what to tell her. He remembered his conversation with Adler. He knew he couldn’t get out of the business so easily. He was trying to figure out how he could escape, but he felt helpless. Maybe he knew too much, and they would never let him leave. He could run away, but then maybe they would find him. Rudy had told him that the bosses didn’t ever forget if someone left them. They always settled their scores. The men who tried to get out were always a threat. Better they be silenced for good. Morty was afraid. He didn’t know what else he could do but play along and keep his head down. Give them every penny they were supposed to get and look for an opportunity to get out.
“Could we talk about something else?” he asked. He reached out and took her hand, rubbed his finger against her palm.
She pulled her hand away. “You’re giving me shivers.”
He laughed. “Me too. Come here,” he said. She slid closer to him and put her head on his shoulder, and he reached over and kissed her, lingering on her mouth. “Let’s take a drive,” he said. “It’s really pretty around here on the back roads. I’ll show you.”
They got up and threw the remains of their lunch in the garbage pail. It was full to overflowing now. Then they got into the car.
Morty turned the ignition, looked at Anna out of the corner of his eye, and said, “Nice, isn’t it?”
She nodded. He drove out of the parking lot and took the first turnoff from the highway, and they were on a road lined with fields and farms. There were tall silos beside barns, and houses with shaded front porches stood near the road. The pavement stopped, and the road turned to dirt, winding along fields lined with trees that were leafed out in their brightest greenery. Morty pulled off under one of the trees and turned the motor off. There were no houses around them, only empty fields, an empty road, and the quiet of the countryside.
He reached for her, and she came into his arms willingly. “I missed you so much, Anna. I can’t stand not being around you.” His lips slipped along her cheek and into her neck. His hands moved slowly down her shoulder and covered her breast.
She grabbed his hand as if to stop him. He ached with wanting. “Please, baby,” he said. “We won’t do anything you don’t want. I promise. But I love you, Anna. I’ve loved you from the minute I first saw you at Solly’s, remember?”
She nodded. “I love you too,” she whispered. “Oh, Morty, what are we going to do?”
Without thinking, he said, “We’ll get married. I want to marry you.”
Anna sat back. “Marry me? You’re serious?”
They stared at each other, laughing at the audacity of this. Morty nodded. “I love you, and I’m going to marry you.”
She looked straight into his eyes. “Listen, Morty. I love you too. And I’ll marry you. But you got to get out of this business. I told you I won’t marry someone in the business.”
Morty was quiet for a minute. His heart was pounding. Suddenly he believed with all his heart that if he got married, Adler would let him go. Why not? Hadn’t Adler let the other guy leave? Al Satella? If he let him leave, why not Morty?
Morty pushed away the contradiction in the information Rudy had given him . . . that the gangs didn’t let anyone leave them and that Adler had let Satella go. He figured there was a good reason, and Rudy wasn’t around to ask anymore. “Okay, I’ll leave. I want to get out anyway.” He pulled Anna into his arms.
She leaned her head on Morty’s shoulder, and soon they had climbed into the back seat of the car to make love. Afterward they began to plan. He would come down to Brooklyn next time, and he’d stay for good.
Morty went to Brooklyn the day after he collected the money from all the hotels and bars and restaurants. He drove straight down, three and a half hours, right at the speed limit so that no cops would stop him, and directly to Solly’s, where he hoped he’d find Mickey Adler. If not, someone would get a message to him that Morty had a package. But he was in luck.
Adler was sitting in the back of Solly’s, dealing cards with three of his men, smoke curling from the cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths.
Adler was surprised to see Morty but pleased when Morty gave him the envelope that was flush with summer gains from the vacationing guests at the hotels. This was the most lucrative season for slots and gambling in the Catskills.
The card game had paused. All three of the other players sat still, looking at Adler. Morty saw Little Jiggy, who sat opposite Adler, jouncing his leg up and down. And Frenchy LaPointe was there too. He glared at Morty.
Ah, Morty thought, Frenchy never got over Anna’s standing him up and going out with me.
“You didn’t have to come down,” Adler said. “Fatty Frank was coming up tomorrow.”
Morty nodded. “I know. But I need to see my mother. She isn’t feeling so well.”
Adler smiled. “I hope she feels better,” he said. “But you can’t stay down here and leave a hole in Liberty. There’re people wanting to fill it.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Morty said. “I was just wondering if you could find someone else to be in Liberty.”
“I thought we talked about this before,” Adler said. “Why would I find someone else? You’re doing a good job.”
“My folks need me.”
“For what?” Adler’s cards were steady in his hand, fanned out perfectly. Now the three other players were looking at Morty.
“Help in the store.” Morty could feel his voice faltering.
“You can give them money. Then they won’t need help in the store.”
Morty took a deep breath. “And I want to marry my girl.”
Adler looked at his men. “Oh, the boy wants to get married.” He drew out the word so that the other men laughed.
This was not going well, Morty knew. His face was flushed from the neck up. He felt hot, embarrassed.
“You got a wedding date or something?” Adler said finally.
This was a way out for the moment, Morty realized. “No. Nothing like that. I haven’t even asked her yet,” he lied.
“Oh well. Then we can talk about it when I come up to see you in Liberty.” Adler took a card from his hand and threw it on the table. Then he said to the boys he was playing with, “You remember Al Satella? The guy that was up in Liberty before this one?” He nodded his head in Morty’s direction.
“Oh, yeah. Whatever happened to him?” Little Jiggy asked.
“He’s gone,” Adler said. “He was married and wanted to go home for good, and no one ever saw him afterward. Wonder what happened to him.” The card game resumed, the players mumbling something about how none of them had seen Al either. Morty knew he had been dismissed, and his stomach dropped as he thought about what had happened to Al Satella. As Morty started to walk away, Adler turned to him. “By the way, give my regards to your folks. Your father’s store is on Pitkin, isn’t it? I remember that one. He’s doing better now than he did before—since you’ve been working with us. Say hello for me.”
Morty’s heart sank. This was bad. Mickey Adler did not trust him anymore. He knew where Ben’s store was. It was a flat-out threat, and Morty was in trouble. He was going to have to figure out a way to get back in Adler’s good graces—or run away.
Morty didn’t go visit his family. He went straight to Tony’s Deli, where he was sure Anna would be working. When he entered the store, he signaled her to meet him outside. He waited on the sidewalk, his stomach tight, his heart beating.
When Anna came outside, she took one look at Morty’s face and said with alarm in her voice, “What’s wrong?”
Morty took a big breath and, in a rush of words, told her what had happened at Solly’s when he’d gone to talk to Mickey Adler. He was pacing up and down the sidewalk, and Anna took his arm and walked him around the block.
“I don’t want my uncle to see us,” she said. She didn’t add that the rest of her family still didn’t know anything about him, only her mother. Morty knew that was on her mind.
“It isn’t going to work, my walking away from them. He even threatened me. Rudy told me that Adler let Al Satella walk away and go back to his wife, but now I know he was lying. Adler all but said Al was dead.” Morty shivered.
“What did he say, exactly? They don’t usually tell you someone is dead. They use other language.”
“Yeah. Adler asked the guys if they remembered Al Satella, who was in Liberty before me. One of them asked what happened to him, and Adler said he was married and wanted to go home to his wife, but no one ever saw him again. And he wondered what happened to him.” To Morty, as he repeated the words, they seemed even more ominous than they had the first time.
“I told you not to get mixed up with them. Why’d you ever get mixed up with them?”
Morty had never told Anna why he was working for Mickey Adler. Now he said, “I didn’t want to do this. I did it to save my father and his store.”
Anna stared at Morty; her mouth was open as Morty told her the whole story. “Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe my uncle would have helped.”
Morty shook his head. “I believed Rudy would help me. I thought I could rely on him. I never thought he would be killed.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go back upstate. And hope that Adler doesn’t get it into his head that he can’t trust me anymore.”
Anna shook her head. “Oh, Morty. I don’t know if I can do this. Be with you, marry you, worry all the time if you’re going to be arrested or killed. I can’t live like that. My mother did, and it almost killed her too. She’s a nervous wreck.”
Morty thought, She breaks up with me, she gets back with me, she breaks up with me again. What is this? But he said, “Anna, please. You can’t break up with me now. I won’t have anything.”
She started walking, turned back to him, and said, “I love you, Morty. I’m not breaking up with you, but I need to think.”
Morty started to walk after her, but she was already around the corner, and although he followed fast, by the time he caught up to her, she was almost at the deli, where her uncle Tony stood in the doorway looking in both directions. “Where the hell did you go?” Morty heard him exclaim as Anna walked inside. He didn’t hear what excuse she gave.
Morty didn’t know what to do. He walked around Brownsville and debated going to see his parents but knew there would only be grief as a result. He could wait until Anna was out of work, but he was afraid that she would give him a final no if he did. Instead, he got in his car and drove back to Liberty.
During the next week, Morty called Anna twice. Once her mother answered the phone, and Morty hung up. The next time Anna answered, and she agreed to meet him again at the Red Apple Rest the following Wednesday. When she came up this time, things were different. The mood was dark. Even the sky was cloudy and looked like it would rain.
She stepped off the bus but didn’t walk into his arms the way she had the last time. She let him lean down and kiss her cheek but then began to walk to the car park.
“Let’s take a drive,” she said.
They drove in silence to the same road they had gone down last time, and Morty parked under the same tree. When he turned to face her, she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring out the window.
“Do you have something you want to say to me?” he asked finally, breaking the silence.
“I can’t do it, Morty. I remember too much. I loved my father. I was five years old when he was murdered. He was murdered, Morty.” She kept talking and staring out the window. “He used to play with me when he was home. He’d toss me in the air when I was little, and when I got too big for that, he would dance with me to music on the gramophone. I would stand on his feet, and we would move around the living room in time to the songs that were playing. My mother would sit on the sofa and laugh at us. I don’t think she really knew what was going on with him. Not then.”
“Tell me again what happened to him.”
“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “He used to run errands for my uncle and the Santoros—they’re important in the neighborhood. They live down the block. But he wanted more . . . bigger stuff. Finally, my uncle got Harold Santoro to give him more work, and—it was during Prohibition, you know—he stole a couple of crates of whiskey and sold them on the side. The Santoros found out about it, and next thing he was found in an alleyway on Ebbets Avenue. Shot dead.” Anna’s voice was shaky. She couldn’t look Morty in the eye. “We don’t talk about it in my house, but I learned my lesson. It never ends well with the gangs. The guys all die young. It doesn’t really matter what you do. A lot of things get you killed when you work for the mob. And you don’t always know why. Sometimes you just do the wrong thing. Why was Rudy killed?”
Morty remembered what Adler had told him, but he thought it was better not to disclose Rudy’s connections to Murder, Inc. He shrugged.
Anna nodded. “See, you don’t even know. I remember how it was for my mother after my father was killed. She was like a zombie, and I don’t want to be like that.” Anna still wasn’t looking at Morty.
Morty touched her shoulder. “Are you really going to leave me?”
Now she turned to face him. “I will if you don’t leave them.” Her eyes held his.
Morty moved toward her, took her shoulders, and pulled her into his arms. He began to kiss her, gently at first and then more passionately. Anna kissed him back, and there was a desperation in both of their mouths, in their bodies as they climbed over the front seat and fell into the back, in the way they tore off their clothes, in their moans and whispers, in their final coupling. Morty felt the satin of her skin, her perfume on his face. He moved his hands over her limbs, her breasts, her stomach, as if memorizing the geography of her body. He thought he must remember it forever.
Afterward, Anna sat up. She put on her panties and her bra and slipped her dress over her head—the yellow dress, now crumpled and creased. She took out a comb from her purse and pulled it through the tangles of her black hair. She took out a lipstick and slicked red on her mouth. Then she opened the door and walked to the front of the car. She leaned against it while Morty got dressed.
It was starting to rain when they drove back to the bus. He waited with her in silence for half an hour until the southbound bus arrived. He was surprised that they were both dry-eyed. Somehow, he thought they would be crying. When the bus pulled up, they got out of the car, and Morty walked her to the door. He was glad it was raining. They couldn’t linger, or they would get soaked. He watched her climb the steps, walk to the back, and take a seat. She didn’t look out the window. When the bus pulled out, he felt the wetness on his cheeks, and he wasn’t sure if it was raindrops or tears.
Morty passed the time in a fog in the days after he left Anna. He bought some stationery and stamps and wrote her several letters, begging her not to leave him. Each day he searched frantically for a letter from her, but none came. He did his job, played in poker games that some of the hotels offered, and usually won. He began to hear rumors about gang violence in Brooklyn. Dead bodies in the streets of Brownsville.
One day in mid-August, Morty came home to Mrs. Stein’s boarding house in time for the supper she served her boarders. He could smell delicious roast potatoes and sweet carrots and a thick soup bubbling on the stovetop. He wondered if there would be any meat tonight. The table was set with cutlery and plates for Morty and the other boarder, who worked at the desk of the Liberty Hotel and who was already sitting and eating. Morty nodded to him and was about to take his chair when Mrs. Stein said, “There’s a man waiting for you in the parlor.”
Morty felt his stomach tighten, his heart bump. “Who?” he asked.
“He didn’t say. Go talk to him. I’ll keep your food warm.”
Morty nodded and walked into the parlor. It was a small room, filled with big stuffed furniture, and the curtains were always drawn, because Mrs. Stein said the sunlight faded the material on her chairs. She was very proud of the furniture in the parlor and didn’t let the boarders use it except on special occasions. Morty figured this must be special. A small lamp in the corner shed a bloom of light around its base, casting everything else in shadows. On the sofa a very tall, lanky man sat, dressed in a suit and tie. He held his brown fedora in his lap. He unfolded himself and stood when Morty walked into the room.
“Morton Feinstein?” The man’s voice was deep and resonant. He sounded like a professor or something, Morty thought.
“Yeah, that’s me. Who are you?”
“Patrick Hanrahan, federal officer.” He flashed a badge and slipped it back into his pocket.
The badge had come and gone so fast Morty could barely see it. “Let me see that again,” he said. Hanrahan took the badge out of his pocket and held it steady for Morty to look at it.
Morty could see the initials, the name. It looked real enough, but he couldn’t be sure. It could be fake. “What do you want?”
“Do you know Mickey Adler or Rudy Schmidt?”
Morty hesitated. “Why do you care?”
Hanrahan put his hat on the table beside the sofa and sat down. “Sit,” he said.
Without thinking, Morty sat down, then immediately felt ashamed of himself. Who was this guy to tell him what to do? He felt like jumping up again, but he didn’t. He clamped his mouth shut and vowed not to say anything else.
But it wasn’t so easy to be quiet. The questions started easily enough, and Morty couldn’t see the harm in answering them. Questions like where did he live in New York, was he a student at Polytech, did his father own a repair shop? Each time a question came, Morty nodded or shook his head. Soon, though, the questions got too complicated for Morty to answer with a shake or nod of his head.
“What are you doing up here, Mr. Feinstein?”
Morty swallowed. “Working.”
“At what?”
Morty jumped up. “Look, mister, I don’t have to answer all these questions, and I’m not going to answer them.”
“Calm down and sit down. I’ll explain.”
Morty sat again. Hanrahan began talking in a slow, deliberate voice. He knew, he said, about the slot machines, about the money the owners of the businesses that housed them paid to Morty, and he knew the money went to the gang run by Mickey Adler. He held his hand up to quiet Morty when he seemed about to speak. Everything was illegal, he said.
“You read the papers?” he asked. “You know there’s a gang war in Brownsville. Dead bodies around every corner. There are rumors that Benjy Molino’s gang is coming up here. Mickey Adler has competition. You’re going to be in trouble.” Hanrahan was silent for a time.
Morty thought of what Anna had told him, the warning she’d given him that there would be fights between the gangs. Everyone wanted in on the money.
Hanrahan finally spoke. “We’re going to be shutting down everything up here. Arresting everyone . . . unless they work with us. We figured you’re one of the smart ones—a college boy. Work with us, and we’ll protect you.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “No one gets protection from the gangs.” He rose from his seat and turned to leave the room.
“You’re wrong. We can protect you. Give you cover, a new identity,” Hanrahan said. “I’ll be back next week. You should think about what I said. Work with us, and we’ll keep you out of jail and alive.” He took out his wallet and held out a card. “Take this. It has my number on it. You can call me if you change your mind.”
Morty pocketed the card, turned, and started to walk out of the parlor when he thought of something. He faced Hanrahan. “Wait a minute. I want to ask you something. Do you know the name Al Satella?”
Hanrahan was quiet and looked hard at Morty. “I do. Why?”
“What happened to him?”
“We found his body a few months ago, riddled with bullets. Under the El on Avenue J.”
Morty stood still. He could hear his heart thudding in his ears. Al Satella dead under the El. Riddled with bullets. He felt his body sway. “Would you wait here a minute?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“Sure,” Hanrahan said.
Morty ran upstairs to his bedroom, opened the closet, and took out the paper bag on the top shelf behind his suitcase. The bag felt heavy. He hadn’t touched it since he had put it in the closet at the beginning of the summer.
Hanrahan was standing just where Morty left him.
“I don’t know if I should be doing this,” Morty said. “It may be a mistake.”
Hanrahan shrugged. “You won’t know until you do it.”
Morty nodded and handed the paper bag to Hanrahan. “I never touched it. He left it in the glove compartment of the car he gave me. I took it out with my handkerchief and put it in the paper bag and hid it.”
Hanrahan opened the bag, glanced inside, and nodded. “Who gave it to you?”
“Mickey Adler.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Ha,” Morty said. “He didn’t even tell me that he left it for me in the glove compartment. He offered it to me before he brought the car, but I wouldn’t take it. Then when he left me the car, I checked the glove box and there it was. I just want to get rid of it. And I never touched it.”
Hanrahan nodded. “It’s probably wiped clean of prints anyway. But maybe we can tie it to some crime. We’ll see. It’s good that you gave me this. It shows me you’re smart. That you want out. I’m telling you I can help.”
Morty shook his head. “Listen,” he said. “Just take that package. That’s all I got to say.” He didn’t even say goodbye. He left the parlor, went into the kitchen, and sat down to supper. He had no appetite, but he picked up his soup spoon anyway. His brain was racing. He had a week to decide. What was he going to do? The future was waiting for Morty to choose. Hanrahan had held out one future to him. Safety, a new identity, a way out of the tight spot he was in. He wondered if they would give a new identity to Anna if he could persuade her to come with him. He knew that if he didn’t choose, life would choose for him. It always did. The way he saw it, he still had time to decide. And maybe giving the gun to Hanrahan had sealed his fate anyway.
He could run. He had the car. He could drive it to another big city, like Chicago. Sell it. Take the money and hightail it to California or Mexico. Somewhere far away. For a minute he let himself drift on a daydream of warm sunny skies, endless summers. But it felt too big and lonely. All his life he’d been surrounded by people, and sometimes he’d felt suffocated, but he didn’t know if he could stand being alone. And was anything far enough away for him to escape the network of snitches and hangers-on who populated the reach of the gang’s businesses?
He knew one thing. He couldn’t go back to Brooklyn, tell Adler what he’d learned from Hanrahan, and throw himself on the mercy of Adler and his boys. He didn’t trust Adler anymore. To Adler, Morty was expendable, a nothing. And Morty didn’t owe Adler anything.
Or he could join the army. The posters were everywhere. Lots of people were saying there would be war in Europe soon. Morty thought that might be a way out. If he drove far away, joined up, used another name, he would be safe. He was sure of that. None of Adler’s boys would join up. They would never find him.
But then, if the gangs couldn’t find him, there was no chance Anna, or his family, would ever find him either. Could he bear it if he left the gangs but never saw them again?
Each choice would take him, he knew, to a different future. And not choosing would take him someplace else. Nothing was clear.
Morty went about his business for a few days after Hanrahan came to see him. He was collecting, going from hotel to restaurant to hotel to pick up the cash the managers owed. When he got to Albie’s Diner, the owner, Albie himself, pulled Morty aside and took him into the kitchen.
“You got competition,” he said. He sounded casual, like he was talking about the weather.
“What do you mean?” Morty tried to make his voice hard.
“A guy came. His name is Jake Gold. He’s going around to all the other restaurants and hotels too.”
Morty tried to look calm. His palms were sweaty. His heart was beating hard. “Who does he work for?”
“He said the message was from Benjy Molino.”
Morty knew the name, Benjy Molino. That Hanrahan guy had mentioned it when they’d talked three days before. Molino came from over on the Italian side of Bushwick. He wondered if Anna knew him, who he was. “Okay,” Morty said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
He took the cash Albie offered him and walked out of the diner. Suddenly, the sunshine and the quiet of the streets seemed menacing. He found himself glancing around and looking for Jake Gold, but of course, he didn’t know who Jake was.
He walked in a daze. So, the rumors were true. Hanrahan had been right, and Anna. Did Adler know about Benjy Molino, about this Jake Gold, whoever he was, coming up to Liberty and starting a competing business? Well, there was no room for competition up here. Only one slots business could operate in such a small place. Which meant—what? Tell Hanrahan what he knew? Call Adler?
If he called Adler, he would be up here in a flash with a couple of his guys, and there would, for sure, be war. The competition would be dead in the water. And maybe if he called Adler, he would be dead too—killed by this Jake Gold or someone else like him.
But if he called Hanrahan and told him he had heard the Molino gang was already up in the Catskills, about the likelihood of a gang war, he would be a snitch . . . the absolute worst person in the world of the rackets. He would have a target on his back, and he could never come home.
Morty ducked into his car and drove around thinking. Finally, he drove to Loch Sheldrake, where he found a telephone booth on an empty corner and called Adler to give him the news.
“Shit,” Adler said. “They’re butting in around here too. You lie low. Don’t do anything to call attention to yourself. I’m coming up this afternoon with a few guys, and we’ll deal with him.”
After he hung up, Morty took out the card from his pocket with Patrick Hanrahan’s phone number on it and stared at it for a long time. Was there any harm in calling him? What would he want from Morty—what could Morty tell him that would be of value to the law? And if he did tell him anything, could Hanrahan help him get away from the gangs, get to Anna, his parents?
He stared at the card in his hand and thought about making that one more call. He did want to know something that only Hanrahan could tell him. Had the gun planted in his car by Mickey Adler been used in any other crimes? He made the call.
Hanrahan seemed happy to hear from Morty. “I’m glad you called. Did you change your mind?”
Morty hesitated. “I wanted to know if that gun I gave you was—you know—associated with any other crimes.”
“Yes. It was used in at least two other murders besides Al Satella’s. I was going to come up and tell you about it.”
“Don’t bother. The word is that the Molino gang is already up here. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Come in. I’ll protect you. We can make all that illegal activity you’re involved with up there go away. Otherwise you’re on our wanted list.” Hanrahan’s voice drifted off.
“Wanted for what?”
“Racketeering. Illegal gambling. Extortion. Not to mention that the gun you had in your possession was a murder weapon. We can arrest you on all those charges, or you can come in and work with us.”
Morty was tied up in knots. The gun was dirty. There was a list of crimes they could pin on him. And Mickey Adler would be up here today. There was nothing more to say. He hung up the phone, put the card back in his wallet, and drove away. He knew what he had to do.
In his room, from the drawer that held his underwear and socks, he pulled out the wad of money he had collected that morning. What should he do with it? If he took it with him, he’d be a mark for Mickey. A thief. He took an envelope and a piece of stationery, then wrote the date and the names of the businesses he’d collected from and the amounts of money in a list. He wrapped the bills in the paper, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to Mickey Adler, c/o Solly’s Corner Candy Store. He stamped the letter and put it in his pocket. He took another sheet of stationery and wrote a brief letter to his father, stuck it in an envelope addressed to his store on Pitkin Avenue, and stamped it. He would just catch the morning mail pickup if he got to the post office now. He left his room and went out to mail both letters.
It was a beautiful day, mid-September, still sunny and warm and light, when he went to the town center and dropped the letters at the post office. Then he went to Albie’s Diner and ordered a turkey sandwich and a Coke. He sat at the counter and made his plans. He hadn’t taken more than two bites when Albie cleared his throat and pointed with his chin to the door. Morty looked up. But it was too late.
Behind him stood two thugs, one on each side of him. One put his hand on Morty’s shoulder, pressing down hard. “Hiya,” he said. “Morty, isn’t it?”
Morty’s heart jumped. “Yeah,” he said, turning his head to look up. “You are?”
“I’m Jake. Let’s go for a walk, okay?”
Morty looked up and tried to catch Albie’s eye, but Albie had turned his back; he was drying some glasses and putting them away, showing only his burly back to Morty, so Morty rose and walked out with the two men, propelled by their grips on his arm.
Outside, they marched him around the corner to an empty lot and pushed him against the back wall of the building. Jake frisked him, but since Morty never had a gun or a knife, he said, “I’m not carrying.”
“Yeah, that’s a good thing.” He patted Morty’s pockets and lifted out the billfold that Morty had bought when he first started to work with Rudy. He took out the money, put it in his pocket, and seemed about to toss the billfold when he looked at it again. “Nice leather,” he said. Morty looked regretfully at the wallet. When he bought it, he had his name stamped on the inside.
Easy come, easy go, he thought. “Keep it,” Morty said. “A present.” He hoped his bravado sounded real. “But could I have my driver’s license?”
“Sure thing,” Jake said. He opened the wallet and rummaged through it.
Morty saw the identification card with his name and address under a piece of plastic. His license was in the billfold part of the wallet. “It’s in with the money,” Morty said. Jake found it and gave it to him.
“Thanks,” Morty said and looked directly into Jake’s eyes. They were almost the same height.
Jake put the billfold in his jacket pocket and continued patting Morty down. The car keys bulged in Morty’s pocket. “Nice,” Jake said. “Where’s the car parked? What kind of car?”
Morty hesitated. It wasn’t his car, it was Adler’s. Morty took a breath and answered. “Around the corner, in front of Mrs. Stein’s boarding house—a Chevy, black,” he said as fast as he could.
“That’s good,” Jake said. “Now you can go home, pack up your bags, and get the hell outta here. If I see you around tomorrow . . .” He let his voice fade. “Got it?”
Morty nodded. He pulled away from the man who was holding his arm and walked down the street. Trying to project strength, he walked fast, hoping to push down the panic. He glanced at his watch. If Adler had left even an hour after he spoke to Morty, he could be up here in another two hours. By two thirty.
In his room at Mrs. Stein’s, he threw some of his clothes in a rucksack he had bought for hiking on the trails, and he left the battered suitcase he had used when he left Brooklyn along with some of his clothes in the closet and drawers—as if he were coming back soon. With regret, he remembered that his favorite leather jacket, a sharp one that he had bought and wore constantly, was in his car. That was gone. Probably Jake would be wearing it from now on. They were about the same size.
He took fifty dollars that he had kept in a pair of black socks and two days’ worth of underwear and socks. He owed Mrs. Stein five dollars, but he didn’t have the change. He stuffed all the money in his pocket, took an old jacket and the rucksack, and almost ran down the stairs and out the front door. The car was already gone.
It was now about one o’clock. Morty hoped he could grab a bus before Adler arrived. Let him deal with Jake Gold and Benji Molino. He walked fast to the bus depot, trying not to be noticed by any of the passersby. But just as he was nearing the bus depot, Bob Roth, the guy who owned the candy store and who sold him cigarettes, saw him and came up to him.
“Hi, Morty. Where you off to?”
Morty thought fast. “Got to drop this rucksack here with the ticket guy. Friend of mine is picking it up. I’ll be in later to get some cigarettes. I’m almost out.”
Bob looked at him for a long minute. “Okay. See you later.” Bob walked on, and Morty hurried into the small depot, where he bought a ticket on the next bus out, leaving at two o’clock for Cincinnati. He took a deep breath. That was cutting it close. Adler could be here by then if he had left right after their phone call.
He sat down in the waiting room and jiggled his leg. Kept looking at his watch. At two thirty the bus hadn’t arrived. Morty went up to the booth. “Is the bus usually on time?”
The guy in the ticket booth shrugged. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on traffic, weather. Looks like the Cincinnati bus is a little late. Usually not much more than half an hour.”
Morty nodded and went back to the bench—and prayed the bus came before Mickey Adler did.