Sally sat behind the wheel of his new Buick. It wasn't really new, though the odometer registered only 150 miles. Sally had picked it up two hours earlier at a chop shop in Queens. There was something wrong with the power steering, it made a terrible noise when he turned too far to the left or right. The rubber insulation around the driver's window was coming off, and the car smelled bad, like somebody had kept a wet dog in it. Sally pulled the car up to a stoplight and fiddled with the dial on the radio, trying to find an easy-listening station.
A red Alfa Romeo pulled up alongside of him, and Sally looked over at it enviously. Why couldn't he have a car like that? The driver of the Alfa leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side. "Hey! Sally Wig!" said Al.
Sally rolled down his own window, which sucked some of the rubber stripping down into the door with it. He looked into the Alfa, trying to figure out who it was that drove such a nice car, dared call him that name to his face.
"Hey, Sally Wig," said Al. "New car, Sally?"
Sally stared at the man. He looked like a cop. What was a cop doing in a nice car like that? Probably on the take. Sally mentally reviewed all the friendly policemen he was aware of, trying to place the face.
"Hey candy-ass," the man was saying, "they make you drive that piece a shit? What? You don't rate a Caddy? Not even a Lincoln? What the hell's wrong? I thought you were comin' up in the world . . . Drivin' around in a car like that . . ."
Infuriated, Sally struggled with the door handle, anxious to get out of the Buick, to reach over into the Alfa and strangle this son of a bitch, talking to him like that. . . He wanted to cave the guy's head in, tear his goddamn teeth out of his head, leave him slumped over the wheel in that fancy car of his. He pawed angrily at the handle. It came off in his hand. The red Alfa pulled away from the crosswalk, leaving Sally at the light, cursing at the top of his lungs and pounding his fist against the dashboard.
IT WAS ELEVEN O'CLOCK in the morning, and Tommy lingered over his pecan pancakes, reading the food section of The New York Times. The Pink Teacup was almost empty, the only other customers an elderly gay couple, sitting at the other end of the dining room next to the door. Tommy had his newspaper spread out across two tables. He had precut his pancakes into bite-size pieces, so he had his left hand free for the paper while his right hand traveled freely between his plate and his mouth. The Teacup's cook was putting on the collards for dinner sendee, and the lone waitress sat behind the register on a stool, reading People magazine aloud to the cook in a thick Southern accent.
The front door opened and Al entered the restaurant. "Man, I'm hungry," he announced. He turned to the waitress, "You still serving?" The waitress nodded and went back to reading her magazine.
Al sauntered over to Tommy's table. "Tommy Pagano, right?"
Tommy looked up at him, surprised.
Without hesitating, Al pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. He put his elbow on Tommy's paper.
"Mind if I join you, Tommy?" he asked.
Tommy's lips moved but nothing came out. Eventually, he man aged to stammer, "I'm sorry . . . I forget. . . Do I know you? Do I know you from somewhere?"
Al leaned closer. "FBI, Tommy. My name is Al. I'm a special agent attached to the U.S. Attorney's office here in Manhattan. Boy, is this a coincidence or what?"
"W-what do you mean?" asked Tommy, putting down his fork.
"Finding you here. I love this place. You know I been coming here for years. Back in the seventies I used to eat here all the time. What are you eating there, the pecan pancakes? I love those." He turned and called over to the waitress, "Lemme have some of what he's having, dear. And some black coffee." The waitress got up off her stool, wrote out a check, and handed it to the cook.
Al turned his attention back to Tommy. "I can't get over it. There I am, just a couple of hours ago, sitting in my office looking over your file and I go out to get myself some of those good pecan pancakes they got over here and there you are. Small world."
"File?" echoed Tommy.
"Oh, yeah," said Al. "You got a file. I was just reading up on you before I came over."
"Why, what do I have a file for?" asked Tommy.
"You got a file. Your uncle, he's got a file. Your uncle's file is this thick, weighs a ton." Al held up one hand with the fingers wide apart from the thumb. "Your file's pretty skinny, you want to know the truth. All bones, no meat."
"Why do I have a file?" asked Tommy. "What did I do? I didn't do anything."
Al grinned. "Tommy, you don't have to do anything to get yourself a file. They love filling up files where I work. Like a big vacuum cleaner down there suckin' up all kinds a shit."
"But—" Tommy protested.
"I know, I know," said Al sympathetically. "You feel kinda violated. I can understand that. Lotta people feel that way. It's kinda an invasion of your privacy, buncha suits sitting in an office somewhere reading up on you, talkin' about when you had your braces off, if you jerk off with your right hand or your left. I can see as how you'd be a little upset." Al lowered his voice as if to take Tommy into his confidence. "It's just. . . This is the thing. It's just some of the guys I work with . . . some of these guys at my office . . . they seem to think you're some kinda master criminal."
"Me?" yelped Tommy. "What for? I got grabbed once, when I was a kid, for selling firecrackers. One time my whole life I did a wrong thing. I musta been fourteen years old!"
"Actually, I think it was fifteen," said Al, helpfully.
"I never did anything after that. I never had any trouble since then," said Tommy.
"I know, I know that. That's what I told them at the office. I said, Tommy's a good kid. He's a cook, he's practically a chef down there where he works. He's a sous-chef, am I right? That means you do all the work, right Tommy? I told them. I said, Tommy's working hard at a career. He's not out there hijackin' loads out there in Jersey. He's not whackin' guys inna head. He's not getting any juice off the street."
"So what's the problem?" asked Tommy, trying to maintain his composure.
"The problem is this. This is what the problem is. Some of the guys down at the office, well they just don't believe it, you see. They say to me, they say Al, look at all these known organized crime associates this Tommy knows. Look who this Tommy gets seen with.' That's what they say. 'Look who his uncle is,' they say. 'This is not a nice man, this Sally Wig fellow. We know him, we're lookin' at his file, and Al, this uncle this kid has is no good.' "
"That ain't me," said Tommy. "That's my uncle, I can't do anything about that."
"They understand that," said Al. "I said to them, you can't blame the kid for that. Who his uncle is. Hell, if I could pick who my relatives were my family would look a lot different than it does. But then they say, 'But, Al, look at some of these pictures, listen to what people are tellin' us. If this kid Tommy is such a nice, clean, hard working young man, what's he doing hanging around with dirtbags like Skinny Di Milito? How come,' they want to know, 'How come when Tommy works late at the restaurant he has late supper with this Skinny character, who is also well known to us? How come when people visit Tommy on this one particular occasion it's like the Roach Motel over there—the guests check in but they don't check out? Why is that?' That's what they ask me." Al paused for a few long seconds. "Where's Freddy Manso, Tommy? Do you know where Freddy is?"
Tommy went ashen. His hands fumbled shakily for a cigarette. He thought better of it and gave up trying. He reconsidered again and managed to pull a bent Marlboro from his pants pocket.
"I . . . I . . . don't know," he stuttered.
"That's what I thought you'd say," said Al. "I said Tommy wouldn't do anything bad to ol' Freddy. Tommy wouldn't get himself involved in a murder. He doesn't know about that sort of thing. He wouldn't hurt anybody. Problem is, they just don't believe that."
Tommy weaved, pale and shaken over his uneaten food.
"You don't look too good," said Al. "Maybe I shouldn't have those pancakes after all." Al got up and walked over to the waitress, still sitting behind the register reading her magazine. She looked up at him. He handed her a ten-dollar bill.
"Cancel that order for me, will ya, sweetheart? I can't stay. I forgot an appointment." He returned to Tommy's table and looked down at Tommy.
"I didn't mean to put you off your food," he said. Then he turned and walked out the door.