“You boys know about Oriental girls? Their slits go sideways, so you have to prop ’em up perpendicular to yourself goin’ in or you’ll have a bent pecker comin’ out.”
Roy and Eddie Hay were standing under the awning outside Myron and Jerry’s Steakhouse on South Mohawk getting the goods from Sonny Lightfoot. Sonny worked for Jib Bufera, who ate lunch every afternoon except Sunday at three o’clock at Myron and Jerry’s. Sonny’s real last name was Veronesi, but he earned his nickname when he weighed forty pounds less and burglarized houses while the residents were sleeping. He became famous for his ability to tread so softly that nobody woke up while he pilfered jewelry and other valuables. These days he drove for Jib Bufera.
“Jib’s got me on call twenty out of twenty-four, so I snooze in the Lincoln while he’s havin’ meetings.”
“You like workin’ for Jib?” asked Eddie Hay, who the other boys called Hey Eddie, which he hated.
“Can’t complain. Less stressful than breakin’ and enterin’. Jib’s generous. He and his goombahs speak Sicilian most of the time, which is okay by me because then I don’t know nothin’ when the wrong guys ask me what I know.”
A steady, warm rain had put an early end to the boys’ ballgame but Roy did not mind since he was fighting a summer cold.
“Hey Eddie,” he said, “I’m goin’ home. Take it easy, Sonny. And thanks for the anatomy lesson.”
“Any time, kid. Shake that cold.”
Roy was twelve years old and didn’t know much about girls. He had his doubts, though, about Sonny Lightfoot being a source of reliable information.
When he got home, Roy’s grandfather was asleep in an armchair with a book on his lap. Roy looked at the title: Germany Will Try It Again. He went into his room and turned on the little red and white portable TV he kept on a table next to his bed, then took off his shoes and lay down. There was an old movie on about a terminally ill man, a philosophy professor, who decides to do the world a favor and murder a truly evil person before he himself dies. The professor shoots and kills a spider woman who is having an affair with the husband of a colleague of his. The spider woman is a crook who has seduced the husband, an artist, and blackmailed him into creating paintings in the styles of old masters and selling them as lost or stolen masterpieces to private collectors. The professor confesses his crime to the police, goes to trial and is sentenced to die in the electric chair. Before he is executed, however, the professor is horrified to learn that another man, having read in a newspaper about the professor’s reason for committing the murder, has subscribed to the professor’s philosophy and mistakenly killed an innocent person.
The spider woman, when confronted by the professor, was unmoved by his plea that she relinquish her hold on the husband. Her smug, nonchalant attitude infuriated him but intrigued Roy. If a diabolical but goodlooking dame like this got her hooks into a man, he realized, she could compel him to do almost anything.
Roy’s grandfather appeared in the doorway.
“Hello, Roy. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Hi, Pops. You were sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No, I’m okay. Pops, do you think there are people who are really evil? Or are they just mentally ill?”
“I’m sorry to say, Roy, I believe in the existence of evil. Hitler, for example, was an evil man who had the ability to inspire and manipulate people into committing the most gruesome acts of villainy.”
“I saw the book you’re reading about Germany. Hitler was a German, wasn’t he?”
“No, he was Austrian, but he became chancellor of Germany.”
“There had to be a lot of evil people in Germany to do what they did.”
“That’s what the book is about. The author theorizes that their society is genetically predisposed to waging war, that they possess an imperative biological desire to control others and force them to submit to their will.”
“A woman can do that to a man.”
“Yes, and a man can do it to a woman.”
“How much does sex have to do with it?”
“Sometimes everything, sometimes nothing. Do you have any more questions before I make myself a sandwich?”
“Just one, but it can wait.”
“What’s it about?”
“Oriental girls.”