“What’s that you’re reading there, Mike?” grabs the book, bookmark falls out, sees the scrawl, recognizes it? Jesus. I ripped up the bookmark and dropped it on the floor.
I got off at the last stop and went up the steps.
Early, Pat said.
Aye, train wasn’t as bloody useless as it usually is, I said.
Time for me to pour you a pint, Pat said.
Cheers, I said.
He poured me a pint of Guinness, but Pat, bless his heart, was second-generation Irish and, in any case, something happens to the black stuff when it leaves the Pale. It takes a real professional schooled in Leinster and within a stone’s throw of the Liffey to pour a stout correctly. Pat hadn’t got the gift or the patience or indeed the right materials to work with. It wasn’t a bad jar for the Bronx or indeed New York, but still…
I thanked him anyway and took a big gulp and ate some Tayto Cheese & Onion.
The others arrived and I bought a round, and at seven we went upstairs to the meeting. Darkey must have come in the back way, because I didn’t see him till we were up there.
The room was full of cigarette smoke, which was particularly annoying since I was, as of this morning, trying to give up. Darkey was sitting at his usual spot at the head of the table and Sunshine was to hisimmediate left. Darkey liked to run this side of his operations the way he ran the other aspects of his business. This was a meeting, he was the CEO, we were executives.
We were in the function room above the front bar of the Four Provinces. The room was seldom used for anything else but Darkey’s weekly meetings, which usually took less than an hour. Darkey had a lot on his plate, and this side of things he left to Sunshine.
Under Darkey and Sunshine there were two small crews. Me, Andy, Fergal, and Scotchy in one; Big Bob, Mikey Price, and Sean McKenna in the other. Various people floated in and out, David Marley being a good example. Of course, we were one short tonight because Andy was in Columbia-Presbyterian down on 168th recovering from his pretty nasty hiding. When I say crew, it was less formal than that. We didn’t really work all the time. Sunshine more or less took care of everything, and it was only in extreme cases that we had to be sent charging in. Pay was a bit erratic too, because Sunshine doled it out in terms of hours worked. If he could have made us punch in and out, I’m sure he would. We hardly ever saw Big Bob and his two boys, because it was the rare day that all seven of us were needed for something. Most of the time Big Bob, Sean, and Mikey did the collections. These were monthly or fortnightly, and it was usually pretty easy work, and I think they got regular pay for it. Certainly they dressed nice (Bob wore suits), and they hardly ever had to do any of the seedier stuff. (They were the ones, too, who got to go to the meetings at Mr. Duffy’s in Nassau County, and this made Scotchy madder than anything because that was supposed to be some place. I’d been once to Mr. Duffy’s Tribeca pad, and it was spectacular enough.) Under Scotchy the three of us did all the shit jobs: anything that needed doing, heavying, guarding, collecting, a lot of times manual fucking labor.
The arrangements couldn’t have been more different from back in the Old Country, where there’s a rigid command structure and a cell structure, and everything gets talked to death before anything gets done. Here it was laid-back and informal and looked a lot as if Darkey kind of made things up on the hoof. But Sunshine kept people in line. Basically, my job was as a bruiser. I’d been reluctant to come to America, because from the ages of fourteen to sixteen I’d been part of a gang running rackets in North Belfast. I’d seen some pretty unpleasant things, and when mycousin Les suggested I go to work for Darkey White in New York, I didn’t really want to be part of it. I was sick of all that. At sixteen I’d quit the life and run off and joined the army, but that
I got off at the last stop and went up the steps.
Early, Pat said.
Aye, train wasn’t as bloody useless as it usually is, I said.
Time for me to pour you a pint, Pat said.
Cheers, I said.
He poured me a pint of Guinness, but Pat, bless his heart, was second-generation Irish and, in any case, something happens to the black stuff when it leaves the Pale. It takes a real professional schooled in Leinster and within a stone’s throw of the Liffey to pour a stout correctly. Pat hadn’t got the gift or the patience or indeed the right materials to work with. It wasn’t a bad jar for the Bronx or indeed New York, but still…
I thanked him anyway and took a big gulp and ate some Tayto Cheese & Onion.
The others arrived and I bought a round, and at seven we went upstairs to the meeting. Darkey must have come in the back way, because I didn’t see him till we were up there.
The room was full of cigarette smoke, which was particularly annoying since I was, as of this morning, trying to give up. Darkey was sitting at his usual spot at the head of the table and Sunshine was to hisimmediate left. Darkey liked to run this side of his operations the way he ran the other aspects of his business. This was a meeting, he was the CEO, we were executives.
We were in the function room above the front bar of the Four Provinces. The room was seldom used for anything else but Darkey’s weekly meetings, which usually took less than an hour. Darkey had a lot on his plate, and this side of things he left to Sunshine.
Under Darkey and Sunshine there were two small crews. Me, Andy, Fergal, and Scotchy in one; Big Bob, Mikey Price, and Sean McKenna in the other. Various people floated in and out, David Marley being a good example. Of course, we were one short tonight because Andy was in Columbia-Presbyterian down on 168th recovering from his pretty nasty hiding. When I say crew, it was less formal than that. We didn’t really work all the time. Sunshine more or less took care of everything, and it was only in extreme cases that we had to be sent charging in. Pay was a bit erratic too, because Sunshine doled it out in terms of hours worked. If he could have made us punch in and out, I’m sure he would. We hardly ever saw Big Bob and his two boys, because it was the rare day that all seven of us were needed for something. Most of the time Big Bob, Sean, and Mikey did the collections. These were monthly or fortnightly, and it was usually pretty easy work, and I think they got regular pay for it. Certainly they dressed nice (Bob wore suits), and they hardly ever had to do any of the seedier stuff. (They were the ones, too, who got to go to the meetings at Mr. Duffy’s in Nassau County, and this made Scotchy madder than anything because that was supposed to be some place. I’d been once to Mr. Duffy’s Tribeca pad, and it was spectacular enough.) Under Scotchy the three of us did all the shit jobs: anything that needed doing, heavying, guarding, collecting, a lot of times manual fucking labor.
The arrangements couldn’t have been more different from back in the Old Country, where there’s a rigid command structure and a cell structure, and everything gets talked to death before anything gets done. Here it was laid-back and informal and looked a lot as if Darkey kind of made things up on the hoof. But Sunshine kept people in line. Basically, my job was as a bruiser. I’d been reluctant to come to America, because from the ages of fourteen to sixteen I’d been part of a gang running rackets in North Belfast. I’d seen some pretty unpleasant things, and when mycousin Les suggested I go to work for Darkey White in New York, I didn’t really want to be part of it. I was sick of all that. At sixteen I’d quit the life and run off and joined the army, but that
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