Sugar Pop Moon by John Florio

Albright didn’t take kindly to snoops.

I take another belt of sugar pop moon and Denny Gazzara waits for my reaction.
    â€œIt’s the same stuff,” I tell him.
    I’m at the table in Gazzara’s cabin. Santi is across from me, nervously glancing to his left at Freddy, who’s got a pistol trained on his ear. Gazzara is sitting in an armchair at the head of the table, pointing a machine gun at me as I recount the events of the last week. Frank is standing behind me; I can’t see him but I don’t have to. A cold steel muzzle is pressing against the back of my head.
    â€œI’ve got eighty cases of it,” I tell Gazzara. Then I think about it. “Actually, I’ve got ten cases. And seventy cases of coffin varnish.”
    Gazzara stares up at the ceiling as if my story is chiseled into the raw wooden beams overhead. “So you’re t-t-telling me some crazy goon with a scar on his ear says he’s m-m-me, lets you taste some moon—this moon—and then pulls the b-bait and switch.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
    Gazzara looks at Freddy and smirks.
    â€œWhy would I lie?” I add.
    â€œBecause we’ve got a gun p-p-pointing at your boy’s thick skull.”
    â€œAnd I’ve got one aimed between your ears,” Frank adds.
    Gazzara looks at me and waits to hear more.
    â€œWhat I mean is why would I mess with you if I didn’t think you double-crossed me? I wouldn’t have a lot to gain, would I?”
    A gun goes off behind my head and I nearly jump out of my bleached skin. My ears ring as a few splinters flutter down from the ceiling and I realize Frank has sent a bullet into the roof. He’s so damned close to my head that had he shot me I’d have been dead before I heard the blast.
    Santi is staring at Frank, his eyes wide.
    â€œPut that away,” Gazzara tells Frank. “You scared the b-bejesus out of me.”
    â€œAnd me,” I add. I still hear a tinny whine from the gunshot and I shake my head, as if a whistle might dislodge and come flying out of my ear.
    â€œSorry, Whitey,” Frank says, chuckling.
    I think of Pearl sitting at my funeral—not that she’d show up—dressed in black and weeping. If I live through this standoff with Gazzara I’ve got to see the doc and find out the odds that my kid would be a bleached Oreo like me. It won’t matter to Pearl, but the thought of telling her that our children would be normal, garden-variety Negroes makes it worth walking out of here alive.
    â€œHere’s a question,” I say to Gazzara. “Do you know a Spanish Joe named Hector? He likes to swing a cleaver and he pals around with a little guy with a mustache.”
    â€œHector with a c-cleaver?” he asks, laughing.
    To me, it doesn’t sound any nuttier than a stuttering bootlegger holed up at a Christmas tree farm, but that would be lost on him.
    I try a different route. “And you’re sure you don’t know the grifter with one green eye and a scar on his ear?”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” Gazzara says. “I know who s-sold you the moon. At least, I think I do.”
    At this, Santi perks up. “Well, who the hell is he? Jersey needs to get his money.”
    â€œHis money is the least of the p-p-problems, as far as I’m concerned.”
    â€œWhat’s your beef?” I ask him. “So you lost a few bottles of moon.”
    He slams his palms on the tabletop. “My beef, you red-faced jigaboo freak, is that I don’t like people ripping m-m-me off.”
    He’s in a lather and every time he gets caught on a word, his eyes bulge.
    â€œI don’t like them selling my m-m-moon. I don’t like being asked questions. And I d-don’t like having to d-d-defend myself to McCullough. He’s an honest businessman, like me. Now I’ve got to t-t-tell him that even though his bony, b-b-bug-eyed,