She actually believed he had worked for International Surveys, because he’d showed her the business cards he had printed and there was the company name and his own name with Research Representative under it. So when she asked him if he was going to get a job he told her he’d probably go back with I.S., they were a good outfit, offered a generous bonus plan and other benefits. His mom said, “That’s nice.” He told her, not right away though, he needed to readjust himself to the world, try to put the nightmare of prison out of his mind. He told her he had met other innocent men in there, like himself, unjustly accused. His mom patted his head and said, “My fine boy, treated like a criminal…” But would she break into one of her CDs or Treasury Bills and give him a few dollars, just a couple hundred say? No, her mind had more locks on it than her front door when it came to discussing money. She had given him $1,200 dollars and that was all he was getting, no more. “No. No. No,” his mom said. “Do you know what no means? It means no.” He said to her, “I met boys in there who turned to crime for less reason. Had to.” She wouldn’t budge, the old bitch.
What he’d have to do now, get next to some little old lady scooping a jackpot out of a slot tray. Offer to be of help and kid around, tell her he loved her blue hair. Take her for a nice walk on the Boardwalk. One good score might make him enough. He didn’t know how much time he had, how long the cop was going to hang around. He would like to walk in the cop’s hotel room, wake him up with a gun in his face, just like the cop had done it. Look in his eyes and say, “What do you see?” Look in his eyes first, then tell him to roll over and stick the barrel against that little groove at the base of the skull.
Tomorrow, though, he’d have to see about getting hold of some operating cash.
WHEN MOOSLEH HAJIM JABARA was sixteen years old, in his second year at Southeastern High School in Detroit, he changed his name to DeLeon Johnson. So people would look at his name and know he was American.
When he first arrived in this country, still a little boy, his father’s cousin’s uncle by marriage, who taught in the high school, looked at him with wonder and said, “My God, boy, you know who you are? You know where you’ve been?” All Moosleh knew was that someone would die, first his mother and father, and he would cry and be sent someplace else to live. His father’s cousin’s uncle, Mr. Johnson, showed him a map and said, “Look, my God, where you were born. Ethiopia, the kingdom of Haile Selassie, Lion of Judah. You could have his blood in you from your father’s side. Your mama’s mama was raped by an Italian-don’t you ever forget it-and your mama came from that. They say her people killed him with a spear.” Mr. Johnson said, “It’s all right, it’s not your fault he was your granddaddy. But he was a big strong Italian fella and I see you’re going to have size on you.” He pointed to the map. “Now look here. You left this place called Djibouti, went up to Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, to live in Ismailiya, love that name, and was put on the boat, little fella eight years old to come here. Look at you.”
He loved Mr. Johnson and took part of his name and part of the name of the guy he read somewhere went to Florida to find the Fountain of Youth.
This DeLeon went there too from Michigan State to the Miami Dolphins, played defensive end five years till a knee and cocaine tripped him up, ruined his desire and size wasn’t enough. The coke got him six months in the Dade County stockade and some community-service work, talking to kids. When Jackie Garbo offered him good money to guard his body DeLeon took it. There was nothing to the work. What he didn’t care for was the way Jackie spoke about him to people right in front of him, like Jackie had bought him off a slave block. Jackie always called him the Moose; so most people thought of DeLeon as Moose Johnson, named that because of his size.
At this moment DeLeon stood at the big window in Jackie’s office looking down at the Boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean working its way in, getting mean. He was thinking about Puerto Rico, wishing he was there. He liked the people, he liked the food. He remembered the first time he went there to the casino, saw the spade dome and felt drawn to it, with the desire to go inside and pray. Some Muslim sounds still in his head from when he was a little boy. Had he stayed there in Ismailiya, man his size, he’d be loading ships ‘stead of wearing a $400 sharkskin suit, pearl gray, and working for this little Hymie fool…
“Hey!” calling to him now.
DeLeon turned from the window to see Jackie behind his desk, his phone buzzing, Jackie picking it up and jabbing the air with his other hand, stubby finger pointing. DeLeon walked over to the glass cocktail table and picked up the phone there to listen in, like Jackie wanted. See, then Jackie would have a witness if somebody was trying to fuck him. Man had to trust somebody. So he trusted his Moose with secrets, even trusted him with his woman, like the Moose was his palace eunuch in a pearl-gray suit.
DeLeon eased down into the couch, low, laid his head back against the cushion as he heard the voice on the phone say:
“They picked up Ricky this morning, eight a’clock they come in his house, take him to Northfield.”
DeLeon grinned. Beautiful. Nail his ass.
Jackie’s voice on the phone and Jackie in the room said, “For what?”
“Come on, Jackie. The voice very patient. “They take him over to the green room there they want to talk to him.”
Slow husky voice with that South Philly street guinea accent, that tough-guy shit they learned when they were kids. Frank Cingoro speaking. Chingo. Frankie the Ching. Frank the Wheel. Capo, or something like that, under Sal Catalina, big in the dope business.
And little Jackie trying to sound just as tough, man, saying, “Yeah? Talk to him, okay, about what? They could talk to Ricky, they could talk to him about anything went down the past year could a been Ricky.”
DeLeon grinned. Love it. Throw the little motherfucker in the hole. Then stopped grinning as Frank Cingoro came on again.
“They talk to him about the little girl, Jackie.”
There was a silence. DeLeon looked at Jackie who would be wondering all of a sudden if he should be talking like this, wondering where the Ching was calling from. Bar on Catherine Street in South Philly? He hoped to Christ not. That social club on Hutchinson? Either place could be wired. The Ching must have read Jackie’s thoughts in that silence. He said, “I’m way the fuck and gone out the White Horse Pike, Jackie. Talk to me.”
Jackie the Fatty was standing behind his desk now, moving like he had to go to the toilet. Jackie said, “Well, Ricky won’t say nothing.”
DeLeon thinking he could make him talk; make him tap-dance.
“I know Ricky won’t say nothing,” the Ching said. “We not talking about Ricky, we talking about the little girl. Those guys in Northfield, they’re busting their ass. I want to know what they’re gonna find, Jackie. Then I’ll tell you why.”
“How’n the fuck do I know?” Jackie said. “You think I had anything to do with it?”
“Benny says he never touched her.”
Benny?
“I know he didn’t,” Jackie said. “I was with him every fucking night, getting him something.”
Benny, DeLeon remembered now, that was what the Ching called Benavides, the cat from Bogotá, the South American grass man, that scary, snake-eyed greaseball.
“Where’s he at now?”
“Left this morning. The Moose put him on the plane to Miami.” DeLeon watched Jackie glance over, man’s eyes wide open so he wouldn’t miss anything said to him.
“Talk to me,” the Ching said. “Who pushed her off?”