Finally the man said, “Okay. We want five thousand dollars. We will meet you in front of the monument entrance to the Queens cemetery at eight o’clock tonight.” It was past seven already.
Murray agreed, and after we hung up he said to me, “Xaviera, why don’t you get me a beer? I’ve got to make a phone call.”
I went into the kitchen and poured Murray’s beer, and came back just in time to hear the last part of the conversation, which sounded more or less in code. I heard him say, “Be ready to pick up the bag of potatoes at the monument in the cemetery in Queens at eight-fifteen.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I was petrified with fright, because it sounded like gangster talk. Murray drank his beer, and at ten minutes after seven he said, “Okay, let’s get moving. The car’s outside.”
“What’s going to happen, Murray?” I asked. It was a horrible, cold, sleeting, and raining night. No way did I want to go out.
Murray said, “Xaviera, do what I tell you and don’t ask questions. We’ll drive out to Queens, and I’ll tell you about myself on the way. Bring your umbrella.”
I took my umbrella along; it had a long spike at the end. We left the apartment. My hands were perspiring, something that never happened to me before. I was perspiring all over, and I never in my whole life have experienced so much nervous tension as that night. Out on the street we got into this old, smashed-up car.
“Couldn’t we go in a better car, Murray?” I asked.
He told me not to worry, and we started out for Queens. It was pouring rain, and we could hardly see through the windshield. I don’t know how Murray found the way. And as we drove, Murray told me some things about himself.
“Xaviera, you should know that I’m not only a mover. I’m involved in many other things. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Mafia. Even though I’m Jewish, I work with them.”
I started to tremble when he said the word.
“What do you mean, the Mafia?” I practically shouted. “I don’t want to get involved with the Mafia.”
I had seen movies and read about the Mafia, how people get killed, and disappear from the face of the earth. And up till then I had been so careful not to get involved with the Mafia.
“I’ve done ten years in jail,” Murray went on. “I’m thirty-seven years old now. I have survived so far, and now I’m sticking my neck way out, taking a lot of risks, but I hate to see a nice little girl like you getting pushed around and in trouble.”
He turned from the windshield and looked straight at me. “I’m doing this for you, but you’ve got to do one thing for me. This is no kid’s game we’re in. This is dangerous, serious work tonight. You’ve got to do just what I say every minute, and you’ll be all right. Don’t be afraid, and do exactly as I tell you.”
I think my eyes were as wide as the ocean. “What do you mean, Murray?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you, Xaviera. Whatever you see tonight, you’ll forget. And don’t ever mention my name or tell anybody what happened.”
I looked out the car window at the wet streets and the rain, and I was cold yet perspiring at the same time.
“Murray,” I asked after a while, “why do we have to meet in front of a cemetery in Queens, of all places, which is a very scary place, especially on a gloomy night like this?”
Murray answered me as though I was a dumb child. “Xaviera,” he said, “that’s the idea. What do you think? They’re going to meet you in front of Saks Fifth Avenue, or in front of Maxwell’s Plum? They’ve got to meet us where there will be no witnesses.”
At fifteen after eight Murray stopped in front of the cemetery. There was a highway right next to us with traffic buzzing by. To our right was the monument, and beside it, with an arched roof, a little dead-end alley maybe fifteen feet long.
There was no other car to be seen when we parked. “Murray,” I said, “this is a phony-baloney deal. It’s a quarter after eight, and why aren’t they here?” I wanted to go home in the worst way before something terrible happened.
Murray looked at me fiercely. “Do as I tell you. Get in the back of the car and shut up. And for Christ’s sake, don’t shake like that, like some little bird freezing to death.”
So I took my umbrella, my weapon for the evening, and climbed over the front seat and sat in the back of the car. But nothing happened. We saw cars drive by, and nobody stopped. And the rain kept pouring down, and I was freezing. Murray smoked one cigarette after another, and I saw he was getting more and more nervous. He opened the window, and you could hardly see out.
Then slowly, from nowhere, a car pulled up behind us with its lights on. “Murray, they’re here,” I said. Looking out the back window, I could see that there were two men in the front seat of the car. “Murray, that’s unfair,” I said. “We talked to only one man.”
Murray kept saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” The car pulled up and passed us, and we could see the men looking into our car to see how many of us there were. Then the car kept going and stopped about four car lengths in front of us. The two men lit cigarettes and smoked them. Then a fellow stepped out of the car and came close to us. Under the street light I could see he was dressed in a white rain jacket and blue jeans. He had long blond stringy hair and a three- or four-day-old. beard. He was definitely a punky guy, and looked exactly like the description of the person who put the note under my door. He knocked on the window next to Murray, who cranked it down and said, “Hiya. I’m her uncle.”
The guy said, “Can I talk to you, buddy?”
Murray opened the door on the passenger side, and the messy guy walked around the car. He was talking and babbling to himself and he finally got in. Obviously he was stoned out of his head.
His eyes were sort of rolling around in his head, and he started saying things like, “We don’t mean so badly, but girls like this shouldn’t be around, dragging dirty pictures around to show everybody.”
I got aggravated and shouted, “What do you mean, show them to everybody? Those pictures were stolen out of my apartments”
“Shut up!” Murray said to me, and I shut my mouth. Then he turned to this pothead beside him. “Let’s go outside and talk. Who is the guy up front in the car?”
The doped-up hippie type said, “Yeah, I’m going to go away. We’re willing to settle for four thousand. Let’s settle right now.”
Murray shook his head. “No. I don’t think we should settle it right now. I think we should go outside and not discuss it in front of this lady.”
He gestured to me to open the window just a little so that I could hear what was happening, and in the pouring rain Murray stepped out on his side of the car, and the other guy got out of his door. I don’t think he knew if it was raining or the sun was shining, the way he was babbling.
The minute Murray left the car, the man in the car up front got out, too. He opened an umbrella and walked up to Murray and the doped-up kid. He acted like the leader, and although the light was bad, especially with the umbrella over his head, I could almost swear it was Mac. The same big fat-looking type. The three of them talked for about ten minutes, when all of a sudden two big strong headlights illuminated the scene. A big truck stopped behind us.
When the lights hit us I was more scared than ever, if that is possible. What the hell was happening? Were people trying to kill us, or what? But the truck driver just stepped out of the cab, and for the first time I saw there was a telephone booth there. The driver went to the booth and made a call. It seemed like he was in there for an hour, but in reality it was maybe two minutes.
All the time I wondered what Murray and Mac and the doped-up boy were talking about and what Murray was going to do. Finally the truck driver left the phone booth, and the truck pulled away.