Sammy Two Shoes, page 10
‘Where are we going?’ Denny whispered, sweating, his valise on his knees.
‘If the bus turns left on Piedmont, we’re going to my place,’ Sammy said. ‘If it turns right, we’re headed for Buckhead. We can go to Aunt Charley’s. Get a drink there. Figure what to do.’
I looked at Sammy’s face. Calm and undisturbed.
‘You seem to be quite knowledgeable about Atlanta, buses and bars, for a guy who just got here,’ I observed.
Sammy sat back. ‘Well. That’s a story. See, the reason you-know-who sent me here in the first place was that I been here before. Last year.’
I smiled. ‘Thanks for not mentioning her name. What’s the story?’
‘OK.’ He squinted. ‘OK. See. A few years ago, you left Brooklyn. You left before you could get involved with your father’s associates.’
‘No,’ I corrected him, ‘I was quite involved with them, I just didn’t participate in their more nefarious enterprises. I always thought that maybe my father had said something to Red Levine.’
‘You mean your father who died protecting Red.’ Sammy nodded.
‘Yeah, that’s the guy. But go on.’
‘Well, I did.’ He folded his arms.
‘You did what?’ Denny asked, clearly sucked in by Sammy’s story, even though he didn’t understand it.
‘I did get involved in the more nefarious enterprises, as Foggy puts it,’ Sammy answered. ‘In your father’s line of work, to be precise.’
I said, ‘Somebody sent you down here to paint a house.’
Sammy nodded silently.
Denny twitched. ‘You’re a house painter? That don’t sound so bad.’
Sammy and I turned his way. Denny was obviously not familiar with the vernacular.
‘Um, anyway,’ Sammy went on, ‘there was a certain guy here in Atlanta who was what they call a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.’
‘They. They call a guy a Grand Dragon?’ I stammered.
Sammy nodded. ‘Imagine the brain that comes up with that moniker. But the guy was a real problem, see? For one thing, he made a newspaper that he called I See the Truth! With an exclamation point. And he was always spraying swastikas on Temples and burning down Black churches with, like, people in them, right? It was too much. So somehow you-know-who got wind of the seriousness of these events and talked to a guy who talked to a guy, if you see what I’m saying.’
‘Wait,’ Denny said. ‘This Nazi guy. I remember this. On the news. Jesus. You did that?’
‘Pipe down, if you don’t mind,’ Sammy told him softly.
‘You came down here to take care of the swastika guy,’ I said, ‘on advice from you-know-who? Seriously?’
‘I’m not sure you know the full extent of her extent,’ Sammy said. ‘But, yes, that is the story. I was down here for almost a month what with the planning and the research and all. But I got him in the end.’
‘You got him in the eyes!’ Denny snapped, then turned to me. ‘The guy, the dragon, he was shot in both eyes!’
‘Poetic, the eye thing,’ I told him. ‘Given the name of his newspaper. I get it.’
‘Thanks. I thought it out.’
I smiled. But this put Sammy Two Shoes in a little different light than I’d seen him in before. And in that light, I probably should have had second thoughts about the murder of the actor Emory.
So what else could I say but, ‘I’d like to hear the whole story.’
The bus turned left on to Piedmont, headed for midtown and Dickson Place, and Sammy obliged me with a little something called The Story of Sammy Two Shoes and the Klan Dragon.
Samuel Cohen arrived in Atlanta on a hot November day. He’d taken the train from Grand Central so he could have time to think. It was a three-day trip, so he had a sleeper.
He got off the train at Peachtree Street without luggage and stood out like the Yankee hoodlum that he was: pale blue suit, dark blue shirt, off-white tie. Almost everyone around him was in short-sleeved shirts and sunglasses.
There was a place called the Coach and Six, a motor inn, not too far down the street going north, and across the street was the Jewish Community Center.
Sammy got a room at the inn and wandered over to the center for no particular reason, except maybe to see what the Georgia Jews looked like. Turned out they looked like anyone else, only better dressed. He made small talk; said he was visiting from Brooklyn. Somebody said they had relatives in Brooklyn and did he know Sylvia and Allen Reingold. He didn’t.
He had dinner at the Coach and Six and it wasn’t bad. Then he went to his room, took off his suit, and sat on his bed in his underwear cleaning his gun.
The next morning, early, he was up, in the same suit, and asking the check-in clerk about transportation. The clerk said that Sammy could rent a car or take a cab, but the bus stopped right out front of the inn, it only cost a quarter, and if he took it all the way downtown he could get a nice look at Peachtree Street, Atlanta’s jugular vein. That’s not what the clerk called it; that’s how Sammy interpreted it. Which, when Sammy thought about it, was probably a window into his own brain.
So he took the bus. At Pershing Point there was a building that reminded him of the Flatiron. At 15th Street there was an art museum, and at 14th the sad vestiges of what had once been Atlanta’s hippie culture. All the way down Peachtree, in fact, there was something to see, and Sammy was glad he’d taken the clerk’s advice.
When he arrived downtown, he got off the bus at Davidson’s department store. He crossed the street to the Woolworth’s and went inside to the lunch counter, even though it was only ten o’clock in the morning. He sat on a swivel stool and ordered a cup of coffee. He had taken a seat so that he could look into the kitchen through the services portal. Because in the kitchen, in a stained apron and a paper hat, with a cigarette dangling from his thin, chapped lips, was the Dragon.
The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan was a short order cook at a downtown Woolworth’s. He was also a primary importer of cocaine from Bogota, a major east coast distributor. The guy had also spray-painted swastikas on the Jewish Community Center, and he had set fire to three churches on Sunday morning in the middle of services. Still, Sammy felt like laughing at him because he looked like a marionette. Skeletal and short with one slow eye and a crewcut that made his head look like a fuzzy penis, he wasn’t what Sammy had been expecting at all. In fact, the guy looked so ridiculous that Sammy reconsidered the job entirely. Maybe just give him a talking to, throw a little scare his way. The poor guy looked like he was about to fall apart anyway.
Sammy left a big tip and strolled out on to the street. He wandered around the corner until he found an alley. The alley led to a service entrance at the back of the Woolworth’s. It wasn’t a particularly revolting alley. It smelled like urine, and there were rats unafraid of sunlight or Sammy, but as alleys went, Sammy had seen worse. He lit a Kool. The menthol tasted good to him. He meditated on the many ways in which life was funny while he watched the rats patrol the back corners of the alley for a crust of bread or some moldy cheese.
He had no idea how long he’d been there when two people came out of the service door. One was the Dragon, the other was a waitress. When they saw Sammy they froze.
‘That’s the guy with the big tip,’ the waitress whispered to the Dragon.
Sammy hadn’t really noticed the girl before when she’d been waiting on him, but now that he noticed, he thought she was pretty. Curly blond hair, a little too much eyeliner, her green waitress costume a little too tight in all the right places. Her name was Dee, according to the pin on her apron.
So Sammy said, ‘Dee, could you give us a minute? I have a message for your friend.’
‘We ain’t friends,’ the Dragon croaked. ‘She’s a skank.’
Sammy smiled. ‘Is that true, Dee?’
Dee backed through the door, eyes wide, and disappeared.
The Dragon glared at Sammy. He had a copy of his own newspaper, I See the Truth!, tucked into the front pocket of his apron. He was shaking ever so slightly.
‘What?’ the Dragon demanded, leaning forward.
‘My name is Samuel Cohen,’ Sammy began, ‘and I represent some people who don’t like you. They don’t like what you’re doing here. You should stop.’
The Dragon laughed. ‘Is that right? Well listen at this, you stump-jumper: I do what I want. Every day of my life.’
And with that the Dragon reached behind him and came back with an FN Barracuda, six-shot revolver. Security forces pistol. Sammy’d seen others just like it.
Sammy moved quickly. With one hand he slapped the Dragon across the face with his palm. His other hand grabbed the Barracuda and took it away from the Dragon. Then he took one step back and put the muzzle of the gun right on the Dragon’s left eye.
‘Don’t say stump-jumper,’ Sammy said calmly. ‘It’s not polite. Plus, I don’t know what it means.’
‘Kiss my ass, dickwad,’ the Dragon growled. ‘You can’t do a goddam thing to me. This is Georgia, boy. We blow y’all up down here. Blow ’em up good.’
Sammy shifted his weight. ‘Are you talking about the Temple bombing down here in, like, 1959? Because that’s some slow shit if that’s what you mean. One bombing in fifteen years. I mean, I know it’s too hot down here to move really fast, but that just seems lazy.’
And then Sammy pressed the barrel of the gun on to the Dragon’s open eye.
The Dragon wailed, ‘Ow!’ And then he reached up to push the gun away.
Sammy reacted without thinking. He pulled the trigger. The bullet went into the Dragon’s eye, through the brain, what there was of it, and out the back of the skull, into the brick wall close to the service entrance door.
The Dragon fell back on to the dirty alley floor, dead before he hit the ground. Sammy leaned over and shot the Dragon again in the other eye.
Sammy removed the man’s sad, crumpled newspaper from his apron, unfolded it so that the banner was full, and laid it over the Dragon’s face. He wiped the gun off with the stained apron and then put it into the Dragon’s hand.
Then he did what Sammy always did. He took the guy’s shoes. It was an ancient superstition that Sammy had somehow found appealing, even though he couldn’t remember the meaning of it. He took the guy’s shoes and threw them in the dumpster. The rats watched. They didn’t scatter. They were intrigued by the show.
Sammy nodded. ‘If you want a fresh snack,’ he said to the rats, ‘take a look under the newspaper.’
With that Sammy left the alley, walked a long way down Peachtree going north, eventually stopped at a bus stop across from a grand old movie house called the Fox and waited. He smoked two more Kools before the bus came. He got on and went to the Coach and Six. He made a point of thanking the desk clerk for the bus recommendation while he was paying his bill.
‘You’re leaving already?’ the clerk asked pleasantly.
‘Just a quick trip,’ Sammy said. ‘Got the job done.’
‘Well, I hope you’ll stay with us again when you come back,’ the clerk said.
Sammy nodded, left, got a cab, went to the airport, and was back in Brooklyn in time for a late dinner.
Sammy concluded his story, staring at Denny, who had become increasingly uneasy as the story went on.
Denny looked at me. ‘It was on the news. One of the theories was that the guy, this grand Dragon guy, he shot himself!’
I squinted. ‘In both eyes?’
Denny sat back. ‘I know, but. Jesus.’
I turned to Sammy. ‘You shouldn’t be back here in Atlanta. This doesn’t make sense. Shayna would never send you—’
‘There’s another guy down here,’ he interrupted, ‘that I needed to get. It’s a connection with the whole porn thing. A couple dozen underaged Jewish girls go to this so-called modeling agency downtown, and they get money for a legit photo shoot, and then one thing leads to another. And then before they know it, it’s a whole other thing. If you know what I mean.’
I only had a hint as to what he was talking about. And I didn’t want any more information.
‘You’re actually here in Atlanta,’ I said, ‘for another job like the Dragon guy.’
He nodded once. ‘I am.’
Denny squeaked. ‘Jesus! It’s not me, is it?’
Sammy laughed. ‘We’re taking you to Tree. Pay him what you owe him. This is my only interest in you.’
‘So there was a plan inside a plan,’ I went on to Sammy. ‘Shayna set you up to work for Tree, but you were actually here to work for …?’
‘Justice,’ Sammy answered. ‘I’m here to work for justice. I’ll tell you the rest later. But Shayna didn’t send me to work for Tree. She sent me to work for the guy Tree works for sometimes, when he feels like it.’
‘You mean this so-called Mike guy,’ I said. ‘Only Tree seems like the kind of person who does pretty much what he feels like doing all the time.’
‘He is,’ Denny muttered.
‘So pay him,’ Sammy said.
Denny leaned forward. ‘Who’s the guy?’
Sammy stared.
‘Who’s the guy you come to Atlanta to pop?’ Denny went on. Foolishly.
Sammy stood up just as the bus was slowing down.
‘Our stop,’ he said, walking toward the exit.
Somehow the bus had gotten back on Peachtree Street headed toward town, and our stop was at the corner of Peachtree and 11th. We headed down the cracked cement sidewalk toward Dickson Place, illuminated by a surprising number of streetlights. The air was filled with the smell of weed, baking bread, and some kind of cinnamon incense. We didn’t talk.
When we were nearly at Dickson, Tree emerged from a screened-in porch across the street where there were candles burning.
‘Little Buddy!’ he called out happily. ‘Look what you did! It’s Denny!’
Tree was very lively. Could have been speed, but I was guessing coke.
Denny turned to run. Sammy grabbed him.
‘He’s got a lot of coke in his bag,’ Sammy told Tree, ‘and he also had a cool gun.’
I unrolled the London Fog raincoat I’d been carrying and showed Tree the PM-63 RAK.
Tree’s eyes got big. ‘That is cool.’
He took it, examined it, pointed it at Denny, laughed, and then put the gun in his belt. Then he grabbed Denny’s bag and opened it; smiled.
‘OK, Denny, here’s the deal,’ Tree announced. ‘You’re out. You won’t be able to get any kind of job in Atlanta ever again. You have to leave town today. And if anybody smells you back here in town, I will find you and I’ll cook and eat your liver in front of you while you’re still alive. Do you understand that?’
Denny started crying, but Tree had already moved on.
‘Right,’ Tree said to Sammy. ‘What about your other job?’
Sammy hesitated. ‘You know about that how?’
Tree only cleared his throat.
Sammy nodded. ‘Cool. I’ll go get my stuff.’
Without another word, Sammy turned and headed up to his apartment. Denny looked between me and Tree for a couple of seconds, and then he just took off running back up 11th toward Peachtree.
Tree looked into my eyes. Really looked. ‘I did know that Sammy had another gig here in town,’ he whispered. ‘I wasn’t supposed to know, but I did. Mike talks about private stuff when I’m around sometimes and he may have said something about Sammy bumping off his rival, some other porn guy. Mike assumes that because I’m big I’m not very bright.’
‘But he’s wrong,’ I told him. ‘I always think it’s to your advantage when people think they’re smarter than you. Makes them say things and do things they think you don’t understand. But then you know more than they do, and suddenly they’re transparent.’
‘Exactly.’ Tree got a funny look in his face. ‘I wish you and me could sit down and talk. I think you maybe got insight.’
‘It would be an interesting conversation,’ I said.
But Sammy was already back down from his apartment with what looked like a briefcase.
‘You take care of yourself, Tree,’ Sammy said as he passed by. ‘Come on, Foggy.’
And with that, we were headed back toward Peachtree.
SEVENTEEN
On the flight back to LaGuardia, Sammy was unusually quiet.
I finally said, ‘You’re a lot more involved in my father’s world than I thought you were.’
He nodded. He knew what I meant. ‘After Red died, a younger crowd filled in the gaps, and it was more like business. Your aunt Shayna was still in demand, though, so her more personal requests were still important.’
‘Like icing a Klan chief,’ I said, ‘or keeping some nice Jewish girls out of the pornography industry.’
‘For example,’ he acknowledged.
‘And when I wanted to get you out of town because you stabbed an actor,’ I went on, ‘you suggested calling Shayna.’
‘You’re just now figuring this out?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.’
‘So do I have this right: Shayna already scheduled you to head south when the bruhaha at the theatre went down.’
Sammy nodded once.
I sat back. ‘I thought Shayna pulled your escape together a little too quickly.’
‘But the thing is,’ Sammy said, ‘you came to get me. When you realized I didn’t kill Emory, you just got on a plane – without luggage, I notice – and came to get me. That’s a pal.’
‘More than a pal,’ I agreed. ‘Legally speaking: an accessory.’
‘You want to know why there were wheels inside of wheels with this whole deal, right?’
I stared. ‘I want to know why you stabbed Emory with a pencil. I mean, at that point I figure she was already dead, right?’
‘Right,’ Sammy acknowledged.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ I went on.
‘OK, let me start this way: I love Phoebe. A lot. Like, more than anything.’
‘Yeah, Sam, I could see that. So, there you go,’ I said, like it was a complete explanation of everything.
