Joey-O
a novel in progress by Earl Coleman

Chapter 4

Excited? Nah. Well, maybe just enough to make the lines of his mouth go up. A sense of exploration. Adventure.

He started in McCullough’s office in the back. A plan. He’d made one now. The kind of plan that Kingsley would dream up if Kingsley had a pair of balls like him. A plan to lift him out of here. He knew he didn’t know enough to make a map the way he used to do, this alley and that door. But a plan! How come he never thought of it before? Everything came down to money, didn’t it, so money had to be his break-in tool, his jimmy. Not to spend, to use. What could be hard? For starters he had ideas what he was looking for right here and now. That’s why he’d had to get the key. What he was looking for! What you needed was a mind like his, put two and two together and get five. Not everyone would even think to look, know where to look like him. Hesh, if he was looking, wouldn’t know what he was looking for in a million years. Not everyone knew how to make a plan this big. The memory of Kingsley, face red at dinner when he’d told them that he worked in shit, had hurt him deep. The fuck. A plan? He’d show them how to make a plan.

What a hole. Drawers full of papers, letters, cash. Cash! Loose in the drawer! He took the money, what, not even twenty. Then took it from his pocket. Put it back. It wasn’t in the plan to tap the till! The Plan would get him out of here. In the Plan he had to keep his mind on what was small change, what was worth! The plan had plenty risks all by itself. Why run a risk for pishachs?

Letters signed but never mailed. Time cards, one for Smitty worked Bay Three. How could McCullough keep the records straight? A gun! He checked it. Loaded! Old man had a gun. Would he have balls enough to use it if it came to that? And shoot it straight?

A battery for crissakes in a desk. He hauled an ancient package out, smudged with grease, an invoice pasted on the outside, top. An unnumbered invoice. What? Unnumbered!? Hit him like a Mack truck full of bricks.

He studied it. His mind raced with the possibilities for how to use unnumbered invoices. How long it been there? Maybe twenty, thirty years. Expected what he had expected. Never thought of this. Tested with his nails the masking tape that sealed the package shut. Peeled it away. Then 1, 2, 3 unpacked the invoice pads, the wrapping damaged not at all. He left the wrapping on the desk and carried out the pads into the morning sun. Looked around. Streets empty. Stuck the invoice pads into his trunk and went back in.

How to stuff the wrapping, make the package look the way it was? He poked his head in Smitty’s bay. Like he remembered, sitting on the floor a stack of brochures for a dealer foreign cars. Thought quick the measurement he’d need to make the package look untouched and took enough. Back to McCullough’s office. What an eye! Wrapped the brochures in the old kraft paper. Sealed it. Nobody could tell. Replaced it in the drawer. No one would see it for another twenty years.

Finished looking through the desk. What had he learned? The contents. He would figure uses he would have for them. Attacked the files.

Where was the inventory? Had to have an inventory. Under letter I? Tires? Bills, no inventory. McCullough had no records, stupid fuck. Suppliers? Invoices, no inventory. How could he collect insurance he got robbed without an inventory as his proof?

Finished for now. Went to his locker in the back by the toilet. Got out his uniform. What would the Fleetwood take -- an hour? Less. Binky’s for an hour, copy off the key, tell him what he had to tell him. Flower shop he always went to near Barnard. Still make Riverdale by noon. A quick one -- always ready for him, middle of the day or in her crack at dawn. She hated it he made that joke. But had no problem swallowing his sun when that came up. He grinned his wolf grin. Beth had done that for him. Made him funny. Sharp and funny. Who’d have known? She was his luck and teacher, both. Hold on. She’d learned some things from him as well. Like how and when to risk. Not as good at it as him, but not bad for a girl with everything she wanted handed to her like her daddy said. He thought ahead to when the Plan was operating on all six and he was making it and buying things for her. Nah. That wouldn’t do it! Things didn’t turn her on! She was something special, wasn’t she? Art might do it for her if he knew a little. Hey -- he was learning some. Lots of sex of course, but he could give her that without it cost a dime.

Careful putting on the uniform. Buttoned it to keep himself clean. Going mid-town after, to a museum for crissakes. Who’d believe it? Not to rob, to look at. Binky’d rib him on it if he dared. Beth said pictures that her father’s clients owned were hung there. How could that help them steal? He knew it in his gut. Everything they did helped them to steal. Even Beth saw some of it. “Just cause he owns a Dali doesn’t mean he isn’t scum,” she’d said about a client of her father. But, steal without a nickel piece, without they do a B and E. It needed figuring.

He had his Plan now. Wasn’t even near museums, pictures. Yet. Begin at the beginning, what they said.

*

“This holds so many memories for me, Beth. My chums and I would meet here frequently for lunch and sometimes, if we were being naughty, for a drink or two. That was all pre-war, of course. I don’t know if you’ve read her, a very witty writer, but Dorothy Parker and her crowd who ruled this roost were just coming to the end of their reign here. A lovely room, don’t you think?”

“Mother! You’ve taken me here before.”

“I have? Well I’d remember that now, wouldn’t I?

Beth settled back in the banquette. This might be tedious. A heart to heart in the Oak Room when her heart soared, did somersaults, defied the law of gravity. Her body was possessed by him. Her mind. Her spirit. Difficult to concentrate on the here below. This table, napery, these goblets, this heavy silverware, this Room, especially her mother, were all irrelevant to her feeling of completion, happiness. Mother looked quite well-turned out in that Saint Laurent. Not bad for forty-six years old. Will I look like that at forty-six? Who will I be with? Joe?

Sotto voce. “Don’t look now, but isn’t that Katherine Hepburn? Don’t turn and stare.”

“Yes, mother.”

“You’ve been so busy! I’m pleased as Punch that we could do this, just the two of us without the male contingent. Men have a dampening, a domineering quality, don’t you agree? They’re quite noisy, aren’t they? Sometimes one has to shout to make oneself heard. And women of some breeding never shout. You’re looking well. The picture of good health.”

Love had done it. Joe domineered but she permitted it. She even liked it.. Well-satisfied. Well-fucked. She blushed. She’d begun to think like Joe. “You too, mother.”

“Thank you.” She opened her black Coach purse and extracted a box of filtered Marlboros. “I know you don’t indulge or I’d ask you to join me.” She lit up. Blew smoke at the ceiling. “Glorious weather. You haven’t made the pilgrimage to Easthampton even once this summer.”

“I’ve been busy, mother. I like the city anyway, especially in summer when it’s empty. I go in almost every day, museums, movies. The beach is OK for an afternoon. But I prefer the traffic, noise, excitement, theater. I’m a city kid, mom. Remember?”

“We loved the city too, your father and I. But there came a time when we had to recognize that the character of our city had changed. Elements of society that one just hadn’t encountered had become a commonplace, cheek by jowl with us, willy-nilly. Your Dad and I could have managed but it was our concern for you and your schooling that led us to move away. I’m glad we did.”

“But mom. I’m in Barnard. Can’t get a better school or more city than Barnard.”

“Well, you’re older now. Better able to take care of yourself. Steer clear of the rougher elements. Shall we order a celebratory glass, just the two of us? I’d vote for some Chablis. Would you join me?”

“I know you don’t like to drink alone mom. Make that two.”

Almost imperceptible, her summons. And yet a waiter, pencil poised, materialized, bowed deferentially, wrote and left.

Mrs. Kingsley surveyed the room. “The Oak Room isn’t what it used to be. But then, what is? Does it seem to you the world’s got meaner, uglier? Perhaps it’s Vietnam. Dirty little war. I’ve read somewhere, or maybe your father told me, we have ten thousand of our young men over there.”

“How’s dad?”

“He’s busy. Busy. A client of your father’s, Luis Ferré, who owns a cement company of all things, with other interests all over the Caribbean, a very important Representative in Puerto Rico’s Congress -- well, he was up and invited us for a sail on his yacht. You’d think he was Spanish, coloring and all that. Mostly business types and senators and their wives. So much is done behind the scenes you know. It may seem to the outside world as if it’s one long glorious party, but it’s work all the same. Your father’s in the thick of it. Committees. Because of Cuba the Caribbean is in turmoil now, so many business conflicts, opportunities. Your father’s always called on for advice.”

“I’m sure he is. But -- he’s OK? Happy? Healthy?”

“Oh healthy, yes. But happy? Do we ever know? I mean -- I think -- but we’re all separate lives. Don’t you find it so?”

Separate? God no. Stuck together pore to sweating pore. The stickier the better, fluids, cum, saliva, sweat cementing them, sometimes so tight there was a suction and a pop they tried to pull apart. Last night they went berserk, she sucked and kissed him every inch. He’d fucked her in the ass. Was that how homos did it, all that glop? She felt it still! “Perhaps I haven’t lived enough yet, mom. I don’t feel that separateness. Anyway, not yet.”

“That’s because you have a new romance. Well, relatively new. Four months.”

“Almost five.”

“He seems a different -- station as we used to say. Doesn’t he to you? He’s Jewish, isn’t he? Good looking in an Elvis Presley kind of way, but then Elvis was a truck driver and Joe repairs trucks -- or does he only work on cars? Well anyway, I have no right to pry and you needn’t answer if you think I’m out of line, but have you permitted intimacies of any kind?”

For just a moment an explosive laugh welled up but she controlled it, wrestled it. She thought through her response. She never told her mother anything. But Joe emboldened her, made her go to levels she hadn’t known were there. “Of every kind, mother.”

“You don’t say,” as the wine arrived. They raised their glasses. Clinked. Mrs. Kingsley straightened up and then continued, her voice a trifle strained. “I hope you’re -- protecting yourself. Men give so little attention to it and always it’s the woman who must pay the price. And then of course you don’t know where he’s been. I mean with whom. Well -- you’ve shocked me, I suppose. I thought I’d heard it all, but here I am still shockable.” She stopped to sip her wine and seemed to be gathering her thoughts. “I can see then he’s the magnet keeps you here in town. Is he considerate? Are you jumping into this because you’ve had bad fortune in your romances with other boys? That last one, Peter, I found quite acceptable regardless of your father’s low opinion of him. Acceptable to me, but then of course it’s you for whom they have to be acceptable. And as for marriage prospects, Beth, can you be sure Joe has the qualities one looks for? Or the interest, for that matter?”

Romances? Good Lord. That isn’t how I feel, guts turned inside out, hungry for him, needy every second, now, just thinking of it. “Mom. If you don’t mind. I don’t want to -- disembody this. This feeling that I have.” Afraid to minimize it, cheapen it, water it down. Put it out there in the world. No longer hers exclusively. “If it’s OK with you, let’s talk about the weather, anything. Not Joe.”

“Well. I’m impressed. It sounds quite passionate. I’m your mother, but I know you think you’re quite grown up, so I won’t dream to interfere. Au contraire. Let’s hope he’s not called up -- you do remember that they’re drafting men his age and he doesn’t have a student deferment like the other boys you’ve dated. Your father seems to like him in an odd way, perhaps it’s billiards. My knowledge of him isn’t as profound as yours, of course, just a couple of times at dinner table. He’s made a good impression on your father in any event, who believes that once you get by the lower-class exterior you’ll find a brain. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t speak of Joe that way, your, Good Heavens, lover -- I can't believe I’m saying that. Your father quite enjoys his games with Joe, the poor man relaxes so infrequently, always on, with meetings in Albany and Washington, business to be done, agendas to fulfill. So please invite your Joe again. Your father at least would like it if you did. I shan’t mention anything to him of your confession.

“Oh dear, that didn’t come out at all the way that I intended it.”

*

Even though they were at opposite ends of the bathtub Joe possessed her -- with his toes, prehensile, teasing at her nipples and her crotch, his penis poking through the suds, the water almost scalding hot the way he liked it and she’d learned to do. As if they floated in the void and orbited. Joe brought in his distances. His planet was a shrouded one she couldn’t penetrate. He made it seem adventurous to try. And when they came together wham, the force of meteors. There’d never been another man.

She maneuvered so she straddled his long body with the soap in hand. He took it from her, worked it on her neck, her breasts, her thighs, his eyes half-closed, the only moving parts of him his fingers, arms and penis, like the two of them had all night, all year. Her heat was bath and blood and lust, her juices flowing, nipples hard. She arched her back and lowered her left breast so that his lips could kiss it, take the nipple gently in his teeth. She gave a gasp as usual, of pleasure, of surprise in this ritual they’d shaped together over months, now known and treasured, old but made new always by some added nuance one of them would bring, some movement, touch. She felt her orgasm begin, he hadn’t entered her.

He stopped his stroking, took his lips away so that her pulse went on and on. When she was still she put her head down on his soapy, muscular, hard shoulder and wept fierce tears.

Much later, preparing for the party ahead, she modeled for him what she’d wear, tried on a dozen, settled on a simple white, not cut too low. An unsophisticated schoolgirl gown. She saw it in his eyes how good she looked. She thought how well they fit. How more and more he was becoming -- civilized. That’s not right. He’s not an aborigine. Just see how quickly he picked up on things.

White shirt. New bow tie. Nails scrubbed, the stain of grease not terrible. Tux rented, hey, but what the hell, he’d own one soon. Big party upstairs, men to meet. Well, he was ready. Parole officer had warned him keep your nose clean -- then case closed! Finished with it! ’63 was some great already. Shit, looked like a waiter in those restaurants Beth took him to, the tab some joke, like half a day’s pay for a Coke. She worried every time he paid the check. He didn’t tell her that his shitty salary was just small change, that he had angles going, starting on a bankroll he’d make big enough to choke a horse. Kingsley was the target, model, whole megillah. Learn his moves, the way he talked, the way he wore his clothes, his house. Then buy him. What a Plan. He wanted everything that Kingsley had. Just didn’t know it until Beth. It was Beth who’d asked him to this big-time party, but Kingsley had to have said yes. Why? To show him off? Him? To who?

In the mirror, dressed, he saw himself as Bogart but younger. Ready to take on the world in tux and tie, brown hair combed back, natural. As though he really lived this life and always had and wasn’t little Yussel, ex-con from Clinton Street. As though Beth was now his wife with diamonds slipping down between her boobs . . . his wife! It threw him for a loop. His wife! Why would he want a wife? He looked over where she sat before the mirror making up. Beth. He’d learned the way to learn from her. He should have fucked his teachers -- shit on reading books. To learn a way to speak. To move. To understand the difference -- how to speak to Kingsley or a waiter in a restaurant. Hey -- school wasn’t out! A whole heap more to learn. So wasn’t she included in the Plan? It needed figuring how she fit in. How to talk to her he knew to start. “I like you wear your hair full down,” he said. She took the pins out, lowered it.

Before they got to the door at the top of the narrow staircase the noise of party-making filled the space. She opened up and let the party wash all over them. A five-piece band played ‘What’ll I Do?’ A temporary hardwood dance floor had been laid. Maids came through the crowds with trays of food and drink.

Kingsley bustled over, entourage in tow. “My daughter Beth, going for anthropology at Barnard, to study cavemen and their art. Cavemen like us.” As though on cue the men around him laughed. “And this is Joe, my private pool hustler, almost as pretty as Paul Newman and a hell of a shooter.” He held Beth in a bear hug. “You look fantastic, babykins. There’s your mother, talking to the Arthurs. Go say hello.”

Mary Kingsley was busy hostessing, her back to them. Startled when she turned around. “Oh, look at you. The pair of you. You look like movie stars. This is my daughter whom you’ve met and her friend Joe. That’s quite becoming, Beth. And Joe, I’ve never seen you look so well. As though you wear tuxedos every day, born into one.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kingsley. They’re playing ‘Stardust.’ Can I have this dance?”

“This dance? With me? Oh no. I’m not nearly as good as Beth.”

“ I’d like it, Mrs. Kingsley.” He smiled the smile and took her hand in his and led her off, her trailing sorries to the Arthurs as they went. A few feet from the band he turned and took her in his arms.

She was good. What meant her muscles jumping underneath the cloth? What was she, nervous, what? She followed everything even though they’d never danced before. He kept an inch or two between but halfway through the song she came in close, as close as Beth. Well, that was OK if she wanted to. He steered her through the crowded dance floor like he was Fred Astaire. She whispered in his ear “Your muscles are quite marvelous, Joe. Even through your tuxedo. How do you keep so fit, or is it just a function of heredity? Perhaps you work out in a gym? Beth’s father does.”

“I work but don’t work out. Just hard work, Mrs. Kingsley. Hard work,” he whispered back. Was he imagining or did she hold him extra tight? C’mon.

“You dance, play pool. What other accomplishments have you to boast of, Joe? Any of them you’d be able to describe in mixed company? You seem quite capable. Of almost anything.”

“I am.” He held her close and then released her as the music stopped. “Thank you, Mrs. Kingsley. I liked that.”

“The pleasure was all mine, Joe. I feel much closer to you now.” She winced as if regretting that there was a double meaning to her words. “I mean . . . ”

He smiled. “ I understand you, Mrs. Kingsley.”

What did she have in mind? A sniff to see what Beth was getting? The same as all of them. He snagged a sausage wrapped in bacon from a passing maid. Was Heshy right? Was it so easy to forget you were a Jew? He loved the taste of bacon anyway.

Drank some ginger ale, Beth in another room. With Mary? He didn’t see her either. These guys all look like fucking penguins, like he’d seen in a zoo one time with ma. Hey, me too. It’s just another uniform. A uniform? Was this a uniform? What he wore at McCullough’s was a uniform. He thought about it, finished off the sausage, wiped his mouth. Uniform or not, this crowded room was where the power was. And he was here! From knowing Beth. What could you learn in here? Their secrets? Nah. They’d never let you in. Not to their secrets. You had to get in.

He wandered through the well-cut hair, tuxedoes, conversations: Vietnam, the market, the face-off between Khrushchev and Kennedy last year. He knew this house now, studied it, the whole three floors -- high ceilings, chandeliers, the pictures on the walls, different from the ones Beth had, fourteen rooms not counting Beth’s apartment, so many windows that you couldn’t count that high, things that cost real money like that grand piano with the inlaid wood which Beth had played for him, her parents lounging on the sofa where he had fucked her once when they were out.

Saw a man looked out of place. Some spic, enough of them on Clinton Street. But this guy’s coloring was wrong, darker, like he came from somewhere in the sun. Jamaican? Cuban? Cuban! Weren’t most of Kingsley’s clients in the Caribbean? Just didn’t look like he belonged, this guy. A client? Shifting eyes like planning something. What? If there was one thing that he knew it was a thief.

He cased the room. No one tumbled to this guy, so maybe he was one of them. They were all thieves, weren’t they? You couldn’t make it if you went by Heshy’s way, for sure. Did each of these guys have a specialty? Each one surely had a plan. Well, he had his.

Hey! Spic wasn’t there! One minute at the windows and then gone! He glommed the room. The guy had disappeared. Where to? That doorway on the left led to the office and the files. He wondered if they kept it locked. Without a moment’s hesitation he moved there, taking it not fast enough to be conspicuous. Caught a glimpse of black cloth ducking in. He followed, feeling like some private eye. Walked softly down the corridor. Peered in. Withdrew. What was that schwartze doing with the phone, receiver, mouthpiece, what? A bug, some kind of bug? Like in the movies? Retreated down the hall, back to the room where people danced to the “Tennessee Waltz.” Something big. Some big thing was happening. He turned to stare out at the night while he digested what he’d seen, thinking, thinking what to do, the way he should accomplish it. Glad Beth and Mary had cut out. Couldn’t have got it done if they’d been there. Beth was his luck now, even when she wasn’t in the room.

Suppose he had it wrong? Impossible. He knew it in his gut. This was his shot.

Kingsley in a group of five, sipping champagne, speaking low like there were secrets they were sharing. He walked over, heartbeat steady, certain all these men would kill to know the secret he was sitting on, this dynamite, powerful enough, who knows, to rock this world. Stood there quiet as a leaf. Kingsley reached his arm out, drew him in. Joe willed himself a tool, a handy wrench. More of a shock that way. The information that he had was bomb enough. He turned his head an inch and whispered in the well-scrubbed ear. “Cut out now, sir. Something’s going down you want to see.”

For just a tick he felt the tightening of Kingsley’s arm. Then Kingsley excused himself. As they walked Joe whispered. “In your office, sir.”

The room was empty when they flicked the light on. “What, Joe? What?”

“If I’m right it’s in your telephone. A bug.”

Kingsley’s face flushed. Unhesitating he turned the instrument upside down, ripped off the bottom as though used to doing it. Shook his head. Unscrewed the mouthpiece. “Fuck,” he blurted out, his cheeks crimsoning. He ripped the instrument from the wall, then delicately so as not to blot the prints that might be there, he handled it with fingertips. He got a sheet of plastic from a drawer and wrapped it, dangling wires and all. Face blotched, breathing heavily, he secured it inside a cabinet that had a combination lock. Joe saw the full control, the lawyer-steady calm, give way to discomposure, rage. The best had steel for nerves The average guy would crack. Kingsley was a cut above, that’s all. He’d seen him mad just eating steak. Let too much show.

Kingsley rose from his crouch. Still panting, flushed, he came to Joe across the room. Face to face like co-conspirators. “You can’t know, Joe. You can’t,” his breathing coming rapidly, “what you’ve just done for me. What you have done for me personally. Beyond anything you can imagine.” He tried to compose himself. “I had no idea they were this close. Before this night is out you’ll tell me everything, the details, what you noticed, when.” He took Joe’s hands. “That’s heads-up thinking. You knew to know and question what you weren’t sure of. Puts you up there, Joe. Makes you worth watching. Handy man to have around. I’m in your debt. Believe me, I’ll redeem. Call on me any time.”

Joe didn’t miss a beat. “I’m glad that I could help you, sir.”

Kingsley righted himself, straightened his jacket. “Let’s join the others,” and he draped an arm around Joe’s shoulders.

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