Absent Friends

For one thing, they operate too close to home. Some of the businesses Mike the Bear runs—the shylocking, the bookmaking out of Flanagan's—are in the neighborhood, they have to be. And everybody always said Mike has some girls, in a boring-looking two-family you'd never notice, in the old section. But when Mike's crew takes off a truck or second-stories some fancy house, you can bet it's not around here. Not on Staten Island at all, usually, but someplace like Brooklyn or Queens or New Jersey, where the bridges go. (Jimmy remembers when the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opened, how he heard Mr. Molloy say that was the best thing the city ever did for him. Jimmy was a little kid then, but he already knew Mr. Molloy was Mike the Bear: didn't know yet what that meant, but was not surprised to hear the city did things for him.)

But Jack, ever since Mike the Bear gave him the go-ahead to put a crew together, to get something started on his own, Jack doesn't keep a lid on it. Even when they boost goods from somewhere else, there's usually stuff, watches or whatever, sometimes a car, that ends up in the neighborhood. Or some guy, from some other crew, from outside—maybe a Puerto Rican from Harlem, something like that—gets beat to shit, everybody's asking each other what the spics are doing in the neighborhood: but knowing he came to do business, he wouldn't take No for an answer, this is just Jack's way of saying he means No. It's trouble: it's not the way it's done. Over the years there've been lots of people Mike the Bear doesn't want to do business with: they get talked to, roughed up a little if they have to be, but not like this. And if it has to be this, you use the bridges, the guy gets found somewhere else.

Markie and Jimmy both know this, everyone does.

Tom and Jack have argued about it more than once, evenings in Flanagan's, Tom tight-jawed, low-voiced, while Jack leans back, drains his beer, says, Yeah, yeah, all right, like Tom's making a big deal out of nothing. These arguments leak from Flanagan's into the surrounding streets, get passed from neighbor to neighbor over backyard fences or in the aisles of the A&P.

And sometimes something even gets in the paper; the Advance runs a story, “Crime on the Rise.” Sometimes things flare up, then suddenly go quiet, and you know Mike the Bear's had a word with someone, cash has changed hands somewhere, something has been promised, or delivered.

But that has its natural limit. Cops are like anyone else: you can pay them to protect your ass, but not if it costs them theirs. Sooner or later, if there's enough complaining, something has to be done, or at least it has to look that way.

And this is what Mike the Bear told Jimmy in Flanagan's yesterday, and this is what Mike wants Jack to learn. From wherever he gets things, Mike the Bear got this: the cops are coming for Jack, and Mike can't stop them. Jack's only chance is to back off, cut his crew loose, turn into Mr. Model Citizen, at least for the duration. Of what? Until the NYPD forgets about him. However long that is.

Jimmy looks up from his beer, realizes Markie's asking him a question he asked once already.

What's gonna happen? Markie wants to know.

Jack's got to go straight, Jimmy says. He's got to start going to church and helping little old ladies across the street. He has to quiet down.

He's gonna hate that. Like wearing a tie.

Jimmy smiles, because he's remembering Jack yanking off his tie at the party after his first communion, and every time since that he had to wear one, funerals and weddings and every time, saying, I'm smothering, this thing's gonna choke me, man, I got to get out of it. Jack, always afraid of smothering, always needing to get out.

Jimmy says to Markie, But that's what's got to happen.

You think he'll do it?

Only, Jimmy says, if someone tells him to.

Who? Big Mike? Tom?

Jimmy shakes his head. If they did that, he says, Jack'll just say it's because Tom wants his operation.

Tom? What does he want that for? When Big Mike retires to Florida or something, Tom's gonna have everything. What does he want what Jack has for?

I didn't say he does. I said Jack'll think he does.

Markie frowns, then looks up. You, Jimmy. You gotta tell Jack. You gotta warn him.

Yeah, I guess, I guess I better. Trouble is, all the people around here, I'm the one he's most going to think is bullshitting him. What the hell does a fireman know about this shit? You know what, I'll bet he'll think Tom told me to. Or even I thought it up by myself, because now I'm too straight, I don't want guys like him having any fun.

Markie laughs. Yeah, it's true, he thinks you got pretty uptight since you went on the Job.

Jimmy shrugs. Probably I did.