Knock Knock Who's There?

The noise from the street drifted up to him. Noise never bothered him. He lit a cigarette and stared through the dirty window pane at the apartment block without seeing it.

Sammy had been right in guessing he had something on his mind. This something had been on his mind now for the past eighteen months. It had begun to nag him on his fortieth birthday. After celebrating with his girl friend, Melanie Carelli, and when she had fallen asleep, he had lain in the darkness and had thought about his past and had tried to imagine what his future was going to be. Forty years old! The halfway mark . . . always provided he didn't have an accident, got lung cancer or stopped a bullet. Forty years old! His life half over!

He had thought of the years that had moved behind him. First, he thought of his mother who hadn't been able to read or write and who had worked herself to an early death to keep a roof over his head while his father who had been able to read but not write had slaved in a fruit-canning factory: two decent God-fearing Italian immigrants who had loved him and bad hoped for great things from him.

Just before she had died, his mother had given him her only possession: a silver St. Christopher medal on a silver chain that had been in her family for over a century.

"There's nothing more I can do for you now, Johnny," she had said. "Take this: wear it always: as long as you wear it nothing really bad can happen to you. Remember that. I've worn it all my life and nothing really bad has happened to me. It's been hard, but not really bad."

He had been superstitious enough to have worn the medal and even now as he sat by the window, he put his fingers inside his shirt to touch the medal.

Lying by the side of the gently breathing Melanie, he had thought of the years after his mother's death. He hadn't settled to anything. He had got tired of his father's constant nagging and had left home. Although only seventeen, he had got a job as a bartender in a dive in Jacksonville. There he associated with the wild boys, the little crooks and the petty con men. He had hooked up with Ferdie Ciano, a small time heist man. Together, they had pulled a number of jobs, mostly gas stations until the police caught up with them. Johnny did a twoyear stretch and that decided his fate. He came out of prison, educated in crime and sure that next time he wouldn't be caught. For a couple of years he worked solo as a stick-up man. The money hadn't amounted to anything but he was always hoping for something big. Then he ran into Ciano again who was now working for Joe Massino, an up and coming gangleader. Ciano took him along and Massino looked him over. He thought Johnny was made of the right material. He had been looking for a young, reliable man, good with a gun, to act as his bodyguard. Johnny knew little or nothing about guns. As a stick-up man he had used a toy pistol. This didn't bother Massino. He had Johnny trained. After three months, Johnny proved himself to be a top-class shot and during the years of Massino's rise to power, Johnny had killed three times, saving Massino's life each time from certain death. Now, he had been with Massino for the past twenty years. There were no more killings. Massino was firmly in the saddle. He not only controlled the Unions in this big town, but also the Numbers racket and there was no one powerful enough to challenge him. Johnny was no longer his bodyguard. He had been assigned to take care of Sammy when Sammy collected the money for the Numbers pay-off. Massino believed in having young men to protect him. Anyone over thirty-five was too old, too slow for protection.

Lying on the bed beside Melanie, Johnny had thought about all this and then turned his mind to his future. Forty years of age! If he didn't do something soon, it would be too late. In another two or three years, Massino would begin to think he was getting too old to guard Sammy. Then what? No golden handshake for Johnny . . . that was for sure. He would be offered a job, probably counting Union votes, running errands or some such god-awful thing. It would be the kiss-off. He had never been able to save money. His mouth had twisted into a wry grin as he remembered the advice he had given Sammy. Somehow his money bad slipped through his fingers: women, his fatal weakness for listening to any hard luck story and betting on horses that never showed. Money came and went, so he knew when Massino gave him the kiss-off he wouldn't have enough to live on the way he wanted to live nor to do what he had always longed to do.