Pete Hamill - North River

Copyright 2007 by Deidre Enterprises

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company

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First eBook Edition: June 2007

ISBN: 978-0-316-00658-3

ALSO BY PETE HAMILL

NOVELS

A Killing for Christ

The Gift

Dirty Laundry

Flesh and Blood

The Deadly Piece

The Guns of Heaven

Loving Women

Snow in August

Forever

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

The Invisible City

Tokyo Sketches

JOURNALISM

Irrational Ravings

Tools as Art

Piecework

News Is a Verb

MEMOIR

A Drinking Life

Downtown: My Manhattan

BIOGRAPHY

Diego Rivera

Why Sinatra Matters

In memory of

My brother Joe

who tried so hard

to make the world a better place

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,

No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,

But something better still, so very real...

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, 1818

D ELANEY KNEW HED BEEN IN THE DREAM BEFORE, KNEW FROM the hurting whiteness, the icy needles that closed his eyes, the silence, the force of the river wind. But knowing it was a dream did not ease his fear. As before, he waved his bare hands to push through the whiteness, but as before the whiteness was porous and he knew it was snow. As before, there was no horizon. As before, his feet floated through frozen powder. There was no ground beneath him. There was nothing to grip. No picket fence. No lamppost. And no people.

No friend.

No woman.

As before: just the driving force of the snow...

Then he was awake in the blue darkness. A sound. A bell. His hand clumsy with sleep, he lifted the black telephone on the night table. Still dead. Someone at the wrought iron gate below the stoop was jerking the old bell rope, making an urgent ding-dinging sound. A sound he had heard too many times. Shivering in cotton summertime pajamas, he threw off the covers. Ding-ding-DING. The window shade was raised a foot, the window two inches, part of Delaneys desire for fresh air on the coldest winter nights. Drifted snow covered the oaken sill. He raised the shade and could see the snow moving horizontally from the North River. The wind whined. A midnight snowfall was now a dawn blizzard. Ripping in from the west along Horatio Street. Goddamn you, Monique! Answer the goddamned bell! And remembered that his nurse was gone for the long New Years holiday, off somewhere with her boyfriend. Delaney pulled a flannel robe over his shoulders and parted the dark blue drapes, as if obeying the orders of the downstairs bell. Ding-ding. Ding-ding-DING. He glanced at the clock. Six-seventeen. The bell demanding attention. On a day of morning sleep all over New York. He raised the window, its glass rimed with the cold. Snow blew harder across the sill. He poked his head into the driving snow and looked down. At the gate under the stoop, a man was pulling the rope attached to the bell. Delaney knew him. A man who looked like an icebox in an overcoat. Bootsie, they called him. Bootsie Cirillo. Snow was piled on his pearl-gray fedora and the shoulders of his dark blue overcoat. At the sound of the window rising, he had stepped back and was now looking up.

Doc? Eddie Corso sent me, Doc. His voice was raspy. He needs you. Right now.

Give me five minutes, Delaney said.

Make it tree.

Delaney sighed, closed the window, and dressed quickly in rough clothes. Thinking: These goddamned hoods are worse since the movies got sound. Make it tree. Christ, Im too old for these guys. He pulled a sweater over his denim shirt, added a scarf and a cloth cap with a longshoremans pin. A gift from Knocko Carmody of the dock wallopers union. Delaney pulled on bridgemens shoes and took his time lacing them. Then he pocketed keys, some dollar bills, picked up his worn black leather bag, and went down the hall stairs to go out through the gate under the stoop. The snow hit his face, again like needles. Again he closed his eyes. The dream, the goddamned dream... all the way from the last years of the nineteenth century.

You took too much time, Doc, Bootsie said. This is fucking bad. He turned and shook the snow off his fedora and used it to brush powder off his shoulders. Snow was gathering on the roof and hood of the black Packard that was two feet from the curb. Bootsie jerked open the door on the passenger side, gesturing with his head for Delaney to get in, then moved around to take the wheel.

Were late, he said.

I did my best, Bootsie, Delaney said, sliding into the front seat and closing the door. The fat man started the car and pulled out, the snow rising loosely from the hood. Bootsie drove east on Horatio Street, the wind whipping hard behind them. There was no traffic. The car skidded on the turn at Hudson Street.

Maybe I should walk, Delaney said.

Eddies maybe nine blocks from here.

Hes a thousand miles from here if you get us killed, Bootsie.

The fat man grunted, slowed down. The window was foggy from their breathing, and Bootsie took out a white silk handkerchief and wiped at it. Then handed the handkerchief to Delaney. The doctor wiped at the steamy front window on his side, then rolled the side window down an inch. Bootsie grunted.

How come you dont got a car? Bootsie said. You could follow me.

Cant afford it.

Come on. Youre a doctor.

Thats why I cant afford it.

These bust-outs around here, they dont pay?

Theyre poor, Bootsie. They still get sick.

The fat man turned, made a right and another right, heading toward Little Italy. A few kids were coming down from the tenements. One of them was carrying a surplice, its hem emerging below a wrapping of Christmas paper, the boy off to serve the seven oclock mass at Sacred Heart. As Delaney so often did, long ago. He noticed that up here the streetlights were still working. Another zone in the city grid. Another world.

What happened to Eddie?

Youll find out.

Maybe I could get ready if you told me what happened.

Bootsie sighed, pondered this, made another turn through the snow-packed streets. Parked cars were turning into immense white sculptures in the wind-driven snow.

Mr. Corso got shot, maybe an hour ago.

Where?

The stomach. Maybe the arm too. And maybe the hand. Theres blood all over his fingers...

I mean, whered it happen?

The club. We had a New Years party, all the guys, the wives. A band too, and all the usual shit, noisemakers, funny hats. Most people go home, maybe tree in the morning. Some of the guys go over Chinatown to get laid. Then theres a card game, whiskey, a big pot. I cook up some breakfast, scramble eggs, sausage, the usual. Then in the door comes tree jaboneys, guns out. They dont say a word. They just start shooting. Then everybodys shooting. The tree shooters go down, but so does Mr. Corso. Hes hurt real bad, but he says, Go throw these cocksuckers in the river. I stay with him while the other guys haul the dead guys away. Its still dark, see? Nobody on the street. All the lights out. No cops. Nothing. Just the fucking snow.