the Last Buffoon Page 10

  In front of the tellers are lines of Villagers, many of them common businessmen masquerading as bohemians, the phony bastards. The one good thing you can say about the Rockefellers is that they don’t pretend to be artists.

  I endorse Charles Jones’ check, fill out a deposit slip for seven hundred dollars, and get in the line formed before the prettiest teller, a saucy little brunette who looks like a playboy bunny. She’s working in a fog as usual, and whenever she has to check the files, walks like it’s her last mile. Her eyes are half-closed and she’s obviously been fucking and sucking all night, which is infuriating because she hasn’t been fucking and sucking me. Her clothes are rumpled, meaning she hasn’t even been home yet, the little bitch. I’d give my left ball for an hour alone with her, but she’s the type who goes for flashy young guys. When she’s about twenty-seven and completely fucked out she’ll marry a bigshot bank executive, then spend the rest of her life as a Westchester matron, raising a brood of tennis players and her eyebrows should anyone tell an off-color joke.

  I wait patiently in line making goo-goo eyes at all the good-looking women, none of whom respond, as usual, and finally it’s my turn before the little tart. I pass her my papers, she studies them with bloodshot eyes, then shuffles to the counter to check the books, returns, stamps my deposit slip, gives me three hundred dollars in cash and a receipt, and I try to convince her through ESP to spend her next sleepless night with me, but she doesn’t even look at me once, and another ESP experiment has failed.

  I stop at the neighborhood drugstore and drop off Dr. Sidney Siegel’s prescription, then go to the nearest liquor store for a bottle of Ouzo, which I know Jake likes and will complement the variety of chemicals I expect him to have at his scene.

  Jake opens the door and looks at my face. “Who beat you up?” He’s wearing baggy chino pants and a checkered shirt hanging over his fat gut.

  “I fell down a flight of stairs.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I don’t care what you believe.”

  He smiles diabolically. “Your new wife go after you with her rolling pin?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You fuck her yet?”

  “No.”

  “Schmuck.”

  “I’ve got a thousand dollars out of the deal so far, so I’m not such a schmuck.” Reaching into my pocket, I come out with a fistful of cabbage. “I owe you a hundred, right?”

  “Right.”

  I count it out and slap it onto his hand. “There you go. I always pay my debts.”

  He recounts the money and stuff it into his pocket. “At least you have so far.”

  I hand him the bottle in the brown bag. “Here.”

  He pulls it out, inspects the label, and smiles. “Thanks, baby.”

  I take off my hat and coat, hanging them up in the closet.

  “How come you’re all dressed up?” he asks.

  “No special reason.”

  I follow him into the living room, wishing I had a new pair of sunglasses to conceal my eyes from his guests, half of whom I don’t know. He introduces me around and I smile and nod, shake a few hands, but my eyes are repeatedly drawn to his little round coffee table on which sit two different kinds of marijuana, a block of medium-brown hashish, some yellow pills, and two mounds of white powder which must be cocaine and heroin. The stereo is turned to disco music, loud enough to hear the words but not sufficient to prohibit conversation. It’s going to be a loverly afternoon.

  “Siddown and help yourself,” Jake says, “but I warn you, if you get freaky I’m gonna throw you out.”

  He takes the Ouzo to the kitchen while I sit on the middle of the sofa beside one of the Village’s great insane beauties, Nikki Aranopoulis, who hit town about ten years ago from Pittsburg, which for some strange reason has produced a lot of nuts. She’s got straight black hair, a thin nose, Mona Lisa lips, and is a bit overweight, which makes her look soft and sexy. She’s dressed in black and adorned with antique jewelry.

  “Whataya say, Nikki.”

  “Hello, Frapkin.” She’s staring into space and looks content as a billionaire.

  I bend over the goodies on the table. “What do you recommend?”

  “The schmeck.”

  It’s white powder in a red plastic bowl. I spoon some up, snort it in, and fall into a truckload of marshmallows. For a few seconds I feel mildly nauseous, then become cozy and warm.

  Plunking down on the other side of me is Becky Rabinowitz, chubby, neckless, with long honey-blonde hair and eyeglasses. She’s a physicist who does top-secret rocket research for the government in New Jersey someplace. Breaking off some hash with chewed-up fingernails, she puts little lumps in a rosewood pipe, applies a flame, and huffs and puffs.

  She fidgets, lays the pipe on the table, wiggles her ass, and turns to me with a big toothy grin, because she’s been in love with me for years.

  “How’ve you been, Frapkin?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Jake told me somebody beat you up.”

  “I didn’t get beat up — I fell down a flight of stairs.”

  “You can’t get black eyes falling down a flight of stairs. Jake told me your new wife did it to you.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Are you really married again?”

  “Yes.”

  “For money?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know — some people actually get married because they like each other.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Maybe you should try it.”

  “I don’t have time for foolishness.”

  I get up, stagger across the room, and drop into the chair next to an old guy who looks like a WASP college professor down on his luck. He’s talking to a black cat in a white turtleneck sweater, Jake’s coke connection.

  “The land belongs to the Palestinians,” the professor says. “Israel should give it back.”

  I’ve got to get away from this guy before I kill him. Pushing myself erect, I nearly keel over on my face, but manage to catch myself and stumble toward the Ouzo.

  I enter Jake’s cubbyhole kitchen. On the counter are uneven ranks of bottles, and a bag of ice is in the sink. Leaning against the refrigerator is Al the bartender from Lucky’s on Barrow Street, talking to Dave the chiropractor. They interrupt their conversation to say hello, then continue as I pour myself a shot.

  “The fucking unions are ruining the country,” says Al the bartender. “Why should a fucking garbage collector make twelve thousand dollars a year?”

  “The city’s broke because of the unions,” replies Dave the chiropractor, who’s wearing a Beethoven T-shirt.

  I want to throw the bottle of Ouzo at the fucking fascists. Holding my glass tightly, I carry it into the living room and sit alone on the floor in a corner, so I can drink in peace — away from crazy Becky, ant-Semites, and dopes who blame the collapse of the economy on poor working stiffs instead of robber barons.

  Stupid people piss me off. Maybe I should smoke a joint and go home before I make a scene. I’d stick around if there were some pretty girls, but Nikki’s the only one and she’s shot me down so many times I feel like the Luftwaffe. Gulping Ouzo, I stand and make my way to the coffee table, where I kneel as if before an altar.

  Nikki is a statue on one end of the sofa, and two women are talking next to her. I find the cigarette papers and roll a joint out of grass that looks like the Chicago Light Green that was so popular a few years ago. Lighting it, I inhale and hold my breath. My nose turns into a corkscrew and my ears become Chinese fans.

  “Oppression must be countered by the armed resistance of women everywhere,” says one of the women on the sofa. She’s got a rocky face, short black hair, and a mean little mouth.

  “The time has come for the establishment of an Amazon empire in America,” replies the other, a six-foot scarecrow.

  I close my eyes and try to become tranquil, but can’t. a person can take
just so much. “Are you fucking insane?” I scream, standing with a smoking joint in one hand and glass of Ouzo in the other.

  They look at me and press their backs against the sofa.

  I’m teetering at the edge of the table, completely out of control. “Extremists in the Women’s Liberation Movement are a threat to civilization!” I cry. “They preach hatred and divisiveness! They’re against fucking! They’re opposed to the pornographic arts! The woman governor of Connecticut vetoed a bill that would’ve liberalized drug laws! Down with extremists in the Women’s Liberation Movement!”

  Rockface stares at me. “I don’t know who you are, but I think you’re an idiot.”

  “Well I don’t know who you are either, but I know what you need!” I stick the joint in my mouth, unzip my fly, and whip out my hairy canary. “This!”

  The two militant women gasp. Jake puts his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, man — cool it or get out.”

  I turn around, cock dangling in the breeze. “What makes you think I want to stay here. What kind of party is this supposed to be! How come you didn’t invite Benny the Dip, or Harry from Canarsie, or Lulu the belly dancer, or Good Time Marty? You’re becoming so goddamn bourgeois it makes me sick to my stomach! Somebody ought to run a subway train over your ass!”

  I stuff my member into my pants, zip up, storm to the vestibule, put on my coat and hat, and with an insolent backward glance, slam the door behind me.

  Chapter Eight

  Ripelli came crashing through the skylight, and before his feet hit the floor his submachine gun was firing. The first burst caught Don Salvatore Castelango in the neck and severed the Mafia chieftain’s head from his body. Castelango slumped forward, his neck gushing gallons of gore, and Ripelli turned, raking Nick Bombasino and Joe Lujana across the guts. They both went flying backwards, blood spurting from their torsos.

  Now only Ripelli and Cecille were left standing in Castelango’s office. The pretty hooker had the palms of her hands against her ashen face. “Please don’t shoot me,” she begged pathetically.

  Ripelli pulled his trigger and the room reverberated with machine gun fire. Cecille clutched the red holes in her white dress and dropped to her knees, spitting blood. Her glazing eyes focused on Ripelli.

  “How could you?” she asked.

  “It was easy.”

  She fell onto her face and lay still, a pool of blood forming around her.

  Ripelli reached into his pocket and took out his calling card, which he dropped on her ass. It showed a black embossed submachine gun against a white background.

  He walked down the carpeted corridor to the rear door of the Castelango mansion, where he’d parked his Ferrari Daytona. He got in, turned on the ignition, and the powerful V-12 engine roared to life. He stomped on the gas pedal and the sleek car sprang out of the driveway.

  He headed for the highway out of town. He didn’t know where to go next but he never thought too far ahead because he never knew when the bullet with his name on it would come along.

  But he knew that somewhere, in another metropolitan cesspool, there’d be more Mafia pigs preying on innocent people, and he’d track them down and kill them just as he had in Miami.

  Somebody had to.

  THE END

  Ladies and jellybeans, the Amazing Frapkin just completed his fifteenth, yes his fifteenth novel! Elated, I jump up from my desk, scream like a maniac, do a war dance atop my waterbed, open the window, and take deep draughts of sooty New York air. Whenever I finish a book I feel like Hercules after one of his labors. This one’s only a Mafia melodrama but it’s another link in the evidentiary chain that one day will prove me America’s greatest living novelist!

  Oh, I know there’ll be those who’ll see this book and sneer, but they couldn’t write one like it if their lives depended on it. Yet I, the heroic but unsung Amazing Frapkin, have written not one but fifteen, and numerous unpublished short stories as well. One day when I’m dead Hollywood’ll make a movie out of my life and call it The Alexander Frapkin Story, and audiences will weep over the years I toiled in poverty and obscurity. Ah, Frapkin, when the world finds out about you they’ll shit their pants.

  I return to my desk and call McFarland.

  “This is Frapkin and I’ve just finished Triggerman Number Six. Have you got my check ready for Number Five?”

  “It’s on my desk.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I explode out of my office into the living room, and smell my wife’s perfume, the only trace of her because she hasn’t come home for four nights in a row, the adulterous bitch. Wait until I’m rich and famous. She’ll fall at my feet with all the rest of them, and I’ll kick her ass and send her back to Dr. Sidney Siegel. Those who spurn me now will regret it when I hit the big time.

  I wash and trim my beard in the bathroom, noticing Shapiro still hasn’t fixed the window. Now that I’m finished with Miami Massacre I’ll have plenty of time to straight that motherfucker out. Alexander Frapkin is nobody to trifle with.

  Returning to my office, I dress in my basic blue suit ensemble, put the manuscript in my old battered pigskin briefcase, and look at myself in the mirror. Except for the beard and a certain wilted look, I’m almost like I was in the old days when I was the sharpest thing going. Was? Hell — I’m still the sharpest thing going. I’ve just changed my act a little.

  The offices of Criterion Publications occupy the tenth floor of an old skyscraper on Seventh Avenue near 57th Street, not far from Carnegie Hall. I ride up a squeaky elevator loaded with execs looking apprehensively out the corners of their eyes at the dashing fellow in beard and floppy-brimmed Irish hat.

  The elevator stops, the doors roll open, and I step into a small yellow waiting room with a counter behind which sits a pretty young girl who looks like a Sunday School teacher. I don’t remove my hat because I don’t want her to see my bald head.

  “My name’s Alexander Frapkin and Mr. McFarland is waiting to see me.”

  “Just a sec.”

  She speaks into her mouthpiece and I lean on the counter, looking at the display on the wall behind her of upcoming Criterion publications, one of which is my last Triggerman, Hit Man Holocaust, which shows Johnny Ripelli machine-gunning about twenty men and women.

  “He’ll be right out,” says the Sunday School teacher.

  “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  She smiles coyly, her switchboard buzzes, she presses a button and says, “Criterion Publishing Corporation — good afternoon.”

  The door opens at stage left and McFarland appears, holding out his right hand. He looks like a big red-headed Irish cop and is smiling as if he’s about to bust me for possession.

  “Hello, Alex,” he says in his musical con-artist voice.

  “Hi, Frank.” I shake his meaty hand.

  “Come back to my office.”

  “Sure.”

  The corridor is yellow like the waiting room, and smells like ink and office machine grease. Well-dressed young executives and secretaries bustle back and forth, and in small offices they move pieces of paper and pretend to think. We pass a Xerox machine operated by a stout woman, and beyond is McFarland’s office.

  “Have a seat,” he says, pointing to the chair beside his desk. He dresses Ivy League and looks classy, but I know from long unhappy experience how rotten he can be.

  I sit and lean my attaché case against the leg of the chair. He makes himself comfortable behind his big desk. “How’ve you been?”

  “Terrible.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m broke.”

  “You’re always talking poormouth, but I’ll bet you’ve got half a million dollars salted away someplace. Let’s see the new Triggerman.”

  “Let’s see the new check.”

  “It’s in the boss’s office. He hasn’t signed it yet.”

  “I thought you said you had it on your desk.”

  “I did, but it wasn’t signed.”


  “No check, no Triggerman.”

  He looks at the ceiling, opens his mouth, and laughs.

  “Laugh all you want, but no check, no Triggerman.”

  “Okay, okay.” His smile fading, he picks up his phone, dials four numbers, mumbles, then hangs up. “It’ll take a few more minutes. Let’s talk about the next one — do you have any ideas for it yet?”

  “There won’t be another one until you pay all the back royalties and everything else you owe me.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the advance for the last one, the advance for this one, and the royalties you owe me on the seven other books of mine you’ve already published. And please don’t give me any bullshit about how if you owed me the money you would’ve paid me, because I’ve heard that song before. I want what you owe me or I’ll take Triggerman someplace else.”

  His eyes become the splits of a tank turret. “You take Triggerman someplace else and we’ll take you to court. Read your contract sometime.”

  “My lawyer already has, and he said he’d love to get you bastards before a judge.”

  “Why are you so hostile all of a sudden, Frapkin?”

  “Your company has cheated me out of thousands of dollars and I want it.”

  He plays with a pen and looks contemplative. “Well, maybe we’re so big and deal with so many authors that sometimes we lose the personal touch.” He places his palms on his desk and pushes himself up. “I’m going to talk with the president of this company about you right now. I don’t care what he’s doing or who he’s got in there — I’m going to talk to him about your situation. Just stay put and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He takes giant steps out of his office and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone to congratulate myself on my bold power play that seems to be working. You’ve got to have audacity when you deal with scum. The only thing they understand is a cold-blooded threat and the determination to carry it out.