Angels in Heaven

I
said. “Are you lucky it didn’t break. So pick it up, asshole.”
    He bent over and picked it up.
    “So put it away,” I said. “It’s for
you. What would I want with a couple of fingers sawed off some chiseler’s
hand?”
    “What do I want with them?” Goose
muttered.
    “You want them to remind you,” I
said, “that you got one week, which is seven days starting today, to mail to
me, Ace, here at the Valley Bowl, Olive and Alameda, every picture you got, any
film you got, every negative you got stored away under your dirty socks, of J.
J. and his old teammates. Otherwise, what happens is me and a friend of mine
take a drive out to East Street and you lose one finger per day you’re late
with the mail. And when they’re done, we start on something you only got one of.
And I don’t mean sliced neatly off under anaesthetic with a nice sharp scalpel
in a nice clean operating room. I mean sawed off with a crosscut rubbed with
dog shit in an alley somewhere. Do you hear me, Goose, am I gettin’ through at
all, did I use too many big words?”
    Poor Goose didn’t know whether to
shake his head no or nod yes. Mr. G snapped his fingers once in my direction. I
hurriedly took him over an ashtray, one purloined, I noticed, from the same
piano bar that supplied several of mine.
    “Say it, Goose,” I said on my return.
“Say I’m gettin’ through all that dandruff.”
    “You’re getting through,” he managed
to get out.
    “Now beat it, creep,” I said, “if you
can figure out where the door is. Go home. Get out the Scotch tape. Start
wrapping—it doesn’t have to be neat like mine. Then go stand in line at the
post office. Make sure you put enough stamps on, Goose, even if you got to get
someone else to lick them for you. Now fuck off.”
    Off he fucked.
    “I love doing Sheldon Leonard,” I
said when he’d fled.
    “Primitive but effective, I would surmise,”
said Mr. G, stubbing out the cigar. “Ptui. I hate those things. Did you know if
you mb cigar ash in your hair, it makes you look ten years older?”
    “No,” I said, opening the door to air
the place out a bit. “And I don’t need cigar ash to make me look ten years
older, going along with your insane schemes in foreign countries has already
done it. But it was a nice touch, as usual, the cigar. If you paid more than a
quarter for it, I’ll add it to J. J.’s bill. Remind me to phone him up later
with the good news.”
    “Don’t forget to tell John D. you’re
Ace and you’re expecting some mail,” he said.
    “Already taken care of, pal,” I said
mendaciously. “What do you take me for, anyway?” P.S.—I phoned up John later.
The next day a package arrived by courier service. I glanced through the
contents, then burnt them.
    Bits and pieces ... all that remain
are fluttering bits and wind-tossed pieces scattered through time and space....
    Bit one (one week A. G., i.e., After Goose): Postcard
from Big Jeff. I’d left him my address so he could mail me anything there was
in the local papers about our escapade to add to my meager collection of
clippings, but I guess the authorities down there hushed everything up to save
themselves considerable embarrassment. The card had an advertisement for his
pizza joint on one side. The other read: “No press. Alfredo in hospital. Dan
disappeared south after someone torched his boat. Selling pizzas like mad.
Having wonderful thirst. Big Jeff. XXXXX to Sara.”
    Piece one (two weeks A. G.): Who should drop by my place
of business but my old pal Mr. Lubinski, Family Jeweler. He’d had a minor heart
tremor while I was away, and as a part of his recovery program, he was supposed
to take a brisk walk an hour a day after his nonfat, nonalcoholic, nontasting
lunch, served up at his store by his vigilant wife. So what he would do was
stride off purposefully, wave to the little woman, then pass the hour out of
sight around the corner with pals like me and Andy the dentist and, if his wife
wasn’t watching like a hawk, Mrs. Martel across the street from him.
    The first time he dropped in on me
after lunch, I was computing away, and he was across from me puffing on a
forbidden cigarette when he spied Shorty, which he picked up and hefted.
    “What’s this, Vic?”
    “The only five grand paperweight in
the universe,” I said, trying to concentrate on which I was doing, which was to
see exactly how much money I could save if I did work out of home, if Feeb
would let me.
    “What’s it made