Around noon on the second day, Abbott and Costello stopped in front of Unbeatable Joe’s and went in together and drank beer at the bar for a while and then left. Costello did the driving. Then they pulled up in front of the Star Pool Room, across the street from the Venus, and hurried in. They came out talking to each other, shaking their heads. Costello waddled into the Venus, while Abbott waited outside in the snow, his right hand inside his gray overcoat. Michael saw him spit into a snowbank. Then Costello came out of the Venus and they got in the car and drove away.
“They’re lookin’ for Frankie,” said Sonny. “For beating the shit outta Mister G.”
The boys were standing in the doorway of the variety store next to Slowacki’s candy store, stamping their feet to keep warm.
“I saw them go up his house too,” Jimmy said.
“I hope they get him,” Michael said. “I hope they put him in the goddamned can.”
“What?” Sonny said. “You hope they get him?”
“What he did to Mister G was rotten,” Michael said. “He’s the prick. He’s a coward, Sonny, a goddamned jerkoff, beating up an old man like that. Besides, he was defending you.”
Sonny paused. “Yeah,” he said, “but you better not say nothing. You don’t want to end up with the mark of the squealer.”
“What’s that?” Jimmy asked. Little puffs of steam issued from their mouths when they talked.
“They take a knife and they dig in the point here,” Sonny said, twisting his forefinger into his cheek at the hinge of his jaw. “They make a hole, see? And then”—he pulled the finger down his cheek to the corner of his mouth—“then they cut it all the way down to your mouth. So everybody knows you got a big mouth. They know that for the rest of your fucking life.”
“Jesus,” Jimmy said.
Michael shuddered.
“It’s real bad,” Sonny said. “Very bad. The mark of the squealer.”
“Still…,” Michael said.
“The bulls come askin’ you questions, Michael, you didn’t see nothing,” Sonny said. “That’s it. For you. For all three of us.”
Michael remembered what Frankie McCarthy had said as he was leaving with his pack of Lucky Strikes. You didn’t see nothing. One of the rules.
“Okay,” Michael said. “But what happens to Frankie?”
“Nothing, probably.”
“That’s not right, Sonny.”
“No, but that’s the way it is.”
“You mean, he can just do that and not get punished? He beat the crap out of an old man. He could’ve beat the crap out of us. So who punishes him?”
“I don’t know. God, maybe.”
Jimmy Kabinsky smiled. “My uncle said Mister G got what he deserved.”
“What do you mean?” Michael asked.
“He’s a Hebe,” Jimmy said. “My uncle says back in the Old Country they would have killed him.”
“For what?” Sonny said. “Resisting assault?”
“No, just, you know, in general.”
“Your uncle is a goddamned jerk,” Michael said.
“What do you mean, a jerk? He’s—”
“Hey, come on, knock it off,” Sonny said. “What do we gotta have an argument over Jews for? Jesus Christ.”
“My uncle says the Jews killed Jesus and they gotta pay.”
“Jesus was killed, what? Five thousand fuckin’ years ago?” Sonny said. “I guarantee you Mister G wasn’t there that day.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Not buts, Jimmy. Look, I don’t like Jews any more than the next guy. But it don’t make no fuckin’ sense to beat the shit out of Mister G because of something he had nothing to do with.”
“Right,” Michael said. “It wasn’t about Jesus. It was about us.”
“Well…”
“Come on,” Sonny said, “let’s go shovelin’.”
They wandered along the snowy ridges and icy hills of Ellison Avenue, repeating jokes they’d heard at school before the Christmas break, discussing the possibility that if it snowed at least one more time they’d never go back to school, arguing about who invented the telephone and wishing they had one, and stopping in shops, where they offered to shovel snow. The shopkeepers had their own shovels, and some of them had kids who were doing the work. But they earned sixty cents anyway and then went to Slowacki’s and sat at the counter and ordered three hot chocolates.
“You know, I gotta confess something,” Michael said.
“You beat up Mister G,” Sonny said laughing.
“No,” Michael said. “Something else.”
He told them about his visit to the synagogue on Kelly Street and how the rabbi appeared in the blizzard and called him over and asked him to turn on the lights. He couldn’t exactly describe the sound of the man’s voice, or admit to his fear when he stepped into the vestibule. But he did say that he thought the rabbi was a pretty good person.
“That’s it, that’s why you got so pissed off before,” Jimmy said. “You’re in with them.”
“All I did was turn on the goddamned lights,” Michael said, sipping the thick, sweet cocoa. Mrs. Slowacki was busy with other customers; with Mister G’s closed, she was busier than ever, selling candy to kids and cigarettes to men.
“That’s how they get you,” Jimmy said.
“What, to trick me and drop me through a trapdoor? Jimmy, here I am, alive.”
“How do you know he didn’t hypnotize you?”
Then Sonny put up his hands, palms out.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said, halting the argument. “This could be good.”
Michael turned to him.
“What do you mean?”
“The treasure.”
“What treasure?”
“Don’t tell me you never heard of the treasure, Michael. Everybody knows about it.”
“I never heard of no treasure,” Jimmy said.
Sonny lowered his voice and leaned close to Michael and Jimmy. “All the Jews, they give money and jewels and rubies and gold and shit like that to the rabbis. But these rabbis, they don’t put it in banks. They bury it. They hide it. They keep it there, so if one morning they gotta run, they pack it all in a bag and get the fuck out of there.”
Michael thought about the rabbi’s frayed coat, his dirty hands, the peeling paint in the vestibule.
“They always talk about the treasure up the synagogue on Kelly Street,” Sonny went on. “My uncles, my aunt Stephanie, they all heard about it. It’s hidden up there. Jewels, diamonds, gold, everything. A long time ago, before the war, my cousin Lefty even busted in there one night with some friends, trying to find it. But the rabbis got it hid pretty good.”
He paused, his eyes excited, gazing around to be certain that nobody in the candy store could hear him.
“So?” Michael said.
“So Michael, you got your foot in the door now. Go all the way in. Find the fucking treasure.”
Michael’s heart tripped.
“You mean, so we could rob it?” he whispered.
Sonny turned his head to the side, his eyes drifting toward the rack of comic books and pulp magazines.
“Nah. Not rob it. Take it back is what I’m thinking. It’s all money they got from rents and charging too much in stores and shit like that.”
“Come on, Sonny,” Michael said. “That’s just stealing.”