Chapter 1 Maggie''s Turnstile looms on the corner of East Tremont and Lawton, windows darkened, neon beer signs off, blinds drawn, the whole place pulsing with dread. Or maybe it''s Georgie who''s pulsing with dread. He''s standing up against the riot gate of a closed barbershop on the other side of the avenue, Scags at his side, twitchy. It''s the best time to hit Maggie''s. Closed at four, doesn''t reopen until eleven. Tomorrow the bar kitchen will be rocking early as they prepare a sad Thanksgiving feast for the drunks with nowhere else to go, and Georgie doesn''t want to wait until Black Friday. Today is it. Maggie''s has been a second home to him, but that won''t stop them from doing what they''re doing.
"Now?" Scags asks. "Two minutes," Georgie says, looking at his watch, still trying to screw up the courage. Two minutes is arbitrary, but someone needs to be a leader. And it ain''t Scags. "You think anyone''s in there?" "Tiny Sally could be." But that''s no challenge whatsoever. Tiny Sally''s kind of a limited person. Easy enough to put a bucket over her head and stuff her in a closet.
"Come on, maestro. We wait any longer, I''ll go gray." The neighborhood''s waking up, the light of sunrise giving everything a brassy hue. A few people stand at the bus stop opposite Maggie''s, fighting the morning chill with puffer coats. The bodega on the corner bustles with construction workers buying coffees and buttered rolls. Familiar faces, but no one Georgie knows, not really. Georgie pulls his lucky Yankees cap down over his brow ridge, turning the collar of his army jacket up. He never did any time in the army, just had the thought this jacket, some old Crotona thrift-store find from years ago, might be good for today.
Deep front pockets, deep inner pockets, pockets he doesn''t even know about. "Okay," he says to Scags. "Let''s do it." It''s all Georgie''s idea, this heist. He can''t hack it anymore the way things are. Working as a mechanic at Rip Mulvaney''s garage on Bruckner Boulevard, scraping a meaningless existence together, making just enough to drink at Maggie''s and have a slice or two of pizza for dinner every night. It''s freedom, sure, in a way, but it''s not enough, and he''s fed up with living on the ropes. He''s thirty-five now.
Hasn''t learned much in life other than that people need to go out and take what they want sometimes. So, after Tipperary Mary the Toothless Wonder told him about the cash Clip and Sarge keep in the back room of Maggie''s--"Not even in a safe ," Tipperary Mary spat from her typical seat at the end of the bar, "just one of them big green plastic bins"--Georgie decided he''s going to be one of those people. Take what he wants. Then run. He looks at the faded but beautiful sign. The bar''s name in shamrock-green script next to a rough approximation of a turnstile in motion. Maggie O''Grady was Clip''s mom. She died about six years ago.
Everyone called her the Mayor of Throggs Neck. The name of the place comes from a joke Maggie made about putting a turnstile at the door so they could keep a count of all the micks coming in to burn through their paychecks. Stay focused, Georgie. The plan isn''t much of a plan. They''ll barge in, enter that secret room, and escape with the bin. Then they''ll go back to the apartment, transfer the dough to knapsacks, and be on the express bus into the city before Maggie''s opens and the theft is discovered. If Tiny Sally''s the only witness, they won''t worry about getting fingered for the job. Someone else comes along they''ve got to deal with, no biggie.
Lock them in the freezer or some shit. Georgie and Scags will be at Penn Station boarding a train to New Orleans before the hunt even starts. They settled on New Orleans because it just seems like the place to go when you''re on the lam with a bunch of cash. The French Quarter. Strip joints and whorehouses. Casinos and racetracks. Jazz. And all that.
Georgie looks over at Scags one last time. His eyes are glassy, his nose drips like a kid''s in the schoolyard, his hair is scruffy and long, and he has all these spots he missed shaving on his neck. Georgie knows he can swing the job alone (and may be better off), but Scags is like a brother to him, the guy he ran to when there was nowhere else to run. Scags seems so small now, in his acid-washed jeans and green fleece pullover from Alfie''s Place. "You ready?" Scags nods. "Nothing to it," he says, but he''s still twitching, nervous as fuck. Georgie''s nervous, too. This is a different game than the one they''ve played their entire lives.
They haven''t been no kind of fucking choirboys, but they also haven''t ever strolled into a joint with guns and bad intentions. He grips his gun under his shirt as he and Scags duck into the alley behind Maggie''s. God bless Slow Roll Tony over at the batting cages, he thinks. Two hundred bucks a pop for the pieces. He and Scags practiced firing them at cans by Saint Raymond''s Cemetery just to make sure they worked. No blood necessary, but you can never be sure. To Georgie''s surprise, the door is cracked open. Not even just unlocked.
Propped inward like they have an invitation to stroll on in. "Sally must be airing the kitchen out," Georgie says. "Thinking no one''s trying to get in this hour." "Sounds true," Scags says. Georgie pushes the door in, and they enter the dark kitchen. Two gleaming metal racks on wheels, full of brown boxes of bar supplies and plastic jugs of pink soap, are against the tiled wall. The fridge, the electric stovetop, and a deep sink full of dirty glasses have a sadness to them as if they''ve been pushed to their limits. It''s not like a restaurant kitchen, more like a regular person''s kitchen, mostly utilized for making corned beef and cabbage sandwiches and crockpot stews that are doled out to the boozers so they don''t flop over and croak at the bar.
Sure enough, the smell of bleach is pungent and hits him in the back of the throat, which means Sally''s likely in here somewhere, mopping up with her goofy orange headphones on over her thick curls. He doesn''t want to give her a heart attack, so he calls her name once quietly. No answer. Georgie leads Scags out of the kitchen through the swinging doors and into the bar. A lamp has been left on. The place is as familiar to Georgie as anywhere he''s ever lived. In the center of the room is a small gathering of mismatched tables, several typical square bar tables and others of the Formica variety often found in diners. Vinyl booths line the far wall.
Above one, a large Irish flag is strung up crookedly next to a smudged Guinness mirror. The pool table, with its balding felt, is one of the bleakest things Georgie''s ever seen. The bar counter is horseshoe shaped, and bottles are stationed on shelves around the fancy old-timey register. There''s a television on a heavy-duty wall shelf built by Malachy Coole. Dust glimmers in a shaft of light breaking in through the tattered front blinds, illuminating framed photos of Clip''s and Sarge''s moms, hanging from nails on the wood paneling. The photos give Georgie a pang in his chest. He notices a trickle of sweat down his forehead and suddenly he''s thinking, very acutely, about the myriad ways this could blow up in their faces. Shit, they should''ve worn ski masks like real thieves.
He clutches the gun in his hand a little tighter, trying to push away the thought of how kind Clip and Sarge have been to them over the years--not like fathers or brothers exactly, but not too far off--and this is how they''re repaying them. Just as Georgie readies his gun, Scags fumbles his. The noise as it clatters against the wood floor is immense. Scags leans down to retrieve it, falling forward onto his knees. "What a pig fucker I am, maestro," he says. Close to a table, Scags attempts to stand gracefully, instead flailing, knocking against the leg of a chair and then the underside of the table, sending a napkin holder careening to the floor, making even more of a goddamn racket. It''s not that crowded of a space. Georgie''s mystified that Scags has managed to bring such drama with no provocation.
Fucking Laurel and Hardy over here. "Can you try not to be such a fucking klutz today?" Georgie whispers. "Sure, yeah, sorry, cuz," Scags says, almost dropping the piece again as he speaks. "I''m good. I''m good. I swear." Georgie reaches out with his free hand and puts it over Scags''s gun hand. "Just put it away.
No one''s in here. Seems like Sally finished and forgot she propped the door." "Okay." Scags stuffs the gun under his shirt. "I gotta piss. You think that''s cool?" Georgie lets out an exhausted breath. He takes off his cap and runs his hand through his hair. Sweat rims his hairline.
He''s not hot. It''s nerves. He gives his right ear a little tug, a tic he has sometimes. He pulls the cap back into place, straightens it. "I told you to piss before we left the apartment." "You said yourself no one''s in here. I''d hate to piss my pants." "Fucking go.
Be quick." Scags races into the divey little men''s room. Georgie has made a lot of trips in there over the years, drunkenly stumbling from the bar or from a booth into the tight confines of that foul-smelling place with its urinal trough and doorless toilet stall and scratched graffiti on the tiles, the sink forever dripping. How many trips, exactly? Too many to count. Four beers deep, having to drop a quick squirt. Then six beers deep, making a stream that could put out a wildfire in the west. Then eight, pissing a straight-up laser beam. An.