Onion Street by Reed Farrel Coleman Read Free Book Online Page A

from Coney Island and Brighton Beach knew, was named Tony Pistone. They called him Tony Pizza because he was a fat slob who could demolish two whole pies at a sitting, and because he and his crew hung out at DeFelice’s Pizzeria, under the el on Brighton Beach Avenue. Behind his back, though, everyone in the neighborhood called him Tony Pepperoni because he had a red, acne-fucked complexion like a pepperoni pizza. I guess he was okay as far as it went. He was what my dad called a real character. My dad never defined what that meant exactly, but when you looked at Tony you understood. Tony P did magic tricks. You know the kind of thing: pulling quarters out from behind your ear, ripping up five-dollar bills and somehow making them whole again. He was always flirting with the young girls, doing his tricks for them, and joking with us guys when we came into DeFelice’s. He’d throw me a dollar sometimes to go get him the racing form or the afternoon paper. The only reason anyone took Tony P seriously was his muscle, a guy they called Jimmy Ding Dong. Jimmy was a stone-cold bastard and we avoided him at all cost. None of us would even look at him if we could help it.
    The only business I ever did with Tony P was buying fireworks from him. That didn’t make me special. Everybody bought their fireworks from him, even the cops. Of all the kids in the neighborhood, Bobby was closest to Tony Pizza. Two summers ago when I was making quarter tips from the old ladies as a bag boy at the Big Apple supermarket on the corner of Brighton Beach Avenue and Ocean Parkway, Bobby was running errands for Tony. What kind of errands, Bobby wouldn’t say. He told me once that he had sworn the Mafia blood oath to Tony never to share. I knew he was full of shit, but some of the other guys believed him. Idiots. Still, Bobby never was very forthcoming about his summer as a mob errand boy. What I did know about that summer was that Bobby earned enough to buy that sweet Olds 88 he drove, and that I earned enough to ride the Cyclone every now and then and to buy a Nathan’s hot dog. Like I said, Bobby had a nose for money.
    He also had a nose for me, apparently, because when I was just walking past the library and coming down the steps to the snow-covered quadrangle, he grabbed me by the shoulders. I shrank in pain.
    “Sorry, I forgot about your shoulder. But Jesus, Moe, I been looking everywhere for you,” he said, worry in his voice. And for the second time in the last few days, his smile was nowhere to be seen. “Did you hear about — ”
    “Mindy? Yeah, I heard. I was at the hospital already.”
    “Why didn’t you call me?”
    “I wasn’t thinking straight. Aaron left me a note: ‘Your girlfriend’s in Kings Highway Hospital. It’s serious.’ I mean, my first thought wasn’t that I should call you.”
    “Sorry, man. What happened to her? I’m not clear on that.”
    I repeated for him what I had just minutes before repeated for Lids.
    “Mugged. Shit.” There was a glint in Bobby’s eyes — a mixture of puzzlement and mischief. “A light-skinned black guy, you said?”
    “Yeah, a young guy, and he had pink blotches on his hands and face. That’s what the cops told Mindy’s dad. He says the prick beat her up pretty good. She was bruised up all over. Why do you ask?”
    He ignored the question. “What was she even doing over there? She lives in the other direction.”
    Seemed to be a popular question, and I didn’t have a better answer for him than I’d had for Lids.
    “Don’t know, but that’s where they found her.”
    “You doing anything right now?” he asked.
    “I was gonna go to class, but I can’t think or keep a thought in my head. I don’t think I ever cared less about school in my life. I mean, shit, what the hell does any of this crap mean now?”
    “Relax, Moe. She’ll be okay. She has to be. Since you’re not going to class, come with me. I’ve got to make an airport run.”
    Airport runs were