Sheldonross's Noir Soap

sheldonross — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:00:43 +0000

Cohen said it was an accident. Blanche said it was an accident waiting to happen. Moynihan said it was 3rd degree. The judge said different.
Sheldrake and Josie’s shindig and girlie show down at the Rialto Rooms was meant to be a New Year hello to 1939 and the World’s Fair. The joint was heaving with every punk, con-artist and sleaze ball in the precinct. You couldn’t move for booze hounds and if you weren’t all gowed up then you was either over the edge with the rams or you weren’t there. Even Subotnik turned out with Coral on his arm and Louie was waltzing a new broad with heavy horn rims and a Bakelite clip. Hackensack was under a table with a burlesque honky and didn’t see nothing to write home about.
The band was just getting into Nice Work if You Can Get It for the hundredth time when Larry appeared at the spin doors way off the track with his neck tie backwards and his hat sideways to the party. He yanked a 30-ought-6 outa his gab and let it go at the Montevideo chandelier which dumped a small mountain of splintered glass onto Choy who was saving the last dance for who knows who. For Larry that was the end of the party of the first part…

END OF SERIES ONE

sheldonross — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:00:21 +0000

The band were playing some soft mush that’d never heard of Parker and No.3 and No.17 were slumped over each other in the middle of the dance floor like a coupla used rubbers on a park bench.
‘I guess this is where we came in.’ Ed and Two Tone were at a side table for most of the night and conversation had thinned out a long time ago.
‘Nah, I need another drink.’ Two Tone couldn’t see a waiter so he started flicking peanuts at the bartender.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you TT.’
The bartender suddenly jerked awake like he’d been hit by a wasp and peered around the tables till he saw TT with his tongue hanging out.
Next thing Ed knew a coupla gorillas in monkey suits lifted TT high over the table and dropped him on his rug. Ed raised both hands like he’d been dry-gulched by Roy Rogers and the MC switched on the PA with a thump.
‘Would numbers 3 and 17 please leave the floor, you have been disqualified.’ 3 and 17 didn’t move. Ed did. He eased a five spot onto the table and moved outside.
The clean air made a shiver run across his shoulders and he thought maybe a hot tub and a massage on Lafayette would warm his bones. He didn’t see the black sedan across the street with a cheap suit at the wheel and a coupla coat hangers in the rear. Where he was going he wouldn’t need a tailor.

sheldonross — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Larry’s brogues slewed the last few yards of the parking lot and slammed into the back door of Patsy’s Chicken Grill. Leaping up the steps two at a time he tore open the kitchen door and smacked into Pedro the porter carrying a tray of thighs on his way from the icebox to the zinc sink.
Larry was through the swing doors shedding frost and immediately clocked Sheldrake with his snout into a plate of Kentucky wings with a side order of eggs over guacamole. Sheldrake looked up just as Larry lost his hat in the wind.
‘Larry!!! Where ya bin? Long time no see! Happy Noo Year kid!’
Larry grabbed Sheldrake by his vicuna and torpedoed him onto the green linoleum, which he noticed as they went down was the same color as the guacamole.
‘Where’ve I bin? Where’ve I bin? Where’ve you bin more like. You two timin double-crossin snake. Whaddabout my trash opus you highjacked…

sheldonross — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:00:08 +0000

Cruising Delancey looking for tail on weekday afternoons wasn’t something Larry was proud of but it was a habit hard to break and it usually turned up a dame needing a shoulder to cry on and a caffeine hit followed by the sack and maybe some dirt he could pass by Hackensack.
He saw her first when he looked up from The Globe in Gino’s. She was across the street reading the menu outside Cafe Solo. Something about the way her gams disappeared up her pencil skirt made him hustle to the door and whistle her over.
‘Hey doll, the coffee’s better on this side of the street, so’s the company.’
She didn’t look up so Larry dodged a Ford but didn’t see the sidecar until it was too late. The next thing he knew she was fanning a menu in his face and there were a lot of honking autos.

sheldonross — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:00:52 +0000

Louie and Larry were tight under the bridge, head to head.
‘Odds on he’s got torpedoes lookin for intruders.’ Larry sucked in a big one and held it too long.
‘You sure Larry?’
‘That sure.’
‘That sure?’
‘Nothin’s f’sure. You can kick in a wall and not be sure.’
‘About what?’
‘That your foot ain’t broke.’
‘So it ain’t f’sure?’
‘Like I say nothin’s f’sure.’
Louie figured hard, then, ‘If it’s f’sure I’m goin home.’
‘Home ain’t gonna help me Lou.’
‘Can’t help y’Larry, I’m gone.’
‘I ain’t sayin it’s easy Lou, you want easy go take the Chattanooga choo choo.’
‘They didn’t cut it yet, anyway it’s outa my way.’ Louie backed off into the clinker, ‘I’ll see yer Larry, I got short odds on a sure fire down Kinkade’s.’
‘Give him my regards Lou.’ Larry watched Louie skip over the flat irons, safe and sure, ‘Short odds don’t pay the rent Lou. Short odds don’t pay the rent.’

sheldonross — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:00:48 +0000

Larry strolled into Josie’s building just as the elevator doors opened.
‘Larry! Hey how’s it goin man? Long time no hear. What’s happenin? You keepin busy?’
If Larry had a heart it would’ve sunk. The last peapod he needed to shell right now was Vernon D. Warren.
‘I just bin settin up a five book deal with Josie!’
Warren was shining like a new tin toy. No rust.
‘Boy does that bitch drive a hard bargain! Hey Larry old son. let’s have a drink sometime – catch up – shoot the breeze! Gimme a call!’ Warren was out the door, adjusting the trim of his snap brim trilby, his gaudy tie flying over his shoulder in the draught from the street, ‘Taxi!’
Larry shunned the elevator and took the stairs. On the way up to Josie’s he thought a lot. He thought about stuff he hadn’t thought about in a long time and didn’t ought to think about, but right now it didn’t look like he had a choice. He figured he had two ways to go, both bad. Hit Josie with the chin music or take it up the ass and make a deal.
It was bad stuff all right, stuff that puts a man in tin bracelets and bad leisure suits, fighting fat muscle queens and hiding from psycho screws who hate writers. That was just the first option. The second would crush his balls until they hollered.
Right up to the moment he bashed in the reeded glass door he hadn’t resolved the issue. It was nip and tuck and then some.
‘Josie!!! 75% or I rearrange your wardrobe.’
Josie took a long, slow sip of Napoleon. She could afford another door. Her drinking hand made the move.
‘Sidown Larry – we gotta lot t’talk about.’

sheldonross — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:00:00 +0000

It wasn’t the neon backlight on the wall to wall fish tank, or the Buddha with a hard-on sitting on a dragon. Not even the neo-colonial cocktail cabinet Cohen gave him after the bank heist; not really, the only toy Choy had that was guaranteed to make Blanche hotter than a jalapeno blow-job was the Cord.
Blanche was late but Larry was later on account of the Coral dame taking longer than usual. Blanche was used to Larry’s peccadilloes and she took it with a shrug and double dose of speakeasy, but now that she knew it was Coral who had the spare key she figured she was due pay back.
‘It’s a Cord, he’s gotta fuckin Cord fer chrissake.’
‘Yeh, 812, y’gotta watch the vapor lock on those.’
‘I wan it.’
‘Y’can’t have it.’
‘I wanna drive it.’
‘Y’can’t drive.’
‘I wanna sit in it.’
‘I’ll talk to Choy.’
‘And I’ll talk to Coral.’
‘You keep your Du Barry shut Blanche, we bin through all that. The last time you opened it a lotta shit fell out and I ended up in a trashcan back of Bellevue.’
‘Ya gotta pay f’yer pleasures Larry.’
Larry didn’t need a reminder on that but Coral had class and no matter how often Blanche pulled the fluff out of her ass she was never going to know bourbon from rye. Then again, Coral had connections, the kind that went from the bottom to the top without an elevator and back again without a parachute. She could talk dirty till you came in your pants and recite last years cocktail list from The Rivoli Room at the London Ritz. That’s verbatim. What a dame. No wonder Larry had to get rid of Choy.

sheldonross — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:00:53 +0000

Choy walked Coral into a white windowless studio. Muslin sheets veiled the pale Bronx light from the doorway. A dozen paintings lined the walls, turned inwards as if dormant, embryonic.
‘What we have here my dear are rare white truffles awaiting the drench of sunlit pigmentation.’ Right then Coral figured Choy had on the face of a newborn.
‘Don’t they need hogs to dig em out?’ Coral drifted wraithlike across the stone floor, ignoring Subotnik who was lounging in the corner on a tea chest with an unlit papier mais Gitane hanging from his fleshy lips. He was never less than fifty years old but he passed for twenty five in a leather cap on a dark night down at the Algonquin. His first show sold out in an hour and a half. Choy said it was an hour. He should know he bought the show.
Subotnik never showed half finished pictures to anyone, even Choy, but when Choy moved toward the only one exposed, an old breadboard framed in bituminous black with scars of orange and scarlet breaking through the rough tarry impasto like open wounds, Subotnik leaned up on his feet and kinda swayed like he’d either faint or start singing. When Choy said nothing, Coral cruised over to him and put her Times Square pinks on his shoulder and played with his razor cut coal black hairline.
‘Well whadderyer think?’ Choy didn’t respond. He wasn’t there. Subotnik spoke first in an accent that even years later Coral never admitted made her moist.
‘It is a picture derived from memory. An emotional experience which remains and to which I find a pictorial equivalent. Only when the picture becomes an object separate from my emotional involvement will I know that I can telephone Mr.Choy and mark up another $5000.’ His voice faltered as if parting with a long nurtured child.
‘May I ask the title Marc?’ Choy’s bottom lip trembled before correction.
‘Waiting for Yonkers’ – about an experience I had in a diner on Vark Street in 1929.’
There were tears in his eyes and Coral figured he’d had his share of the crying game.

sheldonross — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:00:31 +0000

‘Yeh cats and dogs babe.’
Larry was in a phone booth off 46th street talking to Blanche about the weather. It wasn’t that Larry missed her or was having second thoughts about Sands Point last fall, he just couldn’t afford to drop a shot. Not on soft ground.
‘No I’m in a phone booth – yeh – I figure we should maybe cut to the chase and quit all the stallin – no you’re the one’s stallin I already apologized – okay have it your own way I’m the one stallin – I admit it, it’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth – well what is the point – no that’s not the point Blanche, the point is that me and Coral are jest like you and Louie – exactly, just very good friends - don’t call me that Blanche I’m tryin t’be nice – I ain’t shoutin and that ain’t whad I called about – well – no wait – I wanna kinda make it up t’ya and maybe take y’t'theatre or somethin – don’t hang up I gotta playbill here from the Morosco, s’playin Our Town, wanna see it? – yeh but I already got booked for Of Mice’n Men with – no, Choy actually, figure he owes me – okay, how about ,You Can’t take it with You? – nah we ain’t goin t’the Apollo they only show foreign pictures now and the last time we went there I got sapped in the lobby by a gorilla in pin-stripes jest f’callin time on his toupee – yeh, fun nothin, I wanna show y’somethin y’gonna remember f’the rest of y’life – no I didn’t do that already – I wanna help ya get off the bottom rung babe – whad? – well why didn’t y’say so – yeh you take that raincheck babe – yep – no problem – hope he gets well, soon – just don’t drop him – joke – s’okay – bye now…’
‘Broads…’

sheldonross — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 08:00:32 +0000

‘Do you know what day it is Moynihan?’ Larry threw a Lucky into the gap below his nose.
‘I don’t care if Santa’s commin down the fuckin chimney Larry, you and me are gonna get t’the bottom of this before Rudolph shits on the carpet. Am I clear?’
‘Rudolph don’t usually come down the chimney with -’
‘Al right Lorenzo, enough already, when did y’last see Tina?
‘A week ago last Thursday.’
‘Where?’
‘At the rope store on -’
‘Greenlawn’s rope store?’
‘Yeh.’
Moynihan hit the intercom, ‘Picardy – Greenlawn’s rope store corner of W 49th and Broadway – pull him in.’
‘Jest a second Moynihan, we jest met at the rope store we didn’t buy no rope.’
Moynihan hit the intercom, ‘Picardy – that’s a negative on the rope store.’
‘Moynihan I think I can save you a lotta difficult brain work by jest lettin y’know how it was with me and Tina and how we didn’t croak Waldo because we all know you did, or one of your boys did on account of he was the canary who sold you down the river to the DA on the Packer mayhem. We already bin through all that and I wanna let y’know Choy’s pretty grateful you bin leavin him alone lately, but the fact that Waldo was carryin a copy of my fuckin trashcan opus ain’t got nothin t’do with nothin except Sheldrake’s gonna get his ass ripped pretty soon by Choy’s attorney so why doncha try framin someone important for a change? Or better still go home and put y’head in the oven with the turkey.’
Moynihan sighed so deep then Larry’s Lucky burned brighter than ordinary. He dug his nails into his eyes and fixed Larry with one of his lonesome hobo looks.
‘I guess there comes a time with every dumb cop when he figures his pay’s too low, his hours are too long and his dick’s too small. Then he figures his kids have forgotten his name, his wife’s fuckin the brother in law and he’s run outa one liners. All he has to prove is he ain’t as dumb as he looks and that’s when he gets dangerous. But any cop who figures he’s got more sass than a punk on the street sooner or later’s gonna wind up squashin roaches in Bellevue or countin cooties in Alcatraz.’
Moynihan paused to reach for something that wasn’t there. Larry could see beads of sweat pop up on his bald patch. He checked his watch. Coral was going to have to wait.
‘But I guess there comes a time with every dumb cop when he reaches for the red pencil and draws a line where it hurts most. That was my line Larry and I just drew it and yeh it hurts like hell but when a man puts down a bad one on his patch he’s doin nothin less than his duty to the city, nothin more, anyone says different ain’t listenin -’
‘Moynihan,’ Larry stretched an eyebrow with his dialing finger, ‘Are you going to go on all fuckin night, I gotta ten o’clock. I bin sittin in your fuckin dugout for an hour and half you tellin me whad I already fuckin knew before y’opened y’hatch. I wrapped Packer in cellophane remember, Rosie and me carried your corpse up those fuckin stairs, nearly fuckin killed me, how much do you weigh f’chrissakes?’