Homer & Langley

ON THE FOURTH MORNING I heard a terrible crash. It had come from the kitchen. The men ran in there. I followed. There was no sign of Vincent.They kicked open the pantry door and found him cowering in the corner. You hear that? Vincent said. You hear that?I heard it, we all heard it. The men were on alert now, their guns drawn, one of them prodding me in the ribs. Because there it was, the rat-a-tat of something relentlessly mechanical, like the deadly sputter of a tommy gun. Vincent had fallen or rolled off his makeshift kitchen bed having been startled awake by that sound, presumably familiar to him in his long life of crime. This was a delicate moment and I knew if I laughed it would be the end of me. I merely pointed at the ceiling and let them work it out for themselves that it was Langley at his typewriter, Langley being a very fast typist, his fingers racing to keep up with his thoughts, and his room located directly overhead. What typewriter he was using I didn’t know — the Remington, the Royal, or perhaps the Blickensderfer Number 5? He had set it up on a fold-out card table that was not quite steady and the clacking keys as transmitted through the spindly legs of the table, and through the floor, picked up a darker hammering tone that, I suppose, if you were a sleeping gangster who had recently been shot at, could have sounded like another attempt on your life.Vincent, recovering his poise, laughed as if he found it funny. And when he laughed so did the others. But he’d been shocked into a state of aggressive awareness. No more sleeping now, he was the crime boss once again.What is this dump! he said. Am I in a junkyard? This is what you guys find for me? Massimo, the best you can do? Look at this place. I have retribution to think of. I have serious matters. And you drop me in this rat’s nest. Me! And where is the intelligence I need, where is the information I count on? I see you look at each other. You wanna give me excuses? Oh there are debts to pay, and I will pay them. And when I’ve put out their lights I will turn to who in the family set me up. Or shall I believe it’s blind fate that I am now minus one ear. I’m talking to you! Is that what it was, blind fate, they just happened to find me in the restaurant where I was?His men knew better than to say anything. They may have even been comforted to find their boss up to form. I could hear him striding about, pushing things out of the way, throwing things aside.

AS LANGLEY TOLD ME later it was as Vincent prowled about holding a hand over his ear hole that he found one of the army surplus helmets and put it on. And then there was a need to see himself in a mirror and the men brought down the standing mirror from my mother’s bedroom, a lady’s bedroom mirror that could tilt in its frame.As Vincent saw his reflection he realized his suit was a mess. He stripped — off came the jacket, trousers, shirt — and in his skivvies and shoes and socks he found a set of our army fatigues that fit him and said, Nobody will believe this is me in this outfit. I could walk out the front door in broad daylight. Hey, Massimo, whaddya think? I look like anyone you know?No, Pop, the son said.A course I can’t be seen like this. What it would do to my rep. He laughed. On the other hand if I’da had on this helmet the other night I’d still have my ear.Our washing machine was in the alcove behind the kitchen, an old model with a wringer attached, and one of the men found it and took Vincent’s clothes and dropped them in the machine to get all the bloodstains out. We must have had by then a good number of electric irons and two or three antique hand irons that you put on the stove to get them hot. So some time went by as Massimo and one of the men attempted to get Vincent’s suit washed and wrung out and ironed so that it was a reasonable simulation of a dry-cleaned suit.While all this was going on Langley didn’t see why he should stand there and be bored so he went back upstairs to his typewriter and the clacking and platen banging resumed and Vincent said, Massimo, go up there and tell the old man he doesn’t shut up with the typewriter I’ll stick his hands in this clothes wringer. Massimo, showing an initiative in an effort to please his father, brought the typewriter down in his arms and Vincent took it and heaved it across the room and I heard it come apart with a silvery shatter, like a piece of china.