with a lot of noise. Cork brought the Nash roaring out in front of the truck as Vinnie, Angelo, and Stevie leapt from the car, choppers blazing. Things went from quiet one second to sounding like the Fourth of July the next. In an instant Sonny was on the Ford’s running board, yanking the door open and throwing the driver to the ground. By the time he got behind the wheel, Nico was alongside him yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” If anyone was shooting back, Sonny couldn’t tell. The driver he’d tossed out of the cab was running like a greyhound. He heard the clatter of gunfire coming from behind him, and he figured that was Little Stevie. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone dive into the water. In front of him, the Hudson’s back tires were shot out so that the long hood of the car pointed up slightly, its headlights shining into dark clouds. Angelo and Vinnie were twenty feet apart, firing in short rapid bursts. Each time they pulled the triggers, the choppers looked like they were alive and struggling to get loose. They danced a jig and the twins danced with them. Somehow, the spare tire next to the driver’s door on the lead Hudson had been blown off, and it was doing a wobbly dance on the dock, getting ready to die. The driver was nowhere to be seen and Sonny figured he was hunkered down under the dashboard. The thought of the driver huddled up on the floorboards made Sonny laugh out loud as he piloted the truck down the alley. Behind him, in his side mirror, he saw Vinnie and Angelo on the Nash’s running boards, holding on to the car with one hand and firing bursts high over the docks and out into the bay.
Sonny took the route they had planned, and in a few minutes he was driving along Rockaway Parkway in light traffic, followed by Cork—and that was it. The shooting part was over. Sonny said to Nico, “You see Stevie get in the truck?”
“Sure,” Nico said, “and I seen him shootin’ up the dock.”
“Looks like nobody got a scratch.”
“The way you planned it,” Nico said.
Sonny’s heart was still beating fast, but in his head he had switched over to counting up the money. The long bed of the pickup was stacked high with crates of Canadian hooch. He figured three thousand, give or take. Plus whatever they could get for the truck.
Nico, as if reading Sonny’s mind, said, “How much you think we’ll get?”
“I’m hoping five hundred apiece,” Sonny said. “Depends.”
Nico laughed and said, “I still got my share of the payroll heist. It’s stuffed in my mattress.”
“What’s the matter? ” Sonny said. “You can’t find dames to spend your money on?”
“I need one of those gold diggers,” Nico said. He laughed at himself and then was quiet again.
A lot of the girls said Nico looked like Tyrone Power. The last year of high school he had a big thing with Gloria Sullivan, but then her parents made her stop seeing him because they thought he was Italian. When she told them he was Greek, it didn’t make any difference. She still couldn’t see him. Since then, Nico’d gotten quiet around girls. Sonny said, “Let’s all go to Juke’s Joint tomorrow night and find ourselves some Janes to spend our money on.”
Nico smiled but didn’t say anything.
Sonny considered telling Nico that he still had most of his share of the payroll heist stuffed in his mattress too, which was the truth. The payroll job had netted more than seven grand, a little less than twelve hundred apiece—enough to scare them into laying low for a few months. Meanwhile, what the hell was Sonny supposed to spend it on? He’d already bought himself a car and a bunch of swellclothes, and he figured he still had a few thousand in cash lying around. Not that he ever counted it. Looking at the money gave him no pleasure. He stuffed it in his mattress and when he needed dough he took some out. With a big job like the payroll heist, he’d been dizzy for weeks with the planning, and the night of the job was
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