Capo a Capo

by Lloyd B. Abrams

Steve Ratner’s attitude was kick-’em-in-the-balls first. He was small and wiry had a tough edge about him. Me? I’m six-four, 250 plus and I’m usually calm and easy-going. I’ve been told it’s a family trait.

Most everybody calls me Axe because my last name is Axelrod. But they’d never dare call him Rat – not to his face, anyway.

And we do make some pair.

Ratner works with his father, but more for his father. They call his father Big Al, though he’s only five feet five. What he lacks in height, he makes up for with toughness, cunning and grit, and a finely-honed ability to read people.

Big Al is mobbed up. Not major-mobbed up, Cosa Nostra-style, a made member of the families, but smaller time. Ever since the garment center shnooks moved out of state and out of the country and stopped approaching him for loans, he’s had to spread his money around to a wider range of businesspeople all over the city, usually to poor suckers trying to open a bodega in the barrio or a cut ’n’ curl in the hood, but also to doctors and dentists and lawyers and other degenerate gamblers who were way down on their luck.

Big Al didn’t want to make these guys miserable. All he wanted was to make a comfortable living. He referred to his customers as clients and considered his terms favorable, even generous, compared with other sharks who looked upon their patsies as shark bait and wanted to suck them dry. Big Al’s loan rate for his repeat customers was sometimes even more attractive than the banks and their usurious credit cards.

But Big Al insisted on receiving his payments on time, as agreed upon. Keeping a promise was important to him; he was old school like that. That’s were Ratner and I came in.

We used my beige and rust ’99 Camry – handed down to me by my parents – when we went out to collect for him, instead of Ratner’s lime green Camaro, which stood out like a sore thumb wherever we went. There had to be a gazillion Camrys out there just like mine. Big Al’s rule number one was to never draw attention to yourselves. “It’s really simple … you wanna blend in.”

His rule number two was to avoid violence at all costs, unless, of course, you absolutely couldn’t help it. Violence meant cops and cops meant exposure and questions and investigations and lawyers and that he didn’t want. And if something bad went down you’d have to answer to him.

“So what if they disrespect you,” Big Al’d always insist, “as long as they pay up.” Then he went on, “They’re already disrespecting themselves enough by having to come to me for money in the first place. Because it’s only money you can just walk away. And then there’s always tomorrow, and with the additional days and the compound interest they’ll be owing me even more.”

And he lowered his voice and he growled, “And they fuckin know it.”

Still, Ratner kept a Beretta Pico .38 in his pocket, just in case. And I always had a couple of baseball bats in my trunk, also just in case, along with several mitts and softballs in a gym bag. But I never appreciated Ratner’s carrying a pistol around because you never knew when he was going to lose his cool.

But one thing was for sure. I would never rat him out to his father. You could never predict how his old man or his young hot-head son might respond.

Even though I was pulling down damn good money for a kid a couple of years out of high school – a wad of cash, regularly – and I wasn’t squandering it at all, I still believed that there had to be something better than driving all around the city and out to the suburbs with Ratner to make the collections. Listening to his tough guy rap and watching his somewhat less-than-benevolent way he was handling people was getting old.

And I was still living with my parents, who continued to give me flak about staying out all night and getting up late, even though I paid my “rent” to them regularly. A couple of times, they less than politely suggested that maybe it was time for me to find a place and move out and make it on my own.

And more than once, my mother would start to noodja me. “Lenny, you’re a good son, a good boy. You made pretty good grades at Fort Hamilton. Why in God’s name do you have to work with that guy?”

My parents had to know what I was up to. After all, they’d seen Ratner and me hanging out together since fourth grade and since there was no secret about what business Ratner’s father was in, they could easily put two and two together.

“I’m trying to find myself, Ma, you know, to get an idea of what I’d like to do in life. Getting a job that pays well” – a real, job, I thought – “isn’t so easy with just a high school diploma.”

“So why don’t you try going to college. I know you. Once you put your mind to something …”

“Okay, Ma. Enough. I get the point.”

So I found myself enrolling in Kingsborough Community that fall and I started taking a couple of accounting and business classes along with some of the required ones. I was beginning to enjoy dealing with numbers and economics and how it all seemed to fit together – like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle – with clear answers and meanings and theories, unlike the poetry we had to read and react to and discuss in English 101.

More than that, it could’ve been the challenge that turned me on. Before, I never liked going to school because of the rules and lock-stepping in and out of forty-minute boring-as-hell classes and all the rest of the high school bullshit. There, I also didn’t have many friends, and didn’t hang out much, except with Ratner. But with him, the way he ran hot and cold, you never knew what was going on or what was going to happen next. Maybe that was his appeal; reading him right was a challenge. And we became close over all those years, almost like brothers.

My grades were pretty good that first semester at KCC, but not stellar, except for my business classes and math, which I aced. And I was still earning with Ratner when he needed the muscle.

And then Penny Iadeluca happened.

The first time she sashayed into my English 102 class, several minutes late, all eyes turned and gawked, including mine. Most of us were dressed like slobs – t-shirts and hoodies and jeans, and many of the girls wore stuff that looked like they just rolled out of bed. But not Penny. She had curly reddish-brown Italian-looking hair, just a bit of makeup but bright red lipstick, a black velvet choker, a white blouse, a short, black flared skirt, and red heels. Man, oh man. What a sight!

She slowly walked towards the back of the room, passed in front of my desk and sat down next to me, bringing along a sweet talcumy scent.

I wish I had Ratner’s tough guy swagger, his ability to talk up a girl. I was never as smooth as he seemed to be. But once she was settled, I turned to her and said, “You really are somethin else.”

I couldn’t believe anything that lucid had come out of my mouth. And instead of her giving me a look of disdain I almost expected, she smiled – beamed – at me. Yeah, at me.

But then she hand gestured towards the instructor, who was beginning to address the class, and she whispered that one word I’ll never forget: “Later.”

That afternoon, I walked her towards the parking lot. The first thing she said when she saw my car was, “Boy, that thing is really a piece of shit.” But she said it in such a way that I didn’t feel insulted, because it was. But with such a vile word coming out of such a beautiful mouth, I burst out laughing.

“Yeah, you’re right, Penny. But it’s a work vehicle, and Toyotas are like the Energizer bunny. They keep on going and going, you know … sorta like me.”

She slipped into my car and I drove out of the Sheepshead Bay campus and headed east towards Long Island on the Belt Parkway, just to get out of Brooklyn for a while. Thank goodness the car’s got a really good heater because it was February and it was freezing.

A few minutes later she said, “You said this was your work vehicle. What exactly is it that you do?”

“Well, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. My partner and I, we uh …”

“We what?”

“We visit clients, you know …” and my voice trailed off.

“Look, Axe … if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay, it’s all right. I’m not gonna push you.”

Penny was direct and fearless. And it seemed that, intuitively, she got who I was. And it was good, because I definitely got who she was.

And over the next weeks and months, we found ourselves falling deeply in love.

But Ratner was troubled by our relationship. The time I spent with him was already being limited by school and studying, and now, of course, by Penny. We still made some collections for Big Al, so I continued to have some good money coming in. But I knew our arrangement couldn’t last forever.

And then one day the next spring Ratner’s old man kicked the bucket. It was right out of the Godfather, except for the insecticide spraying-and-chasing scene. One moment he was in his backyard garden playing with Ratner’s nephew, Little Davie, and the next moment he was dead. The medical examiner called it a massive heart attack. Or maybe it might’ve been a pulmonary embolism. As if it mattered. The guy was gone. Despite his tough exterior, Ratner told me his father had been sick for some time. He had heart disease and he was diabetic. And that was that.

Ratner tried to oversee the family business, as he thought of it, but I knew he was way out of his league. But I’d never tell him that to his face. He had neither the business skills nor the ability to relate fairly to people that his father had. He tried raising the usual vig – the vigorish, or the interest rate on a loan – and he hired a goon – a known enforcer – to encourage prompt repayments, but he found that although he was getting his payments, the number of borrowers was slowly decreasing. His family business was slowly but inevitably drying up.

After getting my associate’s degree, with Penny and my parents sitting together in the audience on a muggy early June day, I planned to attend CUNY Baruch to work towards a bachelor’s in business administration. While I was talking marriage and kids and our future together and all the rest with Penny, the time I had available for Ratner was diminishing even further.

Sure, I had to set aside some time for Ratner because the money I was making with him was so good, too good – I always needed the cash – but the nagging feeling that I continued having was dragging me down. The years of loan-sharking and collecting and being part of that operation were getting to me, and I needed to move on. I’m pretty sure Ratner had a sense about how I felt. And of course, he resented it.

After almost two more years of this part-time relationship, the next time he came bitching to me, I finally told him that the reason his business was circling the drain was that he wasn’t thinking like a businessman. I told him the only way to make more money was to increase his customer base, which ran counter to his reputation on the street, which was why should we borrow from Ratner’s son if we can do better with some other shark? … even by maxing out credit cards and then declaring bankruptcy?

He turned to face me, always with that arrogance, that finger-on-the-trigger edge. And then he said, “So, Mr. Axelrod … Mr. High and Fuckin Mighty … What are you saying? … That I’m not good enough?”

“No, Ratner … that’s not what I’m saying. I’m good at some things, and you’re good at other things. Why do you think your father was so successful? Do you think he was really such a business genius?”

“What the fuck, Axe? Now you’re insulting my father?”

“No, Ratner, no. You’ve got it wrong. He was great, really. But it was us – us! – who did what was necessary, too. He set up a business model where he didn’t act or sound like a violent prick, but rather, a nice, easy-going guy with a set of unbreakable principles and the willingness to lend people money, and we played our roles great on our end.”

Ratner sat silently for a moment, then pulled out a Marlboro, lit it, inhaled, held it in, then slowly exhaled through the half-open car window.

He was taking it all in, thinking about things, mulling it all over. He nodded to himself, almost imperceptibly. He took another puff, let it out.”

Then, “Let’s say you’re right. What do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know, Ratner. It’s gotta be your decision. You’re the capo. It’s your business, man. You’ve gotta do what you think is right. No! What you know is right.”

“C’mon Axe. Give me a hand here. You know me better than anyone else.”

“All right … here’s my suggestion. Ask yourself … what do you think your father would do in this situation?”

He sat back, thumb-and-index-finger kneaded his forehead, inhaled, exhaled. Took another several puffs.

“Okay, Axe. How ’bout this. I’ll make you a deal. You take over the business end, and I’ll go back to collections. And then we’ll sit down and figure out the split.”

“Are you really saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yeah, Axe. You almost got the degree from what? Barook? And you certainly got the smarts. And like you said, ‘I’m good at some things, and you’re good at other things.’”

I was flabbergasted, even though on one level I sort of figured what might be coming. When I was actually offered the deal, I suddenly wanted out. I wanted to run, to escape, but on the other hand, this was a great opportunity to make a hell of a lot of money without a hell of a lot of risk – except for possible problems brought about by the illegality.

But it could work for me – for us – if and only if – and this was a very big if – the business was run correctly and if it was run under the radar. That’s what Big Al always taught us, and I had some doubts if Ratner could follow through on his end. But the fact that he made his offer showed that he might be mellowing and finally smartening up.

“So there it is, Axe. Are you in, or are you out?”

I took a deep breath, then said, “I’m thinking about it and I think I’m in. But you know I’ve gotta run the whole idea by Penny, because it’s also her future we’re talking about. I’ll have a sit down with her tonight, you know … capo a capo.”

“Yeah, she’s something else, all right,” he said. “She’s a real keeper.”

We laughed, man-hugged, and then we shook hands.

– This story, originally partially written in 2016, was resurrected from my “Works in Progress” folder

Session 1 / October 28, 2016 .. Rev 11 / June 12, 2020

Up to the beginning of the story

June 12, 2020 … Copyright © 2020, Lloyd B. Abrams