Didn't end like that, but Eddie Carmady's day began like most any other. Fight with the old man, the only bet how long it might take to ratchet up from words to blows, Eddie on the receiving end. First, the profanity-laced catalogue: 'No-good'. 'Layabout', 'Punk'. Next, the shopping-list of Eddie's deficiencies, many true enough. Then, maybe, fists and boots, Eddie weaving and ducking, trying to protect his mug.

Gotten worse this year. Ever since they fried Albert Fish, the Brooklyn Vampire, in Sing-Sing. Played and drank in the same pool halls and taverns. Equal mouthing-off about Bruno Hauptmann, recently burned for snatching and bumping the Lindbergh kid. Best buddies once, the old man swore. Even had their execution dates, January 16 and April 3, black-ringed on a stolen Anheuser-Busch calendar. Eddie didn't set much store by these claims. Anyway, he figured the pair had it coming. Real men don't do that sort of business to kids.

Dames were something else. That one time they had worked as a team. Not one of the traditional father-and-son things. Accidentally come home separately together, found their wife and mother paying the rent collector his monthly twenty bucks in kind on the sagging davenport. The guy also did strong-arm work for the owner, was strong enough to muscle his way out unharmed. Picked her up, hoisted her through its archway entrance across the dinette, dumped her over the ornamental balcony, only time it was ever used. All done without a word, unless you counted her screaming pants-wetting pleas. As a bonus, she landed on the iron-spiked railings below. Treat for the hard-eyed brats there day and night. And no call to split. Even if someone had felt anything good about her, they'd never have called the cops, themselves always slow to respond to Five Points, Manhattan, the neighbourhood Al Capone himself had declared "I shoulda never left" after being sent down.

As always, after stumbling out, Eddie's first aim was to clean himself up, no losing face with his pals. Liked to call them his gang, which would have made the Dead Rabbits and Roach Guards and other local big movers split their sides, had they given a thought. Manuel, conspicuous for nothing except his zoot suit; Earl, the coloured transplant from Lennox Avenue, big and loud; Hymie, the play-it-close-to-his-vest Yid. Regular little league of nations, inferiors grateful to be under his thumb. Like everybody near the bottom, Eddie needed his own ounce of power.

Lately, though, Eddie had been growing uneasy. Nothing he could lay a finger on. Just the occasional looks and mutterings between the three that gave him an edgy feeling of being cut out. Eddie squared his shoulders. The hell with them. Just feeling their oats, maybe listening to some of those street-corner red agitators. Be lost without him. Who was it organised the thefts and mug-rollings and other larcenies that kept them in smokes and liquor and dought to spend on gash?

At the usual spot, the intersection of Anthony and Orange, Five Points' asshole, they were doing what came naturally. Remarks the far side of suggestiveness to any skirt worth a leer, defensive huddles forcing other passers-by off the sidewalk, unconcerned by the beat cop making one of his rare scripted appearances, playing polite to those paying him off, politer to those who didnt need to.

As he got within smelling distance, Manuel suddenly gestured across the street. "What gives?" demanded Eddie, more to make his presence felt than a legit question.

"Get a load of that palone!"

"Where?"

"Take those shades off once in a while, you'd see something. Over by the newsstand. The red head."

Eyes swivelled after his finger. She was worth the effort. Mane of hair, tight blouse shouting attention to her pair of melons, pleated above-the-knee skirt giving away legs men would pay money to see across footlights.

"Is she stacked!"

"I could use her!"

"For sure must she be hot under the whiskers!"

Time for Eddie to re-assert his authority. "Enough with the Boswell Sisters act. Who's that nance she's talking to?"

"Some Park Avenue pansy by the cut of him."

"Got to hand it to the guy, though. Coming down here looking like that. He must be..."

"Yeah, well, whatever he must be, he needs to be told the facts of life." Eddie stepped into the street, the others hastily organising themselves behind him, feeling big as the traffic braked and swerved, their disciplined silence more forceful than the air-blueing chorus raised by the truckers and hacks.

Approaching their prey, Manuel slipped his hand into the section of his zoot housing the brass knuckledusters. Earl aped him, only play-acting, still nervous about the zip gun knocked out by his handyman brother, having seen what happens to a guy's hand when one goes wrong. Hymie, true to form, made no play, one reason why Eddie figured it'd be King Yid if they ever got up the nerve to move against him.

Eddie himself, a southpaw, slapped where they knew the knife was.

"What you gonna do with that? Carve your initials on his belly?"

"Not here, he's not. You ever truly used that chiv on anybody, Eddie?"

Could have been a dangerous question in other circumstances. "For me to know, you maybe to find out," said with a mildness he didn't feel.

Very different tone to the boy, all tweed and adam's apple-strangling college tie, despite the stinking heat, record highs the radio said, hot enough to fry an egg on the Triborough Bridge, how come Manuel wasn't melting in his zoot? "Amscray!"

"Are you speaking to me?" Eddie guessed he really did have spunk, unless he was expecting the Green Hornet to ride to the rescue.

"Ignore him, Herbie. Amscray yourself, and take these other creeps with you."

"Get her." Whipping round, the others still eyeballing the palone. "Get him. Now."

They grabbed the Herbie, frogmarched him down a convenient alley.

"If they lay a finger on him, I'll..."

Might have been interesting to let her finish the threat, but Eddie realised he wanted to make some time. 'Don't wet yourself, baby. It'll be peaches. They won't damage him. Just wave him goodbye."

"They better hadn't, or..." Backing away, the girl let fly a volley of abuse that would have boiled the fat off a longshoreman's neck before turning and dodging through the uncaring sidewalk crowds with a step Jesse Owens might have envied.

The others came slinking back. Eddie sensed they'd loused things up. "So, you put him in his place?"

"Wasn't what we figured. He turned out to have some of that ju-jitsu stuff. Squirmed himself away and showed us a clean pair of heels. We'll maybe catch up with thim again. What about the girl?"

"We'll maybe catch up with her again," Eddie echoed.

What passed for their lives fell back in the groove. They killed the day between the usual round of pool hall, greasy spoon, some light-fingered work in the five-and-dime, finally settling down in their favourite chop suey joint where they could push the waiters around, re-hash the Schmeling-Louis fight, go over The Phantom's latest comic strip capers, figure how to get through the evening.

"How about a ball game? The Yankees have one of these new night matches."

"Yankees, hell. Me, I'm a Giants man, how do you forget that?"

"And I'm from Brooklyn. Dodgers all the way!"

"Anyhow, now The Babe's gone, who've the Yankees got worth spit?"

"They say this Di Maggio is promising."

"Promising don't stack up against what Mel Ott's delivering."

Eddie stepped in. "Ixnay on the ball game. That doll's put me in the mood. I say we mosey over to West Forty-Sixth and check out the dance halls."

"What, you mean those fancy places llike the Orpheum? Include me out. You got to have a jacket and tie to get in. And those dime-a-dance dames are colder than a witch's teat."

"Not if you know how to handle them. It don't have to be the Orpheum. Wilson's ain't particular about how you look."

"But they got that Greek on the door. I've had a run-in with him. How can a Greek be called Wilson, Goddammit?"

Eddie tinkered with his scheme. "Okay, okay, no need to sweat in your shorts. Forget West Forty-Sixth. We can stop down here. They got taxi-dancers in Five Points now."

"Where? Not at Almack's, they don't. All Irish jigs and jungle music there, excuse my French, Earl."

"No, I'm thinking that spot on Bayard. Been there a couple of times, you remember? Well, I was by there last week and saw the sign."

"Yeah, and you remember whose runs it?"

Eddie stood up, no answer to this last line, he'd wing it when they got there.

Sullen faces, Manuel and Earl maybe on the edge, Hymie keeping his distance from both sides. Eddie steered them into a tavern, not one they'd used before, semi-gangster haunt, modelled after the old speak-easies like Jimmy Kelly's in The Village, somewhere they'd be ignored, useful if any trouble later brought the cops round asking.

Eddie softened them up, standing drinks from the fattest wad he'd ever pulled, not flashing it, liked to have, bad policy here plus considering where it came from, disappointed they weren't asking how come he was suddenly so flush, no chance to use his favourite "Got my chance and took it." line. When they'd reached the joking, back-slapping stage, Eddie called them to order for the short swagger to the dance hall, in gear to face the foe.

There were all sorts of things wrong with Frankie Tishomingo, many to do with his face. The rest of him was something else. King Kong in a green double-breasted suit. He locomoted across the foyer to block them. "Well, well. You boys not doing the Lindy Hop at the Roseland tonight?"

"Don't know what you mean, Mr Tishomingo," said in Eddie's best guileless tone.

"Sure, sure. And you don't know nothing about that stabbing they had last week."

"Nothing to do with us, Mr Tishomingo."

"How did I know you'd say that? Okay, you can come in. Quiet here tonight, I can keep dibs on you. But first sign of trouble, you hit the stones. Hard. I got some back-up beef in there, so don't go thinking it's four on one."

"We don't want no trouble, Mr Tishomingo."

The raddled blonde, her dancing days long behind, dished out their ticket rolls. "You back? That's all I need." They fetched up under the No Indecent Dancing sign, lit up, hardly had the first smoke drawn into their lungs when they clocked the patootie, now decked out in tailored red duveteen, dragging a hoof with Joe College.

"Holy Mother of God! It's her, the judy from the street!"

"it's him as well! He came back! The nerve of the guy!"

"You three buy yourselves some quicksteps. I don't plan on any big stink, but keep an eye out for Tishomingo all the same."

They moved off, ired at being sidelined, stink or no stink. Eddie watched as they window-shopped the meat market, shaking his head over Manuel's and Earl's choices, two obvious proppers. Hymie's looked okay. The girls tore the tickets into halves, one snatched away by the raddled blonde, the other going under the hems of their silk stockings, before taking the floor to shuffle to the graveyard sounds of a group that swung about as energetically as Rainey Bethea on his Owensboro rope.

Eddie strode across to the couple who were stepping it out in an otherwise empty corner of the floor as though they meant it. He tapped each of them on the shoulder, "Beat it" to him, "Look who it isn't" for her.

"I'll have Mr Tishomingo on to you."

"And at chucking-out time, you'll have me and my three torpedos on to you outside."

She glanced down at the pedometer coiled around her left ankle. "Better do as he says. This will cost me money if goldilocks over there thinks to check and sees I'm not working. Go down to Almack's, the music's way better there anyhow."

Herbie managed a defiant glare at Eddie. "All right, I'll go. Because of her, not you." He tried to sashay off, it didn't suit him, but Eddie refrained from any parting shots, concentrating on sign language to the others not to butt in.

The band was starting to murder their next number. Eddie grabbed the girl, pulled her close, began to orchestrate their rhythm, doping out the signals from her violet windows and crimsoned lips.

"You dance real well. Most guys use my feet as the floor."

"You could smile real well if you set your mind to it. It'd come better than all that sass you tossed at me in the street."

"Had my reputation to think of. A girl's got to show what's what if she wants to make it in this district."

"That Herbie ponce sure don't fit in around here. What gives with you and him? You go for those ju-jitsu holds or something?"

"Forget Herbie. He's a long-term project. My ticket to getting out of this dump, out of the whole twinkle-toes racket. You and me could be a moment to remember. I used to be shy about ordering hamburger after steak, but not any more. Let's get out of here. There's a back door next the Ruth, I'll use that. You go out the front, make sures Frankie sees you leave alone. I can't answer for what'd happen if he rumbled us. Same goes for that bottled blonde bitch, she couldn't get a man if she offered him dough. And have your pals stay on here. No offence, I don't want the whole pack on me."

Eddie hadn't followed so many orders from a frail since grade school. He signalled the others to keep shaking their trotters. Manuel and Earl looked as if they'd cough up way more than a dime to be quitting with him; like most always, he couldn't work out Hymie.

Frankie Tishomingo was in the foyer, putting the arm on some drunk. Eddie exited close enough by him to be seen. "Don't come back," was his reward. He didn't intend to. Once he'd given Velma (that much he'd found out) what for, that was that for this.

Eddie made his way cautiously round to the back of the dance hall where Velma had given him the plate number of the jalopy she'd be waiting by. The tingle of anticipation didn't make him let down his guard against whatever might be lurking in the shadows. Not a crotch-dampener, just that sense of watching peepers, part of life in Five Points. He slapped his pocket a couple of times, reassured by contact with his best friend the chiv.

Velma was already there . Still in the red duveteen. The blouse and skirt would have been easier to dismantle. At least she'd ditched the pedometer. She put her hand on the driver's door. "In here."

"And have friend Herbie rise out of the back with his war hero old man's pistol to my neck? You must be kidding."

"And you must have read too many of those dime novels."

"A dime dancer running down dime novels? That's rich. Never read a book in my life. Over there will do fine."

Eddie manoeuvered Velma up against the crumbling wall. He was just starting on her dress, she on his pants, wondering if he should maybe finish off the proceedings with two hands around her throat, any woman who'd do this with a guy like himself would be no loss, seen the money-glint in her eyes when giving her a quick look of his wad, figured she was one who kept her kisses in the ice-box, when a brain-jarring whack put him on the dirt, lights almost out.

Frankie Tishomingo stood over Eddie, aiming a powerful flashlight into his face. "Down to your real level now, punk," putting in an experienced boot for punctuation. "Be glad I don't want the sort of publicity the Roseland is getting, else you'd be raw meat. Anyway, I got other plans for you."

He turned away, Velma in tow. She said nothing to either of them. Right on cue, Eddie didn't think, Manuel, Earl, and Hymie were approaching. As they crossed, Frankie Tishomingo said something which doubled their pace.

"What the hell happened?"

"Somebody set somebody up, that's what."

"You all right?"

"Right enough to put Frankie Tishomngo where he belongs. I should have tumbled to it when I saw this heap. It ain't Velma's, belongs to him, I've seen him driving it around here, keeps his classy wheels for when he's out with the big boys."

"Maybe she has the use of it. Who cares? Listen, it's dead back in there. Be closed up soon and he'll be heading home or to one of his other places. We can duck down behind those piles of trash and jump him. Might be a regular Charles Atlas but he can no way take the four of us."

Taking back the lead, Eddie said, "Okay, but it's my first crack. Me and my friend can handle him," patting his pocket.

"What if she's with him?"

"Then you can all get your kicks with her, but leave me the finishings," remembering her crack about hamburger and steak.

Just enough time to make them wonder if they'd ever get the trash's stink out of their nostrils and clothes, Manuel fretting over his zoot, before Frankie Tishomingo lurched into view. Looked like he'd been on the bottle. No Velma. Eddie wasn't sure if that was good news or bad. For him or her. He tensed up. Instaed of reaching for the door, Frankie Tishomingo leaned himself back on the car, brought out a cigar, lit up. Looked more relaxed that Eddie had ever seen him. That was going to change.

Shaking out what was left of his muzziness, Eddie snuck up behind the other side of the auto, eased himself softly round it, had taken off his shoes, tightning his grip.

Frankie Tishomingo got in first. "Thought you'd be here." He didn't move to defend himself, just took down another dose of smoke from his stogie. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, Eddie gloated inside. He went straight at his target, Frankie Tishomingo's gut. In and out with the chiv, several encores, an upward drag to finish off. Frankie Tishomingo stood for it all, then crumpled, gave the straddling Eddie a look and a word, neither of which he understood, managed one gurgle, and the bucket was kicked.

Eddie turned to wave in his three shadows. It was the moment to send them down to hell with Frankie Tishomingo, no one left to squeal, get himself in with some real mobsters move up in the world. Manuel and Earl were already close, Hymie hanging back as though waiting for something else to be over before he picked sides.

"It's okay, it's done," fumbling at his flies for the crotch gun he'd never bragged to anyone about.

"So are you, Eddie." It was Manuel who spoke, but Earl who acted, at last finding the nerve to pull out his zip, point it with surprising calm and accuracy, must have been practising with a cap gun before a mirror, took Eddie's right kneecap, and was long gone with the other two when the cop car screamed in.

A stint in the prison hospital, had to get him fit for the big day, plenty of time to fill Eddie in between his being sent down and state-sponsored barbecueing. Courtesy of Hymie, no one else showed their faces, some having better excuses than others. "We'd been in the mood to change a while now. Weren't getting nowhere with you. Not that I was after taking over, and Earl or Manuel, can you imagine? Throwing in with the big boys, that's the only way for us. Be some changes with Frankie gone. Anyhow, that morning did it. I was for stopping by your place to flush you out. Saw what you'd done to your old man. Lucky for him I was there to get an ambulance pronto. Guess he'll outlast you. Told me you took his wad. You don't do that to family, Eddie. Leastways, guys like me don't, and Earl and Manuel go the same route."

His boyhood years reading the scrolls at temple had made Hymie an okay storyteller. "Seems our Herbie is Frankie's nephew. Only kin he's got left. Frankie put him in a smart school, bankrolled him through ivy league, wanted him set up to put the family on the map. Insurance for himself as well, calculated Herbie would see him right down the road. Put the word out that if anyone in the neighbourhood messed with Herbie, they'd have Frankie to answer to. His passport to Five Points. What Frankie couldn't far see was Herbie falling for Velma. To him, all taxi dancers are tramps. Correction, all dames are tramps. Guess Frankie bit into some sour apples early on.

When Herbie moaned to him about what gave between you on the street, Frankie had a glimmer. Just happenstance that brought us to his place that night. Still, life is happenstance, right? When you brushed Herbie off the floor, Velma got the signal to make up to you. He already had us on side, been promising us connections to the big time for a while if we helped him. Didn't see fit to mention he was helping us do the same. He followed you and Velma, Herbie was out there as well on sentry. Frankie spectated the first round, then sapped you, just enough to put you in the mood to finish him.

Before he closed down the place, he closed down Velma. Only way to be sure he'd save Herbie from her. Too bad about Velma. She was no good, but the deal was surely raw. Took her into that special back room of his with the soundproofing. Stuck his hand up her bare ass like a chicken's and re-arranged her innards. The way he told it, you believed it.

Frankie knew what he was walking into. The cancer'd been eating up his belly for months. Nothing the quacks could do. Apart from seeing Herbie right, wanted nothing more than his box. But he still had his religion, same as I do. Good Catholics figure they'll burn if they self-destruct. Needed somebody to send him on his way guilt-free. You taking the fall was a bonus. Herbie rang the cops, they glided in without the siren, waited until Herbie passed on our signal that Frankie was done for. They needed him taken off their hands, a grand jury's coming up, half the force was on his payroll, they were messing themselves he'd cop a deal and throw them to the wolves. That's where you came in again."

And that's where I go out, Eddie thought, while you stay on, rising through the ranks of whatever organisation you worm your way into, smart Jewboy that you are, while Earl and Manuel will at least be on regular pay as all-purpose gunsels. Not much joy in any of this for Eddie. Except that Velma and Herbie wouldn't be living happily ever after. Herbie had jumped under a subway train after learning what had happened to Velma. But his old man would be, that hurt twice over, not natural for the son to go first. Worst of all, Frankie Tishomingo was peacefully pushing up the daisies, thanks to him. It was no longer a mystery why the man whose guts he'd turned into hamburger should have said "Thanks." Eddie had always known life was six to four against, but what kind of deal was it that sent him to the chair for the only good deed he'd ever done?

The End