The Last Collection Read online

  The Last Collection

  Seymour Blicker

  Dedication

  For my brother

  Stanley

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  An Excerpt from Shmucks

  About the Author

  Also by Seymour Blicker

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Morrie Hankleman sipped at his drink and gazed slowly around the large boardroom in the offices of Shenkler and Bregman. On a long credenza he observed several dozen potted plants and various assorted floral arrangements each with its own card congratulating Marty Shenkler and Earl Bregman on the opening of their new office in Place Centrale.

  He spotted his own plant dwarfed by a gigantic cactus next to it and regretted that he had not gotten something larger.

  He sipped at his drink and let his eyes drift from person to person, trying to guess their line of work.

  A large part of Shenkler and Bregman’s practice was devoted to criminal law and so Morrie Hankleman knew that of the hundred-odd people who were in the room, more than a few had some links with the Montreal underworld.

  He spotted a large, heavy-set man dressed in a flashy checkered suit which seemed several sizes too large for him. To Hankleman he definitely looked like a criminal. He had the face of a killer, Hankleman thought. Ruthless, cruel.

  A few minutes later the man was introduced to him, and he recognized the name as that of the leading real estate lawyer in the country.

  He made a few more attempts at categorization, but was proved to be wrong on every count.

  The man he thought to be a judge turned out to be a disbarred lawyer, the woman he thought to be a high-priced prostitute was in fact a movie producer, the young man with the long hair whom he judged to be a drug pusher was Marty Shenkler’s eldest son.

  Morrie Hankleman walked over to the credenza. Humming nervously to himself he deftly removed the name card from his flowers and slipped it onto the large cactus. Then he removed the original card from the cactus, glanced at the name and shoved it in his pocket.

  He laughed to himself. Lawrence Wellish. He could picture the scene between Shenkler and Bregman tomorrow. How come Wellish didn’t send a plant? I don’t know. We’ll have to raise our fee for him. Morrie Hankleman laughed to himself again, but he wasn’t happy.

  He wasn’t even having a good time. It was actually a nice party. A lot of people; a lot of action; the kind of party where a person could make some good contacts. He should have been really enjoying himself, but he wasn’t and he knew he wouldn’t be able to until he had done something about Artie Kerner. For the last month he’d been unable to think of anything else but Artie Kerner, who had become a 24-hour-a-day obsession with him.

  Morrie Hankleman’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Earl Bregman’s voice. “You enjoying yourself, Morrie?” Bregman said, putting an arm around Morrie Hankleman’s shoulder.

  “Great party, Earl. Just wonderful. Great mix of people.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Everyone seems to be having a good time. I’m pleased. I’m very pleased with it.”

  “You should be, Earl.”

  Earl Bregman nodded appreciatively. “Did you try to identify any more people?” he asked with a devilish smile.

  “A few.”

  “Were you wrong or right?”

  Hankleman shrugged. “Umh . . . half and half.”

  “Looks are deceiving, eh, Morrie?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Look over there,” Bregman said, pointing towards a corner of the room.

  Hankleman turned to look at a group of five men who were standing around in a small circle.

  “You see those guys there?”

  “Yes, I see them,” Hankleman replied.

  “What line of work do you think they’re in?” Bregman asked, smiling wryly.

  Hankleman studied the men in the group for a moment.

  “They’re lawyers.”

  Bregman shook his head with self-satisfied authority. “No. Uh, uh. That’s the boys,” he said, proudly.

  Hankleman looked again. All of the five men appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties. All were dressed in well-fitting and obviously expensively tailored suits. Four were heavy set, paunchy men. One was slight in build and seemed no more than about five-foot-seven or -eight. The bigger men were crowded around him, listening as he spoke.

  “If you had to choose one to lay on some muscle, which one would you pick?”

  Without hesitation, Hankleman pointed at the largest of the five men. “The big guy with the pushed-in face.”

  Bregman laughed knowingly. “C’mon over. I’ll introduce you.”

  They walked over towards the group. As they approached, Hankleman could see that the slight man was still talking and everyone was listening intently. Bregman didn’t intrude on the group. He nudged Hankleman. “Listen to this guy,” he whispered.

  Hankleman nodded and pressed slightly forward.

  “Anyway, so Moishie here lends em de dough. . . . What was it, eight big ones, Moishie?” the thin man asked, looking at the large man with the pushed-in face.

  “Yeah,” the big man replied. “Eight hundred.”

  “Right,” the thin man continued, “so he gives em de eight hunnert an he waits. De guy is supposed to repay in turdy days. I mean it was like peanuts, right? Buptkas.”

  Everyone nodded.

  Hankleman was now interested. He pushed up against the thin man who gave him a quick, hard look and continued talking.

  “Anyway, a munt goes by . . . nutting happens. Moishie calls em. ‘Tomorrow,’ de guy says. Tomorrow comes . . . no dough. Moishie sends em out a letter from de office, right?”

  Everyone nodded, Hankleman included.

  “Again nutting. . . . Moishie calls em an tells em in plain talk to come up wid de scratch fast. De guy says, ‘gimme an extension till nex munt.’ Moishie’s a nice guy, right?”

  Everyone nodded. Hankleman followed suit.

  “So Moishie says, ‘Okay, ya got till de end of nex munt.’ De end of de nex
munt comes, Moishie don hear from dis chaim putz. . . . Moishie gives em a call. ‘I ain’t got de dough,’ de mooch says to Moishie, ‘gimme till tomorrow.’ Moishie gives em till tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, no mooch, no money. Moishie gives em a call. ‘Where’s de dough?’ Moishie asks. ‘I ain’t got it,’ de guy tells Moishie, ‘and furdermore,’ he says, ‘you ain’t getting it. You want it, sue me!’ Dats what he says, jus ly dat.”

  A series of deprecations were now loosed by the men listening.

  “What did you do, Moishie? What did you do to the shmuck?”

  “Listen to the Hawk. The Hawk is telling the story,” Moishie said.

  “So what happened, Solly?”

  Hankleman pressed closer to the thin man, now tentatively identified as Solly the Hawk.

  “Anyway, so I’m at de shvitz when Moishie calls ta gimmie de word,” the Hawk continued in his laconic manner. “I got a liddle problem wid a mooch,’ he tells me. ‘Don worry, Moishie, jus leave it wid me, I’ll handle it.’ Moishie gives me de address of de mooch. I ged dressed an I go up ta see em. He’s a big zhlob. Like even bigger den Issie Shissel.” The Hawk raised his hand a good foot over his own head and then spread both his hands to show the breadth of the man. “An wide ly dis. . . . He’s dere wid some breezod; a real meece bear dat looks like he jus lugged her from de lower main street. Someting dat you wouldn’t fuck even wid a flag over her face.”

  Everyone laughed appreciatively at the Hawk’s vivid description.

  “Like wid no teet so she’d be perfect for a blow job.”

  Again everyone laughed.

  “So go on, Solly,” someone urged.

  Solly the Hawk continued in his slow, easy-going manner.

  “So anyway I tell him who I am, why I’m dere, an I tell him dat like Moishie needs de dough and he wants it right away. Of course, I tell him in a nice way because I don wanna offend like his magismo, you know his manliness, especially in front of his ugly breezod. He looks me up an down like he’s going to measure me for a suit, an me, like I know what he’s tinking, because you know, I been trew dis many times before already. So he’s tinking, ‘Dis liddle jerk wants money? I’ll trow em out on his head.’ Finally, after he gives me de once over, he says wid like a smirk on his face, ‘I can’t pay. I ain’t got de dough,’ he says, ‘and I’m not paying!’ Me, like I’m ready to try an reason wid de mooch, but before I can open my mout, he says, ‘An you can tell dat Jew dat he ain’t never gonna get paid.’”

  The Hawk paused as his audience reacted with a volley of curses.

  “Dat burns me up for tree reasons. Number one because he’s insulting Moishie in front of me; number two because he’s like trying to make points on me like as if he don’t know I’m a Heber too—as if anybody couldn’t tell from one look at my face; and number tree because he’s trying to look like a hero in front of his ugly broad at de expense of me, especially after I was careful not to offend his magismo in front of de breezod. Anyway, so I figger it’s enough. I’m not going to waste my time putzing around trying to reason wid dis mooch. So I tell em, ‘Look, mooch, whadda ya jerking me off here? Tomorrow I’m coming back. Eidder you have Moishie’s dough or I break boat yer arms an put you in de hospital for a couple of munts.’ De broad looks at me like she’s gonna drop a shit hemorrhage. De mooch sits dere like he don believe what he jus heard. I walk out. A minute later, I’m on de street walking up to my Lac which is parked near de corner, when like I suddenly hear a noise behine me. So I turn around an I see de mooch is running for me like he wants to cut my nuts off. He rushes up to me and I can see dat he’s out for blood. What do I know? I don’t know from nutting. Right away I give em a shot in de batesem. He goes down. I give em anudder shee-zot; dis time in de hee-zaid. It’s good because I’m wearing my heavy shoes. Right away he starts ta bleed, but he’s, you know, like rolling to get away. So I give him anudder shot in the kishkas. De mooch makes like an ‘oofhh!,’ you know like a big balloon wid all de air coming out. Den fer good luck I lay a few more inta him; like one in de balls, anudder one in de haid, an so on and so fort. Next ting I know, somebody grabs me from behine, like around de neck.”

  Hankleman watched intently as the slight, hawk-faced man demonstrated how he had been grabbed.

  “What do I know. . . . If someone grabs me from behine, I hit, right?”

  There was a chorus of affirmation and a series of nods.

  “So I turn fast, an I hit. I give em like what my mudder used to call a ‘frosk in pisk.’”

  Everyone laughed appreciatively.

  “A zetz wid de back of my hand . . . he goes down fast like a skittle and twice as stiff.”

  Solly the Hawk paused and looked around slowly.

  “So go on, Solly,” someone said. “What happened?”

  Solly the Hawk raised a hand as though simultaneously demanding patience and promising satisfaction. He took a drag on his cigarette and slowly exhaled. Hankleman watched the smoke drift away.

  “So it was a fuzzer,” Solly said nonchalantly.

  “A cop?”

  “Fuck me!”

  “Oh shit, no.”

  “Tabernac!”

  “Yeah,” Solly said. “I laid him out flat on his kisser. He was out like a light. Before I know it, his partner comes up to me like wid his piece out. He tells me to get against de car. He’s nervous so he’s like talking loud. . . . You know me, I don like loud talk, so I say, ‘Ask me nicely, officer.’ He says, ‘Please get against de car.’ He says, ‘What happened?’ I say, ‘Dis mooch assaulted me.’ De mooch meanwhile is still yelling from de shots I gave em, an de udder fuzzer is like trying ta pick himself up from de street but everytime he tries ta stand up, he falls down. ‘I dunno from nutting,’ I say. ‘I was just pertecting myself from dis mooch.’ Meanwhile, de udder fuzzer gets up, walking like funny, like he’s drunk.”

  Solly stopped, waiting for the laughter to subside.

  “He comes over to me like he wants to hit. I say, ‘I’m sorry, officer, I tot it was a friend of de mooch what jumped on me.’ He’s a sensible kid, de fuzzer, so he don’t do nutting, but dey tell me dey gotta take me down to de station. ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘but de mooch gotta come too.’ Dey agree. Meanwhile de mooch gets up an tries to walk away, but de fuzzers grab em. Dey tell em he’s gotta come down to de station. He looks at me an he starts to yell, ‘I ain’t going wid him. He’s crazy. He’s gonna kill me!’ He’s yelling. He’s like afraid to get inta de fuzzers’ car wid me. Finally dey tell em dat he can sit in de back wid one fuzzer an I’ll sit in de front wid de udder fuzzer. Finally he agrees. So dey take me to de station wid de mooch.

  “We get to de station an dey take me alone to see de Chief, who by de way knows me by name. But he pretends like he don know me from a hole in de head. He says, ‘What’s your name?’ I say, ‘Gimmie a cigarette.’ He says, ‘What’s your name, estsi?’ I say, ‘Gimmie a cigarette, tabernac.’”

  Hankleman began to laugh with all the others.

  “Finally he gives me de cigarette an den I say my name. Den he says, ‘Where d’you live?’ I say, ‘Gimmie a light.’ He says, ‘Where d’you live, estsi?’ I say, ‘Gimmie a light, tabernac.’ He gives me a light an I tell em where I live. Den he says, ‘What happened?’ I don say nutting. . . . I just cut de cheese and let go wid a real breezer. Loud like.”

  The group was now in hysterics and Hankleman was laughing as heartily as everyone. Perhaps even harder for he realized that he might have found a solution to his problem with Artie Kerner.

  “De chief pretends like nutting happened, like he ain’t got ears or a nose. . . . He says, ‘What happened?’ I say, ‘I jus farted.’ He says, ‘I mean before, not now.’ I don say nutting. I jus let anudder one go right away.”

  The men were still convulsed with laughter. Solly the Hawk waited calmly for it to die down.

  “Anyway, finally he stops asking questions an den I explain him how de mooch tried to jump on me and so on an so fort. Anyway, to make a long stor
y short, de fuzzers lemme go an de nex day de mooch shows up at Moishie’s office wid de money.”

  “Beautiful, Solly,” one of the men offered.

  “Dat was de only trouble dat I bin in wid de cops in over ten years’ time,” Solly the Hawk said.

  There was a round of compliments from the listeners and Hankleman couldn’t resist offering his own. It was obvious that everyone liked and respected Solly the Hawk.

  Bregman grabbed Hankleman by the arm and pushed him forward. “Solly, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Bregman said.

  Solly the Hawk turned. ‘Sure ting, Earl,” he said smiling.

  “Solly Weisskopf, this is Morrie Hankleman.” Hankleman extended his hand.

  The Hawk shook it gently. Hankleman had expected a bone-crushing grip and was surprised by the gentle, unaggressive shake. “Pleased to meet you,” Solly the Hawk said, staring directly into Hankleman’s eyes.

  “Same here,” said Hankleman, returning the gaze. “I enjoyed your story. It’s a classic.”

  Solly the Hawk nodded politely.

  Hankleman was thinking of something else to say when the big man called Moishe pulled Solly away to the side. Solly excused himself and walked away. Bregman pulled Hankleman by the sleeve. “That guy is the toughest human being in the city of Montreal. He’s almost fifty now, but he could tear this room apart with everyone in it.”

  Hankleman shook his head. “It’s amazing. He doesn’t look it.”

  Bregman laughed and nodded knowingly.

  “That’s a mistake a lot of people made,” Bregman said. “He’s an incredible guy. Him and Big Moishe Mandelberg have been partners for over twenty years. They’re almost like brothers.”

  “They’re shylocks?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. The Hawk does the collecting. It’s like an ego thing or something with him. He likes to collect. The fact is he’s got a better mind than almost anyone in this room and they all know it. Aside from collecting, he thinks up ideas. Cons. You know?”

  Hankleman nodded.

  “I could never figure the guy out. Basically he wouldn’t hurt a fly and he’s probably the least violent person I know, but he always collects . . . one way or the other.”

  Hankleman nodded.

  “He does free-lance work too,” Bregman continued. “Or at least he used to up until about a year ago.”