Free The Hoods by Harry Grey Page A

We're a mutual admiration society, hey, Max?”
    We both laughed.
    He opened the door of the Cadillac. I felt like a man of the world, stepping in and sitting next to him. He swung the car around dexterously and shot over the gravel driveway.
    “Where did you get the Caddy, Maxie?” I asked.
    “This is one of my funeral cars,” he said.
    He handed me a cigar in just as nonchalant a way. I bit the end off, spit it out the window and lit it. I puffed awhile; I looked at the label. It was a Corona Corona.
    “Did I write to you,” he asked, “my uncle kicked the bucket?”
    “Yeh,” I nodded. “What from? You didn't say.”
    Maxie spit out the window. “Cancer of the liver.”
    “Too bad, he was a nice old guy.”
    “Yep, he was a swell guy; he left me the business. I take over when I'm twenty-one.”
    “You're going to be a big shot with that business, hey, Max?”
    “Yep,” Maxie smiled at me. “We'll all be big shots. We're still partners, you, me, Cockeye and Pat.”
    I was thrilled. “You going to cut us in, Maxie?”
    “Yep.”
    I leaned back feeling secure and comfortable. My friend Maxie, I reflected, always was the generous one, an okay guy if there ever was one.
    On the drive to the city, Maxie gave me a complete resume of all that had happened on the East Side during my enforced vacation.
    “Yep, we're still on the union payroll. I been up to your house with your share every week. Everybody's okay. You know your kid brother is working on a newspaper? He's a reporter.”
    “Yeh,” I nodded.
    “Peggy turned professional, did you hear about that, Noodles?”
    “No.” I shook my head, “Professional what? Dancer?”
    For a minute it made me think of Dolores. I still had her in my mind.
    “Dancer?” Maxie laughed. “Yep, she dances in bed. She turned from an amateur to a professional. She charges now.”
    “How much?”
    “A buck a throw.”
    “She's worth it.”
    “Yep, she's pretty good.”
    “You remember we used to lay her for a charlotte russe?”
    We both laughed.
    “And you remember Whitey, the cop?” Maxie continued.
    “Do I remember? How could I forget?”
    Max continued, “Well, he's a sergeant now.”
    “Honesty pays off for Whitey,” I commented drily. We both laughed.
    “Yep, he's a pretty smart Irishman. He's on Peggy's payroll,” Max said.
    “I bet he takes it out in trade.”
    “I'll bet,” Maxie laughingly agreed.
    I was dying to ask him about Dolores. I wrote her every week, but she never answered me. Instead I said, “How's Patsy and Cockeye doing?”
    “Well, Cockeye took out his hack license and once in awhile he jockies one of his brother's cabs.”
    “Hooknose got cabs?”
    “Yep, he worked his way up to a four-cab fleet. Patsy hangs out with me; he helps around the parlor. And if we get a good steer, we step out.”
    “On a heist?”
    “Yep,” Maxie nodded. “It's got to be more than a couple of grand, or we don't bother. And since prohibition went into effect a few months ago, there's plenty of dough around. Once in awhile we get a contract from one of them bootleggers to lump somebody up.”
    “I hear there's dough in bootlegging.”
    “There must be; there're plenty of speakeasies opening around town.”
    “Speakeasies?”
    “Yep, that's what they call them: closed-door beer joints with peep holes on the doors.”
    “Oh.”
    We had reached the lower East Side. Maxie was driving the big car recklessly in and out of the heavy traffic. He almost grazed a fender off another car. Maxie leaned out of his window and yelled at the driver.
    “Hey, stupid, where did you learn how to drive? At a correspondence school?”
    The elderly well-dressed driver shouted back as he turned the corner, “You slum hoodlums act like you own the whole city.”
    Maxie chuckled as he pulled into the garage. “You know, Noodles, that ain't a bad idea.”
    “What?”
    “What that guy just said, the hoods from the soup schools taking over the city.”
    “The whole