The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight: A Novel by Jimmy Breslin

Author:Jimmy Breslin [Breslin, Jimmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453245545
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-02-13T11:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

JOEY MIRANDA, A GOOD car thief, and his best friend, Julie DiBiasi, who does all sorts of evil things from his base as a gas-station attendant, were standing together and remembering certain things. This was a herculean thing for them to be doing. Joey Miranda had an IQ of 67 in grammar school and since has retrogressed to the point where he forgets his home phone number. And Julie DiBiasi always sneers at people and says, “At least I know I’m a dope.”

With their heads together, the brain worms pulsed with great information. The much-hated Water Buffalo, Baccala’s chief aide, always parks his car at night in the same spot on Bushwick Avenue. The spot is always open for Water Buffalo’s car because there is a fire hydrant there. The cops put a $25 ticket on the car each night. The Water Buffalo uses the tickets to pick his teeth. When he parks the car at night, the Water Buffalo is well covered by another car, which pulls alongside him, the people in the back seat holding machine guns at the ready. The Water Buffalo lives in a two-family house around the corner from the fire hydrant. When he gets to his house, the cover car leaves him, and his wife, Mrs. Water Buffalo, takes up the coverage. She peers out the door with a shotgun.

In the morning the Water Buffalo has no coverage. However, he walks on the street very close to people. He usually picks out a lady wheeling a baby carriage and he walks alongside her. If he sees any suspicious car, he bends down and kisses the baby. “Who could shoot if they thought they might hit a baby?” the Water Buffalo says. “The only person I know of who would do a thing like that is me.”

“What happens,” Julie DiBiasi wondered, “if he starts driving away in his car some morning and then the car stops on him and he has to get out and see what’s wrong?”

Joey Miranda thought about this. “So many things could happen to you when the car stops and you have to get out and look at what made the car stop,” he said.

“He could get his throat strangled,” Julie DiBiasi said.

“No strangle!” Big Mama said. “It takes too long. Everybody walks by and see what you do. Just shoot-a him.”

“The Water Buffalo gets hit right in the head,” Kid Sally Palumbo announced.

Early the next morning Julie DiBiasi, working very carefully with a knife, started a slow leak around the valve of the Water Buffalo’s left rear tire. At 11:30 the Water Buffalo came out from behind a lady who had twins in a stroller and got into his car and drove it off and turned a corner and went down three blocks and turned another corner. He felt the car pulling on the turn and he slowed down and stopped at the curb of a street that had garages and a factory on it. The car following him was driven by the best driver on Marshall Street, Ezmo the Driver.

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