Sugar Pop Moon Read Online Free PDF

with another albino bootlegger who came down to Philly to catch up with him.
    I reach Market and see that Lubin’s Palace is showing Animal Crackers . I’m tempted to buy a ticket for the late show. I love the Marx Brothers and I’ve got some time to kill while I wait for Gazzara to track me down. But I keep walking because Santi’s back at the hotel, probably scared out of his wits that I’ve been shooting off my mouth and making things tougher for both of us. I don’t know where he comes up with this stuff.

    I’m about to enter the Excelsior when I hear a woman’s voice. “You’re cute,” she says.
    She’s standing at the corner and steps into the circle of light beaming down from the streetlamp. The “you’re cute” was directed at me, which is only one reason I know she’s a hooker. She’s a platinum blonde, like Jean Harlow in Hell’s Angels . I put her in her early thirties. She’s pretty, but she looks tired. Her skin is pale, even whiter than mine, but makeup is helping her out. She’s wearing loads of rouge and her lips are covered in ruby-colored lipstick. I can just imagine how I look, every exposed inch of skin as red as her lips, my entire face tenderized by the icy Philly air that I imagine she considers refreshing.
    If Pearl were waiting for me in New York I’d walk away. But I’m on my own and a hooker just might lead me to Gazzara. Besides, when you look like I do it feels good to hear you’re cute, even if you’re paying somebody to say it.
    â€œWhere’re you headed?” I ask her.
    A flowered red dress peeks out from her open black woolen coat. It hangs just below her knee and I can’t stop looking at her legs.
    â€œI know a cozy little cellar club, honey. You can buy me a drink, if you don’t mind breaking the law.”
    She should only know.
    â€œSounds good to me,” I say. Any place crooks, moonshiners, and gangsters socialize is the kind of joint Gazzara would be interested in. Going with a woman only makes it better.
    I think about running upstairs to tell Santi where I’m headed, but opportunity doesn’t wait for a loyal man.
    â€œLet’s go,” I say. I’m gazing at those gams again.
    She puts her arm around me, and for a brief second I feel like Gary Cooper. We walk along Twelfth Street, our breath turning to smoke in the December night. A bum asks me for a dime and I give him the three that I’ve got in my pocket.
    She tells me her name is Margaret and asks me mine.
    â€œJersey,” I say, even though I should be spreading the name Snowball around town. I just can’t bring myself to say the name that Jimmy gave me, not when I could give her the one I’d be using if I’d inherited my father’s rich, brown skin. For once somebody is calling me Jersey, and I’m enjoying it too much to stop her.
    â€œJersey,” she says out loud, making a show of listening to the name as it rolls off her tongue. “Cute name for a cute boy.”
    She leads me to an apartment house on Tenth Street. The building looks industrial. It’s four stories high, square, brick, and has arched windows. There’s an alley on the right side that separates it from a butcher shop. Margaret walks into it and pulls open a steel door next to a green dumpster that’s still buried under frost from last week’s blizzard.
    I follow her down a hallway to the back of the building. The place is clean and lit by a lone brass fixture that hangs overhead. It’s warm inside so I take off my fedora as she knocks on a metal door and then pulls it open.
    The joint is decorated like a typical underground cellar club: not much furniture and lots of bar. Here, the counter is opposite the entrance and four small booths line the left wall. There’s nobody in the place except for a bartender mixing drinks and two flappers seated on stools in front of him. The