Sleepers

Carol let loose her frustration with city bureaucracy and the battles she lost each day.

John and Tommy talked about their lives of crime. They knew it was a fast lane that could only end with a bullet or iron bars. But it was the only way they knew to feel control, to push away the demons that gnawed at them during their rare sober moments.

Michael was at peace with his decision and curious about where it would take him. He had saved enough money to live for a year without working and had already invested in a one-way ticket on a plane leaving for London the following weekend. He had made no plans beyond that.

I half joked that my career choices were narrowed down to two. I was either going to be a reporter or an usher at one of the theaters whose ru

Eventually, the beer, wine and liquor took hold and we switched gears, laughing over simpler times, in the years before Wilkinson starved us of laughter. Over and over we recalled our many pranks, relishing the freedom and foolishness a Hell's Kitchen childhood allowed.

'You guys remember when you formed that stupid singing group?' Carol asked, pouring water into a glass.

'The Four Gladiators,' Michael said, smiling. 'Best quartet to ever hold a Hell's Kitchen corner.'

'Remember what Shakes wanted to call the group?' Joh

'The Count and His Cristos,' Tommy said. 'Man, that woulda sent albums flyin' outta the stores.'

'We weren't that bad,' I said. 'Some people wanted to hear us sing.'

'That group from the deaf school don't count,' John said.

'Why not?' I said. 'They applauded.'

'You guys were awful,' Carol said, laughing. 'Kids cried when they heard you sing.'

'They were sad songs,' I said.

'Fat Mancho was go

'What happened to that plan?' Carol asked.

'They heard us sing,' I said.

'Fat Mancho said he'd eat flesh before he put his name next to ours,' John said.

'What'd King Be

'He didn't say anything,' I said. 'He walked back into his club and closed the door.'

'We stole from everybody we liked,' Tommy said, finishing a mug of beer.

'So what's changed?' Carol asked, watching me pour her a fresh glass of wine.

'We had enough cuts to make an album,' I said. 'We ripped off Frankie Valli, Dion, Bobby Darin.'

'The cream,' Carol said.

'Only with us it was sour cream,' Tommy said.

'Let's do a song from our album,' Michael said, leaning across the table, smiling. 'For Carol.'

'Don't you guys have to go out and shoot somebody?' Carol said, hiding her face in her hands.

'We always got time for a song,' John said, standing and leaning against the wall.

'You pick it, Mikey,' Tommy said, standing next to Joh

'Let's do "Walk Like a Man",' Michael said. 'Shakes does a good Valli on that one.'

'Back us up,' I said to Carol, handing her two soup spoons. 'Hit these against some glasses when I point.'

'Not too loud,' Carol said, looking through the doorway behind her. 'Some people might be eating.'

'We sing better in men's rooms,' Tommy said. 'The walls there hold the sound.'

'There's one downstairs,' Carol said. 'I'll wait here.'

'This is like The Beatles getting together again,' I said.

Carol just snorted.

The four of us huddled in a corner of the room, me in front. Michael, Tommy and John each kept one hand on my shoulder, snapping their fingers to an imaginary beat.

Carol sat back in her chair, looked at the four of us, and smiled.

She clapped her hands as we started to sing.

' Walk like a man, fast as you can, walk like a man my son? We began in our best Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons voices. 'Go tell the world, forget about the girl and walk like a man, my son.'

Then we all cupped a hand to an ear, fingers still snapping, and hit all the right acapella notes.

Carol stood on her chair and slapped the spoons against the side of her leg, mixing in with the beat.

Three waiters stood in the doorway and joined in.

Two diners standing behind them whistled their approval.

The bartender drummed his hands against the counter and handed out free drinks to all.

An elderly couple, in for a late-night espresso, wrapped their arms around each other and danced.

It was our special night and we held it for as long as we could. It was something that belonged to us. A night that would be added to our long list of memories.

It was our happy ending.

And it was the last time we would ever be together again.

TWENTY-TWO

Early on the morning of March 16, 1984, John Reilly's bloated body was found face up in the hallway of a tenement on West 46th Street. His right hand held the neck of the bottle of lethal boiler room gin that killed him. He had six dollars in the front pocket of his black leather coat and a ten-dollar bill in the flap of his hunter's shirt. A.44 caliber bulldog nestled at the base of his spine and a stiletto switchblade was jammed inside his jeans.

At the time of his death, he was a suspect in five unsolved homicides.

He was two weeks past his thirty-second birthday.

Thomas 'Butter' Marcano died on July 26, 1985. His body was found in an empty cabin in upstate New York, five bullets shot into his head at close range. The body lay undiscovered for more than a week, the heat of summer and the gnashing of animals rushing its decay. There was little in the cabin beyond a dozen empty beer cans, two bottles of Dewar's and three fully loaded semi-automatics. There was a crucifix and a picture of St. Jude in the pocket of Butter's crewneck shirt. Thomas Marcano was thirty-three years old.

Michael Sullivan lives in a small town in the English countryside, where he works part-time as a carpenter. On his infrequent visits to New York he has never returned to Hell's Kitchen. He no longer practices law and has never married. He lives quietly and alone. He is forty-four years old.

Carol Martinez still works for a social service agency and still lives in Hell's Kitchen. She too has never married, but is a single mother supporting a growing twelve-year-old son. The boy, John Thomas Michael Martinez, loves to read and is called Shakes by his mother.

Neighbors all say he has his mother's smile and her dark olive eyes.

The rest of his features come from his rather, John Reilly.

Carol Martinez is forty-three years old

.

Father Robert Carillo is the Monsignor of an upstate New York parish where he still plays basketball every day. He keeps in touch with all his boys and is always there when needed.

He prays every day for the boys he lost.

Father Bobby is sixty years old.

King Be

Fat Mancho suffered a mild stroke in the middle of August, 1992. It left his right hand numb and blinded him in his right eye. He passed the bodega on to a nephew, but still takes half the profits. He divides his time between his three Hell's Kitchen apartments and a new house in Queens.

He still bets on stickball games.