Underworld

  She sent Mrs. Ketchel home and sat with Albert’s mother until it got dark. Then she went into the kitchen to do something about dinner. But first she turned on the lamp near the bed so Albert would see his mother when he came up the steps.

  The poolshooter was George Manza, George the Waiter, and he was playing alone at the back of the room. He was not a man who mixed with the regulars and he was a master shooter besides. It was rare that anyone came in who could play at this level.

  Nick stood near a table where a gin rummy game was going but he was watching George shoot pool. Bank the six, play beautiful position for the ace, make a massé shot that Nick could barely visualize even after he saw it.

  Once, nearly a year ago, George came up to Nick, unexpectedly, and asked him to go to the unemployment office with him. He needed to fill out some forms so he could collect for the next twenty weeks and he didn’t say it outright but Nick understood that he required help reading the forms and filling in the information. Nick also understood that an older man might not want to ask someone his own age for this kind of help. They went to the office and filled out the forms and George didn’t feel embarrassed and ever since that day he always had a word for Nick, some advice to give, regards to your mother, stay in school.

  Somebody says, “What’s this, fuck-your-buddy week?”

  Mike the Book stood behind the counter, under the TV set, a short square-jawed man who was always about a day late shaving. The poolroom was a sideline to Mike’s bookmaking operation. Sometimes he let Nick and his buddies shoot pool with the light off over the table, which meant they didn’t have to pay.

  He caught Nick’s eye and tilted his head and when Nick walked over he said something.

  “What?”

  “It’s called grand theft. You know this phrase?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mike leaned across the counter, speaking quietly.

  “You think word don’t get around? What’s the matter with you? I thought you were smart. That chooch over there, JuJu, I don’t expect better. You, I’m surprised.”

  “Mike, the car is a throwaway. I honestly don’t think the guy ever meant to drive it anymore. He left the keys in the car so somebody could take it. It’s the kind of car you take it out in the woods and shoot it. So we saved him the aggravation.”

  “You’re gonna think it’s funny when you’re booked at the precinct. I picture your mother, Nicky.”

  The dog came over and sniffed at Nick’s shoes, a mutt, a stray that Mike the Book took in one day. Somebody named it Mike the Dog.

  “All right. I’ll see what we’re gonna do.”

  “Get rid of it. That’s what you’re gonna do.”

  “I won’t need it anymore. I’m getting a job. I can take taxis whenever I want.”

  “Wise guy. You’re like your father.”

  Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this.

  “Your father liked to put himself in a corner and then edge himself out. He was always at the edge. Not that I knew him that well. We were in the same business but he was downtown and I was over here and he always kept a distance, anyway, your old man. Like he’s somewhere else even when he’s standing next to you.”

  “I’ll do something.”

  “See what you’re gonna do.”

  “I’m this close to getting a job. My life of crime is over, Mike.” They were shooting pool at two other tables now and when JuJu started racking balls at a third table Nick went over to shoot a game.

  He said, “Mike knows.”

  “What? He knows?”

  “I think everybody knows. How could they not know? The fucking dog knows.”

  “Then we’re shit out of luck,” JuJu said. “We put the key back in the ignition and just walk away.”

  “Good idea. Give me the key. I’ll do it,” Nick said.

  In the middle of the game he went to the phone on the far wall and called Loretta. George the Waiter saw him and raised his stick and Nick tipped an imaginary hat.

  “Loretta. What are you doing?”

  “Trying on those shoes I bought.”

  “Those shoes.”

  “I bought. You were with me.”

  “That was three days ago.”

  “So I’m still trying them on. So what?”

  “You’re alone?”

  “My mother’s here.”

  “You’re not alone?”

  “My mother’s here.”

  “She’s there now?”

  “She lives here. It’s her house. She has a right.”

  “I just thought if you were alone.”

  “My mother’s here.”

  “I could come over.”

  “She’s still here. She was here when you first asked and she’s still here.”

  “So meet me at the car. I’m parked across from Mike’s.”

  “Meet you at the car? Now you want me to meet you?”

  “We’ll drive somewhere.”

  “What am I supposed to say? Ma, I’m going out for a bottle of milk.”

  “Tomorrow’s off. You don’t have to get up for school.”

  “I have to get up for the turkey. We have twenty-two people. I’m up at six-thirty. Maybe when they all leave. Tomorrow night.”

  “Wear your shoes,” he said.

  He went over and watched George run the table. George had a floury face and hollow eyes and he talked to Nick with his nose compassed on the cue ball.

  “What’s this about you’re not going to school no more?”

  “No more, no more. Waste of time, don’t you think?”

  “Stay in school.”

  “Stay in school. Okay, George.”

  “You’re working?”

  “I got something I’ll be doing part-time.”

  “What?”

  “In an ice-cream freezer. Packing and unpacking.”

  “This is union?”

  “What union? The union wants ice-cream packers to do twenty minutes in the freezer, twenty minutes out. So they don’t freeze their peckers off. So the company’s hiring fools like me.”

  George slammed in the four ball with a flourish, nearly driving the stick up into the ceiling. It was interesting to see a clammed-up guy like George become a showman at the table.

  “You want some money in your pocket.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re not thinking about the right or wrong of the situation or your own danger to your health.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But they’re gonna pay you shit-ass wages. What are they paying you?”

  “Shit-ass wages.”

  “And they’re gonna keep you in the freezer for unsafe periods. Let me talk to a guy I know. Maybe I can get you something better. You’ll work like a beast of burden but at least you don’t wear no mittens.”

  Vito Bats had taken Nick’s place at the other table. Nick went over and watched, smoking, pointing out errors in their game.

  “Everybody knows,” he said.

  “We just have to leave it,” Vito said. “We don’t go near it anymore. I’ll take my uncle’s plates off, late tonight. They’ll see a car with no plates, they’ll tow it away. Goodbye, good riddance.”

  “You’ll never get laid, Vito. Both of you guys. That car is your only hope.”

  “I rather die a saint in my coffin than go to jail with ten thousand tizzoons.”

  “Give me the keys. I told JuJu. Give me the keys, I take care of everything.”

  “Give me my uncle Tommy’s plates, maybe I’ll give you the keys.”

  “Take the fucking plates. I’m taking the keys.”

  “You’re taking u’gazz’. That’s what you’re taking.”

  “Hard-on. Give me the keys.”

  “U’gazz’. All right?”

  “See that stick? The stick you’re holding. The stick you’re holding.”

  “Alls I’m saying, Nicky.”

  “Cuntlap. Give me the keys.”

  He
was talking to Vito even though he knew JuJu had the keys. He didn’t want to put JuJu in a position where he would lose pride or standing. But Vito with those thick glasses and big lips, fish lips—he had those wet lips he was always licking.

  “I don’t get the keys, you know what happens to that stick? The stick you’re holding. I give you one guess where it goes.”

  George the Waiter paid and left and soon the cardplayers came in, blinking in the smoke, the high-stakes poker players, they played till four, five in the morning, chips massed in the pot and a guy named Walls sitting by the door.

  Walls carried a .38, this was the story, somewhere on his hip.

  Four of the players were here and they stood at the counter talking to Mike and after a while two more players arrived and the lights over the pool tables began to go off and the poolshooters drifted out.

  Somebody croons in a clear tenor, “Bluer than velvet was the night.”

  Walls was sitting by the door, different from the others, a narrow face and long jaw, hair cut short, and Nick watched him from the counter and Walls caught the look and raised his eyebrows slightly. In other words there’s something you want to say to me?

  Nick smiled and shrugged, taking his change.

  “Be good,” Mike said.

  Vito borrowed a small folding knife off Mike’s key chain and the three thieves went down to effectuate removal of the plates.

  Mike the Dog went with them.

  Nick watched them work and pointed out flaws in their method. He pissed against the hospital wall, drawing the dog’s attention, and then went back to the car, where they were still disengaging the plates, and he commented freely.

  Vito said, “Hey. Don’t be such a scucciament’. All right?”

  “Give me the keys,” Nick said.

  “We’re not finished.”

  “You’ll never be finished. Because you’re a scumbag in the shape of a human. You’re a scumbag that’s gonna marry a dooshbag when you’re twenty-one, Vito. God bless you. I’m serious. You and your lovely children.”

  When they got the plates off, JuJu handed the keys to Nicky. It was his car now, a green heap, naked of documentation, gas tank close to empty.

  Nick said he’d take the dog back up to Mike’s and the two guys went their separate ways and Nick crossed the street with the dog alongside.

  He started up the stairs talking to the dog and when he was three-quarters of the way up the tall door creaked open and the man named Walls stood there with his hand in his jacket.

  Nick smiled at him.

  “Walking the dog,” he said.

  Walls stepped back so the dog could get in. Then he stood in the opening again.

  “I thought that was a thing you do with a yo-yo.”

  “That’s right,” Nick said. “Walking the dog. But I think my yo-yo days are over.”

  Walls showed a slight smile. Nick approached and looked through the opening, hoping that Mike might see him and invite him in to watch the game a while.

  Walls shook his head, still smiling, and Nick nodded once and went back down the stairs. He got in the car, started it up and drove it to the original parking spot, two blocks away. Then he got out, walked around the car, inspecting it for this and that, and went back to the stoop in front of his building, where he sat haunched on the iron rail smoking one last cigarette before he went upstairs.

  3

  * * *

  The knife grinder came and went. Matty was supposed to listen for the knife grinder’s bell and then go downstairs with the knives that she’d set out on the kitchen table—knives to be sharpened and money to pay, all set out.

  On her way home she saw the fresh-air inspectors standing on the corner, elderly men mostly, they were out even in cold weather provided the sun was shining and they stood there breathing steam, changing their position inchingly with the arc of the sun, and when she went upstairs the knives were on the table, dull-edged, and there was the money in bills and coins, thirty-five cents a blade, untouched and unspent, and Matt was at his board in the parlor, waiting for Mr. Bronzini.

  Rosemary took off her hat and coat and said nothing. She went into the bedroom, where the frame was set between the sawhorses, and she turned on the radio and began to do her beadwork.

  What she knew about the knife grinder was that he came from the same region as Jimmy’s people, near a town called Campobasso, in the mountains, where boys were raised to sharpen knives.

  It took two hours to bead a sweater. She listened to the radio but not really, you know, letting the voice drift in and out. She guided the needle through the fabric and thought of Jimmy’s stories. She used to fight to keep him out of her thoughts but it wasn’t possible, was it? He replaced the radio in her mind.

  She said, “What happened to the knives?”

  There was a long pause in the next room.

  He said, “He never came. I never heard the bell.”

  She said, “He always comes on Tuesday. He never misses a Tuesday. Since we’ve been here, except if it’s Christmas Day, he will be here on a Tuesday.”

  She waited for a response. She could sense the boy’s surrender and resentment, the small crouched shape squeezed in utter stillness.

  “Am I wrong or is this a Tuesday?” she said in a final little dig.

  She saw the pigeons erupt from the roof across the street, bursting like fireworks, fifty or sixty birds, and then the long pole swaying above the ledge—so long and reedy it bent of its own dimensions.

  Mr. Bronzini knocked on the door and Matty let him in.

  The Italian women in the building, which almost all of them were, called her Rose. They thought this was her name, or one of them did and the others picked it up, and she never corrected them because—she just didn’t.

  Never mind hello. They started right in talking about a move, a maneuver from a couple of days before. Mr. Bronzini sometimes forgot to take off his coat before he sat down at the board.

  Jimmy used to say carte blank.

  The boy who kept the pigeons stood invisible behind the ledge, waving the pole to guide the birds in their flight.

  They lapsed into a long pondering silence at the board, then started talking at once, yackety-yak together.

  She strung the beads onto the fabric.

  She didn’t want to be a sob story where people feel sorry for you and you go through life dragging a burden the size of a house.

  Jimmy used to say, Here’s some money. You have carte blank how you spend it. I don’t even want to know, he’d say.

  She heard a woman in the hall yelling down to her kid. Her head out the door yelling to the kid who’s galloping down the steps.

  “I’m making gravy,” the woman yelled.

  How is it we did so much laughing? How is it people came over with their empty pockets and bad backs and not so good marriages and twenty minutes later we’re all laughing?

  They started a legend that he memorized every bet. But he didn’t. They still tell stories about his memory, how he moved through the loft buildings taking bets from cutters, sweepers and salesmen and recording every figure mentally. But he didn’t. He had pieces of paper all over his clothes with bets scribbled down.

  She heard the women talk about making gravy, speaking to a husband or child, and Rosemary understood the significance of this. It meant, Don’t you dare come home late. It meant, This is serious so pay attention. It was a special summons, a call to family duty. The pleasure, yes, of familiar food, the whole history of food, the history of eating, the garlicky smack and tang. But there was also a duty, a requirement. The family requires the presence of every member tonight. Because the family was an art to these people and the dinner table was the place it found expression.

  They said, I’m making gravy.

  They said, Who’s better than me?

  It did not happen violent. This was a thing she would never believe, that they took him away in a car. The man went out for cigarettes and just kept walking.
r />   She didn’t want her children to see her dragging, slumping, thinking too much, brooding, angry, empty.

  Conceal, conceal. But it was hard.

  They told her to change her hair. The women in the building. They told her she had a Mother Hubbard hairdo.

  No, she wasn’t empty. Just tense much of the time, hearing a voice inside that she’d never heard before, her own voice, only edgy and angry and one-track.

  She listened to Mr. Bronzini in the living room. He spoke about the truth of a position. The radio was doing a serial drama called “Bright Horizons” or “Bright Tomorrows” or “Brighter Days” and every position has a truth, he told Matty. A deep truth is what you want, not a shallow truth. You want a position worth defending to the death.

  This food, this family meal, this meat sauce simmering in a big pot with sausage and spareribs and onions and garlic, this was their loyalty and bond and well-being, and the aroma was in the halls for Rosemary to smell when she climbed the flights, rolled beef, meatballs, basil, and the savor had an irony that was painful.

  He used to come home and get undressed, Jimmy, and pieces of paper would fall out of his clothes, scraps of paper, bets in code, his own scrawled cipher of people’s names, horses’ names, teams and odds and sums of money.

  They said, See what you’re gonna do.

  How is it she could laugh all night at his stories about a day in the garment district, or a day when he went to Toots Shor’s famous restaurant, out of the district, the famous Toots Shor, out of his jurisdiction completely, but Toots Shor met him and liked him and wanted to give him some action and he was a heavy bettor, very, and Jimmy made occasional trips to West 51st Street to take limited bets from Toots Shor, a big lumbering man with a face like a traffic accident, and he told her stories about the well-heeled bums around the big bar drinking until four in the morning.

  I’m making gravy, they said.

  The wife of Mr. Imperato, the lawyer she worked for in her regular job, called a couple of times a week and said, Tell him I’m making gravy.

  She did her beadwork off the books. The pigeons climbed and wheeled and the long pole swayed above the ledge.

  Some women have one man in their life and he was the one, that bastard, in hers.