“You can cash it at a window in the lobby,” Mr. Spencer said. He looked at his watch. “Naturally I don’t want Agatha to be in want. Perhaps it will tide you over until you can straighten yourself out.”
Maury looked up. In the cool, correct face he read intense dislike. “Straighten yourself out.” It’s not I who need straightening out, he thought. It’s the world. And he laid the check back on the desk. “Thank you very much. I don’t want it,” he said, turned on his heel and walked out.
His hands were sweating and his heart pounded. He felt a terrible shame. It was like one of those dreams in which you are walking on a grand avenue when suddenly you look down and find that you have gone out in your underwear. After the shame came nausea.
There was a drugstore on the corner. He had had only coffee for breakfast, and he knew the nausea was from hunger. He wondered whether he could afford a sandwich and an ice cream soda, a thick, rich soda, with cream on top.
He sat down at a table, too weak to sit at the counter stool, even though a table meant another dime for a tip. The cool bastard, he thought. He didn’t even have the kindness or decency to say he would try to help, even if he didn’t mean it. He had so much contempt for me that he didn’t even brother to pretend.…
A man came in and took the other seat. Maury became aware that the man was looking at him steadily. Then the man said, “I think I know you. Saw you at a wedding in Brooklyn a couple of years ago.”
“Yes?” Maury was cautious.
“Yeah. Solly Levinson—may he rest in peace—his boy Harry got married. You’re Joe Friedman’s boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I don’t—”
“Name’s Wolf Harris. I knew your old man when he was a kid. I wouldn’t be high-class enough for him now, though.”
Maury was silent. A strange encounter. And since the man had so frankly been staring at him, he returned the stare, seeing a keen, immaculate face perhaps fifty years old, a face like thousands of others on the streets of the city except for the fierce, intelligent eyes. His clothes were dark and expensive; his watch and cuff links were gold; the shoe that was exposed in the aisle was handmade.
“I wouldn’t have made that crack about your old man if I didn’t happen to know he kicked you out.”
At another time, when Maury was younger and not as battered, when he had more pride—or more false pride, if you wanted to call it that—he would not have allowed such an intrusion. But as it was, he said only, “I know two things about you. You have a remarkable memory and a good information service.”
The man laughed. “Information, no. Just an accident. I met Solly’s daughter on the street, you know the fat kid who talks too much?”
“I know. Cecile.”
“So she told me about you. Not that I give a damn or wanted to hear. But my memory, that’s something else again. A memory I’ve got, never forget a fact. Never. That you can’t take away from me. What’s funny?”
“I was thinking, I don’t believe anybody could take anything away from you.”
Wolf stared a second and laughed. “You’re damn right! You’re okay. You’re not so dumb yourself!”
“Thanks.”
The waitress came with pad and pencil to take the orders.
“Gimme a double cheeseburger, French fries, onions on the side, a malted and a couple of Danish.”
Maury said, “I’ll have a tuna sandwich on toast.”
“To drink?” The girl was impatient.
“Nothing. Just the sandwich.”
“Come on! That’d feed a canary. Give him the same as me, miss. That’s right. On me.”
Maury flushed. Was it so visible, then, the hunger? No, it was the suit. The collar of his shirt was worn, and perhaps he had seen Maury’s shoes when he walked in.
“Place is a dump. But it’s quick and I’ve got to see a man at Forty-fifth and Madison at one.”
There was a silence. Maury had nothing to say. Then Mr. Harris leaned forward. “Well? What’s new? What are you doing these days?”
He felt—he felt like such a child, timid and obedient. Why couldn’t he just say, I don’t want to talk about my business. I’m not in the mood to talk at all. Why? Because he had nothing and was nobody. And that’s what happened to you when you had nothing and were nobody.
“The news is that my wife is expecting a baby. And what I’m doing, unfortunately, is nothing.”
“Unemployed, eh?”
“I had a job in a shoe store but they closed the store.”
“What can you do besides sell shoes?”
Bitterness rose in Maury. He could taste its heat. “To tell you the truth, nothing. Four years at Yale and the result—nothing.”
“I quit school at the seventh grade,” the man said, with slight amusement.
“And?” Maury raised his eyes to meet the other’s sharp, bright regard.
“And I’m in a position to offer you a job, if you want to take it.”
“I’ll take it,” Maury said. “You don’t know what it is.”
“Whether I can do it, you mean? If I don’t know how, I’ll learn.”
“Can you drive a car?”
“Of course. But I haven’t got a car.”
“No problem. I’ll buy you one.”
“And what do I do with it?”
“You drive around, Flatbush section, drive around to some addresses I’ll give you, pick up some papers every morning and take them to an apartment.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. You haven’t asked me about the pay.”
“Whatever it is, it’s more than I’m earning now.”
“You’re really beat, kid, aren’t you?” The tone was surprisingly gentle. “Well, put your head up. I’m offering you seventy-five dollars a week.”
“Just for driving around and delivering papers?”
“And for keeping your mouth shut. You understand?”
“I think I do. I’ll ask you the rest when were out on the sidewalk.”
“You’ve got the idea. Eat. And if you’re still hungry after all that, speak up. I like people who speak up. At the right time, that is.”
He had been starved, not just because of this morning, but hungry for weeks. He never ate quite enough of real food, just crackers and canned soup, saving the milk, the oranges and the lamb chops for Aggie. He felt the good warmth deep inside now: the meat, the cheese, the rich malted milk. Policy. That’s what it must be, of course. Numbers. Well, it didn’t hurt anybody, did it? Nobody suffered or died because of it. The rich gamble for thousands in casinos and that’s all right; why can’t the poor try their luck with pennies? So I’m rationalizing, and I know I am. But the refrigerator will be filled; well buy things for the baby and some winter clothes for Aggie. I won’t have to avoid Andreapoulis when the rent is due.
They went out to the sidewalk. Madison Avenue was friendly. Two vivid young office girls went by laughing and glanced at Maury. A man went into a haberdashery store. The window was full of good shirts and nice foulard ties. The world was friendly.
“What a piece of luck that I happened to sit down at your table, Mr. Harris,” Maury said.
“The name’s Wolf. And here, this is my number, where you’ll call me tomorrow morning. Come in and I’ll lay it all out for you. No use talking more now. You know what it’s all about.”
“I know,” Maury said. “And you can rely on me absolutely. I want you to know that.”
“If I didn’t know that I wouldn’t talk to you in the first place. I size men up in two seconds flat. What are you going to tell your wife?”
“That I collect rents. She wouldn’t understand.”
“I figured as much. High-class, is she?”
“Sort of.”
“Yeah, well. Call me tomorrow then. At ten-thirty. No earlier. No later. And here’s a twenty for expenses in the meantime. Wait, here’s another. Buy yourself a pair of shoes.”
“I don’t need twenty for shoes. I can get a
pair for six dollars.”
“Twenty. I don’t like cheap shoes.”
There was an autumn chill in the air and Maury brought the baby in. He pulled the perambulator up the steps and parked it in the hall by the stairs; the Andreapoulises were nice about things like that. Anyway it was a kind of ornament, that carriage. It was the finest English pram, navy blue leather and chrome, the kind you saw on Park Avenue pushed by a nursemaid in a dark blue coat and veil. They’d sent it from the office when Eric was born. No doubt that meant Wolf Harris had ordered it, the way he did everything, so lavishly, so meticulously: funeral flowers and a basket of fruit when Scorzio’s mother died; presents for weddings and First Communions and Bar Mitzvahs. He had an astounding memory.
Maury lifted the sleeping baby. The warm, fragrant head flopped on his shoulder. He carried him upstairs and laid him, still asleep in his crib. He looked at his watch. A half hour before the next bottle. He slipped a finger under the diaper. Wet. Well, better not to disturb his sleep for that; he’d only be wet again in another fifteen minutes. He smiled, feeling expert and competent. On afternoons when he came home early, and they were frequent because his hours were so easy, he was glad to let Aggie go out. This whole summer in the months since Eric’s birth he’d sat with a book on the front step while Eric slept. Some of the women in the neighborhood, especially the foreign-born, nudged each other as they passed. They thought it was funny for a man to be doing that. To hell with them.
Aggie would be home soon. He’d given her a nice check with which to go out and buy clothes. She had already bought a suit the color of cranberries, and looked delightful in it, as slender as she had been before the baby. There was nothing like it, the feeling a man had when he commanded: Go out and buy yourself something, buy what you want. A man felt like, he felt like—a man!
They’d given him a raise. He was making ninety dollars now plus the expenses of the car.
“Get a black coupe,” Wolf Harris had instructed him that first morning. “Keep it inconspicuous. Be careful not to get a ticket, no parking tickets, nothing. And when you’re out, watch through the rear-view mirror. Keep your eyes on it all the time. If you have any idea you’re being followed, drive slowly, don’t arouse any suspicion. Stop at the first bar you see, and get out slowly; go into the men’s room and empty your pockets into the toilet. Then when you come out, slowly, you understand, go on up to the bar and have a beer, like any guy minding his own business, and then out to the car again, clean. Everything clear?”
Quite clear. He’d bought a black Graham-Paige and had no trouble so far. It was nice; they’d even taken the baby out to Jones Beach in the car. He didn’t feel like a conspirator. He didn’t even feel he was doing anything really wrong even though it was against the law; that part he hated. But as for the actual thing itself, it didn’t seem so terrible. They weren’t hurting anybody. It was the law that made it evil.
They had the “offices” in various apartment houses, which were changed every few months; they were now on the second one since he had started working. They kept their books and took their calls in the kitchen of a very modest apartment. The woman looked even younger than Aggie, if possible. She had two babies. It all seemed so innocent, sitting there tallying the books, while the little girls had their lunch!
And the men he worked with were no more criminal types than Maury was. Scorzio, with his “dese” and “dose,” and Feldman, too, were just like the men who had worked in the shoe store, family men like them except that these weren’t worried sick about money. These sent their children to summer camp and talked about their piano lessons. Windy, called that for somewhat indelicate reasons, although tough in manner, was so decent, so generous. The day Maury had had the flu he’d driven him home and couldn’t have been more considerate. Bruchman the accountant, there was a brain! Quick as an adding machine; if it hadn’t been for the Depression he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing, that’s sure. Tom Spalding, the detective who stopped by every week for his hundred—there was a nice open face, looked like Thomas Jefferson. No harm in him, except the need of money. He had four children, one in dental school; how could he have managed otherwise?
Talk about money! The amount that went through their hands was staggering. And this was only one small group. Total it all up and you had a few million dollars a week! And this was only one of Harris’ enterprises, not even the main one. They said he was gradually relinquishing this to other hands; he didn’t need it anymore. Since repeal he’d gone legitimate. He owned distilleries in Canada, a network of liquor-importing firms here and with all that cash had branched out into choice real estate all over the country. Fascinating, a study in itself, the ramifications, both financial and human, of all this. The man behind it, a bigger boss than Harris, Scorzio confided one day in whispered awe, was actually Jim Lanahan, father of the Senator. He and Harris had made theirs during Prohibition, and now Lanahan was worth tens of millions. Harris was nothing by comparison; he only counted his in millions, Scorzio said, grinning.
“But Harris is a prince, never forget that. He likes you, he does for you. Nothing is too much.”
Maury wanted to know whether they ever saw Harris. He himself hadn’t seen him since the day he was hired.
“Only about once a year. Around Christmas, he gives a party. Has a place way out on the Island, big place with a stone wall around it like Central Park. You’ll be invited next time.”
Naturally Aggie wanted to know whom he worked for and what he did. Collect rents for a big real estate outfit, he said, and then, not wanting to lie entirely, feeling somehow cleaner if there were some truth in his story, gave the name of Wolf Harris, which meant nothing to her, of course. From time to time he mentioned the names of some of the men in the office, names which also could mean nothing to her.
She pressed him to make some friends for them where he worked. “I don’t see why you can’t invite some of the men and their wives one evening,” she insisted. “We don’t see a soul except George and Elena, and there’s no way of making friends in this neighborhood. We’ve no other contacts possible except your office.”
“They’re not your type,” he said lamely.
“Can’t I meet them and judge for myself? At least I could talk to the women about their babies, couldn’t I?”
Of course she was dissatisfied. It was unrealistic of him to think that the baby could be enough. A woman needed more than that, especially a woman with all the life that was in Aggie, the life that had drawn him to her the first time he had seen her. What they needed, he knew, was to belong somewhere, to be a part of something, to have roots. He hadn’t used that word for a long time, not since he had seen the rootedness of Aggie’s home town and envied it. A place where you walked down the street and people knew your name! Friends telephoning and coming to the door! Well, someday, surely: it was what he aimed for. He grieved over the pain she must feel at her loss of it. Her mother’s letter hadn’t helped, either. Son of a bitch!
Apparently Aggie had written to her parents when Eric was born, although she hadn’t told him. But, going through bills on the desk, he had seen the answering letter and read it through. “You and your little boy are welcome”—or something like that. “But your father will not receive your husband. I myself would reconsider, but I can’t press the issue with Dad in his state of health. His heart is absolutely broken, he looks like a sick man. Everything he stood for is gone, his only child is gone.” And then something about how nothing was forever and if a mistake had been made it was better to correct it than to live with it, so if Aggie should ever change her mind about what she had done—And then the conclusion: “Be assured again that we love you still, and you may come home with the baby and be so welcome.”
He was outraged. “Be assured—!”
“Excuse me,” he’d told Agatha, “for reading the letter. It wasn’t honorable, but I couldn’t help it.”
“I don’t mind,” she’d said. “I would have told you anyway,” and ha
d begun to cry. If he had had her stupid mother and bastard father there in the room he would have killed them in cold blood.
The baby stirred and broke into a cry, a bleat like a lamb’s. Little soul! Round mouth open, hits himself in the face with his own fist, slams his heels against the sheet. Furious, aren’t you, because you’re hungry? Swiftly, pleased with his own swiftness, Maury unpinned the diaper. Wonderful little body, the firm thighs not seven inches long, joined by the marvelous tiny convoluted rose of maleness! Little man. Homunculus. He fastened the diaper firmly, settled the boy in the crook of his left arm, inserted the bottle, not too warm, just right.
The baby sucked and bubbled. He doesn’t know anything but warmth of hands, warmth of voices. May he never know anything else! No, that’s impossible. The gray eyes, light as opals, studied his father. One hand went up and curled around the father’s finger with surprising strength. My son. I promise myself to remember this, no matter what else happens, how far he goes away from me, and he will, I promise to remember this day in October, with the sun on the floor and his hand around my finger.
He heard Agatha at the door and didn’t move, wanting her to see them like that.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, and at her harsh tone he turned. She was standing in the doorway, wearing the cranberry suit, holding a hat box, a shoe box and a newspaper.
“You lied to me,” she said. “You don’t collect rents. You’re a racketeer. You collect policy slips. Here, it’s in the paper.”
“What’s in the paper? What are you talking about?”
She held the front page for him to see. The police had raided an apartment rented by Mrs. Marie Schuetz and arrested a man named Peter Scorzio. A large operation had been uncovered, he read, with an estimated take of one hundred fifty thousand dollars a week.
“I doubt there can be two men named Peter Scorzio,”
Aggie said.
The baby had finished. Maury moved him over his shoulder to burp him. He didn’t say anything.