The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

  Meanwhile, I tried to make myself better. I took English classes at St. Sophia, the Greek Orthodox church on 8th and L. I bought a blue serge suit at Harry Kaufman’s on 7th Street, on sale for eleven dollars and seventy-five. The Jew tailor let me pay for it a little bit at a time. Now when I went to St. Sophia for the Sunday service I wouldn’t be ashamed. I liked to go to church. Not for religion, nothing like that. Sure, I wear a stavro, but everyone wears a cross. That’s just superstition. I don’t love God, but I’m afraid of him. So I went to church just in case, and also to look at the girls. I liked to see ‘em all dressed up.

  There was this one koritsi, not older than sixteen when I first saw her, who was special. I knew just where she was gonna be, with her mother, on the side of the church where the women sat separate from the men. I made sure I got a good view of her on Sundays. Her name was Irene, I asked around. I could tell she was clean. By that I mean she was a virgin. That’s the kind of girl you’re gonna marry. My plan was to wait till I got some money in my pocket before I talked to her, but not too long so she got snatched up. A girl like that is not gonna stay single forever.

  Work and church was for the daytime. At night I went to the coffeehouses down by the Navy Yard in Southeast. One of them was owned by a hardworking guy from the neighborhood, Angelos, lived at the 703 building on 6th. That’s the cafeneion I went to most. You played cards and dice there if that’s what you wanted to do, but mostly you could be yourself. It was all Greeks.

  That’s where I met Nick Stefanos one night, at the Angelos place. Meeting him is what put another change in my life. Stefanos was a Spartan with an easy way, had a scar on his cheek. You knew he was tough but he didn’t have to prove it. I heard he got the scar running protection for a hooch truck in upstate New York. Heard a cheap pistola blew up in his face. It was his business, what happened, none of mine.

  We got to talking that night. He was the head busman down at some fancy hotel on 15th and Penn, but he was leaving to open his own place. His friend Costa, another Spartiati, worked there and he was gonna leave with him. Stefanos asked me if I wanted to take Costa’s place. He said he could set it up. The pay was only a little more than what I was making, a dollar-fifty a week with extras, but a little more was a lot. Hell, I wanted to make better like anyone else. I thanked Nick Stefanos and asked him when I could start.

  I started the next week, soon as I got my room where I am now. You had to pay management for your bus uniform, black pants and a white shirt and short black vest, so I didn’t make nothing for a while. Some of the waiters tipped the busmen heavy, and some tipped nothing at all. For the ones who tipped nothing you cleared their tables slower, and last. I caught on quick.

  The hotel was pretty fancy and its dining room, up on the top floor, was fancy, too. The china was real, the crystal sang when you flicked a finger at it, and the silver was heavy. It was hard times, but you’d never know it from the way the tables filled up at night. I figured I’d stay there a coupla years, learn the operation, and go out on my own like Stefanos. That was one smart guy

  The way they had it set up was, Americans had the waiter jobs, and the Greeks and Filipinos bused the tables. The coloreds, they stayed back in the kitchen. Everybody in the restaurant was in the same order that they were out on the street: the whites were up top and the Greeks were in the middle; the mavri were at the bottom. Except if someone was your own kind, you didn’t make much small talk with the other guys unless it had something to do with work. I didn’t have nothing against anyone, not even the coloreds. You didn’t talk to them, that’s all. That’s just the way it was. The waiters, they thought they were better than the rest of us. But there was this one American, a young guy named John Petersen, who was all right. Petersen had brown eyes and wavy brown hair that he wore kinda long. It was his eyes that you remembered. Smart and serious, but gentle at the same time.

  Petersen was different than the other waiters, who wouldn’t lift a finger to help you even when they weren’t busy. John would pitch in and bus my tables for me when I got in a jam. He’d jump in with the dishes, too, back in the kitchen, when the dining room was running low on silver, and like I say, those were coloreds back there. I even saw him talking with those guys sometimes like they were pals. It was like he came from someplace where that was okay. John was just one of those who made friends easy, I guess. I can’t think of no one who didn’t like him. Well, there musta been one person, at least. I’m gonna come to that later on.

  Me and John went out for a beer one night after work, to a saloon he knew. I wasn’t comfortable because it was all Americans and I didn’t see no one who looked like me. But John made me feel okay and after two beers I forgot. He talked to me about the job and the pennies me and the colored guys in the kitchen were making, and how it wasn’t right. He talked about some changes that were coming to make it better for us, but he didn’t say what they were.

  “I’m happy,” I said, as I drank off the beer in my mug. “I got a job, what the hell.”

  “You want to make more money, don’t you?” he said. “You’d like to have a day off once in a while, wouldn’t you?”

  “Goddamn right. But I take off a day, I’m not gonna get paid.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that, friend.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Do you know what ‘strength in numbers’ means?”

  I looked around for the bartender ‘cause I didn’t know what the hell John was talking about and I didn’t know what to say.

  John put his hand around my arm. “I’m putting together a meeting. I’m hoping some of the busmen and the kitchen guys will make it. Do you think you can come?”

  “What we gonna meet for, huh?”

  “We’re going to talk about those changes I been telling you about. Together, we’re going to make a plan.”

  “I don’t want to go to no meeting. I want a day off, I’m just gonna go ask for it, eh?”

  “You don’t understand.” John put his face close to mine. “The workers are being exploited.”

  “I work and they pay me,” I said with a shrug. “That’s all I know. Other than that? I don’t give a damn nothing.” I pulled my arm away but I smiled when I did it. I didn’t want to join no group, but I wanted him to know we were still pals. “C’mon, John, let’s drink.”

  I needed that job. But I felt bad, turning him down about that meeting. You could see it meant something to him, whatever the hell he was talking about, and I liked him. He was the only American in the restaurant who treated me like we were both the same. You know, man to man. Well, he wasn’t the only American who made me feel like a man. There was this woman, name of Laura, a hostess who also made change from the bills. She bought her dresses too small and had hair bleached white, like Jean Harlow. She was about two years and ten pounds away from the end of her looks. Laura wasn’t pretty, but her ass could bring tears to your eyes. Also, she had huge tits.

  I caught her giving me the eye the first night I worked there. By the third night she said something to me about my broad chest as I was walking by her. I nodded and smiled, but I kept walking ‘cause I was carrying a heavy tray. When I looked back she gave me a wink. She was a real whore, that one. I knew right then I was gonna fuck her. At the end of the night I asked her if she would go to the pictures with me sometime. “I’m free tomorrow,” she says. I acted like it was an honor and a big surprise.

  I worked every night, so we had to make it a matinee. We took the streetcar down to the Earle, on 13th Street, down below F. I wore my blue serge suit and high-button shoes. I looked like I had a little bit of money, but we still got the fisheye, walking down the street. A blonde and a Greek with dark skin and a heavy black mustache. I couldn’t hide that I wasn’t too long off the boat.

  The Earle had a stage show before the picture. A guy named William Demarest and some dancers who Laura said were like the Rockettes. What the hell did I know, I was just looking at their legs. After the coming attractions and the
short subject the picture came on: Gold Diggers of 1933. The man dancers looked like cocksuckers to me. I liked Westerns better, but it was all right. Fifteen cents for each of us. It was cheaper than taking her to a saloon.

  Afterwards, we went to her place, an apartment in a row house off H in Northeast. I used the bathroom and saw a Barnards Shaving Cream and other man things in there, but I didn’t ask her nothing about it when I came back out. I found her in the bedroom. She had poured us a couple of rye whiskies and drawn the curtains so it felt like the night. A radio played something she called ‘jug band”; it sounded like colored music to me. She asked me, did I want to dance. I shrugged and tossed back all the rye in my glass and pulled her to me rough. We moved slow, even though the music was fast.

  “Bill?” she said, looking up at me. She had painted her eyes with something and there was a black mark next to one of them where the paint had come off.

  “Uh,” I said.

  “What do they call you where you’re from?”

  “Vasili.” I kissed her warm lips. She bit mine and drew a little blood. I pushed myself against her to let her know what I had.

  “Why, Va-silly,” she said. “You are like a horse, aren’t you?”

  I just kinda nodded and smiled. She stepped back and got out of her dress and her slip, and then undid her brassiere. She did it slow.

  “Ella,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Hurry it up,” I said, with a little motion of my hand. Laura laughed. She pulled the bra off and her tits bounced. They were everything I thought they would be. She came to me and unbuckled my belt, pulling at it clumsy, and her breath was hot on my face. By then, God, I was ready. I sat her on the edge of the bed, put one of her legs up on my shoulder, and gave it to her. I heard a woman having a baby in the village once, and those were the same kinda sounds that Laura made. There was spit dripping out the side of her mouth as I slammed myself into her over and over again. I’m telling you, her bed took some plaster off the wall that day. After I blew my load into her I climbed off. I didn’t say nice things to her or nothing like that. She got what she wanted and so did I. Laura smoked a cigarette and watched me get dressed. The whole room smelled like pussy. She didn’t look so good to me no more. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and breathe fresh air.

  We didn’t see each other again outside of work. She only stayed at the restaurant a coupla more weeks, and then she disappeared. I guess the man who owned the shaving cream told her it was time to quit.

  For a while there nothing happened and I just kept working hard. John didn’t mention no meetings again though he was just as nice as before. I slept late and bused the tables at night. Life wasn’t fun or bad. It was just ordinary. Then that bastard Wesley Schmidt came to work and everything changed.

  Schmidt was a tall young guy with a thin mustache, big in the shoulders, big hands. He kept his hair slicked back. His eyes were real blue, like water under ice. He had a row of big straight teeth. He smiled all the time, but the smile, it didn’t make you feel good.

  Schmidt got hired as a waiter, but he wasn’t any good at it. He got tangled up fast when the place got busy. He served food to the wrong tables all the time, and he spilled plenty of drinks. It didn’t seem like he’d ever done that kind of work before.

  No one liked him, but he was one of those guys, he didn’t know it, or maybe he knew and didn’t care. He laughed and told jokes and slapped the busmen on the back like we were his friends. He treated the kitchen guys like dogs when he was tangled up, raising his voice at them when the food didn’t come up as fast as he liked it. Then he tried to be nice to them later.

  One time he really screamed at Raymond, the head cook on the line, called him a “lazy shine” on this night when the place was packed. When the dining room cleared up Schmidt walked back into the kitchen and told Raymond in a soft voice that he didn’t mean nothing by it, giving him that smile of his and patting his arm. Raymond just nodded real slow. Schmidt told me later, “That’s all you got to do, is scold ‘em and then talk real sweet to ‘em later. That’s how they learn. ‘Cause they’re like children. Right, Bill?” He meant coloreds, I guess. By the way he talked to me, real slow the way you would to a kid, I could tell he thought I was a colored guy, too. At the end of the night the waiters always sat in the dining room and ate a stew or something that the kitchen had prepared. The busmen, we served it to the waiters. I was running dinner out to one of them and forgot something back in the kitchen. When I went back to get it, I saw Raymond, spitting into a plate of stew. The other colored guys in the kitchen were standing in a circle around Raymond, watching him do it. They all looked over at me when I walked in. It was real quiet and I guess they were waiting to see what I was gonna do.

  “Who’s that for?” I said. “Eh?”

  “Schmidt,” said Raymond. I walked over to where they were. I brought up a bunch of stuff from deep down in my throat and spit real good into that plate. Raymond put a spoon in the stew and stirred it up.

  “I better take it out to him,” I said, “before it gets cold.”

  “Don’t forget the garnish,” said Raymond.

  He put a flower of parsley on the plate, turning it a little so it looked nice. I took the stew out and served it to Schmidt. I watched him take the first bite and nod his head like it was good. None of the colored guys said nothing to me about it again.

  I got drunk with John Petersen in a saloon a coupla nights after and told him what I’d done. I thought he’d a get a good laugh out of it, but instead he got serious. He put his hand on my arm the way he did when he wanted me to listen. “Stay out of Schmidt’s way,” said John.

  “Ah,” I said, with a wave of my hand. “He gives me any trouble, I’m gonna punch him in the kisser.” The beer was making me brave.

  “Just stay out of his way.”

  “I look afraid to you?”

  “I’m telling you, Schmidt is no waiter.”

  “I know it. He’s the worst goddamn waiter I ever seen. Maybe you ought to have one of those meetings of yours and see if you can get him thrown out.”

  “Don’t ever mention those meetings again, to anyone,” said John, and he squeezed my arm tight. I tried to pull it away from him but he held his grip. “Bill, do you know what a Pinkerton man is?”

  “What the hell?”

  “Never mind. You just keep to yourself, and don’t talk about those meetings, hear?”

  I had to look away from his eyes. “Sure, sure.”

  “Okay, friend.’”John let go of my arm. “Let’s have another beer.”

  A week later John Petersen didn’t show up for work. And a week after that the cops found him floating downriver in the Potomac. I read about it in the Tribune. It was just a short notice, and it didn’t say nothing else. A cop in a suit came to the restaurant and asked us some questions. A couple of the waiters said that John probably had some bad hootch and fell into the drink. I didn’t know what to think. When it got around to the rest of the crew, everyone kinda got quiet, if you know what I mean. Even that bastard Wesley didn’t make no jokes. I guess we were all thinking about John in our own way. Me, I wanted to throw up. I’m telling you, thinking about John in that river, it made me sick.

  John didn’t ever talk about no family and nobody knew nothing about a funeral. After a few days, it seemed like everybody in the restaurant forgot about him. But me, I couldn’t forget.

  One night I walked into Chinatown. It wasn’t far from my new place. There was this kid from St. Mary’s, Billy Nicodemus, whose father worked at the city morgue. Nicodemus wasn’t no doctor or nothing, he washed off the slabs and cleaned the place, like that. He was known as a hard drinker, maybe because of what he saw every day, and maybe just because he liked the taste. I knew where he liked to drink.

  I found him in a no-name restaurant on the Hip-Sing side of Chinatown. He was in a booth by himself, drinking something from a teacup. I crossed the room, walking through the cigarette
smoke, passing the whores and the skinny Chink gangsters in their too-big suits and the cops who were taking money from the Chinks to look the other way. I stood over Nicodemus and told him who I was. I told him I knew his kid, told him his kid was good. Nicodemus motioned for me to have a seat.

  A waiter brought me an empty cup. I poured myself some gin from the teapot on the table. We tapped cups and drank. Nicodemus had straight black hair wetted down and a big mole with hair coming out of it on one of his cheeks. He talked better than I did. We said some things that were about nothing and then I asked him some questions about John. The gin had loosened his tongue.

  “Yeah, I remember him,” said Nicodemus, after thinking about it for a short while. He gave me the once-over and leaned forward. “This was your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “They found a bullet in the back of his head. A twenty-two.”

  I nodded and turned the teacup in small circles on the table. “The Tribune didn’t say nothing about that.”