“These,” she said, pulling my arms around her.
I held her close. She was warm and she felt good close to me. It seemed that her warmth reached out toward me. I kissed her on the lips. She closed her eyes. When she opened them they were soft and swimmy.
She tilted her head to one side. “Kiss me here.” She indicated her throat.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I like it, silly,” she said. “You’ll like it too. Don’t you love me?”
“That’s kid stuff,” I said awkwardly.
“Kid stuff?” She looked at me in pretended amazement. “And how old do you think you are, Mr. Rip Van Winkle?”
“I’m almost sixteen.”
“Well, I’m almost four years older than you are, and I don’t think its kid stuff. Kiss me.” I kissed her on the throat. At first it seemed funny but then it felt good. She guided one hand of mine toward her breast. It felt soft and warm and I could feel her nipple growing in my palm. She whispered in my ear. It was almost as if she were talking to herself. “There’s something about you, Frankie. I can’t understand it. Kids don’t usually make me feel that way. But you—you’re different. You’re like a man, hard and selfish and calculating, and like a kid, soft at the tiny corners of your mouth. You’re strong, and when you hold me you’re as gentle as a baby. Say you love me.”
I shook my head, still kissing her throat. I held her tight.
“Say it!” she commanded. “Say ‘Julie, I love you.’”
I moved my lips up to hers and didn’t say anything. We heard Marty whistling as he came out of the bathroom. We fell apart. I looked at her. She was beautiful. Her eyes were sparkling and her mouth was still puckered a little with my kiss.
“I’ll make you say it—later,” she whispered fiercely before Marty came into the room.
I laughed happily. Just then Marty came in. “What’s funny?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, feeling like a dope.
We sat down to eat. About ten minutes later Ruth came in. “I’m sorry I’m late for dinner, Julie, I was stuck at the club. We’re electing a new president, you know.” She sat down at the table and looked at me. “You here?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, feeling that nothing could bother me now. “Do ya mind?”
Julie brought over Ruth’s plate and sat down at the table. She looked at Ruth and me as if she could see the antagonism flowing between us.
I looked at Julie and it seemed to me that she was laughing down deep in her eyes where I couldn’t get to see it.
After supper we went into the parlor for a while. At 8:30 I said good night. Ruth again walked me to the door. “I see you didn’t take my advice,” she said.
“Why don’t you mind your own goddamn business?” I replied nastily. I think the language shocked her a little because I heard her gasp. At the door when I turned and looked at her, I saw there were tears in her eyes. Instinctively I reached for her hand. “I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook my hand loose. “Don’t touch me!” she said coldly. “I hate everything about you. You’re not like other boys of your age. There’s something old and mean and hard about you; something basically vicious; something that makes me think you’ll spoil everything you touch—even my brother.”
I tried to speak but couldn’t. I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
Julie was waiting at the other door. “What took you so long? I thought you would never come out.”
“Nothing,” I said, following her into her room. I turned her around and kissed her—first on her lips and then on her throat where she had wanted me to kiss her before. I untied her smock and put my hands inside; her skin was cool and smooth. I pushed her toward the bed.
She stopped me. “Say ‘I love you’ first.”
I held her tight and rubbed my hand along her thighs, up and down. Her knees seemed to sag and all her weight was against me. I moved her toward the bed.
She stiffened her body against me. “No,” she said, “Say ‘I love you’ first.”
I held her. She felt straight and hard. I looked at her mouth; it was not soft but firm, determined.
“I love you, Julie,” I said hoarsely, pulling her closer to me.
10
“It’s easy,” Jimmy Keough was saying to me. “You’ve got the whole territory from here to Sixty-fourth Street. I told the boys you’d be around. All you’ve got to do is take their bets, write them down, and bring ’em here to me before the races are run. If you can’t get here on time call me and tell me what you have. We’ll run your book on a split. As long as you’re ahead we’ll split fifty-fifty on the take. When you’re in the hole you have to make up your deficit before we split again.”
I nodded my head. We had gone over this many times before. I was anxious to get started. I had a pad and a couple of pencils and two racing forms in my pockets. I started for the door.
Jimmy called after me. “Now remember, don’t take any markers except those I okay. And don’t forget to call if you can’t get back on time.”
“All right, Jimmy,” I said and stepped out the door. The street was bright and hot. It was nearly eleven o’clock and it was going to be a scorcher. I looked at the address book Jimmy had given me. The first stop was a garage on Tenth Avenue and Sixty-third Street. I walked there. I was supposed to ask for a guy named Christy.
I walked in past a couple of cars and it was cool in there. A big Negro was washing a car. “Where’s Christy?” I asked him.
“Ahm Christy,” he answered. “Whadda yuh want?”
“I’m from Jimmy Keough,” I said.
He took it and called: “Hey, Joe, the book is here.”
I felt good; he called me the book. At last I was getting somewhere. From out of the darkness somewhere in the back of the garage another man appeared. He looked at me curiously for a moment then went over to Christy. Together they studied the sheet. I leaned against a car while they made up their minds. Finally Christy called me over, I walked over, sat down on the running board of the car, and took out the pencil and paper.
He spoke to Joe. “Partners on everything today, hunh?”
“Un-hunh,” Joe said.
Christy turned to me. “Okay, boy. Heah is ouah bets. Tomorrow youah boss is broke.”
I laughed. “Go ahead and break him. He can afford it.”
They laughed at that.
“Gimme fifty cents on Docket and Red Rose for the daily double,” Christy said, “and fifty cents win and place on Garage-man. That’s a hunch,” he explained to me.
“Sounds good to me,” I said professionally.
“Yeah, it ought to pay a good price too. Ran out of the money the past three times. And fifty cents place on Red Rose.” He stopped.
“That all?” I asked.
“Thass all for today.” He laughed. “But you bring aroun’ a barr’lful a dough tomorrow and we’ll go you hot and heavy.” He handed the sheet back to me.
“Well, if I need any help in toting it over, I can always call you up and you’ll come for it in a truck,” I said.
“Anytime, boy, anytime!” He laughed and handed me two dollars. I stuck them in my pocket carefully.
“See you tomorrow, fellas,” I said and walked out.
My next stop was at the delivery entrance of a loft building on Sixty-second Street. There was a big landing platform raised about three feet off the ground. Two trucks were back up against it. Several men were sitting around eating sandwiches and smoking. I walked over to one of them. He was eating a big dill pickle.
“D’ya know Al Andrews?” I asked him.
“That’s him over there against the elevator door,” he said, pointing with his pickle to a tall man.
“Thanks,” I said, walking over to Andrews.
“Al Andrews?” I asked.
The man nodded his head.
“I’m from Jimmy Keough,” I said.
“Come in here,” he said. “I don’t want the boss to see me
.”
I followed him into the corridor, then into the men’s room. I gave him the sheet. He took it and, unbuttoning his pants, went into one of the stalls and sat down.
After a few minutes he spoke. “Jesus, I don’t like nothin’ today!”
I laughed. “There’s a winner in every race.”
“But not for me,” he said. “Every dog I played the last week is still running.”
“Maybe you’re due for a change in luck today,” I said hopefully.
“Maybe,” he said, doubtfully, looking at the sheet. Another few minutes passed. Then he said: “Tell you what. Gimme a dollar place on Smoothie in the second race, if two to win on Short Stop.”
I wrote it down. “Anything else?” I asked.
He looked at the sheet for a few minutes more as if it were a crystal ball. He shook his head and handed back the sheet. I took it. He reached down and pulled his trousers part way up and fished for his money. He couldn’t find it. He stood up and holding his pants with one hand, he felt with the other and found the dollar. Letting his pants drop to the floor he gave it to me. I put it in my pocket and started out.
“See you tomorrow,” I said. He didn’t reply. He was looking around behind him for a roll of toilet paper.
A drugstore just down the street was the next stop. I picked up three dollars there. Then a restaurant where some fellows who ate there played about seven bucks. A beauty parlor, a candy store, a few more garages and repair shops, a shoe store, another restaurant, and I had only one more stop to make. It was a furnished-room house. I rang the bell. The door was opened by a colored girl.
I looked at my paper. “Miss Neal in?” I asked.
“Sho,” she said. “But you kinda young to be askin’ foh her.” She led the way up to the second floor. “Miss Neal?” she asked through a closed door.
“Come in,” a voice answered.
I went in. There were a few women sitting in there in kimonos and house frocks.
“I’m Neal,” said a big, dark-haired woman standing up. “What do you want?”
“Keough sent me,” I said looking around the room. I guessed correctly—I was in a whorehouse.
“Oh,” she said. “Got the sheet?”
I gave it to her. Another woman took the other one. I stood around while they looked at it. I shifted from one foot to another. Finally one of them told me to sit down. I sat in a chair and looked out the window into the street. I got nineteen bucks in bets there. I looked at the wristwatch Brother Bernhard gave me. It was nearly two o’clock. I had to hurry back to Keough’s or I’d be late. I ran all the way back to the store.
“How’d it go, kid?” Keough greeted me.
“Pretty good,” I said, taking out the betting slips and putting them on the counter. We totaled up the slips. I had $51.50 in bets. I gave him the money and got busy cleaning up the place. The afternoon went by quickly. When I finished figuring Keough’s slips I figured mine. There was $22.50 profit in my book. Split with Keough and my share was $11.25.
“Eleven dollars and twenty-five cents for one day’s work,” I thought to myself as I went back to the orphanage for the night. It was more than I had ever made in one week before. It was more money than I had ever had at one time before. This beat going to the country for the summer.
11
At the end of my first week on the route I had made fifty-one dollars. That and the six dollars I got for cleaning up Keough’s place brought my earnings to a total of fifty-seven dollars, which was more than most families earned in my neighborhood. I don’t suppose I really knew the value of money. I gorged myself on franks and hamburgers and cokes. For the first time I always had money in my pocket. The kids in the neighborhood all had something at my expense. I couldn’t resist showing my roll or spending it treating them. I was a real big shot.
I had a date to go swimming with Julie after church Sunday. When I met her she was carrying a small bag. “Where’s your bathing suit?” she asked when we sat down on the train.
“I got it on,” I told her.
She laughed. “How will you get back?” she asked. “Your suit will be wet.”
I looked dismayed. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Well, silly, I’ll let you put it in my bag.” We sat back. The train was at Times Square, and the crowd piled in—all heading for the island to escape the heat. We took lockers at a small bathhouse near Steeplechase. I almost forgot my money but remembered just in time to take it with me. On the way out I bought a white belt that fitted around the outside of the bathing suit and had a pocket in it to keep the money. I was on the beach before her. I waited a few minutes till she came out. She had a red bathing suit on, and it looked swell. Without her high-heeled shoes on she was a little shorter than I was. She looked like a kid about my age instead of older, and I felt good about it.
The water was swell. We swam around awhile and then lay on the sand. The sun was hot. Her body was mostly white and she was getting a little sunburned. I was brown from swimming off the docks.
“How’s your job doing?” she asked.
I rolled over on my stomach beside her. “Pretty good,” I said, “I made fifty-one bucks last week.”
“Fifty-one dollars?” she cried incredulously.
“Yeah,” I said. “Wanna see?” I took out my roll from the money belt.
“Put it away,” she said, “I believe you.”
I put the money back.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Get some clothes I guess and some things I always wanted. I’m tired of always wearing hand-me-downs and charity clothes. I’d like to pick out something myself—something I really like and would be mine.” I took out a package of cigarettes and offered them to her. She took one and I took one. I lit them, cupping my hand against the wind.
She drew a deep drag of her cigarette. “You ought to open up a savings account,” she said. “Some day that money will come in real handy—when you go to college, I mean.”
“Who the hell cares about college?” I answered. “I’m going to be a bookie and make some real dough. And you’re going to be my girl.”
“Do you really want me to be your girl?” she asked softly.
“Sure!” I said. She looked so pretty then I wanted to kiss her but there were too many people around.
The day before Jerry went to the country, he came over to Keough’s to see me. “I wish you were going with me, Frankie,” he said.
“I can’t,” I said. “This job here…”
“I know,” he said, “but if you change your mind you write me and I’ll get Dad to fix it up.”
“I will,” I said. “Have a nice summer, Jerry.”
“You too,” he said, looking around him doubtfully.
“See you in September.”
We shook hands self-consciously and he left. I watched him go. I envied him more at that moment than I never had before. It must be swell to get everything you want by just asking, I thought. Then I went back to cleaning out the toilet. When I finished that I was going out to see my customers. I had taken Julie’s advice and started a bank account over at the Corn Exchange on Broadway and Sixty-third. It was nearly the end of my second week as a runner and I had almost seventy dollars in the bank. My book had been hit for eighty dollars yesterday, and I would have to make up the deficit before I split any more profits. But I wasn’t worried. I had learned that an occasional hit was good for the bookie as well as the player. They always played it back. They felt lucky and would bet heavier, and in no time at all they would be back in the hole again.
Walking across town, I met Marty and Ray. They were going over to the docks swimming. They asked me to go with them but I told them I couldn’t, I had to work. Marty asked me to come over to his house and see him, and I told him I’d try to make it tonight but that I might be busy. A couple of other fellows called them and they left me to join them. Near the garage that was my first stop a bunch
of kids were playing stickball in the street. I stopped for a few minutes to watch them. I shagged one fly ball and threw it back. One of them that knew me called: “Want a game, Frankie?”
“No, thanks,” I answered and walked away. I went into the garage. “Hey, Christy!” I called. “Where are you?”
He came out from under a car. “Hello, Frankie,” he said with a big grin on his face.
“Well, you did it,” I was smiling. “You win twenty-one bucks.” I paid him. His partner Joe came out and I handed them the sheet. They played six dollars in place of their usual two.
Somehow the day did not have its usual satisfaction for me. Due to the winnings, I got the biggest day’s play I had ever got, but I didn’t feel too good about it. On the way back to Keough’s I passed the dock at Fifth-fourth Street where the kids were swimming. I leaned against a pole and watched them, diving and splashing and swimming and hollering. I felt like going over there and joining them, but I had to get back with the bets.
A voice behind me said: “I bet you’d like to go with them, Frankie.”
I turned around. It was Silk Fennelli. “Why no, sir… I mean… that is…”
He smiled, “That’s all right, kid, I understand. I know how you feel. You’d like to be with them—swimming, playing ball, or shooting craps on the corners. But you can’t. You got a responsibility—yourself. Those kids don’t think any further ahead than the next minute, but you’re different. You want to get ahead. You want to amount to something. You’re going to be big time, and you’re learning now that for everything you get you got to give up something else—something maybe that you want or would like to do. And you have to make up your mind which it’s going to be. I was like you once.”
“That’s it, Mr. Fennelli,” I said. “I don’t feel like those kids anymore.”
“That’s the good boy,” he said placing his hand on my shoulder, friendly-like. “Where are you going now?”
“Back to Keough’s,” I said.
“Hop in my car. I was just going there myself. Besides, then you can give me one of your special shines.”
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 6