“Jerry, stop talking like that. I love you, we’re going to be married at St. Patrick’s the day after tomorrow at high noon, and we’re going to live happily ever after just like it says in fairy tales and movies.” She put her finger on his lips.
He bit it gently. “I was just thinking about Frankie. Funny, isn’t it? How your mind works, I mean.” He turned his head and looked at her. “You don’t see a fellow for years and suddenly he pops up in your mind as real as life. Once when I was away at school, a sailor came to the door and asked Robert if I was at home. Robert told him I wasn’t. I didn’t know who it was; I didn’t know any sailors. Then I thought about it, and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced it was Frankie. But I didn’t say anything about it to anyone, not even Marty or you, because I was afraid—afraid if he came back I would lose you.”
Inside her, her heart was doing strange tricks. She felt a funny pain around it, and it suddenly began to beat very quickly. She spoke quietly, her voice ringing reproachfully in his ears. “Jerry, how could you do that! You know how worried his people were about him? I love you, not Frankie. What I felt for Frankie was puppy love, kid stuff, not at all the way I feel about you. You should have told someone.” And all the time inside her she was wondering. It was true the way she felt toward Frankie was not the way she felt about Jerry. But she loved Jerry. She was sure about that. Wasn’t she going to marry him?
“I know I was wrong, darling,” he said, his voice contentedly belying his words. “I felt like a heel, believe me, but I loved you—loved you ever since I first saw you, and I didn’t want to lose you.”
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried.” She smiled, and then added in mock seriousness and twirling an imaginary mustache: “Not when I’ve got you in me power, me fine young bucko!”
He laughed happily. “I love you, Janet.”
“I love you, Jerry.”
And they were married at high noon at St. Patrick’s just as the invitations had said they would be.
With effort she forced her mind back to the present. Marty was saying: “He always was the guy I wanted to be, the same as when I was a kid.” He took another sip of wine and placed the glass back on the table.
Janet spoke quietly. “There was something about Frankie that was different and attracted people toward him. There was a tinge of adventure that seemed to cling to him, an air of deviltry that attracted all the girls when I was young, myself included.” She gave Jerry a fond look and a smile. It was a long time ago and they could talk about it now.
“But there always was something that escaped you. A look in his eyes or on his face that would make you think sometimes he was laughing at you—at himself—or that he was having a great time playing with you and with life, and you never could be sure of what he thought—only what he wanted you to know. There was something in him that made me feel unsteady, not sure of what I felt, but always trying to find out how I felt.
“Yes,” she said smiling at them both, “I think that was what it was. He kept you forever off balance, never giving you a chance to thrust back. The things that would hurt your feelings never seemed to hurt his. He was always the master of himself. He seemed always to be daring you to do something, then laughing at you if you did or didn’t. I don’t know. I guess you never could really figure him out. He had so many different sides to him, you never knew which side was the real one.
“And it didn’t seem to matter. You liked him just the same, and maybe it was the challenge of his personality that got you.”
She looked at them both, and suddenly tears came into her eyes. She dabbed at them with a wispy, ineffective handkerchief. “I’m just a fool, I guess—a silly sentimental fool—but I felt so happy to have you both with me. You can’t know how lonely I felt with everyone you know away—Jerry in Saipan, you in France, and Ruth….” She dabbed at her eyes again. “Shall we have coffee in the living room?”
Marty smiled. Jerry reached across the table and took her hand. “You’re an awfully sweet fool if you are one, darling, and I love you for it.”
Part III
28
I awoke the next morning in a strange room. Half awake, I looked idly at the ceiling. Slowly my gaze wandered over the room as I gradually realized where I was: Baltimore. I hadn’t meant to run away. I wondered about going back. Fully awake now, I got out of bed and began dressing. While I washed my hands in the small basin in the corner of the room, I wondered what they were doing back in New York. Probably when I hadn’t shown up, Brother Bernhard wired my folks. As soon as he received their reply, he would report me to the police. They would start checking the railroad stations and sooner or later find out I had bought a ticket to Baltimore. I was too wise to think I would be able to stay out of sight for long. The best thing I could do was first to check out of the hotel I was in, and then lose myself in the city.
I finished dressing, took one last look around the room, and went downstairs. At the desk I gave the clerk the room key and told him I was checking out. He didn’t say anything, just tossed the key on a table behind him and went back to reading his newspaper. I bought a newspaper at the cigar stand in the lobby and walked out. A few doors down the block was a small restaurant. I went in and ordered breakfast: juice, eggs, and coffee, twenty-five cents. I spread the newspaper open and turned to the want ads. I scanned the columns for jobs. There were a few listed for boys: office boys, errand boys, store help, and the like. I marked them with a pencil and finished breakfast.
By the time lunch came around I had seen all of them and didn’t get a job. I got lost once or twice, but each time I asked a passer-by and received courteous directions from him. It wasn’t like New York, where they would tell you how to get somewhere but you would have the sneaky feeling that they were laughing at your ignorance while they were doing it.
I decided I had better think about a place to sleep before I went anywhere else. I opened the paper again and turned to the rooms-for-rent section. They all seemed to be in the same section. I went into a restaurant and with my lunch got some information on how to get there. I finished lunch, grabbed a trolley at the door, and got off at Stafford Street. It was an old run-down section, just off mid-town. Gray and brown stone houses lined the street, in each window were small signs, “Vacancy,” or “Room for Rent.” I walked along till I found one cleaner than most. I ran up the steps and rang the bell. There was no answer. I waited a few minutes, then rang the bell again. Again no answer. I started down the steps; when I was about halfway down the stoop, I heard the door open behind me. I turned back up the steps. An old woman, her hair tied in funny ribbons, stood there.
“What’s the idea waking a person in the middle of the afternoon?” she demanded. Her voice was raucously high pitched with a small waver in it.
“You have a sign in the window, ma’am,” I said, pointing to it. “‘Room for rent.’”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” she said sharply; then following my pointed finger, “Oh, that!” she said more quietly.
“Yes,” I said. “Is it still open?”
“No,” she said quickly, “it was taken yesterday. I forgot to take the sign out of the window.”
“Oh!” I said. “Sorry to bother you.” I started down the steps again. About halfway down, she called me.
“Young man,” she called, ‘young man, come back.”
Back up the steps I went. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ma’am; I don’t like it,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked at me closely. “You’re new here in town, aren’t you?” she asked.
I was sore. If she could tell so easily, what chance would I have to stay out of sight? “Yes,” I said. “What’s it to yuh?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Where do you come from—New York?”
“None of your business!” I told her. I was getting madder. “All I did was ask you for a room. I didn’t know I’d run into a police station. Forget it!�
�� I turned away.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything. I’d like to help you. Maybe I’ve got a room. Come inside.”
I followed her through the door into a hallway. At the right of the hall was a big door made of two panels. She rolled the door open by shoving them apart, and I followed her into a large room. There were couches and seats all around the room. A large baby grand piano stood in one corner of the room. There were a few empty whisky bottles on the piano. Cigarette and cigar butts were all over the place in ash trays and on the floor near a large old-fashioned fireplace against the far wall. There was a stale smell of smoke and whisky and a something else that smelled like the wind when it blew across from the hospital to the orphanage.
“Boy, it stinks in here!” she said, sniffing the air and then going over to a window and throwing it open. It was at the back of the room. I noticed there were large screens in front of the windows that opened onto the street. Some fresh air began to blow in.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said, waving her hand toward one of the couches. She went over to a small cabinet, opened it, took out a bottle of gin, poured herself a drink in one of the tumblers standing there, and tossed it off. She swallowed the liquor without blinking her eyes, then she stood there sniffling the fresh air. “Ah!” she said, “that’s better.” She made a queer picture standing there in a sort of kimono, her gray hair tied into tight little kinks with ribbons, and color coming into her face from the liquor. I didn’t speak. I was tempted to laugh. It all looked screwy to me.
She sat down on a couch and looked at me. For a few minutes we sat there quietly not talking. I was becoming restless under her gaze when she spoke.
“How old are you?” Her voice was more quiet now, controlled.
I hesitated a moment. She noticed it. “Nineteen,” I said lying anyway.
“Hmm!” she said. “Why did you leave New York?”
“None of your business!” I said. “I told you before, all I want to know is have you a room for rent or haven’t you?” I started to get out of the chair.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” she said, waving me back into the seat with her hands. “Don’t get touchy!”
“All right,” I said. I wondered what the old dame wanted anyway. This dump looked like a whorehouse to me anyway. It stank. I wouldn’t live here on a bet.
“You in trouble with a girl?” she asked shrewdly, peering at me.
I shook my head.
“The cops maybe?” Still with that same look on her face.
That could be, I thought. As soon as Brother Bernhard reported me, I would be. I shrugged my shoulders casually. I didn’t speak.
“Oh,” she said, smiling now. She was pleased with her guess. I could see it. “I thought so. What are you going to do here in Baltimore?”
“Get a job,” I said, “and a room if I can ever get the hell out of here to find one.”
She laughed out loud at that. “Going to go straight?” she chuckled, then stopped and looked at me fiercely. “Don’t hand me that! You know how far you’d get? They’d pick up a punk like you and ship you back to New York and the can so fast you wouldn’t know what’s happening.”
I watched her silently. In her excitement she got up and walked up and down in front of me.
She spoke again: “You’re a talkative bastard, aren’t you?”
“When I have something to say,” I answered. “You’re doing enough for both of us.”
She stopped in front of me and bent down and felt my arm muscles. I thought maybe she was going to try to do something, so I tightened my arm muscles. “Strong too,” she said. She straightened up, walked over to the cabinet, poured herself another drink, and swallowed it without a blink of her eyes. “I like you,” she said. “I like that hard, mean look you’ve got in your eyes. I got a job for you.”
“Doing what?” I asked. Pimping was not my line.
“You know the kind of a place I run here?” she asked, gesturing with her hands at the room.
“Yes,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I need a man here—someone to kind of keep the customers on good behavior, to keep them from getting too rambunctious. You won’t have too much to do. No real bouncing—only once in awhile—then it’s a drunk and they’re easy to handle. All you got to do is stand around and look tough and let them see you. That’s enough. And someone to come out to the stores with me, so’s they think I’m just another rooming-house operator. Prevent talk. Thirty bucks a week. Room and board. What do you say?”
“Sounds all right,” I said, “but it’s a little out of line with what I’ve been doing.”
“What have you been doing—a cheap stick-up here and there? And what’ll it get you? A bullet in the ass. This is better and pays more.” She leaned over me. I could smell the gin on her breath.
“No pimping,” I said.
“No pimping!” she said. “What kind of a place do you think I run here anyway? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry can’t get in here. I got a nice, quiet home trade.”
“O.K.,” I said standing up. “When do I start?”
“Right now,” she said smiling. “But remember one thing. Leave the girls alone. I don’t mean you shouldn’t fool around once in a while when you feel like. But don’t play any favorites. I don’t want any arguments among my girls.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I understand.”
She came close to me. “You do your job and mind your own business, and they’ll never find you here.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said.
“You got a job,” she said, and went over to the cabinet and poured herself another drink. After she swallowed it she looked at me again. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Frankie,” I said, “Frank Kane. What’s yours?”
“Just call me Grandma,” she said, and tossed off the drink.
29
She walked to the doors. “Mary, Mary,” she screeched at the top of her voice. She turned around and walked back to me. “Where’s your luggage?” she asked.
“What luggage,” I said.
“You must have been in a hurry,” she laughed. “That’s being young for you. Always shooting off somewhere half-cocked. Not thinking about what you’d need. I suppose you’re broke too.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I thought so!” she cackled triumphantly. “I knew it from the way you looked. I bet you haven’t even got enough money to pay for a room if you did get one.”
I smiled thinking of the $185 I had in my pocket.
“O.K.,” she said, “O.K. When we go out shopping this afternoon we’ll buy you some clothes: a suit with built-up shoulders—make you look bigger—some colored shirts.” She went to the door again and called Mary. “But don’t think you’re getting them for nothing,” she said coming back to me. “I’ll take it out of your first week’s pay.”
She stopped. A big colored girl came into the room. “What do you want?” she asked the old lady.
“My grandson just got here from New York,” the old lady said. “Show him the empty room on the third floor.”
The girl looked at me skeptically. The old woman, apparently reading her mind, shouted at her: “What’s the matter? You heard me—my grandson! I could have a grandson, couldn’t I? I’m the same as the other women in the neighborhood. They got children.”
The colored girl sniffed. “I been with you six years, Miz Mander. I ain’t heard you mention nobody.”
“That’s the niggers for you,” the old woman said, turning to me. “Treat ’em good and pretty soon they think they own you.” She turned back to the colored girl. She was almost screaming now: “Goddamn your black hide! I told you he was my grandson. Look at him. He looks like me. Look at his eyes. They’re like mine, I said.”
The colored girl looked at me. I could see her hesitate. “If’n you say so, Miz Mander,” she said.
The old woman snorted triumphantly. “Well, he isn’t. I never
saw him before today. But he’s going to work here, and as far as anyone else goes, he’s my grandson.” She turned to me and said: “You can’t fool Mary. She’s been with me too long. We can’t fool you, can we, Mary?”
“No, Miz Mander,” Mary said, smiling now.
“Show him his room,” Mrs. Mander said. “Then for Christ’s sake bring me some breakfast! And then clean out this goddamn room! It stinks!” She went to the doorway and then turned to me. “Did you eat, Frankie?” she asked.
“Yes, Grandma,” I said.
“All right,” she said. “Go to your room then. I’ll call you in about an hour. We have to go shopping.” She stalked off down the hall, disappearing in the door behind the staircase.
I followed Mary up the staircase. The house was quiet, the hallways dimly lit and somehow dirty. Two flights up she stopped in front of a small room. She opened the door and I followed her in. It was a small room facing the street. Heavy black curtains hung beside the window. A small single bed was over against the wall, a washstand in the other corner.
“The toilet’s down the hall,” Mary said, pointing to it. “That room over there is Miz Mander’s, mine is upstairs. The girls are all down on the second floh.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She looked at me a minute. “You really from New York?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“But you no relative of hers?”
“No,” I said.
She went out. I closed the door behind her. I took off my jacket and threw it over a chair. I stretched out on the bed. I felt tired and restless. I didn’t know yet how hard it was to look for a job. I looked at the ceiling and then the wall. I tried to shut my eyes but they were burning. I got out of bed and went to the window and drew the black heavy curtains together. The dimness of the room seemed to suit me better. I stretched out on the bed again.
Let the old dame think what she wants! She was right about one thing. The cops wouldn’t find me here. As soon as things were quiet I could beat it and join the folks. I wondered about the family. How were they doing? I could see my aunt all excited over the wire that Brother Bernhard would send her—my uncle telling her not to worry. Brother Bernhard must be mad as hell. Mrs. Mander thought I was tough. In a jam with the cops… funny… Baltimore… Grandma… whorehouse… don’t play favorites….
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 15