by Larry Karp
“Any time,” Samuel said lightly.
Brown let go of Samuel, extended his hand to me. “And you, young man. Whenever your father wants to bring you, you’re welcome. Far be it from me to object if he wants to teach you to be the kind of doctor he is.”
I said a quiet thank-you. Samuel pulled the bell cord, waited for the nurse. When she came he listened to Rhoda’s heart and lungs, checked her reflexes, told her to follow his moving finger with her eyes. “Doing fine,” he said over his shoulder, then turned to face the nurse. “She got the full antitoxin dose? No allergic reaction?”
“Oh, yes. And no. I mean, she got it and no problems.” The nurse’s little upside-down cupcake cap threatened to topple. “And Dr. Firestone…”
Samuel straightened, smiled. “What, Mrs. Rackshaw?”
“I just want you to know that when you went out for the penicillin yesterday, Dr. Cornwell did a smear and culture from the ear.”
Samuel shrugged lightly. “Positive for diphtheria.”
Mrs. Rackshaw nodded vigorously.
“She’s getting penicillin on schedule? Fifty thousand units—”
“Every eight hours by the clock.” Mrs. Rackshaw’s face made it clear no earthly or supernatural power could in any way cause the slightest variation in the prescribed dose of penicillin.
“Good,” Samuel looked back at Rhoda. “Great stuff, that penicillin. Two weeks, you can run for Miss America.”
Rhoda simpered. “Gee, Dr. Firestone, that’d be swell.”
We made a few house calls, a bad cold, an upset stomach, a nasty sprained back. Then we went to see Erskine Crosbie, in his old brown-shingled house on East Thirty-sixth Street. Erskine and his brother-in-law once had been partners in a fabric mill, but when a black-marketeer came knocking, Erskine said no, the brother-in-law, yes. So they split the business, and each man opened his own mill. Brother-in-law’s nest got quickly feathered, not Erskine’s. “Most honest man I’ve ever known,” Samuel said. “That mill of his is barely getting by, but he won’t let Mr. Black put a foot inside the door.”
Ruth Crosbie met us at the front door, led us upstairs, past the two kids’ rooms, into the master bedroom. Erskine sat propped up in bed against two pillows, surrounded by sheets of paper covered with scribbled numbers. Ruth stooped to pick up a couple of pages that had fallen to the floor, slung them back onto the bed. “He won’t stop, works morning ’til night. You told him he’s got to relax, Samuel, but the only difference is he’s in bed instead of sitting at his desk in the office.”
Erskine smiled an apology, slid his pencil behind his ear. “Now, how’n the world could I ever be more relaxed?” he drawled. “Get my meals in bed, everything else I want brought to me. If I was doin’ a crossword puzzle you’d say it was fine. But then I’d be bored.” His big-toothed grin made him look like the Kentucky plowboy he once was.
Ruth looked thoroughly disgusted. She was an attractive woman in her early forties, soft brown eyes and lustrous hair down to her shoulders, but right then she looked ten years older, eyes clouded, hair a mess, skin tight over her cheekbones. She lit a cigarette, blew smoke across the room. Erskine reached out to her. “Gimme a drag, Ruthie.”
She pulled away as if he’d asked her to do something obscene. “Erskine, what am I going to do with you? You heard Samuel—no cigarettes. You haven’t had one for three days now.”
“An’ it’s killin’ me. Come on, gimme a puff, just one. One li’l puff won’t do any harm.”
Samuel stepped between them. “She’s right, Ersk. Nicotine makes blood vessels constrict, last thing we want right now. Come on, lift up your shirt.” Samuel set his stethoscope against Erskine’s chest, listened, then motioned me forward, handed me the earpieces. I slipped them into place. “What do you hear?” Samuel asked.
“Just regular heart sounds, lub-dup, lub-dup. Not a gallop rhythm, like I heard last time.”
“He’s getting better.” Samuel talked to me, looked at Erskine. “Heart’s stronger, no more failure, great. Any pain, Ersk?”
Erskine shook his head. “Not since right after you left yesterday, and jus’ a li’l squeeze then. Went away soon’s I took the nitro.”
“Good.” Samuel clapped Erskine’s shoulder. “Keep it up. Maybe another month, six weeks, you can—”
I thought Erskine might go airborne. “A month more?” Erskine threw back the covers, started to get up, but Samuel stopped him cold with a finger and a word: “Don’t.” As Erskine settled back, Samuel said slowly, “We made a deal, Ersk. You said you wouldn’t go to the hospital—”
“Not wouldn’t, couldn’t. You know I don’t have coverage.”
“You know I’d’ve fixed it.”
“You know I don’t approve of ‘fixing’ things.”
Ruth stubbed her cigarette in an ashtray. Samuel smiled, then Erskine relaxed into a chuckle. “Let’s see how the EKG looks,” Samuel said, and started to pull the little machine toward the bed. Erskine looked sideways at him. “You ‘fixed’ that, didn’t you? Or has Steinberg Hospital got a free loan policy on their cardiograph machines?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.” Samuel squirted clear jelly out of a tube onto the suction cups at the ends of the lead wires. “If I’ve got to treat you at home, I’m at least going to get an EKG every day. Now shut up and lie still.” He slapped the first lead onto Erskine’s chest; Erskine jumped. “Jee-sus, that jelly’s cold.”
Samuel glanced at Ruth. “Put it in the oven tomorrow, Ruthie, three hours at three-fifty. Now hold still, would you, Ersk. I’ve got other patients to see today.”
As we drove off, Samuel didn’t look happy. “Clear coronary thrombosis, mild but still… Rest, another month with no pain, he’ll probably be all right. Just hope he doesn’t have another attack, maybe bigger.”
Samuel had a lunch meeting in the hospital, so he dropped me at home. I made myself a sandwich, ate it as I pedaled down to the junkyard. On my way through the gate, I saw two men working over the garbage heap at the far fence, could just about make them out through the smoke as George and Oscar. I parked my bike against the side of the office, then pulled the tarp off the table, sat down, started polishing pieces of brass. In my mind, I handed Harmony that music box a hundred times or more, tried to imagine how she’d look, what she’d say. When someone rumbled, “Hey, Dockie, looks like you’re doing some nice work,” I damn near jumped out of my chair. There were Murray and George, grinning, soot all over their faces and clothing. “Murray,” I said. “I thought…”
“Yeah?”
Did I want to tell him I’d thought he was Oscar, out by the garbage fire? “Nothing, really,” I said quickly. “Just thought I might have this done before you got finished out there.”
George bent from the waist to study the music box parts. “Mmmm. Ain’t never seen brass shine no better, looks like gold. You do nice work, boy.”
“Hey, that ain’t no boy, boy.” Murray gave George a wicked look to go with a poke in the ribs. “That’s Young Doc Firestone. You know what’s good for you, you’ll call him Dockie.”
Junkyard talk, Martin. I knew it, just couldn’t speak it. “I already met George,” I said. “The other day. He calls me Leo, and that’s fine with me.”
George looked embarrassed, but nothing I said ever seemed to even scratch Murray’s hide. “Hey, Dockie, you gotta have a little sensa humor. Don’t you know how to smile?” He poked a finger into my ribs. “Cootchie-coo.” I gave it my best. Murray messed my hair with a quick pass of his hand. “Gotta go down the street, meet a guy, be back later. Keep going, you’re doing a jim-dandy job there.”
George watched Murray ramble out of sight around the corner of the office building. “Murray don’t mean no harm,” he said. “Way he talks.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
George nodded several times, as if he weren’t sure he ought to say what was on his mind. Finally he spoke. “Ain’t nev
er seen somebody fix a music box top to bottom like this—okay if I watch while I eat?”
“Glad for the company.”
George went into the office, came back with a battered gray lunch pail which he opened on the edge of the worktable. He took out two fragrant hot sausage sandwiches, offered me one. I shook my head. “Already ate, thanks.” I picked up the brass cylinder and a brush, started to work, but then heard Red Dexter’s voice through the open window behind me. “You’re doin’ good, Oscar, real good. An’ you can breathe easier now, too. Convenient, Jonas’ ticker goin’ off like that, huh? Who the hell knows when he mighta done a little talkin’ outa school?”
George put down his sandwich, laid a finger seriously across his lips.
Oscar Fleischmann’s harsh voice sounded mechanical. “Forty-eight, forty-nine, five-even, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-two fifty, fifty-two-seventy-five.” He blew a long, low whistle. “More’n five grand.”
“This week you eat steak,” said Red. “You and Murray both.” Little snicker. “More’n twenty-six and a half Cs each.”
A cough, deep, phlegmy. “Guess I really am better off without Jonas, ain’t I? Prob’ly be better off without Murray too. Got a nigger out there, he works like a nigger for just fifty-five bucks a week. Suppose Murray wasn’t here and I hire me another nigger at fifty? Hell, hire two. Do I got to do the numbers?”
George looked like a grenade ready for pin-pull, but as I opened my mouth he shook his head and raised the shush-finger again. “Jus’ listen,” he whispered.
“Numbers ain’t everything, Oscar.” The tone of warning in Red’s voice set hair standing on my arms and neck. “I don’t see Samuel Firestone sittin’ still if his pal Murray’s health happens to all of a sudden take a turn for the worse. Especially if he thinks it was you put Murray on a permanent sick list. Don’t get greedy, Os, business is only gonna get better. Be plenty dough for you and your son.”
“My son! Shit! You think Murray’s gonna take care a me when I can’t work no more?” Oscar’s voice became pleading, almost whining. “I’m sixty-seven years old, for Christ’s sake, and when this goddamn war’s over I want to have a big enough pile so I ain’t ever gonna need to move into the County Home. Ain’t no pensions in a junkyard, case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I notice more’n you think, Oscar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means if you pack away anything like half of what you guys’re gonna pull in before the war’s done, you won’t have a thing to worry about. But go fuck with Samuel—”
“Goddamn, Red. If he’s a dead corpse I can fuck with him all I want and he ain’t gonna bother me or anybody else.”
“Okay, Oscar. Now listen, and listen good. Lift a hand against Samuel Firestone, you’ll be dealin’ with me. And in case you think I’m small potatoes, you better know there’s plenty big spuds at Central who’d look very unkindly on a person who’s even thinkin’ about sendin’ off Samuel Firestone. You’re smart, you’ll figure there’s a wall around Samuel, and Murray’s right inside with him. You hear, Os?”
I went back to polishing. George drank milk from a thermos cup. A moment later, I heard, “Hey!”
I looked up. Oscar Fleischmann was barely under control, cheeks and forehead blotchy purple, mouth twisted. “Hey, nigger, what the hell you just sittin’ here for?” he shouted. “I ain’t payin’ you good money to watch some little fairy play with his…” Oscar twisted his right arm and hand into a cutesy pose. “Mew-zic box.”
“Lunch break,” George said evenly. “Be over when Murray come back.”
That did it. Oscar started jumping up and down like Yosemite Sam in those old movie cartoons. Fists in the air, up, down, up, down. “I’m your boss,” Oscar screamed at the top of his voice. “This’s my junkyard, not Murray’s. Now get your black ass back to work before I start dockin’ your pay. You hear?”
George didn’t blink. “Who own the yard be none a my business,” he said. “But Murray tell me take lunch now, an’ that time ain’t up yet. Don’ like it, talk to Murray.”
Oscar took a step toward George. George sprang to his feet. “I ain’t about to hit no man sixty-seven years old,” he said. “Less’n he hit me first.”
Oscar stopped, narrowed his eyes. A crafty look came over his face. “How do you know I’m sixty-seven?” he said, then glanced at the office window. “How long the two a you been sittin’ here?”
“You once tol’ me how old you was,” George said, smooth as custard. “When I first come to work here. Said you was twenty-two years older’n me and you’d outwork me any day a the week. And for you’ information, we been sittin’ here for almos’ half an hour.”
Oscar muttered something I couldn’t make out, started to walk away.
“One mo’ thing,” George called after him.
Oscar stopped walking, looked back.
“Okay you call me nigger—but ever talk to me again like I be one, I will hit you, don’t care about no sixty-seven years old. You hear?”
Oscar turned around, stomped off. Going around the corner of the building he literally bumped into Murray. “Understand you got something for me,” Murray said.
Oscar sneered. “Little birdie been talkin’ to you?”
“Yeah. A little red birdie.”
Oscar glanced back our way, mumbled, “C’mon inside.”
The two of them disappeared around the corner. George looked ready to split a gut. He and I sat as if the slightest motion on our part might set bells clanging. Finally we heard Murray’s voice. “Bit short, Pop.”
“What, short? You ever clear two thousand in a month before? This’s the best we ever did.”
“Scummy old bastard, you! We did fifty-two seventy-five, not four and a quarter. You think you’re gonna screw me outa more’n five hundred bucks, think another time.” Brief silence, then, “I don’t give a good rat fuck who’s out there hearing every word. Let ’em hear, I ain’t embarrassed. Now, I’m telling you for the last time, give. Else I take. And you ever try something like this again you’re gonna be Christmas dinner for buzzards.”
George and I strained toward the window, but heard nothing until a booming, “What the fuck the two a you listening for?” sent us straight upward. We wheeled around.
Murray stood in front of the table, heehawing for all he was worth. I started breathing again. “You sounded just like…”
If Murray was at all put out by our eavesdropping he didn’t show it. “That old cocker—he’d sell his mother to the pimps on Canal Street and throw in his granny if that’s what it took to make the deal go down.” Murray looked at the pile of music box parts between us. “Hey, Dockie, you’re really moving. Bet you get the cleaning and polishing done today. Next time you come we’ll put it all back together. Now, me’n George gotta go back to work.” His face went serious. “Before you leave, cover up your work with the tarp, tie it down on all sides, and check out with me. Pop so much as puts a finger on any of it, he’ll be singing soprano the rest of his life.”
Later, I followed “Mean to Me” through the cellar doors into Harmony’s basement. “You get better every day,” I said.
She put down her sax, gave me a get-serious look.
“No, really. You sound…well, brassy and plaintive, both. Kind of like Ethel Merman with a hangover.”
She laughed. Those dimples… “Are you done yet with my music box?”
“It’s coming along. I spent all afternoon at the yard, working on it.” Then I told her what I’d heard through the open office window, at least most of it. Before I could finish, she jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe it, Leo. Samuel wouldn’t—”
“Red Dexter said some big spuds at Central—that’s just the way he put it—would be very upset if anyone tried to hurt Samuel. So what else can I think? Murray or Oscar or both of them must’ve been afraid Jonas would talk, so they fed him strychnine. Then Murray called Samuel, and Samuel s
igned him out as a heart attack. If it was just black market, I could handle that. But they killed a person.”
She gave me a long look, then took my hand, led me across the room to a couch, sat at the end. “Lie down, Leo, come on. Put your head in my lap, that’s right.” She stroked my hair. “Poor baby.”
At dinner that evening Ramona asked if I felt all right. I told her I was thinking, honest answer. From the Philco just around the corner in the living room, Fulton Lewis Jr. droned on about some honor Westbrook Pegler had just received. Lewis didn’t think much of Pegler or the honor. “I agree,” Ramona said primly.
No surprise. Ramona adored Fulton Lewis Jr., just as Samuel detested him. Lewis was an odd sort of glue in their marriage, brought them together to argue for fifteen minutes almost every evening. “We need more Peglers,” Samuel said. “Lot of muck around still to be raked.”
Ramona sat up straight. “If you’re so fond of Westbrook Pegler, how do you explain the way he talks about Mrs. Roosevelt? According to him, she’s a public nuisance.”
Samuel’s eyes brightened, cheeks lit. “Pegler generates so much smoke, sometimes it gets in his eyes and he hits the wrong target.” Sly smile. “Nobody’s perfect.”
What about the man I’d seen take a five-dollar loss on a night call Down-river, then cover up a strychnine poisoning by calling it a heart attack and lying to his son?
Ramona sniffed. “In my opinion that’s the only time Westbrook Pegler is right. Mrs. Roosevelt is a busybody. She’d do a lot better to stay home and look after her own house, and not make trouble for her husband.”
Warning siren, loud and clear, in that last sentence. Samuel must have heard it too. He picked up his fork, shoveled a mouthful of vegetables. “Mmmm…good tomatoes.” His smile would’ve charmed a wounded grizzly bear. Ramona smiled back, jerked her head toward the back yard, now almost completely transformed into a Victory Garden. “That’s because they’re fresh. Just two hours ago, they were still on the vine.”