by Ed Lacy
Walt looked at Ruth. “You look kind of pale yourself. Is she beaten up?”
Ruth nodded as she lit a cigarette, leaning against the entrance of what, perhaps half a century ago, had been an imposing brownstone and was now a cheap rooming-house. Ruth shook herself, as if something might be crawling on her. “Both her eyes are blackened. She's such a pathetic little thing. But so is he. What do we do now?”
“First we hear what she has to say. Then we'll hide her out in some hotel.”
“Want to take her to my sister's across the river? Ann loves to do good and... Is May in any real danger?”
“If they found her they might work her over again, but I doubt if they're going to look too hard. Certainly, not out of the state.”
“What did she actually do?”
“Held out a dollar bet from the numbers mob.”
“How much?”
“One dollar.”
“They beat her for a lousy buck?”
Walt looked at Ruth as if she was a child. “It sounds funny, but it's the principle of the thing. They can't let anybody hold out a cent on them, or they're through. Listen, thanks for doing all this, Ruth.” He touched her shoulder with his hand.
Ruth turned away, blew out a smoke ring. “It's... interesting. Nice of you to help Tommy. Was he a famous pug?”
“No. But he's had over two hundred amateur and pro bouts. He's...”
“His face looks like his mother was frightened by a boxing glove.”
“Can't you ever stop with the clever dialogue?” Walt asked. “I had less than twenty amateur bouts, all told. Two hundred fights isn't nothing to joke about or...”
“Isn't anything to joke about?”
“What?”
Tommy came running back, holding a paper bag. He said, “I can't understand why May won't see me. I'll take this up...”
Ruth took the bag. “She's hungry, upset, doesn't want you to see her like this. Just wait a while.” Starting up the stairs with the bag of food, Ruth stared at the worn, wooden steps, thought, Here I am in the middle of the night, bringing food to a beaten, hungry woman in this stinking fire-trap. What more could any writer ask? If I don't get a story out of this, I'll turn in my typewriter.
Ruth sat on the bed while May stood, wolfed down the coffee and two sandwiches. She'd said, “Messy to eat on a bed. And it's bad luck.”
“If I had my wits about me, I'd have brought up a drink.”
“I don't touch that stuff.”
When Ruth lit another cigarette, offered her one, May said she didn't smoke. Ruth opened her chic, fur-trimmed coat, finished the cigarette. May was eating slower now, chewing the food, her thin face almost smiling. She said, “My, a steak couldn't have tasted better. Food makes all the difference, doesn't it? I feel so much better. One reason I liked being a waitress, I almost felt as if I was doing good, helping people eat.”
“Tommy bought the food. You'll have to see him, Mrs.... May. He wanted to dash right up here. You should see him. What's a black eye between husband and wife?”
“It isn't my face, Lord knows I never was a beauty.” May smoothed a fold in her skirt, seemed to absent-mindedly caress it. “Funny the kind of things you think about. I mean, even at a time like this, the trouble I'm in—I should be thinking about a hundred things and not about the time Tommy and I were first married. You see, I was brought up very strict by my aunt. In our neighborhood there were only two kinds of girls. You know what I mean.”
May suddenly blushed and looked so young and girlish, Ruth wanted to cry. May said, “I don't even know why I'm telling you this, except I was thinking about it today, sort of running it over and over in my mind. Just now, when I said I was never a beauty. On our wedding night I... I... simply couldn't bring myself to undress. Tommy understood so well, that I wasn't afraid of him, but scared of the whole... idea. He turned off the lights in the hotel room and I was numb with... well... fright is about the right word. Then he began undressing me, his hands so easy, and I started to weep. Everything he did was so gentle and considerate, but I still cried. When I was naked he turned on the lights. I covered my face with my hands, I was that ashamed. So Tommy he pulled my hands away and says, 'Look at yourself in that mirror, May. Right how there's no difference between you and Mrs. Rockefeller. Do you know that? Except you're prettier—to me.' Of course we were poorer than church mice but what he said sounded so nice, so fine, I relaxed, even giggled. And... Gee, I shouldn't be talking like this. Poor Tommy, how can I ever explain to him what I've done?”
“Come on now, after all, what did you actually do, steal a dollar? That's nothing. We all have...”
“But it is so bad. Tommy and I had our differences, most of them forced on us by lack of money... and other things. But certain things we never had to worry about—like either of us being unfaithful or doing anything crooked. That's why it will be hard for me to explain how I became mixed up with the number crooks. Big Burt had suggested to me a couple times before that I should pick up numbers for him. But I wouldn't even listen, hear him out. Then... You see, I found an apartment I could get if I had a hundred and fifty to buy the furniture. I pleaded with Tommy to quit the ring, get any kind of job. With an apartment I felt we could both start living again. We've been apart for over a year. It's the shabby living in cheap rooms that spoils a marriage. Do you have an apartment? A home?”
“Yes, we have a flat.”
“Then you must know what I mean, how necessary a place of your own is. I felt if we didn't get this apartment, we were really finished. I had to raise the money before Bertha sold the apartment to somebody else. Nobody I could borrow that kind of money from. On what I make, I'd never be able to save fast enough. So, God forgive me, I agreed to take numbers. I was to get ten per cent of what I collected and if somebody hits, one of your customers, they usually give the runner another ten per cent. I was sure I'd make a lot of money—say, ten dollars a night.” May smoothed her skirt again. “But it takes time before people get to know about it, and so I couldn't be too open. Butch would have fired me. And rightly so. I did make a few dollars, and then several nights ago I clean forgot to give Burt some of the money I'd collected. Honest, it slipped my mind.”
“I'm certain it did.”
“You know the odds are six hundred to one and I was in a sweat. Suppose some of the numbers I didn't give in won? But they didn't and Big Burt never knew the difference. So then I thought—God have mercy—if I could hold out a few dollars a night, take a chance... well, in a month, I'd have the hundred and fifty dollars for the apartment. Well, poor Shorty James hit. Oh dear, he said it was the first time he'd won in over two years. And I hadn't turned in his dollar. Now he's out all that money. And Heaven only knows what Big Burt will do to me if he ever catches...” May started to weep again.
Ruth said sharply, “Stop it, all this Shorty really lost was one dollar. Don't be afraid, we'll find a place where you can hide, maybe out of town, and you can get another job.”
“But you don't see, I'll never be able to take Bertha's apartment now! It's the end of Tommy and me.”
“Nonsense, there are other apartments,” Ruth said, thinking. She said, “nobody I could borrow that kind of money from....” A hundred and fifty dollars—and she made it sound like a million...
“Where? For a whole year I been looking hard for one— that we could afford. A roof over our heads is important as food. I've messed this up so. It's a wonder Tommy sticks to me.”
“Stop blaming yourself. As you said, if Tommy had taken a job.... I heard he's had plenty of fights. Doesn't he make any money in the ring?”
“Not any more. He's way past his prime. He shouldn't be fighting. Seeing him hurt is another of my nightmares. But I can't tell him that.”
“Perhaps we can all talk to him. The first thing is for you to pull yourself together, get out of here and into a safer place. Then we'll convince Tommy to...”
May shook her head, ran her sleeve over her wet face. “He h
as to realize it himself. It's wrong to tell a husband what to do. Oh, I found that out.”
Ruth grinned. “Honey, the idea that a wife is a man's pet servant is so old-fashioned that...”
“No, no, you don't understand,” May said, her voice suddenly clear as she looked up at Ruth. “Although, being happily married, you must know this. What I meant is, marriage is a partnership, and one partner has no right to press the other too much. Believe me, the girls I work with, they all really want to have a good marriage, despite their fast talk. That song about a good man is hard to find—it's the truth. Tommy is a good man. Why when I married him I became a somebody for the first time in my life. Even before —I was known as Irish Tommy's girl. People would point me out on the street. Tommy was a famous man in our neighborhood. It was all so lovely in the beginning. We were living pretty well. Tommy began bringing home five or six hundred dollars a fight, sometimes fighting twice a month. When he was in training we didn't sleep together. Gee, Mrs....”
“Ruth.”
“Ruth, you must think I'm awful talking so much about sex. But a fighter's wife is... like I said, we'd be apart and then it would be a honeymoon all over again. I hate boxing, but I did get a thrill the few times I was at ringside, seeing how clever and sure my husband was, listening to the crowd yell for him. Everybody said Tommy would be champ soon, even the newspapers. I ruined that for him, too.”
“What's with you, May, blaming yourself for everything?”
“It's true, it was my fault. When I became pregnant and they found the spot on my lungs, the doctor told me not to have the baby. I was only in my second month. Even my priest... well, never mind that. But I insisted, went ahead and had the boy. It was a baby boy even though it was a still-birth. I nearly died having the kid, my lungs went to pieces. I had to go to this fancy sanitarium. Tommy insisted upon the best for me. We needed a few thousand dollars in a big hurry. Tommy went in with Robinson.”
“So?”
“Of course you don't understand about boxing. Tommy was smart, wouldn't let any manager rush him for a fast dollar. Robinson was the greatest fighter of our day. Boxing is like any other job, it takes time to learn your trade. Perhaps in a few years Tommy would have been ready for Robinson. He wasn't then and he knew it. And his fierce pride wouldn't let him put up a cautious fight. He tore into Robinson. Tommy was beaten so badly.... I thanked God I was in a coma before and especially after the fight. My Tom never got over that licking. His reflexes were mined and... why, he was urinating blood for a week afterwards.
“Even then, he might have made it if he'd taken a long rest. Tom had to keep on fighting, my doctor bills were piling up. As I told you, he's a proud man, wouldn't have taken charity even if we could have got some. He was Irish Cork, the contender. When the hospital finally released me, about a year later, I found out the truth. Tom was finished, fighting for a few dollars on his former reputation. He was broke. I insisted upon helping, working. That was our first separation. He walked out when I took a factory job. But I couldn't get any other work and it almost killed me, but we were hungry. Since then we have a reunion, then part, makeup and part again—living in dreary rooms which made us both mad all the time. Tom can't face up to the fact he's through as a boxer. He's never lost hope, still talks about his luck changing, bringing home a big purse.
“You know, I was downright glad when the army called him. I thought it would help him—resting, eating right. If I'd said anything, us being married and all, they would have turned him down. But I kept quiet. It didn't work. He was twenty-five then and the two years he lost.... He should never have returned to the ring when he came out. But he had his hopes, faith in his luck, and boxing is all he knows. It's a mean dirty business, but it was his trade and I had no right pushing him to do what I wanted. These last years, I don't know how we existed. That's why I took numbers. I thought if we had a place of our own, if we both worked, we could live a little, at least have a few hours of home life every day. I mean, I'm only twenty-eight. Tommy's thirty two—we still have most of our life ahead of us. Trouble is, when you have it good, you don't know it.”
“Maybe,” Ruth said, lighting another cigarette, hoping her amazement didn't show on her face. This wreck of a woman only twenty-eight! “But don't blame yourself, none of us can tell what the future will turn up. Even if you hadn't become ill... say Tommy had gone on to be a champ, pugs always seem to end up poor anyway.”
“Not rock-bottom-poor. Tommy was never a playboy. If he had been a champ, as he should have been, no matter what else happened, he'd have been a success. He'd have been champion and they couldn't take that from him. Even if he lost his money, he'd be fronting for a restaurant or a bar now, not... Most times now he's on the bum, actually hungry. That's why he never came around to see me much, he was ashamed....”
Ruth crushed her cigarette on the floor. She had this feeling she simply couldn't stand hearing another word of this wretched tale, interrupted May with “Look, this is no time for words. Tommy is waiting downstairs, in the cold. Supposing you wash up and I'll send Tommy up here. Meantime, my husband and I will make arrangements. I think you can live at my sister's for a time. She's across the river, out of town. Has a house full of kids, so she'll be glad to have a built-in baby sitter. You'll be safe there. Okay?”
“Of course. Anything you say. God bless you... Ruth.” May started for the door, then stopped. “I didn't have time to pick up a washcloth or a towel... and they don't have any paper here. Can you spare a hankie I can wash with?”
Ruth gave her a package of tissues, a comb, and her lipstick. When May returned she looked a little better. Ruth said she'd send Tommy up and as she left the room, she saw May stoop, pick up the butt Ruth had left on the floor.
Downstairs, when she told Tommy not to argue with May, he said, “Argue? What are you talking about? All I want is to see her, hold her,” and rushed up the steps.
Trembling slightly with the cold air, Ruth thought, How odd, the sincere eagerness of this homely little man for his drab, plain, beaten woman. Or is it odd? I'm getting to have the patronizing, true slick story mind—only the beautiful, the perfect, can love.
Walt, stamping his big feet to warm them, glanced at her, asked, “What are you smiling about? What's the joke?”
“That's what I was wondering. Not what the joke is but rather who the jokers in the deck are. We only realize the—”
“Turn philosophical some other time,” Walt said curtly. “We have to phone your sister and I'll see if I can borrow a car.”
As they walked toward a lighted window,—a bar,—and a phone, Ruth said, “Tommy is such a quaint character. So pathetic.”
“Somebody might be trying to murder 'quaint' Tommy, because he is so pathetic.”
TOMMY
It was past one-thirty when Walt and Ruth dropped Tommy off at his hotel. He was thoroughly confused, had been ever since he'd taken May in his arms, began crying as he kissed her braised face. When she told him why she had taken the money, Tommy had merely said, “Honey, I never knew the apartment meant so much to you. Look, if you want, I'll get a job, become a dishwasher, do like you say. I mean, soon... if anything goes wrong between me and this new manager. Like if he drops me. May, I haven't had the chance to tell you. I have a great manager, a real live one. I'm in good shape, staying at a fine hotel and eating three times a day, and this manager foots the bill. Isn't that something?”
She pulled away, looked him over. “You do look sharp. Tommy, do you think—now—you can get up the money for the apartment?”
“Well, I don't get much actual green. Arno—my manager —he pays the tabs and all I get is a few bills for spending. Listen, forget the apartment, the first thing we have...”
“I can't forget the apartment!”
He pulled her to him, gently ran his fingers over the purplish skin under her eyes. “May, what's the use of having an apartment if we can't live in it? We have to get square with the numbers punks before thinking of
anything else. For true, how much did the guy hit for with you?”
“A dollar.”
Tommy whistled into her graying hair. “Could be worse— like a five dollar hit. A buck—means we have to raise six hundred fish. Know what. I'll go see the guy tonight, explain that we'll pay off, fast as we can. That way, he won't be sore and the numbers mob won't have anything against you any more. Yeah, at least let him know we're paying off. What's the player's name and where can I find him?”
“They call him Shorty. Shorty James. He works in the icebox at the big meat house down the block and across from the diner. Oh Tom, how can we raise so much money?”
“Right this minute I don't know, but I'll ante it up—in time. Ill get these numbers jerks off your back, then we'll see about the apartment. Say, if I can get up six hundred, no reason why I can't pony up another hundred and fifty.”
“Oh, Tom, do you think you can?” May said, kissing him wildly.
Now, as Tommy left the hotel, buttoning his coat against the night cold, he made sure Walt and Ruth had driven off the block, then headed for the market. Tommy wasn't thinking of the six hundred dollars, but only of May's kiss. He had never been a passionate man, hunger and the constant training grind had drained his excess energy, and desire needs fuel. The truth was, he rarely thought of sex. But May's kisses had aroused in him memories of their early marriage nights—his delight at the way her delicate little body would come alive, roaring and demanding, sending fire racing through his own blood.