She turned a mirthless smile toward me. “I was a kid then. I didn’t know how much money we would need for medicine and doctors, I didn’t know how little they paid stenographers and typists. The fifteen dollars a week couldn’t cover even a small part of our expenses. My first job was with a vaudeville booking agent. I learned quickly, and a few weeks later when I went to the boss and asked for a raise, he just laughed at me. I didn’t understand him and asked what he was laughing at.
“‘You’re a bright kid,’ he said, ‘but I can’t afford to pay you any more.’
“‘But I need more money,’ I cried.
“He stood there a moment, then walked around his desk. ‘If you’re really that hard up,’ he said, ‘I can put you in the way of some real sugar.’
“‘How?’ I asked; ‘I’ll do anything. I need the money!’
“‘There’s a party going on tonight,’ he told me. ‘Some friends came into town and they asked me to send up some girls for the evening. They pay twenty bucks.’
“I stared at him. I don’t suppose I really knew what he meant, but the twenty dollars was a lot of money, so I went to the party.”
She got to her feet and looked down at me. Her face was impassive, her voice flat and emotionless. “And that is how it was. I worked and paid the doctor’s bills and for medicine, but it wasn’t until I met Maxie Fields at a party and he liked me that I could get enough money together to fix this place up for Ben.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mouth was dry and I wanted a cigarette. I reached for a pack near the bed. She guessed what I wanted, our hands met on the cigarette package. I held hers and her eyes stared sombrely down into mine.
“That’s the way it was until the night you stayed because I asked you. Because you didn’t want Maxie to think I had failed him, because you didn’t want him to hurt me. Never for love, always for money. Never for myself. Always for money. Until that night. Then suddenly I realized what I had traded away. But it was too late. I had already set the price and I couldn’t back out of the sale now.”
She let go of my hand and held a cigarette toward me. I put it in my mouth and she lit it for me.
“You have to go back, Sarah?” I asked.
“I have to go back,” she answered tonelessly. She smiled vaguely at me. “It almost seems funny to hear you call me Sarah. It’s been so long since anyone but Ben called me that.”
“You got no other name that I can remember,” I said.
The sombre look vanished from her face. “Danny,” she said, a nice look coming into her eyes, “let’s keep it like that between us—always. Let’s be friends.”
I took her hand. “We are friends, Sarah,” I said quietly.
Then Ben had come back with a container of hot broth. I had some and dozed off. When I woke up again, she had gone and Ben was sitting looking at me.
“She’s gone?” I asked, my eyes looking around the small room.
He nodded. “Her boss, Mr. Fields, expected her back this afternoon. He keeps her pretty busy.”
I agreed with him. “He’s an important man.”
He hesitated a moment, then cleared his throat. “She says you want to work here this summer.”
I nodded.
“I can’t afford to pay very much,” he half apologized. “I don’t know yet how we’ll make out.”
“Let’s not worry about the dough,” I said. “It ain’t what you can pay me that’s important. It’s what I can repay the both of you that counts.”
He had grinned suddenly and held out his hand. “We’ll get along, Danny,” he had said.
And we had. For almost two months now. Sarah would be down to see us once a week and things began to work out all right. Business had been just fair, but Ben made expenses and was happy with that. I was happy too, because I was out of Fields’s reach.
When Sarah had come down the next week, I was already back to normal. Outside the soreness in my arm, I could get around all right. The first thing I had asked her when we found a moment alone was about Spit and the Collector. Nothing had appeared in the papers all that week.
They were in the private hospital of some medic that Fields knew. The Collector had a broken jaw from my kick, and Spit had nine stitches taken in his side where his knife had gone into him. Another inch and a half and he would have croaked; it would have reached his heart. In a way I was glad. I wouldn’t have wanted a rap like that hanging over me.
Fields had been really burned. He had sworn that he would get me and that when he did I would be sorry. Before that night was over he had had the neighbourhood gone through with a fine-tooth comb, looking for me. After a week he was still raging.
Then as the weeks went by, Sarah told me, he spoke less and less about me. Fields was convinced that I had lammed it out of town with the dough. I was happy to let him think so.
Many times I had wanted to ask Sarah if she could find out anything about Nellie and my family, but I didn’t dare. I didn’t even try to write them because for a long time, according to Sarah, Fields had kept a watch on them. I wondered if Papa got the store with the money, if Mimi was working, how Mamma was and if they missed me and were sorry that I was gone. At night I would lie on my small bed and think about them. Sometimes when I closed my eyes I could imagine I was home again and Mamma was cooking supper and the house would be heavy with the odour of chicken soup. Then Papa would come home and a bitterness would rise in me. I would open my eyes and they would be gone.
Then I thought about Nellie. Her face would be clear before me in the night, smiling at me, her dark eyes warm with tenderness and love. I wondered if she understood, if she guessed why I had gone away. I wondered if she remembered what I had told her: “No matter what happens, remember that I love you.” She would nod her head at me in the dark and I could almost hear her whispered answer: “I remember Danny.”
Then I would close my eyes tightly and the sound of Ben’s snores would lull me to sleep. In the morning the sun would be shining brightly in my eyes when I woke up.
Like it was shining in my eyes now as I floated face upwards in the water. My body felt lightly buoyant in the water and I paddled gently. The waves slupped easily past me.
“Danny!” The familiar voice came toward me from the beach.
I got a mouthful of water as I spun around toward it. Sarah was standing on the beach waving at me. I waved at her, smiling as I swam back to the shore.
Chapter Two
SHE had found my towel and was dropping her terry-cloth robe beside it by the time I reached her. I grinned at her. “What are you doing down here?” I asked. “We didn’t expect you until the day after tomorrow.”
“Maxie had to go out of town,” she explained. “I have the whole week-end to myself.”
I was curious. “What happened?”
She was tucking her hair under a bathing cap. “How do I know?” She shrugged. “It’s none of my business. All I care about is that I can spend a week-end down here with you.”
The meaning of her words didn’t reach me until we were in the water again. She hadn’t said anything about Ben. Just me. I turned my face in the water and looked at her. She wasn’t a bad swimmer for a girl.
“Did yuh see Ben?” I called to her.
“Yeah,” she replied. “He told me you were out here.” She stopped swimming and treaded water. “The water is wonderful,” she cried. “I’m all out of breath.”
I swam over to her and put my arms under her shoulders. “Rest a minute,” I said. “You’ll get it back.”
She weighed nothing in the water. I could feel the firmness of her body as the waves pushed us back and forth. A familiar warmth began to rise in me. Quickly I let her go.
She turned in the water and looked at me. “Why did you let me go, Danny?” she asked.
“The waves were getting too much for me,” I explained awkwardly.
She shook her head. “What’s the reason, Danny? Don’t kid me.”
I stared at her. Her fa
ce was small and cute under her yellow cap, her eyes fresh and young as if the water had swept away everything she had ever known, all the hurt, all the knowledge. There was no use trying to hide anything from her. You don’t hold out on a friend.
“I’m making it easy on myself,” I said frankly.
“How?” she persisted.
I stared at her. “I’m not a machine,” I said, “and you’re beautiful.”
I could see she was pleased. “Nothing else?” she asked.
“What else could there be?” I was puzzled.
She hesitated a moment. “What I am?” she asked slowly.
I shook my head emphatically. “You’re my friend,” I said. “Nothing else matters.”
Her hands were on my arms and she was holding on to me in the water, her eyes scanning my face. “Sure, Danny?”
I nodded. “Sure.” I took a deep breath. “I just don’t want to louse things up, that’s all.”
She looked down at the water. “And if you kissed me, you think that might louse things up, is that it, Danny?”
“It might.”
Her eyes turned up to mine. “Because you’re in love with someone else, Danny?”
I nodded silently.
A curious hurt came into her eyes. “But how do you know, if you don’t even try, Danny?” she asked. “There are many kinds of love that you may not even know about.”
Her lips were moving tremulously. There was a shining moisture in her eyes that hadn’t come from the salt water, I pulled her closer to me and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and tasted from the salt and yet was sweet and warm. She closed her eyes when I kissed her and she was limp against me. I looked down into her face.
She turned her head away and looked out into the sea. I bent my head to hear what she was saying, her voice was so low. “I know you can never love me the way you love her, Danny, and that is the way it should be. But there is something for us that we have to give each other. Maybe it’s not very much or for a very long time, but for whatever it is or as long as it lasts, let’s make it important.”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say.
She turned her face up to me. She looked very young. “Remember what I told you, Danny? It was: ‘Never for love, always for money. Never for myself.’ For once I want it to be different, for once I want it to be for me. For what I want, not for what I’m paid.”
I pressed my mouth gently to her lips. “It will be as you want it, Sarah,” I said softly. One thing I had already learned: you don’t pay off friends by telling them that you haven’t got for them what they want from you. And if they are willing to accept a reasonable facsimile for the real thing, you’re not fooling them; they’re fooling themselves.
She was drying my back with the towel. “I didn’t realize it until just now,” she said, “but you’re almost black and your hair is burned white from the sun. Nobody would recognize you now.”
I grinned over my shoulder. “You recognized me.”
“I knew where to find you,” she said quickly. A puzzled expression crossed her face. “That reminds me. Do you know Sam Gottkin, the concessionaire?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “What about him?”
She looked up into my face. “He was down to see Maxie about you the other day.”
“What did he want?” I asked quickly.
“He wanted to know where you were. There was an Italian boy with him. Zep, I think his name was. You know him?”
I nodded. “He’s my girl’s brother. How’d they get to Maxie?”
“They had heard that Maxie was looking all over for you the night of the fight, so they came down to find out why. Sam and Maxie are old friends. Sam said he didn’t know you were gone until your sister came up to see him. Why would she do that?”
“I worked for Sam before,” I explained quickly. “Besides, Sam was all set to manage me when I turned pro. What did they say?”
“Maxie told them what he knew. That was nothing.”
“Did he tell them why he was looking for me?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “Sam flew into a rage at that. He told Maxie that he should have kept his hands off you. He called him all kinds of names.”
I looked at her wonderingly. “Maxie took it?”
“Not entirely,” she answered. “Maxie felt that Sam should have given him a piece of you since you came out of Maxie’s territory. They had a big argument then. Maxie said when he caught up with you, you’d be taken care of. Sam said that he should do nothing until he let him know first, that he had a score of his own to square.”
I stared at her. That really did it. There was nobody I could depend on now. “Did Maxie agree to that?” I asked.
“He agreed to it then,” she answered, “because afterwards they all sat down and had a few drinks and talked business. Then Sam called your sister and made a date for that night and he left. When he had gone, Maxie stamped up and down the room and swore that if he found you, Sam would never know about it until afterwards.”
That was about what I expected from him. He wouldn’t act any other way. Her next question really caught me by surprise.
“Is your sister engaged to Sam Gottkin?”
My mouth hung open. “Why do you ask that?” I stammered.
“Because one of the reasons Sam gave Maxie that he didn’t want you touched until he saw you was that you are his fiancée’s brother, and if anything happened to you it might queer all his plans.” Her voice was curious. “Didn’t you know that?”
I shook my head slowly. “Uh-uh. I didn’t even know they had met.” I wondered how that happened. It seemed stranger than anything else I had heard. Sam and Mimi—somehow I couldn’t believe that.
Chapter Three
I WAS seated below the counter when Ben began to swear. “Goddam them kids!” he muttered vehemently.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah asked.
He turned to her, his good arm waving at the beach. “A customer was coming over here, but one of them kids got to him first. It’s a wonder we can make a livin’ at all. There oughtta be a way of stoppin’ them.”
“The cops chase them when they see them,” Sarah said.
“But most of the time they’re too busy watchin’ the dames to even bother.” He stamped away from her voicelessly, his wooden leg dragging along the floor into the back room.
I got to my feet and stretched. “He sounded mad,” I said.
Her eyes were troubled. “He has a right to be,” she answered. “This place was his big dream and he wants to make a go of it. The way things are going, he’ll just clear expenses for the summer. He won’t make enough to carry him through the winter. That means he’ll have to come to me for money again. He doesn’t like that. He’s a pretty independent guy.”
Suddenly I was excited. What a fool I had been not to see it before! Sam had made a buck from his concessions because he cut his boys in for a fair shake. Why couldn’t Ben do the same thing down here?
I turned to Sarah. She and Ben were standing at the register looking out on the beach. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. “The kids’ll work for you same as anyone else,” I said.
He looked confused.
I jerked a thumb at the beach. “The kids out there. Why don’t you take them in?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” he snorted. “I aint’ got the time to be chasin’ after them to collect what they owe.”
“You don’t have to chase ’em,” I said. “They pay in advance for their stuff.”
“Half only,” he pointed out. “The rest you have to hustle ’em for. Besides, why should they do business with me? They can get the same thing from anybody.”
“There must be a way to get around that,” I said. “Supposin’ we don’t take any dough in advance? What if they left us somethin’ for a deposit? Like a watch, or a bike? Then they wouldn’t have to lay out any dough an’ they’d come to us.”
“Forget it,” Ben said disgustedly. He picked up
a rag and began to wipe the counter. “Besides, we haven’t the room to handle them.”
Sarah’s voice made him look up. “You got all that room in the back that isn’t being used,” she said. “You could put a cold locker in there.”
“But, Sarah,” he protested, “where’ll we get the time? I just can’t go out and get the kids to come in here just because I say so.”
“I’ll get the kids for you,” I said quickly. “I’ll get all the kids you want.”
She looked at me, then turned to her brother. “Well?” she asked.
He hesitated a moment, not answering.
She smiled slowly at him. “What’s the matter, Ben?” she asked. “You always said you wanted to make a real buck. This is the first good shot you can get at it. Or don’t you like money any more?”
An embarrassed grin began to spread over his face. He turned gratefully toward me. “Okay, Danny,” he said, “we’ll try it. Sometimes I forget I don’t have to go things by myself any more.”
The battered old alarm clock on the shelf read eleven when Ben looked up from the table. The light from the solitary bulb glowing overhead cast weary shadows on his face. He pushed the small amount of change remaining on the table toward his sister. “Here, Sarah,” he said in a tired voice. “You count the rest of it. I’m dead.”
Silently she began to run the silver through her fingers and he turned to me. “What a week!” he said exhaustedly. “I never been so tired on a Sunday night before. Those kids knock hell outta you.”
I smiled. “I told yuh. I figure we grossed about eight hundred bucks since we started Thursday morning.
He nodded his head, faintly smiling. “You were right, kid,” he admitted. “I gotta hand it to yuh.”
Sarah finished rolling the change into small paper wrappers. She stood up. “I never saw so much change in my life,” she said.
Ben looked at her meaningfully. She nodded to him and he turned back to me. “Me an’ Sarah want you to know we appreciate this, Danny. You done a lot for me, an’ from now on you get twenty-five per cent. of the hustler’s take.”
A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) Page 22