“You’re lucky,” Mimi said. “I’m always sick as a dog.” Her voice lowered to the confidential tone that women use when they discuss their pregnancies.
“What’s Sam doing?” I asked, interrupting her impatiently. I had heard about Mimi’s pregnancies a thousand times since Nellie had told them the news.
“He’s taking a shower,” Mimi replied. “He can’t take this heat, he’s such a big man, you know.”
I nodded and started for the stairway of the duplex apartment. “You kids go ahead and yak,” I called back over my shoulder. “I can talk to Sam while he’s showering.”
Sam was standing in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around his waist, combing his hair when I walked in on him. “What do you want?” he asked grumpily.
“How’d yuh like to make a million bucks?” I asked.
He glanced at me in the mirror. It was a suspicious look. “Not interested,” he answered quickly. “Every time you come to me with an idea, it costs me money.”
“Stop making with the funny cracks,” I said. “I really got it this time. Yuh want to hear it or not?”
He put down the comb and turned to me wearily. “All right,” he said. “So tell me. I’m gonna hear it, anyway.”
I grinned. “Did you ever try to buy a Coke in the subway?” I asked.
He looked bewildered. “What the hell are yuh talking about?” he asked. “You know I ain’t been in the subway for years. That’s for the peasants.”
“That’s just it, Sam,” I said softly. “Yuh oughtta get down there with the peasants sometimes or yuh might forget where yuh come from.”
Sam was annoyed. “I ain’t heard your million-dollar idea yet,” he snapped.
“You heard it, Sam,” I said, “but the trouble is you been away from the peasants for so long you weren’t listening. I might’ve missed it too if my car hadn’t broke down today.”
“So I been away from the peasants so long,” Sam said disgustedly. “So stop stallin’ an’ tell me or get outta here an’ let me dress.”
I lit a cigarette and blew a gust of smoke toward him. “Remember way back, Sam,” I said quietly, “remember when you were one of the six million peasants in this town who don’t live on Central Park South an’ you were comin’ home from work? You were hot and tired and thirsty, an’ when you got on the subway you realized it. You were dyin’ for a drink, but when you looked aroun’, there ain’t none an’ you gotta wait till you get off.” I paused to catch my breath.
“What’re you tryin’ to do? Win the Academy Award for the best performance of the year?” Sam asked caustically before I could continue.
I felt my face flush. I hadn’t realized I had been so dramatic. “You don’t see it yet?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t see it,” he said flatly. “I’m the Central Park type. I’m stupid. I’m not one of those smart peasants.”
“Would you buy a drink if there were one of my Coke machines on the platform?” I asked.
He had started to rub his face again with a towel. Now he lowered it and stared at me. There was a gleam of interest in his eyes. “Say that again, Danny,” he said carefully. “And tell me slow. Now I’m listenin’!”
It was a big deal all right. Even Sam had to say that. He went for it whole hog. We formed a separate company just to handle it. He would put up the dough and take care of the arrangements, I would run the business. And there were a lot of arrangements to be made, more than I had ever thought possible. I had been so busy since I got into it that I brought Zep in with me to handle the regular business while I devoted myself to the new company.
Coke machines on the subway. Who would think such a simple thing would take so much time and effort? But there were so many people you had to see—city officials, Board of Transportation officials, engineers, Department of Health people. Approval had to come from so many places that at times I had been bewildered. And as if that weren’t bad enough, when we had everything lined up, there were still the politicians.
You had to have connections for a job like this. That was why I had gone to Sam in the first place. Sam had the connections, but even there we had run into a snag: Mario Lombardi, a quiet little man who hired a Press agent to keep his name out of the papers. I found out that nothing really big could be done in the city of New York unless Mario Lombardi okayed it. That was in spite of all the honest intentions of the city government.
And there was only one way Sam knew to get to Mario Lombardi. Through Maxie Fields. I wished there had been another way to reach him—any way but through Maxie Fields. But Sam assured me there wasn’t, otherwise he would prefer it himself. So we had spoken to Maxie and now we were sitting in the living-room office of Mario Lombardi’s upper Park Avenue apartment and it looked as if we were going to take in two new partners at any moment.
I leaned back in the chair, the smoke curling upward from my cigarette. I looked sceptically at Lombardi, seated behind his desk. “So we cut you in, Mr. Lombardi,” I said casually. “What guarantee we got that after the war the deal we make will stand up? After all, politics in this town is a tricky business. One time you’re in, next time you’re out.”
Lombardi tapped the ashes from his cigar delicately into a tray, the big diamond in his pinky ring flashing at me. He returned my gaze steadily. “Mario Lombardi don’t make promises he can’t keep, Danny,” he answered quietly. “I don’t care who’s running the city when the war is over. Its my town and I’ll still be callin’ the shots.”
“That’s right, Danny.” Maxie Fields’s booming voice had a fawning quality in it that made me sick. “You don’t clear nothin’ in this town unless Mario okays it.”
I looked at Maxie coldly. I still didn’t like him. There was something about him that rubbed me the wrong way.
Sam’s face was inscrutable, but his head nodded impassively.
It was okay with Sam, so I turned back to Lombardi. The small, dark man, dapper in his conservative grey suit, seemed more interested in his finger-nails than in our conversation. I sighed lightly. This was as far as we could go; the rest was up to Fate. I had already been to see every two-bit politico and they all had told me that Lombardi was the only man big enough to swing a deal like this. So we took in partners.
“Okay, Mario,” I said finally. You never call a partner by his last name. “It’s a deal. You get ten per cent. of the profits.”
Lombardi stood up and held out his hand to me. “You won’t regret it, Danny,” he said. “Any time you want anything, you come an’ see me.”
I took his hand. “Anything?” I asked, smiling.
Lombardi nodded, his teeth startling white in his swarthy face. “That’s what I said.”
“Goin’ past my place, Danny?” Fields asked heavily as we stepped out into the street.
I nodded and turned to Sam. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Sam replied as he got into his Cadillac convertible. “In the morning.”
We watched Sam drive off, then turned and walked to my car. I was silent. I was figuring. Ten per cent. for Lombardi and five per cent. for Maxie Fields for the fix. Fields’s voice cut into my thoughts.
“That Sam is a bright guy,” he said, squeezing his massive bulk into the seat beside me.
I stared at him in surprise. It was the first time I had ever known Fields to say a nice word for anybody. “Yeah,” I answered, throwing the car into gear and moving out into traffic.
“He’s got himself a hell of a business,” Maxie continued blandly. “Growin’ all the time too.”
I wondered what he was getting at. I confined myself to a cryptic answer. “He works.” I said. “He works all the time.”
“That he does,” Fields agreed readily. Too readily. “I understand you’re pretty hep to that racket too. You worked in very close with him.”
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Maxie’s face was smooth; he was looking out the car window. “Yeah,” I answered.
�
�If somethin’ happened to him, I guess you’d have to take over on account of your sister,” Maxie continued.
For a moment I was too surprised to even think. “Why, yes,” I stammered, “I—I suppose I would have to.”
We stopped for a traffic light and I could feel Maxie’s eyes on my face, watching me closely. “If yuh ever got any ambitions along that line, Danny,” he suggested casually, “why don’t yuh just talk to me? Maybe I can help yuh out.”
There was a sick feeling in my stomach. I gripped the wheel tightly, my knuckles white against the back of my hands. I managed to keep my voice as casual as his had been. “I’m satisfied with what I got, Maxie. I’m doin’ all right.”
“Well, the black market in butts won’t last for ever, kid.” His voice was bluff and hearty. “Just remember what I said in case you should change your mind.”
The rest of the ride downtown passed in silence. I couldn’t wait for him to get out of the car. It was bad enough I had to do business with him; I couldn’t stand having him around me any more than was absolutely necessary.
As I let myself into the apartment quietly, I could hear the hum of an electric fan coming from the bedroom and tiptoed toward it. Through the open door I could see a figure on the bed.
Nellie was sleeping, her head resting on one arm, the gentle breeze from the fan stirring the sheet over her. I watched her for a moment, then turned and silently began to leave the room.
Her voice called me back. “Danny?”
I turned to her. Her dark eyes were watching me. “I was so tired,” she said in a small voice, “I fell asleep.”
I sat down beside her on the bed. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“You didn’t wake me,” she replied. “I have to make supper, anyway. But I spent all day looking for an apartment and didn’t find one. Then I felt so weak I just had to take a nap.”
I smiled tolerantly at her. “Why don’t you quit an’ let’s buy us a house.”
“But so much money, Danny,” she protested, sitting up in the bed.
I leaned toward her. “Stop worrying about money, honey,” I said gently. “Lombardi okayed the subway deal for us. We can afford it.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Are you sure that’s what you really want, Danny?”
I nodded. “All my life I wanted my own house.” Even as I said it I realized how true the words were. I had never been so happy as when I was in my own house. “That’s what I want,” I added.
She drew in a sharp sudden breath and flung her arms around my neck. “Okay, Danny,” she breathed against my ear. “If that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
Chapter Nine
“THE trees are all grown now,” I thought as I turned the car into the street. Nellie was silently looking out the window. I couldn’t tell from her face what she was thinking as I let the car roll slowly up the street.
Almost twenty years had changed many things. The houses on the block had settled into homes. A little older, weather-beaten. Some of them needed repainting badly. But one thing hadn’t changed. Despite the individual differences, each house looked very much like the others.
I pulled the car to a stop at the kerb in front of our house, cut the motor, and turned to Nellie. She was still sitting silently, her eyes fixed on the house. I looked at it too.
A warmth swept through me, a strong satisfaction that I had not known for a long time. Now it would really be my house. “The agent said he would be waiting for us inside,” I said.
Nellie’s eyes were darkly thoughtful. “Danny,” she said hesitantly, “maybe we ought to wait a little while longer. Maybe we shouldn’t rush into this. Something else might turn up.”
“What?” I asked sceptically. “We spent a month and a half lookin’ an’ we seen nothing we liked. It’s the middle of September now, an’ if we want a house to move into by October 1st, we gotta make up our minds.”
“We don’t have to rush,” she said. “We can wait until after the baby comes.”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh. I want everything ready.” I opened the door. “Let’s go.”
She got out of the car slowly and stood on the sidewalk. Her hand reached out and touched my arm. There was a deeply worried look in her eyes. She shivered slightly.
I looked at her in quick concern. There was no reason for her to shiver. It was almost hot with the sun beating down on us. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you feel well?”
She shook her head. “I feel all right.”
“Then why the shiver?” I asked. “Are you cold?”
“No,” she said in a low voice. “A terrible feeling just came over me. I was frightened.”
I smiled at her. “What have you got to be frightened about?”
She turned and looked at the house. “Suddenly I was afraid for you, Danny. I feel something terrible is going to happen.”
I laughed aloud. “What can happen?” I asked. “We’re set now. Nothing can go wrong.”
Her grip tightened on my arm. “That house means a lot to you, doesn’t it, Danny?” she asked, still looking at it.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was supposed to be my house from the very beginning and it never really was. Now it will be.”
She turned to me, a sudden knowledge in her face. “And all your life you’ve been trying to get even.”
I didn’t understand her. “What do you mean?”
“All the time this is what you wanted. More than anything else.”
I thought for a moment. Maybe she was right. But it couldn’t make any difference now. It just happened that my old house was available when we were looking for one. And the way things were, there was no new housing available. Things had a way of working out. That it should be on the market just at that time seemed only right to me.
I turned toward the house without saying anything to her. Her hand pulled at my arm.
“Danny, maybe we shouldn’t buy the house,” she said earnestly. “Maybe it was intended that you should not live there. I got a feeling that we’re tempting Fate if you come back to it.”
I smiled. Pregnant women were always having hunches and making gloomy predictions. Carrying children seemed to bring with it a spurious foreknowledge. “Don’t be foolish, Nellie,” I said. “All we’re doing is buying a house.”
She started for the front door, but I steered her toward the driveway and we walked between the two houses to the garden in the back. It had changed too. When we had lived there, the back yard was bare, but now it was neatly turned and filled with shrubs and bushes and plants. I looked over toward the corner near the fence and remembered the night I had come back with Rexie and buried her there. A big rose-bush covered the spot. I wondered if her rest had been disturbed.
“Mr. Fisher!” a voice called.
I turned around. The real-estate agent was coming up the driveway behind us. I waved to him.
“Ready to look at the house now, Mr. Fisher?” he asked.
I nodded my head. I was ready.
The wooden floor creaked comfortably under my feet. It was a welcoming sound. “Hello, Danny Fisher,” it seemed to whisper softly. The bright sun at the windows faded as a cloud crossed its face and the room grew dark.
I paused on the threshold of my old room. Nellie and the agent were in another part of the house. I entered the room quietly and closed the door behind me.
Once, long ago, I had done this. I had thrown myself on the floor and pressed my cheek against the cool wood. I was too big to do that now. Some day my son would do it in my stead.
“It’s been a long time, Danny,” the room seemed to whisper.
I looked down at the floor. There was no dark spot there where Rexie used to lie. Many scrapings and varnishings had taken it away. The stippled wall had vanished under many layers of paint, the ceiling behind many coats of calcimine. The room seemed smaller than I remembered. Maybe it was because I remembered it when I was very small myself and saw everything in relation to me. I
crossed the room and opened one of the windows. Instinctively I looked across the driveway to the next house.
Years ago, there was a girl who had that room. I tried hard to remember her name, but I couldn’t, I could only remember what she looked like with the electric light shining behind her. I could hear her shadowed voice calling me and I looked at the windows opposite. They were blank and the blinds were drawn.
I turned back into the room. It seemed to move with a sibilant life all its own. “I’ve missed you, Danny,” it whispered. “Have you come home to stay?”
There was a weariness inside me and I leaned back against the window-sill. I’d missed this house more than I had realized. Now I knew what Nellie had meant. There was a promise here that somehow I knew would be kept. It was written everywhere I turned. “I will care for your son, Danny. I will help him grow tall and strong, happy and content, wise and understanding. I will love him as I love you, Danny, if you’ll come home to stay.”
There was a noise outside in the hall and the door opened. Nellie and the agent came into the room. She took one look at my face and hurried to me. Her voice echoed warmly in the empty room. “Danny, are you all right?”
Slowly I came back to her. A deep concern was in her eyes as she looked up at me. “All right?” I echoed her. “Of course I’m all right.’
“Your face is so pale,” she said.
Just then the sun came out from behind the clouds. “It’s just the light in here,” I laughed, beginning to feel normal.
Her eyes were still on mine. “Sure you’re doing right, Danny?” she asked anxiously. “No ghosts to bother you?”
I looked at her in surprise. I didn’t believe in ghosts. “No ghosts,” I said gently.
The real-estate agent looked at me curiously. “Your wife tells me you used to live here, Mr. Fisher.”
I nodded.
He smiled broadly. “Well, in that case I don’t have to tell you anything about the house itself. About how well it’s made. Recent buildings are nowhere near as well constructed. What do you think, Mrs. Fisher?”
A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) Page 34