Table Money

by Jimmy Breslin

  “Where are we going?” Danny Murphy said.

  “To Queens. Maybe.”

  It was nothing, just an old clock on a dresser somewhere in the bedroom, a clock with heavy insides that caused a loud ticking. It also was wrong that the clock was there at all: Owney kept no clock in his bedroom. He tightened as he listened to the sound.

  He was lying on his right side. Allowing his eyes to open, he saw a wall that was wrong, too. Yellow. In his bedroom in the cemetery house, the wall was light blue.

  The body on the other side of the bed moved.

  “Dead,” Sharon said.

  Her hand fell on Owney’s bare shoulder.

  “Do you have to go by your job?”

  Owney sat up, fuzzy sick. Somewhere at the bottom of his throat was a pool of mucilage. There was complete remorse as he looked at Sharon, who had one bare hip and leg stuck out from under the sheets. Tangled black hair covered her forehead. Eyes had wide rings of mascara under them.

  “Work, baby,” Sharon said.

  “I wound up here,” Owney said.

  “I think so.”

  Owney shut his eyes and blew breath out of a sour mouth.

  “There was no way you could make it home, baby. You were a carcass.”

  “What did I do here?” Owney said.

  “What do you mean, what did you do?”

  “With you, what did I do with you?”

  Her head came off the pillow. “How can you ask me a thing like that?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “You’re asking me that? You’re in Sharon’s bed, you don’t even know what you did? You’re some freaking hero. You sleep in Sharon’s bed, you don’t even know what you did.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Owney said.

  “Do you know about Jamaica Avenue?”

  “Stop playing.”

  “Sharon doesn’t play. You know where Jamaica Avenue is, you don’t even know what you did when you were in bed with Sharon all night. This is a man? They give him medals?”

  “I want to know what I did.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you if the doctor says I got twenty minutes to live. I never heard of anything like this.”

  Owney glanced at himself. He had on shorts and his black loafers and socks. He looked at the floor and saw his pants and shirt. Utter defeat.

  “Talk to me,” he said to Sharon.

  “You’re wrong again. I say things, but I don’t talk. There’s a difference. Sharon says things like Hello and Do you need a match. But Sharon doesn’t talk. You’re the one does the talking.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You talked on the phone half the night.”

  Owney’s head snapped around. “What do you mean?”

  “You called everybody. You told the world off last night.”

  “Who?”

  “What do I know, who? Who could listen?”

  “Did I call my wife?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I told you, who could do that? You were yelling at everybody.”

  “Tell me if I called my wife.”

  The leg covered by sheets kicked them off. Sharon got out of bed and stood naked and yawning in the dim room.

  “You’re asking me? Ask your wife if you called her. I told you, you spoke to so many people who knows who they were?”

  Owney looked at the loud clock on Sharon’s dresser. “I’m going to work.”

  “Good. Maybe at the end of the day you’ll know whether you worked or not.”

  Sharon walked out of the small room and went into the bathroom. Owney grabbed his pants from the floor and began to put them on. Right away, his right foot, with the loafer on it, got stuck in the pants leg. He tried to shove it through, but nothing moved. When he started to pull the foot back, the heel remained caught in the pants leg. He wondered how he got the pants off in the night. Shoes were on all night. Then he thought of the phone. He looked around for it. Old black phone on the table next to Sharon’s side of the bed. He stared at it and waited for the scene or the whisper in his mind to tell him whether he spoke to his wife or not. When nothing came to him, he felt a single small hope. Then he reminded himself that he couldn’t remember the other calls either.

  Sharon came back from the bathroom in a pink wrapper with a frilly front. It was open and she walked lazily, as if the room were empty.

  Owney pulled the pants off his shoe and dropped them on the floor. He went past her toward the bathroom. “Let me think,” he said.

  “So think,” Sharon said. She put a knee on the edge of the bed and fell into it. She stared at the ceiling.

  “Dead,” Sharon said.

  Owney had trouble bringing the shower curtain across the tub. The water started cold and he opened his mouth, caught some of it, and gargled. The crop still was thick with phlegm. When the water turned warm, Owney let it rain on the back of his neck. He looked at his feet in the shower and suddenly realized how sick he felt. Now a scene came to him. Throwing up on the sidewalk outside Sharon’s bar. He wondered how much he had been drinking. Had he called Dolores? You can’t even remember if you laid a broad. How can you remember a phone call?

  The two words, phone call, were lethal. If I got her on the phone, I lost my life.

  Then he remembered the dream during the night. In Nam they had a dog who had a German shepherd for a father and a small Vietnamese mutt for a mother. The dog, Brutus, had a German shepherd’s face and fur mounted on a frail body. Whenever anything happened, the instant it ended, here was the dog running around looking for a chunk of somebody’s body to bring back in his mouth. A guy from the outfit was caught by a mortar round. He was in pieces in the hot sand. Brutus sniffed at the remains, grabbed a foot and brought it back in his mouth, proudly, the boot seared in half and stuck to the foot. Tail wagging, whining happily, the dog pushed the foot against Owney’s thigh. A guy’s foot in the mouth of a dog smiling with blood foaming out of the sides of his mouth. Standing in the shower, he could feel the foot pressing against his thigh.

  He was amazed at how sick he felt. The alcohol in his cells caused suffering in every part of his body.

  Get a beer, he told himself. Total defeat.

  The bathroom door opened and Sharon stepped in. “There’s some fuck at the door,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “What do I know? I don’t let anybody in. Who comes to tell you something good at this hour?”

  Owney turned off the shower. Loud knocking on the door filled the apartment. Outside, an el train went along the old loose Jamaica Avenue tracks. The train noise could not drown out the knocking.

  Owney got out of the shower and went to the living room.

  “Telephone company,” a voice came through the door. “We got to check the neighborhood.”

  Owney stood in silence.

  “I heard you were in the shower. Then I heard you turn the shower off. What am I, deaf?”

  When Owney didn’t answer, the voice said, “What do I have to do, knock the door down?”

  “If you do, you won’t like it when you get in,” Owney said. “Call nine one one,” he said to Sharon.

  “Save yourself the call,” the voice said. “I’m Detective Webster, Manhattan South.”

  “How do I know?” Owney said.

  “I’m standing here with a badge.”

  Owney went to the front room. Standing away from the window, he looked down at the street. At the curb, under the el was a black Plymouth. Detectives, all right. He walked back to the door.

  “And?”

  “I just want to ask the girl something.”

  Sharon, standing in the bedroom doorway, said softly, “And I got a good answer.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” Webster said through the door. “We can get rid of this thing right here.”

  “You got a warrant?” Owney said.

  “What warrant? I just want to talk to her for a minute,” Webst
er said.

  “Get a warrant.”

  “Now you see what you’re doing?” Webster said. “You’re making me go to the boss and tell him I got to take hours off to go to court to get papers signed. My boss’ll get mad at me and then he’ll make it tougher on you. If I get a warrant, I’ll make everybody mad.”

  “You do that,” Owney said.

  He went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Sharon handed him a cigarette. The first smoke went down with a whine.

  “Let’s stop worrying,” Owney said to Sharon.

  “What are you saying, worry; I shot the sonofabitch, you didn’t,” Sharon whispered.

  A few minutes later, he went to the door. The hallway was silent. Then he looked out the front window. The car was still there. Sharon stood at the bedroom mirror and put on mascara. “Do I bring the cop to work with me? I am going to work, you know.”

  “I’m thinking that we walk out of here, don’t even look at them, just go right to the car. They can’t do anything without a warrant. Then we go right to the lawyers.”

  “What lawyer?” Sharon said.

  “I know one guy over on Queens Boulevard. He helped me out once. He also got my wife suing me.”

  Sharon kept brushing mascara on her eyelashes. “You could remember a lawyer, but you can’t remember if you did anything in bed with me last night.”

  At seven-thirty, Owney opened the door. The hallway was empty. Going down to the street, he said to Sharon, “Don’t even look at them. Go right to the car. They can’t stop you.”

  He pushed the street door open and walked out into the summer morning under the el. Sunlight came through the tracks and covered the sidewalk with orange oblongs. The detective, Webster, pulled himself out of the passenger seat. His partner, Eagen, sat at the wheel.

  “You’re only hurting yourself,” Webster said to Sharon.

  Owney, holding her elbow, started to the right. Some dim recollection told him his car had been left at the corner during the night. Sharon pulled her arm away. “No, this way, Owney.” She led him in the opposite direction.

  “Owney … Morrison?” the detective said.

  Owney kept walking. Webster slipped back into his car. “Look at this,” he said to the other detective. “If you had to pick out somebody who could blow a guy away right on the street, you wouldn’t have to look much past him.”

  On Queens Boulevard, the doorman pressed the buzzer for McNiff. There was no answer. “Try yourself,” the doorman said. “He’s in Fourteen-Y.” Getting on the elevator, Owney saw the detectives parked at the curb.

  McNiff did not answer the bell. Owney then banged on the door. He did it many times, increasing the sound, and finally there was a bellow from inside.

  “I’m eating,” McNiff called out.

  “It’s Owney Morrison. You represented me in court.”

  “I can’t see you,” McNiff said. “Your wife came to see me. I’m going to represent her against you in a divorce. I sent you some papers. She must hate you, she’s going to divorce you.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Owney said. “But right now I have this girl here who needs help. She might be in some trouble.”

  McNiff opened the door. He was in a hooded bathrobe. His eyes bulged, as he looked at Sharon. “What did you do?” he said to her.

  “Nothing I shouldn’t of done,” Sharon said.

  “Detectives followed us here,” Owney said.

  “Yes, but I’m eating my breakfast,” McNiff said. “I’m having prunes and orange juice and eggs and toast. One slice. I eat very intelligently. Unfortunately, I eat ten times a day. You can come in if you don’t stop me from eating.”

  He led them through narrow alleys between books that were stacked to the ceiling. In one room, the windowsills were left uncovered by book stacks. McNiff stood at a counter and began eating scrambled eggs.

  “What are the detectives following you for?”

  “They want to ask her about a man got killed,” Owney said.

  “Really? You’re the second woman I’ve met this year who has difficulty over a murder. A blonde wanted to kill her husband. She met this guy Bad Roger in a bar. A pants presser. So he went out and killed the husband. But the blonde went to another bar and met a rich guy. He put up twenty thousand to try and save her. He wanted her out of jail so he could have sex with her. She was so sexy. If she even looked at you, she drew a sexual response. She’s in jail now. She’s so gorgeous. And she loves so gorgeous. Are you the same way?”

  “I’m better. I’m not in jail and I’m not going there,” Sharon said.

  “That’s terrific. Do you like jargon? I have a book on jargon I always read. In fact, I may have an extra copy for you. I bought six copies.”

  McNiff looked around the book stacks nearest him. He shook his head. “Look at that. I made a mistake. I put all the copies on this open stack. Right in the middle. I usually don’t do that. I have textbooks on the large intestines in four different places. Do you want a book on large intestines?”

  “You live like this all the time?” Sharon said.

  “Yes, I had prostate trouble and when I went to the doctor, he said, ‘Can you have sex?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. My wife left me.’ Maybe you can replace her. That’s if you don’t get put in jail for murder.”

  Sharon sat on the windowsill and took out a cigarette. She looked around at the stacks of books. “I guess there’s worse places to be than in a homemade library.”

  McNiff’s fork made a loud noise on the plate as he ate. “Tell me the problem,” he said. “You’re supposed to tell the truth to the police. But the last time a lawyer around here told that to a client, the judge said that the lawyer was incompetent.”

  Owney recounted only what had happened to them that morning. Sharon smoked and nodded.

  “Do you know this O’Sullivan they want to talk about?” McNiff asked Sharon.

  She shook her head.

  “Never met the gentleman,” Owney said.

  “I’ll go down and talk to the police,” McNiff said. “I’ll tell them that I can’t help them because I have to help my client. I’ll tell them that I believe that when the crime occurred, my client was in Alaska. Then if they want to see you, they’ll have to get a warrant.”

  McNiff went sideways between the books on his way to the door.

  “Is that how you’re going?” Sharon said.

  “I’m not getting out of this robe all day,” McNiff said.

  “I like that. That’s the way you’re supposed to treat them,” Sharon said.

  They sat in silence for fifteen minutes. When McNiff came back, he went past them and disappeared around a stack of books. “Excuse me, but I have to take a pill. I have Antabuse mixed with aspirin in a bottle. They look the same. I swallow one every day. Particularly when I feel like drinking something. It could be aspirin or it could be Antabuse. But I have to act the same. If I have Antabuse and I take a drink, I collapse. You’re lucky. I’m not drinking this week.”

  There was the sound of water in a sink. Then McNiff came back. “I spoke to the cops. Cops are funny. I was in New Orleans. They have terrific prostitutes on Canal Street. And no cops there. Did you know that in the old English law, if a maiden got accosted by a knave or a boy from the lower class, the maiden was allowed to kill him? I was just thinking. Anyway.” He looked at Owney. “The two cops were more interested in talking to you right now.”

  Owney shrugged. “I got nothing to do with it.”

  “I got them talking and they gave me the impression that they wanted to look in your house for a gun. Do you keep a gun home?”

  “Not me.” He stopped when he realized that he had been thinking in dusk, that he had Sharon’s gun home.

  “You seem worried,” McNiff said.

  “Well.”

  “I told you they were talking about searching your house. I don’t have to say much more. All right.” He looked at Sharon. “I’ll talk to you now.”

  “I d
on’t talk. No, why lie? I talked this morning. I said Owney’s name right in front of these creeps on the sidewalk. That’s the only way they knew to come here after us. I’m through. Dead.”

  16

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON when Owney arrived at the job, with his mouth as dry as paper, and nerves leaping, and he went into the lunch wagon for a Coke. He sat on a box, drank one, and asked the woman to hand him another. He saw Navy through the doorway.

  “Four times,” Navy said.

  Owney said nothing.

  “Four calls in the middle of the night. Let me sleep, will you?”

  Owney clutched his fatigue jacket under his left arm and felt the gun pressing against his ribs. The right hand went around the gun handle and then he put his hand completely over the gun and began walking with his head down. He went only a few steps and he saw the black Plymouth parked between two cement trucks. Fuck it. He kept walking, a man who didn’t even know he was taking a chance, walked right up to the shaft, without glancing at the two detectives standing in the doorway and talking to Chris Doyle, who immediately pretended to be scratching his neck, a motion that told Owney to get on the lift. As Owney opened the small gate to the lift, the clicking noise caused Webster to look up.

  “Hey.”

  Owney stood on the lift and said nothing. He had all the feeling of a Formica table. Webster ran out of the shack and then vaulted over the gate and onto the lift. Which suddenly groaned and dropped into the darkness.

  “Look out for something dropping on your head,” Doyle called. “We got no roof on this thing.”

  Webster looked up and saw the darkness chase the light and he jerked and stood so close to Owney that their shoulders touched. He inhaled quickly as the lift shuddered. “Where does this go?” His voice was tremulous.

  “To the bottom.”

  “How far is that?”