Wednesday being her night off, she brooded past four a.m., preparing herself for the trauma of uptown fashions. She had eighty dollars to spend, the yearly dividend from a policy her father had opened for her at the age of seven and wouldn’t fully mature until Sweeney was forty-five. The doorbell rang. She wanted no visitors to clog her lines of thought “Go away,” she said. “Piss on someone else’s dóor. I’m through collecting for the March of Dimes. If you’re the Heart Association girl, I’m not here.”
Sweeney was in her cups, the Irish coffee she’d drunk to keep her mind on Henri Bendel was causing her to hallucinate. She wouldn’t go near the door.
Then she swiped at the knob, her confidence shot; she could recognize the squeaks of Odile. “Baby,” she said, “why are you cruising so late?”
Odile knocked dust off the crepe rubber heels of her platform shoes. “Sweeney, there’s a man in my house. A curry man.”
“That, cop you were with? That blond fish? Odile, you must be slumming tonight.”
“Sweeney, he wouldn’t go. The cop wouldn’t go. He fell asleep on me. I couldn’t breathe. I had to bypass Janice. You know the music she lays on us this time of night. Fox trots and Nicole’s hands on my boobs. Not the state I’m in. I didn’t even wash his smell off me. I came to you, Sweeney. I had nowhere else.”
“You don’t have to explain.” And the image of Henri Bendel, wire cages bumping through the ceiling, stuffed with personal checks, disappeared for Sweeney. She could forget presents, figures on a policy, the dress factory underneath. “Baby, I’ll make your bed.”
She wouldn’t allow Odile to sleep on the foldaway, a lousy kitchen bed with moldy springs and other works. Odile had to accept Sweeney’s own “honeymoon” mattress with springbox and high wooden pegs. She was given cocoa to drive out the cop’s taste. She wore Sweeney’s corduroy pajamas. And Sweeney tolerated the kitchen bed like a happy dog. She tuned off refrigerator drones, and the mousies in the washtub. She would sweep up the pellets of mouseshit before Odile awoke. She wouldn’t have to eat with retarded girls at the luncheonette. She would cook a SoHo breakfast, sausages and symmetrical pancakes in brown sugar syrup, for both of them. She would stay clear of white flour. She wouldn’t feed Odile that luncheonette garbage with the papery flavor. She would squeeze the oranges with her own fist.
The springs of the foldaway clawed into her back. She felt a tug in her kidney. She would lie awake for the rest of the night thinking she had to pee. She’d had those spells before. If she sat on the pot, she wouldn’t pass any water. And she might disturb Odile. She’d had too many fights at The Dwarf, too many cousins to confront, too many boisterous hens to throw out, too many drunkards with a hatred for women in a man’s suit, too many blows to her groin, too many fingers in her eye. She prepared breakfasts in her head over and over again to numb that kidney until some light crept through the fractures in the kitchen blinds so she could begin to cook for Odile.
11 Coen got up from a dreary sleep without Odile. She’s fled to her club, he imagined, César’s girl. She’d left him a bun on the table and a potful of smelly tea. Coen walked uptown, fire escapes in his head. Hearing his uncle’s songs he went narrow in the chest and had to blow air on Sixth Avenue. He was so truculent at the crossings, other early morning walkers avoided his lanes. He marched into the park and arrived at Schiller’s with gaunt markings on his face. These were the voodoo hours for Schiller, when most of the ping-pong freaks were in bed, and refugees from the game rooms of certain New York mental institutions would drift in with sandpaper rackets clutched in their hands and volley among themselves, aiming at one spot on the table with a precision that confounded Schiller and drove him into his cubbyhole. He had to close his eyes to them or give up being an entrepreneur. Having nowhere else to go, they played at Schiller’s for free. But they weren’t allowed near the end table, which served as a message board while Coen was away. Coen found a note stuck in the net; Arnold wanted him. So he went upstairs to the SROs. He climbed over mattresses in the hall. He intercepted an argument between an old wino with crooked lines in his scalp and one of the young bullies at the hotel, a stocky boy in a velveteen undershirt, a head taller than Coen. The boy was crowing for his admirers, who wore similar undershirts and urged him to slap the old man. “Piss,” he said. “Pay me a dollar.” With that first slap the old man’s teeth jumped out of his head. Coen clawed the boy on his velveteen. “Lay off,” the boy griped, stupified that any man small as Coen would dare finger him this way. But the boy had an instinctive feel for cops, even blond ones, and he preferred to disappoint his admirers rather than face up to Coen. “Mister, what’s Piss to you?”
“He’s my dad,” Coen said. He liked the bumps along the wino’s skull. Mindful of his benefactor, the old man scrounged on the stairs for his teeth. He was sure he could pluck a dollar out of Coen.
“Miserable,” he said, smacking his gums. “I could get ham and cheese at the deli for a little cold cash.” And he walked on his hands near. Coen, astounding the boys in velveteen with his system for producing hunger pains; he barked with his stomach while he groveled and slimed on his jaw.
These contortions sickened Coen. He abandoned the old man in the middle of his crawl. “Hey,” Piss said, realizing he would be smothered in velveteen without Coen. “Don’t leave me here.” But Coen was only a step away from Arnold’s room. He closed the door on Piss.
Arnold paraded his orthopedic shoe. He would have worshiped Coen if Coen had allowed it. “Manfred, you did it, you did it. You made him bring it back.”
Coen stood against the door scrutinizing the polish on Arnold’s fat shoe.
“Manfred, he was here, the Chinaman.”
“When?”
“Maybe two hours ago. Lucky for him he wanted peace. I had my sword in the hamper.”
“What did he say?”
“Look, he shined it himself. With an expensive cloth.”
“Arnold, what did he say?”
“Nothing. A few crazy words. He smiles, he puts down the shoe, he says, ‘Spic, tell Blue-eyes regards from César and me.’”
Coen already figured César had to be involved in the return of the shoe. The Chinaman didn’t give up his trophies so easy. Coen understood the Guzmann way. Papa would hug you, feed you, open his farm and his candy store to you, lend you Jorge or Alejandro for the day, but he wasn’t careless about any of his gifts. Perhaps the Marranos who had been shorn of their possessions in Portugal and Spain developed a residual language in the give and take of worldly goods. Coen couldn’t tell. But if Papa gave you anything outside his own natural affection, there had to be malice in it. César was the same. Coen would have to determine what he had done to deserve the shoe. Had he corrupted Jerónimo inside the Alameda park? Did he wrong Mordeckay? Odile? Odile must have squawked to César about his visit to Jane Street.
“Manfred, should I take off my shoe?”
“No,” Coen said. “But don’t give away your sword.”
“Manfred, does the Chinaman still hate our guts?”
“Not so much. Maybe it’s César Guzmann. Or his Papa. Or both.”
They ate American cheese from Arnold’s windowsill, Coen moistening the thick slices with some grape water that Arnold kept under the sink. Soon the blondo would fall into one of his silences, and Arnold would have to scour the room for specks of cheese. Spanish had his own ambitions. He didn’t want to remain a simple police buff in a charity hotel for the rest of his life, chasing ping-pong balls and gobbling American cheese. Although he said nothing to Coen, Arnold admired the Chinaman’s cool and the fringes on his body-shirts. If he couldn’t be a cop on account of his foot (he was also nearsighted and shorter than Coen), Arnold wouldn’t mind serving César or another Guzmann. Like most buffs, he was wise to the special rhythm that always seemed to mark the seesaw dance between the cops in a neighborhood and all the crooks. He could no longer respond to ordinary citizens, the “civilianos” who frowned at the cops and isolated themse
lves from the punks and the SROs. Once he had come to love tending the squadroom cage, he couldn’t sit on neutral ground. The civilianos were his enemy, and he either danced with the Guzmanns, the Chinaman, and the cops, or he danced alone.
Coen left him there with his knees out, dreaming the Chinaman’s shirt. “Arnold, I’ll catch you later. Goodbye.”
He found the wino groaning on the stairs. The old man had new lumps along his scalp and red flecks in the slime on his jaw. But he wasn’t disconsolate enough not to pose. He walked with his rump in the air, his arms around the railing. Deprived of an audience of velveteen boys, his shufflings seemed miserable to Coen. “Dollar for bandages and coffee,” the wino said. Coen gave him the dollar and put his rump where it belonged, on the stairs. He panicked outside the hotel, blamed himself for the death of his mother and father. He had abandoned Albert and Jessica (and Sheb), allowed the Army to plunk him into Germany. They wouldn’t have chosen the oven with him in the Bronx. An only child, he ought to have been shrewder about his father’s closefisted nature, the instability behind the calm front. Coens had to lean on Coens to keep the eggs intact.
He walked to Central Park West, to the playground opposite Stephanie’s apartment house, where Stephanie passed her mornings with Judith and Alice, away from wealthy neighbors and the auras of her husband’s dental clinic. She would sit behind one particular tree, everything above her hips in deep shade, Judith and Alice occupied with sand. Coen wanted the girls. Burdened with Albert and Jessica and losing his wits over Arnold’s shoe, he needed to rub against an old wife’s family, claim some daughters for himself. Whether Stephanie preferred being untroubled at nine o’clock (she had jars of milk for her and the girls), she didn’t begrudge Coen. She recognized his stoop from the opposite end of the playground. The truculent cop walk irritated her but that coarse handsomeness, all the pluck on his face, could make her disremember the bad Coen, his obsequiousness before Isaac, his muteness with her, the confusions in his head. Coen was the one who stalked her, continued his brutal, disconnected courtship. He would break into her apartment, rut her against the bathtub, smolder over Jello with Charles, then disappear for weeks. Still, roosting behind her tree, the milk jars wet in her lap, she was glad he had come. The girls climbed out of the sandbox. “Daddy Fred. Daddy Fred.” He hoisted them over his shoulders with a firm buttocks hold, mouthing the word “shit.” He always arrived emptyhanded, visiting them at the wrong hours, when the nut shops and the five-and-dime were closed. Stephanie had to smile. He carried her girls with such devotion in his grip, she couldn’t shut him off. “Freddy, a glass of milk?”
So he had his second breakfast, animal crackers and bloodwarm milk, Arnold’s cheese sitting in his craw. Nervous, he could think to ask her only about Charles. She wouldn’t entertain him with clinic stories. “He flourishes,” she said. “He comes out of the Bronx a few times a week to look at his daughters and fondle me. Freddy, who’s your longhaired friend?”
Coen munched an animal cracker. “What do you mean?”
“The man who’s been following me around the last few mornings, blowing bubbles for the girls. He calls me ‘Mrs. Manfred.’”
“Steffie, did you see him today?”
“Yes. A half hour before you.”
“Is he a chinkie sort with a red mop?”
“I think so. Part Chinese.”
Coen put down the girls. “Son-of-a-bitch.” He talked with a knuckle in his mouth. He kicked at his heels. “Fucking César.”
Judith put her fingers on Stephanie’s thighs. Alice stuck to Coen. “Freddy, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Coen said. “Chicken stuff.” He kneeled in front of Alice. “Don’t take bubbles off that Chinaman.” He held Judith’s ankle, touched the baby scruff around the bone. “Honey, it takes a runty man to bother your mother and you. I know how to find him.” He hustled from the playground with milk on his lips, yelling from the crook in his shoulder. “Steffie, don’t worry about it You’re free. The Chinaman won’t have his bubble pipe for too long. I’ll strip him and his boss.” Stephanie wanted to hail him back, assure him that she wasn’t afraid of Chino Reyes; the Chinaman had been gentle with the girls, picking sand from beneath Judith’s toes, and polite to her, confessing his admiration for “husband Coen.” But she had been slow in trying to recall him.
Coen was already out of the park. Too anxious to plod downtown in a bus, he rode a gypsy cab straight to Bummy’s. Bummy Gilman was known as a good cousin at the stationhouse; he delivered his “flutes” to the captain’s man (Coke bottles filled with rye), and he didn’t expect to see rat bastards like Coen in his establishment, snoops who annoyed his customers and made everybody unhappy, civilians and regular cops. “Mister, one schnapps on the house, and then you go. And don’t sip. Three swallows is all I’m allowing.”
Coen wouldn’t answer him. He walked the line of Bummy’s stools, poking for the Chinaman. Bummy had the sense not to bother Coen’s sleeve.
“I could call the precinct, Coen. Who are they going to protect? Me or you?”
Coen rasped at him finally. “Bummy, get off my back.”
Bummy couldn’t negotiate with a crazyman; he let Coen pass, swearing he would register his complaint to the captain’s man. He wasn’t providing flutes for nothing. Bummy had an investment in Chino Reyes; Chino supplied him with the films that he showed in his kitchen to nephews and cop friends on Saturday nights, and arranged his half-hour appointments with Odette Leonhardy, who could make his tonsils crawl with one of her colder looks. He loved to be swindled by this girl. He got five minutes of skin from Odette, and twenty minutes of sandwiches and frowns. In addition to which, he owned a piece of the films and had an interest in César’s Mexican affairs. So he catered to the Chinaman, allowed him to sit at a booth so long as he wore his wig and didn’t mingle with too many cops.
The Chinaman spotted Coen at the door. He wasn’t apprehensive. He finished his second Irish whiskey of the morning and watched Bummy mix with Coen. He couldn’t figure why Bummy had such a swollen face. He had gotten fond of Coen in Mexico (because of his loyalties to Jerónimo, his quiet, Polish ways), and the fondness stuck. The Chinaman was brooding over his failures with Odette; he couldn’t find the porno queen. He led Coen over to his booth. “Chico, what’s happening?”
Coen leaned into the Chinaman, pushed his nose against the wall so that the Chinaman couldn’t breathe.
“I’ll kill you, you mother, if you ever go near my wife and her babies again.”
Coen brought his hand away. The Chinaman gagged but he didn’t get up or make a move for Coen.
“Polish, that’s the second time you touched my face.”
With the booth between them, they had a huffing war, blowing air around in great sulks. The Chinaman’s coloring came back once he conceived a plan. He would smile now, then lay for Coen, catch him by the neck. He couldn’t afford to wrestle in a public place. He would lose his standing with Bummy and bring the cops here. So he clawed the inside of the booth, crossed his feet, and talked to Coen.
“Polish, it was a social call. I didn’t scare the wife. She has lovely kids.” He saw Coen’s hand curl, and he protected his nose, bending deeper into the booth. “Didn’t I reward the Spic? He’d be limping with sores on his feet, if not for me. I mobilized him, Polish, don’t forget”
“Chino, keep Arnold out of it He doesn’t need your gifts. And if César wants to signal me, let him do it himself.”
The Chinaman had signals of his own for César. Maybe Zorro was hiding the queen. Or telling her to avoid her usual lanes. He hadn’t been able to catch Odile at Jane Street or The Dwarf.
Calmer after having had some flesh in his hand, after squeezing the Chinaman, Coen could sit on a bus. He stopped at the dairy restaurant on Seventy-third and waited for Boris the steerer, the man in the three-button vest. Coen kept aloof from the gamblers who licked almond paste on their pignolia horns and flicked their boutonnieres in the window. He couldn’t
tell if the steerer made any morning calls. He wouldn’t buy a flower. The steerer passed him in a feathered hat. “Boris?” Coen hissed.
The steerer frowned at him and walked a little faster. Coen seized him up by the coattails. The steerer swayed on his legs.
“Boris, tell César, and tell him good. No more pranks on any of my people. This is Manfred Coen talking to you. I can take your whole operation off the street. I can sit you down in the detective room. I can send all the old cockers with flowers in their coats into the judge. So Zorro better get to me in a hurry.”
The steerer was mortified to find someone taking liberties with his clothes in front of the restaurant. He smoothed his coattails the first chance he had. And he tilted his head to the boutonnieres in the window to prove that he was in command. “Mr. Coen, only Zorro knows where Zorro is,” he said, biting his cheek cryptically and rushing indoors. But he dropped his hat on the sidewalk, and Coen had to straighten the feather for him. “That swine isn’t pure enough for my boss,” he whispered to the boutonnieres. “He once had an unkosher wife.”
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