They were at Seventy-third and West End. Becky stopped walking. They were still a couple of blocks from the subway, but there were some things worse than getting wet. “I’m going to go on alone from here, Benny.”
“Aw, why? Because I suggested a little drink? You know you want to.”
She considered lying to him, but it hardly seemed necessary. “What I want and what I’m going to do are two different things, Benny. See you.”
“Hold on.”
“No, listen, Benny. It’s nice to see you, sure, but you’re a married man, with three kids, yet.” She turned to go.
Benny grabbed her arm. She glared at him and he snatched his hand away. “I just wanted to give you my umbrella,” he said in hurt tones.
Becky frowned and shook her head. “I don’t need—”
“Go on and take it. It’s just an umbrella, Becky. I got a coat, a hat—and you’ve got nothing.” He smiled coolly.
She took the umbrella. There was no point in getting wet.
“Remember what I told you,” he called after her. “You can call on me if you ever need help.”
Becky heard him but didn’t acknowledge it. She didn’t even look back.
Benny stood on West End Avenue and watched until Becky disappeared around the corner. It occurred to him that they’d split up in the rain and now the rain had brought them together again, at least for a little while.
Maybe that line would have worked on her. Probably not. He continued walking downtown and realized he’d forgotten to ask about her father. He’d heard about Abe’s heart attack. He doubted that his sympathies for her old man would have done much to get him on her right side, either. He could understand her anger, but that didn’t give her the right to imply that he was always a liar.
For instance, it was true that he and Stefano were engaged in secret work for the military, and he for one was glad to do it. Getting drafted was a sucker’s fate; it didn’t happen to a guy with his connections. Anyway, he was too important to be just another Sad Sack, as the Navy would be the first to attest.
During the first years of the war the Allies lost hundreds of ships to the Germans. Washington must have gotten jittery when the S.S. Lafayette mysteriously burned in its berth on the Hudson. The Navy assumed the New York waterfront was riddled with spies and the Italian fishing fleet was running supplies and information out to the Kraut subs. The district attorney’s office, acting as a buffer for Navy Intelligence, approached Stefano and asked him to cooperate in cleaning up the waterfront.
They began by sweet-talking Stefano, calling him master of the waterfront and stuff like that, all because of his warehouses, but it turned out that their sweet talk wasn’t necessary. Stefano loved America, as did Benny, as did virtually all the Italians and Jews with whom they did business.
That was back in ’42. They supplied union cards to Navy undercover agents so they could masquerade as longshoremen, fishermen, truck drivers and so on, and they passed the word to all their people to keep an eye out for Nazi rats. Their Navy contact, Captain Ronald MacDougall, and Stefano got real chummy. Stefano was elated; Mac never ceased complimenting him on the great patriotic job he was doing.
Then the Navy wanted to expand operations, but that was too much for Stefano to handle alone. He didn’t have the authority to issue orders to the unions that owned the Brooklyn docks. What Stefano needed was a mandate from on high if he was to whip the syndicate into line behind the Navy.
So Captain Mac, a bunch of lawyers and Meyer Lansky, who was still Luciano’s second, journeyed to Great Meadow Prison near Albany, where Lucky was doing thirty to fifty for extortion. They met with Luciano, who agreed to help the Navy, since that would allow lots of unrecorded visits from Lansky and his people. How else could Luciano direct the antisabotage program? The Navy promised to keep his cooperation top secret, for Luciano was worried about what the angry Axis authorities would do to him if he ever got himself deported to Italy.
Since then everyone had been doing his part to keep the waterfronts clean. Lansky was proud to be getting an important job done with a minimum of violence. There were no wildcat strikes and no careless talk to supply enemy agents with information. The Navy was pleased and so was the syndicate, many of whom had been given unrestricted, unmonitored access to Luciano. He could now much more easily run his empire from his prison cell. The only dark spot was Stefano’s furious jealousy when Meyer Lansky was issued an official Navy code number. These days Stefano’s temper seemed to be shorter and shorter. It seemed Benny was his whipping boy.
Benny walked east, circling the slums west of Broadway, and continued downtown to Columbus Circle. Then he decided the hell with more walking and hailed a taxi. His cracked ribs were hurting.
Benny loved his kids with a passion, but unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same about Dolores. Thanks to her father’s power she’d long ago gained the upper hand on him. If he didn’t toe the line Stefano heard about it, and Stefano de Fazio was not the kind of father-in-law a guy ought to antagonize. He and Stefano occasionally had sharp exchanges, and Stefano sometimes issued stern warnings, but Benny had never imagined that Stefano would have him physically harmed.
However, one day Tony called him out behind the warehouse on the pretext of discussing a cargo shipment. Suddenly three other guys came from nowhere to surround him. He had the time to ask, “What’s going on?” and then he was on the ground and those four impassive faces were gazing down at him like circling moons as they kicked him.
When it was over Tony Bucci carried Benny into the office and taped up his ribs. “Don’t let on to Dolores,” he warned. “Tell her you fell down or something. And stay away from them hookers. That’s what got Lucky thrown behind bars—”
“That’s not true,” Benny gasped. Luciano hadn’t been lustful so much as greedy. He’d tried to skim too much profit off his bordellos, and the outraged madams went to Special Prosecutor Dewey.
“Don’t matter. You’d better get the message, or next time it won’t just be cracked ribs. Do as we tell you. You ain’t a physical kind of guy, Benny. You don’t wanna get hit on like this. It’s too risky for a guy in partnership with Stefano de Fazio to sleep with a bunch of talkative whores. Find yourself some wised-up chippy who’ll know better than to spill your business to the cops.”
Benny kept quiet. He despised this four-eyed bald sadistic son of a bitch. He was also more than a little afraid.
How could he explain that it was exactly a whore’s capacity to supply impersonal sex that he craved? He did not want to confide in a woman; he was sick of women. He was finding it increasingly difficult to make love to his wife; he’d begun to hate her the first time she ran to her daddy when they fought. He wasn’t the man of his house; his father-in-law was. Sometimes he wondered why father and daughter didn’t just sleep together and be done with it.
Damn, but his ribs ached. It was the rain, Benny guessed. He leaned back in the taxi and thought about Becky, trying to get his mind off of the pain. She looked good, really good, better than four years ago.
He wondered what it would have been like if he’d married Becky instead of Dolores. Some nights he still found himself dreaming about Becky, a haunting, sexy ghost, making him strong and hard like Dolores never could and leaving him in turmoil when he awoke. If he’d married Becky he’d be poor, but the last four years as Stefano’s partner had taught him that money wasn’t everything. Without Stefano he probably would have ended up in the Army; well, he would have been a good soldier. He had guts and he could take care of himself; the fact that he hadn’t the stomach for the de Fazio brand of violent retribution didn’t make him a coward.
And when Benny came home from the war there would have been Becky waiting for him, ready to love him, to make him feel like a man.
Benny watched the rain slanting down on Central Park South and listened to the taxi’s windshield wipers. He was trapped and he knew it. It was no longer the money; it was Stefano de Fazio’s wrath that kept him caged.
Often he had thought of taking his kids and making a run for it, but it was a foolish, suicidal notion. He knew too much. Luciano, Lansky and the rest would all come after him; with or without his kids there was nowhere safe in the country.
Chapter 45
One of the night watchmen let Becky into Pickman’s through the employees’ entrance. “Still coming down, eh, miss?” he asked sorrowfully, eyeing Benny’s dripping umbrella. “I didn’t bring one.”
“Take this one,” Becky said, thrusting the umbrella into his hands.
She managed to brush past her secretary and lock her office door before she began to cry. How could she still be in thrall to that louse after all these years? What kind of sorcerer was Benny Talkin to have cast such a spell over her?
Like the storm, her crying was furiously intense if relatively brief. Unlike the storm, her tears did not leave the world washed fresh and clean.
Becky was repairing her makeup when her secretary timidly knocked on her door. “Millie’s on the line.”
Becky picked up the phone. Millie said, “He wants to talk to you,” and put her through to Carl Pickman.
“Good morning, Mr. Pickman.”
“Are you all right, Miss Herodetsky? Your voice sounds strained.”
“Thanks for asking. I’m just feeling a little blue. I ran into somebody on my way to work.” She paused to chide herself. “I just had an upsetting morning. That’s all.”
“How extraordinary,” Pickman said. “So did I. I was calling to ask if you’d take me to that spaghetti house again. I’m afraid they won’t allow me in without you, my dear. Not after I threw my necktie into their nice clean sawdust.”
Becky chuckled. “Oh, all right, Mr. Pickman, if you’ll promise to behave. I do have a reputation to uphold—are you still there?”
“Yes, yes. I was just taken aback.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor should you, my dear. As I said, it’s been an extraordinary morning.”
“Mr. Pickman, I have an idea. Why don’t you come to my apartment after work and I’ll fix us dinner?”
“Miss Herodetsky, I—”
“Please? Oh, please,” she implored. “I’m sure it’ll be a lovely, warm evening and we can eat on the balcony. You’ll be my first guest. It’ll be just the thing to cheer us both up. Please say you’ll come.”
Pickman laughed, trying to make a joke of her invitation. “Didn’t you tell me you’ve got a fifth-floor walkup?”
“Well, yes, but I promise to make the climb worth your while.”
“Hmmm—”
“Unless, of course, you think it would be improper.”
There was an extended pause on the other end of the line. “Miss Herodetsky,” he finally said, “Just who has the right to say what is proper or improper for us?”
“Well, I surely don’t know,” she replied, flustered.
“Would eight o’clock be convenient?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I’ll bring some wine,” he said, and hung up.
* * *
Becky left work early that afternoon. She stopped at several butchers along Broadway until she found one who would produce a pound of steak for a dollar. That was a third more than the ceiling price the government had imposed, but she paid it, and gladly. What a special, lovely night this was going to be. It would be her chance to show Mr. Pickman how much she appreciated all he’d done for her as well as her first chance to show off her new home.
There’d been nobody to visit her. Grace Turner kept promising she would, but she was too busy with her own work and social life. Danny wasn’t around to visit, and her father had not left the Lower East Side for years. Anyway, she was not about to let her convalescent father climb four flights of stairs just to see two little rooms and a terrace.
As soon as she got home she turned on her radio to hear the news and weather. She was in luck. The forecast called for a clear, sultry night. Out on the balcony she unfolded the card table. After the war, when such things were available, she would buy a wrought-iron patio set, but for now the card table would have to do. She laid her best cloth and set out candles.
It was six o’clock. Two hours to go.
Becky began to sweep, dust, polish—more to rid herself of nervous energy than anything. She made the salad. She showered. She put on a light cotton skirt and a sleeveless blouse. She brushed her hair and did her makeup.
Seven o’clock.
She put the potatoes into the oven to bake. She stood at the door of the terrace and looked at the table she’d set. She told herself she absolutely would not burst into tears.
Why, oh why did she have to have run into Benny Talkin? Why couldn’t she get over him? How demeaning to be just as heartbroken today as on the day he betrayed her, four long years ago. She couldn’t help imagining that it was Benny she was waiting for and that there would be not merely polite, friendly conversation, but his strong arms around her as no man’s had been before him and no man’s had been since.
At eight on the dot Pickman arrived with four bottles of wine, two red and two white. “You didn’t say what we were having, so I brought a selection.”
He was still dressed for the office in a blue suit, white shirt, tie and wingtips. Becky smiled brightly, feeling sick to her stomach at the thick silence of unease. Pickman rather weakly smiled back.
He’s used to formal meals that feature half a dozen forks, finger bowls and sherbet to clear the palate. She hadn’t a thing to serve while they waited for dinner. There was nothing in her refrigerator but some Muenster cheese, yellow and dry as parchment. Benny always enjoyed a steak and a baked potato.
“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” she told him. His look told her that it had come out sounding a trifle snappish. She felt her eyes filling up. Oh, that louse!
“Why don’t I open the wine?” he suggested.
Becky nodded. “Oh, Mr. Pickman, I don’t have a—”
“I figured. I brought a corkscrew along. Here. Put these whites in the icebox to cool. Perhaps we’ll have some with dessert.”
Dessert? She had no dessert. She felt feverish as she put away a fat dark green bottle and a tall light green one.
“I have a cellarful of wonderful German and Italian wines at home, but I have no palate for them now. The day the war ends I’ll either serve them up at a victory party or smash them all with a hammer—not that I think there’s much doubt now which way the war’s going. Anyway, tonight it’s all French, though I’m told it makes sense to look into some of the Californias.”
“I forgot to get dessert.”
“Never mind. I brought sauterne and champagne. You can pick one for dessert.” He pulled the cork and asked for glasses.
Becky went to the cupboard. “I probably don’t have the right kind.”
Carl took her in his arms and kissed her lightly on the lips. He kissed her again and her lips parted in response to his lightly thrusting tongue. She caught the peppery scent of his shaving lotion and felt the corded muscles of his arms and back, surprisingly thick and strong beneath his blue jacket.
“I thought this would help to pass the time while the wine breathes,” he murmured, his emerald green eyes intently watching her. Then he blushed. “Oh, that was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it, Miss Herodetsky—blast! May I call you Rebecca?” She nodded, eyes like saucers. “I rehearsed it and rehearsed it in the taxi—I thought a man had to have something clever to say to a woman—”
“Mr. Pickman, you don’t have to say clever things. There’s nothing to be sorry about.” She hugged him. “I’m glad you’re holding me. Tonight I think I’d like to be held.”
“Rebecca, I’d like to make love to you.”
She began to tremble. Why not? she thought. Look at him, feel his touch. He’s as frightened as you are. This isn’t just another conquest for him. And it’s time.
“I’ve—I’ve never been with a man before.” She spoke so softly, with her face press
ed against his chest, that he might not have heard. She took him by the hand and led him toward the bedroom. They undressed silently. He resolutely turned his back, so she covertly watched him. Finally he turned and stood naked before her in the twilight. She saw that he was flaccid; should he be? When exactly did it change? Her heart was thumping and she was finding it difficult to breathe. She was naked in front of a man. Her breasts felt huge, ungainly. Was she pretty enough for him? Was he disappointed?
He stepped toward her. He was so tall, so handsome, an aristocrat. Who was she to please such a man with her dark features and peasant hips?
Carl held out his arms and they embraced. Both moaned at the shock. Becky felt him beginning to swell and harden as he rolled against her thighs. She began to nibble kisses across the broad expanse of his chest, sprinkled with greying hairs. His hands, fluttering mothlike, slid down her spine.
Still holding each other, they glided like dancers toward her wide, foolish bed, a grand four-poster with a canopy that almost brushed her bedroom ceiling. It was the sort of bed Becky had dreamed about since she was little.
Becky felt herself growing wet beneath his stroking fingers and then surrendered herself to the wonderful sensation of his lips and tongue on her taut nipples. When she heard him fumbling with something in a crinkly wrapping she squeezed shut her eyes. The protection, she thought, so there aren’t babies. He was going to do it now . . . She floated back against her pillows, tense and expectant in the semidarkness.
He held her gently and lovingly. When he filled her she cried out, not in pain but in wonder and apprehension.
He moved within her. She wondered, what next and when? Carl rose up. His back arched and the cords strained in his neck. He moaned and shuddered and Becky held him as they exchanged roles. Now she was the protectress and he the vulnerable one. He lightly collapsed on her, sweat-damp and short of breath.
She thought sleepily, Is that all? Far less than when I touch myself.
When she awoke the bedroom was dark and she was alone in her bed. She could hear noise coming from the kitchen. She took her robe from the closet and tiptoed out. She saw Pickman, barefoot, dressed only in his trousers and sleeveless undershirt, fussing at the counter, his back to her. She took the opportunity to gaze at him unawares. He was as strong and youthful-looking as a man half his age. Surely he was an accomplished lover, as he was accomplished in everything else. If she’d taken little pleasure, the fault was probably hers and not his.
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