One-Eyed Jacks

by Brad Smith

  “Where you been — Hollywood?” Herm asked.

  “The threads?” Danny asked. “You wouldn’t believe the price on these duds. You might as well say I stole ’em.”

  “I’d say there was definitely a crime involved.”

  “I’ve been upgrading my wardrobe a little,” Danny said. “I was reading in Reader’s Digest where it says that clothes make the man, that it was like a statement, or something like that.”

  “You’re making a hell of a statement, kid. Don’t spill any chili on that Buick, you’ll have to take it down to the carwash and get it cleaned.”

  “Very funny, Herm. You playing at Ollie’s tonight?”

  “Yeah. How about you?”

  “I’ll be there. Told the girlfriend I’d be tied up tonight. A fellow’s got to have his night out with the boys, right?”

  “I didn’t know you had a girl, Danny.”

  “Sure, I’ve been pretty steady with Sheila Mosconi for a month or more now. She thinks I’m the cat’s ass, wait’ll she sees these threads, she’ll fall over.”

  “She’ll swoon, all right.”

  A month or more, Danny had said. And three nights earlier Herm and Sheila had fucked each other silly in an eight-dollar room at the Duke Hotel. She had called his place just that morning, Herm’s mother had given him the message.

  “So you two are hitting it off?”

  “Pretty good,” Danny said. “We haven’t hit the sheets yet, you have to take it slow with certain girls. She’s a Catholic, you know how it is. She told me she knows who you are. You know her?”

  “A little.”

  “We should double some night. I’m thinking about buying a car, maybe a Caddy.”

  He saw Herm’s eyes rise and he turned to see Tony Broad and Billy Callahan walking through the diner. They were dressed the both of them like movie gangsters and Callahan was walking with the same swagger he’d shown in Sully’s pool hall. Herm had caught a rumour that the kid was carrying a rod, although Herm couldn’t figure out why. Now he saw that the two planned to join him and Danny in the booth.

  “Move over, you mugs,” Callahan said.

  “Who we got here — the gang from Ollie’s?” Tony Broad asked. He removed his coat and sat down. “You guys going steady? What do you say you spring for lunch, Bell? You been taking all our money lately.”

  “You want a free meal, go to the Sally Ann.”

  “Touchy, touchy,” Tony said. “How’s the chili, kid?” This to Danny Bonner.

  When Danny started on about the chili, Herm turned to look at Callahan beside him. And Callahan showed his bad teeth and reached over to take a cold french fry from Herm’s plate.

  “You don’t mind if I help myself? You owe me after that stunt you pulled at Sully’s.”

  “Go ahead,” Herm said. “They were going out in the alley to the dogs anyway.”

  The two men ordered the special, and then Danny Bonner went after Tony about the movie business. Herm wasn’t too interested — he figured Tony Broad was to the movie business what Danny Bonner was to the world of fashion. But Danny was hot to hear about it.

  “How often do you make ’em?” he wanted to know.

  Tony Broad shrugged and lit his cigar. Danny was a dumb kid, but more to the point, he was a dumb kid who had nothing to offer Tony Broad. Danny, of course, didn’t know he was being snubbed.

  “You gonna make one in Toronto?”

  “We’re gonna make one with Lee Charles, what do you think about that?” Callahan said to Danny.

  Herm saw that Tony Broad was pissed off at Callahan for the remark. So when Tony tried to change the subject, Herm stayed with it.

  “Lee Charles the singer?” He was looking at Callahan. “You’re gonna make a movie with Lee Charles?”

  “We don’t discuss the film business with the local jokers down at the diner,” Tony said. “We might be making a film in Toronto and we might not. Nobody said anything about Lee Charles.”

  “He did,” Herm said, indicating Callahan.

  “I didn’t hear him.” Tony looked at Danny Bonner. “Did you hear him say anything about Lee Charles?”

  “Who the hell is Lee Charles?”

  “Ha, now that’s a good question,” Tony said. “She’s just some torch singer, they’re a dime a dozen where I come from.”

  “I hear she’s Nicky Wilson’s girl,” Herm said.

  “She’s got a funny way of showing it then,” Tony said. “Last night she stood Wilson up and walked out of the Blue Parrot with Tommy Cochrane.”

  “No shit?” Herm said. “Good for Tommy.”

  “I’ll lay you odds there’s nothing to it,” Tony said. “Cochrane’s a bum, he probably owes her money.”

  “Fucking Wilson went nuts,” Callahan said. “He wanted to kill Cochrane, said when he got him in the ring he was going to put him in the hospital for a year.”

  “I wouldn’t want to tangle with Nick Wilson,” Danny said.

  “He’s not going to get Tommy in the ring,” Herm said.

  “Then he’ll get him out of the ring,” Callahan said. “I don’t give a shit either way — they’re both a coupla creeps to me.”

  “You wouldn’t tell them that,” Danny said.

  “I’d tell ’em anything I fucking please,” Callahan said. “I grew up on the streets, these guys with their padded gloves don’t scare me none.”

  “You,” Tony Broad said to Herm. “How come you know what Tommy Cochrane’s going to do? You his big pal all of a sudden?”

  “Sure,” Herm said. “You can understand that — you being so tight with Floyd Patterson and all.” He pushed Callahan aside then and stepped out of the booth; when he did he felt the pistol under Callahan’s jacket.

  “See you gents around,” Herm said. “Watch you don’t shoot your dick off with that thing, Callahan.”

  On his way out of the diner Herm called Sheila Mosconi from the pay phone and told her he wouldn’t be seeing her anymore. No reason, he said when she asked why, it was just that he wouldn’t be seeing her anymore.

  He was having a beer in the Bamboo when Tommy Cochrane came in for work that night. Tommy stopped to talk to Buzz Murdock for a few minutes, then made his way over to the bar.

  “Got a nag for you,” Herm said.

  Tommy asked for a glass of water from the bartender.

  “I was down to the track this morning,” Herm said then. “There’s a four-year-old named Bobby Pin in the seventh on Saturday. He’s just up from the States and he’s ready to run, so I hear. They figure maybe ten to one, give or take a point.”

  “Bobby Pin.” Tommy tried the name on his tongue, as if that would tell him something about the horse.

  “There’s a couple others this week,” Herm said. “But not at the kind of odds you’re looking for. Maybe two to one, something like that, but not what you need, not for a one-time score.”

  “You figure he’s ready?” Tommy asked.

  “One of the trainers, friend of my old man’s, practically guaranteed me this horse will run in the money. But then, place or show won’t give you what you need.”

  “I have to go for the win,” Tommy agreed.

  He pulled his billfold from his coat pocket and counted what was there. A hundred and seventy and some change. Buzz owed him fifty, and fifty more by Saturday. T-Bone was making fifteen a day and living like a monk; he’d have something salted away. But still he was going to be short.

  “When’s the game at Ollie’s?” Tommy asked.

  “Tonight.”

  “Can I get in?”

  “I don’t see why not. The fat man speaks highly of you.”

  Tommy pushed the water away and asked the bartender for a beer for himself and one for Herm. For the first time the chance that he could raise the money — however slight — had appeared and he was nervous even thinking about it. Sometimes it was easier to want things than to have them.

  “Who’s at this game?”

  Herm shrugged.
“It changes from week to week. Ollie, of course, and Mac Brady, once in a while. A kid named Danny Bonner, good kid.”

  “I met him.”

  “That’s right, you did. Who else? Myself. Some slime, calls himself Tony Broad and his pal, a punk named Callahan. Tony Broad makes stag movies, at least that’s what he says. A one-eyed jack for sure. He probably doesn’t play a square game, but I doubt he’s got the moxy to cheat at Ollie’s.”

  “Can I make a hundred?”

  “You get the cards, you can make a hundred. Or you can lose two hundred.”

  “Well, life’s a long shot, that’s where the fun is,” Tommy said. “You know who told me that?”

  “No.”

  “You did.”

  “I did?” Herm laughed. “Well, what do you know — I’m a goddamned philosopher.”

  Tommy worked until eleven, drew the fifty that Buzz owed him on wages, and then walked the six blocks to the Blue Parrot.

  When he walked in the front door, Lee was onstage. She made a face at him and went on singing ‘Anything Goes.’ Tommy went to the bar for a shot. Nicky Wilson was standing there alone and he mouthed the word “coward” at Tommy, and Tommy laughed in his face and walked on by. He ordered Irish and then looked down the bar and laughed at Wilson again. The kid was so mad he could barely stand still.

  It was a trick Tommy had learned from Gus Washbone years ago. You can love a man or hate a man, and he’ll take it in stride, but the one thing that a man can not tolerate is being laughed at. It makes him feel inferior and left out and it just plain pisses him off.

  Lee came to the bar when the song was finished. Tommy called to Lucky Ned, but she waved the bartender away. “I’ll sip at yours,” she said.

  “Yeah, drink my liquor. Spend my money.”

  “Jump your bones,” she said and she kissed him quickly, her mouth smelling of the Jameson’s and of her.

  “I won’t be around when you get done,” Tommy said. “There’s a card game at Ollie Newton’s, I’m gonna try to raise a little cash.”

  He told her about the tip from Herm Bell.

  About a horse named Bobby Pin.

  “Jesus,” Lee said when she’d heard. “It’s awful flimsy.”

  “Flimsy ain’t the word for it. But it’s all I got. I can either sit by and watch the farm slide away or I can take a flyer and hope to get lucky. I’m a little overdue in the luck department, but I feel like maybe it’s changing.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Tommy shrugged. “No reason.”

  “Come on, mick,” she said. “Tell me why.”

  “Well —” he said. “Because two days ago I didn’t know where you were and today I do.”

  She kissed him again, this time on his ear, her teeth sharp against his lobe. “I declare, you old country boys can be real charmers... when you’re forced into it,” she said. “I believe you’re turning my head.”

  “Have a drink, Lee,” she heard and when she turned, Nicky Wilson was standing there with a gin and a grin.

  “No thanks.”

  “I got your usual,” Nicky said. “Whatsa matter?”

  “No thanks.” She could see now the kid was drunk.

  “How about you, grandpa? You want a gin — nice ladies’ drink?”

  “No thanks, kid,” Tommy said, real polite.

  “What’re you drinking — that Irish shit? I’d drink horse piss before I’d drink Irish whiskey.”

  “Well, if a horse happens by, we’ll draw you a glass,” Lee said.

  Nicky showed red. “You know your boyfriend’s afraid to fight me? He tell you that?”

  “Oh, leave it,” Lee said.

  “He’s an old man and a yellow mick,” the kid said then. “If he fucks like he fights, it can’t be much fun for you, lady.”

  For maybe a five count Tommy thought he would do it — his hands on the bar were clenched, and his breath was quick. But in the end he let it go. In a moment he was laughing in the kid’s face again and he kept laughing as Lee took him by the arm and led him backstage. He could hear the kid, in a rage, screaming at Lucky Ned to take the drink away.

  “You’re going to hook up with him,” Lee said. “He’s the kind to keep pushing.”

  Tommy smiled. “Well, I’m not gonna oblige him.”

  The band was backstage and Lee introduced Tommy around. Doc Thorne was an old pal, and he put Tommy in a bear hug.

  “Where you been all this time, Tommy C?”

  “I been everywhere, Doc. Like the song.”

  “I bet you have. I say, it does the heart good to see you two together again.”

  “I never figured you had a heart, Doc,” Lee said.

  “Big as a washtub, girl. And you know it’s true.”

  They talked a few minutes and then Tommy said he would be going. Doc asked after his destination, and Tommy told him.

  “Want to come along, Doc?”

  “Does I want to come along?” Doc asked. “Of course I want to come along. But I am not going to come along, ‘cause things have changed since the old days, Tommy. Nowadays, I got me a hard-headed woman at home who’ll kick my ass six ways from Sunday if I’m out gambling away the rent money. You hear me, Tommy C?”

  “I hear you, Doc.”

  Lee walked outside with Tommy and they stood by the back door, in the alley where the garbage cans sat and where Doc Thorne’s old Packard was parked.

  “You stay out of trouble, mick.”

  “Yup.”

  She stood there looking at him in the light from the doorway. Six years was a long time to be apart and she hated to see him go now, even for a few hours. Feeling this way surprised her, because Lee had never admitted anything to anybody, not even herself.

  “You know, I could ask my mother for a loan,” she told him. “God knows she’s got the money.”

  Tommy laughed. “Your mother wouldn’t pay money to see me eaten by wolves.”

  “Oh, she’d pay to see that.”

  “Yeah, I suppose she would.”

  “I wouldn’t tell her it was for you,” Lee said then.

  “You’re forgetting something,” Tommy said. “Your mother wouldn’t lend you money either.”

  “Probably not.”

  He kissed her. “Well, I’ll see ya.”

  “You better.”

  “You’re supposed to wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need luck,” she told him. “You got me.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Danny Bonner was in seventh heaven. Here he was, sitting in at Ollie’s weekly game, wearing new threads, money in his pocket, a song in his heart. Because who should be sitting across from him but Tommy Cochrane himself. Danny had never really socialized with anybody famous before, but this night here he sat, playing a little poker, shooting the shit, having a hell of a time. Wait until the boys at Lem’s heard about this.

  What’s more, Danny was sitting on aces over tens and he was betting ten dollars on the hand. And it was just him and Tommy Cochrane left.

  Tommy checked his cards and called the bet. Danny showed the two pair, and Tommy tossed his hand.

  “Tough one, Tommy,” Danny said, and Tommy smiled. At least the kid had stopped calling him Mr. Cochrane.

  They’d been playing for three hours, and Tommy had been up and down like a toilet seat. He was sitting between Fat Ollie and Herm Bell; across the table were Bonner, Tony Broad and Billy Callahan. Mac Brady had been there, but he left when he saw Tommy in the game.

  “You don’t want to play poker with me, Mac?” Tommy had asked the promoter.

  “You won’t get my money that way, Tommy.”

  “Sit down, Mac. Play some cards.”

  “No, the one throat I never cut is my own,” Mac had said. “I’ll have a shot of Ollie’s good scotch and then I’m heading home, boys.”

  When Mac was gone, Callahan scoffed and looked over at Tony Broad. “Going home, my ass,” he said. “Mac’s going down to Sherbourne for a little paid pussy. The ma
n spends more money on whores than I spend on clothes, for Christ’s sakes.”

  Fat Ollie laughed. “I hope he gets better value for his dollar.”

  Callahan glared at the fat man, but kept his tongue. Herm Bell was shuffling and he began to deal.

  “Straight seven, gents.”

  “So Mac likes the pros, does he?” Tony Broad said, checking his hole cards. “Well, that’s the way to go, just fuck ’em and pay ’em and that’s it.”

  Tony and Callahan had shown up drunk and had been hitting the bourbon pretty good ever since.

  “The queen is high,” Herm said to Danny, and Danny bet a buck.

  “Seen a lot of guys take a fall over some skirt,” Tony went on. “The only thing a dame wants to do is change a man. Don’t matter what you are, they want to change you into something else. It’s like branding cattle. If they can change you — they own you.”

  “Buck to you,” Herm told him.

  “I know it’s a buck to me,” Tony said irritably and he threw in a dollar. “What about you, Cochrane? You must have had your fair share of the dames. Famous boxer and all.”

  “About the same as everybody else, I guess,” Tommy said.

  “Yeah?” Tony Broad asked. “Well, everybody else doesn’t waltz out of the Blue Parrot with Lee Charles on his arm.”

  “No, but everybody else is minding their own business,” Herm said.

  Tony took a moment to pour more bourbon and then he turned a bad eye on Herm Bell.

  “Back off, sonny,” he said. “All I’m doing is asking the man a question. Is Lee Charles a good fuck or what?”

  Ollie pushed his chair back; he’d had enough of Tony Broad. But Tommy smiled and shook his head, and Ollie decided to wait. Tommy looked at Tony Broad, who was noisily lighting a cigar. His shaky hands, though, betrayed his cocky pose.

  “I came here to play cards, friend,” Tommy said. “If you have something on your mind, we can go out back and talk about it.” He paused. “But I’d rather not because that’s not why I’m here.”

  Ollie couldn’t figure why Tommy was taking it easy on Tony Broad. Neither could Herm Bell. Tony, squinting at Tommy through the smoke and Jack Daniel’s, took it the wrong way.