Catch the Brass Ring

CHAPTER EIGHT

IF YOU EVER TRIED taking the circuitous subway route from Queens to Coney Island via Manhattan you’ll realize I arrived at my own place pretty late. I had a room in a dubious hotel which held down the corner of Surf Avenue and West 16th Street, two storeys of drab green asbestos shingle with all the dirty yellow windowshades drawn down. On the ground floor below the hotel, supporting the small rooms and dusty hallways, were a shooting gallery and one of those scooter rides. You walk into the hotel and the first thing you see is a blank wall with a hand-lettered sign which says, “upstairs” and an arrow indicating that you do an abrupt column right up a flight of creaking wooden steps.

At the top you find a desk and a row of mail slots and a desk clerk who slept with one eye open. For a small commission he’d get you anything from a bottle of whiskey to a sleeping companion. From the rhythmic squeaking of bed-springs in the hall the desk clerk must have carried on a brisk trade.

I passed the desk and the clerk’s other eye remained shut so I figured he was asleep. I unlocked the door to my room, went inside and began to undress. I stripped down to my undershorts in the semi-darkness, with light and carnival commotion streaming in through the yellow window shade when some female throat-clearing made me turn around.

There was a dark shape in the room’s one chair.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you, Mr. Frey,” the dark shape said. The shape had a voice I recognized. It wasn’t the shape, but the shapeless. It was Becky Lutz.

I put my pants back on and pulled the string for some light from a naked bulb hanging down from the low ceiling.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Frey. I didn’t mean to disturb you or anything. But I had to see you.”

“How did you find me here?”

“Well, I said to myself, Mr. Frey would probably live nearby in a hotel or a boarding house. I kept looking until I found the right one and the nice clerk let me in. I don’t usually do this. I don’t visit strange gentlemen in their bedrooms.” Apparently Becky saved the nagging for Ben. She spoke in such a diffident tone and so formally I half expected her to drop to the floor and salaam. “Whatever you do, Mr. Frey, I hope you do not entertain the wrong idea about me. Ben and me, we’re happily married.”

“Becky, the moment I saw you I knew you were not a loose woman.” I tried to keep from smiling. I was suddenly wide awake, though.

“Mr. Frey, I… I do wish you would put on your shirt.”

I slipped into my shirt but left it unbuttoned. Becky’s eyes roved the room anxiously. They said I was the most virile thing she’d seen since Valentino’s death.

Becky licked her lips nervously. She’d come prepared to barter for whatever she wanted, if necessary. As she leaned forward the low neckline of her print dress revealed a couple of items entirely too large, shapeless and — I guessed — soft. There would be one of those steel-ribbed girdles below the brassiere, also pink, perhaps embroidered with some flowery stitching. It kept Becky tucked in and squeezed the fat into a dumpy but not obese mold.

“Mr. Frey, it’s about my Ben. Ben is a good, hard worker and he’s been at it a long time now. You remember that day you came into the bar for the first time? You looked like such a gentleman. Right away I knew from the polite questions and the way you smiled so courteously. I’m a good judge of that, Mr. Frey. I forget your first name.”

“It’s Gideon.”

“Everybody’s been talking since you came here. You can’t hide those things, you know. Everybody is saying that Mr. Frey is either the letter writer or he’s working for the letter writer.”

“The letter writer,” I said. This was a new one. “Well, I won’t deny it in front of someone as astute as you, Becky. How are those plans for Blue Mountain Lake coming?”

“That’s just it. I came to see you about Blue Mountain, Lake, Gideon. We need more money. My Ben is only scared a little. We should take vacations like to Blue Mountain Lake and live out in Forest Hills someplace. I only want what’s good for Ben. A good legman you need? That Vito Lucca is a baby, all wet behind the ears yet. Let my Ben take over the legwork.”

“Well,” I said, wishing I knew what we were talking about, and wanting to give the impression I did. “Vito is a younger man.”

“But my Ben has the contacts. For that you would be willing to pay more money, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe,” I said. “How does Vito feel about all this?”

“Vito? A baby! We will leave Vito out of it.”

I got up off the bed and listened to the springs creak. I placed my hand on Becky’s shoulder, big and flesh-padded, and felt her shiver. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “We like our people to come out and say what they’re thinking. Incidentally, does Ben have the necessary transportation?” It was a hunch. I’d run into Vito with an unmarked panel truck and a suspicious attitude.

“You mean a truck? I didn’t know Vito owned his truck. I thought you gave it to him. Ben could use the same truck. He’s a more careful driver, too.”

“It’s a good point,” I said. “Does Ben know you know what we’re doing over at Tolliver’s?”

“Certainly my Ben knows. He keeps no secrets from me. I keep no secrets from him, except little ones.”

Maybe Becky would have gone right on talking, I don’t know. Unfortunately, a bed spring began creaking overhead in the top floor of the hotel. They were in earnest, those two upstairs, and one or both of them must have been well-stuffed. Becky mopped sweat off her face with a gayly colored handkerchief. She lumbered toward the door mumbling something about it being later than she thought and Ben would worry.

I knew I couldn’t detain her. But there might be another time, so I shook Becky’s plump, dimpled hand and held it and leaned over with my face inches from hers and said, “I’m glad you came, Becky. I like talking with you.”

“About what I said…?”

“I’ll consider it. Don’t worry. A man like Ben has a wife as unselfish and devoted as you, he’s bound to go places.”

“You really think so? I’m younger than Ben, you know.”

I leaned closer. Becky’s lips began to tremble. I felt like every kind of an unmentionable heel that never gets mentioned, but what the hell, I was playing for keeps. Becky took me off the hook, though, by spinning around and darting down the hallway despite her bulk. At the top of the stairs she turned and blew me a kiss. I showed my fangs and shut the door softly.

Becky had almost told me a lot. My actual take in serviceable information, however, was zero. I’d already guessed Vito was delivering something to Tolliver’s or taking something from Tolliver’s. Aside from the fact that an ambitious Becky was gunning for his job, I’d learned nothing.

Who or what in hell was the letter writer?

I thought and thought about what Becky told me and got nowhere, so I began thinking about Karen. This revealed a desire to return forthwith to Queens, the newly ordained garden spot of the universe.I think I’m falling in love with you, Karen. That’s what the man said. But was he? Three years ago, I’d decided to play the field after Allison. Such a stalwart display of will power. Go to hell, Gideon Frey. That’s where you’re heading anyway. The first broad you hook up with after doffing the khaki uniform makes you want to change your mind.

None of it helped. I slept.

I found King Kellum manhandling a boy in our penny arcade the next morning. I didn’t recognize the boy at first but I said, “Damn you, Kellum, cut it out.”

“Mr. Frey, am I glad to see you,” the boy wailed. It was my favorite clam digger, squirming and writhing while Kellum kept him pinned under one thick, muscular leg and swatted a heavy paw at the twisting face.

“Frey,” he said. “Say, listen. You people ought to watch this place more carefully in the future.” The Mickey Mouse voice probably masked lewd thought Mickey never would have dreamed of.

The kid said, “This big goon is nuts! I only came in because I wanted a job here, Mr. Frey. Right away he starts chasing me and doing all kinds of stupid things. Leggo, stupid!”

Kellum stood up and dusted himself off. “He was trying to steal something, Frey.”

The kid’s shirt was ripped almost in two, revealing red welts and discolorations on his chest and stomach. He snuffled back tears of rage and pain and said, “Am I gonna catch hell when my Ma sees this.”

“What was he trying to steal?” I asked coldly. “The cash is locked up.”

“Listen, Frey. Do you think I was trying to take something?”

“Kings go around looking for queens, you punk.”

“Say, listen…”

“No, you listen. Keep your nose out of this place. You can monkey around all you want in your steam room, see?”

Kellum’s big face twisted into a pout, like a woman whose virtue has been questioned. He was something unclean which crawled around holes in the ground and only came out at night. I slammed my open palm against the big face and rocked it.

The kid clapped his hands. Kellum bleated like some kind of female animal. He lunged at me and swung a haymaker which I ducked under. But I neglected to tuck my chin close to my chest and his left blurred up at me and slammed against my Adam’s apple. I gagged. To make matters worse, Kellum lifted me half off the floor with a knee. If I had any breath I might have screamed. The kid never would have forgiven me.

Kellum’s right fist floated toward me. Time seemed suspended. I couldn’t seem to avert my head. Something crunched and I went over backwards against a bowling game. I tumbled to the floor in a shower of splinters and Kellum leaped on me with a glad little Mickey Mouse cry. He pummeled me with one hand and tried to enjoy himself with the other. His lower lip hung slack and I grabbed it. I yanked and felt something give and the lip hung slacker than before. I’d torn something big because blood started gushing in a quick rich red stream. Kellum squawked and clamped a hand against his mouth while I twisted and squirmed out from under him. Bleeding mouth and all, the son of a bitch bit me in the shoulder as he rolled clear. I rapped him in the teeth once and stood up.

Kellum came after me, but he was done. His bleeding mouth bothered him. He tried too hard to protect it while I pounded his unprotected gut. I chased him back across the room and his head began to slump as if it were too heavy for the muscle-corded neck. He leaned back against a hockey game, his back arched across it. I drove my right fist against the point of his jaw and felt it up to my shoulder. Glass shattered as his head jerked back but his legs swung up and caught me coming in.

I bettered the world’s broadjumping record in reverse. I hurtled against two or three assorted penny games and a whole row of peekaboo movies. Everything crashed and clattered and so did I, but I caught Kellum’s bulk on the soles of my shoes as he came down and kicked up and over. Kellum shattered the glass front of our Gypsy Horoscope but got his fortune told. It said he was licked.

He climbed to his feet without much gusto and I hit him. He staggered to his feet and limped toward me and I hit him. He sat up and I kicked him in the teeth and he spit out a mouthful of blood before he subsided.

I asked the kid, “You want… a job… here as a… change-maker?”

“Gee whiz, yeah. Gee whiz, you sure won that fight.”

“Gee whiz,” I groaned, “I’m not so sure.” The floor prevented me from falling clean through to the basement.