Appointment in Samarra (7 page)

Ed had said he wouldn’t be down till around four o’clock. He had to spend Christmas with the wife and kid, God knows why. Al did not like to think of Annie Charney. The kid was swell; six years old and fat and healthy-looking. He wasn’t like Ed, but for the present more like Annie. She was fat and healthy-looking and blonde, like most Polacks. Ed didn’t care for her any more. Al knew that. Ed cared for Helene Holman, who was a torch singer like Libby Holman and sang at the Stage Coach. Ed really cared for Helene. He played around a little, but Al knew Helene was the only one he really cared for, and Helene really cared for him. With her it was slightly different, because
nobody else would even look cockeyed at Helene as long as Ed cared for her, but even taking that into consideration Al knew Helene really cared for Ed. And she was good for him. You could tell when Ed and Helene were getting along. Ed was easier to get along with then. Tonight, or this after’, when Ed showed up at the Apollo, he probably would be in a bad humor. That was the way Annie affected him. Whereas if he had spent the day with Helene he would have been in a good humor. But Al knew that Ed wouldn’t think of spending Christmas with Helene. Ed was a family man, first and last, and that was the one day in the year he would spend with the kid, at home.

“Here,” said Loving Cup.

Al looked at the blue plate. “For a buck fifty I don’t call that much turkey,” he said.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Grecco? Is it too small?” said Loving Cup.

“Small? For Christ’s sakes. And wuddia say, how about giving me some white meat? If I’m gonna pay a buck fifty for turkey I wanna get some white meat, not this God damn dark meat.”

“Shall I take it back?”

“Sure, take it back,” said Al. “No, wait a minute. The hell with it, and the hell with you. You’ll take a couple hours.”

“That’s right, Mr. Grecco. It’s Christmas. You said so yourself just a minute ago.”

“Screw, bum,” said Al. Loving Cup pretended to pay no attention to him and dusted off the table cloth, but out of the corner of his eye he was watching Al, and when Al made a grab for his wrist Loving Cup leapt away. Then he snickered and went back to the counter.

Al usually had breakfast at this time, if he was up. He ate eggs and bacon for breakfast, had a small steak or something like that at seven in the evening, and then after midnight he usually ate what he called his big meal: a thick steak with boiled potatoes, piece of pie, and many cups of coffee. He was about five feet six with his high heels, and weighed about 130 pounds with his suit on. He had been with Ed Charney and
eating regularly for four years, but he still did not gain much weight. Stayed about the same. His bones were small, and he was a thin little man in every part of him. He was born in Gibbsville, the son of Italian parents. His father worked on a navvy gang and supported six children, of whom Al was the third. Al’s name was not Al, and it was not Grecco. His real name was Anthony Joseph Murascho, or Tony Murascho, until he was eighteen. He had been kicked out of the parochial school for striking a nun when he was fourteen; carried newspapers, stole, was house-man in a poolroom, served a year in prison for burgling the poorbox in one of the Irish Catholic churches, and was arrested several other times: once when a false alarm was turned in (he had an honest alibi); once for attempted rape (the girl could not positively identify more than two of the six suspects); once for breaking the seals on a freight car (the railroad detectives listened to his father’s plea, and they had a good case against four other boys, so out of kindness to the old man they did not prosecute Tony); once for stabbing a colleague in a poolroom argument (no one, not even the victim, could swear Tony had done it; and anyway it was only a slight wound).

It was when he was eighteen, the same year of his life that he went to the county jail, that he got the name of Al Grecco. At that time he decided to be a prizefighter, and though he had a lingering touch of gonorrhea, he went into training and studied the sweet science under Packy McGovern, Gibbsville’s leading and only fight promoter. Packy told him he was a born fighter, had the real fighting heart, and that the clap was no worse than a bad cold. He made Tony lay off women, alcohol, and cigarettes, and do a lot of bag-punching. He showed Tony how to hold his elbows and how to keep his right foot in position so he could move his body backward without taking a backward step; that was footwork. He taught Tony how to scrape an opponent’s eyes with the palm of the glove, and also how to use his thumb, and also how to butt. He of course instructed Tony never to enter a ring without first knocking a few dents into the aluminum-cup supporter which is supposed
to be a protection against foul blows. You never know when you can claim foul and get away with it, and if the cup is not dented no club physician would dare allow the claim. Tony Murascho, who up to that time had been known only as a tough little guinny, was matched to fight a preliminary bout at McGovern’s Hall.

As it happened, Lydia Faunce Browne was assigned to write a feature story about that fight card. Lydia Faunce Browne was not a Gibbsville girl originally. She came from Columbus, Ohio, and had been in Gibbsville five years when her husband deserted her. He was younger than Mrs. Browne, who at the time of the desertion was forty-nine, and he left behind, besides Lydia, a large bill at the Lantenengo Country Club, another big bill at the Gibbsville Club, and several other bills. For a time Mrs. Browne eked out a living and paid a little on the bills by teaching auction bridge to the wives of the Jewish storekeepers, but she finally flattered Bob Hooker, editor of the
Standard,
into giving her a job on the staff of the
Standard.
She told him he was a real man for his editorial on his dead dog. She became the pest of the
Standard
office on her own hook, and was being built up big by Bob Hooker, who regarded himself as the William Allen White–Ed Howe–Joseph Pulitzer of Gibbsville. He began to regard Lydia as the local Sophie Irene Loeb, and paid her $35 a week, with three exceptions the highest journalistic salary in the town.

Lydia was always being sent down in the mines, much against the wishes of the miners, who think it is unlucky for a woman to enter a mine; or riding in locomotive cabs, or spending a night in prison, or interviewing visiting celebrities, such as George Luks (who later wanted to know where in the name of God they dug her up) and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Gifford Pinchot (five times). Lydia’s secret favorite adjective for herself was keen; and she went around looking keen during all her waking hours. She felt sorry for prostitutes on all occasions; she thought milk for babies ought to be pure; she thought Germany was not altogether responsible for the World War; she did not believe in Prohibition (“It does not prohibit,”
she often said). She smoked cigarettes one right after the other, and did not care who knew it; and she never was more than five minutes out of the office before she was talking in newspaper argot, not all of it quite accurate. She had a hell of a time with the spelling of names.

She went out to cover the prizefights with Doug Campbell, sports editor of the
Standard.
No nice women ever went to prizefights in Gibbsville, no matter what they did in New York, and Lydia’s story the next day began:

That was how Al Grecco got his name.

He could not live the name down. The gang at the poolroom and at the gym called him El Grecco, and for a gag Packy McGovern billed him as Al Grecco on the next card. The name followed him into prison—was, in fact, waiting for him there; Lantenengo County Prison was ruled by a warden who, though no deep student of penology, believed in permitting his wards to have newspapers, cigarettes, whiskey, assignations, cards—anything, so long as they paid for it. And so when Al Grecco was sent up on the poorbox burglary matter he was not altogether unknown at the Stoney Lonesome, as the prison was called.

When Al had served his time he came out with some idea of turning square. He wanted to turn square, because he had seen so many ex-convicts in the movies who came out with one of two plans: either you turned square, or you got even with the person who got you sent up. He could not get even with Father Burns, the curate who had caught him burgling the poorbox, because it was a sacrilege to hit a priest, and anyhow Father Burns had been transferred to another parish. And so Al decided to turn square. First, though, there were two things he wanted to do. There was no one to give him money while he was in prison, and he felt he had been deprived of the two most important things you can have. He had about ten dollars, his earnings in prison, but that was not enough for a big night. He wanted twenty. So he got in a game of pool, to get his eye and his stroke back, and surprised himself by being pretty good. That gave him confidence, and he asked if he could take a cue in a money game. He lost all his money in the game and Joe Steinmetz, the crippled man who owned the place, would not stake him. Steinmetz would give him a job, he said, but no money to shoot pool with. So Al walked out of the place, wishing he had insulted Joe. Outside the poolroom, which was the next building to the Apollo hotel and restaurant, Al saw Ed Charney, sitting in his Cadillac sedan. Ed was smoking a cigar, and seemed to be waiting for someone. Al waved his hand and said, “Hyuh, Ed.” All the poolroom gang spoke to Ed, although Ed did not always answer. Now he beckoned to Al. Al made the distance to the car in three jumps.

“Hello, Ed,” he said.

“When’d you get out? Somebody spring you?” said Ed. He took his cigar out of his mouth and smiled benevolently at Al. Al was surprised and pleased that Ed Charney should know so much about him.

“No, I did my time,” he said. “I got out today.” He leaned with one arm on the rear door of the sedan. “I didn’t know you knew me.”

“I make it my business to know a
lot
of people,” said Ed. “How’d you like to make a sawbuck?”

“Who do you want knocked off?” said Al.

Ed glared and put the cigar back in his teeth, but then took it out again. “Don’t talk tough, kid. That don’t get you any place. That don’t get you any place except up in that jail house or else—” he snapped his fingers. “Nobody has to knock anybody off, and the sooner you get them ideas out of your head the better off you are.”

“You’re right, Ed,” said Al.

“I know I’m right. I make it my business to be right. Now if you want to make that sawbuck all I want you to do—can you drive a car?”

“Yeah. What kind? This one?”

“This one,” said Ed. “Take it out to the Gibbsville Motors or whatever you call it. English’s garage. Tell them I sent you out to have it washed and wait till they’re done with it and then bring it back here.” He reached in his pocket and took a ten-dollar bill from a roll. “Here.”

“A sawbuck for that? Do you want me to pay for washin’ it?”

“No. Charge it. I give you the sawbuck because you just got outa the can. Keep your nose clean.” Ed Charney got out of the car. “Keys in the car,” he said. He walked toward the Apollo, but turned after a few steps. “Say,” he said. “Who the hell ever told you you was a prizefighter?”

Al laughed. There was a guy for you: Ed Charney, the big shot from here to Reading and here to Wilkes-Barre. Maybe the whole State. What a guy! Democratic. Gave a guy ten bucks for doing nothing at all, nothing at all. Knew all about you. Made it his business to know all about you. That night Al
Grecco did not get quite so drunk as he had planned; he waited until the next night, when he had thirty dollars from a crap game.
That
night he got good and drunk, and was thrown out of a house for beating up one of the girls. The day after that he took a job with Joe Steinmetz.

For three years he worked for Joe Steinmetz, more or less regularly. No one could beat him shooting straight pool, and he had great skill and luck in Nine Ball, Ouch, Harrigan, One Ball in the side and other gambling pool games. He saw Ed Charney a couple of times a week, and Ed called him Al. Ed seldom played pool, because there were only six tables in the place, and though he could have had any table by asking for it or even hinting that he wanted to play, he did not take advantage of his power. When he played he played with Snake Eyes O’Neill, the wisecracking, happy-go-lucky guy from Jersey City, who was always with Ed and, everybody said, was Ed’s bodyguard. Snake Eyes, or Snake, as Ed called him, carried a revolver unlike any Al ever had seen. It was like any ordinary revolver except that it had hardly any barrel to it. Snake was always singing or humming. He never knew the words of a song until after it was old, and he used to make sounds, “Neeyaa, ta ta ta tata, tee ta tee, laddie deetle,” instead of singing the words. He was not called Snake Eyes because he had eyes like a snake. Far from it. The name was a crapshooting term. He had big brown eyes that were always smiling. O’Neill was tall and skinny and in Al’s opinion was the snappiest dresser he had ever seen. Al counted up one time and he figured O’Neill had at least fourteen suits of clothes, all the latest cut from Broadway, New York City. Ed Charney was not a very snappy dresser. Ed had quite a few suits, but he did not change them much. His pants often needed pressing, and he often put his hat on so that the bow on the band was on the wrong side of his head. There were always cigar ashes on the lapels of his coat. But Al knew one thing: Ed wore silk underwear. He’d seen it.