Blue Eyes (21 page)

“I have a box of Nittaku's. They're fresh.”

But the shark wouldn't play with a Japanese ball. “Too heavy,” he said. “They have unreliable seams.” He dug into his pockets and brought out two “Double Happiness” balls, which came from China and were hard to find in Manhattan. He blew on the balls, rotating them in his palm. “Okay with you?” he asked Coen.

“Test them, Manfred,” Schiller said. “They could be warped on one side. They'll take away your control, and give him extra spin.”

Coen wouldn't listen. “Sylvio, where's your bat?”

The shark could afford to smile; he unzippered the pouch and removed the fattest paddle Coen had ever seen; it was a Butterfly with a superfast face, five millimeters of rubber and sponge on each side, more than was allowed in tournament play. Coen's Mark V was a puny weapon compared to that.

Schiller complained. “Manfred, he's got a club in his hand. You'll never make it.”

“Sylvio, throw up the ball.”

They volleyed for two minutes, Sylvio using his most languid strokes, testing Coen's backhand; like most sharks, he wouldn't reveal his best serves before the game; he didn't want Coen getting too familiar with the hops off his bat. Sylvio preferred the “penholder” grip, clawing the Butterfly with his palm full on the rubber so that he could play backhand and forehand with one side of the bat. Coen was a “handshake” man; with the handle in his fist and only a finger on the rubber, he was forced to turn the bat when he switched from forehand to backhand, slowing his response to the ball. Sylvio could hug the table, scooping up every shot. Coen had to play further back.

Returning the ball, Sylvio flitted past Odile, stopping close to her ear. “Mama, you can't lose. This cop doesn't have the strokes.”

He returned to the table. “Coen, we'll play a set for the hundred, okay?”

“No sets,” Coen said. “One game.”

Sylvio winked to Odile. “He's a joker. He won't see my serve in one game. It'll spin past his nose. Coen, I'll make it fair.” He pointed to Schiller. “Why should I rob this old man? How much of a spot do you want? Six points? I can give you more.”

“No spot.”

Sylvio put both hands under the table; Coen had to guess which hand had the ball if he wanted the serve. “Left,” he said.

Sylvio brought the ball up in his right palm. “Coen, you dropped your luck in Schiller's room.”

Schiller wagged his head. Crouching, with his ass near the ground and his bat belt-high so Coen wouldn't be able to determine the direction of the spin, Sylvio drove five wicked serves, all exactly the same, into Coen's fist; no wood or rubber touched the ball from Coen's side; he had nothing better than his knuckles to offer Sylvio. The ball plummeted off the table every time. Sylvio caught him five-zip.

Using a simple lob serve, Coen got two out of five. Because he took his eye off the ball to peek at Odile, Sylvio faulted once, making four of his next five serves. Coen played with his knuckles again. He couldn't solve Sylvio's spin. The score stood twelve to three, Sylvio.

“How about another hundred, Coen?”

“Schiller,” Coen said, “get your money box.”

Sylvio watched the cop. “It's a joke. I don't change stakes in the middle of a game.”

Coen got one lob past Sylvio, then volleyed home two out of four, meeting Sylvio's slices with little push shots, surprising the shark. Sylvio had expected him to crack by now. He rubbed his lip with the top of the Butterfly.

“Coen, you'll have to take off the holster and the badge. They're fucking with my concentration.”

Schiller began to protest. “Where is it written that the gun has to go? Did you sign a contract with him?”

“Balls,” Sylvio said. “That man's trying to ruin my eye. Why else would he wear gold on his chest?”

Odile was even more adamant than the shark. She couldn't get a rise out of Coen, whatever the score. She suffered near the table. The shark had revealed something to Odile; there was no way to humiliate Coen with a ping-pong paddle. She wallowed on her platform shoes; a tall girl without the shoes, she was over six feet in her creped heels and soles, which allowed her to fully dwarf the others at the table, Schiller needing to stand on the points of his slippers to remain in communication with her. Coen clipped off the holster and the badge.

He was a man with nothing to lose. Sylvio could trip him twenty-one points in a row, and Coen would have given up the money in the coffee tin without a peep. He had no mother, no father, to provide for; the First Dep's office might disclaim him, but they couldn't swipe his pension so quick. It was Schiller who poked his head outside the range of Odile's shoulders to have an eye on the door. Coen didn't flinch. If the Chainaman arrived while Schiller clutched the holster in his lap, Coen could wear his bat like a chest protector or meet the Chinaman frown for frown. He missed the feel of leather on his hip, the slide of the holster when he stretched for the ball, but he couldn't be hurt by Odile's shark. He took Sylvio's cut serves on a higher bounce, with his knuckles out of the ball's path. He showed more rubber now, and the ball remained on the table. Overcoming the trickiness of the serve, he could deal with the flaws in Sylvio's style. The penholder grip gave Sylvio less of a stretch than Coen because he clawed the bat and had to swing in a narrower arc, leaving him vulnerable in the corners. So Coen angled his shots, striking deep into the sides of the table.

“The ball's flat,” Sylvio griped. “There must be a split somewheres.”

“Nine serving sixteen,” Schiller said, handing Coen the other “Double Happiness” ball. Odile didn't need a bearded, slippered gnome to repeat the score. The game was inconsequential. Unable to count on the shark, she interposed herself, kicking off the crepes and stepping out of her skirt. She would
make
Coen look at her, force him to comment on her nakedness, upset his strokes if she could. Odile wore no underwear on this day, and Schiller, who admired the precise swell of her bosoms in a shirt from Bendel's, was astonished that her breastline didn't change without the shirt. A cultured man, a polite man, he was ashamed of the erection in his pocket. This Odile had the firmest chest in the country, Schiller believed. He was too distracted to reckon with the silk in her pubic hair. Coen was busy lobbing the ball. He saw the fallen skirt, but he wouldn't inhibit the sweep of his bat for Odile. The SROs screamed from Schiller's gallery. “Sweetheart, do the turkey trot.” They clucked with their tongues, climbing over the gallery wall; they would have gone further, but they realized the cop owned a gun in Schiller's lap. Odile put her shoes back on, so she could annoy Coen from a higher level.

The gallery screamed, “Sweetheart, sweetheart.”

This noise finally caught Sylvio in the head; he'd been brooding over the collapse of his game (the shark still had Coen eighteen to twelve). He turned around, noticed Odile in her shoes. Coen pushed three points past him. Sylvio gripped the Butterfly with his pinkie in the air. No breastline or Venus hair could have disconnected him so. Sylvio wasn't taking a sexual stance (others had tried to tempt the shark during a game, and failed). It was the porous nature of the light in Schiller's club that undid Sylvio; the shark suffered a religious manifestation, an epiphany of sorts. Naked in the muggy light, with dark streaks coming down her chest like so many wounds, and her profile punctured by the shadows flying off Coen's bat, the girl became one of the great martyrs for Sylvio,
Santa Odile.
His fingers numbed on him, and he lost all the advantages of the penholder grip; he couldn't scoop up the ball. He might have beaten Coen anyway; even in a crisis, the shark was better than a cop. But Odile had gone for her clothes. Crying, bitter at Sylvio, bitter at Schiller, bitter at Coen, she stuck a leaden arm into the Bendel shirt. She passed the gallery with one buttock showing. Sylvio followed her out, his neck twitching in Coen's direction. “Cop, I be back. Next month. I shave your ass sitting on a chair. I spot you twenty, man. You play like a cunt.”

The shark forgot his pouch and his “Double Happiness” balls, and Coen had to fling them at him. He didn't want the money. “Give it to the welfares, Emmanuel. Let them buy ice cream and cake. They can feast the whole fucking hotel. Everybody eats. But save a few dollars for Arnold.” He had nothing to gloat about; he couldn't cherish Sylvio's retreat the way Schiller did. Schiller rattled the money tin.

“Manfred, that's another hustler who'll think twice before annoying us. He won't dare bring the bat into a public place.”

Coen had the urge to run after Odile, an urge which he suppressed; she came with the shark, she could go with him. He wondered what deal she'd made with Sylvio: cash or bedwork? The cop was growing jealous. He was fond of her, in spite of her waspishness. She had a stylish walk in her big, gummy shoes. He muttered to himself once Schiller was out of earshot. Odile, you figured wrong. I'm the real hustler, not Sylvio. I was playing money games for Zorro before the kid knew what a paddle was. Manfred Coen of the Loch Sheldrake ping-pong school. I was terrific with sandpaper.

Odile made the stairs with her cheeks on fire. She wouldn't look at the shark. Her hems were crooked. She came out of the cellar only partially dressed; she couldn't get her fingers through the sleeve. Sylvio guided them for her, feeling the luxury of knucklebone.

“Don't touch me,” she said. She pressed a hundred dollars in his hand. “You're paid. Now disappear.”

Sylvio kept two feet behind Odile, varying his speed according to hers. His pupils had shrunk, and all Odile could see of him were dirty eyewhites. He reminded her of the junkies who punked around in the hallway opposite The Dwarf, their faces a bloodless gray without proper eyeballs; that's how much he had deteriorated after dueling Coen. “I gave you carfare,” she said. “Now go and scratch.” He dropped behind one more step. She fetched a cab for herself and locked the door on him. Going down Columbus she had a change of heart. She told the cabby to circle around the block; his meter ate thirty cents finding Sylvio. “Get in.”

He slumped with his knees higher than his head. He didn't dare touch Odile again. For comfort he rubbed up against the upholstery with the small of his back. Odile hadn't meant to beleaguer him.

“My uncle picks the winners. Some shark you are.”

“Mama, I'm wiped out You know what it is playing a dead man? I counted his blinks. Two blinks in thirty shots. That's not human. A human man I could squash. Ask around. Ask when the last time was Sylvio Neruda left money under a table.”

She said, “Shut up,” so he crossed his arms until Christopher Street. She wouldn't let him off without clutching him. Her tongue licked the flats of his teeth. Even the cabby was suspicious. He wouldn't believe such kissing could exist in his own cab.

“I'm sorry,” Odile blew into Sylvio's ear. He liked the heat of a moving lip. “He's icy, Coen. Very icy. Some big shit called Isaac trained him to be like that.”

The shark waddled into the health spa. Sitting with Odile must have activated the crazy bone in his knee. How could you evaluate the kiss of a mama saint? The girl had a bitter tongue, that's the truth. She took the strength out of his legs, Santa Odile. He wouldn't accept women backers any more. He reached the ping-pong room huffing, his eyes off the players, thankful for the clean grace of fluorescent light.

Part 3

14
Just when Coen was ready to go to Papa, to warn him at least of the tail on Jerónimo, to chide him about the hush money for Sheb, to curse him maybe for monkeying with the finances of his father's store, Papa came to him. Coen knew the tribe was around his door the moment he spotted an oversize head under his fire escape. It was Jorge eating a Spanish jellyroll. The boy couldn't decipher street signs but he was the only muscle Papa would ever need. He could poke your eye with a finger, climb on your back and lock your neck in his jaw, grab your testicles, or skewer you with a kitchen knife. Papa wouldn't have come out of the Bronx for a trifle. So Coen didn't idle near the door. He sent Papa into the living room, while Jorge remained in the street, remembering faces along the perimeters of his eyes. Jorge was meant to whistle if he saw a cop in plainclothes or a goon belonging to Isaac. He held the jellyroll close to his mouth. His nails were a fine pink from the number of chocolate milks he drank.

Coen offered Papa peach liqueur or a Bronx snack of cherry soda and pretzel sticks. Papa declined. He had given Coen a perfunctory kiss and went to sit in a corner chair. He was dressed in his store clothes, an old twill jacket with clots of syrup on the sleeves. Papa would sneeze into the shoulder padding from time to time. He hated the North American passion for superhygiene. When he couldn't leave his counter he pissed in his shoe. He would never bathe his boys more than once a week. He left the bugs to swim in his syrup tanks. No one ever died of a Guzmann “black and white.” He couldn't swallow the thin homogenized stuff from the Bronx dairies that wouldn't even leave a proper moustache on your face. Papa drank cream from a can. His eyes were puffy today, and he had to pinch his cheeks to get the twitches out. Coen couldn't believe that Papa had money or policy slips on his mind.

“Manfred, I want Jerónimo safe. Go to your Chief—tell him Papa will give up five of his runners and his wire room on Minford Place if he agrees not to touch the boy.”

“Papa, I already told César. I'm not working for Isaac. I'm playing the glom these days. Papa, ever since Isaac resigned, they've been throwing me into all the boroughs except one. They wouldn't let me catch homicides in the Bronx. Why? Because I might step on Isaac's toes and prevent him from watching the candy store.”

“Manfred, he got nothing but bellyaches from me. He had to scrape the floor to collect a penny. Isaac lived on fudge. I spit inside every sundae I made him. I would have brought him up to the farm in a basket and shoveled dirt in his mouth, but this is the United States. You can't wipe off a big
agente
like Isaac and expect to stay in business. The cops would mourn for him all over Boston Road.”