Seventh Avenue (56 page)

“
You a wise man.
Full of wisdom.
When you get a little
older
,
you
will be wiser still.”

Davidson thanked him wordlessly. Where the devil was the sexton,
he wondered, for he had arranged for the man to call
him
to the phone
when
Latkin
and he got outside.

“
I’ll see you next Friday evening.”

“
See me? Of
course
,
you’ll see me. Is there ever
bin
a Friday night
when you didn’t see me?” Davidson’s wisdom-wall had been breached.

“
I didn’t mean to imply that I wouldn’t see you.”

“
I have to make
Kaddish,
no?”

“
Certainly you do.”

“
Then why not next Friday?”

The sexton, an elderly forgetful man with a monk-like bald pate
and saliva running down his chin appeared at the doorway, a man in
the full flower of his dotage. He waved at Davidson and called out:

“
On the phone, they want you.”

“
Just
coming .
. .” He wheeled around and extended his hand
to
Latkin
.
“Git Shabbos,
Mr. Latkin.”

Latkin
squeezed his hand till it
hurt
,
and the rabbi tried to extricate
himself but without success. It was like a bear-trap. “The phone,”
he said in a thin whine.

“
Where’s the phone?”

“
Someone’s waiting to speak to me.”

“
I got news for you. The world is
waitink
to speak to
you .
. . the
whole world. A man so young in years and wise in
wisdom
.”

“
Thank you.” Davidson pulled his hand away when
Latkin
’s defenses were lulled.

“
Git Shabbos,
Rabbi
Davidson.
And don’t forget, the world is
waitink
for a message.”

“
I won’t.” He rushed up the steps and was about to close the door
when he saw
Latkin
following him, but
Latkin
paused and bent down
and picked up a coin.

“You were standing on a penny. Gold, it falls from your mouth. This penny is my blessing. A sign from God.”

He turned and began to walk towards his car. The Sabbath was not over, but he had to see Sports. He had a new Packard, and he puffed as he drove the car like an engineer operating a steam engine, manually. The traffic was straggly as he negotiated the hill down to Sports’ apartment. He was surprised and delighted when he saw there were furniture and a doorman in the lobby, and he asked the man to buzz Sports on the house phone. Sports’ distorted voice came over the minuscule speaker, and Latkin was shown to the elevator. He rubbed his hands affectionately because the omens were favorable to his collecting the debt.

Neal opened the door for him, and Latkin massaged his scalp. Neal pushed his hand off and glared at him suspiciously. He didn’t like
Latkin
’s dark, bituminous eyes, or the swaying fleshy chins that hung pendulously from his jaw. Latkin tried to fondle him again, and Neal skirted out of the way. Latkin removed his hat and handed it to Neal; the hat was too tight or Latkin’s head was too large, for there was an uneven saucer-like ring bisecting the tufts of hair on his head that appeared to spring out of the most unlikely places like cactus in a desert.

“You Sports’ son?” He removed his coat and draped it on Neal’s arm.

“No, I’m not. I don’t run the checkroom either,” he said, handing Latkin’s coat back to him. He disliked the strange, aggressive visitors who wandered through the apartment, treating him like a bellhop. Two days earlier he had returned from school and had found a man sleeping in his bed, and when he asked Rhoda where he could do his homework he was told to do it on the kitchen table so that he wouldn’t disturb the sleeping visitor. It didn’t seem real to Neal - the constant talk about games, horses, track conditions, radios blaring all night long, the stream of furtive men and women who played cards in the living room till three or four in the morning, and whose names were repeated to him time and time again, but he could never remember them. His mother had grown increasingly listless and apathetic, allowing him total freedom, never asking where he had gone, who he had been with. And she avoided looking at him. The change had taken place since she had married Sports. Neal would find her lying on her bed smoking cigarettes that had a peculiar odor and then
she would begin to giggle stupidly or fall into morose silence, while
Sports energetically shouted numbers on the telephone to ghostlike
voices. Neal decided to run away from home when the weather got
warmer - possibly
sometime
in March - and hitchhike down to
Florida or Texas and
find
a job on a farm that employed young boys.
He had seen a film about a ranch where boys worked for their room
and board and three dollars a week, and he believed he could do
the same thing.

Latkin
shuffled into the living room where Sports and Rhoda
stood disconsolately by the imitation fireplace. The red light
that
was supposed to suggest fire revolved around a small wheel.

“
Varra nice,” Latkin observed. “You livin’ like a king, no,
Sports?”

“
It ain’t bad.”

“
A cup of tea I wouldn’t mind.”

“
Rhoda, make him some tea.”

“
I don’t have any tea.”

“
It’s cold like
anyting
outside,”
Latkin
said. “Schnapps you got?”

Sports went over to the liquor cabinet and poured him a large
drink.

“
We’ve got rye, okay?”

“
Nutting wrong
mit
rye. It warms.”

“
Want some water or soda with it?” Rhoda asked. She was too
nervous to stand around.

“
No,
nevah
. ‘
S’like
putting water in hot soup. Nobody does. So
why in Schnapps, I
esk
you?”

He held the glass tightly in his chubby fist, sniffed the bouquet
and downed about two fingers, ejaculated a long resounding “Aaah,”
then squinted at the two of them. He had often been in similar situations, and he knew the people were uncomfortable and fearful
when they couldn’t pay up. He divided the world into those who
could pay, and those who couldn’t. The latter always displayed an
obsequious, dissembling attitude
that
skidded into belligerence,
hollow unconvincing defiance
that
he could rend with a wave of
his hand. He was an astute judge of human nature, and he specialized in lending money to gamblers because he knew most of them
were incapable of violence, cowardly, and they all told the same lies.

“
It’s a sad day. Today I say
Kaddish
for my Mamma.”

“
It’s a sad day for a lot of other people,” Sports replied.

If Sports had had the
money
,
he would have flashed it by this time.
Latkin
thought; the inevitable excuses, apologies, explanations, would
now follow. He swallowed the rest of the whiskey and belched into
his fist Sports took his glass and filled it again.
Latkin
looked at Neal
standing in a
corner
,
and he felt a great wave of sadness for the child
who might now find himself on the street. He played with an alternative idea
that
might enable Sports to pay him off without forcing
him to break up his home.

“
Business is very bad, Mr. Latkin,” Rhoda said.

“
Terrible. I know for myself. I can’t move a silver fox or even a
Persian lamb. Stock I got like corns.” He removed a grubby well-thumbed notebook from his vest pocket and turned to a page
that
contained Sports’ account. His lips moved as he did some rapid sums.
“It comes to ten
tousan
’ dollars. You make it the same?”

“
That’s right. Ten grand.” Sports gazed out of the window at
a car waiting for a green light. The license plate of the car ended
with three. He would’ve bet that the next car to pass the light also
ended in an odd number. A seven came
past
,
and he squeezed his
hands excitedly. It was an even money bet. Why couldn’t he have
bet
Latkin
on
it,
or the next car, or the one after that? He turned
back to
Latkin
, who sipped his drink pensively. He had to stop
making mind bets. One of his friends had started to lose his mind
making bets like this. According to
the friend,
various people, unknown to themselves, owed him sixty-two million dollars. That was
the kind of streak he was on.

“
Maybe you should stop
gembling
?”
Latkin
suggested.

“
And do what?”

“
Gemblers
don’t win, but the bookmakers live in two-family houses
and their wives wear mink coats.”

“
That’s true,” Rhoda said. “When Sports was booking he was making three, four thousand dollars a week.”

“
Then why stop? That’s a good living.”

“
He’s smarter than the bookmakers. He would make three and
bet five,” she explained.

“
I never liked booking. There’s no skill in it. You’re like a banker.
You have to take the teams that other people don’t want.”

“
But the odds help a bookmaker, no?”

“
That’s not the point.
It’s having
the action that’s exciting. It’s
pitting
your brains against other people’s and fate.”

“Fate,” Latkin spat the word out contemptuously. “Fate is one ting: you’re born, and you die. Gembling is a sickness.”

Sports shifted his weight from one foot to the other uneasily. The discussion was tiring him, and he was getting nowhere with Latkin. How could he explain the excitement, the thrill of betting on a winner? The money was unimportant - it was the action.

“I haven’t got it,” he said finally. The admission relaxed him.

“Don’t you think I know you don’t got it.”

“What’s gonna happen?” asked Rhoda, on the edge of panic.

“What should happen?”

“The apartment, the furniture . . . it’s worth something? Maybe three thousand. We could sell it by the end of next week!”

“Where would the boy live?”

“He’ll live where I decide. He’s my son.”

“To move out of such a nice apartment. It’s a pity.”

“That’s not our fault, is it?” Sports said captiously. “You want your money.”

“I’m entitled . . . no? I didn’t esk to lend you. You esked me.”

“Aw, Christ, what’s the point?”

“Maybe I can help.”

“Give me more time!” Sports was jubilant.

“No, that I can’t do. Enough time you’ve had.” He looked around the room. “Nice apartment. How many rooms you got?”

“Four. Neal has a bedroom, and we have one.”

“The living room’s fine. A good-sized room.”

“For what?” Rhoda said.

“I run a little game, and the people don’t have where to play.”

“What kind of game?” Rhoda said.

“Creps.”

“A floater?”

“Whadelse? Nice respectable men in the game. No roughnecks.”

“How big is the game?” Sports inquired; he saw an opportunity to get even.

“The biggest. But you won’t play.”

“Why not?”

“They don’t play for credit and nobody borrows money. A man goes bad, he leaves the game, like a gentleman. He’s always welcome to play when he’s got enough.”

“What’s enough?”

“
No one without twenty thousand.
Pikers
can look for
anoder
game.”

“
So what’s in it for me?”