Seventh Avenue (57 page)

“
A thousand a night. Ten nights, they play
here .
. . we’re even.
Longer is up to you.”

“
A thousand a night. For a game like that, the house takes ten
percent off every winning roll.”

“
I know. The ten percent is me.”

“
Will you be here every night?”

“
Me? You crazy? I go to bed ten o’clock ever night. The game
starts at twelve till five. What do I want to stay up ah night? I don’t
know
anytink
about
gembling
.”

“
If the cops break it up I can do three years. The guys on the
bunko squad don’t do business. They make a
pinch
,
and the D.A.
gets busy.”

Latkin
’s dark eyes roamed Sports’ face for a sign of strength, for
resistance.

“
You a
gembler
, right? Well, this is a
gemble
. You win or lose. If
you lose before the ten nights is out, then I write off what you owe
me.”

“
While I’m in the
keister.
Raymond
Street,
or the Tombs.”

“
At five o’clock on the dot I call on the telephone. The phone
rings four times, so you can think about it. You pick up the
phone,
that means you don’t want to cooperate. You let it ring four
times
,
and you
don’t owe me no
more.” He extended his hand to Rhoda,
then to Sports, patted Neal’s head, and walked out of the room. As
he made to open the door, Sports rushed up to him.

“
Latkin
, if you’re not at the game collecting your ten percent,
then who is?”

Latkin
smiled with some embarrassment and shrugged his shoulders.

“
Sports, you don’t
hev
to worry your head. I got somebody what
looks after my interests. A good reliable man who don’t cheat, and
don’t
gemble
. So,
denks
for thinking of me. But don’t worry. No, you
don’t need to
worry for
mine sake.”

The phone rang promptly at five o’clock and Sports stared at it
helplessly. Rhoda came over to him on the second ring and put her
arm around his neck, but he forced her to remove it. It rang a third
time. The sweat from the pocket above his lip began to
drip
,
and he
wiped it with the back of his hand. On the fourth
ring
,
he lifted his
hand, but Rhoda pulled it away from the phone.

“
We’ve got no choice.”

“
I’m sorry, Rhoda. What can I say?”

“
If the police come, what then?”

“
We’re both in it. The lease is in your name, and that makes you
just as guilty.”

Rhoda poured herself a
drink
and swallowed a pill with it. She
went over to the window and stared out at the gray buildings and the
empty playing field
that
lay in the distance. She almost never looked
out of the living-room window, even though the view was a good one.
Sleet was
falling
,
and it made a sharp ricocheting sound as it caromed
off the sides of cars.

“
It doesn’t matter
anymore
,” she said. “It really doesn’t.”

“
We’re being victimized.”

“
Hah, victimized! It’s gonna snow.

Terry had her hair in an
upsweep
,
and she had her feet up on the
settee pillow. The snow was
falling
,
and she thought it looked like
wads of cotton sprinkled from the roof of the hotel. In the months
that she and Jay had lived in the hotel suite, she had added some
homely touches, and the sitting room was, to her eye, agreeable because of the hi-fi and the television, which Jay had bought. The liquor
cabinet was also new - a low-slung, angular one
that
gave the room
an
ambiance
of home. The Vlaminck painting of a farmhouse which
she had bought as a surprise for Jay made her feel that the room had
a greater permanence. She heard the door in the
anteway
open and
Jay burst in. He had snow on his
hair
,
and his shoes were wet.

“
Hey, if you come into my house with wet shoes I’ll brain you.”

“
How do you feel?”

“
Fine. Will I ever housebreak you?”

“
That depends on what you’re prepared to offer.”

“
Oh, take your pick. It could be twins.”

“
Does the doctor think . . . ?”

“
The doctor does not
think. H
e just doctors, and he says I’m a perfectly wonderful specimen of a specimen.”

“
Do you want to go to a movie?”

“
No, not really, unless you do.”

“
Then we’ll stay in. Have dinner sent up and watch television.”

“
Sounds exciting.”

“
It’s snowing outside.”

“
So I’ve noticed.”

He put his hand on her stomach and rubbed it then kissed her behind the ear.

“
I feel so big today.
Just like an enormous animal. A hippo.”

“
You’re gorgeous.”

“
I think that the last six weeks are longer than the other months
put together.”

“
It’s your imagination.”

“
I’ve been talking to it all afternoon. U
nlik
e me. But I
wasn’t
being
sentimental. Very Master
Sergeantish
and ordering it to
emerge from its dark, warm valley and give me my figure back. I
don’t think it heard me. What are you going to do about it, Jay? I
won’t have a disobedient child.”

“
I could get room service to send out for Chinese food.”

“
You’re not paying attention.”

“
I have to see it to
belt
it. I can’t hit a man smaller than me. It’s
unfair.”

“
Yes, I’d like Chinese food. How’d your meeting go?”

“
No problems. We’re increasing the dividend.”

“
I’ll ring my broker to buy fifty thousand shares.”

“
Hey, you’re
kidding .
. . that’s privileged information.”

“
Well, then, I won’t buy any of your lousy shares.”

He smiled and sat down beside her, lifted her head and rested it
on his lap. She closed her
eyes
,
and he kissed her eyelids.

“
Wake up.”

“
Why? You won’t let me make any money.”

“
Surprise. I bought a hundred thousand last month through my
broker .
. . in your name.”

“
You aren’t serious, are you?”

“
Sure I am.”

“
We need the money. You can’t pay our hotel bill.”

“
No, but I can manage to buy the hotel and throw all the guests
out if you like. That would give us about eight hundred rooms, and
you could have a friend stay with us.”

“
Ah, you’re an impossible man, a quite impossible man.”

At about
eight
o’clock
,
the room-service waiter wheeled in a steaming hot trolley. He uncovered
it
,
and Terry lifted the small silver tops of the dishes. Jay had ordered the chicken and almonds, which she
had once said she liked. She broke open a fortune cookie and read
aloud:
“‘He who sleeps heavily will father few.’”

“
Oh, c’mon, I don’t believe it,” he said, yanking the piece of paper
from her, while she squealed with laughter. He read it:

“‘
On solemn occasions a man walks softly: women cry and men
go to war.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

“
The Chinese have great dignity and many children.”

“
No, seriously. I don’t get
it .
. .”

“
It means that unless we eat the spareribs they’ll get cold.” She
took a rib and began to munch it. “Hey, I just had a lovely idea.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get Neal early tomorrow and all have breakfast together. We can’t go for a drive because of the snow: but we
could catch the early show at Radio City.”

He blinked with surprise. He could not fathom what was behind
this new interest in Neal, and yet it seemed genuine. The weekend
he had broken with Eva, Terry had insisted on writing a long explanatory letter to Neal. He had been against it, but after considerable persuasion he had relented. “No one tells the kid anything. He’s always
being knocked off balance. For
example,
Rhoda and Sports coming
up to camp - completely out of the blue - and informing him
that they got married. How do you think he felt? And even though
he didn’t much like Eva, he still thinks that you’re together. If we try
to spring it on him - that you’re finished - he won’t have much regard for me. He’s got to respect
us
,
and he’s got to be persuaded that
what we’ve done is best for us - and him in the long run - because it’s
built on love. If he
learns
that one single human lesson
,
he won’t go
wrong.” Jay had read and reread the letter half a dozen times before
she had sent it. “I don’t care about what anybody says about us,
but as far as Neal is concerned, the letter will be our passport to respectability and it’s essential that he back us up because when Mitch
gets through with us we’ll be knee-deep in filth and Neal won’t know
what to believe unless we’ve laid a foundation.” After posting the letter, he realized that her logic was irrefutable, and he wondered if she
was using Neal for a sounding board for the time when she had to
face her own children. It had worked miraculously, for when the
three of them did meet at the end of the summer, Neal was thoroughly captivated by Terry. Jay had expected their first meeting to
be unrelievedly awkward and embarrassing and before starting out
he had needed a drink, but she had forced him to put the bottle down.
“If he smells
liquor
on your breath, he’ll think you didn’t have the
courage to face him on his own terms. He’s probably more nervous
than you are, and if anybody needs a drink
it’s
him, but he’s only a
kid and that makes him ineligible.” She had kissed Jay affectionately
on the cheek. “Therefore be bold, my sweet.”

In the middle of the night, Neal got out of bed to go to the bathroom. The scene he had witnessed between
Latkin
and Sports earlier in the day had floated out of his mind. Apart from the fact that
Sports owed
Latkin
a debt
that
he could not pay, Neal had not
listened to or been particularly interested in the terms of the treaty
dictated by
Latkin
. What had impressed him most about the scene
was that
Latkin
had confirmed his own suspicions about Sports:
namely, that he was a gutless weakling, who had married Rhoda
for a number of reasons, none of them remotely connected with the
ideal of love
that
sustained Terry and his father. He had made
a desperate effort to discover some positive virtues in his mother’s
relationship with Sports, but he could not imagine what had first
drawn them to each other nor what kept them together. Sports was
a dull, thoughtless man, not physically attractive, passively ignorant,
with a neutral personality, a total lack of interest in every human
activity except gambling, and an active contempt towards Rhoda
that
he did not disguise. There had been times when Neal
had wanted to go to his mother and ask: “Why, why him?” But he
had been convinced beforehand that the question would only serve
further to complicate their domestic life, so he slipped into the apathetic, backsliding atmosphere that prevailed in the apartment. He
asked no questions and sought no counsel. On
one
point only could
he muster any passion, and this came about when he saw with his
own eyes that Rhoda was giving Sports money. He resented having
guessed Sports’ motive before he married Rhoda. If he was capable
of this induction why couldn’t Rhoda see it? What prevented her
from seeing what was so evident? How was it that he had been cleverer than his own mother? He couldn’t understand why she had
walked into a bear trap, and what was worse, remained there of her
own free will. The complexity of their relationship was beyond him,
but he felt certain that even when he was older and more experienced it would still seem to him an act of gratuitous destruction.