The Carpetbaggers (56 page)

"The subways are still running," David's father said. "I should pay because your son is a big shot with an automobile?"

"Five fifty," the old woman said.

David's father looked at her. Then he shrugged his shoulders and reached under his long black coat. He took out a purse, tied to his belt by a long black shoestring, and opened it. "Five fifty," he sighed. "But as heaven is watching, I'm losing money."

He gestured to David and began counting the money out into the old woman's hand. David rolled all the clothing into the overcoat and tied it by the sleeves. He hefted the clothing onto his shoulder and started down the stairs. He tossed the bundle of clothing up into the cart and moved around to the front of the wagon. He lifted the feed bag from the horse, and untying the reins from the hydrant, climbed on the wagon.

"Hey, Davy!"

He looked down at the sidewalk. A tall boy stood there looking up at him and smiling. "I been lookin' for yuh all day."

"We been in Brooklyn," David answered. "My father will be here in a minute."

"I’ll make it quick, then. Shocky'll cut yuh in for ten bucks if yuh bring the horse an' wagon tonight. We got to move a load uptown."

"But it's Friday night."

"That's why. The streets down here will be empty. There won't be nobody to wonder what we're doin' out at night. An' the cops won't bother us when they see the junky's license on the wagon."

"I'll try," David said. "What time, Needlenose?"

"Nine o'clock back of Shocky's garage. Here comes your ol' man. See yuh later."

"Who were you talking to?" his father asked.

"One of the fellers, Pop."

"Isidore Schwartz?"

"Yeah, it was Needlenose."

"Keep away from him, David," his father said harshly. "Him we don't need. A bum. A nogoodnik. Like all those other bums that hang around Shocky's garage. They steal everything they can get their hands on."

David nodded.

Take the horse to the stable. I’m going to the
shul
. Tell Mama by seven o'clock she should have supper ready."

* * *

Esther Woolf stood in front of the
Shabbas nacht lichten
, the prayer shawl covering her head. The candles flickered into yellow flame as she held the long wooden match to them. Carefully she blew out the match and put it down in a plate on the small buffet table. She waited until the flame ripened into a bright white glow, then began to pray.

First, she prayed for her son, her
shaine Duvidele
, who came so late in life, almost when she and her husband, Chaim, had given up hope of being blessed. Then she prayed that Jehovah would give her husband, Chaim, a greater will to succeed, at the same time begging the Lord's forgiveness because it was the Lord's work at the
shul
that kept her husband from his own. Then, as always, she took upon herself the sin for having turned Chaim away from his chosen work.

He had been a Talmudical student when they'd first met in the old country. She remembered him as he was then, young and thin and pale, with the first soft curl of his dark beard shining with a red-gold glint. His eyes had been dark and luminous as he sat at the table in her father's house, dipping the small piece of cake into the wine, more than holding his own with the old rabbi and the elders.

But when they'd been married, Chaim had gone to work in her father's business. Then the pogroms began and the faces of Jews became thin and haunted. They left their homes only under the cover of night, hurrying about like little animals of the forest. Or they sat huddled in the cellars of their houses, the doors and windows barred and locked, like chickens trying to hide to the pen when they sense the approach of the
shochet
.

Until that night when she could stand it no longer. She rose screaming from the pallet at her husband's side, the letter from her brother Bernard, in America, still fresh in her mind. "Are we to live like rabbits in a trap, waiting for the Cossacks to come?" she cried. "Is it into this dark world that my husband expects I should bring forth a child? Even Jehovah could not plant his seed in a cellar."

"Hush!" Chaim's voice was a harsh whisper. "The name of the Lord shall not be taken in vain. Pray that He does not turn His face from us."

She laughed bitterly. "Already He has forsaken us. He, too, is fleeing before the Cossacks."

"Quiet, woman!" Chaim's voice was an outraged roar.

She looked at the other pallets in the damp cellar. In the dim light, she could barely see the pale, frightened faces of her parents. Just then there was a thunder of horse's hoofs outside the house and the sound of a gun butt against the locked door.

Quickly, her father was on his feet. "Quick,
kinder
," he whispered. "The storm cellar door at the back of the house. Through the fields, they won't see you leaving that way."

Chaim reached for Esther's hand and pulled her to the storm door. Suddenly, he stopped, aware that her parents were not following them. "Come," he whispered. "Hurry! There is no time."

Her father stood quietly in the dark, his arm around his wife's shoulder. "We are not going," he said. "Better someone be here for them to find or they will begin searching the fields."

The din over their heads grew louder as the gun butts began to break through the door. Chaim walked back to her father. "Then we all stay and face them," he said calmly, picking a heavy stave up from the floor. "They will learn a Jew does not die so easily."

"Go," her father said quietly. "We gave our daughter in marriage. It is her safety that should be your first concern, not ours. Your bravery is nothing but stupidity. How else have Jews survived these thousand years except by running?"

"But— " Chaim protested.

"Go," the old man hissed. "Go quickly. We are old, our lives are finished. You are young, your children should have their chance."

A few months later, they were in America. But it was to be almost twenty years before the Lord God Jehovah relented and let her have a child.

Last, she prayed for her brother Bernard, who was a
macher
now and had a business in a faraway place called California, where it was summer all year round. She prayed that he was safe and well and that he wasn't troubled by the Indians, like she saw in the movies when she used the pass he'd sent her.

Her prayers finished, she went back into the kitchen. The soup was bubbling on the stove, its rich, heavy chicken aroma almost visible in the air. She picked up a spoon and bent over the pot. Carefully she skimmed the heavy fat globules from the surface and put them in a jar. Later, when the fat was cold and had congealed, it could be spread on bread or mixed with chopped dry meats to give them flavor. While she was bent like this over the stove, she heard the front door open.

From the footsteps, she knew who it was. "That you, Duvidele?"

"Yes, Mama."

Her task finished, she put down the spoon and turned around slowly. As always, her heart leaped with pride as she saw her son, so straight and tall, standing there.

"Papa went to
shul
," David said. "He'll be home at seven o'clock."

She smiled at him. "Good," she said. "So wash your hands and clean up. Supper is ready."

When David turned the horse into the little alley that led to the back of Shocky's garage, Needlenose came hurrying up. "Is that you, David?"

"Who did yuh think it would be?" David retorted sarcastically.

"Geez, we didn't know whether you'd show up or not. It's almost ten o'clock."

"I couldn't sneak out until my old man went to sleep," David said, stopping the wagon at the side of the garage.

A moment later, Shocky came out, his bald head shining in the dim light. He was of medium height, with a heavy barrel chest and long tapering arms that reached almost to his knees. "You took long enough gettin' here," he grumbled.

"I’m here, ain't I?"

Shocky didn't answer. He turned to Needlenose. "Start loading the cans," he said. "He can help you."

David climbed down from the wagon and followed Shocky into the garage. The long row of metal cans gleamed dully in the light from the single electric bulb hanging high in the ceiling. David stopped and whistled. "There must be forty cans there."

"So he can count," Shocky said.

"That's four hundred pounds. I don't think Old Bessie can haul that much."

Shocky looked at him. "You hauled that much last time."

"No, I didn't," David said. "It was only thirty cans. And even then, there were times I thought Old Bessie was goin' to croak on me. Suppose she did? There I’d be with a dead horse and two hundred gallons of alky in the wagon. It's bad enough if my old man ever finds out."

"Just this once," Shocky said. "I promised Gennuario."

"Why don't you use one of your trucks?"

"I can't do that," Shocky replied. "That's just what the Feds are lookin' for. They won't be lookin' for a junk wagon."

"The most I’ll take is twenty-five cans."

Shocky stared at him. "I’ll make it twenty bucks this one time,'' he said. "You got me in a bind."

David was silent. Twenty dollars was more than his father netted in a whole week, sometimes. And that was going out with the wagon six days a week. Rain or shine, summer heat or bitter winter cold, every day except Saturday, which his father spent in
shul
.

"Twenty-five bucks," Shocky said.

"O.K. I'll take a chance."

"Start loadin', then." Shocky picked up a can with each of his long arms.

David sat alone on the wagon seat as Old Bessie slowly plodded her way uptown. He pulled up at a corner to let a truck go by. A policeman slowly sauntered over. "What're ye doin' out tonight, Davy?"

Furtively David cast a look at the back of the wagon. The cans of alcohol lay hidden under the tarpaulin, covered with rags. "I heard they're payin' a good price for rag over at the mill," he answered. "I thought I'd clean out the wagon."

"Where's your father?"

"It's Friday night."

"Oh," the policeman answered. He looked up at David shrewdly. "Does he know ye're out?"

David shook his head silently.

The policeman laughed. "You kids are all alike."

"I better get goin' before the old man misses me," David said. He clucked to the horse and Old Bessie began to move. The policeman called after him and David stopped and looked back.

"Tell your father to keep an eye peeled for some clothes for a nine-year-old boy," he called. "My Michael is outgrowin' the last already."

"I will, Mr. Doyle," David said and flicked the reins lightly. Shocky and Needlenose were already there when David pulled up against the loading platform. Gennuario stood on the platform watching as they began to unload.

The detectives appeared suddenly out of the darkness with drawn guns. "O.K., hold it!"

David froze, a can of alcohol still in his arms. For a moment, he thought of dropping the can and running but Old Bessie and the wagon were still there. How would he explain that to his father?

"Put the can down, boy," one of the detectives said.

Slowly David put down the can and turned to face them. "O.K., against the wall."

"Yuh shouldn't 'a' tried it, Joe," a detective said to Gennuario when he arrived.

Gennuario smiled. David looked at him. He didn't seem in the least disturbed by what had happened. "Come inside, Lieutenant," he said easily. "We can straighten this out, I'm sure."

The lieutenant followed Gennuario into the building and it seemed to David that they were gone forever. But ten minutes later, they came out, both smiling.

"All right, you guys," the lieutenant said. "It seems we made a big mistake. Mr. Gennuario explained everything. Let's go." As quickly as they had come, the detectives disappeared. David stood staring after them with an open mouth.

* * *

Needlenose sat silently on the wagon beside David as they turned into the stable. "I tol' yuh everything was fixed," he said when they came out in the street.

David looked at him. Fixed or not, this was as close as he wanted. Even the twenty-five dollars in his pocket wasn't worth it. "I'm through," he said to Needlenose. "No more."

Needlenose laughed. "Yuh scared?"

"Damn right I’m scared. There must be an easier way to make a living."

"If yuh find one," Needlenose said, "let me know". He laughed. "Shocky's got a couple or Chinee girls over at his flat. He says we can screw 'em tonight if we want."

David didn't answer.

"Sing Loo will be there," Needlenose said. "You know, the pretty little one, the dancer who shaves her pussy."

David hesitated, feeling the quick surge of excitement leap through him.

* * *

It was one o'clock by the big clock in the window of Goldfarb's Delicatessen when he turned the corner of his street. A police car was parked in front of the door. There was a group of people surging around, peering curiously into the hallway.

A sudden fear ran through David. Something had gone wrong. The police had come to arrest him. For a moment, he felt like running in the opposite direction. But a compulsion drew him toward the house. "What happened?" he asked a man standing on the edge of the crowd.

"I dunno," the man answered. He peered at him curiously. "I heard one of the cops say somebody was dying up there."

Suddenly, frantically, David pushed his way through the crowd into the house. As he ran up the staircase toward the apartment on the third floor, he heard the scream.

His mother was standing in the doorway, struggling in the arms of two policemen. "Chaim, Chaim!"

David felt his heart constrict. "Mama," he called. "What happened?"

His mother looked at him with unseeing eyes. "A doctor I call for, policemen I get," she said, then turned her face down the hallway toward the toilets. "Chaim, Chaim!" She screamed again.

David turned and followed her gaze. The door to one of the toilets stood open. His father sat there on the seat, leaning crazily against the wall, his eyes and mouth open, moisture trickling down into his gray beard.

"Chaim!" his mother screamed accusingly. "It was gas you told me you got. You didn't tell me you were coming out here to die."