The Man With the Golden Arm (28 page)

They found Pig at the Safari with his face shaved and
washed, a new haircut and wearing a new suit and new shoes. The suit was already crumpled about the thighs and the shoes were two-tone jobs such as Louie once had worn; but it was still Pig inside the glad rags all the same.

Pig smoking a cigarette through a holder.

‘Waitin’ for a live one, Pig?’

Pig smiled straight ahead with nothing abject in his smile at all. ‘Yeh. Who you guys waitin’ for? A dead one?’ His humility was gone with his half lisp. He talked like a man in the driver’s seat with one foot on the brake.

‘Bring it to the table,’ Sparrow told the bartender, preceding the peddler to the rear with Frankie following. In the corner, beneath a frosted bulb, Pig sat looking out upon that dark and wavering shore which only the eyeless may see and only the dead may wander.

‘They tell me you’re in the bucks these days, Peddler,’ Frankie attacked him directly.

‘I know who you guys are,’ Pig informed them in a dead-level tone.

‘Of course you do,’ Sparrow agreed. ‘I’m the steerer ’n my buddy’s the dealer, he got somethin’ he wants to find out.’

‘You’re the guys awright,’ Pig told them both in that same flat knowing voice.

Now it was time to say: ‘You heard Louie get slugged. Heard us run and tapped down the alley till the odor of violet after-shave talc hit you. You touched him where he lay, bent above him and found the heavy roll you’d heard him bragging about half an hour before. Then pushed a few papers above him and tapped away to someone who’d give you a square count.’

But there was no way of asking a thing, it dawned on Frankie at last, without betraying himself. As if sensing Frankie’s thought the blind man told him, ‘I believe in live
’n let live, Dealer. Nobody asks me questions, I don’t ask nobody questions. I got to live too.’

His fingers found Frankie’s knuckles and touched a ring, of heavy German gold, that Frankie had worn since returning from overseas. ‘I ain’t no big snitch, I ain’t puttin’ no finger on guys who don’t put no finger on me. It’s just live ’n let live, how I look at it.’

‘I think you got a good sense of direction some nights all the same,’ Frankie told him, but Pig didn’t seem to hear. ‘I’m just one more poor blind bummy peddlin’ pencils,’ he mourned, ‘just a poor old down-’n-out bummy ’n you two guys muscle me back in some corner ’n talk like I got to watch my step, like I’m some guy killed some guy ’r somethin’. A blind guy couldn’t even rob nobody, he wouldn’t know who was a-watchin’.’

Suddenly he lolled his tongue at them both: he’d been laughing at them the whole time he’d been pleading.

Noiseless laughter. Yet he laughed long. While Frankie watched, unable to move. Spittle flecked Pig’s lips. And still he had not finished.

‘You guys,’ he regained his breath at last, almost helpless with soundless glee, ‘you guys can’t fool me, I’m too ignorant. You gonna break my neck too, you guys? It hurts my feelin’s, how you talk to me. Why don’t you buy me a drink ’n talk
nice
–a
good
drink –’ n then let me alone. Ain’t I lettin’ you guys alone? Okay, you guys?’

He thrust one hand before him, knowing it would not be shaken. That was like him: to seek some humiliation that flicked the long-dying membrane of his eyes and so pleased the twisted spirit. To feel that inner vindication, as of insult upon injury. Sparrow tapped Frankie’s shoulder and nodded toward the door. ‘We can’t set here all day wit’out buyin’ the bummy a drink, Frankie.’

Pig heard them leaving and called out eagerly, knowing his
voice would be ignored as surely as his hand, ‘You guys! Buy a drink! I’m waitin’ for that live one!’

At the door Frankie blinked out into the winter sunlight. Slanting toward them across the street a well-dressed matron minced through the sunlit traffic’s wintry bustle. ‘I’d like to be a tradewind ’n blow down
there
.’ Sparrow watched her with his lewd little eyes while a lewd wind whipped her skirt. ‘You see her give me the eye? I bet if a guy had a Lincoln Park yacht ’n a captain’s outfit he’d get all he wanted.’

Frankie spun him about with both hands. ‘If I was sure it wasn’t Pig that rolled Louie you’d get all you wanted awright. If it wasn’t him it was you ’n that’s a lead-pipe cinch.’ He shoved Sparrow away from him. ‘God help you, punk, if it was.’

‘I’d be the richest guy in the cemetery then for sure, eh, Frankie?’

Sparrow goggled up at Frankie dizzily.

That was the last sad afternoon that the dealer and the steerer sat together to pretend things were as they once had been between them. While the troubled light first wavered, then slanted and darkened across the floor and right outside the ice creaked once, for the puddles were freezing over in alley and street again and Frankie himself felt half frozen. He always felt half frozen of late.

Sparrow leaned across the same table at which they’d begun the afternoon, trying to beguile Frankie away from his concern for a dead man’s bankroll.

‘Wolfin’ is just like dog stealin’, Frankie,’ he confided earnestly the minute they had returned to the Tug & Maul. ‘You find out where they live ’n wait till they’re on the loose in the back yard.’

‘I like a dame with them glasses with the string on,’ Frankie conceded reluctantly, ‘it’s dainty-like.’

‘You know the kind I like, Frankie? The Bette Davis kind – you know, with them real poppy eyes.’

‘What’s so hot about poppy eyes?’ Frankie felt irritable. ‘I know one with poppy eyes ’n a goiter too – you want a introduction to one with a goiter the size of this bottle?’

‘I don’t mind poppy-eye goiters, Frankie.’ Sparrow’s enthusiasm picked up a phony momentum. ‘I’d like a poppy-eye on that Lincoln Park yacht – it don’t even have to have no engine, just have it settin’ there to point out to the chicks we’re walkin’ through the park, accidental-like – ‘Oh, there’s our yacht, the crew must of brought her in from Belmont Harbor’ –’ n when they don’t believe it we walk ’em right on board.’

‘You take the one with the goiter,’ Frankie decided firmly, going up the gangplank without looking back.

‘Once they’re on board they got to stay all night,’ Sparrow revealed. So Frankie drifted with him, borne by Old Forester, out of the Lincoln Park lagoon onto shoreless waters while Sparrow gestured unobtrusively for two more beers. ‘We’ll drift right out into the lake,’ the punk murmured dreamily, his eyes half curtained by the small waves’ dreaming motion; for one moment, behind that curtain, his eyes surveyed Frankie with the hard cold gleam of understanding. Only to soften as the glasses were refilled. ‘Maybe we better stay in the lagoon,’ Frankie cautioned himself in a faraway voice, ‘account of havin’ no motor we might not get back to shore in time.’

‘In time for what, Frankie?’

‘In time for everythin’ – I don’t know – somethin’ might be goin’ on on land, events might be happenin’ ’n we’d be elsewhere.’

‘We could tell the chicks we’re offshore anyhow, Frankie.’

‘That’s right.’ Cause it’s dark ’n they got to take our word. I point to the lights along the drive ’n tell ’em: “Now we’re passin’ Michigan City.”’N when we pull past the pier I say,
“Look, you –
Duloot!
” ’N all the while we’re driftin’ we’re savin’ oil ’cause it’s just the little waves lappin’, we’re only two blocks away from the zoo so’s we can always get back in time.’

‘In time for what, Frankie?’

‘I don’t know. In time to see ’em feed the lions, I guess.’ He had drifted so far out Sparrow saw it was time to tow him in.

‘What if they hear them lions roarin’ for their breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Don’t they know it ain’t Duloot we’re passin’ then?’

‘Tell ’em they’re sea lions. It’s time for breakfast anyhow, so we got to get rid of ’em. We say we’re back in port ’n got to turn the boat over to the crew to get it remodeled right away, the engine’s missin’. We duck the chicks through the underpass.’

‘How many chicks, Frankie?’ The punk felt reluctant to duck so fast.

‘Just two is enough. Rye-awlto chorus girls you – one a blondie ’n one kind of redheaded.’

‘Who’s the blondie for, Frankie?’

‘For you. One more redhead’d kill you.’ R maybe she’s dark, one of them with one of them real nice protudering Hottentot behinds.’

‘Not all them dark ones got protudering behinds,’ Sparrow put in cunningly, ‘look at that little Molly-O, she’s trim as a policeman’s whistle.’

Frankie pushed his glass away for reply. He wanted that same Molly so badly his throat felt parched. But if the punk thought he was getting anybody’s goat he’d find Frankie didn’t bite that easy. ‘I’m through lushin’ for today,’ he announced.

‘You want to go by Thompson’s ’n get two meals on one ticket, Frankie?’

‘I ain’t hungry.’

‘How about a show then? We got to do somethin’ if we ain’t gonna set here ’n just get tanked. You want to go by the Pilsudski?’

‘The Pilsudski smells of sheenies ’n the Pulaski smells of Polaks,’ Frankie complained, trying not to see the terrible emptiness of the glass in front of him. ‘Excuse me,’ Frankie begged the punk’s pardon, ‘I didn’t know there was a sheenie in the house.’

‘Excuse
me
,’ Sparrow begged politely in turn, ‘I didn’t know there was a Polak. You want to go dog-stealin’, Frankie?’

‘You
that
broke?’

‘Just to
do
somethin’, Frankie. Just to pacify the time. If we don’t we’ll get stiff, it wouldn’t be no good if Kvork had to pick us up when we were stiff. By the time we got sober we’d be puttin’ the finger on ourselves.’

‘That’s all blowed over,’ Frankie decided. ‘The cops pick up stiffs like Louie every day. Their tickers go bad is what happens. A guy like Louie, he didn’t have a relative in the world. He just clunked out. It’s all in the day’s work for Record Head.’

‘He didn’t have a relative to claim him is right, Frankie,’ Sparrow counseled Frankie, ‘but he owed more guys money than there are bottles on that bar.’ N every one of ’em plays ball with the super.’ Sparrow looked disconsolately into his glass and whimpered, ‘I wisht you hadn’t slugged nobody, Frankie.’

‘’N I wish you’d of had the brains to grab the roll when I did ’stead of leavin’ it to Pig to tap out.’ Keeping his eyes on the punk.

The punk’s eyes never wavered. ‘If I had we’d both be wearin’ new suits now, Frankie.’ He wasn’t being caught off base that easily.

The punk was getting too smart these days, that was all
there was to it. Another week and he’d be as smart as Frankie Machine. ‘Let’s go dog-stealin’, Frankie,’ he begged. ‘Just for the old fun.’

Frankie was firm. ‘No percentage. I don’t want no janitor takin’ potshots at me. Where’s the payoff?’

‘Then let’s put on our ties ’n go down to the Rye-awlto.’

Frankie tapped his glass. He couldn’t get it filled at the Rye-awlto.

‘You want to go plain-stealin’ then, Frankie?’

‘Why you always so hungry to latch onto somebody else’s gold? Stealin’ what?’

‘’Lectric eye-rons by Nieboldt’s, it’s where they’re makin’ profits to galore these days, they’ll never miss a couple eye-rons more ’r less.’ N there’s nobody around on the third floor, it’s what they call the honor system so they don’t have to hire no help. That’s the beauty part, you just help yourself, it’s better’n boozin’ ’r wolfin’ in hallways even.’

‘I’d do better to go to the Y.’ n take my belly off,’ Frankie murmured, with no intention of working off his beer paunch at all. ‘What you get for them eye-rons?’

‘A fin apiece anywheres. It’ll kill the old monotony. After all, God hates a coward.’

‘Well,’ Frankie conceded, ‘God hates a coward awright – but empty your pockets all the same. The only way I go boostin’ is empty-handed.’ And thought, ‘If God hates a coward that much he must be workin’ up one terrible grudge against me – I’m gettin’ so I’m afraid to be alone with a bottle.’ He finished the beer before him, wavered one moment on the Nieboldt plan – then the booze left in the bottle felt riskier to him than electric irons. ‘Let’s go, punk.’

He was mildly surprised to see that, out of nowhere, the punk was suddenly carrying a shopping bag; it hadn’t been in view the whole afternoon.

‘What makes you so roundabout when you want help?’ Frankie scolded him.

‘I always carry a shoppin’ bag,’ Sparrow assured him brazenly, ‘in case I run into some guy who wants to go ’lectric-eye-ron-stealin’ by Nieboldt’s.’

The after-Christmas remnants had been piled in disarray upon every counter. The tidy little beribboned gift packages were all gone and in their places were hastily stamped placards:
Marked Down for January Clearance.
And in the aisles half the women of the Near Northwest Side jostled one another just to see how much they would have saved if they hadn’t done their Christmas shopping till now.

Slips, bras and pajamas were heaped as if ready to be swept into the alley if not sold before closing time.

Frankie and Sparrow took the faintly murmuring escalator up to the third floor, where the punk became diverted by some marked-down toy automobiles. Frankie hauled him forward. ‘Let’s pick up them eye-rons.’

The punk led the way a few yards, pausing only to inspect a vegetable bin at the base of an electric refrigerator. Frankie lugged him on past hardware and kitchenware, crockery and paints; till they came to an oasis of fluorescent light wherein, it appeared, the store had forbidden all its help to enter. Not a salesgirl in sight.

‘It’s “Everybody’s on His Honor System,” Frankie,’ the punk felt obliged to explain the miracle, ‘even me ’n you.’

Frankie covered, holding the handle of the bag, while Sparrow lowered half a dozen irons into it. When Frankie felt their weight pull on the handle he turned away, leaving the punk standing with an iron in each hand – he got rid of them as suddenly as though they were heated. ‘We’ll take the elevator down,’ Sparrow urged him, ‘it looks so innocent-like.’

‘Escalator is the best,’ Frankie decided, and Frankie always decided right. You couldn’t get out of an elevator fast.

He looked around and saw Sparrow back at the refrigerator, examining the vegetable bin; the punk caught up with him at the head of the stairs. ‘My roof always leaks a little faster in January,’ he apologized, before Frankie could start scolding, ‘that’s the time of year I first started gettin’ dizzy when I was a sprout.’