Jeremy turned to the man with the injured wrist, who was trying to stand.
“Hey, enough,” the man said. “Me and Twines are just trying to make a living here.”
Jeremy moved toward him.
“The truth is nobody on the block gave us money,” the man said. “The truth is we’re no damn good at this and getting pretty goddamn frustrated. Twines is my sister’s kid. How am I gonna explain his broken nose?”
Jeremy didn’t answer. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and held up the damaged arm. The man tried to pull away.
“It’s not broken,” Jeremy said. “Sprained wrist. Go.”
“I want my crowbar.”
“I suggest you listen to the man,” I said.
The man with the sprained wrist winced his way to his nephew, who was trying to get up from his knees. He put his good arm around Twines and said, “This is a goddamn hard life, let me tell you.”
“Go, now,” Jeremy said gently.
The two men slouched to the door, went into the outer lobby, and out onto Hoover in search of a new line of work.
“This is no longer a safe neighborhood,” Jeremy said as he bent to pick up the crowbar.
“It’s not a safe world,” I added.
“I have a wife and child,” he said, looking around the vast lobby of his office building and up toward the offices on the eighth floor he had converted to a rambling apartment for his family.
“Might be a good idea to. . I’m on my way to a realestate dealer I know. You want me to?. .”
“No, thank you, Toby,” he said, surveying the trail of blood from Twines’s nose. “I have other property.”
“I’m late, Jeremy,” I said.
“If you have some time later, I have a new poem.”
“Later, promise,” I said, en route to the door.
It was still a good day.
I went out the rear exit of the Farraday and headed for my car. The open lot was covered with gravel; trash, which Jeremy cleaned up once a week, thrown from the windows of the Farraday; and the wreckage of two abandoned cars in which, depending on the season, a homeless alcoholic or two resided. This season’s resident of the alley was Vince. Vince was standing in front of my Crosley. I had paid Vince a quarter, the going rate, for watching my car. The possible dangers to my car were theft, stolen tires or hubcaps, broken windows, and Vince.
Vince looked somewhere near sixty but was probably closer to forty-five. He had a reasonably clean-shaven face with a few nicks and healing cuts. I had given him a Gillette razor, a pack of Blue blades, two of my old shirts, an antique pair of pants I found in the back of my closet, and a pair of university oxfords that had always pinched my toes. I had also suggested to him that he put on the clothes, shave, and make the rounds of the local restaurants in search of a pearldiving job.
It had worked for the last keeper of the alley.
Vince had solemnly promised he would make the rounds, but when it came to actually going into a diner and asking to see the boss, it was too much for him, or so he had told me with a shrug.
“A man’s nature is a man’s nature,” Vince had said with a sigh.
Vince said he had been a history teacher in a high school in Chicago until he fell or was pushed down a school stairway between classes. The world had gone blurry, and only a drink or twenty could make it seem clear again. He had been fired in the middle of a semester and, since he had no family, Vince had packed his bag, got into his car, and driven out in search of a cave or hole to hide in. That, Vince said, was “five or six or eight years ago, certainly long before this war and long after the last one.”
I handed Vince two quarters and said thanks.
He looked at the two quarters and handed one back to me.
“My fee was a quarter,” he said. “This is business, not charity.”
“You might want to raise your rates a little,” I suggested, opening the Crosley’s door. “Prices are going up everywhere. I think your customers would understand.”
“You are my only customer,” Vince said, pocketing the quarter in what used to be my pants. “Now, if you want to put me on an exclusive retainer and continue to pay at the current rate. .”
I turned awkwardly in my seat, fished a dollar bill from my wallet, and handed it to him. It followed the quarter into his pocket.
“We should have a written contract,” Vince said.
“Write it up. I’ll sign it.”
I closed the door, waved good-bye, turned on the radio, and drove out of the alley. I took Main the few blocks to Washington, where I made a right turn and went straight to Highland.
Morton Downey sang me down the street with Raymond Paige’s Orchestra backing him up. Downey finished a tearful chorus of “Danny Boy” and then tried to sell me some Coca-Cola. Pepsi’s my drink and, once in a while, a beer or two or three, but I’d almost cried at the end of “Danny Boy,” so I promised Morton I’d have a Coke with lunch.
I had no trouble finding a parking space on Fifth and I walked into Roth’s with about two minutes to spare, according to the clock on the wall. It was lunchtime for the insurance companies, lawyers’ firms, shopkeepers, and clerks in the neighborhood. The place was noisy, crowded, and smelled of hot pastrami.
Anne sat at a small table near the kitchen door. Her hands were folded in front of her. Her eyes met mine. No smile. All business. Not what I wanted to see. I weaved my way through the tables, pulled out a chair across from Anne, and sat. She was wearing a brown twill suit, and she had lost some weight. She was dark and more beautiful and serious than I had remembered.
“Thanks for coming, Toby,” she said.
A fizzing glass of dark liquid sat in front of me, a cup of coffee in front of Anne.
“My pleasure,” I said, meaning it.
“I ordered you a Pepsi,” she said, gesturing at the drink before me.
“Thanks,” I said, making a note to keep my Coke pledge to Morton Downey in the very near future.
“I ordered you a pastrami on rye with ketchup,” she said. “If you. .”
“Sounds perfect,” I said over the clatter of trays and dishes and the ramble of voices around us.
“First,” Anne said, looking at me with her warm brown eyes, “I want to thank you for keeping your promise.”
I shrugged and drank my Pepsi.
About six months ago, give or take an hour, I had promised Anne I would stop dropping in at her apartment at all hours of the day or night, would not call her unless I had a real emergency, and would stop sending her poetry which, she said, was “obviously not written by you.” I had, with the agony of a four-year-old who can’t sit still for dinner, stayed away.
“You’re looking good, Toby.”
“You’re looking beautiful, Anne.”
“Thank you.”
A skinny waitress in a wilting Betty Crocker of a uniform plunked our lunches in front of us and hurried away. Anne had vegetable soup and a salad. My hot pastrami came with a stack of fries. I should have been happy, but I knew something was about to be served that I wouldn’t like. I took a bite of the sandwich. It was hot and piled high with thin slices of spiced meat. It didn’t taste half bad for Los Angeles pastrami.
“How are Phil and. .” Anne said after a nibble of lettuce.
“My brother is fine,” I interrupted. “His wife and kids are fine. Sheldon Minck is fine. I’ve got about four hundred dollars. My back is holding up well. I’m seeing the cashier at Levy’s. Her name is Carmen. She reminds me of you, without the smarts. I’m still in the boardinghouse. I still go to the fights when I can and. .”
It was her turn to interrupt.
“Enough,” Anne said, putting down her fork and meeting my eyes.
I took a determined third bite of my sandwich and washed it down with Pepsi.
“I’m going to get married,” she said.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Anyone I know?”