“You heard him,” she said. “As good as ever.”
They walked down the hall to have the X ray made. He was here, too, he thought. They must have X-rayed his skull. The room was crowded. Everyone was white. Doctors, nurses, and patients. As they waited their turn, Kate studied the classified advertisements in the Brooklyn Eagle, circling apartments with a blue pencil. He thought: She’s serious, she’s giving up, she wants to leave. And how can I blame her? I’m the guy who dreams of white horses racing over the factory roof.
“You’re next, young man,” said a nurse with frazzled blond hair. “Soon as we do this guy.” He heard her bright telephone operator voice. He heard her speak to Kate: “Thanks for your patience, Kate. You know how it goes.”
“I certainly do,” Kate said.
“Nurse,” Michael said. “Did you X-ray a rabbi here yesterday?”
“A rabbi. Yes, I believe we did. He was mugged, poor soul, wasn’t he?”
Someone called her and the conversation ended before it had begun. He heard his mother say: “He’s in the best hands here.” He heard his mother say: “It’s not like some city hospital.” He heard her say: “They’re just butcher shops.” Michael wiggled his toes, massaged his skin and muscles, and measured one leg against the other. The damaged right leg was definitely thinner. He wanted to get out into the sunshine, to exercise the leg and let the sun brown his skin. And then take care of one big thing.
“Mom, I want to see Rabbi Hirsch,” he said suddenly. “He’s here somewhere, and I’ve got to see him.”
She looked at him in an exasperated way, as if considering that the rabbi might be part of their troubles. Michael sensed this.
“It’s not his fault, what happened,” Michael said angrily. “He’s a good man and they’re not. You know it, Mom.”
“All right,” she said. “When you’re in X Ray, I’ll find out where he is.”
Then it was his turn. He followed a nurse into the X-ray room, while Kate went out to the corridor. The X ray took a few seconds. He asked the dark-haired nurse operating the machine if she had X-rayed a rabbi the day before. “I was off yesterday,” she said. Then called out: “Next.” And told Michael to wait outside. With Kate gone, he sat in the back row, behind dozens of women and children and a few men, and felt his anger throbbing like a wound. Goddamned nurse. Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell me about his broken head. Maybe there’s brain damage. He saw the blood seeping from the rabbi’s ear. He saw the slick red puddle on the asphalt.
Kate returned, shaking her head.
“He’s up on the seventh floor,” she said. “In intensive care. No visitors, Michael.”
“I’ve got to see him,” Michael said. “I don’t want him to be alone, the way I was.”
“I know that, son,” she said, irritated. “But he’s in a coma. Do you understand what that is?” He nodded that he understood. “They’ve got a cop up there, keeping everybody away. We’ll come back when he’s better. Out of the coma. We’ll bring him pound cake and iced tea.”
That was that. They walked home together. Michael was still limping, but he kept increasing the weight on the healed leg, hoping that each step would make it stronger. It was almost noon. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. Flowers wilted on the stands outside the florist’s shop. The asphalt was softer. Dogs huddled against walls, their pink tongues hanging. Kids sat in the shade on the side streets, sucking on lemon ices and drinking red sodas. Michael felt sweat seeping down his back under his shirt, as slow and thick as blood. It must be hot in his room at the hospital, Michael thought. He must be sweating under the bandages. But he will not die. I have to believe that. I won’t let him die.
“It’s a scorcher,” he heard Kate say, as if forcing herself back to normal conversation.
He heard his own voice, following her lead. “The radio says it’ll be ninety.”
“Human beings aren’t made for such heat,” she said. “When it’s sixty in Ireland, we think we’re in the tropics.”
The hallway was cooler than the street, but as they climbed the stairs, Michael’s stomach churned, and the heat grew clammier, as if it were pressing down from the roof. He paused at the first floor landing, touching his mother’s forearm.
“Someone’s upstairs,” he said.
She listened. They could hear the muffled sound of a flushing toilet. In the Caputo flat, pots clanged against a sink. Jo Stafford was singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” in Mrs. Griffin’s. But there were no baritone whispers above them, no shuffling of feet.
“Come on, son,” she said, leading the way.
And stopped as she turned on the second floor landing.
Sonny Montemarano and Jimmy Kabinsky were sitting on the steps.
“Hey, Michael,” Sonny said.
“Some friends you’ve been,” Kate Devlin said. “Move over and let us by.”
Sonny stood to let her pass, and for a moment Michael was afraid that he’d completely turned against the Devlins and would strike her. He tensed, ready to attack.
“I don’t blame you for being mad at us, Mrs. Devlin,” Sonny said softly. “But we didn’t have no choice.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, her anger pushing her up the steps. “You could have had guts.”
Her keys jangled as she opened the apartment door. Michael started to pass Sonny and Jimmy.
“How you feeling, man?” Jimmy said, looking ashamed.
“Fuck you,” Michael whispered.
“We gotta talk to you.”
“About what?” Michael said, and kept going.
Sonny grabbed the back of his belt.
“About Frankie McCarthy,” Sonny said. “He’s got a gun.” Michael gripped the banister. His mother appeared at the door above them.
“Are you all right?” she said. “Michael?”
“Yeah, Mom. We’re goin’ up the roof and talk.”
“Don’t go near the edge,” she said, a look of disdain on her face for Sonny and Jimmy, and went back into the kitchen.
On the roof, they leaned against a brick wall. The air was thick with heat and chimney smoke. Ridges of shiny black tar pushed through the joined seams of tarpaper. A yellowish haze shimmered over the rooftops of Brooklyn. While he talked, Sonny wouldn’t look at Michael, but his words came in an anxious rush.
“So you know Frankie got out, right? The lawyer talked some fucking judge into it, saying Frankie was too young to do time with all these bad guys in Raymond Street, being seventeen and all, and too old to go to Warwick or Youth House with the bad kids. So they give him credit for good behavior, and yesterday they tell him get the fuck out. First thing he does, he gets himself a piece. From the racket guys down President Street. I hear this from one of my cousins lives down there. Then last night, they all meet in the poolroom. Jimmy and me are hangin’ out on the fire escape in my aunt’s house, you know, by the Venus? It’s so fucking hot we can’t do nothin’ but hang there. And here comes Frankie McCarthy and the rest of them, drinking beer from containers. They sit on the steps beside the Venus. It’s closed now, you know? They always hang there. Right beneath us. And we see Frankie show them the piece.”
“Looked like a.38,” Jimmy said.
“Then they talk about having a big party,” Sonny said.
“A welcome home party,” Jimmy said.
“And Frankie says, ‘Yeah, we’ll get these fucking people out of our hair, once and for all.’”
“They mention you,” Jimmy said. “They mention your mother.”
“The Russian says they gotta let everybody know what they can do or the cops will nail them all.”