‘The old man got good heart,’ Frankie told himself. Everyone, even those who left doors ajar just to bait him a bit, knew the old man had the truest sort of heart.
It was only that there was so little demand for the truer sort of heart of late.
Hearts shaped like valentines aren’t at all the fashion. What is more in demand are hearts with a bit of iron – and a twist to the iron at that. A streamlined heart, say, with a claw like a hammer’s claw, better used for ripping than for tapping at old repairs – that’s what’s needed to get by these days. It’s the new style in hearts. The non-corrugated kind don’t wear well any longer.
Hearts with a twist to the iron – that’s what makes a good hustler’s heart.
Behind the narrow yellow door bearing the red tin 29 he himself had nailed there, Frankie heard the old clock below the crucifix tick once – warningly – and pushed in without knocking.
Sophie sat with her head thrown back and eyes closed, looking debauched in the dim tenement light. Apparently assuming it was only that nosy Violet again, she said tonelessly, ‘You come in yourself this morning, did you? You only sent things yesterday.’
The room certainly looked as though Violet only sent things these days. It didn’t look as if it had been swept in a month; cigarette butts, Kleenex, bottles and hairpins littered the floor. The walls had grown darker.
Her scrapbook lay on her lap. ‘You pastin’ pictures, Zosh?’ he asked.
She opened her eyes, smiled wanly and lifted her hands listlessly toward him.
The gesture told him she had known it was himself in the doorway all the time, that she had been playing some strange game with herself after hearing his voice on the stairs, pretending she had not heard anyone at all. Yet he held both her hands in his. He had seen so many weary homecomings at the Pulaski. Till her fingers began to work like small claws upon his palms.
‘You’re stronger than you were,’ he told her. For her hands seemed to have gained a chilly ferocity all their own. They felt so cold, so cold. He dropped them gently and went behind her chair to rock her shoulders awhile.
‘That’s nice, Frankie,’ she told him thinly, ‘you learned your lesson. God punished you. Always be nice after this fer what you done.’
Violet’s voice at the open door: ‘When did that sonofabitch break out?’
Frankie saluted her from where he stood. ‘Hi, Sergeant – come on in – but don’t bring your army.’
For the punk’s shadow fell behind her.
‘He didn’t mean no harm, Frankie,’ Violet pleaded for him like a mother for a wayward child, ‘he just got scared ’n run.’
‘Then he can keep on running – right back up them steps. He’s got somebody’s nice fat bankroll up there to count and he’s gonna get plenty of time to count it. I’m goin’ back to work by Schwiefka tonight ’n that mocky ain’t workin’ no door where I’m dealin’. I’m the guy who got him the job ’n I’m the guy who’s visin’ him off it. That’s the first thing I’m doin’ t’night, it’ll be my first good deed for society.’
He heard Sparrow retreat as softly as he had come. As though knowing for months that that would be Frankie’s answer. He’d run like a scalded dog all right, no two ways about it.
‘What makes him so brave?’ Frankie asked Vi with heavy irony. ‘He ain’t got a bad conscience about anythin’, has he?’
But Violet was gone, to console or upbraid her Sparrow, and Zosh was waiting for him to turn toward her so that everything could begin again, just like it used to be.
‘Your bonus dough is gone, Frankie,’ was her opening shot. ‘I tried to make it last. The last two mont’s I been livin’ off yer disability dough -’ n even then I had to borrow a double sawbuck off Vi I ain’t been able to pay back.’
‘You don’t have to pay it back,’ Frankie assured her, ‘if it come from where I think it come from.’
‘She said it was Old Man’s insurance dough,’ Zosh told him, ‘but the way she’s actin’ I don’t care if I pay her back either. You really goin’ back to work so soon, Frankie?’
‘Just till I get back on my feet,’ he assured her. ‘I’m out for a real job, Zosh. Beatin’ them tubs. I’m gonna be a drummer just like I always said.’ Then he noticed that no Rumdum crouched beneath the dresser. ‘Where’s the hound?’ he wanted to know.
‘Vi took him, she got more room. How could I take care of him all day here by myself? He didn’t like me anyhow. Why don’t you get me a nice little puppy-pup, Frankie? You said you would. You promised.’
So nothing had really changed after all. She would own a dog and he would be a big-name drummer. He would practice every night.
But she’d seen spurts of golden hope in him before. It would wear off now as it always had. He’d be back dealing where he ought to be and she’d be sitting where she ought to be and everything would be just the way it had been, just as it ought always to be.
He was pulling the practice board out from under the sink and brushing the months of dust off its scars and dents and picking up the sticks to get the feel of them again. Then put them down gently, for he saw she was nodding where she sat, the brief half sleep of invalidism.
‘Let’s do like regular people now,’ she murmured, as though in sleep. ‘Like regular people ’n go by the Aragon.’
He stood behind her chair with his hands on the wood, ready to wheel her if she wakened. Then, as her head nodded, told her softly: ‘Have a good dream, Zoschka. Have a good dream you’re dancin’ again.’
He could not see the trace of a smile that strayed so knowingly across her lips.
Neither the Tug & Maul nor the Safari saw Molly Novotny any more. She had drifted into the vast web of backstreet and alleyway, crosslight and traffic warning, of the overnight hotels and those little nameless restaurants that burn all night under the single sign: DOOD EATS.
‘She’s workin’ in some boog honky-tonk,’ Antek told Frankie. ‘Ask Meter Reader, he’s the guy who goes out scoutin’.’
Frankie waited half a day for Meter Reader to show up, and got only the vaguest sort of information for his patience. ‘All I remember is a cat settin’ on a piano. I was so boiled I don’t know where I was. But I remember talkin’ to Drunk John’s girl. She was a little boiled herself.’
So all nights ended for Frankie now with a firm resolution, renewed each morning, to scout around Lake and Paulina before the day was over. But 10 P.M. found him in the dealer’s slot and he couldn’t afford to miss a single night: he had to get a small stake together. He couldn’t come to Molly broke and begging.
Yet the week ran out on Saturday night and he was no richer than he’d been on Monday morning. The old merry-go-round was rolling again and he had to ride as hard as any.
Once more the yellow arc lamps bloomed in the shadow of the El. Pumpkin-colored posters appeared in the bakers’ windows among the round brown loaves of morning, announcing that Mickey Michaels’ Melody Masters would play at St Wenceslaus Kostka Saturday evening for the Endless Belt Invincibles S.A.C.
In front of Piechota’s Poultry & Fresh Eggs Market a single gander stood gawking between its legs at a cord that forever held it fast.
Umbrella Man came in to Schwiefka’s every noon with the Times morning line crumpled in his pocket, the daily double checked off and fifty cents in his hand. He never won and never complained. He came in with a bottle on his hip, made his bets like a man paying a bill, and left with the relieved air of one who has settled a long-overdue debt. The only return he seemed to expect was the privilege of climbing the same stairs and trying again another day.