“Yes, I know him,” Tannenbaum answered. He spoke with a faint Yiddish accent, holding his head high in a manner that was intended to be dignified but succeeded only in looking comically offended.
“Then you know he’s a alcoholic, is that right, Dr. Tannenbaum?”
Tannenbaum did not answer.
Harry’s face became extremely serious. He cocked his head to one side and looked at the doctor balefully and said, “He’s not gonna be drinking none today, Dr. Tannenbaum, so maybe you’d better keep an eye on him, huh? I want you both to pull up one of those empty parts crates and sit right there near the bow of the boat, side by side, and facing me right over here. Go on.”
Bobby Colmore, picking up one of the crates from against the wall, abruptly said, “I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Yes, I know, Mr. Colmore,” Harry said. “You already told us that.”
“I drink a little,” Bobby said.
“Uh-huh.”
“But I support myself, I have my own shop right across the... right across the yard there... and I’m not an alcoholic. I’d like you to remember that.”
“Uh-huh,” Harry said.
“And I’ll thank you not to say it again.” He glanced at Marvin and his wife and said, “There are some people here I don’t know, and I wouldn’t like them to get any wrong impressions.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Harry said with a mock bow, and Clyde laughed.
“And I don’t need any of your sarcasm, either,” Bobby said.
“Bobby,” Luke said gently, “do what he says.”
“I just don’t like him calling me a drunk, Luke.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t even know me, Luke.”
“I know that.”
“Nothing gives him the right to call me a drunk.”
“You’re right, Bobby.”
“You gonna sit down now, Mr. Colmore?” Harry asked.
“Yes, you just take your goddamn time,” Bobby said. “Don’t play this so big.”
“Sure, they’re big shots,” Tannenbaum said suddenly and angrily. “He’s right, you’re making a big thing out of what? A cheap stickup? What do you want, my watch? My wife’s pearls? What? So take them and go back where you came from, go back in your sewer someplace.”
“Why, I do believe the doctor is getting angry,” Harry said, and Clyde laughed. “Doc, you just sit down there and don’t get yourself all fussed up, huh?”
“Sure, hoodlums,” Tannenbaum said, and sat on the crate alongside Bobby. “With guns, sure,” he said. “Breaking into a man’s house so his family can’t even sleep in peace.”
“Take it easy, Pop,” Marvin said.
“Don’t give me take it easy,” Tannenbaum answered.
“Pop, these men aren’t kidding around.”
“So? Am I kidding around? If they want to shoot me, then let them shoot already. I know snotnoses like them from when I was interning in one of the worst hospitals in New York. I had them come in there with guns, too.” He nodded angrily and then stood up and pointed his finger accusingly at Harry. “You don’t scare me with your guns, mister!”
“Sit down, Pop,” Marvin said.
“Sure, sit down,” Tannenbaum said, and did sit down. He glared at Harry angrily, and then looked to where his wife was watching him reproachfully. “Never mind,” he said to her, and then turned to scowl at Harry again.
“Your father’s got quite a little temper there, ain’t he, Mr. Tannenbaum?” Harry asked.
“Listen to me,” Marvin said slowly. “My father has a bad heart. That’s why he retired and came down here to Florida. I don’t want him to get excited. Can you understand that?”
“Why, sure, Mr. Tannenbaum,” Harry said, opening his eyes wide, “I can understand that. Just what is it you’d like me to do about it?”
“Just don’t provoke him, that’s all.”
“I’ll try not to,” Harry answered, and then smiled briefly, and quickly said, “You take that bench and sit over there against the doors with your mother.”
“What does he want?” Rachel Tannenbaum asked.
“Come on, Mom,” Marvin said. “Over here. Near the doors.”
“There’s a draft near the doors,” Rachel said.
“Mom, this is Florida.”
“Sure, we’ll all catch pneumonia here besides,” Rachel said, but she went to sit alongside Marvin on the bench in front of the overhead doors.
“Mr. Costigan, if you’ll carry another one of those parts crates over near the fantail of the boat, I think you and Miss Watts can sit there. Facing me, please. Good. Now, that leaves only our colored friend and the younger Mrs. Tannenbaum. Amos, you want to move over to where those outboards are standing? You see those five-gallon oil drums?”
“I see them,” Amos said.
“Good. You want to roll them over here, just about across the room from where Mr. Tannenbaum and his mother are sitting? That’ll set us up in sort of a square, huh?” Harry said. “That’ll make a real pretty pattern, huh, Clyde?”
“Mighty pretty,” Clyde said, and burst out laughing.
“I’m glad it’s so funny,” Tannenbaum said. “Everything is so funny, you ought to be in vaudeville, both of you.” He looked at his wife across the room and again said, “Never mind.”
“Pop,” Marvin said, “try to control yourself, will you?”
“You want to sit down now, Amos?” Harry said, turning toward Amos who had rolled the two oil drums over and was looking down at both of them.
“They’re dirty,” he said. “They got oil on them.”
“Oh! Oh, my!” Harry said. “Oh, my, we don’t want to get you all dirty, do we? Oh my, no!”
“We’d better do what he says,” Selma whispered.
“You’d damn well better, lady,” Harry said.
“Tough guy,” Tannenbaum said, and Harry suddenly shoved himself away from the workbench and crossed the room to where Tannenbaum and Bobby were sitting near the cradled bow of the speedboat.
“I think I’ve had about enough from you,” he said. “Just keep your mouth shut.”
“You’re not talking to a woman now,” Tannenbaum said, and he raised his hand and shook his finger at Harry.
“Put your hand down,” Harry said.
“You’re a hoodlum,” Tannenbaum answered vehemently.
“I’m a hell of a lot more than a hoodlum!” Harry said, and he slapped Tannenbaum’s hand aside. He wheeled away and strode across the room, back toward the workbench where Clyde was sitting, the rifle on his lap. He turned again to look at Tannenbaum, and again said, “A hell of a lot more than a hoodlum.” He nodded in agreement with his own words, pleased with their sound, and then — instead of walking back to the bench — began pacing the rectangular area in front of it. As he paced, he glanced in turn at each of his prisoners: Marvin and Rachel Tannenbaum who sat on a backless bench against the overhead doors on the long side of the paint shop; Luke and Samantha, who sat on an upturned crate in front of the cradled speedboat towering above them; Dr. Tannenbaum trembling in anger, sitting beside Bobby Colmore on another upturned crate near the bow of the speedboat; and Amos Carter and Selma Tannenbaum who sat on the third side of the rectangle on the oil drums Amos had dragged over. Clyde, with his gun in his lap, closed the rectangle on the fourth side.
“Okay, we had a lot of fun up to now,” Harry said, pacing. “It’s been a real laugh riot in here, but that’s all finished. I don’t want no more of that. I want everybody quiet, you hear me? We’ll be getting something for you to eat and drink from the diner in a little while, so don’t go telling me you’re hungry, and don’t go telling me what to do about heart attacks or nothing. I don’t want to hear it. You just sit there and shut up, and that’s it.”