"The Natural" - читать интересную книгу автора (Маламуд Бернард)

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When Bump died Memo went wild with grief. Bump, Bump, she wailed, pounding on the wall. Pop, who hovered over her at first, found her in bed clutching strands of red hair. Her cheeks were scratched where the tears rolled down. He was frightened and urged her to have the doctor but her piercing screams drove him away. She wept for days. Clad in black pajamas she lay across the white bed like a broken candle still lit. In her mind she planted kisses all over the corpse and when she kissed his mouthless mouth blew back the breath of life, her womb stirring at the image of his restoration. Yet she saw down a dark corridor that he was laid out dead, gripping in his fingers the glowing ball he had caught, and that there were too many locked doors to go through to return. She stopped trying to think of him alive and thought of him dead. Then she really hit the wall.

She could not stop weeping, as if the faucet were broken. Or she were a fountain they had forgotten to turn off. There was no end to her tears. They flowed on as if she had never wept before. Wherever she turned she cried, the world was wet. Her thoughts dripped on flowers, dark, stained ones in night fields. She moved among them, tasting their many darknesses, could not tell them from the rocks on the ground. His shade was there. She saw it drifting before her and recognized it by the broken places. Bump, oh Bump, but her voice was drowned in water. She heard a gurgle and the bubbles breaking and felt the tears go searing down a hurt face (hers) and though she wanted always to be with him she was (here) weeping.

After unnumbered days she dragged herself out of bed, disturbed by all the space, her bare feet with lacquered nails, her shaky presence among changeless things. She sought in the hollow closet souvenirs of him, an autographed baseball “to my Honey from her Bump” (tears), a cigarette lighter shaped like a bat, click-open-light. She blew it out and searching further found an old kewpie doll he had won for her and a pressed, yellowed gardenia, but couldn’t with her wept-out nose detect the faintest odor; also a pair of purple shorts she herself had laundered and placed in the drawer among her soft (and useless) underthings. Going through her scrapbook, only rarely could she find menus (Sardi’s, Toots Shor, and once the Diamond Horseshoe) or movie ticket stubs (Palace, Paramount, Capitol) and other such things of them both that one could paste in, but most were pictures she had clipped from the sports pages, showing Bump at bat, on the basepaths, and crossing the plate. She idly turned the pages, sighed deeply and put the book away, then picked up the old picture album, and here was her sadeyed mother, and the torn up, patched together one was of Daddy grinning, who with a grin had (forever) exited dancing with his dancing partner, and here she was herself, a little girl weeping, as if nothing ever changed… The heartbreak was always present — he had not been truly hers when he died (she tried not to think whose, in many cities, he had been) so that she now mourned someone who even before his death had made her a mourner. That was the thorn in her grief.

When the July stifle drove her out of her room she appeared in the hotel lobby in black, her hair turned a lighter, golden shade as though some of the fire had burned out of it, and Roy was moved by her appearance. He had imagined how she would look when he saw her again but both the black and red, though predictable, surprised him. They told him with thunderclap quickness what he wanted to be sure of, that she, despite green eyes brimming for Bump, was the one for him, the ever desirable only. Occasionally he reflected what if the red were black and ditto the other way? Here, for example, was this blackhaired dame in red and what about it? He could take her or leave her, though there was a time in his life when a red dress would excite his fancy, but with Memo, flaming above and dark below, there was no choice — he was chosen so why not admit it though it brought pain? He had tried lately to forget her but had a long memory for what he wanted so there was only this to do, wait till she came in out of the rain.

Sometimes it was tough to, even for one used to waiting. Once a hungry desire sent him down to knock at her door but she shut it in his face although he was standing there with his hat in his embarrassed hands. He thought of asking Pop to put in a good word for him — how long was life anyhow? — but something told him to wait. And from other cities, when the team was on the road, he sent her cards, candies, little presents, which were all stuffed in his mailbox when he returned. It took the heart out of him. Yet each morning when she came out of the elevator he would look up at her as she walked by on her high heels, although she never seemed to see him. Then one day she shed black and put on white but still looked as if she were wearing black, so he waited. Only, now, when he looked at her she sometimes glanced at him. He watched her dislike of him fade to something neutral which he slowly became confident he could beat.

“One thing I hafta tell you not to do, son,” Pop said to Roy in the hotel lobby one rainy morning not long after Bump’s funeral, “and that is to blame yourself about what happened to Bump. He had a tough break but it wasn’t your fault.”

“What do you mean my fault?”

Pop looked up. “All I mean to say was he did it himself.”

“Never thought anything but.”

“Some have said maybe it wouldn’t happen if you didn’t join the team, and maybe so, but I believe such things are outside of yours and my control and I wouldn’t want you to worry that you had caused it in any way.”

“I won’t because I didn’t. Bump didn’t have to go to the wall for that shot, did he? We were ahead in runs and the bases were clear. He could’ve taken it when it came off the wall without losing a thing, couldn’t he?”

Pop scratched his baldy. “I guess so.”

“Who are the people who said I did it?”

“Well, nobody exactly. My niece said you coulda wanted it to happen but that don’t mean a thing. She was hysterical then.”

Roy felt uneasy. Had he arranged Bump’s run into the wall? No. Had he wished the guy would drop dead? Only once, after the night with Memo. But he had never consciously hoped he would crack up against the wall. That was none of his doing and he told Pop to tell it to Memo. But Pop was embarrassed now and said to drop the whole thing, it was a lot of foolishness.

Though Roy denied wishing Bump’s fate on him or having been in any way involved in it, he continued to be unwillingly concerned with him even after his death. He was conscious that he was filling Bump’s shoes, not only because he batted in the clean-up slot and fielded in the sun field (often watched his shadow fly across the very spot Bump had dived into) and became, in no time to speak of, one of the leading hitters in the league and at present certainly the most sensational, but also because the crowds made no attempt to separate his identity from Bump’s. To his annoyance, when he made a hot catch, the kind Bump in all his glory would have left alone, he could hear through the curtain of applause, “Nice work, Bumpsy, ‘at’s grabbin’ th’ old apple,” or “Leave it to Bump, he will be where they drop.” It was goddamn stupid. The same fans who a month ago were hissing Bump for short legging on the other fielders now praised his name so high Roy felt like painting up a sandwich sign to wear out on the field, that said, ROY HOBBS PLAYING.

Even Otto Zipp made no effort to distinguish him from his predecessor and used the honker to applaud his doings, though there were some who said the dwarf sounded half-hearted in his honking. And Roy also shared the limelight with Bump on the sports page, where the writers were constantly comparing them for everything under the sun. One of them went so far as to keep a tally of their batting averages — Roy’s total after his first, second, and third weeks of play, as compared with Bump’s at the beginning of the season. One paper even printed pictures showing the living and dead facing each other with bats held high, as white arrows pointed at various places in their anatomies to show how much alike their measurements and stances were.

All this irritated Roy no end until he happened to notice Memo walk into the lobby one night with a paper turned to the sports page. From having read the same paper he knew she had seen a column about Bump and him as batsmen, so he decided there might be some percentage to all these comparisons. He came to feel more kindly to the memory of Bump and thought he was not such a bad egg after all, even if he did go in for too many screwball gags. Thinking back on him, he could sort of understand why Memo had been interested in him, and he felt that, though he was superior to Bump as an athlete, they were both money players, both showmen in the game. He figured it was through these resemblances that Memo would gradually get used to him and then come over all the way, although once she did, it would have to be for Hobbsie himself and not for some ghost by another name.

So he blazed away for her with his golden bat. It was not really golden, it was white, but in the sun it sometimes flashed gold and some of the opposing pitchers complained it shone in their eyes. Stuffy Briggs told Roy to put it away and use some other club but he stood on his rights and wouldn’t. There was a hot rhubarb about that until Roy promised to rub some of the shine off Wonderboy. This he did with a bambone, and though the pitchers shut up, the bat still shone a dull gold. It brought him some wondrous averages in hits, runs, RBI’s and total bases, and for the period of his few weeks in the game he led the league in homers and triples. (He was quoted in an interview as saying his singles were “mistakes.” And he never bunted. “There is no percentage in bunts.” Pop shook his head over that, but Red chuckled and said it was true for a wonderful hitter like Roy.) He also destroyed many short-term records, calling down on his performance tons of newspaper comment. However, his accomplishments were not entirely satisfying to him. He was gnawed by a nagging impatience — so much more to do, so much of the world to win for himself. He felt he had nothing of value yet to show for what he was accomplishing, and in his dreams he still sped over endless miles of monotonous rail toward something he desperately wanted. Memo, he sighed.

Pop couldn’t believe his amazed eyes. “Beginner’s luck,” he muttered. Many a rookie had he seen come out blasting them in the breeze only to blow out in it with his tail between his legs. “The boy’s having hisself a shower of luck. Usually they end up with a loud bust, so let’s wait and see,” he cautioned. Yet Roy continued on as before, by his own efforts winning many a ball game. The team too were doubtful he could go on like this, and doubtful of their doubt. They often discussed him when he wasn’t around, compared him to Bump, and argued whether he was for the team or for himself. Olson said he was for the team. Cal Baker insisted no. When asked for a reason he could give none except to say, “Those big guys are always for themselves. They are not for the little guy. If he was for us why don’t he come around more? Why does he hang out so much by himself?” “Yeah,” answered Olson, “but we’re outa the cellar now and who done that — the wind? That’s what counts, not if he sits around chewin’ his ass with us.” Most of them agreed with Olson. Even if Roy wasn’t actively interested in them he was a slick ballplayer and his example was having a good effect on them. In the course of three weeks they had achieved a coordination of fielding, hitting and pitching (Fowler and Schultz were whipping the opposition, and Hinkle and Hill, with an assist here and there from McGee, were at least breaking even) such as they had not for seasons known. Like a rusty locomotive pulling out of the roundhouse for the first time in years, they ground down the tracks, puffing, wheezing, belching smoke and shooting sparks. And before long they had dislodged the Reds, who had been living on the floor above them since the season started. When, near the end of July, they caught up with the Cubs and, twelve games behind the league-leading Pirates, took possession of sixth place, Pop rubbed his unbelieving eyes. The players thought now that the team is on its way up he will change his crabby ways and give us a smile once in a while, but Pop surprised them by growing sad, then actually melancholy at the thought that but for his keeping Roy out of the line-up for three weeks they might now be in first division.

A new day dawned on Knights Field. Looking down upon the crowds from his office in the curious tower he inhabited that rose on a slight tilt above the main entrance of the ball park, Judge Goodwill Banner was at first made uneasy by what he saw, for every rise in attendance would make it more difficult for him to get Pop to give up the managerial reins, a feat he hoped to accomplish by next season. However, the sound of the merry, clicking turnstiles was more than he could resist, so, although reluctantly, he put on extra help to sweep the stands and ramps and dust off seats that hadn’t been sat in for years but were now almost always occupied.

The original Knights “fans,” those who had come to see them suffer, were snowed under by this new breed here to cheer the boys on. Vegetables were abolished, even at the umps, and the crowd assisted the boys by working on the nerves of the visiting team with whammy words, catcalls, wisecracks, the kind of sustained jockeying that exhausted the rival pitchers and sometimes drove them out of the game. Now the old faithful were spouting steam — the Hungarian cook outcrowed a flock of healthy roosters, Gloria, the vestibule lady, acquired a better type customer, and Sadie Sutter gave up Dave Olson and now beat her hectic gong for the man of the hour. “Oh, you Roy,” she screeched in her yolky cackle, “embracez moy,” and the stands went wild with laughter. Victory was sweet, except for Otto Zipp, who no longer attended the games. Someone who met him waddling out of a subway station in Canarsie asked how come, but the dwarf only waved a pudgy palm in disgust. Nobody could guess what he meant by that and his honker lay dusty and silent on a shelf in the attic.

Even the weather was better, more temperate after the insulting early heat, with just enough rain to keep the grass a bright green and yet not pile up future double headers. Pop soon got into the spirit of winning, lowered the boom on his dismal thoughts, and showed he had a lighter side. He unwound the oily rags on his fingers and flushed them down the bowl. His hands healed and so did his heart, for even during the tensest struggle he looked a picture of contentment. And he was patient now, extraordinarily so, giving people the impression he had never been otherwise. Let a man bobble a hot one, opening the gate for a worrisome run, and he no longer jumped down his throat but wagged his head in silent sympathy. And sometimes he patted the offender on the surprised back. Formerly his strident yell was everywhere, on the field, in the dugout, clubhouse, players’ duffel bags, also in their dreams, but now you never heard it because he no longer raised his voice, not even to Dizzy’s cat when it wet on his shoes. Nobody teased him or played jokes on him any more and every tactic he ordered on the field was acted on, usually successfully. He was in the driver’s seat. His muscles eased, the apoplexy went out of his system, and for his star fielder a lovelight shone in his eyes.

As Roy’s fame grew, Bump was gradually forgotten. The fans no longer confused talent with genius. When they cheered, they cheered for Roy Hobbs alone. People wondered about him, wanted news of his life and career. Reporters kept after him for information and Max Mercy, who for some reason felt he ought to know a lot more about Roy than he did, worked a sharp pickax over his shadow but gathered no usable nugget. All that was known was that Roy had first played ball on an orphan asylum team, that his father was a restless itinerant worker and his mother rumored to have been a burlesque actress. Stingy with facts, Roy wouldn’t confirm a thing. Mercy sent a questionnaire to one thousand country papers in the West but there were no towns or cities that claimed the hero as their own.

It came about that Roy discovered Memo at one of the home games, though not, as formerly, sitting in the wives’ box. Happening to meet her later in the hotel elevator, where they were pressed close together because of the crowd, he got off at her floor. Taking her arm he said, “Memo, I don’t know what more I can do to show you how sorry I am about that time and tell you how I feel in my heart for you now.”

But Memo stared at him through a veil of tears and said, “I’m strictly a dead man’s girl.”

He figured she had to be made to forget. If she would go out with him he would give her a good time at the night clubs and musical shows. But to do that and buy her some decent presents a guy needed cash, and on the meager three thousand he got he had beans — barely enough to pay his hotel bill. He considered selling his name for endorsements and approached a sporting goods concern but they paid him only fifty dollars. Elsewhere he got a suit and a pair of shoes but no cash. An agent he consulted advised him that the companies were suspicious he might be a flash in the pan. “Lay low now,” he advised. “By the end of the season, if you keep on like you’re going, they’ll be ready to talk turkey, then we’ll put the heat on.

The newspaper boys supplied him with the cue for what to do next. They pointed out how he filled up Knights Field; and on the road, as soon as the Knights blew into town the game was a sellout and the customers weren’t exactly coming to see a strip-tease. One of the columnists (not Mercy) wrote an open letter to the Judge, saying it was a crying shame that a man as good as Roy should get a rock-bottom salary when he was playing better ball than some of the so-called stars who drew up to a hundred grand. Roy was being gypped, the columnist wrote, and he called on the Judge to burn up his old contract and write a decent one instead. Why, even Bump had earned thirty-five thousand. That decided Roy. He figured for himself a flat forty-five thousand for the rest of the season, plus a guarantee of a percentage of the gate. He thought that if he got this sort of arrangement and really piled in time dough, it would do him no harm with Memo.

So one day after a long double header, both ends of which the Knights finally took, Roy climbed the slippery stairs up the tower to the Judge’s office. The Judge’s male secretary said he was busy but Roy sat down to wait so they soon let him in. The huge office was half dark, though lit on the doublewindowed street side (the Judge counted the customers going in and from the opposite window he counted them in the stands) by the greenish evening sky. The Judge, a massive rumpled figure in a large chair before an empty mahogany desk, was wearing a black fedora with a round pot crown and smoking, under grizzled eyebrows, a fat, black King Oscar I. This always looked to be the same size in the rare newspaper photographs of the Judge, and many people maintained it was the same picture of him all the time, because it was a known fact that the Judge never left the tower and no photographer ever got in. Roy noted a shellacked half of stuffed shark, mounted on pine board on the faded green wall, and a framed motto piece that read:

The floor of the office was, of course, slanted — because of the way the tower, an addition to the stadium structure, had settled — and to level it the Judge had a rug made a quarter of an inch thick on one side and a good inch on the other, but the few visitors to the place noticed they were not standing strictly on keel so they quickly sat down, which was what Roy did too. He had heard that the door on the opposite side of the room led up to the Judge’s apartment. Pop said that though the Judge was a sluggish man with a buck it was a lavish place, and the bathroom had a television set and a sunken bathtub inlaid with mother of pearl. It was also rumored that he kept in there two enormous medicine cabinets loaded with laxatives and cathartics.

The Judge looked Roy over, struck a match under the top of his desk and drew a flame into his dead King Oscar. He blew out a smelly cloud of yellow smoke that hid his face a full minute.

“Nice of you to come,” he rumbled. “To what good cause may I attribute this pleasant surprise?”

“I guess you know, Judge,” said Roy, trying to make himself comfortable.

The Judge rumbled in his belly.

“I’m reminded of a case that came before me once. ‘What do you plead?’ I asked the defendant. ‘I leave it to you, Judge, take your choice,’ he responded. I did and sent him to the penitentiary for twenty years.”

The Judge coughed and cackled over that. Roy regarded him closely. Everybody had warned him he was a slick trader, especially Pop who had poured out a hot earful about his partner. “He will peel the skin off of your behind without you knowing it if you don’t watch out.” That was what had happened to him, he said, and he went on to tell Roy that not long after the Judge had bought into the club — after working up Charlie Gulch, Pop’s old-time partner, against him and getting him to sell out — he had taken advantage of some financial troubles Pop was having with his two brothers who owned a paint factory, and also because of his own sickness that kept him in a hospital under expensive medical care all winter long, and the Judge put the squeeze on him to get ten per cent of his stock for a pittance, which had then looked like a life saver because Pop was overdrawn at the bank and they wouldn’t lend him another cent on his share of the Knights. Later, when he realized how much of a say in things he had lost to the Judge he kicked himself all over the lot, for the Judge, as Red Blow had told Roy, drummed up all sorts of player deals to turn a buck, and though Pop fought him on these, he showed on paper that they were losing money at the gate and this was the only way to cover their losses and keep the team going, so Pop had to give in on most of them although he had fought the Judge to a standstill when he wanted to sell Bump and would do the same if he tried it with Roy. It beat Pop where Goodie Banner, as he called him, had got the money to operate with in the first place. He had known him years ago as an impoverished shyster but once he got on the bench his fortunes improved. Yet his salary was only twelve thousand a year for the three years he had served so he must have had backing to buy into the club and later — the dratted nerve of the worm — to offer to buy Pop out altogether. He said he wouldn’t exactly call the Judge a thief but he wouldn’t exactly call him honest either. For instance, the Judge had once casually asked Pop if he wanted to go in for any sideline activities over what they had already contracted for, meaning concessions and the like. Pop said no, he was only interested in the game end of it, so the Judge drew up an agreement offering Pop five per cent of all receipts from enterprises initiated by himself, and he began to rent the place to miniature auto races, meetings, conventions, and dog races, making all sorts of money for himself, while things necessary to the team were being neglected. “When triple talk is invented,” Pop said bitterly, “he will own the copyright.”

It was dark in the office but the Judge made no attempt to switch on the lights. He sat there motionless, a lumpy figure aglow around the edges against the darkening sky.

Roy thought he better get down to brass tacks. “Well, Judge,” he said, shifting in his chair, “I thought you might be expecting me to drop in and see you. You know what I am doing to the ball both here and on the road. The papers have been writing that you might be considering a new contract for me.”

The Judge blew at the ash of his cigar.

Roy grew restless. “I figure forty-five thousand is a fair price for my work. That’s only ten grand more than Bump was getting — and you can subtract off the three thousand in my contract now.” This last was an afterthought and he had decided to leave out the percentage of the gate till next year.

The Judge rumbled, Roy couldn’t tell if it was in his throat or belly.

“I was thinking of Olaf Jespersen.” The Judge’s eyes took on a faraway, slightly glazed look. “He was a farmer I knew in my youth — terrible life. Yet as farmers often do, he managed to live comfortably because he owned a plot of ground with a house on it and had come into possession of an extraordinary cow, Sieglinde. She was a splendid animal with soft and silky front and well-shaped hooves. Her milk yield was some nine gallons per diem, altogether exceptional. In a word she was a superior creature and had the nicest ways with children — her Own of course; but Olaf was deeply disturbed by an ugly skin discoloration that ran across her rump. For a long while he had been eyeing Gussie, an albino cow of his neighbor down the road. One day he approached the man and asked if Gussie was for sale. The neighbor said yes, frankly admitting she gave very little milk although she consumed more than her share of fodder. Olaf said he was willing to trade Sieglinde for her and the neighbor readily agreed. Olaf went back for the cow but on the way to the neighbor’s she stepped into a rut in the road and keeled over as if struck dead. Olaf suffered a heart attack. Thus they were found but Sieglinde recovered and became, before very long, her splendid nine-gallon self, whereas Olaf was incapacitated for the remainder of his days. I often drove past his place and saw him sitting on the moldy front porch, a doddering cripple starving to death with his tubercular albino cow.”

Roy worked the fable around in his mind and got the point. It was not an impressive argument: be satisfied with what you have, and he said so to the Judge.

“‘The love of money is the root of all evil,’” intoned the Judge.

“I do not love it, Judge. I have not been near enough to it to build up any affection to speak of.”

“Think, on the one hand, of the almost indigent Abraham Lincoln, and on the other of Judas Iscariot. What I am saying is that emphasis upon money will pervert your values. One cannot begin to imagine how one’s life may alter for the worse under the impetus of wealth-seeking.”

Roy saw how the land lay. “I will drop it to thirty-five thousand, the same as Bump, but not a cent less.”

The Judge struck a match, throwing shadows on the wall. It was now night. He sucked a flame into his cigar. It went in like a slug, out like a moth — in and outs then forever in and the match was out. The cigar glowed, the Judge blew out a black fog of smoke, then they were once more in the dark.

Lights on, you stingy bastard, Roy thought.

“Pardon the absence of light,” the Judge said, almost making him jump. “As a youngster I was frightened of the dark — used to wake up sobbing in it, as if it were water and I were drowning — but you will observe that I have disciplined myself so thoroughly against that fear, that I much prefer a dark to a lit room, and water is my favorite beverage. Will you have some?”

“No.”

“There is in the darkness a unity, if you will, that cannot be achieved in any other environment, a blending of self with what the self perceives, an exquisite mystical experience. I intend some day to write a disquisition ‘On the Harmony of Darkness; Can Evil Exist in Harmony?’ It may profit you to ponder the question.”

“All I know about the dark is that you can’t see in it.”

“A pure canard. You know you can.”

“Not good enough.”

“You see me, don’t you?”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I see somebody but I am not sure if it is you or a guy who sneaked in and took your chair.”

The cigar glowed just enough to light up the Judge’s rubbery lips. It was him all right.

“Twenty-five thousand,” Roy said in a low voice. “Ten less than Bump.”

The cigar lit for a long pull then went out. Its smell was giving Roy a headache. The Judge was silent so long Roy wasn’t sure he would ever hear from him again. He wasn’t even sure he was there anymore but then he thought yes he is, I can smell him. He is here in the dark and if I come back tomorrow he will still be here and also the year after that.

“‘He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent,’” spoke the Judge.

“Judge,” said Roy, “I am thirty-four, going on thirty-five. That’s not haste, that’s downright slow.”

“I hear that you bet money on horse races?”

“In moderation, not more than a deuce on the daily double.”

“Avoid gambling like a plague. It will cause your downfall. And stay away from loose ladies. ‘Put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.’”

Roy could hear him open a drawer and take something out. Handing it to him, he lit a match over it and Roy read: “The Curse of Venereal Disease.”

He tossed the pamphlet on the desk.

“Yes or no?” he said.

“Yes or no what?” The Judge’s voice was edged with anger.

“Fifteen thousand.”

The Judge rose. “I shall have to ask you to fulfill the obligations of your contract.”

Roy got up. “I wouldn’t exactly say you were building up my good will for next year.”

“I have learned to let the future take care of itself.”

The Judge took some other papers out of the drawer. “I presume these are your signatures?” He scratched up another match.

“That’s right.”

“The first acknowledging the receipt of two uniforms and sundry articles?”

“Right.”

“And the second indicating the receipt of a third uniform?”

“That’s what it says.”

“You were entitled to only two. I understand that some of the other clubs issue four, but that is an extravagance. Here, therefore, is a bill to the amount of fifty-one dollars for property destroyed. Will you remit or shall I deduct the sum from your next check?”

“I didn’t destroy them, Bump did.”

“They were your responsibility.”

Roy picked up the receipts and bill and tore them to pieces. He did the same with the VD pamphlet, then blew the whole business over the Judge’s head. The scraps of paper fluttered down like snow on his round hat.

“The interview is ended,” snapped the Judge. He scratched up a match and with it led Roy to the stairs. He stood on the landing, his oily shadow dripping down the steps as Roy descended.

“Mr. Hobbs.”

Roy stopped.

“Resist all evil —”

The match sputtered and went out. Roy went the rest of the way down in the pitch black.

“How’d you make out, kid?”

It was Max Mercy lurking under a foggy street lamp at the corner. He had tailed Roy from the dressing room and had spent a frustrated hour thinking I know the guy but who is he? It was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t spit it out. He saw the face as he thought he had seen it before somewhere, but what team, where, in what league, and doing what that caused him to be remembered? The mystery was like an itch. The more he scratched the more he drew his own blood. At times the situation infuriated him. Once he dreamed he had the big s.o.b. by the throat and was forcing him to talk. Then he told the world Mercy knew.

The sight of the columnist did not calm Roy as he came out of the tower. Why does he haunt me? He thought he knew what Max sensed and he knew that he didn’t want him to know. I don’t want his dirty eyes peeking into my past. What luck for me that I had Sam’s wallet in my pocket that night, and they wrote down his name. This creep will never find that out, or anything else about me unless I tell him, and the only time I’ll do that is when I am dead.

“Listen, El Smearo,” he said, “why don’t you stay home in bed?”

Max laughed hollowly.

“Who has ever seen the like of it?” he said, trying to put some warmth into his voice. “Here’s the public following everything a man does with their tongue hanging out and all he gives out with is little balls of nothing. What are you hiding? If it was something serious you woulda been caught long ago — your picture has been in the papers every day for weeks.”

“I ain’t hiding a thing.”

“Who says you are? But what’s all the mystery about? Where were you born? Why’d you stay out of the game so long? What was your life like before this? My paper will guarantee you five grand in cash for five three-thousand word articles on your past life. I’ll help you write them. What do you say?”

“I say no. My life is my own business.”

“Think of your public.”

“All they’re entitled to is to pay a buck and watch me play.”

“Answer me this — is it true you once tried out with another major league team?”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Then you don’t deny it?”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Were you once an acrobat or something in a circus?”

“Same answer as before.”

Max scratched in his mustache. “Hobbs, the man nobody knows. Say, kid, you’re not doing it on purpose, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“To raise speculation and get publicity?”

“Nuts I am.”

“I don’t catch. You’re a public figure. You got to give the fans something once in a while to keep up their good will to you.”

Roy thought a second. “Okay, tell them my cheapskate of a boss has turned me down flat on a raise and I am still his slave for a lousy three thousand bucks.”

Max wrote a hasty note in his black book.

“Listen, Roy, let’s you and I have a little chin-chin. You’ll like me better once you get to know me. Have you had your supper yet?”

“No.”

“Then have a steak with me at the Pot of Fire. Know the place?”

“I have never been there.”

“It’s a night club with a nice girlie show. All the hot-shot celebrities like yourself hang out there. They have a good kitchen and a first class bar.”

“Okay with me.” He was in a mood for something for nothing.

In the cab Max said, “You know, I sometimes get the funny feeling that I have met you some place before. Is that right?”

Roy thrust his head forward. “Where?”

Max contemplated his eyes and solid chin.

“It musta been somebody else.”

At the entrance to the Pot of Fire a beggar accosted them.

“Jesus,” Max said, “can’t I ever get rid of you?”

“All I ask is a buck.”

“Go to hell.”

The beggar was hurt. “You’ll get yours,” he said. “You’ll get yours,” said Max. “I’ll call a cop.” “You’ll get yours,” the beggar said. “You too,” he said to Roy and spat on the sidewalk.

“Friend of yours?” Roy asked as they went down the stairs into the nightspot.

Max’s face was inflamed. “I can’t get rid of that scurvy bastard. Picks this place to hang around and they can’t flush him outa here.”

Inside the club the audience was in an uproar. The show was on and some screaming, half-naked girls were being chased by masked devils with tin pitchforks. Then the lights went Out and the devils ran around poking at the customers. Roy was jabbed in the rear end. He grabbed at the devil but missed, then he heard a giggle and realized it was a girl. He grabbed for her again but the devil jabbed him and ran. When the lights went on all the girls and devils were gone. The customers guffawed and applauded.

“Come on,” Max said.

The captain had recognized him and was beckoning them to a ringside table. Roy sat down. Max looked around and bounced up.

“See a party I know. Be right back.”

The band struck up a number and the chorus wriggled out amid weaving spotlights for the finale. They were wearing red spangled briefs and brassieres and looked so pretty that Roy felt lonely.

Max was back.

“We’re changing tables. Gus Sands wants us with him.”

“Who’s he?”

Max looked to see if Roy was kidding.

“You don’t know Gus Sands?”

“Never heard of him.”

“What d’ye read, the Podunk Pipsqueak? They call him the Supreme Bookie, he nets at least ten million a year. Awfully nice guy and he will give you the silk shirt off his back. Also somebody you know is with him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Memo Paris.”

Roy got up. What’s she doing here? He followed Max across the floor to Gus Sands’s table. Memo was sitting there alone in a black strapless gown and wearing her hair up. The sight of her, so beautiful, hit him hard. He had been picturing her alone in her room nights. She said hello evasively. At first he thought she was still sore at him, but then he heard voices coming from the floor at the other side of the table and understood that was where she was looking.

A surprising semi-bald dome rose up above the table and Roy found himself staring into a pair of strange eyes, a mournful blue one and the other glowing weirdly golden. His scalp prickled as the bookie, a long stretch of bone, rose to his full height. The angle at which the spotlight had caught his glass eye, lighting it like a Christmas tree, changed, and the eye became just a ball of ice.

“S’matter, Gus?” Mercy said.

“Memo lost two bits.” His voice was sugar soft. “Find it yet?” he asked the waiter, still down on all fours.

“Not yet, sir.” He got up. “No, sir.”

“Forget it.” Sands flicked a deft flyer into the man’s loose fist.

He shook hands with Roy. “Glad to meet you, slugger. Whyn’t you sit down?”

“Tough luck, babyface,” he said, giving Memo a smile. Roy sat down facing her but she barely glanced at him. Though dressed up, she was not entirely herself. The blue eye shadow she had on could not hide the dark circles around her eyes and she looked tired. Her chair was close to Gus’s. Once he chucked her under the chin and she giggled. It sickened Roy because it didn’t make sense.

The busboy cleaned up the remains of two lobsters. Gus slipped him a flyer.

“Nice kid,” he said softly. Reaching for the menu, he handed it to Roy.

Roy read it and although he was hungry couldn’t concentrate on food. What did this glass-eye bookie, a good fifty years if not more, mean to a lively girl like Memo, a girl who was, after all, just out of mourning for a young fellow like Bump? Over the top of the menu he noticed Gus’s soft-boned hands and the thick, yellow-nailed fingers. He had pouches under both the good and fake eyes, and though he smiled a lot, his expression was melancholy. Roy disliked him right off. There was something wormy about him. He belonged in the dark with the Judge. Let them both haunt themselves there.

“Order, guys,” Gus said.

Roy did just to have something to do.

The captain came over and asked was everything all right. “Check and double check.” Gus pressed two folded fives into his palm. Roy didn’t like the way he threw out the bucks. He thought of the raise he didn’t get and felt bad about it.

“Lemme buy you a drink, slugger,” Gus said, pointing to his own Scotch.

“No, thanks.”

“Clean living, eh?”

“The eyes,” Roy said, pointing to his. “Got to keep ‘em clear.”

Gus smiled. “Nice goin’, slugger.”

“He needs a drink,” Max said. “The Judge gave him nix on a raise.”

Roy could have bopped him for telling it in front of Memo.

Gus was interested.

“Y’mean he didn’t pull out his pouch and shake you out some rusty two-dollar gold pieces?”

Everybody laughed but Roy.

“I see you met him,” Max said.

Gus winked the glass eye. “We had some dealings.”

“How’d you make out?”

“No evidence. We were acquitted.” He chuckled softly.

Max made a note in his book.

“Don’t write that, Max,” said Gus.

Max quickly tore out the page. “Whatever you say, Gus.”

Gus beamed. He turned to Roy. “How’d it go today, slugger?”

“Fine,” Roy said.

“He got five for five in the first, and four hits in the nightcap,” Max explained.

“Say, what d’ye know?” Gus whistled softly. “That’ll cost me a pretty penny.” He focused his good eye on Roy. “I was betting against you today, slugger.”

“You mean the Knights?”

“No, just you.”

“Didn’t know you bet on any special player.”

“On anybody or anything. We bet on strikes, balls, hits, runs, innings, and full games. If a good team plays a lousy team we will bet on the spread of runs. We cover anything anyone wants to bet on. Once in a Series game I bet a hundred grand on three pitched balls.”

“How’d you make out on that?”

“Guess.”

“I guess you didn’t.”

“Right, I didn’t.” Gus chuckled. “But it don’t matter. The next week I ruined the guy in a different deal. Sometimes we win, sometimes we don’t but the percentage is for us. Today we lost on you, some other time we will clean up double.”

“How’Il you do that?”

“When you are not hitting so good.”

“How’ll you know when to bet on that?”

Gus pointed to his glass eye. “The Magic Eye,” he said. “It sees everything and tells me.”

The steaks came and Roy cut into his.

“Wanna see how it works, slugger? Let’s you and I bet on something.”

“I got nothing I want to bet on,” Roy said, his mouth full of meat and potatoes.

“Bet on any old thing and I will come up with the opposite even though your luck is running high now.”

“It’s a helluva lot more than luck.”

“I will bet anyway.”

Memo looked interested. Roy decided to take a chance.

“How about that I will get four hits in tomorrow’s game?” Gus paused. “Don’t bet on baseball now,” he said. “Bet on something we can settle here.”

“Well, you pick it and I’ll bet against you.”

“Done,” said Gus. “Tell you what, see the bar over by the entrance?”

Roy nodded.

“We will bet on the next order. You see Harry there, don’t you? He’s just resting now. In a minute somebody’s gonna order drinks and Harry will make them. We’ll wait till a waiter goes over and gives him an order — any one of them in the joint any time you say, so nobody thinks it’s rigged. Then I will name you one of the drinks that will go on the waiter’s tray, before Harry makes them. If there is only one drink there I will have to name it exactly — for a grand.”

Roy hesitated. “Make it a hundred.”

Max tittered.

“A ‘C’ it is,” Gus said. “Say when.”

“Now.”

Gus shut his eyes and rubbed his brow with his left hand. “One of the drinks on the tray will be a Pink Lady.”

The way they were seated everybody but Mercy could see the bar, so he turned his chair around to watch.

“Your steak might get cold, Max.”

“This I got to see.”

Memo looked on, amused.

They waited a minute, then a waiter went over to the bar and said something to the bartender. Harry nodded and turned around for a bottle, but they couldn’t see what he was mixing because a customer was standing in front of him. When he left, Roy saw a tall pink drink standing on the counter. He felt sick but then he thought maybe it’s a sloe gin fizz. Harry poured a Scotch and soda for the same tray and the waiter came for it.

As he passed by, Gus called him over to the table.

“What is that red drink that you have got there?”

“This one?” said the waiter. “A Pink Lady, Mr. Sands.”

Gus slipped him a flyer.

Everybody laughed.

“Nothing to it,” said Gus.

“It never fails.” Max had turned his chair and was eating. “Nice work, Gus.”

Gus beamed. Memo patted his hand. Roy felt annoyed.

“That’s a hundred,” he said.

“It was a freak win,” Gus said, “so we will write it off.”

“No, I owe it to you but give me a chance to win it back.” He thought Memo was mocking him and it made him stubborn.

“Anything you say,” Gus shrugged.

“You can say it,” said Roy. “I’ll cover you for two hundred.” Gus concentrated a minute. Everybody watched him, Roy tensely. It wasn’t the money he was afraid of. He wanted to win in front of Memo.

“Let’s play on some kind of a number,” Gus said.

“What kind?”

“Of the amount of bills you are carrying on you.”

A slow flush crept up Roy’s cheeks.

“I will bet I can guess by one buck either way how much you have got on you now,” Gus said.

“You’re on.” Roy’s voice was husky.

Gus covered his good eye and pretended he was a mind reader trying to fathom the number. His glass eye stared unblinking.

“Ten bucks,” he announced.

Roy’s throat went dry. He drew his wallet out of his pants pocket. Max took it from him and loudly counted up a five and four single dollar bills. “Nine.” He slapped the table and guffawed.

“Wonderful,” Memo murmured. “Three hundred I owe to you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“It was a bet. Will you take my IOU?”

“Wanna try again?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll lose your panties,” Max warned.

“On what?” Gus asked.

Roy thought. “What about another number?”

“Righto. What kind?”

“I’ll pick out a number from one to ten. You tell me what it is.”

Gus considered. “For the three hundred?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want me to write the number?”

“Keep it in your head.”

“Go ahead.”

“Got the number?”

“I have it.”

Again Gus eclipsed his good eye and took a slow breath. He made it seem like a kind of magic he was doing. Memo was fascinated.

“Deuce,” Gus quickly announced.

Roy felt as if he had been struck on the conk. He considered lying but knew they could tell if he did.

“That’s right, how’d you do it?” He felt foolish.

Gus winked.

Max was all but coming apart with laughter. Memo looked away.

Gus swallowed his Scotch. “Two is a magic number,” he crooned at Memo. “Two makes the world go around.” She smiled slightly, watching Roy.

He tried to eat but felt numbed.

Max just couldn’t stop cackling. Roy felt like busting him one in the snoot.

Gus put his long arm around Memo’s bare shoulders. “I have lots of luck, don’t I, babyface?”

She nodded and sipped her drink.

The lights went on. The m.c. bobbed up from a table he had been sitting at and went into his routine.

“Six hundred I owe to you,” Roy said, throwing Max into another whoop of laughter.

“Forget it, slugger. Maybe some day you might be able to do me a favor.”

They were all suddenly silent.

“What kind of favor?” Roy asked.

“When I am down and out you can buy me a cup o’ coffee.”

They laughed, except Roy.

“I’ll pay you now.” He left the table and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned with a white tablecloth over his arm.

Roy flapped out the cloth and one of the spotlights happened to catch it in the air. It turned red, then gold.

“What’s going on?” Max said.

Roy whisked the cloth over Gus’s head.

“The first installment.”

He grabbed the bookie’s nose and yanked. A stream of silver dollars clattered into his plate.

Gus stared at the money. Memo looked at Roy in intense surprise.

People at the nearby tables turned to see what was going on. Those in the rear craned and got up. The m.c. gave up his jokes and waved both spots to Roy.

“For Pete’s sake, sit down,” Max hissed.

Roy rippled the green cloth in front of Max’s face and dragged out of his astonished mouth a dead herring.

Everybody in the place applauded.

From Memo’s bosom, he plucked a duck egg.

Gus got red in the face. Roy grabbed his beak again and twisted — it shed more cartwheels.

“Second installment.”

“What the hell is this?” Gus sputtered.

The color wheels spun. Roy turned purple, red, and yellow. From the glum Mercy’s pocket he extracted a long salami.

Gus’s ears ran a third installment of silver. A whirl of the cloth and a white bunny hopped out of Memo’s purse. From Max’s size sixteen shirt collar, he teased out a pig’s tail. As the customers howled, Max pulled out his black book and furiously scribbled in it. Gus’s blue, depressed eye hunted around for a way out but his glass one gleamed like a lamp in a graveyard. And Memo laughed and laughed till the tears streamed down her cheeks.