"Make Room! Make Room!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

3

Behind the low hum of the air-conditioner, so steady a sound that the ear accepted it and no longer heard it, was the throbbing rumble of the city outside, beating like a great pulse, more felt than heard. Shirl liked that, liked its distance and the closed-in and safe feeling the night and thickness of the walls gave her. It was late, 3:24 the glowing numbers on the clock read, then changed soundlessly to 3:25 while she watched. She shifted position and beside her in the wide bed Mike stirred and mumbled something in his sleep and she lay perfectly still, hoping he wouldn’t wake up. After a moment he settled down, pulling the sheet over his shoulders, his breathing grew slow and steady again and she relaxed. The motion of the air was drying the perspiration from her skin, a cool feeling the length of her uncovered body, strangely satisfying. Before he had come to bed and wakened her she had had a few hours’ sleep and that seemed to be enough. Moving slowly, she stood and walked over in front of the flow of air so that it washed her body in its stream. She ran her hands over her skin, wincing when they touched her sore breasts. He was always too rough and it showed on her kind of skin; she’d be black-and-blue tomorrow, then she’d have to put heavy makeup on to cover the marks. Mike got angry if he saw her with any blemishes or bruises, though he never seemed to think of that when he was hurting her. Above the air-conditioner the curtains were open a crack and the darkness of the city looked in, the widely separated lights like the eyes of animals; she quickly closed the curtains and patted them so they would stay shut.

Mike gave a deep, throaty gargle, a startling sound when you weren’t used to it, but Shirl had heard it often enough. When he snored like that it meant he was really sound asleep — maybe she could take a shower without his knowing it! Her bare feet were noiseless on the rug and she closed the bathroom door so slowly it never made a click. There! She switched on the fluorescents and smiled around at the plast-marble interior and the gold-covered fixtures with highlights glinting everywhere. The walls were soundproof but if he wasn’t really deeply asleep he might hear the water knocking in the pipes. A sudden fear hit her and she gasped and stood on tiptoe to look at the water meter. Yes, her breath escaped in a relaxed sigh, he had turned it on. With water costing what it did Mike turned it off and locked it during the day, the help had been stealing so much, and he had forbidden her to take any more showers. But he always took showers and if she sneaked one once in a while he couldn’t tell from the dial.

It was cool and lovely and she stayed in it longer than she had meant to; she looked guiltily at the meter. After she had dried herself she used the towel to mop up every drop of water in the tub and on the walls and floor, then buried the towel in the bottom of the hamper where he would never see it. Her skin tingled and she felt wonderful. She smiled to herself as she patted on dusting powder. You’re twenty-three, Shirl, and your dress size hasn’t changed since you were nineteen. Except in the bust maybe, she was using a bigger bra, but that was all right because men liked it that way. She took a clean housecoat from the cupboard and slipped it on.

Mike was still sawing away when she passed through the bedroom, he seemed to be exhausted these days, probably tired from carrying around all that weight in this heat. In the year she had been living here he must have put on twenty pounds, most of it around the middle it looked like, but it didn’t seem to bother him and she tried not to notice it. She turned on the TV to warm up, and then went into the kitchen to make a drink. The expensive stuff, the beer and the single bottle of whiskey, were for Mike only, but she didn’t mind, she really didn’t care what she drank as long as it tasted nice. There was a bottle of vodka, Mike could get all of that they needed, and it tasted good mixed with the orange concentrate. If you added some sugar.

A man’s head filled the fifty-inch screen mouthing unheard words, looking right out at her; she pulled the gaping front of her housecoat closed and buttoned it. She smiled at herself when she did it, as she always did, because even though she knew the man couldn’t see her it made her uncomfortable. The remote-box was on the arm of the couch and she curled up next to it with the drink and tapped the button. On the next channel was an auto race and on the next an old John Barrymore picture that looked jerky and ancient and she didn’t like it. She went through most of the channels this way until she settled, as she usually did, on Channel 19, the Woman’s Own Channel, which showed nothing but soap-opera serials, one serial at a time with all the episodes compacted together into a single great, glutinous chunk sometimes running up to twenty-four hours. This was one she hadn’t seen before and when she plugged the earphone into the remote she discovered why, it was a British serial of some kind. The people all had strange accents and some of the things they did were a little hard to follow, but it was interesting enough. A woman had just given birth, sweating and without makeup, when she tuned in and the woman’s husband was in jail but the news had come he had just escaped, and the man who was the father of the baby — a blue baby, they had just discovered — was her husband’s brother. Shirl took a sip of the drink and snuggled down comfortably.

At six o’clock she turned off the set, washed and dried her glass and went in to get her clothes. Tab came on duty at seven and she wanted to get the shopping done as early as possible, before the worst of the heat. Quietly, so as not to wake Mike, she found her clothes and took them into the living room to dress. Panties and the net bra and her gray sleeveless dress, it was old enough and faded enough to go shopping in. No jewelry and of course no makeup, there was no point in looking for trouble. She never ate breakfast, that was a good way to watch calories, but she did have a cup of black kofee before she left. It was just seven when she checked to see if her key and money were in her purse, took the big shopping bag from the drawer and let herself out.

“Good morning, miss,” the elevator boy said, opening the door with a flourish and giving her a smile that displayed a row of not too good teeth. “Looks like another scorcher today.”

“It’s eighty-two already, the news said.”

“That’s not the half of it.” The door closed and they whined down the shaft. “They take that temperature on top of the building and I bet down near the street it’s a lot more than that.”

“You’re probably right.”

In the lobby the doorman Charlie saw her when the elevator opened and he spoke into his concealed microphone. “Going to be another hot one,” he said when she came up.

“Morning, Miss Shirl,” Tab said, coming out of the guardroom. She smiled, happy to see him as she always was, the nicest bodyguard she had ever known — and the only one who had never made a pass at her. She liked him not because of that but because he was the kind of man who would never even think of a thing like that. Happily married with three kids, she had heard all about Amy and the boys, he just wasn’t that kind of man.

He was a good bodyguard though. You didn’t have to see the iron knucks on his left hand to know he could take care of himself; though he wasn’t tall, the width of his shoulders and the swelling muscles on his arms told their own story. He took the purse from her, buttoning it into his deep side pocket, and carried the shopping bag. When the door opened he went out first, bad party manners but good bodyguard manners. It was hot, even worse than she had expected.

“No weather report from you, Tab?” she asked, blinking through the heat at the already crowded street.

“I think you’ve heard enough of them already, Miss Shirl, I know I must have collected about a dozen on the way over this morning.” He didn’t look at her while he talked, his eyes swept the street automatically and professionally. He usually moved slowly and talked slowly and this was deliberate because some people expected a Negro to be that way. When trouble began it usually ended an instant later, since he firmly believed it was the first blow that counted and if you did that correctly there was no need for a second one, or more.

“After anything special today?” he asked.

“Just shopping for dinner and I have to go to Schmidt’s.”

“Going to take a cab crosstown and save your energy for the battle?”

“Yes — I think I will this morning.” Cabs were certainly cheap enough, she usually walked just because she liked it, but not in this heat. There was a waiting row of pedicabs already, with most of the drivers squatting in the meager shade of their rear seats. Tab led the way to the second one in line and steadied the back so that she could climb in.

“What’s the matter with me?” the first driver asked angrily.

“You got a flat tire, that’s what’s the matter with you,” Tab said quietly.

“It’s not flat, just a little low, you can’t—”

“Shove off!” Tab hissed and raised his clenched fist a few inches; the sharpened iron spikes gleamed. The man climbed quickly into his saddle and pedaled off down the street. The other drivers turned away and said nothing. “Gramercy Market,” he told the second driver.

The cab driver pedaled slowly so that Tab could keep up without running, yet the man was still sweating. His shoulders went up and down right in front of Shirl and she could see the rivulets of perspiration running down his neck and even the dandruff on his thin hair; being this close to people bothered her. She turned to look at the street. People shuffling by, other cabs moving past the slower-moving tugtrucks with their covered loads. The bar on the corner of Park Avenue had a sign out saying BEER TODAY — 2 P.M. and there were some people already lined up there. It seemed a long wait for a glass of beer, particularly at the prices they were charging this summer. There never was very much, they were always talking about grain allotments or something, but in the hot weather it was gone as soon as they got it in, and at fantastic prices. They turned down Lexington and stopped at the corner of Twenty-first Street and she got out and waited in the shade of the building while Tab paid the driver. A hoarse roar of voices came from the stalls in the food market that had smothered Gramercy Park. She took a deep breath and, with Tab close beside her so that she could rest her hand on his arm, she crossed the street.

Around the entrance were the weedcracker stalls with their hanging rows of multicolored crackers reaching high overhead, brown, red, blue-green.

“Three pounds of green,” she told the man at the stand where she always shopped, then looked at the price card. “Another ten cents a pound!”

“That’s the price I gotta pay, lady, no more profit for me.” He put a weight on the balance scale and shook crackers onto the other side.

“But why should they keep raising the price?” She took a broken piece of cracker from the scale and chewed it. The color came from the kind of seaweed the crackers were made from and the green always tasted better to her, less of the iodiney flavor than the others had.

“Supply and demand, supply and demand.” He dumped the crackers into the shopping bag while Tab held it open. “The more people there is the less to go around there is. And I hear they have to farm weed beds farther away. The longer the trip the higher the price.” He delivered this litany of cause and effect in a monotone voice like a recording that has been played many times before.

“I don’t know how people manage,” Shirl said as they walked away, and felt a little guilty because with Mike’s bankroll she didn’t have to worry. She wondered how she would get along on Tab’s salary, she knew just how little he earned. “Want a cracker?” she asked.

“Maybe later, thanks.” He was watching the crowd and deftly shouldered aside a man with a large sack on his back who almost ran into her.

A guitar band was slowly working its way through the crowded market, three men strumming homemade instruments and a thin girl whose small voice was lost in the background roar. When they came closer Shirl could make out some of the words, it had been the hit song last year, the one the El Troubadors sang.

”…on earth above her… As pure a thought as angels are… to know her was to love her.”

The words couldn’t possibly fit this girl and her hollow chest and scrawny arms, not ever. For some reason it made Shirl uncomfortable.

“Give them a dime,” she whispered to Tab, then moved quickly to the dairy stand. When Tab came after her she dropped a package of oleo and a small bottle of soymilk — Mike liked it in his kofee — into the bag.

“Tab, will you please remind me to bring the bottles back — this is the fourth one now! And with a deposit of two dollars apiece I’ll be broke soon if I don’t remember.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow, if you’re going shopping then.”

“I’ll probably have to. Mike is having some people in for dinner and I don’t know how many yet or even what he wants to serve.”

“Fish, that’s always good,” Tab said, pointing to the big concrete tank of water. “The tank is full.”

Shirl stood on tiptoe and saw the shoals of tilapia stirring uneasily in the obscured depths.

“Fresh Island ’lapia,” the fish woman said. “Come in last night from Lake Ronkonkoma.” She dipped in her net and hauled out a writhing load of six-inch fish.

“Will you have them tomorrow?” Shirl asked. “I want them fresh.”

“All you want, honey, got more coming tonight.”

It was hotter and there was really nothing else that she needed here, so that left just one more stop to make.

“I guess we better go to Schmidt’s now,” she said and something in her voice made Tab glance at her for a moment before he returned to his constant surveillance of the crowd.

“Sure, Miss Shirl, it’ll be cooler there.”

Schmidt’s was in the basement of a fire-gutted building on Second Avenue, just a black shell above street level with a few squatters’ shanties among the charred timber. An alleyway led around to the back and three steps went down to a heavy green door with a peephole in the center. A bodyguard squatted in the shade against the wall, only customers were allowed into Schmidt’s, and lifted his hand in a brief greeting to Tab. There was a rattle of a lock and an elderly man with sweeping white hair climbed the steps one at a time.

“Good morning, Judge,” Shirl said. Judge Santini and O’Brien saw a good deal of each other and she had met him before.

“Why, a good morning to you, Shirl.” He handed a small white package to his bodyguard, who slipped it into his pocket. “That is I wish it was a good morning but it is too hot for me, I’m afraid, the years press on. Say hello to Mike for me.”

“I will, Judge, good-by.”

Tab handed her purse to her and she went down and knocked on the door. There was a movement behind the tiny window of the peephole, then metal clanked and the door swung open. It was dark and cool. She walked in.

“Well if it ain’t Miss Shirl, hiya honey,” the man at the door said as he swung it shut and pushed home the heavy steel bolt that locked it. He settled back on the high stool against the wall and cradled his double-barreled shotgun in his arms. Shirl didn’t answer him, she never did. Schmidt looked up from the counter and smiled a wide, porcine grin.

“Why hiya, Shirl, come to get a nice little something for Mr. O’Brien?” He planted his big red hands solidly on the counter and his thick body, wrapped in blood-spattered white cloth, half rested on the top. She nodded but before she could say anything the guard called out.

“Show her some of the sweetmeat, Mr. Schmidt, I’ll bet she goes for that”

“I don’t think so, Arnie, not for Shirl.” They both laughed loudly and she tried to smile and picked at the edge of the sheet of paper on the counter.

“I’d like steak or a piece of beef, if you have any,” she said, and they laughed again. They always did this, knowing how far they could go without causing trouble. They knew about her and Mike and never did or said anything that would cause trouble with him. She had tried to tell him about it once, but there was no one thing she could tell him that they did that was wrong, and he had even laughed at one of their jokes and told her that they were just playing around and not to worry, that you couldn’t expect party manners from meatleggers.

“Look at this, Shirl.” Schmidt clanked open the box door on the wall behind him and took out a small flayed carcass. “Good leg of dog, nicely hung, good and fat too.”

It did look good, but it was not for her so there was just no point in looking. “It’s very nice, but you know Mr. O’Brien likes beef.”

“Harder to get these days, Shirl.” He moved deeper into the box. “Trouble with suppliers, jacking up the price, you know how it is. But Mr. O’Brien has been trading here with me for ten years and as long as I can get it I’m going to see he gets his share. How’s that?” He came out and kicked the door shut, holding up a small piece of meat with a thin edging of white fat.

“It looks very good.”

“Little over a half pound, big enough?”

“Just right.” He took it from the scale and began to wrap it in pliofilm. “That’ll set you back just twenty-seven ninety.”

“Isn’t that… I mean more expensive than last time?” Mike always blamed her when she spent too much on food, as if she were responsible for the prices, yet he still insisted on eating meat.

“That’s how it is, Shirl. Tell you what I’ll do though, give me a kiss and I’ll knock off the ninety cents. Maybe even give you a piece of meat myself.” He and the guard laughed uproariously at this. It was just a joke, like Mike said, there was nothing she could say; she took the money from her purse.

“Here you are, Mr. Schmidt, twenty… twenty-five… twenty-eight.” She took the tiny slate from her purse and wrote the price on it and placed it next to the money. Schmidt looked at it, then scratched an initial S under it with a piece of blue chalk he always used. When Mike complained about the price of meat she would show this to him, not that it ever helped.

“Dime back,” he smiled and slid the coin across the counter. “See you again soon, Shirl,” he called out as she took up the package and started for the door.

“Yeah, soon,” the guard said as he opened the door just wide enough for her to slide through. As she passed him he ran his hand across the tight rear of her dress and the closing of the door cut off their laughter.

“Home now?” Tab asked, taking the package from her.

“Yes — I guess so, a cab too, I guess.”

He looked at her face and started to say something, then changed his mind. “Cab it is.” He led the way to the street.

After the cab ride she felt better, they were slobs but no worse than usual and she wouldn’t have to go back there until next week. And, as Mike said, you didn’t expect party manners from meatleggers. They and their little-boy dirty jokes from grammar school! You almost had to laugh at them, the way they acted. And they did have good meat, not like some of the others. After she cooked the steak for Mike she would fry some oatmeal in the fat, it would be good. Tab helped her out of the cab and picked up the shopping bag.

“Want me to bring this up?”

“You better — and you could put the empty milk bottles in it. Is there any place you could leave them in the guardroom so we wouldn’t forget them tomorrow?”

“Nothing to it, Charlie has a locked cabinet that we use, I can leave them there.”

Charlie had the door open for them and the lobby felt cooler after the heat of the street. They didn’t talk while they rode up in the elevator; Shirl rummaged through her purse for the key. Tab went down the hall ahead of her and opened the outer door but stopped so suddenly that she almost bumped into him.

“Will you wait here a second, please, Miss Shirl?” he said in a low voice, placing the shopping bag silently against the wall.

“What is it…?” she started, but he touched his finger to his lips and pointed to the inner door. It was open about an inch and there was a deep gouge in the wood. She didn’t know what it meant but it was trouble of some kind, because Tab was in sort of a crouch with his fist with the knucks raised before him and he opened the door and entered the apartment that way.

He wasn’t gone long and there were no sounds, but when he came back he was standing up straight and his face was empty of all expression. “Miss Shirl,” he said, “I don’t want you to come in but I think it would be for the best if you just took a look in the bedroom.”

She was afraid now, knowing something was terribly wrong, but she followed him obediently, through the living room and into the bedroom.

It was strange, she thought that she was just standing there, doing nothing when she heard the scream, until she realized that it was her own voice, that she was the one who was screaming.