The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats (5 page)

Shushan pursed his lips, causing his eyes to go even darker. “That’s what the Jews in Europe said. Forgive and forget. Maybe the Nazis will go away. Let me tell you something, kid. They keep coming.”

I finished the vodka in my glass. It burned as it went down, cold at first and then searing. Now that the pressure was off with Shushan’s funeral I could feel it again: it was my body but like someone else’s, like wearing another man’s ill-fitting clothes. Here was too much room, here too tight. I don’t remember the brothers hitting my throat, but it was sore. My stomach hurt too. And my lungs, particularly on the right side, where my ribs had cracked. “They’re not Nazis. I fucked around with their baby sister, that’s all.”

“You knock her up?”

“No,” I said. I suppose I could have told him about the rubbers and the Park Avenue urologist—the last thing I’d wanted was to lose those sperm. “She’s not pregnant.”

“So let me get this straight, kid. You and this girl have intimate relations. Once?”

“Many, many times.”

“Which tells me maybe she was not exactly forced into it.”

“No, she wasn’t forced. She was pissed off I didn’t want to continue.”

“Ah,” Shushan said. “The green-eyed monster.”

“What?”

“I thought you was educated.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!/It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on
.”

“Othello,” I said.

“Act III, Scene III. See that, I was right. You know your stuff.”

“You read Shakespeare, Shushan?”

“Ah, you know, sometimes.” He smiled. I’d seen that smile before. The little boy with a secret. The smile changed, straightened, the lips compressed, his jaw again hard. “There’s also that bit about a woman scorned. Never pleasant. They really worked you over, eh?”

“I’ll live.”

“You’ll live, eh? You’re such a tough guy, Russy. One day you won’t.”

“Neither will you,” I said. “None of us will. That’s what cemeteries are for.”

“Yeah, but I don’t let nobody do that to me.”

“It was three nobodies. Three big nobodies.”

“So fucking what, kid? You couldn’t do something then, but you can now.”

“Now?”

“You got to punish them,” Shushan said. “Like you read about my mom. Hit them back ten times. Bust them up bad.”

“I got to go,” I said.

“Because you’re scared?”

“Because they were only protecting their sister.”

“The Nazis were only protecting the fatherland,” Shushan said. “That’s such bullshit it stinks before it hits the floor. She was pissed at you. She sicced them on you. They enjoyed it. Let me ask you, was she raped?”

“I told you. If anybody was raped it was me.”

“So where’s the beef? I’ll tell you where it is. The beef is they hurt you for the simple Irish pleasure of it. I know these guys. The dagos, at least with them it’s business. It’s just for money. Same for the rest. The chinks and the niggers, that’s not their style. The micks, they just like to do it.”

“One was a priest.”

“Yeah, especially them. Now tell me something. I’m going to ask you once. You stick with me tonight.” A statement, not a question. “Maybe those bruisers are coming back.”

“I don’t think so. They had their fun.”

“Yeah, see what I mean? Fun. But you’re right. They’re through with you.”

“I guess I can go to school from here, in the morning.”

“Sure you can. You got a whole bedroom for yourself. There’s a television in there. Color. I’m not supposed to watch, but you’re not in mourning. Just me.”

“I’m sorry for your mother, Shushan.”

“It’s nothing. Death, it happens. She had a long run. Maybe she was poor, but she was proud. You gave her a good send-off, all those people. I was proud.”

“Me too,” I said.

“So what I want to know is this.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anything.”

“You know when Mr. Sfangiullo...”

“Who?”

“Sfangiullo, the old
gavone
in the dark glasses.”

“That was Auro Sfangiullo? No wonder the cops and the press were there.”

“Be hard to find a guy as ugly as him for the impersonation, kid. Guy’s got pits in his face you could hide bodies in. Of course that was him. Who’d you think, Robert Frost was coming to pay his respects. Bob Wagner?”

Robert F. Wagner Jr. was mayor of New York at the time. “I had no idea.”

“Just another dago crime boss, Russy. They’re interchangeable. One goes, another steps up. They’re not dangerous individually, but you want to watch out when they’re together.”

“Right,” I said. “You wanted to know...”

“When Sfangiullo was standing there and I was asking if they knew of an Italian place nearby, he said something in their language.”

“I remember.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said—” I cocked my head. “How did you know I speak Italian?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then...”

“But when he was talking I happened to look at you,” Shushan said. “I could feel you paying attention. Like an animal does when he’s concentrating. You ever have a dog, Russy?”

“No.”

“Me neither. But I’m interested in animal behavior. You can walk down the street and there’s a dog you can almost understand from the way he stands what he’s thinking. You were like that. Concentrating.”

“Their Italian isn’t very good. It’s thick, and they drop consonants, even syllables. For instance, they would say:
They Ita int v’good.
It’s not Sicilian. They must be from Naples.”

“
Napolida,
” Shushan said, smiling. “That’s how they say it.” Now he cocked his own head. We must have been looking at each other that way, half sidewise, like a pair of monkeys. “So what’d he say, our
dottore
?”

“
Dottore?
”

“They call him that. A sign of respect.”

“He said, ‘Would you believe this? Not only do we have to come to this Jew’s funeral, but now he wants us to break bread with savages.”

“The dagos, they have no respect for other races. What else?”

“‘For two cents I’d put bullets in all their heads.’”

“Yeah? Sfangiullo said that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Then he said, ‘Except that I like the Jewboy, even if he is a Christ-killer.’”

Shushan laughed. It came rumbling up from inside like bile. His mouth was laughing, but not his eyes. “More?”

“That was it,” I said. “Not exactly Shakespeare.”

“Not Shakespeare,” Shushan said. “Not even fuckin’ Congreve. Two things I want you to do. Number one. Go to the phone over there and tell the desk clerk to order us some pizza. You like pizza?”

“Sure.”

“Anchovy?”

“Why not?”

“The other thing, whenever you and me we’re in the presence of
goombahs
, never but never let on you know what they’re saying. Unless you need to. You got that?”

“Sure,” I said, but all I could think was:
Congreve
?

Before I could call the desk the desk called me. The phone rang on the table next to where Shushan was sitting. He looked at me. “Are you going to pick it up or what?”

“Me?”

It kept ringing. “I’m in mourning, kid. Do your job.”

I picked it up. “They got a guy downstairs wants to come up.”

“He has a name?”

I asked. “Jacky from Texas. They said he’s packing.” Abruptly I realized this was not about luggage.

“Jacky,” Shushan said, thinking hard as he did. “Oh, no.”  Then he seemed to reconsider. “Yeah, it’s okay. Tell them it’s okay.”

“Who’s Jacky?”

“An old friend,” Shushan said. “Though I use the word loosely.”

Jacky’s knock gave him away. A knock on the door is like a handshake—it can speak volumes: Is this a straightforward person, is he cloaked, is he all front, is he afraid, is he unwilling? Jacky’s knock was a roll of thunder—never mind that he didn’t use the doorbell—an announcement of presence that demanded, with entirely too much force: Take. Me. Seriously.

A fireplug in a short-brimmed gray Stetson and black cowboy boots with eagles stitched in red on the instep, the man was the living obverse of the maxim Shushan liked to quote, “Dress British, think Yiddish.” Jacky’s motto might be “Dress old trail, talk wholesale.” Jacky was like a cross between a would-be Al Capone and a Jewish Texan with an acute need for attention. For one thing, he was carrying a bouquet of flowers about the size of the King Ranch. He put these down to brush past me and grab Shushan by the ears, pulling him off his low crate like a cocker spaniel. Surprisingly Shushan hardly complained and instead allowed his guest to hug him like a rag doll.

“How long I don’t see you, Shu-man, and now it’s got to be in a tragic disaster,” Jacky said. “I’m so sorry for your grief.”

“I thank you for coming,” Shushan said, shaking loose and retreating to the safety of his crate like an unhappy boxer who knows the fight has just begun. “I didn’t know you ever came east.”

“I don’t.”

“But you’re here.”

“I heard in the grapefruit your mother, bless her memory, she was passed.” He nodded vigorously as if to affirm this. “So I hopped a flight. The funeral, however, I missed. I mean to say, don’t think bad of me for that, but between Texas and New York is even further than Chi. Who’s the kid, your son?”

“I’m not married.”

Jacky removed the Stetson to reveal a receding hairline that may or may not have been darkened. He had that peculiar kind of black hair that looks painted on, and the sweat built up under the heavy hat made it look like enamel. He winked. His eyes were set far apart, his face compressed as though it been sat on. Round and a bit too shiny, it was the kind of face that appeared to have been made up of spare parts from other people. Even the deep cleft in his chin looked wrong, each side sagging so that they looked like breasts. His damp eyes glowed. “You can’t have a kid if you’re not married? Shu, we’re men of the world, ain’t it?”

“No wife, no kids,” Shushan said. “Jack, this is Russell Newhouse. He’s kind of looking after me during the
shiva
.” He clarified. “A friend.”

Jacky now concentrated on me, squinting as though I were a target he was sighting in. “You with us?” he asked in a way that was hardly conversational—as if the wrong answer might be really wrong. “You know, with
us
?”

I looked to Shushan.

“Yeah, he’s a good Jew kid.”

“You could be either,” Jacky said. “These days you can’t tell the Hebrews from the
goys
. Especially the
shiksas
. Not that I got something against, but for instance I had a girl working—I’m in the entertainment business—a real classy dancer, and one day I tell her ‘I won’t be in the club because it’s Yom Kippur,’ and she says, ‘Jack, me too.’ You could have kicked me over with a pickle. This girl, she was like Debbie Reynolds. Usually I don’t mess with the talent, but I got to tell you, Shu-man, I fell in love.”

“And...”

“What can I tell you? Every time I find a girl or make a friend, it gets to be splitsville. Things happen. So tell me, kid, how long you know my Shushan? Don’t answer. I can see you go back a long stretch. But nothing beats my history with Shushan. When he came to work for me he was a real hero, a Marine with the Navy Cross, which I only found out when I did some research with the PD. I always try to keep close friends with the cops. I’m known for being a help when I can, but not—read my mind—if it means
too
much information. Like I comp them at the bar, and every once in a while when I need a favor they help me out. There ain’t a police station in town I’m not welcome in. They see me coming it’s like they don’t even see me, part of the landscape. And always a turkey at Thanksgiving, Christmas presents for the kids. Bring your wife, watch the show, don’t even think about paying dime one, except I always tell ‘em, take care of the waitress, they’re all living foot and mouth, country girls, with bad husbands or maybe walked out, with kids. Oh, the hard-luck stories I could tell you. So what you do, kid? Work in a bank? Me, they wouldn’t let me near a bank except to put in money. The Texans, they’re so anti-semite you wouldn’t believe it’s the middle of the twentieth century, to which I say to them, What, it’s two thousand years since the Romans killed Christ and the
goys
are still sticking this rap on the Jews, like as if Christ was some sort of Pentecostal Baptist himself. Ain’t it, Shu-man?”

“Right as always, Jack.”

“Ain’t it, kid?”

I couldn’t help myself. “Ain’t it what?”

“Ain’t it?
Ain’t
it. Like in ain’t it
the truth
. Kid, it’s a short form. I got a lot of ‘em. Like people say Chi for Chicago, I say TX for Texas, and Jack F for the president to extinguish him from me. Like I like to say, TXans they have a problem with Jack F, but not with
their
Jacky, which is me. Though to tell you the God’s honest, with his wife also a Jackie, but spelled different, it gets mixed up. Mostly I think the shit-heels don’t like him because he’s with the pope, which I don’t care for either, but he’s a good president. That other one, Eisenhower, a great general but only so-so as a president. Too much golf on the brain.”

“This one would do us all a favor if he took up golf, Jack,” Shushan said.

“What, I can’t believe it, a guy like you, a Republican?”

“I’m no Republican,” Shushan said. “I actually voted for Kennedy because I couldn’t stand the other guy, but now I’d take Nixon in a heartbeat.”

“Between friends politics is a rickety bridge,” Jacky explained to me. “Wisdom is knowing the difference.”

“Between what and what?”

Jacky laughed, throwing back his short arms so that his suit jacket, a light blue western cut with tan piping on the lapels and pockets, parted like the curtains in a small-town moviehouse. Packing? The man was not exactly discrete. Sticking out of his waistband was a .38 Colt Cobra, a cop’s gun, big enough to stop a man but not, as my father used to say, so long or heavy it would make your pants fall down. “What do you mean?” Jacky said. “Between
what
what-and-what?”

From his spot on the crate I could see Shushan warning me off with his eyes.