Coney (26 page)

Menter gripped Albert-Alberta's cheeks between his thumb and forefinger. He pressed inward, forcing open his mouth.

“It's not funny anymore, is it, cocksucker?”

Albert-Alberta shook
no.

Menter retrieved the pointer and thrust it at the freaks as if it were a dueling sword.

“Remember,” he said, “Woody's got the same or worse on all of you, in case you was thinkin' of finkin' out.”

Soldier stood up. He cradled the stiff pup.

“Damn, you're goin' to hurt and kill people.”

Menter waved him down.

“Nobody gets hurt. Nobody dies. We ain't a bunch of scumbag kikes.”

Aba Stolz and Moses Catzker heard to the shuffling sounds of the freaks' departure. The small room in which they sat contained a cot covered with a khaki army blanket and a tall, bulky Philco radio on which a silver-bordered glass picture frame, usually seen in Woolworth's caressing Joan Crawford, displayed a uniformed
Adolf Hitler, extending his arm in the Nazi salute. Below his gleaming boots, which marked him as somewhat splayfooted, an inscription in blue ink read:
To my good friend Vic.
It was signed
: “Adolph.
”

Vince wheeled in Menter. Woody followed

“I hope you heard my lecture good,” Menter said.

The two men nodded.

“Do you know why you are here?”

“No,” Catzker said.

“See Woody, there are some things a smart kike don't know. Well, I'll tell ya. You two are part of this deal. The dumb freaks may fuck up, but two smart kikes won't. Woody, give 'em sketches.”

Woody handed each a sheet of paper.

“Now, like I said out there, you study and walk till you know it like the tips of your circumcised dicks. I'll reserve a good buildin' for my kike team to torch”

“What if we refuse?” Catzker asked.

Menter laughed, then wheeled himself close to Catzker.

“Listen, kike, you're already in so much trouble that arson is a parkin' ticket. The immigration boys are dyin' to hear about your buddy. Aside from that, Vince here, you know Vince, he's big, strong and mean, he doesn't take kindly to people who say
no
to me.”

Catzker, the little boy, had screamed to deaf ears. They had held him so he could not break away to help his father. No one held him now. He jumped up.

“I'll take my chances with the immigration!” he shouted.

Vince shoved Catzker back into the chair.

“Now you listen good,” Menter said. “You got a wife, you got a kid. I got no use for them,
capeesh
?”

Catzker buried his face in his palms. Stolz put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

“Ain't that pretty,” Menter said. “I guess we understand each other now. And if we don't, there's one more thing. I get anymore lip from you, I make your son part of the deal. Father and son torchin' together, a kike thing if there ever was one.”

T
HE BIKE STORE WAS LOCKED.
H
ARRY WALKED TO THE
R
OYAL
P
OOL
Emporium, which was run by Woody, to give the dwarf the few slips. The place was empty except for Sam, the manager, and his brother, Sidney, a victim of Down's syndrome, who was the rack boy.

“Where is everyone, Sam?” he asked the manager, who was known as
the fresh air fiend
because he had never been seen without a cigarette between his lips. Fat and lethargic, he often dozed off with the ever-present weed implanted. Startled awake by fire singeing his lip, he would light a new cigarette with the sparks of the minuscule butt.

Sam shrugged.

At that moment the door opened and Woody led in all the residents of the freak house except Fifi. They were a state of high excitement.

“What's up?” Harry asked Jo-Jo.

“Woody challenged Otto to a game. He spots Otto, his fifty to the Kraut's fifteen.”

Otto didn't stand a chance. Woody was a shark who could easily run fifty straight balls. Otto knew that, but backing down to a dwarf, Harry figured, was intolerable to his Aryan pride.

Woody directed Sidney, whose right cheek was a red boil, as to where to set up a one-foot-high platform. As the dwarf mounted, he said to Harry:

“Did you know that Sidney is Otto's English teacher?”

Otto spat.

Sam approached Woody.

“Can I go out for a few minutes? Got something to do.”

“Sure, Sam. But don't be too long, because the game won't be.”

“Stop talk,” Otto said, “start game, freak.”

“You'll pay for callin' me that. And not only on this pool table. We're playin' for five bucks, right?”

“
Yah, yah.
Shoot.”

Woody broke the rack, leaving Otto no shot. The strongman tried to follow suit, but left an opening. Woody seized it. The cue ball clicked against a ball with a purple stripe, which, rolling, became a purple-and-white magic lantern before disappearing into a hole in the corner of the table. Woody dismounted and pointed Sidney to the new location.

Woody ran forty-two balls. As Sidney set up a new rack, the dwarf gave Otto the finger.

“Eight more, Otto, and your five bucks are mine.”

“Shoot, don't talk, freak.”

Woody swung his cue stick above his head and brought it down against the table's wooden rail.

“You don't call me that! You hear, you no-balled, muscle-bound, pansy kraut? One more time and there'll be a cop knockin' on your door.”

Otto's eyes murdered, then acquiesced.

“Yah, yah.”

“Now watch me sink this shot, Otto, but more important, watch the beautiful position of the cue ball for the next shot. Position is everythin' in life. Ain't that right, Kraut? Ain't that what you tell little boys?”

Otto, who wore a chest-hugging white turtleneck sweater and a wide Sam Browne belt that pinched his waist, hardened his pectorals and drew his forearm back against his biceps, bulging them.

“Vat vould you giff for a body like dis von, Voody?”

Woody spread his legs and cupped his crotch.

“I'll take what I got, Kraut. How would you like to suck my petunia, which is man-size?”

He turned to Harry.

“You know what the kraut wears for a jockstrap? A rubber band and a peanut shell. Ain't that right, strong-ass?”

Otto threw his cue stick onto the table scattering the balls, and bellowed:

“I am all around me der sick bodies I vomit to see.”

Woody picked up a ball from the table and gripped it behind his right ear.

“Kraut, you owe me five bucks for the game. Some shit screwin' up the table when I need eight to win. The dough now, or I bounce this off your kraut skull.”

“Ven ve finish game.”

“How the fuck can we finish when you screwed up the table!”

“Not my fault!”

Otto strode toward the door. Woody jumped off his platform, hit the ground and somersaulted into Otto's path. They froze about a foot apart. Woody's outstretched arms suggested a comic book Christ. Otto pawed the ground like a skittish stallion.

“You don't leave without payin' the dough.”

Otto threw a crumpled bill at Woody's feet.

“On der floor, vere you belong.”

Woody signaled to Sidney to pick up the bill.

Otto slammed the door. A few seconds later the pane glass facade was shattered from the outside by a seven ball, which then ricocheted off the wall about two feet above the seated Blue Man. Jamie, standing closest to the front, was pelted with glass, He put his hands to his cheeks. Blood rose through his fingers..

The freaks stampeded for the door. Albert-Alberta, hands on unstable breasts, ran past Harry, yelling:

“On your horse, boy! You don't want to be here when the constables arrive.”

A smell of shit as palpable as taste and a breath-starved wail
focused Harry on Sidney, who stood next to Woody. His tiny pink eyes teared. Woody, holding his nose, pushed him away. He began to whoop like a police siren.

Woody ran to a back room, returning with two empty cartons marked
Wheaties
and
Butterfingers.

“Kid, help me break these down.”

They flattened out the cartons. Harry held them against the shattered pane while Woody, on his platform, secured them on the unbroken glass with surgical adhesive tape which he ripped into strips with his teeth. The wind pushed the cartons, but they held.

Woody remained on the platform, surveying the street.

“Now what the fuck do I do with Sidney? Sam ain't in sight. He was supposed to be back by now. Shit, I can't go near that moron. Fuck it! We'll lock it up with Sidney inside. Sam shouldda come on time. It's his brother. Right, kid?”

Harry wondered: What does that terrified thing feel? Maybe nothing. Maybe that's the way God made up for the way he was. There was already so much pain that God said:
Let there be no more pain.
But Sidney was crying because … because …

Harry's stomach cramped violently. He burst through the swinging bathroom door and pulled down his knickers and underwear just in time.

When he came out Woody had put on his blue serge double-breasted overcoat and a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. The dwarf was swinging a silver key chain with two keys attached, wrapping it around his index finger and then unwinding it.

“I know how it is, kid. That moron's stink almost got to me. Now you go outside. I'll do the rest.”

Harry, chills passing through his upper body, while his bowels burned, walked past the howling Sidney without looking at him. He watched Woody shove Sidney onto a bench. The dwarf smelled his fingers, spat on them, and bent over to rub them on the patch of trousers that showed beneath his coat. Woody locked the door.

“What a fuckin' mess. That lousy kraut will get his. Don't worry.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Police, hell. We got better ways. Victor Menter owns this place. The kraut would be lucky if all he had after him was the cops.”

Harry heard a faint whimper from the pool room.

“What about Sidney? Won't Sam be mad you left him like that?”

“Fuck Sam. He was supposed to be here.”

“Sidney could walk right through the cardboard. Maybe we should fix him up or something?”

“Nah, kid. Sidney stays where he's put. Don't feel bad. He ain't got no feelings. He's just another freak. You goin' home?”

“Yeah”

“Come on into the candy store, I'll buy you a milkshake.”

“OK.”

They sat at a back table. Harry sucked the thick liquid through a straw. Woody sipped a coke.

“Ever think of goin' on the road?” Woody asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just takin' off. Ridin' the rails, hitchin', like that.”

“Never thought of it.”

Woody jabbed his finger at him.

“You should. Good experience. Teach you about life. I did it for about five years. I could give you great addresses of friends of mine everywhere.”

“Yeah. But what about school?”

“I meant after school lets out. That'll give you from July till past Labor Day. Good weather for bummin'”

“I'll think about it.”

“I'd do it if I was you. Even be good for your health.”

The dwarf's face was firm, serious. Woody was willing him to go.