I laughed. “It doesn’t make sense to me. I just want to be left alone. If no one bothers me I don’t bother them.”
He shook his head. “It’s become a case of cry wolf.” “I can’t help that,” I said.
Ruth looked up at me. “You can quit before it’s too late.”
I looked down at her. “I’ve listened to your side, now listen to mine.” I put one cigarette in the ash-tray and lit another. “For years I’ve tried to eke out an existence in what they call the right way. I worked hard for little money and little security and to what end?
“I wound up in a hospital because I was hungry and didn’t have enough to eat; because I couldn’t get a job that paid enough to give some sort of security; because all that Horatio Alger stuff is a lot of crap; because no matter how hard the Alger hero would work, no matter how honest he was, no matter how difficult his struggle, he never got anywhere until he either saved or married the boss’s daughter. I couldn’t find a boss’s daughter.
“All I could find everywhere I turned was people like myself —hungry and poor and miserable, living off relief, off charity or some job that barely gave them an existence and one which the fear of losing hung continually over their heads like a sword on a thread.
“I’d be a damn fool to try to live that sort of life, where a boss could fire you if you were sick on a job, where a man could tell you all you get is ten bucks a week when you need fifteen to live, or twenty when you need thirty, or thirty when you need fifty.
“Hell, no, I wasn’t that crazy! I wanted to enjoy life, to have things: money in my pocket, a car, a nice place to live, and things that count—the things you can hold in your hand and feel and eat.
“This was the one way I knew to get them—the only way left open for me. So I got what I wanted.”
“But, Frankie,” Marty said patiently, “don’t you see? It’s partly your fault too.” “Maybe,” I admitted, “but I didn’t ask for it. I gave it a fair shake and it didn’t work.”
Ruth sat up and faced me. “Frankie, you should have lived a long time ago. But the days of piracy are over. You can’t bully and swagger your way through life any more. You can’t just take what you want and say the devil with the next man. You’ve got to live with people and share with them. You can’t just crawl into a corner and ignore what goes on around you.”
I thought of Marianne. That’s what she wanted me to do: crawl into a corner and ignore the world. I had left her because I didn’t want to do that. Or had I left one corner for another?
But Gerro had believed as Ruth did. He thought and acted according to his ideals, and what did he gain by them? I knew better than any of them what I wanted. And I was going to get it—everything I wanted—my way.
I stood up. I walked a little distance away from them and then faced the two of them. “I don’t see your way any more than you see mine,” I said quietly.
Ruth sprang from the couch and came close to me. “Darling,” she said earnestly, her eyes looking straight into mine, “but we do see what you tell us. We do understand what you say, but it just won’t work out that way.”
I didn’t speak.
She turned to Marty with a gesture of despair, “Marty,” she pleaded, “please make him understand.”
Marty looked at both of us. Suddenly he started for the door. “I’m going downstairs for a moment. This seems to be something for the two of you to work out,” he said, his hand on the doorknob. “It isn’t a question any more of who is right or who is wrong. It’s a question now of who loves the most and who is willing to give the most.” He went out.
She turned and stared at me. I took a step towards her and took her in my arms and
kissed her. She was cold under my kiss. I kissed her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her neck, and her lips. I brought her down to the couch next to me and kept kissing her, savagely, brutally. My kisses left marks on her skin.
Suddenly she turned and kissed me. I looked down on her face. Her eyes were half closed, her mouth tremulous. I held her close to me and could feel the longing in her in the way her body pressed to mine. “I love you,” I whispered. Her eyes closed completely and she kissed me again.
“I want you,” I whispered, “I need you. Don’t let anything come between us.” I kept kissing her as I spoke.
Her breath came quickly between her parted lips. I could feel her small white teeth bite into my underlip as she kissed me. Her hands held my face to her.
My arms were under her and held her close to me. I turned my head into the cleft of her bosom and looked up at her. Her eyes were moist and her lips were parted. I could feel her trembling in my arms. “Ruth!”
Her eyes looked down into mine; tears came from the corners like tiny twinkling diamonds. There was love in them, and compassion and understanding and desire. Almost imperceptibly she shook her head. “No, darling,” she whispered softly, “not this way.”
I buried my face in the sweet smell of her body. “I want you,” I repeated, my lips against her skin.
She crushed my face against her. “I want you,” she said simply, “but not in this way only. I want you for keeps, not for minutes.” She drew my face up to hers. She held my face in her two hands. I could feel her lips moving under mine. We kissed again and she held my face away from her. Her eyes searched mine. “Understand, darling?” she asked.
I looked at her for a moment, then I got to my feet. My hands searched automatically in my pocket for a cigarette. I understood all right.
It was either play the game her way or not at all.
H
ER
eyes were fastened on my face as I lit my cigarette. I think she read my thoughts, for she got up and came towards me. “You don’t understand, do you?” she asked gently.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t,” I said, almost bitterly, “I can’t see what difference it should make to you if you care enough. Would it be any better for us if I were a street cleaner?”
Her eyes were cloudy and unhappy. “It would help. It’s not what you are, Frankie, it’s what you do. You have to do hard things, mean things. You have to be cruel and ruthless. You can’t just do these things during the day and be another sort of person at night. Eventually the two will fuse and you will become what you do.”
I started to answer her, to tell her she was cockeyed wrong, but there was a knock at the door. Marty had come back. I let him in.
He looked at Ruth and then at me. His question was unasked, but answered by our actions. He didn’t offer any further advice; he knew when to keep his mouth shut. A few minutes later they left, and I was alone in the apartment.
I thought about what Ruth had said and how she felt about me. She should know that you just can’t drop a good thing like this as easily as you can put down a book. Too much depended on it. I had worked too hard for it. And I wasn’t going to throw it away for no dame—not even Ruth!
But the day was shot as far as I was concerned. The spring had gone out of it.
The next few months were surprisingly good for me. The boys were watching their steps, and Fennelli was behaving himself. Business was pretty good and I stashed the dough away while I could. I wasn’t kidding myself. This wasn’t going to last for ever, but I was going to get as much of it as I could.
It was late in May before anything unusual happened. And then it came in a manner I had never expected. It was near four o’clock in the afternoon. The day had been a rather hectic one and I was pretty tired. The inter-office phone buzzed. I flipped the switch. “Yes?”
“Mr. Moscowits to see you,” Miss Walsh’s voice came through.
“Send him in,” I said, flipping back the switch. I wondered what he wanted.
He came in, lumbering in his usual manner. I stood up and smiled at him. We shook hands and sat down.
“What’s on your mind, Moishe?” I asked, still smiling.
He came right to the point. That was one thing I liked about him. He was of the old line of gamblers, one of those guys whose word was his bond, and who played it straight as he saw it. Nothing phony about him. “Frankie,” he said, his voice rough but quiet, “I want to quit.”
I didn’t answer, just sat back and looked at him quietly for a few moments. Then I lit a cigarette and asked: “Why?”
He was a little uncomfortable. “It isn’t because I’m afraid. It’s nothing like that, only
——” He hesitated a moment before he continued. “I’m getting too old for this business. It’s too much of a strain for me. I would like to go somewhere with my wife and enjoy a few years without tsooriss.”
I sat there still watching him and wondered what to do. This wasn’t the time for me to let anyone quit. It wouldn’t look good to the others if I let him go. They would think I was going soft. But then, it was the guy’s right to do what he wanted, and I knew he would play it straight and keep his mouth shut about us. Silently I pushed a box of cigars towards him.
He took one and lit it and watched me. We sat there quietly for a while. Then I said: “You know how the boys’ll feel about it.”
He nodded his head.
I continued. “They’ll think you’re yelluh and you’re goin’ tuh squeal.”
He waved his hand towards me gently, almost paternally, “You know me better than that, Frank. Moses Moscowits never squealed on nobody in his whole life, and he ain’t going to start at the age of sixty-two.”
I hadn’t realized he was that old. We fell silent again. I turned my chair around towards the window. “What about your territory?” I asked, my back towards him.
I could hear his voice behind me. “The boys can have it.” “And your share of the pool?”
“You can keep that too if you need it.” Moishe wasn’t above a little bribery to get what he wanted. I calculated swiftly. His share amounted to about a hundred grand.
“Where yuh gonna go?” I asked. I knew he owned a little property out in California, and wondered if he would level about it.
He levelled. “I got a farm in California. I can live there nice and quiet, like my wife wants I should.”
I swung the chair around and faced him. “When do you intend to go?” “When it’s O.K. with you,” he answered.
I thought again for a moment.
He spoke. “Frank, money you can’t enjoy is no good to a man. I got enough money and here I can’t enjoy it. All the time it’s problems and troubles and headaches. I want a little peace with my years.”
I made up my mind. He was entitled to a little peace with his years and he should have it.
“O.K.,” I said, “you can quit, Moishe.”
I’d swear tears jumped to his eyes, but he controlled himself beautifully. Just his voice, bubbling over with a sort of restrained happiness, said: “Thanks.”
“You leave town by the end of the week,” I said. “Don’t say anything to anybody. I don’t want any of the boys to know about this until I tell them, and I’ll tell them after you’re gone.”
I dialled Mackson. He was the fellow that had replaced Price. “How does the pool stand now?”
“One million, one ten, Mr. Kane,” he answered.
That made it easy. “Draw a cheque payable to Moses Moscowits for one hundred and
ten thousand dollars and send it up here right away,” I said, and put down the phone.
Moishe’s eyes were shining. “If you need the money, Frank, I can wait,” he said. I shook my head. “You always paid your share; you’re entitled to take it out.”
Mack came up with the cheque. I took it from him and he left. I signed it and held it out to Moishe. He took it and put it in his pocket, thanking me as he did so. I gave him one last word of advice before he left. “Moishe, don’t talk about this to anyone. Leave your apartment as it is. Don’t try to sell anything or take too much with you. Get into your car with a couple of bags packed as if you were going to the mountains for a week-end. I want you to disappear and leave everything else to me to handle.”
We shook hands and walked towards the door. He took a last look around the office before he left. “Frankie, my boy,” he said, “take some advice from an old man. Get out of this while you can. You’re a good boy and a smart one too. I lived a lot longer than you and I know. Not many of us get the chance to quit when we want to. We generally go while we’re young—sudden.
“And the longer we last the harder it becomes for us to quit. We get mokey and greedy, and we usually settle for a bullet. If it was anyone else but you, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing. Don’t let anyone stop you from quitting and pay you off with lead.”
I cut him short with a laugh. “Don’t worry about me, Moishe; just do what I told yuh.” “I will, Frank,” he promised and went out.
I went back to my desk and sat down. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince the others I had done right. But the hell with them!
A man was entitled to a little peace with his years.
A
FEW
days later Silk dropped into the office. He parked himself in the chair opposite my desk. He came to the point. “There’s some talk around town that Moscowits is taking a powder.”
“So I hear,” I said non-committally. If he wanted my interest he wasn’t taking it.
He followed up. “As a matter of fact, Frank, some of the boys are saying that you’re behind him and he’s working with your O.K.”
“You all work with my O.K.,” I told him.
He continued blandly. “They don’t like it, Frank. They say you’re beginning to slip.” I laughed. “What do you say to that, Silk?”
He ought to know. He tried to hang me twice, and he still was a long way from home.
He didn’t answer.
We sat there silently for a few minutes while I fiddled around with some paper on my desk. Then I looked up at him. “If that’s all that’s on your mind, Silk, you can blow.”
I didn’t even give him the satisfaction of saying I was busy.
He stood up and leaned over the desk to me. “I thought you ought to know what they’re saying, Frank. If it’s true they don’t like it.”
I looked up at him. “I know what they’re saying, Silk. I know it long before you hear it. I also know who’s saying it, and if I were you I’d put a zipper where you wear your mouth or one day you’ll wake up and find it sewed up for yuh—with needle and thread.”