Sam's Legacy (19 page)

What he didn't understand, though—it was a question that had occurred to him before—was what he had done to deserve this. It wasn't a question he'd put to somebody like Ben, but it was a question he asked himself, and a question whose answer, though he would have liked to deny it, had something to do with the Knicks' winning streak. But that, he knew, was crazy too: sure, he rooted for the Knicks, he always had—and sure too, he had predicted that they'd go all the way this year; but Sam knew that he was nobody to them, that, if you asked the question you had to ask—where was the control—you saw of course that he'd had nothing to do with their streak.

Luigi's was closed. They didn't deliver and nobody was out walking tonight. It made sense. But the bank closing on the Knicks, his debt to Sabatini, no games and now this: freezing his ass off to play for stakes he would have laughed at a year or two before. It didn't figure, not at all, and to try to figure out why it was all happening—that was the quick way to hit the bottom of the hole. If you put your mind there, you could forget it all. Like trying to figure out if a guy was bluffing or not: it didn't matter. You had to keep your mind on your own cards and forget the rest. Play what's there, don't bet on air….

The snow was falling more heavily, and Sam could not see the clock at the top of the Dutch Reformed Church. Milt's newsstand, at the corner of Flatbush and Church, was closed, a mound of snow. There were lights on in Garfield's, filtering through the snowfall, but Sam didn't have time to stop, to warm himself. The exercise was enough; his fingertips were numb, but his body—his chest, his neck, his legs—felt warm, almost sleepy. Snow did that to you. He'd have to be careful, coming in from the cold, to keep his head the way he wanted it.

He crossed the street, making tracks in the fresh snow, and stopped under the marquee of the Kenmore Theater. He left his hands in his pockets, shook himself so that the loose snow fell from his head and shoulders, his sleeves and cuffs. The city would be paralyzed by morning, he knew. Only the subways would be running, underground—they were bound, with the temperature below freezing, to have trouble on the elevated lines. The theater was closed for the night, no sign on the cashier's booth. Sam wiped his nose with his sleeve, set out again, and saw, directly in front of him, the shape of a man, under snow, lying on the ground, propped up next to the wall of a store. The man's head, uncovered, was at his chest, and there was barely a space the snow had not covered.

Sam went to the man without hesitating, bent over, lifted his own hands from his pockets. The snow got into his eyes, hung from his lashes, magnifying things. Squinting, he saw the geometric shapes of individual flakes. “Hey—you okay?” he asked. There was no reply. This was, he thought to himself, really what he needed, but he had no choice: you never knew, and on a night like this the guy might be totally covered by morning. Sam grabbed the body through a layer of snow, at the shoulders, and shook it. “Hey—wake up. Wake up there!”

The snow on the man's face, from Sam's shaking, slipped away, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and dripped down. Sam held the man's shoulders, stayed down at his level, in a deep knee bend position, and saw—it made his heart catch—that the man's eyes were shining, that his mouth was turned into the side of his face, smiling at Sam. Snow fell lightly between the two men, and Sam could feel the warm air of the man's breath.

“I thought you'd be coming this way,” the man said. “I waited for you. Listen—”

Sam flung the man against the wall, heard a soft thud. “You lay off!” he said.

With a gloved hand, the man held onto Sam's trousers. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'm dressed warmly. I don't take chances anymore. I just wanted to warn you. Be careful. Be careful tonight.”

All the snow had slipped from the man's face, and the flush of his skin—bright pink—made Sam see him as he had been when they'd both been clapping their hearts out, that first time. Sam's jaw trembled, but there was a small river of sweat now, running down his spine, and he felt hot. He spoke the only words which occurred to him: “I don't believe you.”

“Listen,” the man said, and his voice, like silk, had something comforting in it, something that made Sam's eyelids, for a split second, close, that made his mind look toward the end of an endless corridor, the way it would sometimes in the subway, if he was about to nod off. “I can understand that, with the spiel I gave you. Sure. But I wanted to tell you, when I had a chance, that you were right the first time—I work for Sabatini.” Sam saw the man's gloved hand—a gray glove—slice through the snow, toward him, gesturing. “But I work for the Lord too.” The man's eyes looked up again, happy. “It comes and goes though, part-time.” He laughed, and the laugh hurt Sam's ears as it echoed under the marquee. He looked beyond Sam, up, above Sam's head. “Working for Him, that's just moonlighting, if you know what I mean.”

“Lay off,” Sam hissed. “I'm warning you.”

“Sure,” the guy said, easily. “With Sabatini—that's temporary too—but you know how it is, having to work off a debt. I keep my eye on a few guys for him, pick up a few bets. If you didn't have your own man you've been using all this time…”

Sam stood and turned, but the man's hand held him by the sleeve. “No hard feelings, brother, all right? That's how come I waited for you tonight—to warn you.” He chuckled under his breath. “Christ teaches us that death is the wages of sin, but I never put much stock in that—you and me, the
wagers
of sin is what we have to worry about, right?” The man's left hand held him, while his right hand—in the gray glove—was in front of Sam again, for Sam to clasp in a handshake. “No hard feelings, right, brother?”

Sam pulled away, then—he couldn't help himself—he kicked savagely with his foot, heard the man groan even before he felt his toe collide. The shock—inside his shoe his toes tingled—made him vibrate all through his body, and he had to flail at the air, the snow, for a second, to maintain his balance. That really took brains, he told himself at once, turning and moving away.

He was burning—furious with himself for having shown his anger. At Ocean Avenue, he turned right, walked a block and a half—fast, to make up for the time he'd lost—and found the building, number 275. But what if if had been some old man who'd slipped and cracked his skull? Sam wanted an answer to that question. He walked into the lobby, and the thick warmth, hitting him like air in a steam room, made him dizzy. He took off his raincoat, blew into his cupped hands. He would let the sweat dry—he wouldn't wipe it off—and that would cool his body down. The light in the lobby was pale orange, and it reminded Sam of the lobby in his old building on Linden Boulevard. The sweat was cold between his thighs. He remembered seeing his grandfather coming home from synagogue on a Friday night, a night like this, his large hooked nose bright red, dripping. He remembered that he'd been afraid for the man, had followed him to the bathroom, watched him as he washed his hands, spat into the toilet bowl, blew his nose, urinated. Sam could hear his grandfather wheezing, he saw the thin lips—like Ben's—mumbling a prayer. For eating, for washing, even for pissing—they had one for everything in life. Sam sniffed. If you sneezed, the thing to watch out for was your tongue—not to bite it.

An elderly woman, her hair dyed silver, came down the staircase, stopped when she saw Sam. She carried a plate with pieces of cake on it, and she wore a yellow flowered housecoat. Sam didn't move. He wondered if his mother would take one of her trips again—across the ocean—to a place in Europe where they packed you in a special kind of black mud, to restore the quality of your skin. She'd explained it all to him once.

The woman descended to the bottom of the staircase, her eyes on Sam, her plate of cake wobbling. Sam rubbed his hands together and the woman turned, clacked down the hallway in her high heels, her wide bottom bumping up and down. Sam laughed, imagining the expression on her face had he taken a step toward her and shown her his knife. He worked on his fingertips, crossing his arms, against his chest, under his jacket, rubbing his hands beneath his arms, where it was warm. He'd have to be careful—it had been a while, and, even at half-dollar-dollar, if the ante built up and there were a few big hands, you could be in trouble fast. He could hear Ben, laughing, making some remark about Sam having the bathroom to himself now, but he would fool Ben there: he'd use the bathroom, sure, but he'd sleep where he'd been sleeping. With the kitchen there, and the phone, it was more practical. If he didn't use the other room, he wouldn't use it, that was all. At fifty-six dollars a month he could afford to waste space. Sam Berman was a real sport, right?

He laughed, heard his laughter echo in the lobby, and wondered if the woman was looking out at him from a keyhole. He felt—from the cold, he figured—the way he sometimes felt during the middle of a game, his mind unattached, so far ahead of him, spinning so fast, that it was as if he were watching himself playing. Playing cards—he had the feeling that it was just what he was doing to pass the time, as it were, while he…while he what? He'd figured that out too, once, that if you were passing time it meant just that: you were going by it, watching yourself in a dry run, a practice game, while you figured out how you would play the cards when the real game began. He shivered. It wasn't the kind of thing he needed to be reminded of, the feeling he had of being there and not there at the same time, but it was what he saw: himself watching himself playing cards, as if—the sensation was so strong he felt he could touch it—it wasn't his own life, as if what you were doing was just to get the lay of the land so you could figure out what to do with your life the next time around. He heard Tidewater describing the feeling he'd had when he was on the mound, and he pressed his eyes closed, tried to sweep away the picture of the guy, behind him, holding his raincoat, whispering to him. He saw Stella, watching them both. He'd be careful, all right. He took his hands from under his jacket, wiped his nose with the back of one, then opened the door to the elevator. The numbness was leaving. He stepped into the elevator, and the outside door creaked.

Sam pressed a button for the fourth floor, but nothing happened. He looked around, saw the sign—
IN EMERGENCY, PRESS HERE
—in large lettering; he studied the compartment—it was no more than three feet square. He looked up, saw the trap door, the screws you'd have to take off if you wanted to get out. He was in shape, though—he could fit through the small opening: good luck to anybody—all his old buddies—with a pot belly. He pressed the button again, and, still, nothing happened. Sabatini didn't fool Sam, either—one player was sure to be one of his henchmen, sizing Sam up, seeing if they wanted to move him up in class, like a thoroughbred, to bigger games. Sam saw himself at once, draped in bright silks; he could feel his stomach straining as somebody's legs straddled his back. Shit! He slammed his palm against the control board, the buttons, heard something in the compartment rattle, then realized his error: it was the old-fashioned kind of elevator. He'd forgotten to draw the iron gate closed. A sitting duck, out of luck, that's who he was. Sam the Lamb. He measured things, drew the gate closed, slowly, watched the iron latticework expand. Something above clicked, whirred, the elevator bumped, then started upward.

They'd have their eye on him tonight, but it wasn't that that was bothering him—he'd play his game, no matter who was watching—but the business about moving up in class. That was when the smart money bet on a horse, the first time it moved up or down—but seeing himself in silks, his feet turning to hooves, that was really great, that took brains. His mind was slightly high, the way it should be before a game—but the rhymes and pictures, the pictures and voices, words conjuring up images, images sending him voices, and himself going nowhere fast—he didn't need any of it. He closed his eyes, tried to imagine the feel of the cards against the sides of his fingers. When he was in shape, playing regularly, his fingers did the counting for him: he could gauge things that way, especially with a fresh deck; he could lift it to any number of cards he wanted, feel for the slightest nick in the side of a card. The elevator stopped, he got out, sniffed in—his left nostril was still stuffed—and rubbed his hands against the sides of his pants, to dry the perspiration.

He found apartment 4G—no name on the door—and pressed the buzzer.

“Who's there?”

“Mr. Benjamin,” he said.

The door opened, and a hand—dry and cool—was thrust into his own. “Simon's the name. Simon Schwartz. Glad you could come—it's a real bitch out tonight.”

Sam passed the guy, smelled something sweet, like roses. The guy was an inch or so shorter than Sam, about the same age, had dark black hair slicked back, a wave in front, and he wore a maroon-colored silk smoking jacket, tied at the waist with a sash. His eyes were clear, alert; he looked, Sam thought, as if he'd just come back from a holiday—clean-shaven, sun-tanned, relaxed. “Come on,” Simon said. “You must need a drink on a night like this—what'll it be? Scotch? Bourbon?”

Sam said nothing, followed the man down the hallway. Simon took Sam's raincoat, hung it in the closet. Sam waited, then followed again. The living room, sunken, had a card table set up in the middle, chips already stacked on the table. To one side, liquor bottles and glasses were lined up on a silver-rimmed cart. Simon wheeled the cart to the center of the living room, next to the card table. The carpeting, fire-engine red, was thick and soft, and the room was diffused in a purple light, through silk lampshades. Simon smiled at Sam, lifted a stopper from a crystal decanter and poured two drinks. His teeth were too white, Sam thought, as if they'd been capped, the way movie stars and old women had them done. Sam saw that there were only two folding chairs set up at the table.