A Bright Tomorrow (4 page)

“No, I never did.”

“Here, wind it around your fork like this.” Nick demonstrated his technique, and Amos awkwardly succeeded in transferring a sizable portion of the slippery tubes into his mouth. “You like?”

“It's real good.”

“Glad you think so.” Nick winked at the others. “You're gonna' see a lot of it around here.”

After supper, Amos walked down to the grocery store with Nick. They were scarcely out of sight of the house when Nick stopped and turned to face Amos. The gaslights were on—a marvel to Amos—and the yellow glow seemed to give the face of young Castellano an oriental cast. He was smoking a cigarette, and he let it dangle from his lower lip as he spoke. “This ain't your home ground, Amos,” Nick said in a tight voice. “So I'm gonna give you one little bit of advice.”

Amos was taken aback by the young man's rather abrupt manner. “I'd appreciate it,” he said carefully.

“Keep your hands off my sister.”

For one moment Amos thought Nick was joking, but there was no humor in the lean face turned toward his. “Mary Elizabeth? Why, she's just a kid!” he protested.

Nick shook his head. “She's filling out, and I wanna be sure you know what's what.” He took a long draw on the cigarette, tossed it onto the hard-packed ice, then stepped on it, grinding it beneath his foot. “Us Italians are kinda funny. We fight a lot with the Jews and the Irish…but that don't mean nothin' usually. But we believe in family, see? Anyone who hurts one member of the family…well, he's got the whole bunch of us to fight.”

Amos thought of his own family. “Why, we're like that, too, Nick. Back home, I mean.” He had thought to keep his reason for coming to the city a secret, but an impulse overtook him. “The reason I'm here, Nick…my sister Lylah ran off with some man. I'm here to get her and take her home. And if the guy objects, I'll make him wish he'd never been born!”

Nick was studying the newcomer's face carefully and seemed to be testing the quality of his words. Liking what he saw, he allowed a smile to tilt the corners of his lips. “That why you're packing a gun?” he asked quietly. Then catching Amos's expression of outrage, he explained, “Yeah, I know about it.”

“You went through my bag?”

“Naw, I didn't. It was Mario, my kid brother. He's only six, and you know how kids are…always into everything. Hey, it's okay,” he said quickly. “Another thing about us Italians, we don't squeal on our friends.” He waited for a moment, then nodded. “You're okay, Amos. Any guy who sets out to get the rat who ruined his sister is okay in my book. Anything I can do, you let me know. I mean, like if you find the guy, and he's too tough, I got some friends who'll turn him wrong side out.”

Amos felt a warm glow, for he knew that Nick was not the sort who made such offers casually. “I'll remember that, Nick. And if anyone insults Mary Elizabeth, I'll hold him while you cut his ears off!”

Nick laughed, delighted with the idea. “Ho, that's the way I like to hear a guy talk!” Growing serious, he turned and asked, “You got any idea about how to find your sister?”

“Not much…except the guy she ran off with is an actor of some kind. And I know the name of the woman who was the boss when they were in Little Rock.”

“Shouldn't be too hard.” Nick shrugged. “You find the woman, she names the punk, and we go get him. It'll be easy!”

But it was not easy, as Amos soon discovered.

On Monday morning he set out to find Maude Adams. Following instructions from Nick, he made his way to the section of New York where most of the city's theaters and opera houses were located. Going into the first one he came to, Amos found a fat man wearing a black derby and sitting at a desk. “I'd like to see Miss Maude Adams.”

The fat man took the cigar stub out of his mouth, studied the ruby tip, then set his pale blue eyes on Amos. “So would about a million other guys,” he remarked, and replacing the cigar, resumed reading his newspaper.

Amos's temper flared, and he leaned forward. As his coat fell open, the fat man's gaze took in the revolver Amos had stuck into his waistband. The man sat upright, eyes bugged out. “Hey, I didn't mean nothing, mister!”

“Neither did I,” Amos said, but there was something in his eyes that frightened the man at the desk. “I only need to ask her a simple question.”

“Yeah…sure.” The fat man nodded, speaking rapidly. “What you need to do is go down to the Victoria Theater. Miss Adams won't be there, but you talk to a man named Joe Rossi. He's a close friend of hers and can put you in touch.”

“Thanks.” As Amos turned to leave, the fat man said, “I wouldn't flourish that gun in front of Joe. He's a pretty tough article.” As soon as Amos left, the fat man scribbled something on a scrap of paper and called out, “Hey, Pierce, take this note over to Joe Rossi at the Vic, will you?”

A grizzled old man with a patch over his left eye shuffled in, a broom in his hands. He took the note, stuffed it into his shirt pocket and left, grumbling about the cold.

“I hope Joe shoots that kid.” The fat man smiled wickedly, then returned to his paper.

“Look, kid, lemme put it to you like this…there ain't no way I'm gonna tell you where Miss Adams is.”

Joe Rossi had stood up when Amos entered his office. He had the note from Ed Bains, warning him that a yokel with a gun was making noises. He left his own hand in his right pocket, clutching a derringer…just in case.

He was a tough man, and a careful one, having been many things in the past, and he knew men well. The young man who stood before him was clean-cut and seemed to be a good type, but Rossi could see the bulk of the revolver beneath the thin coat the boy wore.

Amos was aware of the man's hard eyes, and didn't know what he'd done to make him angry. “I just need to ask her one question,” he said quietly.

“What question?”

“I–I can't ask anyone except her.” Amos bit his lip. “I know she's a famous lady and probably all kinds of people pester her. But I've got a problem, and she's the only one who can help me.”

Rossi decided the boy wasn't dangerous. Removing his hand from his pocket, he sat down and waved toward the chair. “Sit down, kid…and let's talk. What's your name?”

Amos gave his name and sat there, twisting his soft cap in his hands as Rossi questioned him and trying to think of another way to find Lylah. But it seemed almost impossible. Finally he got to his feet. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Rossi.”

Rossi let the young man get to the door, then made a decision. “Stuart…wait a minute!”

“Yes, sir?”

Rossi rose and motioned toward his desk. “Miss Adams is out of the country. But if you want to write her a letter, I'll see that she gets it.”

Amos thought quickly, then nodded. “I'd appreciate that, Mr. Rossi.” He sat down and wrote a few lines, folded the paper, and handed it to Rossi. The older man took it and held it in his hand. “Leave your name and address. I'll send for you if she answers this.”

Amos jotted down the Castellanos' address, then looked up. “How long do you think she'll be gone?”

“Maybe a month, maybe two.”

Rossi turned away in dismissal, and Amos left the office, feeling defeated.
I can't stay here two months! he thought. I'm broke!
But then he remembered Lylah's face, and his jaw hardened.

He walked back to the Castellanos' house and, when Nick came home, he told him what had happened. “I've got to stay here until I hear something. Do you know where I can get work?”

Nick nodded. “Sure, you can work in the bottle factory with me.” He frowned and stared down at his hands. “But you won't like it, Amos.”

“Can't be any worse than plowing new ground.”

“You'll see!”

A
voice was calling his name, but Amos clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for oblivion as a dreamer fights for his dream. Hands pulled at him, and he made a few feeble spasmodic blows that accomplished nothing.

“Lemme sleep!” he mumbled, burrowing his face in the pillow, trying desperately to will away the voice and the hands.

But the hands persisted, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him upright, and Amos squinted, recognizing the features of Nick Castellano. “Come on, Amos, pile out of there!” Nick said, and when Amos tried to break away, Nick braced himself and gave a rough jerk, pulling Amos half out of bed. “Better hurry up, or they'll dock your pay!”

Amos groped around in the murky darkness, fingers stiff with cold as he fumbled for his clothes. They lay on the floor where he'd let them drop the night before, stiff and dirty and cold, so that he shivered as the cloth touched his bare skin. They smelled rank.
Got to wash my clothes after work
, he thought.
Can't live like a pig!
He had only two sets of working clothes, and his first two weeks on the job, he'd washed one set every day, but that had taken too much energy, until now he usually went dirty…except for those times Mama Anna or Mary Elizabeth took pity on him and threw his stiff pants and shirt into the family wash.

When he was dressed, he stumbled out of the small room, casting one envious glance at Mario's sleeping form.
I'd give anything to be able to stay in bed and sleep!
He went down- stairs, stood beside Nick at the mirror over the washbasin, and the two of them shaved in cold water, the dull razor raking Amos's skin and making his eyes water. After he finished, he slumped at the table with Nick and gulped down the coffee Anna set out, then silently ate the hot mush and rolls that comprised their usual breakfast. It was the last hot food hewould have for fourteen hours, so he chewed slowly, trying not to think of the long day stretching before him.

Swallowing their last bite, they got up and took the small paper sacks Anna gave them. She kissed Nick. “I'll see you after work,
bambino mio.
”

Nick was embarrassed as always by her caress. He pulled away, grunting, “Yeah…okay, Mama.” Anna patted Amos on the shoulder and smiled. “I put half an apple in your lunch, Amos.”

“Thanks, Mama Anna.” Tired as he was, Amos came up with a faint smile for her, then turned and followed Nick out of the house.

It was bitter cold, had been since the new year of 1898 had descended on the city. A fresh snow had fallen, laying a glittering white icing over the old covering of dirty yellow. It had stopped snowing, but the wind cut through Amos's thin coat and rasped against his throat and lungs like a razor as he breathed. His rough shoes were so worn that, despite the pieces of leather he had inserted to cover the holes in the soles, he could feel the cold dampness seeping in. When he inadvertently stepped onto a sheet of ice that broke beneath his weight, he felt icy water fill his shoes and knew he was doomed to have aching cold feet all day.

The two young men trudged along the murky streets, past block after block of tenement houses, saying nothing at all to each other. They were part of a silent stream of laborers, clothed in black and muted by the cold and the dullness of fatigue, who moved like specters toward the big smoke-stained buildings that blotted out the darkness of the sky.

As they approached the building, Nick burst out in a spasm of defiance, “I ain't gonna stand this no more, Amos. This is my last day at this dump!”

Amos turned to stare at him. “You're quittin'?”

Nick glared at the bulk of the dark, many-eyed building, whose opaque windows seemed to glare blindly back at him. He cursed roughly, then shook his head, and when Amos asked what he was going to do, replied sharply, “I'll get by…and I'll make more dough than I ever made before, too, see if I don't!”

Amos said nothing, but he had not been unaware of the strain between Nick and his mother. Their arguments had been loud and frequent—she, accusing him of running with a wild bunch and warning him that he'd get into trouble if he didn't watch out; Nick, shouting that he was old enough to choose his own friends.

Amos had gone with Nick a few times and had formed a low opinion of Nick's crowd. At least, they didn't appeal to
him
. None of them had jobs, yet they had good clothes and money for beer and dance hall girls. They were all Italian, of course, and Amos had felt out of place, preferring to stay home after the first two or three times. He knew they were hooked up with some sort of shadowy organization that had its roots in the old country, and Nick had warned him, “Don't get crossways with nobody in this crowd, Amos. They got connections.”

Nick need not have worried, for Amos had neither time, money, nor inclination to join that crowd. He was an intuitive young man and understood that they were on the fringe of lawlessness. But the few times he'd tried to mention his uneasiness to Nick, the other boy had only laughed at him.

A shrill whistle split the air just as the two young men entered the building. They hurried across the massive room, lit only by a few gaslights along the wall. Getting a hard look and a curse from their foreman, they took their places.

The work was simple enough, for all Amos did all day long was to tie glass stoppers into small bottles. He carried a bundle of twine at his waist and held the bottles between his knees so that he could work with both hands. Sitting in this cramped position, his shoulders began to ache after only a few hours. And by glancing around at his fellow workers—some of whom had done nothing but this monotonous work for years—the fear took root that he would become like them, gnomes with rounded backs and blunt faces, devoid of all other interests in life.

Amos was strong, but not particularly dexterous. His father, with his nimble musician's fingers, could have tied twice as many bottles. Added to his native ineptness was the freezing cold in the unheated factory. Amos had tried hard at first, but his numb fingers just would not do the work quickly, though he stared at them and willed them to go faster. It grated on him that the young woman next to him could tie three hundred dozen bottles a day.

She was a frail thing, with a hollow cough and two red spots on her cheeks not made by cosmetics, but her fingers flew, the string and bottles seeming to unite magically, flowing from her hands in a steady stream. She had attained a machine-like perfection. All movements of her thin fingers were automatic, and her eyes were blank as she worked, so it seemed to Amos she was becoming a machine herself.

As for Amos, he worked under high tension and grew so nervous that his muscles twitched in his sleep, and even when he was not working, he could not relax. He longed for the farm, for the hardwork at home had been a pleasure. The sharp biting cold of the Ozarks had not been like this deadening cold inside the musty building: That air had been invigorating, while the damp cold of the factory seemed not only to numb his fingers but his brain as well.

All day he tied the little bottles, stopping only for thirty brief minutes at noon to eat the sandwich and the half an apple. He washed it down with bitter-tasting water from the water can, then went back to the second half of his ten-hour day.

By the end of his workday, Amos's senses were dulled, his fingers stiff and sore, and he knew that he would go back to the house, eat, and go directly to bed. He tried to think of some way to do what he had planned—to spend part of his time searching for Lylah. That grand scheme had lasted only a few days, for he was so exhausted at night that he could not force himself to go out and look for her. The search was, in any case, fruitless, for the only clue he had to her whereabouts was the theater, and by the time he walked to Broadway, it would be too late to make any inquiries. As for days off, he was barely making enough now to pay his room and board and to put aside a small amount for emergencies.

While he was struggling with this problem, Amos became aware that something was happening just to his left.

The superintendent, accompanied by a burly man in a suit and tie, was standing beside a small boy named Fred. When someone whispered,
“That's the inspector!”
Amos stopped work and turned to watch the little group.

The inspector caught Fred by the arm, peered at him intently, then asked, “How old are you?”

“Fourteen!” the boy replied, and would have said more, but was cut off by a dry hacking cough.

“I know this boy,” the inspector said sternly. “He's twelve years old. I've had him discharged from three factories this year.” He turned to the superintendent. “You'll have to let him go.”

“No, we ain't got enough to eat at home,” Fred protested. “I got to work!”

The inspector eyed him critically. “Look at him! Got rickets…and probably consumption to boot.”

“Please, mister!” the boy cried. “I got to work! Ain't nobody but me got work, and I got a sick ma and a baby sister.”

“Get him out of here,” snapped the burly man.

The Stuart breed had been subject to fiery fits of white-hot anger over injustices for longer than Amos knew. His forebears were Scotch Covenanters who had incarnadined the soil of their native land over such as this. And as the big man started to turn away, a red curtain seemed to fall over Amos Stuart's eyes. He dropped the bottles in his hands to the cement floor, ignored the tinkling sound as they shattered, and leapt to grasp the inspector's arm.

“Inspector of
what
?” Amos demanded. “If you're supposed to inspect this place to see that working conditions are decent…all you have to do is look around…if you're not blind, that is!”

Startled, the big man tried to pull his arm away but found it gripped by fingers of steel. He looked wildly at the superintendent who was just as stunned.

“Are you supposed to see if women and children, many of them sick, are being overworked?” Amos raged. “Well, look around you, Mr. Inspector!” Amos used his free hand to make a sweeping gesture.

Work had stopped now, and every eye was turned toward the scene.

“That's the stuff, kid!” Nick shouted. “Tell the dirty rotters how it is!”

The superintendent came to himself and reached out to grab Amos, but was struck with an iron forearm that knocked him on his rear. He let out a yelp of pain, and the muscular inspector chose that moment to hit Amos in the neck with his big fist. Amos was driven to his knees, and the big man drew back his foot to administer a kick. But at that moment Nick came up and caught him over the ear with the edge of the stool he'd been sitting on. The man went down like a felled ox, and Nick shouted something in Italian. Then he grabbed Amos, a wild grin on his face. “Come on! They'll call the cops now!”

Amos's head was still spinning, but Nick guided him through the factory to the outside. The sky was growing dark, and the cold bit at them, but Nick beat Amos on the back as they lurched along. “You got
machismo
, kid! Come on!”

When they were clear of the area, Amos asked, “Will they arrest us, Nick?”

“Naw. They might send some of the cops looking for us, but I got some pull with the boys now. They'll slip him a few bucks and he'll report that he couldn't find a trace of us.” Nick gave his friend a proud look. “That's the way it's going to be with me, Amos. You get on the inside…and nobody can touch you!”

“The inside of
what
?” Amos asked, puzzled.

At once Nick's lips grew tight, and he shook his head. “Don't worry about it, kid. I'll take care of you.” He smiled then, adding, “You're a pretty quick guy, you know? Real speedy, the way you clipped that super! Guess I'll have to call you ‘Speed' Stuart from now on.”

By the time they got back to the house, the excitement of the adventure had worn off, and Amos was beginning to realize that he'd lost three days' pay because of his escapade. He ate supper, half-listening as Nick told the story of their great revolt and he noted that the two female boarders and Mary Elizabeth were watching him with new interest.

But after he went to bed, Amos lay awake worrying, long after Nick and Mario's breathing grew even and regular.
I'll have to go back home,
he concluded. But everything in him rebelled at the idea of giving up. Buried beneath Amos's easy-going manner was an iron-hard stubbornness that would not let him quit as long as he was able to function. He racked his brain, trying to think of a way to stay in the city. Finally, a strange thought came to him—such an unusual thought, for him, that he grinned at his own foolishness.

The thought, however, refused to go away, and he lay there quietly, pondering what he should do about it. He even thought about praying for help from God. He moved restlessly, but the idea seemed to bore into his mind, and he almost said aloud,
Pray to God for help? Why should he help me? All I've done is go through the motions
…
never had anything real
…
not like Ma's got.

He drifted into a light sleep at last, only to awaken soon after with the same impulse nagging at him. Half in disgust at what he considered a weakness, he whispered, “Oh, all right, then—God, help me get a job!” Another thought came to him, and he added, “And I want a job that pays plenty…and one where I can do something I'm good at and like to do.” He did smile then, and as sleep came rushing back, he whispered, “Now, then—let's see how you manage
that
little trick!”

Amos slept until nearly nine o'clock the next morning, but his first thought when he finally opened his eyes was:
I asked God to get me a job!

He sat up abruptly, remembering his prayer, and for a time didn't move, thinking how ridiculous the whole thing was. But he didn't feel like laughing, and when he went downstairs and coaxed Mama Anna into fixing him a late breakfast, he had the courage to mention his idea to her.