Lucky Billy (33 page)

What's his name?

I don't know. Would she thrash the bully for him? Was that his mother's intention? She enjoyed this, her bosom heaved as they ran, her red hair flew, eyes flashed. He couldn't tell her it was Josie; his mother would fly off the handle, he knew, and his brother would kill him.

But he could tell Hop-along Sweeney, the notorious hackum who worked for Kit Burns at the Rat Pit on Water Street. He could tell him it was Josie who'd snuck into their cellar and tapped a keg of whiskey, draining its contents into bottles he'd collected, which he then corked and sold on the street for a quarter. He did it; he told him. Sweeney was amused, looking down at little Henry at the door to the Rat Pit. And when Sweeney administered his careful beating of Josie, with a rolled-up newspaper soaked in plaster and allowed to half dry, expertly bruising every inch of his body while not breaking any bones, as two assistants held his arms, thus changing the color of the boy's skin from white to dark turnip, so that Josie had to wear high-buttoned shirts and jackets for weeks and hide the painful nature of his attempts to seat himself at supper and wield spoons and forks normally and clear his dishes from the table—when Sweeney did this, Henry watched from a crack of the door in his cubby in the row of school sinks back of Gouverneur Slip, where bodily wastes splashed into the river directly below. He watched seated on the hole. Watched and felt satisfied with the fairness of life.

"There he goes!"

The tall polished man with the grand sweep of step emerges from the door and strides up Broadway. Though not as packed as Hester Street, Broadway has its own soggy spissitude of persons. The difference here is they make way for urchins. Whether bucking the crowd or carried on the stream, Henry and Josie in their coster caps have the power of lepers—people magically part—and can keep him in their sights. When he stops to converse with a lady on the sidewalk, tipping his plug hat, they stop, too, and dangle at a window. Broadway's a clamorous, sluggardized swarm. It's a buzz of velvet tongues and gay sparks and high muck-a-mucks. The sidewalks are paved, as is the wide street, with uneven blocks of granite set in sand, and the line between sidewalk and street is dubious. Two-wheeled hansom cabs encroach upon the walk, scuttlers outflank the sluggish crowds into the street. One must be careful in the roadway, however—the pavement is yellow with flattened horseshit. It smells like a farm; the air's blue and dusty. Large green and yellow mail trucks, ice wagons, omnibuses, long vans, and flat-bedded drays piled high with casks swell the road, rattle teeth. A van with a painted scene from the late war—the surrender at Appomattox—has halted on the street, unable to move behind a dray trying to circle an unloading stage. Signs fill the air at every level of sight: Hats, Hatter, Photography Studio, Marvin Safe Company, Crouch and Fitzgerald, L. Sauter & Co., Band Rings, Hamilton & Hamilton, Fine Rolled Plate Chains, Dun-lap & Co., J. B. Richardson & Co., Makers of the Royal Button, Lace Pins Etc., A. N. Lockwood, District Agent, Imported Saddlery, Arnold Webster, Gold Rings and Lockets.

Josie has found other fathers before. "This one's real, ain't he, Josie?"

"Of course he is, nit."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

Cigar smoke enamels the air as they follow; he's lit up his purchase. His plug hat is nearly a full head taller than the other stovepipes, bowlers, and porkpies bobbing up the sidewalk. He swings a silver-tipped walking stick. Past cast-iron arcades, glass gazingstocks of dresses, hats, muffs, and gloves, past City Hall Park, the Marble Palace, the Broadway Tabernacle. Crossing Houston Street, they're flanked by Harry Hill's Dance Hall on the right, across the street, and the Gaiety beside them on the left, outside of which the person they're following stops and tosses his half-smoked cigar. Josie races ahead to salvage it. He offers it to Henry, who jerks back his head at the wet, chewed end just inches from his lips. Josie cocks his cap, thrusts the still-smoking cigar into his mouth, darts across Houston and struts up Broadway, Henry dragging behind. Their prey turns on Third Street, takes the Bowery north, pauses outside Paresis Hall, glancing back. Oblivious, Josie plows through the crowds half inside a trailing envelope of smoke. The man has marched ahead again when Josie and Henry stop outside the same dance hall and, waving at the door, Josie tells his brother there are exhibitions in there of a character that would shame even Adam and Eve. "Like what?" his brother asks.

"Like men dancing with men."

"Why would that shame even Adam and Eve?"

"There he goes. Look, he's crossing again."

They follow him up Eighth back to Broadway, which he crosses on the fly. When he ducks into Taylor's Saloon at the St. Denis on the corner of Eleventh, they watch from the arcade, through the high Venetian windows, watch him at the long bar tilt the saddle rocks and blue points down his jacking throat. He glances toward the window. They flush, turn their hacks, kick their heels, stroll away.

They wait behind a column. He saunters out the door, strides through the colonnade on legs twice as long as theirs. They must scramble to keep up. Crossing Twelfth, it's little Henry who spots the bright fragment dropping from the man's hand, and who darts past legs and parasols and skirts to retrieve it: a silver ring. Josie says, "Give it here."

"No." Henry runs. I Ie sees his presumptive father up ahead crossing Broadway at Thirteenth with long, loping strides. In the middle of the block, Henry breaks from the sidewalk and crosses Broadway, too, dodging hansoms, drays, omnibuses, pushcarts. Josie follows, screams his brother's name. Henry turns on Thirteenth and crosses again and runs up an alley, Josie at his heels. The man disappears into a door that slams shut in Henry's face. Josie lunges for his brother's hand, tries to pry the fist open. Henry pushes him away. Josie slams Henry's ear and shouts, "Give it here, rat-ass." Henry bangs on the door. Above it, a sign says, "Stage Door—Wallack's." They're still struggling in the alley when the door opens and strong hands and arms force them apart. "
Basta!
" says the man. It's not
him,
it's a doorkeeper, a squat and burly scaldhead in white shirt, baggy pants, a vest, and bandanna.

"What's this?" The pearly voice, deep, chiseled, and strong, comes from the open door, and the others freeze.

"You dropped this on Broadway." I lenry holds out his fist.

With dignity, he steps into the alley, extends his palm to Henry. "Ah." He holds up the ring. Smiles with indulgence. Slips it on the vacant pinky of his right hand, his long dramatic face melting its own bladed features. "Two honest young men. Or is it just one?" He looks from I lenry to Josie, whose eyes have dropped. Henry flushes.

This alley is nothing like their alley at home. It's paved and freshly swept, not a dead cat in sight. On the brick wall on one side, under glass, a poster says,

He slips the ring on his finger. "Tell him," whispers Henry to Josie. "Tell him who we are."

"Who are you?" says the man, who has evidently heard. Then he tugs up his pant legs and crouches in the alley, hands on knees, before the brothers. "Who could you be? Just another pair of urchins?"

The boys keep mum. The doorkeeper watches.

"Well, your hearts are true blue. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your honesty." Fie removes Henry's hat and rubs his curly head and with both of his hands snugs the hat back on, bill backward this time. "There. How does that look?" He smiles, winks. "You may think me a softy, but there's a story to that ring. When I first came to New York, I had in my employ a young valet, a lad not much older than the pair of you. I had grown very fond of him and had begun to feel like a father to the boy. I was sorry to hear him one day announce he would be forced to leave me. He was wanted on the farm. The laddie wished in some way to show his appreciation of all I had done for him but he was poor. So he took a dime, and with a punch he managed to make a hole in its center. With this as a start, he pounded it and battered it and worked at it for days until he had transformed that dime into a ring. This, he brought to me when he came to say goodbye, with tears in his eyes." The soothing voice rises, widens in volume. "And he presented me with that ring, saying, 'Mr. Bonné, this is all I have to give you to show my appreciation of your kindness to me.' You see, boys, you've recovered a most important keepsake, one I cherish with my life. This ring is not worth much, I know, but I value it because of the way it came to me. I Ie wanted me to wear the ring as long as I lived, and I always shall, even though, sad to say, that boy has since died. I le fell from a wagon and landed on his noggin. Such are the vicissitudes of fortune. Nonetheless, I can't thank you enough. Manuel," he says to the doorman. "Bring me two passes."

The doorkeeper disappears inside. "You're William Bonné?" Henry asks.

"Don't pretend you didn't know." He places both hands on Henry's little shoulders. Wide-eyed Henry looks pleadingly at Josie, who shakes his head furtively. The doorkeeper returns and hands Bonné two tickets and the latter sticks them into the belt of Henry's cap. "That will be all, Manuel."

He waits. The door closes.

Bonné looks at Henry, glances calmly at Josie, then cuts back to Henry and skewers his eyes. "You little sons of bitches. You scum." Still crouched before the boy, his powerful grip squeezes Henry's dinky shoulders, each the size of an egg. "I know what you're after, you little whores. You think I can be blackmailed? Is that what you're planning? I've had my eye on you since Fulton Street, you pups. Where was it?" he asks, his face grotesquely twisted. His eyes wobble in their sockets, his mouth has downcurved, spittle flies from his lips. He snatches the tickets from Henry's hat and tears them in half. From underneath his cloak, he produces a hunting knife. "Where was it? The Slide? Battery Park? I know—the Golden Rule. Where's your lipstick, little minx?" Bonné holds the knife before Henry's mouth, pressing the tip of the blade to his lip. And Henry can't help it; the very horizon sinks inside his body; his britches grow wet. Meanwhile, Josie's backing toward the entrance of the alley. "I wouldn't, if I were you, young man. Your little friend is in my power. Stay right where you are. Listen while you can. If I see you two again, if I ever run across you, I'll castrate the two of you. You're familiar with the word?"

The wide-eyed boys shake their little heads.

"It means cut off your balls. I've castrated beasties larger than you, I've castrated elephants. You'll be easy—your little pellets. I won't even need a knife, my teeth will do the trick." Retracting his lips, he flashes those implements, which indeed look very sharp. "Is that understood?"

H
E FOUND DELUVINA MAXWELL
and she fixed him a feast—roast chicken stuffed with pine nuts, minced meat and spices, a
morcilla
almost as good as Yginio's, stacks of tortillas, dried melons, dried plums—then he went to the
baile.
Around the oblong room groups of men lounged, all in serapes, some on chairs, some in groups. On benches, the
muchachas
peeked out from their fans, watching the dancers, and beside them the wrinkled
abuelitas
cuddled their grandchildren under black shawls. The light was faint—candles on the crossed arms of the
ara~as
hanging from the ceiling—but not so faint they couldn't see him. Children racing around or dancing by themselves stopped cold when he walked in, then the guitars, fiddle, and drum stopped, too. He watched the news of his arrival spread like a rash, saw the beauties with their fans and gaudy
enaguas
forget for a moment their various acts of painstaking coquetry, and the men leave their sweethearts and approach and crowd around him, and his heart swelled. "Juan. Domingo. José, where've you been!"

"We know where
you
been." Laughter, shaking heads.

"Where's Francisco?"

"His sheep camp."

As they talked and embraced and shared
cigarillos,
he spotted Paulita on a bench against the wall, biting her tongue—that's what it looked like. Pete sat beside her. He kept her in view while greeting old friends and answering their questions. He held forth on his escape. No, he never killed Matthews, just Olinger and Bell but he felt bad about Bell, he didn't
want
to kill Bell, the man wouldn't surrender. "You boys know I'm fair."

A chorus of
Si's.

"He wouldn't stop when I told him. He'd of raised the whole town."

Domingo Swabacker asked, "How did Olinger die?"

"Like a rat."

A red-haired boy pushed through the crowd and ran up to Billy, shouting, "El Chivato! El Chivato!" The Kid thought of Tom O'Fol-liard, also a redhead, and reached clown to muss the boy's hair then thought better of it. He looked odd, almost chinless, and he stared up at Billy with dark, sunken eyes. "Bang!" he shouted. Then a woman reached out and grabbed him by the arm, hissing, "
¡Chist!
Stay away from that man."

The men around him laughed. "You're a bad egg, Bilito."

"I'm here to steal your children. I'll rape all your daughters." They laughed again but not for long—a few simply watched him. Everyone in the dance hall was watching him, he saw, and at the door two men he didn't recognize whispered as they watched. "Who are those men?" he asked.

"Cattle inspectors," said Domingo.

The music started up again and who should walk in with a clutch of
amigas
but Celsa Gutiérrez. The Kid asked Domingo, "Where's Saval?"

"He got a sheep camp, too."

On an impulse Billy strutted up to these beauties, who squealed when they saw him and hid behind their fans. He took Celsa's hand, even though she was married—married to his friend Saval. Celsa had taken Paulita's place, everyone knew it, but she and the Kid had always met in the shadows, never on the dance floor, and she flushed, her eyes flamed, she tugged back against him while her little feet in their little
zapatitos
had a mind of their own and followed him like puppies. The dancers cleared a space. "It's El Espinado," said Celsa. Billy couldn't help it, his heart was in his mouth when, hopping to the music, she bent down and mimed picking thorns from her heels while in her flirty way, with lovely sheep's eyes, she glanced up at him and smiled. But he couldn't, like her, submit to this dance, he was too worked up, look at me, El Chivato! He leapt in the air—here I am, look at me! As he romped like a very demon from hell, as he jumped high and spun and stomped booted feet and raised storms of dust, the music followed his lead, it picked up the pace, and Celsa did, too. He swung her high and, flushed, she twirled in crazy circles, flashing her teeth, dreamy-eyed, laughing, this bird-boned woman with the high bosom, thin arms, dark eyes, and darker eyebrows—with the tightly curled hair and the silver
coquetas
and prominent cheekbones painted with red
carmin
—with the long lovely neck coated with white
abayalde.
Her silk
rebozo
luffed and billowed when she twirled. Whirlwinds of color, floating handkerchiefs and scarves. He knew that she knew that all the
muchachas
peeking out from their fans were talking about them. He could have had his pick! Celsa's laugh defied their tongues. It wasn't that long ago, back before his capture, when in quieter moments he'd shared with her his dreams about a happy, settled life and a large contented family and a hundred thousand cattle. Too bad she was married.