The Peddler (2 page)

“Golly, over a year now. About a year after the last time I saw you I got to going with an old guy and he finally put me up in his hotel. I just left my aunt’s house—you know I was livin’ with my aunt since pa married again, the crumb —and we was together about six months. I’d get these guys in a bar and take them down an alley—you know, like they were gonna get a little, they thought—and Max, that’s the guy I lived with, he’d pop them one and we’d take what they had in their wallets. I never did like it, though, and finally we busted up. Well, there I was not livin’ home no more, and no Max. So that’s it.”

“How you mean, that’s it? You just start in on the hustle, just like that?”

“No, I had to see the guy runs the houses first. Got a cab driver to fix it so I could see the guy and he put me out on Church Street to start—Church Street, ain’t that a laugh? I been in three, four houses before I come to the Fillmore place. In a hotel once, on call, but I make more this way.”

Tony grinned. “Gettin’ rich now, huh?”

“Not rich.” She frowned. “They make sure we don’t get rich and get out. But I made fifty tonight.”

“Fifty? Fifty dollars?”

“Sure. Fda made more only I don’t work only till twelve.”

“Fifty bucks. In just one night?” He’d never stopped to figure out how much the whores made in a night or a week. “Christ,” he said, “that’s doughr

“I only get half, Tony. And I got lots of things to buy out of what’s left. It’s not bad, though.” She smiled. “Better than muggin’ guys in alleys.”

Tony nodded somewhat absent-mindedly. Maria had started his brain working a little; he was thinking about aU that dough. “What you think of the racket? You like it?”

She shrugged. “It’s a job. No kicks if that’s what you mean; just put in my time.” She paused. “It’d be … different with you, Tony.”

He laughed. “You’re damn right. I wouldn’t give you no dough.”

“Oh, Tony! You got no idea what I’m talking about! Damn you—”

“Hey, I was havin’ fun, is all.” She looked and sounded angry. “Don’t bust a seam.”

They finished their minestrone and had some more of the red wine Tony had ordered with the meal. He sipped the wine and thought, a dozen ideas flashing through his quick brain. Then he asked Maria, “What about the rest of it— you said you only get half. Who gets the rest?”

“Guys that run the show, shift the girls around, pay off the cops. Cops get a lot of it, but that’s all handled by the big guys. Fellow named Sharkey’s boss of the houses, but he’s under the big guys—you know, the ones that got the books and the rest of the rackets.”

“Sharkey, huh?” Then Tony asked the question that was typical of Tony. “Who’s the Top?”

She finished her glass of wine. “I think it’s a Italian guy named Angelo, but that’s all I know about him. Never seen him, don’t know what he looks like. Never made no difference to me; I don’t even see Sharkey but once in a while.”

Angelo, thought Tony. Angelo. He’d heard that name. He sat quietly for a moment, frowning, scratched his thick thatch of wavy black hair. Suddenly it came to him. Back when he’d been about thirteen he’d known an older man— a guy about thirty or so then, named Chuck Swan, and they’d been about as friendly as two males of such dissimilar ages can get. Tony had been a hustling kid, wherever a fast buck was concerned, and Swan had used him fifteen or twenty times to do little jobs for him, especially jobs that a kid could do better than a grown-up. Tony had run errands, carried messages and packages without ever knowing the contents; he’d even pushed some queer ten-dollar bills that Swan supplied him with—for a dime a bill. Swan had taken Tony riding in his big new car, bought him a beer once in a while. He’d been mixed up in the rackets, always had a thick wad of money, and Tony liked being around the guy. Then Swan had dropped some hints that he was “moving up,” and had mentioned this Angelo. Angelo was way up there sitting on top of the rackets, and he was setting up some sort of deal for Swan. Right after that Swan had left the neighborhood and Tony had never seen him again.

Tony thought about things Swan had told him, and his references to Angelo, and asked Maria, “This Angelo guy, he’s about the biggest joe in the Frisco rackets, isn’t he?”

“I dunno. He’s pretty big, I guess.”

“He tied in with any higher-ups? You know, the national guys?”

“They got the gambling, naturally, and the dope. But the girls is what you might call independent. Angelo’s the whole thing far as Frisco is concerned—^I mean that’s as far as the girls’ money goes.”

“Must add up to dough,” Tony said thoughtfully.

She lived in an apartment building up on Pine Street, out about a mile, and as they drove down Pine where the lights were a little dimmer than downtown, Tony put his arm around Maria’s shoulder and pulled her to him. She lifted her head to look at him from inches away, and he pulled her closer, bending his face to hers.

This had to be right, he thought. She’d been slobbered on by enough drunken suckers and guys with only one thing on their minds. That wasn’t the way to act around a woman, even a woman you were paying. Tony pulled Maria close to him, and he said softly, “You won’t never get away from me again for no three years. I’m sure glad I found you again, Maria.”

She said, “Oh, Tony, so’m I.”

Then he kissed her. He kissed her softly with parted lips, gently, with no passion, no roughness, but almost with tenderness. He pulled her nearer to him, shifted in the back seat of the taxi so that their bodies were closer together, touching along more of their surfaces, and he pulled her tighter with his strong arms. His right hand caressed her shoulder, slid down her back, came to rest beneath her armpit at the swell of her breast. He kissed her carefully. And all the time his brain was coldly clicking, clicking, adding, multiplying, piling dollar upon dollar in his mind, and as if his eyes were turned inward upon his brain he saw the money growing, dollar upon dollar, pile upon pile, money, dollars, power.

Their lips parted with a soft moist sound and Maria leaned her head forward, burrowing it against his neck. “Oh, Tony, Tony,” she whispered. He could feel the rise and fall of her breasts, hear the heavy breath sigh in and out of her throat.

“Maria, honey,” he said. “Maria, baby.”

They sat quietly for a few blocks, then she moved away from him. “We’re almost there,” she said. “You comin’ up for a drink?”

“Sure.”

“I got wine, Tony, good red wine, the kind you like. And I got gin and some whiskey.”

“Swell, baby. Sounds real good.”

Tony leaned back against the cushions and sighed. After a few seconds he asked pleasantly, “Say, honey. How many girls they got in that place on Fillmore?”

Tony had a date to meet Maria at the Iron Horse on Maiden Lane about one in the morning, and he was getting cleaned up early Saturday night. He thought he’d walk around a little bit, maybe hang around the St. Francis or Union Square, have a drink or two to kill time.

He finished bathing and shaving in the bathroom, then walked back down the hall to his room. He’d run a comb through his thick black mass of wavy hair and was getting dressed in a dark blue single-breasted suit when the phone rang. It was Maria.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, honey. Who else you think’d be here?”

She laughed, then said, “Tony, I’m sorry, but I can’t meet you at one. Something’s come up.”

“The hell, I’m akeady gettin’ dressed up. What’s the matter?”

“1 got to go to a party. It’s a real good thing for me—it’s up at Sharkey’s. You know, I mentioned him, he’s one of the big fellows. I’m lucky to get to go, Tony. There’s going to be four of us girls there, and Castiglio—he’s Sharkey’s man that’s got my district—told me they wanted the prettiest girls, and I’m supposed to be one of them.” She sounded excited, a bit breathless. She paused a moment, then said, “That’s a real compliment, huh? Tony, you think I’m one of the prettiest?”

“You’re the top, baby.” Then he added, “Hell, Maria, I was lookin’ forward to seein’ you tonight. This a private party, or is there a chance I could run up after a while?”

“Look, hon, I gotta hurry. I got to get ready. About the party, it’s more an open house thing, but just for the fellows work with Sharkey. There’s Castiglio and another of the guys under him—”

“Angelo gonna be there?”

“No, just some of the guys. Castiglio tells me it’s mainly for this Senator that’s back in town.”

“A Congressman?”

“No, the state thing, what you call it?”

“Legislature?”

“Yeah. This Swan guy, Angelo’s man. He’s—” “Who? Swan what? I mean what Swan? What’s his first name?”

“I dunno. Just Swan. He’s a good friend with Angelo.” “Honey, I know the guy. He’s a pal of mine—he was. Look, I want to go to that party.” Tony’s mind was busy; this was what he’d been waiting for. He could have gone to see Sharkey, even Angelo, and asked for a spot, any kind of spot in the organization—and probably he’d have gotten nowhere. This was perfect, better than he’d hoped. But it was like any break that ever was: A guy had to help make his own.

Maria said, “I know why you want to go there. You don’t want to be with me; you want to meet those guys, Sharkey and the others.”

She did know, of course; Tony had talked to her about wanting to get in with them, but Maria hadn’t ever liked the idea. She wanted him to keep out of the racket, get in something else; she Uked things just as they were between the two of them.

Tony said, “O.K., so I want to meet Sharkey. You can fix it for me.”

“Btit I don’t even know him, hon. Please. You don’t want to come up. I’ll see you after.”

“You’re goddamn right I want to come up. Now, you fix it.”

“No, Tony.”

“O.K., baby. You can get lost. I’ll see you around.”

He stopped, but held the receiver to his ear, listening. He had to get up to Sharkey’s.

“Tony? You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Honey, I don’t know how. I don’t mean a thing to them guys.”

“You don’t have to. You go on up—^when you supposed to be there?”

“Ten o’clock. About an hour from now.”

“O.K. You’ll meet Swan there. Tell him you know Tony Romero—just talked to him. Tell him I’m dyin’ to see my old pal again. See? He can fix it easy; you tell him I want to come up there and see him. Up there.”

“Well … all right, Tony.” She sounded subdued, not as breathless and excited as she had been. “I’ll do it, but maybe it won’t make no difference.”

“That’s O.K. You just do it. And, baby, I won’t mess you up none. I want to see Swan again—and talk to Sharkey a little. I won’t get you in ditch.”

“All right, Tony. I’ll call you sometime after I get there.”

“So long, baby. You call me.”

He hung up and started walking back and forth in the small room. He smacked his big fist into his palm, brows furrowed. Hell, it couldn’t miss, not if Swan was up there. Swan! How do you like that? Swan, of all people. The least the guy could do would be to get in touch with him. And Maria had said Swan was thick with Angelo. Angelo, the Top. Goddamn! This was it, all right. He couldn’t miss now. Just that first little break was all a guy like Tony Romero needed, and this was the break. He pounded his palm again, rapidly, nervous and tense. He looked at his watch; only a few minutes past nine, over an hour till the brawl started. He had a tight, excited feeling in his chest. Maybe in a little over an hour he’d be talking to the big boys, the real ones.

At ten minutes before eleven P.M. Tony walked over to the dresser, unknotted his tie and carefully tied it again, working the big knot up between the wide wings of his collar. He looked good. The suit had set him back a bill and a quarter to have made. It set well on his heavy shoulders, tapered smoothly to his lean, flat waist and hips. The dark blue looked all right on him too, with his dark complexion. He looked like a guy that knew his way around. He went back and sat down on the bed, lit the last cigarette in his pack and puffed nervously on it as he glanced at the phone.

What the hell was wrong? He’d been sitting here for almost two hours now. If that Maria crossed him, he’d knock her silly. She didn’t know how important this was to him; or maybe she did. Maybe that guy Swan was somebody else besides the one he’d known. He couldn’t see Swan as a State Senator, anyway. That was it. He’d got himself all worked up for nothing. But Swan was the type: tall, blond, honest-looking guy, open-faced. And he had the voice for it, he remembered. He knew Angelo, though; it could be. Angelo could get damn near anybody in the goddamn legislature. Sonofabitch. He wanted a drink. A big drink. But if he went up to Sharkey’s he wanted to be sober. There’d be plenty to drink up there. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn. The hell with it. I’ll get plastered. I’ll make it another way. He stubbed out the cigarette after two deep drags, reached for the empty pack, fumbled inside it, then crumpled the pack and threw it into the corner.

The phone rang.

Tony jumped toward it, reached for it, then hesitated, let the phone ring again, a third time, before he picked up the receiver and said into the mouthpiece, “Hello.”

It wasn’t Maria. It was a man’s voice, a deep, booming, pleasant voice. It was heavier, richer now, but it was the one he remembered. “Hey, Romero? This that punk kid, Tony?”

“Yeah. Swan? That you. Swan?”

“Himself. How are you, Tony? Where the hell you been, kid?”

“In Frisco all the time, Swan. You’re doin’ all right I hear. Man, it’s sure good to hear you again, I ain’t passed no queer for years. Times is tough.”

Swan laughed. “I bet you’re doing O.K., Tony. You always were a hot one.”

“Well, not bad. You give me my start. Man, I’d sure like to see you again.”

“Look, kid. I got a blonde hanging on my tail. I’ll see you when you get up here.”

Tony’s heart thudded once, then beat normally. His mouth was dry and it seemed silly; he’d wanted to go up there more than he’d admitted even to himself. He said, “Up there? O.K. if I bust in, huh?”

“Why not? I’d like to shoot the breeze with you again, kid. You always gave me a charge. Hell, this is just a loose brawl, anyway. Well, I gotta ring off. I’ll see you.”