“Is this my lucky day or not and how much is it gonna cost me?” Billy Boy said to the next fortune-teller, a black one. She had her storefront between Eighth and Ninth, on forty-something street, right near the first, both of them right near the bus station. That was just one of the great things about stations, all the fortune-tellers. When you were at a station you weren’t home and when you weren’t home you weren’t safe and when you weren’t safe, that was when a fortune-teller really came in handy. A good one. And this black lady looked good. Sometimes the black ones knew.
“Not a penny. Come sit.”
Billy Boy squinted at her. “How do you pay your rent then if you don’t charge nothing?”
“Come sit.”
Billy Boy looked around. Same storefront setup as before. A corridor leading back. The TV on. Now here came three little black kids, peeking out “Okay,” he said finally, taking the chair across from her, holding out his hands palms up. “But don’t try bullshitting me about how Fm crying on the inside or my wife really loves me or I’ll have a Merry Christmas. Is today a lucky day? Period. Yes or no?”
“Do you sleep?”
“Huh?”
“At night. Do you sleep?”
“ ‘Course.”
“Well, not me. I sit up all night in my trances. That’s when my candlevision comes.”
“Your what comes?”
“And when I said no money, I meant no money. I don’t want nothing from you till you can’t stand but to give it to me. Till you are desperate to hand it over. Till you are so grateful you got to slip me bread or you’ll die of a guilty conscience. Then you pay me all you want. I got no limits then. You get me?”
Billy Boy didn’t.
“I don’t take nothing in advance, that’s all Fm different from a lot of these honkys and Spies—there’s a lot of phonies in this town, believe me.”
Billy Boy did.
“Now you wanna know about a lucky day. Sheeeat. That’s nothin’ to wanna know. With candlevision, I can tell you a lucky hour. I can pin down the lucky goddam minute. And it costs spit. All the risk is mine. You interested? ‘Cause if you are, fine, we set to it, if you’re not, good-bye, there’s others need me.”
“I need you,” Billy Boy said. “What do I have to do?”
“Sleep. Sleep and dream. Sleep and dream and leave the rest to me. ‘Cause while you’re sleeping, you’re not alone.”
“No?”
“One of my vision candles will be right alongside you. Nineteen vision candies are what you’ll take away from here. One for nineteen nights. Nineteen is a special number for me. Each candle burns the night and while you sleep, I have my visions. And you come back each day and ask me anything and I’ll tell you what the visions told me. And after nineteen days, if you want to give me a diamond bracelet, Fll let you. A fur, Fll let you. You want to come up here in a limousine and sign it over to me, I’ll let you, because III have earned it. You will have found the right woman to make you happy. You will have found the right job to make you rich. And best of all, you will have found a person—me—who will take away all your troubles forever.” She reached down into the table beside her chair and took out a bundle of long candles with strange symbols painted on them. “Nineteen for you,” she said, indicating the candles. “And twenty-nine for me.”
Billy Boy reached out for the candles gently, so as not to damage them.
“And twenty-nine for me,” the black lady said, holding out her hand now. “I import these fuckers from Tibet. Them’s hand-painted magic symbols on each one. You know what magic paint costs nowadays?”
“I’m supposed to pay you twenty-nine dollars?” Billy Boy said. “Why not a hundred?”
“ ‘Cause fifty ain’t a special number for me and twenty-nine is.”
Billy Boy was starting to get angry now.
“Don’t you lookit me like that—I’ll tell you how bad a day this is for you, you look at me like that—-”
“—you don’t know for sure,” Billy Boy said, but he was up now, backing for the door.
She closed her eyes and started shouting: “Today is shit for you —today is worse than shit, today is pain for yot’—”
Billy Boy ran out into the street, his hands over his ears. He knocked over a couple of people on his way back to Eighth Avenue. It was cold now. It was cold and after three and starting to get dark. And—and—te still didn’t know!
The third place was differmt—different and better, he could tell that right away. Just off Ninth Avenue, directly behind the bus staticm. There were no kids hanging around. Just a dog. A gigantic Seeing Eye shepherd. And the lady was white, and old, and pale, and blind. “Is this my lucky day?” Billy Boy said quietly.
The shepherd growled.
“Shhhhhh,” the ancient voice whispered.
“It’s important,” Billy Boy said. “Ten dollars is my limit and Pm in a hurry.”
She gestured for him to Sit alongside her on the tattered couch. Billy Boy did as he was told until the shepherd growled again, louder, and got up—it was a big mother and now the growl was worse and you could see the jagged teeth.
The old woman held out her hand and instantly the dog quieted. She made another gesture and it quickly lay down at her feet. Billy Boy sat then, and she reached for his right hand, took it, held it tight, then loose, then tight again. Finally she ran the tips of her fingers over his rough palm. “You have done many bad things in your life,” came the whisper now. She wore thick black glasses and her head was always tilted slightly left. “You have hurt many people with these hands, so why do you deserve luck?”
“Because I done many good things too.”
“Not a strong enough reason. But I’ll tell you what is. You deserve luck because you are special”
“I only got ten dollars, don’t bullshit me and try for more, there ain’t more.”
“I can prove you are special. You know things. The future sometimes, don’t deny it. Sometimes the past. You’ve been here before, don’t deny it.”
“I don’t like to talk about that.”
“We must. Because I’m special. I sense a great deal. But my dog. My beast. He senses most. Did you hear him growl when you came in? Did you hear him growl louder when you came near? He doesn’t growl, my beast. He is trained to silence. Except when the special ones come near. The ones who can sense things. Who can tell the future and the past.”
“I said already I don’t like talking about that. People don’t understand. They think you’re crazy.”
“They think I’m crazy too. I know this is a lucky day for you. Money will come to you today. More money than you hope for. That is in the future and I can tell that. I traveled across the country once in a covered wagon. I was raped and scalped by two Apache braves. That was in the past and I can tell that too. Were you ever in a covered wagon?”
Billy Boy hesitated. “No,” he said finally.
“But you admit you are special?”
Billy Boy hesitated again. He Wanted so to talk about it, but sometimes when you did, they laughed at you.
“I won’t laugh,” the blind one said.
“I gotta get to a store,” Billy Boy said.
“What do I call you?—I don’t want your name, but I have to call you something. You can call me ‘Duchess.’”
“Were you one once?”
The ancient blind face, made a smile. “No. But I always wanted to be.”
“Billy Boy.” He stood then, headed for the door. . “You can pay me the ten when you come back later.”
“Hqw do you know I’m coming back later?”
From the giant shepherd now, a deep growl. The blind one reached down, stroked its fur. “We know many things, don’t we, Beast?”
Again, from far inside the throat, the growl…
It was getting really cold when he hit the streets again, leaving the blind woman’s place, turning one time, seeing her sitting there behind those glasses, stroking the giant dog.
; Billy Boy pulled his raincoat tight around him and began to walk, stopping only once, to ask where this Bloomingdale’s was and how long a walk were we talking about. He had money in his pocket. It was cold and he could have cabbed. But the thought never crossed his mind. No reason for it to.
He was good at streets.
And sure, he’d never navigated any with this kind of population, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. He felt at home on streets. He wasn’t much at memory, but he could tell you all the shops on a block after he’d walked it once. He could do that when he wasn’t even trying to remember. He understood somehow the way each street had its own style, its own rhythm. And he could change his pace to fit. It was not possible, of course, for someone who looked the way Billy Boy looked to be unnoticeable. But all things considered, he came as close as anyone could.
They were selling all kinds of crap along the sidewalks on Broadway. Billy Boy bought a cap, black, mid wool, and he pulled it down so his ears were covered. As he adjusted it, he looked around at Times Square. What a place. You wanted something, you could sure find it in Times Square. A black whore with good legs, a Chink one with tits—surprise—a blond one with a pretty face. He couldn’t believe it. Pretty. White. Really blond. Doing it for money. What a place.
“Who’s smokin’? Who’s smokin’?” A little old guy scurried by. He held a bunch of joints in his hand. Billy Boy watched him and he was glad he did, because the next thing that happened was the guy with the joints bumped into a cop for Chrissakes, and never once quit with his spiel. “Who’s smokin’? Who’s smokin’—Sorry Mac—Who’s smokin’?”
Billy Boy started walking again. What a place, Times Square. If you had the bread, you couldn’t get closer to heaven.
He was gonna have the bread. Soon. More than he hoped for. The Duchess had told him. Three four hundred maybe? Blow half on clothes, then quick back here to ball his brains out, grass, booze, sleep. And the same tomorrow only tomorrow would be even better because tomorrow he’d wake up here, right in the center of the world,, Newwwwww Yawwwwwwwwwk.
He crossed over on 47th and the Jews made him nervous at first, till he realized from the storefronts this was the diamond market. Everything bought and sold. Top dollar for top quality. Jewels, watches, furs. There were signs all over. Too bad, but he wasn’t anticipating being able to do business with these guys. Wouldn’t that be something though, haggling with some old kike about how much was this mink worth and outlasting him, heating him, making him pay more than he wanted.
Now he walked up Fifth Avenue, his walk properly somber. All the stores. All the fancy windows. You had to be some kind of rich to do your shopping on Fifth Avenue.
On 58th, the stores stopped so he headed east again and at Lex, caught Ms first tight of Bloomingdale’s. It was the whole effing block, like Field’s in Chicago. Billy Boy walked around the place twice, getting the feel, getting the fed. Then he walked the blocks around the stores, getting the feel, looking for his spot.
He passed Hero’s and checked their merchandise, pleased with what he saw. Always smart to have something to do in the area after you’ve pulled a job. All the cops think you run after a job, Only the dumb ones do. If you wore smart, smart like Billy Boy, you lingered.
Now it must have been well after four and he needed to land. Fifty-ninth between Third and Lexington felt right. Close to dark now, but more than that—
—to hell with “more than that”—59th and Lexington was right because he sensed it was right, period.
Lots of small building. Up ahead was one with dark stairs leading down. A delivery entrance kind of. It had a gate across it, but the gate was in rotten shape, and Billy Boy moved next to it, tested it
He could rip it open easy. So he did.
Now all he had to do was wait for the flow to be right. Everyone talks about traffic flow, about how there will be a bunch of cars, then fewer, then none, then a bunch again. Well, people flowed like that too. If you were patient, there were times when there was, for a moment, no one going by.
Well, Billy Boy was patient. Not in life. Not most of the time at all. He was the reverse most of the time. But on the streets, he was patient. When he had to be. He had to be now. It didn’t bother him at all, the waiting.
He was good at streets.
Good at streets, good at waiting, good at making his hand a fist, his arm a club, it was amazing they ever caught him. No, not amazing. It only happened when he worked on an unlucky day and shit, anybody could catch him then, a kid could catch him then, a goddam little baby could—
—except this wasn’t like that, not just because of what the Duchess said, he had more proof than that because here, right here right now the street was in a silent time and here she came, a woman alone, in a navy blue coat, not paying attention to where she was going, no, she was looking at something, a piece of paper, a list maybe, and… and …
And he let her go by. He could have grabbed her with the one hand, clubbed her with the other, but he let her go by. For no reason except she just looked so goddam happy about something and when you were lucky, like he was, you could be nice, you could afford to be, and this one in the dark blue coat, the one he let go on account of her smile, why spoil her day?
He waited.
The flow was heavy all of a sudden so he took a step farther down the dark cement stairs beside the building. He pulled his black wool cap snug. He could have followed the stairs to the bottom, made a stab at forcing the service door or whatever was supposed to keep people out. The street gate was shit, probably the service door was the same. He could have been inside fast, and then shouldered open a couple apartment doors, or knocked and said he was the asshole delivery man or something else like he used to do when he was a kid.
But inside was not a place for him anymore. Inside meant hallways and people shouting or bimbos with guns just in case.
Billy Boy didn’t like inside work. He never understood people who did. Why take risks like that when there wasn’t a city in the world that didn’t have streets and there wasn’t a street in the world that didn’t get dark and when you were on a street in the dark-correction—when he was on a street in the dark, and his luck was running good, he was gold, he was king, he was Lombardi’s Packers driving for a pressure touchdown, no way to stop the score, and Billy Boy had his score before she had a shot at even blinking, one second she was just this slob with a shopping bag ambling along the suddenly quiet street, the next she was struggling as he dragged her down the stairs, his left hand over her mouth his right arm clubbing down and then she wasn’t struggling anymore and as she went unconscious, Billy Boy heard something that shocked him, the sound of broken glass—
—broken glass? Falling from between her now limp legs?—a lampshade was it? He couldn’t see enough in the darkness to tell for sure, but son of a bitch shit he didn’t have to see to know that what he’d done, what he’d gotten for his first time out in the Apple, on what was supposed to be a lucky day—what he had in his arms was a nothing, a lump, a fucking no-good bag lady, a shoplifter who stole garbage, who stole lampshades and—
—and now other crap was tumbling to the dark steps, more garbage, sure, that was all—mid the Duchess said he’d be lucky! —well, she’d pay, she’d pay—
—it was crystal.
Not a lampshade. Billy Boy bent down and stared at the shattered remnants of the cut-glass crystal dish stolen from Blooming-dale’s. And lying beside the crystal pieces was one of those watches with the numbers and another watch of gold and a thinner gold watch, a woman’s watch, and gold bracelets and gold necklaces and this was no bag lady of a shoplifter, no, this was the queen of them all, and Billy Boy ripped open her purse and there were more gold bracelets in there and cash, cash, in twenties and fifties and “Police!” this woman was shouting, not the one he’d clubbed but a new one standing at the top of the stairs with reddish hair and a blue coat and screaming again and again “Police! Police, somebody please get the police now!” and God knows h
ow long she’d have gone on if Billy Boy hadn’t gotten one hand to her arm, yanked her into the darkness, made his fist, made his club and smash, smash once in the face, once in the temple to make sure and he could hear things tearing inside her, he’d given good shots and right where he wanted—
-—but she wouldn’t shut up.
“… helllppppp…” she went, soft, but loud enough if someone was passing by and again, “… helpppppp…” so he made the biggest fist he ever made and raised his club higher than ever before and with all his weight balanced perfect he crashed home against the side of her neck and that knocked the “helllppppps…” out of her good, and quickly he grabbed the cash and the watches and the gold, all the gold, and then he moved up the stairs, stepping over the queen of the shoplifters who was starting soft to moan, stepping over the other one too, but then he came to a quick halt because she was at a crazy angle, this one, her head was lying at an almost scary angle, and for just a second it crossed his mind she might be dead, and if somehow this one here with the reddish hair and the dark coat, if somehow her time had come, well, it wasn’t his fault, you couldn’t blame Billy Boy, no way, no way, because what was the line that funny nigger guy said, “I didn’t do it, it wasn’t me, the devil made me buy this dress,” well, it was the same here, New York made him nervous, he didn’t know how things worked in New York, how hard to hit and it was New York that made him hit so hard, New York was the devil, his devil anyway…