"Drink?" offered Jerry, motioning to a fifth of Dewar's on the dirt-encrusted windowsill. "Since we're gonna be here a while . . ."
"Yeah . . . sure, thanks," said Bobby. He fetched the bottle, poured two drinks after blowing the dust out of two promotional coffee mugs on Jerry's desk. Bobby's mug read "JayBee Seafood" with a cartoon drawing of a leaping salmon on the side. Jerry's mug had a picture of a smiling Fred Flintstone on it, and the words "Yabadaba-Doo!" in bright red block letters.
"Cheers," said Jerry. He poured his drink down in one gulp, coughed, then asked for another. Bobby poured.
"Why don't you just pay the man on time," said Bobby. "Like you said . . . you got the money. Why piss him off like this — for nothing?"
"Liquidity problems," explained Jerry, looking at the younger man like he was explaining the bond market to a pool boy or a gardener. He swept his arm through the air. "Cash flow . . . You know . . . It's ponies and pussy, pussy and ponies," he said. "And the dogs. I went the dog track down there at Hialeah? I don't have to tell you what happened," Jerry smiled weakly. "That ain't ever gonna change, Bobby . . . so why shit anybody? What? Am I gonna tell you it ain't never gonna happen again? C'mon!"
It you say so . . .
"I get to pick the arm?"
"Sure," said Bobby. "Your choice. You pick it."
"I hope I pick better than I pick winners."
"Yeah . . . no shit."
"The left. I think. Yeah - the left," said Jerry. "I'm a lefty, but" — he lowered his voice — "I jerk off with my right."
"Too much information, Jerry. I didn't need to know that."
"What - I'm too old to jerk off? I need that arm! First things fucking first!"
"Whatever you say."
"How long . . . how long you think before I can use it again?"
"Three weeks in a cast," said Bobby, talking about something he knew for sure. "Four weeks tops. And the new casts they're making these days — they're much more lightweight. You'll be able to get around with it sooner."
"Fabulous," said Jerry.
They were both quiet for a while, Bobby sipping his Scotch, gazing idly out the window into Jay Bee's rear alleyway, listening to the rain pelt the thick panes of alarmed glass and the distant whine from the compressors. The Rottweiler, awake now, poked his head into the room, a filthy squeaky toy between his massive jaws. Seeing no one interested in playing with him, the big dog turned and left, the toy making hiccuping sounds.
"What's the dog's name?" asked Bobby.
"Schtarker," said Jerry, uninterested. "That's Yiddish, if you didn't know. People used to say that about you."
Bobby let that go — consulted his watch.
"Few more minutes and I'll be ready, okay?" said Jerry. "I'm startin' to feel them pills."
"No problem," said Bobby. "I don't have to be at the club for a while. I've got time."
"How's that working out for you?"
"Good," said Bobby. "It's going good . . . I'm head of security now."
"Nice for you."
"Yeah . . . It's okay."
"You ever get anybody there I'd like? You know . . . somebody . . . somebody I could take Rose to see? She loves Neil Diamond. You ever get Neil Diamond there?"
"No . . ." said Bobby. "We had . . . let's see . . . we had . . . Lena Home once . . . we had Vic Damone and Jerry Vale. We had him."
"Yeah? . . . Good?"
"Yeah . . . they were good. You know . . . Not my kind of music, but good."
"Bobby . . . If you ever get anybody there . . . you know . . . that Rose would like . . . I'd appreciate it. If you could get us in. She'd love that. If I actually took her out sometime. They got the dinner and the dancing and everything over there, right?"
"Yeah . . . the whole deal. And the food's not bad."
"Lamb chops? I like a good lamb chop."
"Yeah . . . we got that."
"Beautiful!"
"I'll put you on the list anytime you want to bring her," said Bobby.
"Eddie . . . He ain't gonna mind?"
"As long as you fucking pay on time, Jerry, he won't give a shit. You can do the fucking hokeypokey on the table — he won't care — he's never there anyway. Just call me when you want to come."
"Thanks . . . I appreciate that."
"So," said Bobby. "You ready?"
"Shit," said Jerry, exhaling loudly.
"Take off your glasses, Jer' . . ."
"You gotta do that?"
"Do what?"
"The face . . . You gotta do the face?"
Jerry . . .
"I dunno . . . I thought . . . maybe just the arm would be enough . . ."
"Jerry . . ." repeated Bobby, standing up.
"Awright . . . awright . . . Jesus Fuck . . . Lemme get a tissue at least."
"I brought a handkerchief," said Bobby, reaching again into his jacket, this time for a neatly folded cotton square. "Here. Keep it."
"Always prepared," muttered Jerry, sourly. He removed his glasses and put them carefully on the desk. "They teach you that in the Boy Scouts? What did you used to have to say? 'A Boy Scout is . .. trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, courteous, kind, clean and —'"
Bobby hit him across the nose with the back of his hand. Quickly. It was a sharp, precise blow that knocked Jerry into his chair-back.
"Shit!" said Jerry, honking a red streak onto his shirt front, then covering his face with the handkerchief. He rocked silently in his chair for a moment while Bobby looked around the room for a fat enough book to finish with.
"Get it over with!" hissed Jerry. "Do it now .. . while I'm distracted!" He rolled up his shirt sleeve.
Bobby found what he was looking for — a thick, hardback copy of Molluscs and Bivalves of the North Atlantic, and quickly placed the book in front of Jerry on the desk. Jerry knew the drill. He compliantly laid his thin, blue-veined arm against the spine so that the hand was raised, then closed his eyes. "Do it!" he said.
When Bobby brought his fist down on Jerry's radial ulna — the thinner of the two bones between wrist and elbow — there was a muffled snap, like a bottle breaking beneath a pillow.
"Ohhh . . . " moaned Jerry, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes.
"Oh . . . Bobby . . . that hurt. Fuck me . . . it hurts . . ."
"It's over now, Jerry," said Bobby. He wanted to comfort the old man now - wished he could put his arms around his shoulders — even kiss him on the cheek like he'd had to as a child.
"It hurts," said Jerry. "It hurts worse than I remembered." Bobby went out and found a clean apron on top of a locker. When he got back, Jerry was still rocking back and forth, the injured limb held close to his body, his eyes still closed.
"C'mon, Jerry. Here we go," said Bobby. He fashioned a serviceable sling out of the apron, helped the old man's arm into it, then primly adjusted it around his neck.
"Motherfuck!!" said Jerry, through clenched teeth. "It's hot. It feels hot . . . and it hurts . . ."
"Hey . . . It's over," was all Bobby could think of to say.
"Yeah . . . thanks," said Jerry. "Thanks for breaking my arm." A thin dribble of blood ran from one nostril, collecting on his lip. The whites of his eyes were turning red — as intended. Bobby felt the urge to lean over and blot the nose with a tissue, but resisted.
"It could have been those kids from Arthur Avenue, Jerry," said Bobby, lamely.
"Yeah . . . you're right. He coulda sent the kids," said Jerry, bitterly. "I love this! Like I'm supposed to be grateful? You broke my fucking arm!!"
"What hospital you want to go to? I can drop you at St. Vincent's, you want."
"Fuck you, Bobby. I'll walk over to Roosevelt."
"St. Vincent's is better . . . You won't have so much of a wait, Jerry. It's cleaner. C'mon . . . I'll take you in a cab . . ."
"Get the fuck outta here Bobby, okay?"
"It's raining, Jerry . . ."
"I know it's fucking raining, Bobby Gold .
. . Stop it, already . . . You did what you hadda do. Now get the fuck outta here and leave me alone."
"I'm sorry, Jerry. It's my job. This is what I do . . ."
Jerry looked up at him with sudden and unexpected clarity. "I know . . ." he said. "That's what's fucked up about you, Bobby. You are sorry. You got no fucking heart for this shit — but you do it anyway, don't you?" He turned his face away, as if looking at Bobby disgusted him. "What the fuck happened to you, for fuck's sake? Nice Jewish boy . . . educated . . . and you're beatin' on old men — your uncle . . . your own mother's brother, for a fuckin' living. Some fuckin' life you got, Bobby . . ." His voice cracked, barely audible. "Little Bobby Goldstein, all grown up. Your father — he must be very proud . . ."
Bobby flinched. "Fuck you, Jerry . . . I wouldn't have to do this shit — you paid your debts on time. Don't start talking about family — the way you live - all right?"
"Awright . . . I'm sorry," said Jerry. "I'm sorry . . . I shouldn't have said that . .." He looked out the window, voice steadier now, and sadder. "Who am I to judge a person?"
It was coming down hard on 9th Avenue when Bobby and Jerry emerged from JayBee Seafood. The old man was looking drugged and dreamy now, his eyes pinned from the Demerol, mouth slack at the corners.
"Let me get you a cab," offered Bobby for the last time, signaling with his hand.
Jerry waved him away. "You take it. I'm not fucking helpless here, Bobby. I can take care of myself. I was having guys busted up worse than this when I was half your age — those two guinea cocksuckers he sent the last time? Next week, the very next week — from my hospital bed — I call Eddie and have him send those two down to see some other schmuck owes me money — so I ain't gonna curl up and die cause I gotta stand up for another ass-kicking, all right? Now get lost, you little pisher . . . tell that midget gonniff cocksucker you work for he can send somebody over tomorrow to pick up the money. Now leave me alone . . ."
When Bobby left him, standing hatless and coatless in the rain, looking up 9th Avenue toward Roosevelt Hospital, the old man was weeping. Bobby saw him holding the handkerchief to his nose as his cab pulled away from the curb. He watched him through the raindrop patterns of the cab window as Jerry slowly started to walk, one foot in front of the other, shoulders hunched protectively over the broken arm, growing smaller in the distance.
BOBBY THE DIPLOMAT
Bobby Gold in work clothes — black sport jacket, black button-down dress shirt, skinny black tie, black chinos and comfortable black shoes — pushed open the double doors onto the mezzanine level of NiteKlub. Below, on the dance floor, heads were bobbing in the smoke and the strobes, the heavy bass tones from the half-million-dollar sound system vibrating through the concrete. Fifty feet away, on his left, the mezzanine bar was doing big business, stacked three-deep with customers. He saw Del, the mezz security man, hurrying toward him.
"Bobby! This is outta control! Have you seen this?"
Bobby looked around, saw, as his eyes adjusted to the light, what was happening.
They were kids. The whole fucking crowd. Not one of the customers clamoring for drinks over the upstairs bar looked to be over seventeen. They were everywhere: chunky girls with teased hair wearing camisoles, skinny boys with baggy jeans and sneakers that glowed in the dark — teenagers, shirtless, dressed up, dressed down, in makeup, wearing wigs, sunglasses, drag, full nightclub battledress — and they were running wild. In pairs, in packs, eyes lit with X, with booze, with animal tranquilizers, ketamine, Mom's pilfered Valiums, ephedrine, mushrooms and God knows what else. Every one of these little bastards was a potentially ticking time bomb. At the small bar, they signaled noisily for Long Island Iced Teas, Kamikazes, tequila shooters, Lite beers and rum and cokes. Bobby could scarcely believe it.
"You gotta do something about this," said Del, in despair. "And look . . ." he added, "check this out." He drew Bobby over to the booths running along the mezzanine wall and yanked back a curtain to reveal a short blond girl, legs in the air on the middle of a dinner table, her drunken boyfriend in a warm-up jacket grunting over her, his pants down around his ankles. Another boy sat slumped in a chair by her head, unconscious, his mouth open, snoring. The girl looked right up at Bobby with uninflected, porcine little eyes. She was chewing gum.
"They're going at it everywhere," said Del, disgustedly. "I found two in the air-conditioning room before. More in the dry goods area. They're fucking all over the place like little bunnies. Can you believe this shit?"
A young girl in a brassiere and blue jeans hurried past them, fell to her knees and vomited into the base of a potted palm. "Remind me to never have kids," said Del.
"You have kids, don't you?" said Bobby, reaching for his radio.
"Yeah . . . well, remind me to not let them grow any more."
Bobby trotted to the lobby, calling into his radio for Tiny Lopez on the street security detail.
"Tiny! . . . What's your twenty?"
"I ousside, man. Whassup?" said Tiny, a three-hundred-eighty-pounder whom Bobby had placed out front for crowd control.
"We're shutting it down. Tell the friskers. I'll let them know at the desk," said Bobby. He squeezed past a long line of kids who were ascending the main staircase, signaled the downstairs bartenders that something was up, drawing a finger across his throat to give them the sign to stop serving. The lobby was packed. It took him two solid minutes to make it the last few yards to the front desk, where Frank, a silver-haired charity-case pal of Eddie's, was stamping hands, standing next to two young promoters in shiny sharkskin suits. Bobby shouted to the security men at the door to close it down, alerted Tiny to what was going on over the radio, and had the two friskers move together to block off access at the choke point.
"Shut the doors," he said, "Nobody gets in."
One of the promoters was in green sharkskin, the other, orange. Green sharkskin looked up. "What the fuck, man?" he said. "What are you doing?"
Bobby pushed through the crowd of bodies until he towered over him.
"That's it. Show's over," he said. "I'm shutting it down."
"What?" exclaimed orange suit.
"You heard me," said Bobby, struggling to keep his voice under control. "Frankie," he said, "who's been carding these people?"
Frank nodded at the two promoters, neither of whom looked to be of age themselves. "Eddie said they was in charge of the door. They . . . they said that Eddie said it was okay."
"What the fuck you think you're doing here?" Bobby demanded of green suit — clearly the alpha male of the two. He saw right away that the kid was going to get up in his face. Orange suit moved closer, shoulders back, trying to look bigger than he was. Bobby outweighed both of them together.
"Whass goin' on?" said orange suit in a whiny voice. "Why we stopping?"
"You costin' us money, bro'," protested green suit.
Bobby slapped him across the face and he fell against the wall like a stunned trout. He grabbed a fistful of sharkskin with his right hand and a fistful of sharkskin with his left and dragged the two promoters into the cloakroom where it was a little quieter, pushed them both up against the coat racks.
"What kind of fuckin' jerks am I talkin' to here?" he demanded.
"What the fuck you talkin' about?" said green suit. Orange suit was too shaken to talk.
"Eddie said — "
Bobby slapped him again.
"Let me explain something to you, asshole," said Bobby, speaking softly.
"This is a business. What do you think's gonna happen — one a these girls you letting in here goes home late, drunk outta her mind, her parents find her puking all over the doorstep with jiz all over her dress?"
"We're straight with Eddie, man. This is our event!" ventured orange suit, finding a little courage.
"Yeah? You know what I think Eddie said?" said Bobby. "I think he said that you two morons promote the event. That's what I think he said. I think he said that you two do the advertising. That you get the door and we
get the bar. That's what I think he said. I don't think he told you two shit stains to let every fifteen-year-old in the five boroughs in the door without carding them. I don't think he asked you twerps to get his liquor license pulled for him!"
"He's gettin' fifteen percent a the door!" howled green suit. "This is costing us money, bro'!"
"Listen carefully," said Bobby. "And watch my hands. Because if I want any more shit outta you, I'm gonna squeeze your fucking head . . . Nobody else is getting in this place until everybody in the club has been carded and checked and all the minors are out of here. You two are half smart? You'll step outside yourselves and make the announcement that everyone is expected to produce valid ID. Not those knock-offs you can buy a few blocks over. We're talking driver's license, passport, photo fucking ID, got it? I'm having my people go through this club to check everyone who's already here. Anyone under twenty-one is out. The sooner we get that done, the sooner we can all go back to making money. Is that understood?"
The two promoters looked at their shoes, humiliated.
"I want to talk to Eddie," said green suit.
"You want to talk to Eddie?" said Bobby, incredulous. "Here," he said, offering green suit his cell phone. "I'll give you the number. You can call him right now. Interrupt the man's business and explain to him why he's gonna get sued when one of these underage teeny-boppers plows Daddy's Lexus into a bus load a fucking nuns. You want to explain that? Tell him not to worry? That you got it under control? That you definitely ain't gonna put his business in jeopardy, get his license yanked? That he can count on you two to make sure he doesn't wake up tomorrow and see his fucking picture on the cover of the Post? . . . Here!" Bobby said, shoving the cell phone under green suit's nose. "C'mon, tough guy. Call him."
"Fuck it, man," said orange suit.
Green suit just glared at him while Bobby continued holding the phone under his nose. When he finally averted his gaze, Bobby turned his back and walked away, giving instructions into the radio.
After calling in additional security from the exits, Bobby put together a flying squad to move about the club, checking ID and escorting those without to the doors. He moved about the club, overseeing the operation - and everywhere he went there was trouble. Outside the Blue Room, he saw his man Rick holding a struggling youth in a full nelson. Rick had a red welt over his right eye, and was having a hard time controlling the kid without hitting him. A teenage girl was crying on a banquette while her boyfriend was being subdued. A bottle was thrown, and another security man rushed towards the source.