gone to see him at the Warwick. Mickey and the Bull went way back, all the way to the third grade at Saint Stephen's Parochial School, at Tenth and Butler Streets where Roosevelt Boulevard turns into the Northeast Extension. So far back that he still called the Bull 'Casimir' and the Bull called him ' Michael.'
Sister Mary Magdalene, principal of Saint Stephen's, had had this thing about nicknames. Your name was what they had given you when you were baptized, and since baptism was a sacrament, sacred before God, you used that name, not one you had made up yourself. Sister Mary Magdalene had enforced her theologic views among her charges with her eighteen-inch, steel-reinforced ruler, which she had carried around with her, and used either like a cattle prod, jabbing it in young sinners' ribs, or like a riding crop, cracked smartly across young bottoms.
Casimir Bolinski had gone on to graduate from West Catholic High School, largely because when Monsignor Dooley had caught Michael J. O' Hara with a pocketful of Frankie the Gut Guttermo's numbers slips, Mickey had refused to name his accomplice in that illegal and immoral enterprise.
Casimir Bolinski had gone on to Notre Dame, where he was an ailAmerican tackle, and then on to a sixteen- year career with the Green Bay Packers. His professional football career ended only when the chief of orthopedic surgical services at the University of Illinois Medical College informed Mrs. Bolinski that unless she could dissuade her husband from returning to the gridiron she should start looking for a wheelchair in which she could roll him around for the rest of his life.
It was then, shortly after Bull Bolinski's tearful farewell-toprofessional-football news conference, that his secret, carefully kept from his teammates, coaches and the management of the Green Bay Packers came out. Bull Bolinski was also Casimir J. Bolinski, D. Juris (Cum Laude), the University of Southern California, admitted to the California, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York bars, and admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
He had not, as was popularly believed, spent his off seasons on the West Coast drinking beer on the beach and making babies with Mrs. Bolinski. And neither was Mrs. Antoinette Bolinski quite what most people on the Packers thought her to be, that is just a pretty, good li'l old broad with a spectacular set of knockers who kept the Bull on a pretty short leash.
Mrs. Bolinski had been a schoolteacher when she met her husband. She had been somewhat reluctantly escorting a group of sixth-graders on a field trip to watch the Packers in spring training. She held the view at the time that professional football was sort of a reincarnation of the Roman games, a blood sport with few if any redeeming societal benefits.
The first time she saw Casimir, he had tackled a fellow player with such skill and enthusiasm that there were three people kneeling over the ball carrier, trying to restore him to consciousness and feeling for broken bones. Casimir, who had taken off his helmet, was standing there, chewing what she later learned was Old Mule rough cut mentholated chewing tobacco, watching.
Antoinette had never before in her entire (twenty-three-year) life seen such tender compassion in a man's eyes, or experienced an emotional reaction such as that she felt when Casimir glanced over at her, spat, smiled shyly, winked, and said, 'Hiya, honey!'
By the time, two months later, Mr. and Mrs. Casimir Bolinski returned from their three-day honeymoon in the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago, she had him off Old Mule rough cut mentholated chewing tobacco and onto mint Life Savers, and already thinking about his-now theirfuture, which, pre-Antoinette, had been a vague notion that when he couldn't play anymore, he would get a job as a coach or maybe get a bar and grill or something.
Two days after the management of the Green Bay Packers had stood before the lights of the television cameras of all three networks and given Bull Bolinski a solid gold Rolex diver's watch, a set of golf clubs, a Buick convertible and announced that the number he had worn so proudly on his jersey for sixteen years would be retired, they received a letter on the engraved crisp bond stationery of Heidenheimer amp; Bolinski, Counselors At Law, advising them that the firm now represented Messrs. J. Stanley Wozniski; Franklin D. R. Marshall; and Ezra J. Houghton, and would do so in the upcoming renegotiation of the contracts for their professional services, and to please communicate in the future directly with Mr. Bolinski in any and all matters thereto pertaining.
This was shortly followed by that legendary television interview with linebacker F. D. R. Marshall and quarterback E. J. Houghton, during which Mr. Marshall had said, 'If thebleep ing Packers don't want to deal with the Bull, so far's I'm concerned, they can shove thatbleep ing football up theirbleep,' only to be chastised by Mr. Houghton, who said, 'Shut up, FDR, you can't talk dirty like that on thebleep ing TV.'
So Mickey O'Hara was aware from the very beginning that the Bull had not only succeeded in getting a fair deal for his former teammates from the Packers, but had also, within a matter of a couple of years, become the most successful sports agent in the business, and grown rich in the process.
But it wasn't until the Bull had come to town and Mickey had picked him up at the Warwick and they had driven into South Philadelphia for some real homemade Italian sausage and some really good lasagna that he even dreamed that it could have anything to do, however remotely, with him.
'Turn the fucking air conditioner on, Michael, why don't you?' the Bull said to Mickey when they were no more than fifty yards from the Warwick.
'It's broke,' Mickey had replied.
'What are you riding around in this piece of shit for anyway?' The Bull then looked around the car and warmed to the subject. 'Jesus, this is really a goddamned junker, Michael.'
'Fuck you, Casimir. It's reliable. And it's paid for.'
'You always were a cheapskate,' the Bull said. 'Life ain't no rehearsal, Michael. Go buy yourself some decent wheels. You can afford it, for Christ's sake. You ain't even married.'
'Huh!' Mickey snorted. 'That's what you think.'
'Whatdo they pay you, Michael?'
Mickey told him and the Bull laughed and said, 'Bullshit,' and Mickey said, 'That's it. No crap, Casimir.'
'I'll be goddamned, you mean it,' the Bull had said, genuinely surprised. Then he grew angry: 'Why those cheap sonsofbitches!'
Three days later, the publisher of theBulletin had received a letter on Heidenheimer amp; Bolinski stationery stating that since preliminary negotiations had failed to reach agreement on a satisfactory interim compensation schedule for Mr. Michael J. O'Hara's professional services, to be in effect while a final contract could be agreed upon between the parties, Mr. O'Hara was forced, effective immediately, to withhold his professional services.
When Mickey heard that what the Bull meant by 'interim compensation schedule' was $750 a week, plus all reasonable and necessary expenses, he began to suspect that, despite the Bull's reputation in dealing with professional sports management, he didn't know his ass from second base vis-a-vis the newspaper business. Mickey had been getting $312.50 a week, plus a dime a mile for the use of his car.
'Trust me, Michael,' the Bull had said. 'I know what I'm doing.'
That was damned near a month ago, and there hadn't been a peep from theBulletin in all that time.
The good-looking dame, from last night, her hair now done up in sort of a bun, was behind the marble reception desk in the lobby of the Bellevue-Stratford.
What the hell is that all about? How many hours do these bastards make her work, for Christ's sake?
This time there was no line, and she saw Mickey walking across the lobby, and Mickey smiled at her, and she smiled back.
'Good morning, Mr. O'Hara,' she said.
'Mickey, please.'
'Mr. and Mrs. Bolinski are in the house, Mr. O'Hara. If you'll just pick up a house phone, the operator will connect you.'
'If I wanted to talk to him on the telephone,' Mickey replied, 'I could have done that from home. I want to see him.'
'You'll have to be announced,' the good-looking dame said, her delicate lips curling in a reluctant smile.
'You got your hair in a bun,' Mickey said.
'I've been here all night,' she said.
'How come?'
'My relief just never showed up,' she said.
'Jesus! She didn't phone or anything?'
'Not a word,' she said.
'You didn't get any sleep at all?'
