They'll see a car with no plates, they'll tow it away. Goodbye, good riddance.'
'You'll never get laid, Vito. Both of you guys. That car is your only hope.'
'I rather die a saint in my coffin than go to jail with ten thousand tizzoons.'
'Give me the keys. I told Juju. Give me the keys, I take care of everything.'
'Give me my uncle Tommy's plates, maybe I'll give you the keys.'
'Take the fucking plates. I'm taking the keys.'
'Ifou're taking
'Hard-on. Give me the keys.'
'
'See that stick? The stick you're holding. The stick you're holding.'
'Alls I'm saying, Nicky.'
'Cuntlap. Give me the keys.'
He was talking to Vito even though he knew Juju had the keys. He didn't want to put Juju in a position where he would lose pride or standing. But Vito with those thick glasses and big lips, fish lips-he had those wet lips he was always licking.
'I don't get the keys, you know what happens to that stick? The stick you're holding. I give you one guess where it goes.'
George the Waiter paid and left and soon the cardplayers came in, blinking in the smoke, the high-stakes poker players, they played till four, five in the morning, chips massed in the pot and a guy named Walls sitting by the door.
Walls carried a.38, this was the story, somewhere on his hip.
Four of the players were here and they stood at the counter talking to Mike and after a while two more players arrived and the lights over the pool tables began to go off and the poolshooters drifted out.
Somebody croons in a clear tenor, 'Bluer than velvet was the night.'
Walls was sitting by the door, different from the others, a narrow face and long jaw, hair cut short, and Nick watched him from the counter and Walls caught the look and raised his eyebrows slightly. In other words there's something you want to say to me?
Nick smiled and shrugged, taking his change.
'Be good,' Mike said.
Vito borrowed a small folding knife off Mike's key chain and the three thieves went down to effectuate removal of the plates.
Mike the Dog went with them.
Nick watched them work and pointed out flaws in their method. He pissed against the hospital wall, drawing the dog's attention, and then went back to the car, where they were still disengaging the plates, and he commented freely.
Vito said, 'Hey. Don't be such a
'Give me the keys,' Nick said.
'We're not finished.'
'You'll never be finished. Because you're a scumbag in the shape of a human. You're a scumbag that's gonna marry a dooshbag when you're twenty-one, Vito. God bless you. I'm serious. You and your lovely children.'
When they got the plates off, Juju handed the keys to Nicky. It was his car now, a green heap, naked of documentation, gas tank close to empty.
Nick said he'd take the dog back up to Mike's and the two guys went their separate ways and Nick crossed the street with the dog alongside.
He started up the stairs talking to the dog and when he was three-quarters of the way up the tall door creaked open and the man named Walls stood there with his hand in his jacket.
Nick smiled at him.
'Walking the dog,' he said.
Walls stepped back so the dog could get in. Then he stood in the opening again.
'I thought that was a thing you do with a yo-yo.'
'That's right,' Nick said. 'Walking the dog. But I think my yo-yo days are over.'
Walls showed a slight smile. Nick approached and looked through the opening, hoping that Mike might see him and invite him in to watch the game a while.
Walls shook his head, still smiling, and Nick nodded once and went back down the stairs. He got in the car, started it up and drove it to the original parking spot, two blocks away. Then he got out, walked around the car, inspecting it for this and that, and went back to the stoop in front of his building, where he sat haunched on the iron rail smoking one last cigarette before he went upstairs.
3
The knife grinder came and went. Matty was supposed to listen for the knife grinder's bell and then go downstairs with the knives that she'd set out on the kitchen table-knives to be sharpened and money to pay, all set out.
On her way home she saw the fresh-air inspectors standing on the corner, elderly men mostly, they were out even in cold weather provided the sun was shining and they stood there breathing steam, changing their position inchingly with the arc of the sun, and when she went upstairs the knives were on the table, dull-edged, and there was the money in bills and coins, thirty-five cents a blade, untouched and unspent, and Matt was at his board in the parlor, waiting for Mr. Bronzini.
Rosemary took off her hat and coat and said nothing. She went into the bedroom, where the frame was set between the sawhorses, and she turned on the radio and began to do her beadwork.
What she knew about the knife grinder was that he came from the same region as Jimmy's people, near a town called Campobasso, in the mountains, where boys were raised to sharpen knives.
It took two hours to bead a sweater. She listened to the radio but not really, you know, letting the voice drift in and out. She guided the needle through the fabric and thought of Jimmy's stories. She used to fight to keep him out of her thoughts but it wasn't possible, was it? He replaced the radio in her mind.
She said, 'What happened to the knives?'
There was a long pause in the next room.
He said, 'He never came. I never heard the bell.'
She said, 'He always comes on Tuesday. He never misses a Tuesday. Since we've been here, except if it's Christmas Day, he will be here on a Tuesday.'
She waited for a response. She could sense the boy's surrender and resentment, the small crouched shape squeezed in utter stillness.
'Am I wrong or is this a Tuesday?' she said in a final little dig.
She saw the pigeons erupt from the roof across the street, bursting like fireworks, fifty or sixty birds, and then the long pole swaying above the ledge-so long and reedy it bent of its own dimensions.
Mr. Bronzini knocked on the door and Matty let him in.
The Italian women in the building, which almost all of them were, called her Rose. They thought this was her name, or one of them did and the others picked it up, and she never corrected them because- she just didn't.
Never mind hello. They started right in talking about a move, a maneuver from a couple of days before. Mr. Bronzini sometimes forgot to take off his coat before he sat down at the board.
Jimmy used to say carte blank.
The boy who kept the pigeons stood invisible behind the ledge, waving the pole to guide the birds in their flight.
They lapsed into a long pondering silence at the board, then started talking at once, yackety-yak together.
She strung the beads onto the fabric.
She didn't want to be a sob story where people feel sorry for you and you go through life dragging a burden
