“Please maam it was hunger brought me to it, hunger an my poor ole muder starvin.”
“Isnt that wonderful Stan? He’s a burglar.” She brandished the revolver. “Come on out in the hall.”
“Yes miss anythin you say miss, but dont give me up to de bulls. Tink o de ole muder starvin her heart out.”
“All right but if you took anything you must give it back.”
“Honest I didn’t have a chanct.”
Stan flopped into a chair laughing and laughing. “Ellie you take the cake. … Wouldnt a thought you could do it.”
“Well didnt I play this scene in stock all last summer? … Give up your gun.”
“No miss I wouldn’t carry no gun.”
“Well I dont believe you but I guess I’ll let you go.”
“Gawd bless you miss.”
“But you must make some money as a messengerboy.”
“I was fired last week miss, it’s only hunger made me take to it.”
Stan got to his feet. “Let’s give him a dollar an tell him to get the hell out of here.”
When he was outside the door she held out the dollarbill to him.
“Jez you’re white,” he said choking. He grabbed the hand with the bill in it and kissed it; leaning over her hand kissing it wetly he caught a glimpse of her body under the arm in the drooping red silk sleeve. As he walked, still trembling, down the stairs, he looked back and saw the man and the girl standing side by side with their arms around each other watching him. His eyes were full of tears. He stuffed the dollarbill into his pocket.
Kid if you keep on bein a softie about women you’re goin to find yourself in dat lil summer hotel up de river. … Pretty soft though. Whistling under his breath he walked to the L and took an uptown train. Now and then he put his hand over his back pocket to feel the roll of bills. He ran up to the third floor of an apartmenthouse that smelled of fried fish and coal gas, and rang three times at a grimy glass door. After a pause he knocked softly.
“Zat you Moike?” came faintly the whine of a woman’s voice.
“No it’s Nicky Schatz.”
A sharpfaced woman with henna hair opened the door. She had on a fur coat over frilly lace underclothes.
“Howsa boy?”
“Jeze a swell dame caught me when I was tidying up a little job and whatjer tink she done?” He followed the woman, talking excitedly, into a dining room with peeling walls. On the table were used glasses and a bottle of Green River whiskey. “She gave me a dollar an tole me to be a good little boy.”
“The hell she did?”
“Here’s a watch.”
“It’s an Ingersoll, I dont call ’at a watch.”
“Well set yer lamps on dis.” He pulled out the roll of bills. “Aint dat a wad o lettuce? … Got in himmel, dey’s tousands.”
“Lemme see.” She grabbed the bills out of his hand, her eyes popping. “Hay ye’re cookoo kid.” She threw the roll on the floor and wrung her hands with a swaying Jewish gesture. “Oyoy it’s stage money. It’s stage money ye simple saphead, you goddam …”
Giggling they sat side by side on the edge of the bed. Through the stuffy smell of the room full of little silky bits of clothing falling off chairs a fading freshness came from a bunch of yellow roses on the bureau. Their arms tightened round each other’s shoulders; suddenly he wrenched himself away and leaned over her to kiss her mouth. “Some burglar,” he said breathlessly.
“Stan …”
“Ellie.”
“I thought it might be Jojo;” she managed to force a whisper through a tight throat. “It’ll be just like him to come sneaking around.”
“Ellie I don’t understand how you can live with him among all these people. You’re so lovely. I just dont see you in all this.”
“It was easy enough before I met you. … And honestly Jojo’s all right. He’s just a peculiar very unhappy person.”
“But you’re out of another world old kid. … You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.”
“Stan your back’s brown all the way down.”
“That’s swimming.”
“So soon?”
“I guess most of it’s left over from last summer.”
“You’re the fortunate youth all right. I never learned how to swim properly.”
“I’ll teach you. … Look next Sunday bright and early we’ll hop into Dingo and go down to Long Beach. Way down at the end there’s never anybody. … You dont even have to wear a bathingsuit.”
“I like the way you’re so lean and hard Stan. … Jojo’s white and flabby almost like a woman.”
“For crissake don’t talk about him now.”
Stan stood with his legs apart buttoning his shirt. “Look Ellie let’s beat it out an have a drink. … God I’d hate to run into somebody now an have to talk lies to ’em. … I bet I’d crown ’em with a chair.”
“We’ve got time. Nobody ever comes home here before twelve. … I’m just here myself because I’ve got a sick headache.”
“Ellie, d’you like your sick headache?”
“I’m crazy about it Stan.”
“I guess that Western Union burglar knew that. … Gosh. … Burglary, adultery, sneaking down fireescapes, cattreading along gutters. Judas it’s a great life.”
Ellen gripped his hand hard as they came down the stairs stepping together. In front of the letterboxes in the shabby hallway he grabbed her suddenly by the shoulders and pressed her head back and kissed her. Hardly breathing they floated down the street toward Broadway. He had his hand under her arm, she squeezed it tight against her ribs with her elbow. Aloof, as if looking through thick glass into an aquarium, she watched faces, fruit in storewindows, cans of vegetables, jars of olives, redhotpokerplants in a florist’s, newspapers, electric signs drifting by. When they passed cross-streets a puff of air came in her face off the river. Sudden jetbright glances of eyes under straw hats, attitudes of chins, thin lips, pouting lips, Cupid’s bows, hungry shadow under cheekbones, faces of girls and young men nuzzled fluttering against her like moths as she walked with her
