Читать книгу The City Man - Howard Akler - Страница 13

So, says Chesler. What’s new?

He puts his empty glass down on the newspaper. A smidgen of moisture seeps onto the page, spreads slowly so articles dampen in increments. The police news soon blotted. Across the table is Polonsky. His big hands are dainty with the pouch of tobacco. He rolls two cigarettes with delicate languor.

Polonsky sips his drink. Was bumping gums with Cobourg Henry, he says. Remember him? Always in over his head. We used to work the hotel hustle, y’know. King Eddy, Royal York. And we angle this bates one day. A jug touch for sure, don’t even have to fan the guy to know he’s fat. So I’m fronting for Henry. And the kid’s thinking he’s a cannon and a half.

Daisy Medwick walks over with fresh drinks, bracelets clinking on both wrists. Her skin like old vanilla pudding, hair petrified by years of henna. Daisy was a choice stall in her day, hustling with a retinue of old-time cannons: Fishkin, Erlich, Applebaum. Now her arthritic fingers are barely nimble enough to open a bottle, pour a shot. Most of the mockies on the whiz punch gun in her place, a living-room speak in a two-storey house on Glen Baillie. Rooms rented upstairs.

She slides in beside Polonsky.

Give me a puff, baby, won’t you? she says and Polonsky passes her the cigarette.

Daisy closes her eyes and inhales.

Anyhow, says Polonsky, I frame this bates but good. The kid digs the prat like a pro and out he comes with a tweezer poke but oops – here Polonsky takes a long drag on his cigarette – the poke’s got one of them chains hooked onto the belt loops. Easy enough to unhook but the kid’s just a punk and he panics. Rumbles the mark something awful so the bates starts to beef and the kid scrams. But he forgets to let go of the leather and he runs and runs and rips the chain right off the pants and the pants right off the goddamn leg and this bates don’t know what to do standing there garters and all in the middle of the fucking street and me, I wasn’t made, so I did something I’ve never done before or since: I talked to the mark. I said: Mister, you okay? And he says: This is so embarrassing. And I says: Oh? And he nods and points down to his shoes. Blue socks and brown oxfords.

Daisy snorts and then Mona shows up.

So, she says. What’s new?