Black Friday (7 page)

"Shut up," Frieda said freeing the sleeve from the torn shirt. "Get something," she said to no one in particular. "We got any peroxide?"

"I'll look," Charley said. He gave a slight sigh as he got up from the table.

Frieda had arranged a folded rag from a piece of the torn shirt and she was wiping the blood from Mattone's arm. Mattone was speaking quietly now and his features were calm. He gazed at Myrna and said, "Look what you did. Take a look at my arm."

Myrna didn't seem to hear. She was in her chair again, looking at the knife on her plate. Her face was pale but piacid and there was nothing in her eyes. Hart told himself that maybe she'd really cracked and he wondered if there was a way to test her. Or maybe, he thought, you better stay out of it, you're not involved in this. Oh yeah? The hell you're not. You're planted right in the middle, brother, it's you she's really after and you know it and you know why.

He decided to test Myrna's condition and his hand went into his jacket pocket, came out with his cigarettes. He offered her the pack, saying, "Have a smoke?"

But there was no reaction. She continued to look at the knife resting on the plate. Frieda and Rizzio and Mattone were watching, wondering what Hart was trying to prove.

"No peroxide. All we got is iodine." It was Charley coming into the room with iodine and a wet washrag and some Band-Aids. He saw what Hart was doing with the pack of cigarettes and he frowned slightly and murmured, "What's happening now?"

"I think she's sick," Hart said.

"No." It was Mattone. He was grinning loosely and saying, "She ain't sick. You know she ain't sick. You know what's the matter with her."

Hart didn't reply. Charley handed the washrag and iodine to Frieda and she applied the wet cloth to the holes in Mattone's arm. Rizzio went back to his chair and resumed eating his steak. Frieda was busy now with the iodine. It appeared that Mattone didn't feel the iodine, he was still grinning at Hart. The Band-Aids were resting on the table and there were four of them and Frieda was picking them up one by one and securing them over the holes in Mattone's arm. Now Charley had returned to his chair and he went back to where he'd left off with the T-bone on his plate. Frieda completed her work with the Band-Aids and moved back to her place next to Myma, while Mattone stood up and walked slowly out of the room. Then it was quiet in the room and they were all eating their steaks and salad, with the exception of Myrna who continued to sit there with the placid look on her face, the nothingness in her eyes, her eyes aiming at the knife. Hart was telling himself to give his undivided attention to the meat on his plate. But while he chewed on the steak his brain stalled on him, then stumbled away from where he was trying to steer it, his thoughts went lurching and tumbling down an actual ffight of stairs to the actual cellar to the actual furnace. He was seeing Myrna's brother getting chopped up and tossed into the furnace. Then he went back to the moment when his knee had made contact with Paul, thudding into Paul's groin, doing something to Paul's insides causing things to go wrong, causing hemorrhage and then the finish, causing the girl to lose her brother. So what he'd taken away from her was something that couldn't be replaced, and now he remembered his talk with Myrna in the living room the night Paul died and she was dazed then with the shock of it, the hurt and the hate hadn't yet set in. And so now, not wanting to look at her, he was forced to look at her and he saw the small skinny girl with the black hair and the violet eyes and the pale placid face. Just fivetwo, and if the scale showed more than ninety-five pounds there was something wrong with the scale. She looked so little sitting there. And yet he knew he was looking at trouble, big trouble, something more threatening than anything else dangling over his head. He wondered if maybe he could somehow talk to her and--

A blast of music came into the dining room. It was hot jazz jumping out of the radio in the living room, followed by footsteps and then Mattone coming in wearing a fresh shirt and a hand-painted necktie and the same grin he'd worn when he'd walked out. Hart saw the grin was aimed at him and he heard Charley saying, "All right now, Mattone. Cut it out."

"What am I doing?" Mattone asked mildly.

"I said cut it out."

Mattone walked past the table, moving behind Hart, and went into the kitchen. Then he came out of the kitchen and in his hand was the bottle of A-i sauce. He sat down and poured the sauce on his lukewarm steak. He reached for a roll with his uninjured arm, put a thick dab of butter on the roll. He took a generous bite of the roll, then sliced a big chunk of steak. He shoved the steak into his mouth and chewed energetically and while he did this he was grinning again at Hart.

From the living room there was a trumpet blast climbing high while the drummer banged with all his might on the cymbal, and Rizzio whined, "For Christ's sake. We need all that noise?"

"Leave it on," Mattone said. "It's Dizzy Gillespie. I like Dizzy Gillespie."

"It sounds like someone caught under a steamroller," Frieda said.

"Not exactly," Mattone said. "It ain't like what comes out of the mouth." For some moments the grin was gone, he'd stopped chewing on the steak, he was frowning thoughtfully. And then, "I'll tell you what it is. It's--"

"It's bebop," Rizzio said. "Ain't it bebop?"

"Sure it's bop," Mattone nodded. "But that ain't what I mean. What I mean is--well, when Dizzy takes it way up, gets all the way up there higher than high, he's telling you something, he's putting it to you straight, telling you what it sounds like inside."

"Inside what?" Rizzio asked.

"In here," Mattone said, and he indicated his head and his chest. "You get it?"

"No," Rizzio said.

"Because you're an imbecile," Mattone told him amiably. "It takes someone with brains to understand what I mean. Like our friend here," and he pointed his finger at Hart.

"You starting again?" Charley asked quietly. "Ain't we had enough for one night?"

"I'm just making conversation," Mattone answered. "Sure, our friend here knows what I mean. He knows what she sounds like inside."

"Leave him alone." Charley's voice climbed just a little.

"I'm not bothering him," Mattone said. "It's the girl here. She's bothering him. She's got him worried plenty."

"Oh, for God's sake," Frieda protested. "Do something, Charley. Make him stop."

Charley gave Mattone a very thin smile. It was on the order of a final warning.

But Mattone had started it and couldn't stop it, the way certain reptiles are biologically unable to stop a meal once the victim's head is in their mouth. Mattone said, "She stabs me with the fork but it's really him she wants to stab. And not in the arm, either."

Charley started to rise from his chair.

But Hart reached out and put his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Sit there," Hart murmured. "Let him talk. I want to hear the rest of this."

"Sure you do," Mattone grinned. "You wanna see if it checks with what you're thinking. Ain't that correct?"

Hart nodded slowly. And now he was looking at Myrna. She had raised her head slightly and her eyes were focused blankly on his chin, or maybe his throat, he wasn't quite sure.

"You see the way it figures?" Mattone asked the other faces at the table. "She has it in for him and she takes it out on me. That happens sometimes, I guess. When they get so mixed up they don't know what they're trying to hit, they hit what's closest. But sooner or later they straighten their aim. It's just a question of time."

"You louse." Frieda gave Mattone a disgusted look.

"Me?" Mattone pointed to himself innocently. "You got it backwards, Frieda. I'm only trying to lend a hand. I'd hate to see him get hurt."

"Yeah," Frieda said. "Yeah. Sure."

"I'm giving him advice, that's all," Mattone said. "Just telling him to be careful. To keep his eyes on her. Watch every move she makes. Or maybe--" he hesitated a moment, then let it slide out, "--he oughta do the safest thing and take off."

It was heavily quiet for some moments. Frieda was looking at Charley, waiting for Charley to get up again and go for Mattone. But Charley didn't move. Charley was watching Myrna. She ended the quiet with the scraping of her chair. Then she was up from the table, going around it very slowly, moving somewhat like a sleepwalker as she went out of the room.

Rizzio said, "Who wants coffee?"

"We'll all have coffee," Frieda said. "You got any poisoned coffee for Mattone?"

Charley looked at Frieda. Then he looked at Hart. Then he gazed at Frieda again, and his head moved in an almost imperceptible nod. "Any liquor?" he asked.

"We got some bourbon and some gin."

"Bring the gin," Charley said.

"What's the matter now?" Mattone was staring from face to face and getting no answer.

"It don't concern you," Charley said. His gaze moved back and forth quickly between Frieda and Hart.

Rizzio came in with the gin. He was frowning, puzzled, because Charley rarely went for gin, went for it only when something happened to knock him off balance and he urgently needed a bracer.

Charley took the bottle and began pouring the gin into a water glass. He got the glass three-quarters full. He lifted the glass to his mouth and drank the gin as though it was water.

The radio was playing more bebop. It was Dizzy Gillespie again and Dizzy's trumpet went up and up and way up.

9

You'll get sick," Frieda said. She watched the gin flowing from the bottle to the water glass. Charley was on his fourth glass and Hart estimated that Charley had already consumed more than a pint of gin. Mattone had finished his coffee and left the table, and now Rizzio was gettingup.

"You're burning up your liver," Frieda said. She was trying to keep her voice down. "It'll be like the last time, you'll hafta have your stomach pumped out."

Charley smiled at Hart. "Want some gin?"

"No thanks," Hart said.

"Don't you like gin?"

"Not especially."

"It's a thin drink," Charley said. His smile was sort of loose. "Not much body to it."

Hart didn't say anything.

"Maybe that's the reason you don't like it," Charley said. "Maybe you like something with more body."

"What's that mean?" Hart asked. He said to himself: You know what it means, all right.

"He means me," Frieda said. She was starting to breathe hard. "Ain't that it, Charley?"

Charley put the smile on Frieda. "You want a drink?"

"No," Frieda said. Now suddenly she was breathing very hard. She looked at Hart. "Go in the other room. You don't figure in this--"

"Not much he don't," Charley said softly. Then he chuckled, but only with his mouth. His eyes were fixed icily on a path going straight ahead at the wall and through the wall. "Way this stacks up, it's a three-sided discussion."

"It don't hafta be," Frieda said. "You're just making it that way."

"No, lady," Charley said. "It's already made. It was made this afternoon, while I was out." And then, after a long pause, "Tell me, lady. How was it?"

"You're not funny, Charley."

"Oh, but you're wrong, lady. You're so wrong. I'm very funny. You wanna know something? I'm the funniest man I've ever met."

"All right," Frieda said. "Drink your gin. Drink it up and get yourself unconscious and I'll put you to bed."

Charley chuckled again. "Don't get excited, Frieda. What's there to get excited about? After all, it's a perfectly natural state of affairs. You can't get it from me, so you get it from someone else--"

"So?" Frieda shouted it. "Ain't that what you told me to do? You said it was all right if I--"

"Yes," Charley cut in softly.

"Then why the complaint? What are you complaining about?"

Charley didn't reply. He was chuckling again.

"Answer me," Frieda demanded. "Damn you, Charley--"

Charley stopped chuckling. He looked at Hart. He said, "You get the picture? You see what's happening here?"

"I don't see anything," Hart said.

"She really goes for you," Charley said. "You musta showed her a very nice time this afternoon. Musta given her something special."

Hart shrugged.

Charley said, "That's why she got burned up at Mattone when he advised you to take off. She'd be very upset if you took off."

Frieda stood up. She had her eyes aiming at empty air just about midway between Charley and Hart. She didn't say anything.

Charley went on talking as though Frieda was not in the room. "Maybe she's told you about me. About me and her, I mean. Like how it amounts to a problem because I'm jammed up somewhere inside and I can't do anything for her except on rare occasions. So there's no sense being a dog in the manger and I told her to get it from someone else. I think that was a nice gesture on my part. Don't you think so?"

Hart nodded.

"What I think," Charley went on, "it was a very nice gesture but the trouble is, every time I make these nice gestures I get taken for a ride. It never fails. It reminds me, one time I had a pet canary, really a dandy of a bird, I paid plenty for it. But the cage, it looks so stingy, not hardly big enough for the bird to fly around and get the proper exercise. So one day I open the cage and I figure she'll fly around the room and then come back and perch on my shoulder. And that's how I come to lose her. The window is open and out she goes."

It was quiet for some moments.

Then Charley looked at Frieda. And he said, "It ain't your fault, lady. I'm not blaming you."

Frieda remained standing. She went on staring at the empty space between Charley and Hart. She said, "He says it ain't my fault. He says--"

"I'm saying it's nobody's fault," Charley smiled. "If we gotta blame something, let's blame it on the climate. We got a weird climate here in Philadelphia."

Frieda closed her eyes. She put her hands to the sides of her head and her eyes stayed closed and she groaned.

"Yes," Charley murmured. "It hurts me, too. You got no idea how it hurts me."

Frieda opened her eyes. She looked at Charley. Her arms were lifted just a little, somewhat pleadingly. "Can't we--?"

"No," Charley said. "I wish we could, lady. But we can't. We just can't. If you wanted him just for a playmate I guess the three of us could manage it somehow, we could have an understanding. But it's more than having bedroom parties, you want him all the way, you got him so deep in your system you can feel him without touching him. So that chops it off between you and me."

"Complete?" Frieda's head was down.

"Clean break," Charley nodded. "We drop it, we forget about it, and you have my guarantee there won't be any grief."

"Charley--" She spoke thickly. "I wasn't looking for this to happen. I swear to you, Charley, it was--"

"The climate," Charley said. "We're always getting weather we don't expect."

In spades, Hart thought. He saw Charley getting up from the table, reaching for the bottle of gin, the bottle nestled gently in Charley's arm, pressed affectionately to Charley's chest. Then Charley was walking out of the room. For several moments nothing happened, and Hart sat there listening to Charley's footsteps moving off through the house and climbing up the stairs. When the sound of the footsteps was up there on the second floor, he heard other footsteps moving toward him. He looked up and saw Frieda approaching. She came in close and put her big beefy arms around him, sliding her fat rump onto his lap. She put her thick lips against his mouth.

Damn it, he said to himself. Damn it to hell.