The Autograph Hound (10 page)

“Could I have a cup of coffee, Benny?”

“I'll get it,” says Sypher.

“Gloria's with me.”

“Save your money,” says Sypher, slapping me on the shoulder. “You'll need it.” When he comes back with the coffee, he says, “Myself, I stay anonymous. I'm slippery like a shadow. I don't like hearing about any of us getting on the air.”

“You're the one who got written up in
The New York Times
, saying all those dumb things about it being a
hobby
. It sounded like
you
had the big collection.”

“Just coverin' my tracks, Benny-boy. I don't want people knowing how much I make. Autographs are a good gig. If the wrong people found out, I could be in a higher tax bracket.”

“I'm glad Benny doesn't do it for the money,” says Gloria. “He's interested in other things.”

“Pretty soon, he'll have to start eating his profits.”

“I don't understand.”

“You do, don't you, Benny?”

“All the time yapping, Sypher. Yap, yap, yap.”

“Delia told me. News travels fast. It's up and down in this business.”

“What's he talking about, Benny?”

“Would you like another cup of coffee?”

“He was fired, sweet chops. Tin-canned.”

Gloria stares at me. “Do they know about your collection?”

“I've got till the end of the week. Chef's trying to pull strings.”

A busboy wheels his cart near us. He scrapes Gloria's plate into a can. He uses a brush, but the food sticks on his hands. His blue jeans are stained with other people's leavings. He takes a brown rag out of his back pocket and wipes the yellow tabletop. “We're not finished,” says Sypher. The busboy's moving too fast to hear. He lifts up Sypher's plate and makes a few damp circles on the Formica. The bandanna around his head doesn't stop the sweat. His eyes flutter with the salt sting. A few tables away, four old ladies are calling for him to hurry. One of them waves her cane. He puts his weight behind the cart and shoves it toward their table. “It's a pigpen here, mister. Food's getting cold. You see us waving?”

Our spoons ping against the china cups. Everybody's staring at the whirlpool in their coffee. Sypher looks up. “You can always work here.”

“Maybe somebody'll see you on TV,” says Gloria. “You never know what can happen.”

“One in a million,” says Sypher.

“Julius La Rosa got a record contract after the Arthur Godfrey Show. Steve and Eydie were so good with Steve Allen that the public kept asking for them. The rest's show-biz history.”

“They had voices, Benny,” says Louis.

“All Dr. Brothers had was the answers to the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I know as much about autographs as she did about boxing. Now she's an announcer.”

“Can't you help him, Mr. Sypher?”

“The Waldorf's my turf.”

“Benny, I have some friends who might …”

“Don't get me wrong, honey. Sypher's a man who likes competition. This body of mine's the product of free enterprise. I wouldn't want to be the only one around … I'd get lazy. My body'd go soft. It feels good bein' hungry, right, sweet Gloria?”

“Let's go, Benny.”

“Think of it this way, Walsh. The Homestead's been around a long time … All that cowboy stuff's kinda corny … This may be your lucky break.”

I get to Gloria's chair first. She stands up. Sypher leans back in his seat sipping his coffee. “Nobody wants to ball it up at the Flamingo?”

“We're going to see the Johnny Carson show on Benny's TV.”

Sypher takes Gloria's hand and kisses it. He feels her fingers. “Very nice, Benny.”

“So long, Louis.”

“Don't do nothin' I wouldn't do, Walsh.” Sypher smiles at Gloria. “Later for you, baby,” he says. “Later.”

“You got a camera, Benny?”

“Don't poke in the drawers. Those are my things.”

“I only wanted to take your picture on TV.”

“I'm gonna work on the autographs.”

“Don't you want a souvenir? If I had a Polaroid Instamatic …”

“I've got their autographs.”

“Don't you want to see yourself on TV, Benny?”

“Just tell me to break a leg.”

Gloria says they save the best for last, and that's why I'm not on after the football movies. Joe and Johnny are there, but they talk as if nothing happened. We wait until 1:00.

“I guess I'm on the cutting-room floor.”

The TV's showing a late-night movie. Gloria's resting on my pillow. She's snoring.

I pull out my Great Comeback section. I have quite a few signatures. Frank Sinatra, “Peg-Leg” Bates, Eddie Waitkus, Jane Froman, Ben Hogan—the people the papers call “inspirational.” Even when times were tough, they kept plugging. Floyd Patterson's my most inspirational inspirational. He was the first man in the history of boxing to win back the heavyweight title. They say he ran 2,000 miles training for the Ingemar Johansson fight. He went on a special African diet of raw meat. Some people wrote he had a glass chin, but when I met him he was all muscle and bone. I talked to him.

ME: What's the secret, Floyd?

FLOYD (
to me
): You gotta keep moving. Keep in shape. Eat good. You gotta believe you can do it. You got to want to do it—that's very important. You can't let nothing get in your way. God's gotta be in your corner. I'd like to thank my mom, too.

ME: How did you know God was in your corner?

FLOYD: I won, didn't I?

It was tough getting comments out of Floyd. Stars are big on silence. Garbo, Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover—they hardly ever talk. People have to guess what they're thinking. I should've been more cool and collected. I should've made Johnny and Joe guess what I wanted instead of asking them outright. I should've stood there quiet as Harpo, until they signed. That would've been dramatic—Hallmark Hall of Fame stuff.

I lock the autographs away. I turn off the television. Gloria's curled up on the bed like a kitten. I lie down beside her, careful not to come too close. I don't turn out the light—that'd be sexy. I just push myself up on my elbows and watch her breathe. Looking at her makes me sleepy.

Gloria turns toward me, blinking. “What?”

“Sorry.”

“I thought you said something.”

“No.”

“Turn out the light, Benny.”

In the darkness, she says, “Benny, you can touch me.”

I put my leg next to hers.

“Sweet dreams,” I say, and shut my eyes.

Chapter Three

GLORIA HANDS ME A cup of coffee. “Rise and shine.” The TV's interviewing one of the astronauts. I've got him on my wall standing with the team and the wives around the model of the earth. “What's it like up there, Bill?” the announcer asks. (It's what I want to know, too.) “The bluest Tuesday I've ever seen. The moon's as big as a burro's bottom.” One astronaut lets his knife and fork go. They float in the air. Science is wonderful.

Gloria turns off the set.

“Hey!”

“Get a move on, Benny.”

“I don't have to clock in before eleven.”

“The early bird catches the worm.”

“The TV said it's a nice day. How about a movie?”

“I've got to work. So do you.”

“I do?”

“You've got to start looking for a job, Benny.”

“Zambrozzi's fixing things. How can I look for a job when I've got a job?”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“What Sypher said about The Homestead last night was bull. It's still as good as ever. With the Waldorf, everything has to be new.”

“I'll sing you my song for good luck.”

After I've washed, and combed my hair, Gloria makes me sit in the easy chair. She stands by the window. “Pretend this is a stage,” she says, and brushes the hair off her forehead.

“In our cottage for two

Our forever rendezvous

We'll share rooms with a view

Of the sky
.

You and I
.

I'll work
.

You'll plant
.

There's nothing we can't

Create

Me and my mate

Making our Fate …

“Well?” Gloria says.

“It's got a nice beat.”

“Each line has a rhyme.”

“Is it a tango?”

“A duet.”

“They're the toughest.”

“I sing both parts,” says Gloria. “That way, I know they both mean it.”

The pigeons are shitting on George M. Cohan. I shoo them off. They fly up and perch on his hat. Cohan would've never given his regards to Broadway if he saw how dirty they kept his statue in Duffy Square. New Yorkers walk right by. Nobody cares. I try everything—even Gloria's song—to keep those clucking mothers away. No luck. It's not a job, but it's work.

At 10:30, there's nobody to get on Broadway. None of the faces look familiar. People are still grumpy and swollen from waking up.

The Drama Book Shop on 52nd Street's the only place to find an actor before lunch. I take the elevator to the fifth floor. I sit in a chair by Show Records. No big stars need a book shop, they get all their scripts from Studio Duplicating. But I wait anyway. I feel lucky. I ask anyone who buys an acting edition to sign my pad. By work time, I have eight names.

“Is this the man?”

Garcia nods.

A policeman clears a path for me through a crew standing around Zambrozzi's table. There's a lead pipe on the table with handkerchiefs tied to both ends.

“What's your name?”

“Benny Walsh.”

“I'm sick to death of these bomb calls. Do you understand, Mr. Walsh? Pissed off. Three times this year we've been called out of headquarters on bomb threats. Three times HQ has been bombed while we've been doing our duty.”

“You're batting a thousand. Any clues?”

“Walsh, I think you should know you're dealing with J. J. Burns—kin to Walter Burns, the detective who cracked the great glycerine bombings of 1910. Bombing's no way to solve a labor dispute. Between 1905 and 1910, there were eighty-three bombings of industry. They found every man and put him behind bars. Business continued as usual.”

“Did you know George Metesky—the Mad Bomber?”

Detective Burns turns to the policeman beside him. “Put that down, Frelingheusen. Knew Metesky.”

He picks up the pipe.

“In the 'fifties they evacuated the Paramount five times for me to go to work. I knew my way around the inside of every explosive device. The bomb squad was the Glory Boys then. Seventeen time on the front page of the
Daily News
. Now, it's dinky lead pipes or candy-ass Coke bottles filled with kerosene. No one's interested in one man's battle against illegal combustion. This bomb was found in station four.”

“That's my station! I could've been hurt.”

“Why weren't you at your post?”

“I give him the night off,” says Zambrozzi.

“That's your story,” says Garcia, crossing his arms. “He no your responsibility.”

“Have you missed a day since you joined The Homestead in 1961?”

“Up to yesterday, I was running ahead of
Hello, Dolly
.”

“But yesterday you weren't here?”

“Right.”

“Where were you?”

“At a film studio. Then the Johnny Carson show.”

“Hah!” says Garcia. “You done it now, Walsh. The Big Lie.”

“I'm telling the truth.”

“
Fanático
. I watch. I have eyes. Fuck with the bull, you get the horn.” Garcia pushes past the crew and walks out the kitchen door.

“I know I was there. How could I have gotten their autographs?”

“I suppose you're going to claim this was a frame-up?”

“Yes.”

Detective Burns and the patrolman look at each other. “You want to name names?”

“There's only one.”

“Out with it, Walsh!” says Detective Burns. “Time's the very essence of detection.”

He hands me a cigarette. I smoke it Sam Spade style, like I was kissing my fingertips. “Garcia's your man.”

“Benny, you're asking for trouble,” says Victor.

“We have a team here, Mr. Burns. It's the best restaurant in New York. I can show you pictures from my scrapbook. Garcia wants to break us up. He wants to wear the chain of command. Garcia'd blow us up. I bet he even left a note. He wants credit for everything.”

“I didn't mention a note.”

“Garcia always leaves notes.”

Detective Burns hands me a piece of paper with OFF-AMERIKA typed in red. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“That's him.”

“How do you know?” says Detective Burns.

“Puerto Ricans can't spell.”

“I'm listening very carefully, Mr. Walsh.”

“I like the police. I wanted to be one when my Uncle Jack lived with us. I'd take his hat from Mom's dresser. I'd swing his nightstick on the bed each Sunday morning until they got up.”

“I think that's enough. Check out Walsh's story, Frelingheusen.”

“But, Chief, I watched the Carson show all night. He wasn't on TV.”

“In the old days, they begged for orders. Allow anarchy in the streets, it infects the ranks. Bomb squad rule number one—follow the leader.”

“Stick with me for a moment, Chief,” says the patrolman, walking around the table and staring at me. “The pieces are beginning to fit together. Aren't they, Benny?”

“I love this place. If I blew it up, there'd be no more album to keep.”

“Except for the newspaper photos of the charred ruins of the empire you helped to build, which you knew for so long, and suddenly, in a violent confrontation between middle management and personnel, you were forced to abandon.”