“You see, Mr. Alberg”—Frank’s father turned to him—“a woman can be so excited she don’t know what she’s doing, but once the water for the tea is boiled, she forgets all her troubles.” Mr. Goldfarb shook his head after he asked Stan to sit at the table. “These are bad times,” he said. “The war.”
Alice gave Stan a napkin and he thanked her. “I know,” Stan agreed, “plenty of work and nothing else.”
“What shall I do?” Mrs. Goldfarb appealed to him as she extended her hands in a gesture of futility. “I don’t have to be ashamed in front of you; you lived in Brownsville, hah? So,” she went on as Stan nodded affirmatively, “you know what we had here. The dirt and the relief and the gangsters for so long, so long. Now we work, but we had bad times for a long time.” Mrs. Goldfarb struggled to express herself. “So did our neighbors all around us. Now we’re working, but our children seem to be getting the wrong things out of our working.”
“Where are we making our mistake?” Mr. Goldfarb asked Stan.
Stan dipped the spoon into the sugar bowl. “I don’t know. I don’t know where to begin. I seem to be getting nowhere. People are expecting too much from us and from teachers in general. Everyone yells juvenile delinquency and expects us to find the remedy for all the evils, but we have to have more than yelling.”
“Stop your goddamn preachin’.” Frank opened the bathroom door and re-entered the kitchen. “We don’t need it around here.”
“Shut up, you bum!” his mother shouted.
“That’s all right,” Stan said. “Let him talk.”
Frank closed the open kitchen window. “The neighbors already heard plenty. We sure give them an earful,” he said to Stan.
“Please, Frank,” Alice pleaded with him, “don’t make Momma angry.”
“Once,” Mr. Goldfarb apologized, “I could better understand what you said. Years ago I took an interest in politics and things that were supposed to better the world, but that was before the bad times.”
“You could’ve always worked”—his wife pointed at him with a stubby finger—“only you were for unions. Now you got your union,” she continued, “and you’re working, and him”—she pointed to Frank—“is doing God knows what and is disgracing us. Everyone knows that he gave Fanny the ticket to go to his dance and—”
“Mrs. Goldfarb,” Stan interrupted her, “that wasn’t Frank’s fault. If the Sachs boy was after her he would’ve—” He stopped as he saw Alice listening with too much interest. “Well, it would’ve happened sometime.”
Mrs. Goldfarb noticed Stan’s halt. “Alice,” she said to her daughter, “go downstairs.”
“I can stay,” Alice protested. “I know what you’re talking about.”
Mrs. Goldfarb clutched her head and began to rock again. “What am I going to do? I was sixteen, believe me, Mr. Alberg, sixteen, before I knew that boys were different from girls. And now look, my daughter, a baby, sits here and tells me that she knows what we’re talking about. How do you know?” She grasped Alice’s wrist and twisted. “How do you know such things? Tell me! How do you know?”
Mr. Goldfarb rapped on the table with his spoon. “Stop it and let her alone and stop being such a fool. Sixteen,” he snorted. “Maybe you were brought up in a convent?”
“I was brought up in a home where there was always enough to eat,” she flung at him. “You hear me? Enough to eat! My father, olav hashelem, took care of his family so that they were dressed and fed and had a decent roof over their heads. Maybe he wasn’t so smart as you,” she spat scornfully at her husband, “but all his children were decent. Decent! Even my brother Hershell that you talk so much about, he’s decent! His children are decent! Not like him”—she pointed to Frank—“who is now a God knows what!”
“Aw, for chrissake,” Frank interrupted her tirade. “Shut up! What happened?” he asked Stan. “My old lady keeps on yellin’ and I don’t know what the hell she wants from me. What happened?”
Stan shrugged his shoulders. “Not much to tell. You know most of it. After you didn’t show up last night I took Fanny home. The girls brought her a dress and some new stockings and we cleaned her up as best we could. But her face was bruised and we couldn’t do anything about that, and of course you know what happened. So I took her home, and when I got there her mother and father were waiting for her on the stoop, and her father wanted to clout me because he thought I’d kept her out.” Stan smiled. “Being the good Samaritan can be dangerous. I told them Fanny had been in a little trouble and we all went upstairs, and when they saw her in the light, her mother blew a fuse. That started Fanny off again, and she told them what Crazy had done to her. Mr. Kane grabbed a bread knife and was going across the street and kill Crazy.”
“I don’t like to say this,” Mr. Goldfarb interjected, “but he deserves it.”
“I got the knife away from him,” Stan continued, “and I stayed there until morning.”
“They call the cops?” Frank asked cautiously.
“No. They’re ashamed.”
“But Mr. Kane went over to Mr. Sachs this morning,” Mr. Goldfarb went on, “and Mr. Sachs beat Crazy with a razor strop until he fainted.”
“He should’ve killed him, the outcast.” Mrs. Goldfarb’s cheeks were wet. “Some friends you have.” She turned again to Frank. “Some friends! Spoilers of small girls. You bum!” She suddenly lunged again at Frank. “God-forsaken bum!” She struck at him again.
Frank backed away from her. “Let me alone,” he panted. “Stop shovin’ me around or you’ll be sorry.”
“Bum!” his mother shrieked. “God-forsaken bum! Threatening your mother!”
“I’m getting outa here!” Frank shouted. “You can’t shove me around like nothin’. I’m gonna beat it.”
“Go!” His mother pointed to the door, and her face was a fury. “Go! Bum! Like the Shapiro boys and Abe Reles and the Kaplan boy who killed the policeman, you’ll be like them!”
“Rashke,” her husband pleaded.
“Bum!” Her shriek was a continuous torment. “Gangster!”
Frank opened the front door. “The hell with you!”
Suddenly his mother threw a glass at him and it shattered against the jamb of the door. “Bum! Now a bum! Later a gangster. Then a murderer! What else can you become?”
Frank paled as Stan caught his eye. In Frank’s face there was graved a new terror, a fear that was new to him and which turned his blood to ice, made his legs tremble with a sudden chill as his mother cursed him.
“Become a murderer!” His mother tore at her hair as Alice futilely attempted to restrain her. “My children old before their time because you”—she turned to her husband—“couldn’t provide for them!”
“Rashke,” her husband pleaded, “please, please! Not before him.” He pointed to Stan.
“Before the world, before everyone!” his wife shrieked as if she were demented. “No hope, no future, no nothing, with my son growing up with bums and becoming a bum, a gangster, a murderer!”
Each of his mother’s words was like the blow of a whip across Frank’s back, but as she continued to shriek “murderer” at him in ever-mounting spirals of hysteria it was as if the lashes were tipped with lead. He could feel nausea gorging him and he clenched his hands, bit his lips, as he attempted to blot out the shrill screaming of his mother’s voice.
Stan watched Frank retreat before the violence of his mother’s anger and curses, but he did not intervene. It was too late to help Frank, for Frank was beyond the help that he could offer and give.
Now there was nothing left but to wait, wait until the weary drama stumbled to its end, and Frank would either escape or be trapped, and Stan no longer had confidence in Frank’s ability to escape. At one time, yes, but now he saw fully and clearly that Frank was not smart or wise or strong enough to avoid situations that tended to enmesh and corrupt him, and suddenly Stan was tired, tired as he knew that he no longer could, would, or cared to help Frank, even though he believed tha
t Frank was neither good nor bad, nor a sensitive complicated mechanism of mental contradictions. Frank was only a boy who had the normal urges of youth, but these urges had been perverted until he had become delinquent. Now Stan was certain that Frank would die young, for his death by violence was certain and inescapable.
“I’m not to blame because I gave her the ticket!” Frank slammed the door shut and faced his mother. “Why blame me if that stinker got in a jam? It was her fault.”
“That’s not true,” Stan said.
Frank’s face was bloodless. “Keep outa this,” he warned Stan.
“Bum!” his mother screamed again.
“I’m going!” Frank shouted. “Go to hell!”
“Gangster!”
“Go to hell!”
“Murderer!”
Frank wrenched open the door and hurled himself down the steps.
In the kitchen the steam rose lazily from the teakettle and Mr. Goldfarb stared at Stan, who could say nothing, and the only discernible sounds were the harsh breathing of Mrs. Goldfarb and the childish weeping of Alice, who sat huddled in her chair at the kitchen table, sobbing and wanting to die.
Chapter 12
Detective Lieutenant Macon spat at the headline of the Daily News, tore the offending paper in two, and threw the halves into his wastebasket. He just couldn’t seem to get a decent break in this damn Bannon case. He looked at Gallagher and Wilner, whose faces were fat pictures of gloom.
“We never get a break,” Macon said. “Not one single break. How the hell did this get into the paper?” He pointed to the wastebasket.
Wilner shrugged his shoulders. “How do I know? We kept it quiet. After all, it was only a hunch.”
“But a good hunch,” Gallagher said to him. “You called your shot, Bert.”
“That’s right,” Macon agreed. “You suggested that we try dragging those Rockaway channels because maybe Benny and Frank got rid of the gun there.”
Wilner nodded sadly. “So I was right.”
“And how,” Macon continued. “The second try with the dredge at the Flatbush Avenue Bridge and up comes this plaster-of-paris block with some gun parts. They sure are slick kids.”
“So I still don’t know how the News got it,” Gallagher cursed. “They’re slick kids and there aren’t any fingerprints on the block or the gun parts, and now I’ll bet a hundred to one that we got the right kids. But they’ll see it in the paper, and when we pick them up now they’ll have another good alibi. Damn it!” Gallagher removed his hat and crushed it. “It burns me up.”
“It would’ve been a beauty,” Macon said, “if we could’ve sprung the gun parts on them. Well,” he sighed, “I better send out a call to pick them up.”
Frank shivered as he sat in the Winthrop and read and reread the scream headline in the News. They had found the gun parts. Now they had the weapon, at least part of it, and how certain could he be that there weren’t any of Benny’s fingerprints or, for that matter, his on the plaster block or the gun barrel? He could no longer be certain of anything, for who would have dreamed that the cops would find the gun after so many weeks? It was Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of June. Two more days and the term would have come to its official end. Now the cops had the gun, had fished it out of the channel underneath the Flatbush Avenue Bridge.
Frank sat erect and electric in the chair. That meant the cops had doubted them and had decided to drag the Rockaway channels. Now they had the proof. Frank felt himself going limp, and his heart and pulses began to pound violently, beating and thumping with fright. They were caught. Trapped. Benny, the smart apple who made him go on the hook, made him go back to the school to talk to Mr. Bannon, made him a murderer, made him think that the cops would never find the gun! If they had thrown the gun into a sewer they would be safe now, but no, Benny had to know it all. Now the cops had the gun and they had told Lieutenant Macon that they had been necking in the Jacob Riis parking lot the night of the murder, and it wouldn’t be long now before the cops would have them again, sweating them until they confessed, and after they confessed there would be the trial and the chair. Frank sprang out of the tall chair with the arms. The resemblance was too close.
“Let’s see your paper,” Feivel called to him. “I hear they found the rod what knocked off your teacher.”
Frank handed him the paper. “Keep it,” he said.
“Hey,” Feivel called after him, “I’ll give it right back. Where you goin’?”
Frank closed the poolroom door behind him without replying. What was he going to do? For certain the cops would be out looking for them now. He had to get out of town. Alone. Without Benny, the bastard who knew so much that he was in a jam now that was going to burn them. If only he were certain that there weren’t any fingerprints on the plaster or the gun. But then cold reason showed him that even the lack of fingerprints was not a defense. They were suspect, and the police, if they had to, would painstakingly check every store in Brooklyn in order to find out whether he or Benny ever had purchased plaster of paris, and then they would be through. Even at that very moment as he was walking along Remsen Avenue the cops might be at his home or Benny’s searching for a container of plaster of paris.
Frank moaned in anguish. He was through, done for. He would die in the electric chair, moaning as he was dragged along the corridor to the death chamber. All his nerve, poise, reason had left him. He stumbled along Remsen Avenue, unseeing, his face white and drawn. There wasn’t an out for him. Nothing. At any moment he expected to feel a firm hand on his shoulder, a hand which would be the first instrument that would take him to his death.
And as he thought of death the desire to live became stronger, more dominant and insistent, and Frank began to reason again. Things were bad for him and for Benny. He shut his eyes to eliminate Benny. Benny no longer belonged in his thinking. Benny didn’t count any longer. Only he, Frank Goldfarb, mattered. He had to figure his way out of this jam, not Benny’s. The bastard. The drunken bastard. Two more days and it would have been Friday and June thirtieth, the last day of the term, the last day of the month, the last day of the nightmare. July would have meant escape. But why should he wait three days to escape? Why escape only in July? Why not now?
The sudden buoyance left him as he looked in his wallet. Three dollars. Seventy-two cents in his jacket pocket. At home he had a little more than twenty dollars tucked away in the bottom of his bureau drawer. He had to have the money. He had to have some clothes. He had to have the reefers. The reefers would pep him up, give him the courage and guts he needed. As he smoked them he would think of being tough and not being afraid of anything, and the mood would be carried over and exaggerated so that nothing would faze him. He had to get home for his money, clothes, and cigarettes. He had to get the twenty dollars so that he could buy a gun, for he was determined to go out fighting, shooting, killing. With the gun he could stick up a poolroom or lunch wagon and maybe get enough money to disappear. He needed the money. He needed a gun.
Frank looked at his watch. It was still early, before eleven. If he could get started soon he might be able to hitch a couple of hundred miles before dark. He didn’t know whether to head for Canada or Mexico. Or maybe out to the cattle or lumber country, where he could lose himself and never be found. But so long as he left New York he was safe temporarily. Frank walked with more determination to the bus stop. He would still beat the rap. He had to. He was too young to die. And if he had to die he was going out fighting.
As he waited for the bus the hatred and fury that he felt for Black Benny drove everything else from his mind. Benny had done this to him, and now he was going to become a fugitive because of Benny. Then it would be Benny’s luck to squirm clear of the murder charge and drop the entire blame on him. Because if there weren’t any fingerprints on the gun Benny could claim that Frank had done the shooting. That wasn’t any good. Benny had to be made to pay. The bastard. The drunken bastard.
The bus swerved toward the curb and Frank entered, p
aid his fare, and sat staring out of a window. It was Benny’s fault. Only Benny’s fault. Not his. It wasn’t his idea to go back to school. Benny had been waiting for him with the car, not he for Benny. It was even Benny’s idea that they should act like wise guys when Mr. Bannon questioned them. It was because Benny had bought the bottle and they had become half tight that Bannon was dead. And whose idea was it to go back to the school? And who wouldn’t throw away his gun? And who had slugged Bannon with the gun and then shot him? Not he. Benny. Benny the wise guy, who thought he was a hard guy and wanted to be a killer. Now he was on the spot, not Benny. He was the one who had done most of the alibiing to the cops, had kept them from tripping them up, from confusing them so that they would tell incriminating, conflicting stories. And for all of this he had nothing to face but the chair, or maybe life. Frank saw prison: its gray monotony, its closeness, its stifling of freedom. Look how long the month of June had been. How much longer would thirty—no, fifty—years be than a month?
Frank yanked the signal cord as the bus approached Amboy Street. Benny had to be paid off. He entered a shabby little candy store on East New York Avenue and looked up the telephone number of the police station. Now Benny was going to get his. The troublemaking bastard. Carefully he placed his handkerchief across the telephone mouthpiece and dialed the station number.
“Hello,” he said in a disguised and muffled voice, “I want to speak to Lieutenant Macon. It’s important.” Frank waited as the connection was made. “Hello,” he said again, and his voice trembled and the telephone receiver was damp in his hand, “I want to talk to Lieutenant Macon—Yes, Macon.”
Frank peered out of the booth. The only customers in the store were two little girls buying colored jelly beans. No one would walk in and see him in the booth, but to play safe he shifted about so that he stood with his back against the glass panels in the door. Perspiration dampened his lips and nose, and he rubbed them against the handkerchief that covered the mouthpiece. He started as he heard Macon’s voice and he gulped before he was able to speak.
The Amboy Dukes Page 23
