Sam's Legacy

by Jay Neugeboren

  “I told you. Sure.”

  “Then look at me.”

  “I got things on my mind.”

  “Look at me.”

  “There,” Sam said, leaning back and looking into Stella’s face. Her lips were parted and he thought they quivered slightly. Her eyes were a deep brown. He felt, as he often did after a meal, somewhat sleepy. Stella’s hand moved upward, pulling on his shirt, drawing him to her. “Sabatini too. He called.”

  “So what else is new?”

  Her sweater seemed to melt under his hand. “His goons are gonna handle me from now on.” He felt himself hardening, her leg pressed against his. “They can get mean.”

  “But you’ll handle them, right? You’re Sam the Man.”

  “Sam the Lamb is more like it.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said, her lips opening, only a few inches away. “I told you, with a girl like me a guy is safe. Even you. You can hide out here, if you want.” Her voice seemed to fade away. “My mother would get a big charge out of that.”

  “You take her too seriously,” Sam said.

  “You know what? You’re right.”

  Sam relented. “Okay,” he said. “Why not?” Then he lowered his face and kissed her on the mouth, moving his left arm around to hold her to him. Her lips gave way and he felt the two of them fall slowly backward, so that her breasts pressed against his chest. She seemed to be humming. Her hand gripped him so hard that he could, lying against her, feel her fingernails through his shirt. Her lips were warm and he could tell that she knew what she was doing. That shouldn’t have surprised him, though, since she hadn’t, he knew, lost the use of her legs until after she had graduated from high school. He lifted his head and she smiled at him in a way that made him smile too.

  “I’ll tell you something,” she whispered, her head against the corner of the couch, “you did the right thing.”

  Suddenly, he ached for her—and the ache was so deep that he found himself flinching, tightening his stomach to control the pain. Her fist still held him by the shirt. He stretched out, so that he lay half on top of her; then, as gently as he could, he lifted her legs and raised them so that she lay stretched out also, next to him. He heard his heart thumping and wondered if she heard it also. She said nothing, but while he moved her into position and adjusted himself next to her, she held on, her brown eyes fixed on his face. Sam felt sleepy. He lowered his head and she raised her chin so that he could kiss her on the neck. Her skin was softer than he’d imagined it would be. He pressed his body to hers and her hips moved. He found her lips again and they opened for him this time. He felt fingers against his cheekbone, moving delicately, tracing the shape of his face. His head was spinning and he pressed against her, his right hand moving to the skin under her sweater, at the waist. It had been a long time since a girl had excited him as much as Stella did—and yet, hungry for her as he felt, as furious and passionate as he knew he was, he felt also as if he were tumbling down into something very comfortable, something that would, his eyes closed in the darkness, protect and console him. He reached out with his tongue, tentatively, and licked her teeth. She hummed to him. His tongue moved forward, past her teeth, and when she received him, kissing his tongue with hers, he fell deeper, and then, as if her tongue had been wired with electricity, his head snapped back and his eyes bolted open: she lay beside him, surprised but not scared, and he was certain that he had, a second before, if only for an instant, as her mouth had opened to him, been seeing Mason Tidewater’s face, and tasting his sweet tongue.

  “I better get going,” he said.

  She held him by the shirt. “No.”

  “Listen,” he said, sitting up. “You don’t know everything.”

  “Please,” she said. “It’s all right, Sam.”

  His thoughts, he felt, were drowning, fighting one another under water. A sitting duck, out of luck. “I got too many things on my mind,” he said.

  “You’ll forget,” Stella said, softly. “Turn out the light.”

  “You don’t know everything.”

  “I’ll take care of you,” she said. “You’ll see.”

  “Something happened.”

  “You take things too hard. Relax a little, Sam the Gambler. Christ—what’s it all for if…”

  “Forget it,” Sam said, and he saw Ben at the airport, going into the tube. “I better straighten some things out first.”

  “Take my advice and turn out the light. It’ll be worth your while.” She turned away then, her face to the back of the couch, and her fist came away from his shirt. “Oh shit, then—move your butt out of here. I don’t need anything that bad. Just move it out, right?”

  Sam wanted to understand what was happening. “I’m sorry,” he said, finding no other words. “I’m Sam the Lamb, I guess.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “Can you manage—I mean, get back by yourself?” he asked. Her body was turned from him, her pale skin showing between her sweater and skirt, where he’d touched her. He saw himself covered with fleece, Ben nearby, shears ready. “I can give you a hand. I got a minute, if—”

  “Get out!” she cried, spinning toward him. Her eyes shot fire. “And don’t lay your hands on me.” With an effort that made her face red, and the muscles on her neck vibrate, she pressed her fists against the cushions of the couch and found a sitting position. One foot stayed under her, caught. “For your information, I can even get life insurance—twenty-payment life, but life insurance nonetheless. I checked. Now move it, Sam the Lamb, by your own words—”

  “Something happened,” he said.

  She was breathing heavily from her exertions. Sam thought of Stallworth, lying on his back, his long brown body naked under a sheet in the hospital for twenty-seven days. “I told you. I’ll take care of you. I won’t say it again. I’m a busy woman, right? There are still a few things I want to see and do in this life.”

  “You don’t know everything,” Sam said. His erection, he realized, was gone, but he ached even more than he had before. He wanted to understand—when a thing like that happened, sneaking up on you, you had to figure it out. It made a difference.

  “You can’t do that, don’t you understand?” Stella said. “Get me all—excited, right?—and then just—oh Sam, you’re a real prince, did you know that?” She took deep breaths, let her body fall backward, her eyes closed. “You do like it here, don’t you?”

  “Sure. You know that. It’s just—”

  “It’s just nothing. Oh, one more time, Sam. Don’t be a jerk your whole life. Turn out the light and come here. Please.” Her eyes opened. “Please.”

  Sam nodded. “Maybe it was nothing,” he said.

  “Come here, sweet Sam,” she said. Sam nodded again, hoping she would understand. Her voice reassured him. If he told her about it, everything would be ruined—but if he didn’t…“Come here, sweet Sam.”

  He turned out the light and sat down, next to her. Her hand touched him, above the knee, and he stiffened at once. He pressed his head to her breasts and cried soundlessly, pulling her so tightly that he feared for her. How could he tell her about what he had seen? And if he started to talk about it, where would it end? It bothered him less, in the dark, that it had happened. He wanted only to press her, to squeeze the life from her. She had, he knew, been good to him. He let the two of them fall again, and lifted her leg, so that they were as before, beside one another. He wanted to be good to her, too. She was right about that. With everything happening the way it was outside, in the streets below, he had more than a right to enjoy some peace. Let the bastards sweat. He tightened slightly, with anger, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he heard the same cry—a helpless cry, he knew.

  “Sweet Sam,” she said in his ear, and he realized she was crying. He wasn’t surprised. He kissed her cheeks, licked her tears, and felt her body heave with relief. He slid his hand under her sweater, and her skin was still cool, firm. “I’m too much, right?” she whispered. “About the in
surance—oh Christ, I’m a case sometimes—” Her back arched, her hips moving into him. “Oh Christ, but that feels good, Sam. Oh Christ, you’re an ace, sweet Sam. Oh bloody Christ.”

  Her brassiere unhooked easily and when he took her breast in his mouth, running his tongue around her nipple, she tugged on his hair, and laughed. Her hand gripped him, like iron, between his legs. “Wait a second,” he said, and pulled away. “Are you—comfortable here? I mean, I could take you into the other room, if—”

  “I can see your eyes,” she said.

  “Then we’ll stay here, right?”

  “I have complete confidence in you, Sam the Gambler.”

  “You’re not the first to say that.” She kept her hand on his leg as he undressed. He let his clothes drop to the floor, then—with some awkwardness, but without her having to give him instructions—he undressed her, letting her clothes fall to the floor on top of his. She held him in her hands, where he put himself for a few seconds, and then he lay down again, next to her, their chests touching, and he prayed to God that, when they touched tongues again, as he dearly wanted them to, he would be able to do so without tensing, that he would be able to do so as—something he wanted for himself more than for her—what he would have called a free man.

  11

  Sam saw that Muriel had left the blanket, folded neatly, to one side of his door, and he bent over to pick it up. When he had come in the night before, she had been sleeping on the landing, curled up on her side, blocking her door. Her nose had been red and dripping, but she had seemed to be in such a deep sleep that he hadn’t wanted to disturb her. That was why he had taken a blanket from his closet and covered her. Still, he thought, carrying the blanket into his apartment, he would speak to Flo: something had to be done—it wasn’t fair for a young kid to be brought up that way, as much as the old woman might have loved the girl.

  Sam dropped the blanket on his bed and walked to the window, putting a hand on the radiator. It was barely warm. Damned Tidewater, he thought—so busy with his story he wasn’t keeping an eye on the furnace. Flo was right: you hardly saw the man anymore. In the street below, Sam saw some young boys playing—running and then sliding along the sheet of ice that covered the sidewalk, seeing who could slide farthest. Across the street, toward Martense Street, a family—mother, father, four children—were moving, their furniture and cartons on two wooden dollies. The father—a stocky black man in a blue wool hat pulled down over his ears—had the rope to one dolly across his chest, and he leaned forward, straining, steam billowing from his mouth and nose. His wife and one son walked alongside the dolly, making sure the furniture—Sam picked out a wooden table, a green sofa-chair, an unpainted dresser—did not fall. A boy—the man’s son, Sam figured—perhaps fifteen years old, but a head taller than any of the others, pulled the other dolly. His sister helped him. Sam saw dishes and pots and clothing. Maybe, with his height, the kid could play ball someday, Sam thought. There was something in the easy way he moved that told Sam he was a good athlete. Sam had told Stella that—how he had, until recently, always regretted not having been a great ballplayer; how he had, as a kid, dreamt of making the pros. But—he didn’t want to insist too much, and he wouldn’t have said such a thing to anyone else—he was glad now that things had worked out the way they had. He’d been around enough locker rooms to know what the daily grind was like. He pulled for the guys he liked—but he had the feeling that, if they knew him and what his life was like, most of them would have envied him as much as he had envied them. Stallworth was, he’d explained to Stella, the best example, and Sam had told her about him, and about what he had been quoted as saying, about wanting to relax a little in this life.

  Sam had the words right—for a change he was glad he could remember things exactly, that way. He banged on the radiator, as he had earlier—then on the steam pipe. He checked the valve, but it was wide open. He unfolded the blanket that he’d loaned to Muriel and put it across his knees. Then he dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “You up already?”

  “Hey, Sam the Gambler,” she said. He swallowed, glad he had called. “What’s the good word?”

  “I was just thinking of you,” Sam said. “So I thought I’d call. How do you feel? I mean, after last night.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Sure,” Sam said.

  “What’s there to say, right?”

  Sam shrugged. “You want me to come over later? We could watch the basketball game together. It’s like an icebox here. Damned Tidewater—”

  “Give me a little time, okay? I got to get things ready.”

  “Sure.”

  Sam waited. “You get home okay?” Stella asked.

  “Sure. The streets were pretty quiet. People read the papers too much.”

  Stella laughed. “Last night!” she said, and her laugh was the same as it had been then. “You come over when you want.”

  “Okay,” Sam said. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Last night,” she said again, and laughed. “You’re really a prize.” Then she hung up.

  Sam smiled. He could understand what she meant—he would not, if somebody had told him, have believed that he could have said such a thing at a time like that, but it was what had occurred to him. He was glad now that it had. He liked himself—it was the only way he could think of putting it—for being that way. They had been in bed together, in Stella’s room (not in the living room), when she had stopped moving and pushed him off. He had heard the sound then too, at the window, and had pulled the blankets back, to cover them. The guy’s nose had been pressed against the glass, his eyes bulging, and Sam had had no idea how long he’d been there, watching them from the fire escape. “Oh shit,” he’d heard Stella say. “Shit.” He’d reached down quickly to the floor and slipped his knife from his pants, snapping it open, but there had been no need. The guy’s face was gone a second later, and Sam hadn’t asked why. He’d turned to Stella at once, figuring she would have been scared to death, but he discovered that she was only annoyed. “Just shit,” she’d said again, and from the way she said it, he could tell that she had been more annoyed that they’d been interrupted than that somebody had been looking in. “I guess,” Sam had found himself saying, as he had put his knife away, “that that’s what you got to expect when you live in a neighborhood in transition.”

  He hadn’t intended to be funny—he had wanted, only, to break the ice, to get his own mind away from what might have happened if the guy had wanted to break in—but his remark had cracked Stella up. She had pressed herself against him and roared with laughter. “Oh Christ, I love you, Sam,” he remembered her saying, and it was the first and only time that she had let herself say it. “Sure,” he’d begun, and she had managed to put her hand over his mouth so that he had not been able to explain himself. He could see her now, her head under him, her hair up—he’d put it there—across the back of the pillow so that it didn’t become knotted when she sweated. He had put his head against her chest then, his ear warm against her skin, and had begun laughing with her. “You’re my bird, Sam,” she’d said, when she’d been able to stop laughing, and though he hadn’t said so, he’d agreed with her.

  He made his bed, did his exercises, and was eating breakfast when there was a knock at the door. “It’s open,” he said.

  “Still taking chances, right, Ace?” Dutch said, coming into the room. Sam sighed, saw that Dutch had, since the last time he’d seen him, grown a beard; it was trimmed close to his face, and his blue eyes, above the black hair, seemed more deeply set than ever. “I mean, what if I’d been some spook looking to hit you for cash?”

  Sam motioned to the sofa. “Take a load off your mind. You want some coffee?”

  “Okay.” Dutch took his gloves off and blew into his hands. “It’s cold as a witch’s tit out.”

  Sam took a cup down from the cabinet above the sink and poured coffee for Dutch. Shimmy had called two days before, to try to arrange a get-together,
to offer Sam money—and Sid had left a message with Flo that same day. “What’s up?” Sam asked.

  “Nothing,” Dutch said. “I called a few times, but you never seem to be in so I figured I’d stop by—I thought you might want to come by my place this afternoon, to watch the game. The Lakers go against the Bucks, from Milwaukee.”

  “No thanks.”

  Dutch stroked his beard, his chin toward Sam. “Come on—say something at least. What do you think of it?”

  “Not bad,” Sam said, laughing. “You gonna be a rabbi?”

  “Akiba left home at the age of forty, an ignorant man,” Dutch said, his eyes looking out over the rim of his cup, scanning the room. “And he returned, the wisest rabbi in—”

  “You’re not forty yet,” Sam said, and sat opposite Dutch.

  “I told you before,” Dutch said. “You’re the one should be a rabbi, the way your mind works.”

  “Take a walk.”

  “I mean it, Ace.” Dutch leaned forward, on the edge of the sofa. His eyes were beautiful, and as he gazed into them Sam felt the tension leave his body. Poor Dutch, he thought. “The way, when you play cards, nothing interferes—religious men have that kind of concentration. That’s why their wives shave their heads and sit on the other side of walls in shul—m’chitzahs—so that nothing intervenes between them and God.” Dutch stood and recited: “‘They tell of the rabbis—Elieser and Joshua and Elazar ben-Azariah, Akiba, and Tarphon—who celebrated the Passover in B’nai Brak and were discussing the story of the going forth from Egypt all night long until their students came and said to them: “Rabbis, it is time for the morning prayers.” ‘”

  Sam could see Dutch, standing in Hebrew School class when the two of them had been eleven or twelve years old, and he knew that Dutch wanted him to be reminded of the past they shared. “Okay,” Sam said, looking through the window at the fire escapes on the buildings across the street. “I’ll ask again—what’s up?”

  Dutch seemed puzzled to find that he was standing. He took his coat off. “It’s warm here,” he said, and sat.