The Little Brothers

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “I don’t care,” Angie said, but he did.

  Besides, Julie had taken hold of the iron railing as though she didn’t intend to move. She said, “Do you have some of the money left, Miss Abramovitch?”

  Alice said, “Miss Abramovitch never spends it all in one place, honey. Come on in and bring sonny with you.”

  The two women got along fine. They talked about the lieutenant as though Angie wasn’t present. Julie wanted to know if he was on the make and Alice wanted to know what man wasn’t. Julie accepted some of the port wine that turned Angie’s stomach.

  “I just love it,” Alice said. “Can women get gout?”

  “But not from port wine,” Julie said. “That’s an old wives’ tale.”

  “Those old wives could sure make them up, couldn’t they?”

  “It was something to do besides screwing,” Julie said.

  Angie could have gone through the floor. Alice laughed and said she’d get some crackers and cheese to go with the wine, and passing behind Angie, she ran her fingers through his hair. When he looked round she was winking at Julie.

  He felt he was getting smaller and smaller. He imagined himself swinging his legs the way he did as a child. Then he imagined himself disappearing altogether. Where’s Angie? They might not even notice he was gone. “Alice, what did the cop ask you about Ric?”

  “What he looked like. How he acted.”

  Angie thought about it. “He knows what Ric looks like.”

  “That particular night. He was very interested when I said he was like a Santa Claus you pushed down and it comes back up.

  That was the story of Ric’s life. Maybe of his own, Angie thought.

  “The lieutenant and I figured out he might’ve been wearing something else under that sloppy sweater, like a butcher’s coat stuck into his pants.”

  Angie remembered mostly the way Ric smelled. It made him sick thinking about it. He wished he hadn’t asked Alice anything.

  “I thought I ought to tell you, Angie, the lieutenant thinks maybe you were in on it with him. And stealing the coat, then coming with me the way you did gives you an alibi.”

  “I got the same impression,” Julie said.

  “I don’t need an alibi,” Angie said.

  Alice said, “Baby, the kind of sweet shnook you are, you need an alibi even when you’re innocent.”

  Alice and Julie got talking again, this time about Mr. Grossman and some of the things he had said to Julie about Europe before Hitler. Alice told about her relatives who had been killed in the gas ovens. Angie kept trying to get the picture and it made him want to laugh only he knew there wasn’t anything funny about it. It was just that people were too big for ovens … Six million, Alice said, which was almost the population of New York. Angie thought of Con Ed.

  Then Alice said, “I got fifty dollars for you, Angie. When I get stood up, all I want is transportation money to my next engagement.”

  “You do know interesting people,” Julie said when she and Angie were on the street again, Angie with the fifty dollars in his pocket. “That’s why I came to live in Little Italy, to meet real people. Like Alice.”

  “It’s funny,” Angie said, “I like people who aren’t real better. I mean I like them the way they are in my mind.”

  “You mean you liked me better before you met me,” Julie said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Angie said, but it was true. “I don’t know, things really happen when I dream them.”

  “What I’ve discovered: you can dream up, but not down. What about your other friend, Mag?”

  “It wouldn’t help even if we found her. She’d’ve spent the twenty bucks on bird seed by now.”

  “That’s a lot of bird seed, but I think you’re right.”

  “I’d buy you lunch if this money was mine,” Angie said.

  “We’ll have lunch at my place. My credit’s good at Allioto’s, and I’ve got a check coming for Grand Street.”

  “What did you mean, you can dream up but not down?”

  “Well, you dream of being rich and successful, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “And I want to be poor and a failure. I mean I just want to be what I turn out to be, not something coming out of the dream machine.”

  “Like out of television or the movies?”

  “Right.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being poor so much,” Angie said thoughtfully, “if I could be successful at something that counts, a musician or a scientist …” He couldn’t bring himself to mention dancing, not after the scene with his mother.

  “Scientists are part of the Establishment. Music is too in this country. Oh, Angie, you’re right. Dreaming is better.”

  He walked in silence for a few minutes, remembering some of his daydreams and where doing something—like joining the Little Brothers—had got him. Inevitably, he thought of Ric. If you were going to dream poor, his house was typical, broken down chairs they never fixed … “Do you ever dream of cockroaches?”

  “I don’t think I ever have, but there’s a wonderful story—it’s about a man who woke up and found himself turned into a cockroach—or maybe it’s a beetle. His family doesn’t recognize him, of course, and he gets an apple core lodge in the crust of his back. I’ll loan it to you if you want to read it. Do you return books?”

  Angie felt himself blushing.

  Julie looked at him and laughed. “I’m sure you return books.”

  22

  THEY PLAYED GOLF THE way Marks liked to play it, with caddies and cushioned greens, honeydew melon and cheese served beneath an umbrella after the ninth hole, iced beer from a golf cart on the fifteenth tee. They were guests of a client of Julian Marks.

  It was late afternoon when they got back to the clubhouse. Marks had begun to feel uneasy, out of touch. He tried to tell himself that he was only one cop on a team, a cop in a plaid shirt in East Orange. That was what was troubling him: not that he was out of touch, but that he was out of his element. He had split with the environment in which he had grown up. Not deliberately, as was the case with Julie Borghese—he realized he had been maneuvering her around this setting all afternoon—but by default. He liked to go home now and then to visit. He had the feeling that if Julie ever went home it would be to stay. Which was better, drift or drama? If Grossman had been allowed to drift in his German days, he would have stayed a musician with, say, a string quartet. Or would he have been in the pit of a theater? In a beergarden? Who would ever know? Or care. There had been cases on which he had worked where afterwards he had visited the families and sought to learn the roots of the crime … and to alleviate the sorrow if not the shame. Not lately. There was not much he could do about anger, and it was the principal residue on the present scene.

  He got the car himself and brought it around to the clubhouse entrance where he waited for his father to exchange amenities with their host. He studied the road map and then asked someone the best way to get to Jersey City. He wasn’t even sure you could get there from East Orange. One thing sure, Marks decided, it would be easier than getting from Jersey City to East Orange.

  The Jersey City law offices of Galli and Frascotti were over a Liggetts drugstore. In the vestibule, Marks went through the roster. John Bonelli was a member of the firm. The offices were closed for the weekend.

  Marks went into the drugstore phone booth and dialed the unlisted number. A woman answered. Marks could hear music in the background. Marks said, “Let me speak to Johnny Bonelli.”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Tell him a friend of Al Ruggio’s.”

  “Just a minute.”

  And very shortly, a man’s voice: “Hello?”

  “Johnny?”

  “Yeah …”

  Marks hung up.

  23

  ANGIE HAD NEVER BEEN in an apartment like Julie’s. He had memorized everything because he felt he would be furnishing his dreams for a long time from that afternoon. Julie had put the leaves of pla
nts under the microscope for him, and a slide with a tiny insect in a drop of water. Under the microscope it looked like a balloon with whiskers that wiggled. He had looked at the art books, and he had puzzled a great deal over the blue-robed Madonna with the words, Women’s Lib, underneath. He knew what Women’s Lib meant and if Julie was an example, he was for it. It was not a popular movement in Little Italy. He had been taught that the Blessed Virgin raised the dignity of women. So the two things did go together.

  “Are you religious, Angie?”

  “Sort of. I don’t go to church much.”

  “Do you pray?”

  “Sure. When I’m scared or want something badly enough.”

  “If you were to pray for something right now, what would it be?”

  “Something serious?”

  “The most serious.”

  “I’d pray they’d find whoever it was killed Mr. Grossman and it wouldn’t be anybody I know.”

  “Angie, how did you get mixed up in that scene?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Okay, but if you ever need a friend and want to, I’m here.”

  He had told her about his mother and Mr. Rotelli, and his father and the brother who had left home as soon as the marines would accept him.

  All this occurred during the afternoon. Toward six they walked the few blocks down Mulberry Street to the parish house and asked to see Father Phillips. They were put to wait in a small, dust-proof room where the faded chairs were covered with antimacassars.

  Julie said, “I should be wearing brocade, a corset with stays, and an uplift bra.”

  “Yeah,” Angie said, understanding in part. He also knew, having observed her carefully, that she wasn’t wearing anything under the blouse.

  The priest came in his shirt sleeves, wearing no collar.

  “This is Angie, Father. We have some money for you.”

  “The acrobat,” the priest said with a funny smile. “Sit down, please.”

  He was not like Angie had expected him to be. He tried to open the window. It wouldn’t budge.

  Julie said, “It doesn’t open as easily as mine, Father.”

  Angie wished she would stop sounding so sarcastic. He handed the money to the priest in the envelope Julie had given him. “It’s only fifty dollars, Father. I’ll get the rest as soon as I can.”

  “You can send it to me,” Phillips said, and buttoned the envelope into his back pants pocket. “I’ll give you the address.”

  “In California?”

  He nodded.

  Julie said: “I thought you were going to preach a crusade for us.”

  “I’ve decided to practice, not preach,” he said quietly.

  “I was hoping you’d take my friend, Angie, to California with you. His father is there.”

  Angie, surprised, said: “But I don’t want to go now.”

  “On account of me?” Julie said.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Angie,” and she put her hand on his for a moment. “You wouldn’t like me for very long. I’m really not a very nice person underneath. I’m a survivor, and survivors eat the innocents first.”

  The priest looked at Julie for a long minute and then at Angie with that little smile again. “Do you believe her?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Nor do I, and I don’t honestly think she does either. Shall we take a little walk, the three of us, out where we can breathe?”

  They went outdoors and walked down through Chinatown to the small park named after Columbus. Angie wondered what had happened to the Chinese boy at the stationhouse, but he didn’t feel like trying to talk about it. He knew there was a nightmare waiting for him, but this was like a daydream and he wanted to hold onto it for as long as he could. The priest bought them Italian ices from a street vendor out of the money Angie had returned to him. There was something sad about it all. Even Julie didn’t talk. They walked back in silence. The priest wrote his address on the envelope and gave it to Angie. Then he shook hands with both of them and went into the church.

  Outside Julie’s, Angie proposed to go up to his hideout, and he knew there was something he had to do at home.

  Julie said, “If you want a meal later, just ring the bell.”

  When he crossed the street, by the habit of a scavenger he glanced into the uncovered trash cans at the curb. There was the cover to his Portnoy’s Complaint, just the cover which he recognized because of the way the corners were broken off. He called out to Julie and ran back to her without even climbing the stairs to look: he knew the door to the roof would be banned to him and his gear confiscated. It upset him and he did not know why: it was not the value of the tent or supplies.

  “You’ve been violated, your privacy invaded,” Julie said when she had calmed him down.

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you think it was the police?”

  “Maybe,” he said again. He was thinking of the knife he had taken away, but which remained in his father’s shoe.

  “Are you frightened?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am, only it’s different than it was before.”

  “Want to come upstairs?”

  “I can’t. There’s something I’ve got to do.”

  “I understand. I don’t understand, but I do. As I said before—I’ll be here.”

  24

  JULIAN MARKS WAS CARVING the roast when Matty brought him word that there was a phone call for the lieutenant. She always took the message to him, no matter whom the call was for.

  His father said, “Pour the wine first, David. Because a man has a dime in his pocket, it doesn’t give him unlimited right to invade our privacy.”

  Marks reached for the bottle, responding by an old reflex, picked it up, and then put it down again after pouring a few drops in his father’s glass. He went to the phone.

  “I thought I’d better check out with you whether you’d want to take this one or not,” the headquarters man said. “A Doctor Noble at Bellevue Hospital wants to talk to you. Want the number?”

  “Let’s have it.”

  While Marks waited for the hospital intercom system to track down Dr. Noble, he mused on the lives of residents and interns: no benevolent association watchdogs for them. A twenty-four-hour day came natural.

  “Lieutenant? Bonelli’s still here. He was discharged before noon. He started to complain about head pains, now it’s stomach pains. I think he’s faking. The only change in his chart is a jump in his blood pressure. I think he’s scared. The preacher—the guy with the prayerbook?”

  “Yes,” Marks said.

  “He says all these pains set in when Bonelli got a letter by messenger this morning.”

  “I’ll come by in an hour or so,” Marks said. “Thank you, doctor.”

  He returned to the table and noted that the wine was poured and the main course served. If either of his parents was annoyed, there was no sign. He murmured regrets.

  “David,” his mother said as he picked up his knife and fork, “how did your arms get to be so long?”

  He was wearing his college blazer, the only jacket he had left in his parents’ house. “It’s not that they’re longer. It’s that I’ve filled out in the shoulders and biceps. If I had to scratch my head right now, I’d have to use my toes.”

  “Not at the table, David.”

  He and his father looked at one another.

  The elder Marks said: “Mothers never allow their sons to grow up, which is virtually the only consolation left to a father after his son’s bar mitzvah.”

  Marks stopped at his own apartment long enough to change clothes and pick up his service revolver. At the hospital, Doctor Noble had about two minutes to spare him. “Saturday night’s the lonesomest night in the week. Oh, yeah? Not by Bellevue. We need the bed from under Bonelli. Try and get him to move out, will you, lieutenant? I don’t know what you do in a case like this—get an eviction notice?”

  Marks went to the ward by himself.

  The “preacher” s
aluted him with two fingers, a kind of benediction as he lifted them from the prayerbook. His lips never ceased their motion. Two of the men were watching a portable television set between their beds. Bonelli lay with his eyes closed, his fingers working a little where his hands were folded on his stomach. The dark splotches under his eyes were beginning to green.

  “Bonelli.”

  He jumped, opening his eyes. “Who let you in?”

  “I have visiting privileges,” Marks said.

  “I asked so nobody comes to see me. I’m sick. I think I’m bleeding inside.”

  “In your case, that’s better than bleeding on the outside. Who are you afraid of, Bonelli?”

  “You. You want the God’s truth, you.”

  Marks sat down at the bottom of the bed.

  “Get up,” Bonelli said. “You’re making me sicker.”

  “You mean a visit from a detective working on the Grossman case got you into trouble. Isn’t that it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did Ric come to see you today?”

  “No. I thought I was going home till I got this attack.”

  “Gall bladder?” Marks suggested.

  “Tell the doctor that, will you? It could be gall bladder. Down somewhere inside.”

  “Who was the letter from this morning?”

  “My son the lawyer. He wants me to get well.”

  The preacher, whose ears were as keen as his eyes, said, “Policeman, you know what he did with the letter?”

  “Shut your mouth. When I get up, I break your foot.”

  “You break my foot, I break your ass.” The preacher crossed his lips with his thumbnail. “He put it down the toilet.”

  Marks pretended to ignore the information. “So you didn’t know Grossman. How about the man named Ruggio in the upstairs apartment? He’s been missing for thirty-six hours.”

  “Never heard of him!”

  “He’s a friend of Johnny’s.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “I thought you never heard of him.”