Pilgrims
Page 20
could simply take it over? He would think: Imagine what all my
kids could do with all the room in that big house.
On this morning, he parked his Chrysler across the road
from the house, which had not changed as far as he could
see. He had stopped in Stamford to fill the tank with gas and
had purchased a bottle of aspirin at a convenience store there.
Christ, his back hurt! How was he supposed to go back to the
docks in only two days? Honestly, how?
Jimmy opened the bottle and ate a handful of aspirins —
chewed and swallowed without water. It was a well-known fact
that a chewed aspirin, while disgusting to the taste, would act
faster than a whole aspirin, which would sit intact and useless
for some time in a person’s stomach acid. He ate several aspirins
and he thought about his wedding night. He was just nineteen
years old then, and Gina was even younger.
She had asked him on their wedding night, “How many kids
do you want to have, Jimmy?”
He’d said, “Your boobs will get bigger whenever you’re preg-
nant, right?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’ll take ten or eleven kids, Gina,” he had said.
In fact, they ended up having six, which was ridiculous
enough. Six kids! And Jimmy in the produce business! What
had they been thinking? They’d had three boys and three girls.
The girls had Italian names and the boys had Irish names, a
cornball little gimmick that was Jimmy’s idea. Six kids!
172 ✦
At the Bronx Terminal Vegetable Market
The pain in Jimmy’s back, which had started as stiffness and
turned to cramps, was stoked up even higher now. It was a
terrible pain, localized at the point of his recent surgery, empha-
sized periodically by a hot pulse that shook his body like a sob.
He emptied some more of the aspirins from the bottle into his
palm and he looked at the big house. He thought about his
grandfather who had shot through the engine of a company
coal truck, and he thought about his uncle who’d got assassi-
nated by company detectives for organizing, and he thought
about the black lung. He thought about his doctors and about
Joseph D. DiCello and about the mushroom man and about
Hector the Haitian distributor and about his brother Patrick,
who he rarely saw anymore at all because Connecticut was
so far.
He chewed the aspirins and counted the windows of the
great house across the road. Jimmy Moran had never thought to
count the windows before. He worked the bits of aspirin out of
his teeth with his tongue and counted thirty-two windows.
Thirty-two windows that he could see, just from the road! He
thought and thought and then he spoke.
“Even for me, with six kids and a wife . . .” Jimmy supposed
aloud. “Even for me, with six kids and a wife, it must be a sin to
have such a house. That must be it.”
Jimmy Moran thought and thought, but this was the best he
could figure. This was all he could come up with.
“Even for me,” he said again, “it must be a sin.”
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173
The Famous
Torn and Restored Lit
Cigarette Trick
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hungary, Richard Hoffman’s family had been the
In manufacturers of Hoffman’s Rose Water, a product which
was used at the time for both cosmetic and medicinal pur-
poses. Hoffman’s mother drank the rose water for her indiges-
tion, and his father used it to scent and cool his groin after
exercise. The servants rinsed the Hoffmans’ table linens in a
cold bath infused with rose water such that even the kitchen
would be perfumed. The cook mixed a dash of it into her
sweetbread batter. For evening events, Budapest ladies wore
expensive imported colognes, but Hoffman’s Rose Water was a
staple product of daytime hygiene for all women, as requisite as
soap. Hungarian men could be married for decades without
ever realizing that the natural smell of their wives’ skin was not,
in fact, a refined scent of blooming roses.
Richard Hoffman’s father was a perfect gentleman, but his
mother slapped the servants. His paternal grandfather had been
a drunk and a brawler, and his maternal grandfather had been a
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p i l g r i m s
Bavarian boar hunter, trampled to death at the age of ninety
by his own horses. After her husband died of consumption,
Hoffman’s mother transferred the entirety of the family’s for-
tune into the hands of a handsome Russian charlatan named
Katanovsky, a common conjurer and a necromancer who prom-
ised Madame Hoffman audiences with the dead. As for Rich-
ard Hoffman himself, he moved to America, where he mur-
dered two people.
Hoffman immigrated to Pittsburgh during World War II and
worked as a busboy for over a decade. He had a terrible, humili-
ating way of speaking with customers.
“I am from Hungary!” he would bark. “Are you Hungary, too?
If you Hungary, you in the right place!”
For years he spoke such garbage, even after he had learned
excellent English, and could be mistaken for a native-born
steelworker. With this ritual degradation he was tipped gener-
ously, and saved enough money to buy a supper club called the
Pharaoh’s Palace, featuring a nightly magic act, a comic, and
some showgirls. It was very popular with gamblers and the
newly rich.
When Hoffman was in his late forties, he permitted a young
man named Ace Douglas to audition for a role as a supporting
magician. Ace had no nightclub experience, no professional
photos or references, but he had a beautiful voice over the
telephone, and Hoffman granted him an audience.
On the afternoon of the audition, Ace arrived in a tuxedo.
His shoes had a wealthy gleam, and he took his cigarettes from
a silver case, etched with his clean initials. He was a slim,
attractive man with fair brown hair. When he was not smiling,
he looked like a matinee idol, and when he was smiling, he
looked like a friendly lifeguard. Either way, he seemed alto-
gether too affable to perform good magic (Hoffman’s other
magicians cultivated an intentional menace), but his act was
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The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick wonderful and entertaining, and he was unsullied by the often
stupid fashions of magic at the time. (Ace didn’t claim to be
descended from a vampire, for instance, or empowered with
secrets from the tomb of Ramses, or to have been kidnaped by
Gypsies as a child, or raised by missionaries in the mysterious
Orient.) He didn’t even have a female assistant, unlike Hoff-
man’s other magicians, who knew that some bounce in fishnets
could save any sloppy act. What’s more, Ace had the good sense
and class not to call himself the Great anything or the Mag-
nificent anybody.
Onstage, with his smooth hair and white gloves, Ace
There was an older waitress known as Big Sandra at the
Pharaoh’s Palace on the afternoon of Ace Douglas’s audition,
setting up the cocktail bar. She watched the act for a few min-
utes, then approached Hoffman, and whispered in his ear, “At
night, when I’m all alone in my bed, I sometimes think about
men.”
“I bet you do, Sandra,” said Hoffman.
She was always talking like this. She was a fantastic, dirty
woman, and he had actually had sex with her a few times.
She whispered, “And when I get to thinking about men,
Hoffman, I think about a man exactly like that.”
“You like him?” Hoffman asked.
“Oh, my.”
“You think the ladies will like him?”
“Oh, my,” said Big Sandra, fanning herself daintily. “Heav-
ens, yes.”
Hoffman fired his other two magicians within the hour.
After that, Ace Douglas worked every night that the Phar-
aoh’s Palace was open. He was the highest paid performer in
Pittsburgh. This was not during a decade when nice young
women generally came to bars unescorted, but the Pharaoh’s
Palace became a place where nice women — extremely attrac-
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p i l g r i m s
tive young single nice women — would come with their best
girlfriends and their best dresses to watch the Ace Douglas
magic show. And men would come to the Pharaoh’s Palace to
watch the nice young women and to buy them expensive cock-
tails.
Hoffman had his own table at the back of the restaurant,
and after the magic show was over, he and Ace Douglas would
entertain young ladies there. The girls would blindfold Ace,
and Hoffman would choose an object on the table for him to
identify.
“It’s a fork,” Ace would say. “It’s a gold cigarette lighter.”
The more suspicious girls would open their purses and seek
unusual objects — family photographs, prescription medicine, a
traffic ticket — all of which Ace would describe easily. The girls
would laugh, and doubt his blindfold, and cover his eyes with
their damp hands. They had names like Lettie and Pearl and
Siggie and Donna. They all loved dancing, and they all tended
to keep their nice fur wraps with them at the table, out of pride.
Hoffman would introduce them to eligible or otherwise inter-
ested businessmen. Ace Douglas would escort the nice young
ladies to the parking lot late at night, listening politely as they
spoke up to him, resting his hand reassuringly on the small of
their backs if they wavered.
At the end of every evening, Hoffman would say sadly, “Me
and Ace, we see so many girls come and go . . .”
Ace Douglas could turn a pearl necklace into a white glove
and a cigarette lighter into a candle. He could produce a silk
scarf from a lady’s hairpin. But his finest trick was in 1959, when
he produced his little sister from a convent school and offered
her to Richard Hoffman in marriage.
Her name was Angela. She had been a volleyball champion
in the convent school, and she had legs like a movie star’s legs,
and a very pretty laugh. She was ten days pregnant on her
178 ✦
The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick wedding day, although she and Hoffman had known each other
for only two weeks. Shortly thereafter, Angela had a daughter,
and they named her Esther. Throughout the early 1960s, they
all prospered happily.
Esther turned eight years old, and the Hoffmans celebrated her
birthday with a special party at the Pharaoh’s Palace. That
night, there was a thief sitting in the cocktail lounge.
He didn’t look like a thief. He was dressed well enough, and
he was served without any trouble. The thief drank a few marti-
nis. Then, in the middle of the magic show, he leaped over the
bar, kicked the bartender away, punched the cash register open,
and ran out of the Pharaoh’s Palace with his hands full of tens
and twenties.
The customers were screaming, and Hoffman heard it from
the kitchen. He chased the thief into the parking lot and caught
him by the hair.
“You steal from me?” he yelled. “You fucking steal from me?”
“Back off, pal,” the thief said. The thief ’s name was George
Purcell, and he was drunk.
“You fucking steal from me?” Hoffman yelled.
He shoved George Purcell into the side of a yellow Buick.
Some of the customers had come outside, and were watching
from the doorway of the restaurant. Ace Douglas came out, too.
He walked past the customers, into the parking lot, and lit a
cigarette. Ace Douglas watched as Hoffman lifted the thief by
his shirt and threw him against the hood of a Cadillac.
“Back off me!” Purcell said.
“You fucking steal from me?”
“You ripped my shirt!” Purcell cried, aghast. He was looking
down at his ripped shirt when Hoffman shoved him into the
side of the yellow Buick again.
Ace Douglas said, “Richard? Could you take it easy?” (The
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p i l g r i m s
Buick was his, and it was new. Hoffman was steadily pounding
George Purcell’s head into the door.) “Richard? Excuse me?
Excuse me, Richard. Please don’t damage my car, Richard.”
Hoffman dropped the thief to the ground and sat on his
chest. He caught his breath and smiled. “Don’t ever,” he ex-
plained, “ever. Don’t ever steal from me.”
Still sitting on Purcell’s chest, he calmly picked up the tens
and twenties that had fallen on the asphalt and handed them to
Ace Douglas. Then he slid his hand into Purcell’s back pocket
and pulled out a wallet, which he opened. He took nine dollars
from the wallet, because that was all the money he found there.
Purcell was indignant.
“That’s my money!” he shouted. “You can’t take my money!”
“Your money?” Hoffman slapped Purcell’s head. “Your
money? Your fucking money?”
Ace Douglas tapped Hoffman’s shoulder lightly and said,
“Richard? Excuse me? Let’s just wait for the police, okay? How
about it, Richard?”
“Your money?” Hoffman was slapping Purcell in the face
now with the wallet. “You fucking steal from me, you have no
money! You fucking steal from me, I own all your money!”
“Aw, Jesus,” Purcell said. “Quit it, will ya? Leave me alone,
will ya?”
“Let him be,” Ace Douglas said.
“Your money? I own all your money!” Hoffman bellowed. “I
own you! You fucking steal from me, I own your fucking shoes! ”
Hoffman lifted Purcell’s leg and pulled off one of his shoes. It
was a nice brown leather wingtip. He hit Purcell with it once in
the face and tore off the other shoe. He beat on Purcell a few
times with that shoe until he lost his appetite for it. Then he just
sat on Purcell’s chest for a while, catching his breath, hugging
<
br /> the shoes and rocking in a sad way.
“Aw, Jesus,” Purcell groaned. His lip was bleeding.
“Let’s get up now, Richard,” Ace suggested.
180 ✦
The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick After some time, Hoffman jumped off Purcell and walked
back into the Pharaoh’s Palace, carrying the thief ’s shoes. His
tuxedo was torn in one knee, and his shirt was hanging loose.
The customers backed against the walls of the restaurant and let
him pass. He went into the kitchen and threw Purcell’s shoes
into one of the big garbage cans next to the potwashing sinks.
He went into his office and shut the door.
The potwasher was a young Cuban fellow named Manuel.
He picked George Purcell’s brown wingtips out of the garbage
can and held one of them up against the bottom of his own foot.
It seemed to be a good match, so he took off his own shoes and
put on Purcell’s. Manuel’s shoes were plastic sandals, and these
he threw away. A little later, Manuel watched with satisfaction
as the chef dumped a vat of cold gravy on top of the sandals, and
when he went back to washing pots, he whistled to himself a
little song of good luck.
A policeman arrived. He handcuffed George Purcell and
brought him into Hoffman’s office. Ace Douglas followed
them.
“You want to press charges?” the cop asked.
“No,” Hoffman said. “Forget about it.”
“You don’t press charges, I have to let him go.”
“Let him go.”
“This man says you took his shoes.”
“He’s a criminal. He came in my restaurant with no shoes.”
“He took my shoes,” Purcell said. His shirt collar was soaked
with blood.
“He never had no shoes on. Look at him. No shoes on his
feet.”
“You took my money and my goddamn shoes, you animal.
Twenty-dollar shoes!”
“Get this stealing man out of my restaurant, please,” Hoff-
man said.
“Officer?” Ace Douglas said. “Excuse me, but I was here the
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p i l g r i m s
whole time, and this man never did have any shoes on. He’s a
derelict, sir.”
“But I’m wearing dress socks!” Purcell shouted. “Look at me!
Look at me!”
Hoffman stood up and walked out of his office. The cop
followed Hoffman, leading George Purcell. Ace Douglas
trailed behind. On his way through the restaurant, Hoffman