One-Eyed Jacks

by Brad Smith

  T-Bone Pike was standing in the centre of the hotel room and he had his hands on his hips and he was fixing his grandmother’s admonishing eye on Thomas Cochrane.

  “Least a body can do is send some sort o’ message,” he said again.

  “Western Union?”

  “The telephone or such.”

  “We got no telephone here, Bones. How can I phone you with no phone?”

  “Out all night,” T-Bone exclaimed. “Got me so worried I don’t sleep. How I know you not in some alley with a knife in your thick head? Lawdy, I never see anything like it.”

  “You knew where I was, Bones. You sent me there.”

  “I don’t know no such thing. All I ask is for a little respect, so I can sleep at night.” He moved to sit on the bed. “How is Lee Charles these days anyhow?”

  “She’s all right. She was asking about you.”

  “She remember T-Bone?”

  “Sure she remembers you. We’re going to meet her for a beer this afternoon. Unless you figure you’re too upset to go for a beer with Lee Charles.”

  “I go for a beer with that woman any day. You the huckleberry I upset with. I don’t know what a beautiful woman like that ever see in a huckleberry like you anyhow. I swear.”

  “Me either. Come on, Bones, we’ll walk downtown, it’s a nice day for it.”

  “Well, listen to Thomas Cochrane, talkin’ ’bout what a nice day we havin’. You in a awful damn good mood.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “Wonder why that could be.”

  “Let’s go, Bones,” Tommy said. “Where’s your shoes?”

  “Right here ’neath the bed.” T-Bone reached for his shoes, then looked up. “Thomas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Never mind.”

  They walked together, down Parliament, then west on Queen, T-Bone Pike striding scarecrow loose, hands dangling at his sides, head bobbing, eyes avoiding contact with people he met, a habit gained from growing up coloured in the south.

  In the cold light of day Tommy could see the bruised skin beneath T-Bone’s right eye. And there was the cut on his lip from a couple of days earlier.

  “Looks to me like you’re getting beat up, Bones.”

  “Nothing that ain’t happened before.”

  “Why don’t you pack it in, tell Mac Brady you’re not interested. No sense getting your brains rattled for that kid.”

  “Man’s got to earn his way in this world, Thomas. That’s a natural fact. Grandma Pike used to say idle hands be the devil’s workshop. You wouldn’t want old T-Bone in the workshop of the devil, would you?”

  “I guess not. But Grandma Pike never had to dance with a punk like Nicky Wilson either.”

  T-Bone smiled. “The devil come in many disguises, Thomas.”

  When they got to the Rooster, Lee Charles was already there, sitting at a table with the blond kid in the felt hat. The kid was leaning close to Lee and, in spite of the kid’s serious face, Lee was laughing.

  “Do you use that line a lot?” she was asking.

  “I’ve never said those words before,” the kid assured her. “I’ve been waiting years to say them to you.”

  “I think,” Lee said, “you should have held out a little longer.”

  She got to her feet when Tommy and T-Bone came in. She took T-Bone Pike’s face in her hands and kissed him.

  “Hello, Thibideau,” she said. “God, it’s good to see you.”

  “Thibideau?” Tommy asked.

  “Thas right, Thibideau,” T-Bone said. “Where you think T-Bone come from, you think I get my name from a piece of meat?”

  Lee turned to the kid at the table. “This is Howard Coulter, gentlemen.”

  Howard was looking unhappily at Tommy. “How ya doing?” he said and he moved off. Lee shrugged, and the three of them sat down and ordered a pitcher of beer.

  “How life treating you, Miss Lee?” T-Bone asked.

  “Good enough, Thibideau. I see you haven’t shook yourself clear of this mick yet.”

  “He need somebody to look out for him.”

  “He sure as hell does.”

  “I hear you singing down at some club, Miss Lee. You still sing that ‘Stormy Weather’?”

  “You come in and I’ll sing it for you, Thibideau,” she told him. “Like the old days.”

  So Tommy poured the beer, and they sat and talked a little about those old days, about songs sung and fights won and the good times in between. T-Bone was happy as a clam to be sitting with these two people and he got to thinking that maybe that arrowhead held a little luck after all.

  When they had the second pitcher in front of them, the front door opened and Mac Brady rolled in, looking dapper in a grey serge suit and a black bowler hat. The bowler he tipped to Lee Charles.

  “Whatcha doing, Mac — following me around now?” Tommy asked.

  “Let’s just say I’m a man who knows the whereabouts of all the important people in this town,” Mac said.

  “In that case, you got the wrong table,” Lee told him.

  “A familiar sight, the two of you,” Mac said, inviting himself to sit down. “Gives a man a sense of deja vu.”

  “What the hell is that?” Tommy asked.

  But Mac just smiled and looked at T-Bone. “How are you, Mr. Pike?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Brady.”

  “You gonna have a beer with us, Mac?” Tommy asked.

  “A beer would be nice,” Mac said and he signalled to the waiter for another glass. “I can only stay a moment though, I’m out tying up loose ends this afternoon. That’s what happens when you’re chief cook and bottle washer too.”

  Tommy smiled. “You got some loose ends here in the Rooster, Mac?”

  Mac grinned; he never could bullshit Tommy Cochrane. “No, I just stopped in lor a cool drink.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to it.”

  Mac drank and winked for no reason across the table to T-Bone. Then he turned to Lee. “What are you up to, Lee Charles?” he asked. “Are you going to finance this farm of Tommy’s?”

  Lee raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know, Mac,” Tommy said, “every time you come close to being a nice guy, you ruin it by sticking your nose into things that are none of your damn business.”

  “Maybe your financial welfare is my business, Tommy. At least, it could be.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Mac took a drink. “Three thousand, Tommy. Now, that’s a hell of a price and you know it to be true. You couldn’t draw that kind of money anywhere else, and that includes New York and Miami. Maybe a year ago, but not now, Tommy.”

  “You’re right, Mac.”

  “But you’re turning it down,” Mac said. “Look at you, you haven’t got a pot to piss in — excuse my French, Lee — and yet you’re saying no. Show some sense, man. You’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “I’m not so sure which end of the horse I’m dealing with,” Tommy said.

  Lee looked over at Mac and smiled. But when Mac got to his feet, he didn’t look particularly unhappy and she wondered why that would be.

  “Smart talk like that won’t buy you many farms, Tommy,” Mac said. “You buy farms with money... and you don’t have any.”

  Mac tipped his bowler and left. Tommy watched him go through the door, then he got up and said he was going to the gents’. He left Lee and T-Bone sitting there.

  “That Mr. Brady a uncommon persistent man.”

  Lee was looking at the door just exited by Mac Brady. “He’s used to getting what he wants.” Then she glanced over at T-Bone. “He’s going to keep upping the price until Tommy fights. You know that, don’t you?”

  “No, he can’t fight, Miss Lee. The doctor tell him.”

  “What, Bones? What did the doctor tell him?”

  “I’m not supposed to be talking on this, but I guess it all right being it’s you, Miss Lee. He got somethin’ in his head, Thomas, some sort of blood vessel or s
uch, and if he get hit, it like to bust and kill Thomas. He ain’t supposed to be doing no more fightin’, Miss Lee, don’t matter if it be this Wilson kid or nobody else.”

  “Jesus,” Lee said. “He never said anything to me.”

  “He never say nothin’ to nobody ‘bout it. Only ways I know is one night Thomas have too much of the Old Bushmills and he get to talking ‘bout all manner of things, you included too, Miss Lee.”

  Lee saw Tommy coming from the back of the room. She looked over at T-Bone.

  “We both know what he’s like,” she said. “If he decides to fight, we’re gonna have to stop him.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I been knowing that all along. Sayin’ it is a easy thing though. Easier than doin’.”

  Tommy came back and sat down and had a drink of beer. Lee shook her head when he offered her another glass.

  “That’s it for me,” she said. “I got work tonight, can’t be showing up sloppy drunk.”

  “I should be moving along myself,” Tommy said.

  “You’re at the Bamboo tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You coming by later?”

  Tommy looked at her narrowly across the table. “Unless I get a better offer.”

  Lee got to her feet and kissed T-Bone again and then looked over at Tommy Cochrane.

  “There is no better offer.”

  SIXTEEN

  He turned the corner of the familiar street and saw the familiar decay and smelled the familiar odour — of stale beer, of laundry soap, of garbage rotting in alleys. There was a sweetness in the air too, though — cheap perfume from girls growing up too soon, cologne from the boys doing the same, the scent of flowers springing from boxes outside the windows of the old brick walk-ups. Here and there the bricks had shaken loose and fallen from the building. The boys and girls who lived inside sometimes did the same. And it was the same and it was different to him as he strolled — tough-looking teenage boys giving him the eye, all of them dressed in black pants and white t-shirts, belt buckles fastened on the hip, this year’s style down here. The girls in their tight skirts and pony-tails, red lipstick by the yard. In his day, they’d been bobbysoxers. Cabbagetown.

  The building was closed down, locked up tighter than a Scotsman’s purse. He went around back, grabbed the fire ladder and pulled himself to the second floor. The screwdriver was (incredibly) still above the sill; he jimmied the window (like a thousand times before) and was inside in a heartbeat. He went down the wooden stairs and into the main room. Most everything was gone — moved away or reduced to dust. A heavy bag rested in the corner, its sides split, its insides spilled. There were a few mats, not worth hauling away, he guessed, and some filthy towels, not worth the laundering.

  He had a thought and walked into the back room to the apartment. There was a light showing through the transom. He smiled as he knocked and walked in.

  The apartment was not an apartment and never had been. It was one room, maybe ten by twelve, and it contained a cot, a chair, a radio and an icebox. The radio was on the icebox, Sinatra was on the radio, and Jimmy Mack was on the cot.

  Jimmy’s eyes widened and he jumped to a sitting position, putting aside the paperback novel he’d been reading. Recognition took a few seconds.

  “Well, I’ll be dipped in shellac,” he said. “Tommy Cochrane come to call.”

  Tommy smiled and offered his hand. “How you doing, Jimmy? I didn’t figure anybody was here anymore.”

  Jimmy had taken on the absurd body of a bone-thin man with a pot belly. His hands were liver-spotted and his face was creased like ten-ounce gloves left too long in the sun, but his hair, though white, was thick and full as a teenager’s. There was an open mickey of rum on the floor.

  “Jesus, it’s good to see you, Tommy. Sit down, just move those newspapers, I been gonna throw ’em out.”

  Tommy sat and refused a drink from the rum. He watched as Jimmy drank and then capped the bottle.

  “What the hell you doing here, Jimmy?”

  “Why, I live here. Always have.”

  “You lived here when the gym was open. How long you been closed?”

  Jimmy blinked at him. “You know, I got no idea. Been a while though, been quite a while.”

  “I’ll say it has. Place smells worse than it ever did, and that’s saying something. What the hell you doing here, Jimmy?”

  “A man’s got to be someplace,” the old man said. “How ’bout you, I could ask you the same question. You out lookin’ for ghosts?”

  Tommy crossed his legs and ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe I am, Jimmy. I don’t know, I just had a notion to stop by.”

  Jimmy Mack took another shot of rum. The paperback teetered, then fell off the bed onto the floor. Tommy saw it was Hondo, by Louis L’Amour. Tommy looked out the open door into the gym.

  “I sure spent some time here, Jimmy. I can remember when this place felt like home.”

  “You were awful damn green, those days. Your first week here, I figured you’d break your neck tryin’ to skip rope, and that’d be the end of you. Used to wonder what I’d tell the cops when they came to pick up the body.”

  Tommy smiled, still looking out the door.

  “What’d you do, come up the fire escape?” Jimmy asked.

  Tommy nodded over the smile. “Old dogs remember old tricks, Jimmy. Used to be half the neighbourhood went in and out that window.”

  “No more. Them days are done. Now I don’t see nobody; the owner pays me fifty a month to keep the place up, that’s all.”

  Tommy surveyed the disaster that was the gym. “You’re overpaid, Jimmy.”

  The old man snorted into the mickey. “Where’s Gus these days?”

  “Gus is in New York. He’s got a gym there, little hole in the wall, but he’s doing all right. Gus is one in a million.”

  “He did all right by you, for sure. Him and Karl Krone, too.”

  Tommy turned quickly in his chair. “Krone was a thief, don’t pretend otherwise.”

  “He was my friend. Don’t you talk like that about my friend.”

  “Your friend was a son of a bitch. He cheated every kid he ever handled. If he was all right with you, it was because you never had a nickel for him to steal, don’t you understand that?”

  Jimmy got clumsily to his feet. “I’ll punch you right in the goddamn nose!”

  He took a step and threw a weak right hand, missed Tommy by three feet and fell forward. Tommy grabbed him before he split his head on the icebox. He sat Jimmy back on the bed and handed him the rum. The old man began to cry.

  “It’s all right, Jimmy. Jesus, I know he was your friend. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Nobody gives a shit about me,” Jimmy cried.

  “Sure they do.”

  “Bullshit! Nobody ever comes around anymore. I used to be somebody here, I used to be in charge.”

  Tommy picked up the paperback and looked at the buckskinned figure on the cover.

  “I guess maybe you’re right, Jimmy. I don’t know why people just throw the past away like yesterday’s papers, but they do. I guess everybody just figures that the future looks a little better.”

  Jimmy looked up. “I got no future, Tommy. I got nothing.”

  Tommy looked at the runny eyes and the shaking hands and he couldn’t think of a thing to say to the old man. After a time he just got up and said goodbye.

  Herm spent the morning at the track, watching the grooms work the mounts for the afternoon’s card. He hung around all morning, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with people he knew, trainers and grooms and jockeys. To Herm it was one of life’s pleasures to sit back in the morning sun, cup of joe in his hand, the smell of manure in his nostrils (he loved the smell of horseshit — to his gambler’s nose it was Chanel No. 5), and the knowledge that the lady was with him even yet; she was by his side, whispering in his ear, worshipping his every move.

  Herm’s old man had been a groom at this track, and others, and alt
hough Frank Bell had never said as much to his son, Herm was certain that his father had loved the smell of horseshit too. He’d ridden some great horses, Frank Bell had, and he used to come home and tell of this horse or that, and of how he knew when a horse was ready to run. He’d even sat on Man o’ War, took the stallion for a fast mile one day back when both horse and man were young and full of piss and vinegar. That the horse fulfilled its promise more than the man was of no great surprise — people remembered horses, they remembered jockeys, they even remembered trainers — but nobody knew a groom from one year to the next. There was Man o’ War and Citation and Hard Tack and Meade, but for every one of those there were countless guys who had no names, who got up at four in the morning to brush coats and clean stalls and dig out hooves. Guys like Frank Bell, who was too big to be a jockey and too much in love with the track to walk away and be something else.

  Yeah, guys like Frank Bell, who loved horses and the track so much he drew his last breath in a horse stall, settling down one day in some clean straw, pitchfork still in his hand, with a heart that stopped beating, maybe because it had been broken so many times in the very place where Frank Bell finally laid his body down.

  Because of that Herm never got close to the horses like his father; although he loved them from a kid, he loved them from afar. And when they broke his heart, it hurt only for a little while, because to Herm they were like streetcars and women — there would be another one coming along directly. And another after that.

  So this morning he sat in the sun and talked with the people he knew — people like his father — and he was happy because the thoroughbreds brought him nothing but joy, and if he never had another winner the rest of his life, it didn’t matter, because just the notion that he might have a winner tomorrow was enough to make him content.

  When he left the track he went to Lem’s for lunch, sat himself in a corner booth with the day’s Telly and ordered a toasted western sandwich with a side order of fries and a cherry coke.

  As he was eating Danny Bonner came in and joined him. It was Wednesday, and Danny was there for the chili. He was wearing a white sports coat and a pink shirt and a fucked-up tie that looked about a foot wide and had a picture of a Buick on it.