The Autograph Hound

by John Lahr

  “I’ve got an emergency.”

  “I’m not payin’ no never mind to any emergencies. No tip. No thanks. No day off. You bust your balls, and nobody remembers. They plan a party for Chef’s birthday tomorrow—a big blowout. They lean on you for contributions for the entertainment. But do you think I get an invite? I wouldn’t go if they had a gorilla high-steppin’ out of a cake. I’m tellin’ you, Walsh, things have changed.”

  “Things can’t change that quick.”

  “Would you believe they’re talkin’ of phasin’ me out, scrappin’ Blackey and Spot. We led the Macy’s Parade two years runnin’.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. They’re gettin’ up a new menu. They put a suggestion box in the pantry. There’s talk of a contest to rename the restaurant. Zambrozzi’s handin’ out typed memos left and right. It’s a new world.”

  “I’m going to a restaurant where there are no sudden changes.”

  “Everything changes, kid.”

  “Not if you’re rich and successful.”

  “I told ’em I wouldn’t come in this mornin’ after workin’ fourteen hours yesterday. ‘If you don’t hitch up today, don’t hitch up tomorrow.’ I’m not wearin’ street clothes on this rig for the rest of my life. I’m a driver, not a delivery boy.”

  “I need help.”

  “So do I. We’re in this together. Their best busboy out on the street. And then me workin’ from the inside to topple ’em. When we’re finished, only shitheels’ll work for them.”

  “I need money.”

  “Let’s bleed ’em. The Rumseys know about revenge. Sent smallpox in with blankets to avenge the late, great General George Custer. Dammed up a river on our Colorado territory to keep the sheep farmers off our grazin’ land. The Rumseys know how to hate.”

  “I want a case of Scotch and three hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “You got it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Walsh, the Scotch is yours. What do you think I been pickin’ up all day, daisies? Look in that box?”

  Rumsey’s laughing, slapping his side. “Watch me now, Grandpa. The Homestead’s gonna be my Wounded Knee.” He takes out a piece of paper, wets the tip of a pencil with his tongue, and writes. “Changin’ numbers is easier’n spittin’ in a skillet. I’ll put a case under the seat.”

  “I still have to do some fancy footwork.”

  “Help me unload the rest. When you’re ready to make tracks, give a yell.”

  “I’ve got to float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

  “Well, you won the first round, Benny.”

  “Benny Walsh is still in there punching.”

  “Hot dog!” says Rumsey.

  Nobody says anything to us as we stack the boxes in the pantry. Liquor’s very heavy. Rumsey puts his arm around me walking back to the stagecoach. “There was a whole side of the Rumsey family that did this. Desperadoes. Stole from the rich to give to the poor.”

  “You mean like Errol Flynn?”

  “No,” says Rumsey, lifting out the last case. “Like the Lone Ranger.”

  The phone booth stinks of piss. “Mr. Monte-Sano, please.”

  “He’s in a meeting. Can I help you? This is his assistant, Bonni DeGregorio.”

  “Tell him the game’s not over till the last out.”

  “What?”

  “Can’t you take a message?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Tell him Benny S. Walsh gets results.”

  They let me punch in. They let me put on my whites. They wait till I’m excited about getting back to station 4 and making a last-ditch stab at big-money contacts. Then they hit me below the belt.

  Zambrozzi’s the hatchet man, even after I waved hello and asked him to sign my book. Now he tells me I’m not going out there today.

  “To the victor belongs the spoils, Chef. But I’m no spoil.”

  I try to talk to Zambrozzi as one Catholic to another. “The first day of our all-Italian menu. You miss the first shift, Benny. I got to be practical.”

  Zambrozzi’s no Catholic, he’s a Jew.

  McDougal’s on station 4. He’s not even union. Zambrozzi says it’s not hard to get a card. (It’s not easy, either.) McDougal’s got personal problems. He’s got sex on the brain. The Homestead’s respectable. You can’t chew your food and listen to that filth. He’ll be bad for tips. Guests’ll see McDougal’s two holes. Zambrozzi doesn’t know what it’s like out there. You’re on show.

  Victor sits me on a stool. I can see through the swinging doors into the main room. The crowd’s wandering in. Victor makes me watch him carefully. He takes an egg and holds it in his right hand. He grips it tight with his thumb, middle finger and pinky. He snaps his wrist. The shell splits right up the middle. The egg drops into the steel bowl, the yolk isn’t even broken.

  “I need four dozen eggs right away, Benny.”

  “For who?”

  “Break the eggs.”

  Nobody tells you anything back here.

  I open each egg with both hands. It’s very messy. Sometimes the egg shell falls into the pot. I pick it out. The egg whites suck my hand like quicksand. My wrist gets slimy. The ooze makes my skin feel like mud. I wiggle my fingers in the pot. They move like snakes—slow, skinny, curved. I can’t tell where my fingers stop and the snakes begin. I’m scared. I yank my hands. Some of the waiters come over to say hello. I don’t want them to see my hands.

  Victor wants more eggs. He says I’m wasting egg white by spooning the shells out of the pot. I’m not sticking my hand back in there. He says to watch what I’m doing. I know my aim’s bad, but I don’t want to look in the pot. He stands over me. I have to look.

  The yolks are yellow eyes.

  Nobody’ll miss the Scotch.

  “Hello, lover boy,” says McDougal, showing off his Homestead whites. “While the mouse’s away, the cat will play.” He stands right by the stool. He gives me the finger.

  “You’ve got your work cut out. Station four’s very busy now.”

  “Didn’t I tell you I was gonna bust some Commie chops? I’m on the inside. That’s what they teach you at spy school—how to kiss ass and strike while the iron’s hot. You got to be at the right place at the right time.”

  “I never missed a day in eight years. Lou Gehrig has nothing on me.”

  “Junior, it’s a new ball game. I’m making notes on everything. Who talks to who. Who looks suspicious. In a few months I go state’s evidence—sing like the most beautiful fuckin’ canary you ever heard. Get wise, Walsh. This place is a Mafia-Commie front. All you got to do is see the decor, and you know it’s a nest.”

  “Everything’s on the up and up at The Homestead.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Walsh. Everybody’s on the take. I could put the whole bunch of you pretty boys in the slammer.”

  “Not me.”

  “I bet you got something stashed.”

  “You don’t have any evidence.”

  “I hold my cards close to the chest. When I’m ready to play my aces, you’ll hear about it.”

  “You got no respect for a place, McDougal. You sail from port to port. You love ’em and leave ’em. You don’t know what it’s like to care for something.”

  “The day I clinch this case, I’m celebratin’ by droppin’ some salt cellars under the table. I’m doin’ a little high-class muff-divin’.”

  “How much is it worth to you to keep this from Zambrozzi and the Boss?”

  “Who’s gonna tell him?”

  “For three hundred and fifty dollars I’ll forget everything you said.”

  “Are you kiddin’, Walsh. You think blackmail’s gonna stop a great spy. Temporary didn’t send me in here by chance. I wasn’t the luck of the draw. There’s a whole fuckin’ network—people I ain’t even seen yet—that know me by my number. We got a code.”

  “There’s a code of decency, too. You don’t just take another guy’s job.”

  “You
were late. They said you were bein’ retired anyway …”

  “Retire at my age? You get kicked upstairs. I’m getting another position at ‘21.’”

  “They said as long as I didn’t make trouble and voted with them, I could have it.”

  “If you’re a spy, why do you shoot your mouth off?”

  “Ever heard of a spy that came right out with it? My disguise is that I have no disguise. Everybody thinks I’m a fuckin’ great guy. I got station four in one day, didn’t I? Know why?”

  “A fluke.”

  “Personality—that’s why.”

  “Four’s the best station at The Homestead. People request it. Right now they’re waiting for bread. They may not have water. You’ve got to make a good impression, or they won’t come back. Is anybody famous out there? I really need a big autograph.”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “Be on the lookout for very famous literary or political types. Nothing’s too big.”

  “Will you make it worth my while?”

  “Sure, if you don’t keep it a secret.”

  “That’s not my style,” says McDougal, winking and walking back through the swinging doors.

  Zambrozzi won’t lend me money. I try and make him remember the years we’ve worked together. He says times are changing. He tells me about his design for the new uniforms, the new menu, the new image. I ask him to buy my Homestead scrapbook. “That’s old hat,” he says.

  I don’t understand. Old history’s good history.

  The sinks are rumbling. The pots gurgle with steam. Victor and Anthony yell at each waiter as he comes in, “What’s the story?”

  “Veal parmigiana!”

  “Spaghetti alia matriciana!”

  “Insalata rugola!”

  Temporary cook’s help is no fun. Peel this. Carry that. Nothing steady. You wait to be called.

  “What’s the story?” Victor shouts to Tony Mendoza as he hurries in with his tray propped up on his shoulder.

  “Where’s the chef?”

  “No story, no chef.”

  “Lady Bird Johnson’s out there. She wants to congratulate Chef on the new specialities.”

  Victor walks over to Zambrozzi’s table. When he gets the message, Zambrozzi takes a flower from the vase on his table and pins it to his coat. He puts on his white chef’s hat, and holds a copy of the complete new menu. The whole kitchen goes silent as Zambrozzi steps forward, even the dishwashers stop banging the tubs.

  Victor and Anthony give Chef the thumbs-up sign as he passes by. He tugs at his coat and steps through the swinging doors. The rest of us rush to the window to watch.

  “Stir the soup, Walsh.”

  “C’mon, Victor. It’s my chance. We both know the same show-biz types—Eartha Kitt, Carol Channing.”

  “Calm down, Benny. Do your job.”

  “She believes in giving people a head start.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Benny. Don’t screw things up.”

  “I saw her husband take the oath. I saw her daughters get married.”

  “I don’t care what you saw, you’re staying by the stove.”

  “She’d make a great Christmas gift idea.”

  Victor and Anthony walk me back to the stove. “Stay here,” says Victor. They go back to the window. All I can see is heads and elbows.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Desi’s kissin’ her hand, pourin’ on the charm,” somebody calls back.

  Zambrozzi’s kissing the hand that has been kissed by kings and queens. Royalty kisses rings, not skin. Doesn’t Lady Bird know about Italian men? “What’s he doing now?”

  “Still kissing.”

  “Watch out, Lady Bird!”

  She won’t listen to me, but I’ve got proof. On 42nd Street. The scientific exhibition. “A moral for all the family,” it says, and if she saw it she’d beware. The facts and figures are under glass. “See what can happen if you lead a wild sex life!” And you know what? “Cancer. Leprosy. Accidents.” It’s horrible looking at the specimens, but it makes you stronger. If people realized what could happen to them when they touched others, they’d keep their hands to themselves.

  McDougal pushes through the crowd at the window and comes over to the stove. “Some bigwig broad’s out there. Did you get a load of Zambrozzi’s flower? A red rose. The Big Shot’s dress is the same red. It’s fuckin’ blatant. He gave her the flower! They’ve got the guts of burglars. I’m tellin’ you, Walsh, I’m so fuckin’ close to crackin’ this joint wide open my fuckin’ life’s in danger.”

  “That’s Lady Bird Johnson.”

  “I don’t care if it was the fuckin’ First Lady. Listen up here! The chef sent me out for special rolls. Does that make sense? I mean how special can rolls be?”

  “There’s Italian bread in the stove.”

  “He don’t want me listenin’. He don’t want me breakin’ the code.”

  “Did you meet her?”

  “I don’t touch what I can’t eat.”

  “She’s a very smart lady.”

  “Fuckin’-A, she’s smart. So’s he. You got to be a genius to get away with this kind of thing in broad daylight.”

  “I know her.”

  “No shit? It figures. That’s how it starts. They brainwash the dupe in the street. Man, your ass is grass. You’re playing with fire.”

  “It’s an emergency. Ask for her autograph.”

  “I’m not talkin’ with the enemy.”

  “She’s not the enemy.”

  “I know the enemy when I see him. I fought in two fuckin’ wars. I killed seventy-five of them, and another twenty in peacetime. How many did you kill?”

  “I’ll write a message to her.”

  “No names. I don’t want nobody fingerin’ out McDougal. Blackmailers piss the hell out of me. And the Ruski fights dirty.”

  The rest of the staff are still staring out the window. McDougal puts the bread in the basket. He says he doesn’t want to know what I’m going to write in case they catch him and try to torture him. I type it on Zambrozzi’s typewriter so there will be no clues.

  DEar LadyBird … I am trapped in the kitchen,. please sixgn your name on the back xxof this paper and give itto the man wxith no nose. THIS IS AN EMERGWENCY. Thanking YOu in adxcvance and WeLcome to Station @4.

  A fan..

  P.S. Be carful. Wash yoxxur hands.

  I slip the note under the bread. McDougal puts the basket on his tray.

  “There’s somethin’ fishy about that P.S., Walsh.”

  “You said you didn’t want to know.”

  “It’s my business to know everything. You could have somethin’ stashed in the ladies’ room. The only place I can’t go.”

  “I wouldn’t double-cross you.”

  “People have made that mistake before.”

  “Think of it as Mission Impossible.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea, Walsh. I work solo.”

  Zambrozzi walks back into the kitchen, smiling but not talking. He goes to his desk, takes off his hat, rolls up his sleeves, and pulls out one of his old Italian cookbooks. He makes notes. Victor and Anthony pester him to explain. Finally, Chef says, “I kiss her hand. I wish her ‘buon appetito’—it’s the custom. I show her the new menu and tell her of our struggle. She asks for lobster fra diavolo with linguini—as a special favor. Our first real test. It must be triumph!”

  Zambrozzi stands over the stove discussing the sauce with Victor and Anthony.

  I walk over to the kitchen window to get a look at Lady Bird. Garcia’s standing next to her.

  McDougal’s serving the table behind them. He puts his tray down and walks quietly toward the kitchen. Ten yards from the kitchen, he starts to run. I hardly have time to dodge the doors.

  “The fit has hit the shan, Walsh.”

  “What?”

  “The fuckin’ plot thickens.”

  “Did she sign? Do you have the paper?”

  “All I
got’s the message.”

  “What did she say?”

  “All I heard was ‘What’s the meaning of this?’”

  “Maybe I can get that in writing.”

  “Your dick’s in the sand, Walsh.”

  “I don’t get it?”

  “Garcia broke the fuckin’ code. He knows who sent the message.”

  Chef and Victor are talking by the freezer. “I can’t get my autographs.”

  “Scram, Walsh. Take your bongos and beat it.”

  McDougal’s looking through the window. He sees what I see. Garcia’s walking toward the kitchen.

  “I think I’ll get some air.”

  Riding shotgun on a stagecoach is like riding an Atlantic City roller coaster. You lean back, hold onto the bottom of your seat, and gulp the air that’s pushing against your face.Rumsey’s got the horses really moving. What a getaway!

  The first stop’s Screen Femmes down the road. All the way there, I try to dream up an excuse to get Gloria out of work the way I used to skip school. I told the teachers my father was dying of cancer. I’d lower my head. Tears would come to my eyes. But I wasn’t sad. Mom was the only one in the house. Gloria might get upset. She remembers her father.

  It’s my lucky day. Gloria’s walking out of Fascination when we drive up. She climbs up top and sits between us. I tell her about the Scotch. She squeezes close to me. “Your collection’s going to be the best, Benny,” she says. “I knew I could trust you.”

  Rumsey thinks we should celebrate. “Hell with work,” he says. “Hell with The Homestead. Let’s make tracks.”

  The stagecoach starts to rumble up the Avenue of the Americas. The wheels squeal and clatter. Rumsey’s laughing as he slaps the backsides of the horses with the reins, and they trot faster down the road. He shouts to the traffic lights to change to green. They do.

  “What about the money?” says Gloria. A warm wind flies in our faces. Gloria says something, but it’s hard to hear. Her voice gets louder. “You can’t waste time!” Passersby look at us and wave. We wave back. Cars slash past us, cutting in and out like Indians attacking a covered wagon. Headlights are flaming arrows, their honking war cries. We ride high into the battle. Nothing touches us.

  “This is fun!”

  “What?” shouts Gloria, brushing her hair out of her eyes.