Dead on the Level

by Nielsen, Helen

  He got up from where she’d made him sit on the edge of the tub and went into the living-room. He switched off the lights and looked out of the window. The street lamp below made a blurred yellow circle on the wet sidewalk, but he couldn’t see anybody but a homebound shop girl with a newspaper over her head and a fellow with a lunch pail who was too tired to care if he got wet. Casey lowered the blind and stepped away from the window.

  “I don’t like the idea of staying here,” he announced, “it’s too risky. They saw Maggie. They might go back to the studio and make her tell them where we are.”

  “She wouldn’t!”

  “She might have to. Anyway, we’re getting out of here.”

  “But where, Casey? Where can we go?”

  Where? There was only one place left, no matter how much he hated it. He stood there in the semidarkness and looked at Phyllis framed in the lighted doorway. She wasn’t much like the dream he remembered from the Cloud Room; sometimes he could hardly believe that she was the same girl. Now she was just a kid, a crazy kid who couldn’t understand that she had to keep off the streets as much as possible and that she wasn’t to talk to anybody. A crazy kid who could dance with the threat of death hanging over her head and the first rain falling on her father’s grave. He had to take her some place where she wouldn’t get hurt; some place where she could get lost along with thousands of other little people in a city too big to care.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEY HAD BEEN CALLING the street Pulaski Road for many years now but to Casey, and a lot of other people, it would always be Crawford Avenue. It wasn’t exactly the kind of street they put on colored post cards for mailing to the folks back home; it was just another commercial thoroughfare with streetcar tracks and stop lights, and you could drive north on it until you crossed arteries with names like Fullerton and Diversey and Milwaukee Avenue. Lacing off from these were lesser streets lined with rows of two-flat frames, red brick bungalows with cement porches and cement pots for planting petunias that seldom survived, and, every few blocks, a nest of markets and a school, or maybe a pocket patch of green with a wading-pool for the kids. These streets had faraway-sounding names that reminded you of parks and forests until you looked at them, or else they were named after men everybody had forgotten. To Casey, driving northward through the rain, all of this was familiar. It wasn’t a slum section and it wasn’t a tenement; but it was a place where people could be a lot poorer and probably would be at the rate they were going.

  On one of these streets, at a corner where the trackless trolley stopped, stood an ugly yellow brick building with a five-room flat upstairs and Big John Posda’s tavern below. Casey drove past the place once, circled the block, and parked on the side street. By this time he had told Phyllis about all there was to tell about Casimir Morokowski, whose father died when he was nine and whose mother waited tables for Big John at eleven dollars a week until she married him and went off the payroll. Phyllis didn’t say anything. She just sat there beside him, pale and solemn-eyed, with her hair tied up in a green scarf and the collar of her coat turned up about her ears. On the floor between her feet was a small suitcase containing all of their combined belongings, except the radio. The radio she held in her lap.

  “We won’t need that,” Casey said as they got out of the car. “There’ll be noise enough inside.”

  It was the same as always. The windows of the tavern were painted green most of the way up and John had a new neon sign over the door, but otherwise it was the same. The woodwork was dark, the bar was worn smooth, and opposite the bar a row of wooden booths stretched back to the double doors to the kitchen. Half of the booths were empty, but a couple of gray-haired women were feeding nickels to a polka-playing juke box and there was a fair gathering at the bar. Casey steered Phyllis into one of the empty booths and went alone to the bar. He could hear Big John before he could see him, which was exactly what he had expected.

  “Figures!” Big John was booming. “Figures don’t mean nothing!”

  And from across the bar, an adversary shouted back, “These ain’t my figures! I give you statistics, government statistics!”

  “Statistics!” Big John slapped one hamlike hand against the bar and the beer glasses danced. “Who needs statistics?” he roared. “My business gets bad, I know it. You lose your job, by God, you know it! People can’t eat no damn statistics!”

  That was Big John. All the time he argued he would be pouring fresh beers and wiping the bar, or maybe waving the damp towel in greeting to some old friend coming in through the family entrance. But always he was doing something, and always he was loud. Casey helped himself to one of the stools nearest the door and waited. Sooner or later Big John would leave off arguing, roar with laughter over something somebody said in Polish, and then move on down the line to see what the newcomer wanted, which was just what he was doing now.

  The towel wiped a shiny spot on the bar in front of Casey before Big John looked up. He hadn’t changed much, except that the gray-brown line of his hair had slipped back a way on his forehead and he’d somehow managed to put a few more pounds of flesh on that hulking frame. He still wore the same style blue-striped dress shirt without the collar; the bright gold caps still glittered on his front teeth; and his small, raisinlike eyes, fixed and expressionless, still had the sum effect of making Casey feel like a scared, skinny kid in tight serge knickers and a tailless blouse.

  “So it’s you,” John said. “So you finally come back.”

  That was Big John. Always a great one for welcoming the prodigal son.

  “How’s Ma?” Casey asked.

  “How’s Ma?” The gold caps on those front teeth gleamed for an instant. “What you think, how’s Ma? Nine, ten years you’re gone now. No letters, no cards—”

  “Eight years,” Casey said.

  “All right, eight years. That’s a long time.”

  Casey could feel those little eyes boring through him, and he had to keep reminding himself that he was grown now and could come and go without answering to anybody. He never had liked John Posda; he never thought of him as a father or as anything at all except a big fat man his mother had married because things were tough all over. But Big John had never done him any harm, never laid a hand on him or even scolded much. His own children were grown and on their own when he remarried, and he’d had enough of raising kids. Now he stopped polishing the bar and shrugged his huge shoulders.

  “Ma’s upstairs,” he said. “She’s older, like everybody, but she’s still upstairs. Go on up and see her. You’re her son.”

  The way Big John made that last statement, he might have been bragging; but Casey didn’t hang around to hear more. To get to the stairs he had to go back through the double doors and turn left, and there was still only one naked bulb lighting the way up. Casey could still remember the hiding he’d taken the day he accidentally broke the frosted globe over the bulb with his baseball bat. That was more than fifteen years ago but nobody had ever replaced the globe.

  The upstairs hall led to a door, and the door opened into the kitchen. The kitchen was still painted green with tan figured linoleum on the floor, and Ma was sitting at the enameled table with the newspaper spread out before her and a religious calendar showing on the wall above her shoulder. Her hair was gray, that was the first thing Casey noticed. He wasn’t quite sure what color her hair used to be, but now it was gray. Her hands, resting on the newspaper, were work-reddened lumps, and the face she turned toward him was too tired ever to be rested in this world. She squinted a little—she never would give in to getting glasses—and then crossed herself quickly.

  “Hello, Ma,” Casey said. “John said you were here so I came up.”

  Her lips trembled. “My God,” she whispered. “I thought you was a vision.”

  “No, I’m real enough.”

  It was terrible what a lot of silence stood between them; what number of things could never be said and never be told. This is Ma, Casey told himself, but she’s
a stranger—or I am. We can’t even talk to each other any more.

  “You didn’t write,” she said at last. “I thought you was dead. I burned candles by the church.”

  “I came close to being dead a couple of times. I was in the war.”

  “That’s what John said. When you went away without saying a thing to nobody he told me, ‘Don’t expect Casimir to come back. He’s gone to war.’ But I looked for you to come back anyway. I always looked; but you didn’t come.”

  She was on her feet now but Casey hadn’t moved closer and she didn’t leave the table, maybe because she needed it to lean against. He felt terrible to be standing there like that, but what’s to be said when you’ve gone so far away there’s no returning except with the body? Casey clenched his fists. He shouldn’t have come back. He should have stayed away and let Ma burn her candles, they might give her some comfort. But then, suddenly, she was coming around the end of the table and standing very close to him, measuring, feeding on him with her eyes. Not until she was very close did he realize that her eyes were wet.

  “You’re bigger,” she said.

  “I guess I did put on a few pounds.”

  “You look fine. You feel all right?”

  “Sure, Ma. I feel great.”

  “You didn’t get hurt in the war?”

  “A few scratches. I was lucky.”

  “I burned candles,” she reminded.

  She was still measuring him, but now her eyes narrowed and Casey could see the questions forming even before she spoke.

  “You’re in trouble?”

  “No trouble, Ma.”

  “I seen you in trouble before. You look the same way.”

  “There’s no trouble, I tell you! I was just passing through—”

  But now she wasn’t even listening; she was staring at something behind his shoulder. Casey turned around. For a few minutes he had actually forgotten Phyllis, but here she was standing in the kitchen doorway with a lost, lonely look in her eyes. She tried to smile, then walked over and slipped an arm through one of his own. Casey cleared his throat.

  “Ma,” he said, “this is Paula. (They had decided on that name back in the car.) This is my wife.”

  It was the first time he used that word and it gave him a peculiar feeling. He expected Ma to say something, anything, but she didn’t. She just stood there staring at Phyllis until he felt a swift surge of panic that she might have recognized her from the pictures in the newspapers. But Ma’s eyes weren’t good and she never read anything but the community news in the Polish-language press.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Morokowski,” Phyllis managed. “I’m so happy to meet you at last.”

  Ma touched the outstretched hand with limpid fingers. “I’m Mrs. Posda,” she said curtly. “Casimir should have told you.”

  “We’ve only been married a few days,” Casey said quickly.

  “So?”

  They were all standing under the bright overhead light of the kitchen, and there was no way of hiding what Ma was staring at so intently. Phyllis wasn’t wearing gloves and the third finger of her left hand, placed so conspicuously on Casey’s arm, looked naked without a wedding band. It was an oversight neither of them had noticed before. Phyllis had done well to provide herself with a groom on such short notice, let alone a ring, but it was exactly the kind of thing Ma would see and keep to herself along with her own suspicions. Casey pulled away and tried to change the subject.

  “You’re looking good, Ma,” he said. “John’s looking good, too. I guess the place keeps him busy.”

  “You need money?” Ma asked.

  There really was no reason for that question to be so embarrassing. It was Ma’s way to blurt out whatever she happened to be thinking, and what if Phyllis did hear and smile to herself? What was that to Casey Morrow? “I don’t need a thing!” he snapped. “I told you we were passing through. If you don’t want us we can leave!”

  And now he’d done it. The suspicion wouldn’t leave Ma’s eyes now, not even to make room for the hurt. He’d lashed back and betrayed himself, because Casimir never fought unless he was cornered. Ma knew that better than anybody in the world. It was then that Phyllis, quiet and watching through this whole ugly scene, stepped forward and slipped an arm about the older woman’s thick waist.

  “Don’t mind him,” she said gently. “We’ve been driving all day and he’s tired. I’m afraid he’s just a regular bear when he’s tired. But of course we won’t stay if it’s going to put you to a lot of trouble.”

  Now, at least, Casey knew enough to keep his mouth shut. Ma suddenly softened and grew misty about the eyes. She fussed with her apron and stared at the linoleum, but the bite was gone from her voice when she answered. “We don’t have nothing fancy,” she said, “but Casimir’s room is just like he left it. I guess maybe you could make out.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SATURDAY WAS A BIG DAY. It was a big day for John, getting ready for the Saturday night trade; it was a big day for Ma, marketing and baking for the week-end, and it was, as it turned out, a very big day for Casey. First of all, he overslept, a result of sheer exhaustion after a night of battling the discomfort of the old reed rocker borrowed from the back porch. (No explanation given.) Phyllis, having enjoyed the comparative luxury of the brass bed, was bright and chipper, as he groped his way into the kitchen. She was wearing the blouse and skirt again, with a bright ribbon tying back her hair, and was elbow-deep in soapsuds.

  “Casimir Morokowski,” she scolded the moment she laid eyes on him, “you get back in the bedroom and change that dirty shirt! I’m washing out some things in the sink. I might as well get that, too.”

  Casey grinned. If she kept using that tone of voice on him, Ma would forget all about that missing wedding ring. And then he got the big idea. He could hardly wait to eat breakfast and get out of the house.

  It was about five blocks from Big John’s to the place Casey wanted to go. It was beyond the supermarket, the secondhand store, and the poultry house; it was beyond the new drugstore, the fish market, and a couple of doors past Nick’s barbershop. It was a little narrow jewelry store that always used to be there, and still was. Casey stood outside looking at a tray full of silver and gold bands and then, feeling as nervous as a bridegroom, went in. He felt considerably better when he came out with the little box in his pocket.

  “Casey! Casey Morokowski, you old sonova—”

  Casey froze in his tracks. The shock of hearing anybody call him by the name he’d been using these past years was frightening until he remembered, sheepishly, that it was what the gang at school had always called him. Casey. That was how he’d happened to take the name. The rest was simple. At first he was just Moro, but everybody wanted to spell it another way and that was fine with Casey. It made Casimir Morokowski a lot easier to forget.

  “I can’t believe it! Hell, fella, I thought you were pushing daisies somewhere!”

  The face was familiar. Casey found himself staring at a man who was about his own age, almost six feet tall and about to burst the seams of a topcoat being held over for a third or fourth season. On one arm he held a small boy wearing a snow suit and a candy-smeared face, and the other was extended in greeting.

  “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?” he boomed.

  Now Casey had it. “Hello, Stan,” he said. “How are things with you?”

  “Okay, fine. But what the hell have you been doing all this time?”

  Stan—for the life of him Casey couldn’t recall the other name—had lived across the alley and downstairs. They had gone to school together, played baseball together—Stan was as good at sports as Casey was mediocre—and even palled around some after they got out of school. And here was Stan, with a few wrinkles and a suggestion of a double chin, pumping his hand and making like a long lost brother.

  “I’ve been in California,” Casey said. “I just got back last night.”

  He wanted to get away, but it was hopeless. He had to answer ques
tions, and hear bits about people he’d all but forgotten and didn’t mind if he did. He had to say something flattering about the child with the candy on his face, and let him shake hands with sticky fingers.

  “I guess you remember Wanda,” Stan said when a plump young woman came up from behind pushing a cart full of groceries. Remember Wanda? Sure, Casey remembered. She’d been a cute trick in high school, but she wasn’t wearing so well. Now it didn’t seem such a tragedy that he’d never worked up enough nerve to ask for a date. Now he wasn’t a bit sorry that Stan had beaten his time.

  “And how about you?” Stan was saying. “Don’t tell me you’re still running around loose?”

  “Me?” Casey grinned. This was going to be a pleasure. Little Casey Morokowski, who couldn’t catch a fly ball and couldn’t get a date. “Not quite,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’m on my honeymoon now.”

  It was a mistake saying that. He realized it too late. To Stan and Wanda, that kind of news meant meeting the bride with appropriate celebration, and no amount of begging off would talk them out of it. Damn Saturday night, Casey thought, finally breaking away. Damn people who remember faces and can’t mind their own business! If anybody recognized Phyllis— And then he remembered the way she’d looked with her hair tied up in the bright ribbon, and her arms in the soapsuds, and wondered if anybody, even Casey Morrow, could recognize that girl as the missing Phyllis Brunner. She was different. It was more than a hair-do and a cheap blouse. She was really different.

  By the time he had all that straight, Casey was again climbing the stairs to the flat over Big John’s. From the hall outside the kitchen, he could hear Phyllis chattering away with his mother as if she’d known her a lifetime, and it really wouldn’t have surprised him too much if she’d broken out in a stream of Polish. It was just another of the many things he couldn’t understand about Phyllis Brunner.

  “Hi,” she said as he entered the kitchen. “Guess what? I’m learning some of your mother’s recipes.”