City Boy
Page 33
“But what about the Place?” said Herbie, in a sudden chill of fear that ran to his fingers and toes.
“Papa has sold the Place,” said Mrs. Bookbinder.
TWENTY-SIX
The Truth Will Out
After this shocking announcement, the drive to the Bronx was grim. Mr. and Mrs. Bookbinder did not speak. Felicia, after a flutter of astonishment, looked dreamily out of the window at the traffic, the stony streets, and the high dirty buildings, and bethought her of the manly figure of Yishy Gabelson. Herbie's thoughts were in turmoil; he longed to know more, but dreaded to ask.
“Why is Papa selling the Place, Mama?” the boy inquired after a long silence, trying to sound very young and innocent.
“Well, Herbie, there was a robbery at the Place.”
“Oh,” said Herbie with wide eyes, “and did the robbers steal all the money and that's why we have to sell it?”
Mrs. Bookbinder shook her head gently at her son's childishness. “No, my boy, they didn't take much money. But they took certain very important papers, and without them—well, Papa knows what he's doing. It'll all be for the best.”
Herbie immediately recalled the wrangle of Krieger and Powers, on the night of his expedition, over the box marked “J.B.” containing the blue memorandum.
“When—when did Papa sell the Place?”
“It was decided yesterday. Thursday the men are coming to our house to sign all the contracts.”
Mr. Bookbinder broke his silence to observe with rough sarcasm, “Tell the boy the terms of the settlement, and what my salary will be, and everything else. Why must you talk to the children about it at all?”
“Herbie is our boy. Naturally he's interested,” retorted the mother, with unusual spirit. “I think it's fine that he shows an intelligent interest.”
“Papa,” said Herbie timidly, “what'll happen to the crooks if they catch them?”
“They should be burned or hanged!” shouted his father, honking his horn furiously at a truck that suddenly lurched out of a side street in front of them. “But the least they'll get is ten years in prison, I hope.”
“What if they were kids?”
His father threw a swift keen glance at the boy on the seat behind him, and turned his eyes back to the street, “Kids? Kids rob the Place? What kids?”
“Well, you know about—about the creek gang,” Herbie stammered. “They got pistols an' knives an' I bet burglar tools—an' they hand around near the Place—”
“Grandma stories!” said his father.
“But if it was kids,” Herbie persisted, with a feeling that he was stretching his luck to pursue the topic, “would they go to jail for ten years, too?”
“If they were young kids they'd go to reform school. That's the same as prison. But this robbery wasn't done by kids,” said Jacob Bookbinder curtly.
“You know, Jake, maybe Herbie has hit on something,” said the mother. “That would explain a silly thing like taking the box with the blue paper and leaving most of the cash. Who but kids would—”
“What are you now, a policewoman? The police say definitely it was done by two men. What would kids be doing there three o'clock in the morning? How could kids break into a safe?”
Felicia said, “It could have been young fellows fifteen or sixteen. I know one who could easily stay up all night—and strong enough to break open a safe with his bare hands, almost.”
“I suppose you mean Yishy Gabelson,” said Herbie.
“Never mind who I mean,” Felicia answered, reddening with pleasure at hearing the ineffable name spoken aloud.
“Do me a favor, all of you, and stop talking about the robbery and the Place,” said the father.
Conversation languished. Mrs. Bookbinder tried to start the topic of camp life once more, but both her children gave short, absentminded answers to her questions. She desisted after a while. The family finished the ride in somber quiet.
As soon as they came home, Herbie rushed to the telephone in the kitchen while the rest of the family went to the bedrooms. He spoke in a near-whisper.
“Intervale 6465. … Hello, Cliff? This is Herbie. Hey, I'm sorry I got sore on the train. … Well, O.K., thanks, Cliff. … Listen, how about doing me a favor? Can you meet me over in front of Lennie's house in fifteen minutes? … Yeah. It's important, Cliff.” He lowered his voice so that he just breathed the next words. “It's about the money. … O.K. So long.”
Herbie tiptoed out of the kitchen and softly opened the front door.
“Where do you think you're going?”
The classic challenge of mothers rang out clear. Herbie did not have one foot outside, which would have justified a quick escape on the pretense of not having heard the question. He was fairly halted. His mother stood in the hallway, regarding him mistrustfully.
“I'm just goin' over to Lennie's for a minute.”
“To Lennie's? You're home two minutes and you're ready to run out! Aren't you glad to be home?”
“Sure. It's great to be home. It's swell, Mom. Only Lennie has something of mine I wanna get. I'll be right back.” He risked a dive through the doorway and got away successfully.
Lennie lived on Homer Avenue two blocks further away from the school, in an apartment house of the same size, shape, age, and dinginess as the Bookbinder abode. Herbie ran the two blocks and arrived perspiring and blowing. Cliff was not there. The fat boy paced back and forth before the entrance. Two minutes later Cliff came in sight around the corner, and Herbie scampered to meet him.
“Holy smoke, what took you so long? Listen—” Herbie breathlessly summarized the news about the Place. Cliff was thunderstruck.
“Gosh, Herb, it's all our fault. On accounta us your father's gonna sell the Place!”
“I know,” said Herbie despairingly. “Come on, now!” He pulled his cousin by the hand into the building and skipped up the stairs.
“What do we do here?” Cliff panted as he followed him.
“First let's see who's home.”
They trampled up to the third landing and Herbie rang a bell. In a moment the door was opened by Lennie. The athlete scowled when he saw who his visitors were.
“Whadda you guys want?”
“Aw, we're lonesome for camp,” said Herbie. “We were walkin' by and figured we'd come up an' talk about good old Manitou.”
Lennie's expression became much pleasanter and he made way for the cousins to enter.
“Boy, you're lonesome, too, are you?” he said. “I'm about ready to bust out an' cry. Go on into the parlor.” He followed the others, adding, “When I think I gotta live a whole winter in this dump! Boy, remember them ball fields an' that lake? I wish camp was all year round.”
“Me, too,” said Herbie. He looked around inquisitively at the Krieger home, where he was an infrequent visitor. It much resembled his own in dimensions and furnishings, except that clothing, magazines, and newspapers were scattered about, and dust lay in films on tables and chair arms. (Mrs. Bookbinder never tolerated such details, and never failed to refer to them scornfully when the Krieger establishment was mentioned.)
“Your folks home, Lennie?” said Cliff.
“Naw. My mother brought me home an' went right out shoppin'. Herb, you know about the robbery an' about the Place being sold?”
“Yeah, ain't that terrible?” said Herbie.
“I dunno. My mother says the robbers only got fifty bucks. An' she says we're gettin' a terrific lot o' money for the Place, an' it's a good thing we're sellin' it. Hey, whaddya think we're gettin'? Five million dollars?”
“Nearer ten million,” said Herbie. “That's a mighty big place.”
“It sure is. Say, we'll be rich, Herb. When our fathers die we can own speedboats an' live in Florida, an' all that stuff. Boy, that's what I want, a speedboat.”
“That's a heck of a thing to say,” put in Cliff. “You want your father to die?”
“Don't be a sap,” Lennie said angrily. “But nobody don't live forev
er, do they? Yer just sore 'cause you ain't in on this dough like Herb an' me.”
“All right, don't you guys start fightin' again,” said Herbie. He added craftily, “Unless you wanna do an Indian leg wrestle or somethin'. Bet Cliff can take you, Lennie.”
“Bet he can't!”
Lennie still resented the beating he had received from Cliff. He knew that his opponent had won with the abnormal strength of fury, and believed that in an unemotional state Cliff was no match for him. “Come on, Cliff, lay down,” he urged. “Two out of three, Indian leg wrestle.”
Cliff threw a questioning look at his cousin and understood that this was what Herbie wanted. “Well, O.K.,” he said, reclining in the middle of the floor. “But no bets, Herbie. This guy was the best Indian leg wrestler in camp, pretty near.”
“Hey, Lennie, I'm gonna get a glass of water.” Herbie rose from his chair as Lennie eagerly dropped to the floor beside his erstwhile conqueror.
“Sure, go ahead,” said the athlete. As Herbie left the room the wrestlers were raising and dropping opposed legs in the traditional manner and counting, “One, two. …”
Herbie prowled through the apartment, looking under beds, and in closets, ransacking drawers, and climbing up to examine shelves. From the parlor came the noises and grunts of combat. He searched for perhaps five minutes, then all at once discontinued his quest and returned to the parlor. The two boys stood toe to toe, flushed and breathing hard, locked in a hand wrestle. As Herbie entered, Lennie pulled Cliff sharply to one side and threw him to the floor. He laughed triumphantly and said to Herbie, “How about that? Three outta three leg wrestle, an' three outta three hand wrestle!”
“I ain't no good at that stuff, I guess,” said Cliff good-naturedly, picking himself up.
“You're really great, Lennie,” said Herbie. “Hey, come on, Cliff, we better get goin'.”
“What's your hurry?” said Lennie, feeling extremely pleased with life. “Stick around. There's some jello in the icebox. We can have some fun.”
“Naw, thanks, they're waitin' for me at home,” said Herbie. “We were just passin' by.”
He took Cliff by the arm and walked out of the room. Lennie went with them to the door.
“Well, come around again. It's pretty dead here after camp.”
“We sure will, Lennie,” said Herbie. As the cousins walked down the stairs, Lennie shouted after them, “So long, Herb the millionaire!”
“So long, Speedboat Lennie!” Herbie called back. They heard the athlete laugh and close the door.
“Well, whadja find, Herbie?” exclaimed Cliff.
“It's there, Cliff. That box marked ‘J.B.’ is there in a closet.”
Cliff whistled. The boys went out to the street and walked in the direction of Herbie's home. The fat boy's face was pale and his brows knitted.
“Cliff, my father said if kids done the robbery they go to reform school for ten years. Reform school is a prison for kids.”
“Yeah, but if we confess we done it, do we still go to reform school?” said Cliff, looking as worried as his cousin.
“Why not? The police are lookin' for us, Cliff. They think we were two big guys. I dunno, maybe if we tell we only get five years.”
“Herb, I'll do whatever you say.”
They were approaching Mr. Borowsky's candy store. Herbie fished two dimes out of his pocket.
“I don't figure they got fraps in reform school,” he observed, with a laugh of theatrical bravado. “Wanna join me in a last frap?”
Cliff gasped, “You gonna tell?”
“I ain't gonna tell about you. All you done was help me, anyhow. I'm gonna say I done it myself.”
“O.K., Herb. That's swell of you.”
Herbie was slightly disappointed in Cliff's answer. He had expected some sort of argument, a heroic insistence on sharing the punishment, but none was forthcoming. Cliff believed that Herbie should own up, and also felt that the robbery was entirely his cousin's responsibility. So he approved gratefully of Herbie's decision.
The boys ate their fraps without a word. Herbie assumed an expression of magnificent mournfulness, in imitation of Robin Hood just prior to his hanging, as played by Douglas Fairbanks. Now that the resolve was taken he felt a martyr. He even looked forward to reform school with a little curiosity and excitement. A vision of vast barred steel gates closing on him, not to be opened for five years, came into his mind, pathetic and thrilling. It was a fall, but a tremendous, showy fall. He would write constantly to his family and to Lucille. She would wait for him. He would emerge in five years and proceed to become a great man: a general or a Senator. He would show the world how Herbie Bookbinder could rise above reform school!
“Ain't no use scrapin' that dish any more, Herb,” said Cliff. “It's dry.”
Herbie realized that his spoon had been rasping futilely in the shallow tin dish while he had been lost in dreams.
“O.K. Here we go.” He stood up and walked out of the candy store. His steps were not sprightly.
“Want me to come up with you?” said Cliff.
“It don't matter,” said the self-condemned boy. He felt the same sense of unreality creeping over him that he had experienced on the moonlit night when he and Cliff had mounted rickety old Clever Sam to start their journey to New York.
“Well, I won't come then,” said Cliff.
“Guess I'd rather be alone, at that,” Herbie remarked absently.
Cliff held out his hand. “Good luck, Herbie,” he said. “Maybe it'll all come out O.K.”
The fat boy clasped his cousin's palm. This was the first time the boys had shaken hands in the memory of either; they were too close for such a gesture, ordinarily. It made them both self-conscious.
“So long, pal,” said Herbie. “I ain't afraid. Whatever happens, I'll face it. Don't you worry about old Herbie. I can take my medicine. Thanks for helpin' me an' everything. So long, pal.”
He wanted to say “pard,” which seemed to belong with the rest of this speech, but he felt the word would sound odd amid the stones and bricks of Homer Avenue, so he compromised on “pal.” Cliff was not at all as good as Herbie at improvising dramatic dialogue. He answered, “Yeah. Well, g'bye,” dropped his cousin's hand, and walked down the avenue, hastening a little in embarrassment.
Aflame with virtue and determination, Herbie scampered up the stairs to the Bookbinder apartment. He came upon his father and mother in the parlor, deep in a financial discussion, with ledgers, notebooks, yellow bank statements, and impressive engraved certificates spread around them on the floor and furniture. His father was writing in a notebook propped on his knees. As the boy entered he looked up.
“Well?” he said. “We're busy.”
One glance at his parent's deep-lined, gray, unhappy face, and Herbie's resolution burned blue and flickered out. “Uh, sorry, Pa,” he said. “I was gonna bang around on the piano. 'Scuse me.” He sneaked from the room.
That night Cliff telephoned him to ascertain whether he was on his way to reform school. Herbie said with some shame that he “hadn't had a chance yet” to make his confession. The next night, and the next after that, he was forced to give the same report to his wondering cousin. It was not true, of course; he had dozens of chances. But the grim aspect of his father scared him off each time he nerved himself to approach.
Thursday came, and Thursday afternoon, and Herbie had not yet taken his medicine, and Jacob Bookbinder was still in the dark. The father, dressed in his best clothes, was pacing back and forth in the parlor, pausing now and again to thump miserable discords on the piano. His son stood in the dining room, contemplating a table spread for tea and laden with pastries and layer cakes. He was not hungry. His gaze was far away. He was, in fact, trying to persuade himself that perhaps it would be a good thing if the Place were sold for five million dollars, after all; that perhaps it would be wrong of him to interfere at this late hour. He was very nearly convinced, too.
His mother came in. She wore a bi
g green apron over the black silk dress reserved for occasions of great pomp. Her face looked much less faded than usual, and the double string of amber beads, unmistakable sign of stirring events, dangled over the apron.
“All right, you can forget about helping yourself. We're having important company in a minute. Go on downstairs and play for an hour.”
“Ma, is the company comin' about buyin' the Place?”
A bark from Mr. Bookbinder in the parlor. “Tell that boy to get out of the house!” And a crash of a fist's breadth of notes on the piano.
Mrs. Bookbinder looked anxiously at Herbie. “You heard Papa. Run along.”
“Where's Felicia?” With the fateful moment at hand, Herbie suddenly wanted to spar for a few more seconds.
“She's at Emily's. Go, I say. This is no time for you to be in the house.”
Herbie slowly walked down the hallway to the outside door. He put his hand on the knob. Then he turned and just as slowly walked into the parlor.
“Pa.”
His father was looking out of the window. He whirled at the sound of Herbie's voice.
“Will you go downstairs, boy?”
“Pa, are you looking for a green tin box marked ‘JB.’?”
The father stared at him in stupefaction. Then he ran at the boy and gripped his shoulders brutally.
“What are you talking about? Yes, I'm looking for such a box. It was stolen.”
Herbie's shoulders were full of pain. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. But he caught his breath and said, “I saw it Monday in Mr. Krieger's house. In a bedroom closet. Under a pile of old shoes. I figured it would be there because I myself—”
“Are you crazy, boy? Do you know what you're saying?”
The doorbell rang. Father and son heard the door opened at once, and the voice of Mrs. Bookbinder in words of welcome, and several men's voices. The father seized Herbie's right hand and dragged him into the dining room. Mrs. Bookbinder came in with Powers, Krieger, and the lawyer Glass. There was also a tall, broad-shouldered, bald stranger. He had pouchy little eyes, and wore stiff dark clothes. Mr. Glass, who was holding a thick brief case under one arm, said as they entered, “Mr. Burlingame, I'd like you to meet Mr. Bookbinder, the manager of Bronx River.”