Blue Eyes (20 page)

“How's the baby, uncle Sheb?”

Sheb squinted at Coen. He stuffed the two dollar bills he had through the hole in his pocket. The nephew wouldn't search an uncle's pissy pajamas. Then he forgot why Jerónimo always brought him two singles wrapped in toilet paper.

“Uncle, what did Jerónimo say?”

“He said the walls stink in Mexico. The ice cream has straw in it. Flies sit in the cakes. He didn't have enough centavos to buy a decent stick of gum.”

The dollars fell through Sheb's pajama cuffs. He swatted at them until their edges ripped. Then he scooped them into his waistband and tried to flatten them against his stomach. Coen wouldn't mention the dollars no matter how hard Shebby rubbed.

“Manfred, how much is twenty-four dollars times thirteen years?”

Coen picked old raisins off his uncle's pillow. A foot from Shebby's pajamas he lost the power to accuse. How many uncles could a cop have? The Guzmanns had relatives to spare, Papa could twease them like hairs out of his nose, trade a cousin for a cousin, but they were the only two Coens.

“Sheb, I could bring you nuts tomorrow. The pears have been in the window too long. They taste better when they're not so bleached.”

Shebby wouldn't consider the disadvantages of sun-bleached fruit. The nephew stumbled uptown to be with him maybe eight, maybe nine times a year. If he offered to come again tomorrow, it couldn't be out of simple love. So Sheb cleared the dormitory. “Boys, go sit with the mademoiselles. The nephew and me have to talk. Morris, pick up your ass. It's dragging on the floor. Sam, you listen through the keyhole, I'll plug your big ears with a fig. Irwin, I want private, I want alone.” And with his roommates gone, Sheb's tonsils began to sweat. He could get by without a nephew. All he needed was two dollars a month, and enough toilet paper in his fist. He sneezed.

“God bless you, uncle Sheb.”

“Who taught you that? Your mother? She was careful about a sneeze. Your father took a holiday, Manfred. He went to sleep in his vest. They made me comb their hair.”

Coen held Shebby's knuckle.

“Manfred, only two heads could fit at one time.”

“Uncle, I know. You don't have to tell.”

Coen wobbled near the bed. He had to grab his own knee or fall into the pillows with uncle Sheb. He didn't want to hear the dimensions of his father's stove. But Sheb wouldn't let him free.

“My brother, my lovely brother, he wanted me to go into the coop with his wife. So he could turn the knobs and poke us with his thumb and see how we cooked. Then he would take us out careful, careful, and make room for himself. But Jessica said no. She wouldn't share the coop with me. She wanted to swallow gas holding Albert's hand.”

Sheb took Coen by the calf and brought him into bed. They sat hunched over, with a slipper, a washcloth, and a pillbox between them.

“Your father Albert had chicken soup in his blood. He left me to turn the knobs.”

Coen fit his hand into Shebby's slipper: all the Coens had little feet.

“Shebby, was it Albert who gave you the smock to wear, the smock from the store?”

“Smock?” Shebby said. He couldn't think without swishing his tongue and working spit through his teeth. “It wasn't Albert It was Jessica. She didn't want me dirtying my shirt. I was supposed to change when I fished them out of the coop. Piss on them. I wasn't going in after Albert. I had nobody to hold my hand.”

He dug his fingers into Coen's arms and shook him. “Call that a brother? He planned and planned, and I ended up the oven boy, hugging knobs for them.”

“Uncle, where were the Guzmanns? Who put their fat toes in the egg store? How much did Albert borrow from Papa?”

“I talk my heart away and he tells me about the Guzmanns. Did I count Papa's dimes? Manfred, you have your mother's temperament. She couldn't look at you without slanting her mouth. Jerónimo brings me dollars. Who remembers the reason?”

“Did they pay you to forget my address in Germany? Did they want me out of the country long enough to clean smoke off the oven?”

“Two dollars for all that? I must have a rotten sense of money. Why shouldn't they keep paying me? It's only Albert's twelfth anniversary. Can you find another brother in thirteen years? Manfred, you're wet. They paid me before the Coens took gas. I'm nobody's pauper. Papa opened a savings account for me and Jorge. But I lost the book. Manfred, I didn't need your mother's charity. I could have ironed my own three shirts.”

Sheb sat with his thumb in his nose, his eyes off Coen, focused on the pillbox, his feet nibbling at the slipper. Coen called for Shebby's dormitory mates. His uncle, who had to have his bananas mashed at home before he would take a bite, who wore discards and never learned to part his hair, was the headman of Manhattan Rest's north wing. Coen had minimized Sheb. Out of the Bronx, away from Albert's jumbos and Jessica's hand, the uncle thrived. He had educated himself on the dials of a stove. Coen, the homicide man, had seen DOAs (dead-on-arrivals) with their tongues in their necks, fire-scarred babies, a Chelsea whore with a curtain rod in her crotch, a rabbi from Brooklyn with lice where his eyes should have been, a drowned pusher with tadpoles in his pubic hair; he had been on official business at the morgues of four boroughs, he had touched skin thicker than bark, he had watched medical examiners saw into the tops of skulls, but he hadn't lit the oven for his father.

What did he know about Albert and Jessica? How deep could you sniff into a bowl of vegetable soup before your face burned? Other boys found prophylactics in their father's drawer. Why not Manfred Coen? How come Jessica only took off her brassiere, fat cups with a full inch of stitching between them, after Albert went to the store? Did they kiss with their mouths open? What was the point of living along the same wall if you couldn't hear your father's comes? At least he had caught Sheb with his prick in his hand. Nothing more. The Coens weren't a licentious race. He had to wonder now if his father owned a prick. Where did his mother's bosoms go with Albert scratching chickenshit off his jumbos? Could he name another father who sold nothing but eggs?

He remembered scraps, the color of Albert's change-purse, the slight deformity of Albert's thumb, the odor of vinegar in the house, the grooves in the handle of the salad chopper, the bonnet Jessica wore to keep flour out of her hair, the hump in Jessica's neck, the creases in her smile, the mothballs hanging like disintegrated berries at the bottom of the hamper, Albert's razor, Jessica's comb, the pattern on their bedspread, their hats, their shoes, but nothing that would allow him to claim them as his mother and father. He might as well have been born a Guzmann than a Coen.

Sheb was too busy with Morris, Irwin, and Sam to notice that Coen wasn't there. He had no more pears to give them. He could have finished off the morning cracking knuckles beside them, but with two dollars in his pajamas he was more ambitious. He challenged the richest furrier of the south wing to a game of cutthroat pinochle, Morris and Sam to be witnesses and money handlers. He gave up his two dollars in one deal of the cards, and owed the furrier a dollar more. Promptly at eleven o'clock he had recollections of Manfred's visit. He asked Irwin to look under the beds because he couldn't recall sending the nephew home. He was crabby the whole afternoon.

Odile wanted her revenge. She could have asked Sweeney to break the cop's back, or crush a few knuckles so he would never play ping-pong again. But she decided not to involve Sweeney in the undoing of Coen. Friends had too much brio; they betrayed your interests with overdevotion. Odile preferred professional work. The cop had humiliated her in front of Vander, accused her of conspiring to get Carrie out of the way in order to expedite a little incest—as if she had the urge to jump in Vander's lap! She'd rather sleep with the Chinaman, become his mama, for God's sake, than park on Fifth Avenue with that uncle of hers. All Vander cared about was the shine of her skin under his lamps. She called him from Jane Street.

“Vander, where can I find a ping-pong pro? A hustler who operates downtown?”

Vander was curt with her. “Forget it, Odile. Your complexion isn't suited for a green table. Try a badminton sharp. You'd be exceptional stuck inside a net.”

“The hustler isn't for me, uncle. I'd like to shit on Coen.”

“Why go so far? Coen's no good. I could make him eat the ball. Hire me.”

“I can't. You're a sentimentalist. You're liable to cry on Coen's paddle. I'll do better with strangers.”

She could hear Vander go stiff; he was proud of his finesse on the table. He could volley with an elbow, a hand, or the top of his head. But Vander was useless to her.

“Go to Harley Stone at the health spa on Christopher Street. Ask for the ping-pong room. He'll be there. Harley took the Canadian Open a few years back. He has the best strokes in New York.”

“Uncle, you don't understand. I'm not interested in strokes. The tournament boys are too pretty. I need a money player, a guy who won't freeze with two hundred dollars sitting under the table. I want Coen to lose his pants.”

“Then you'll have to depend on a Spic. Sylvio Neruda. He can make a shot off Coen's eyeballs. But he's a tricky son-of-a-bitch. He won't produce unless you catch him in the right mood.”

“He'll produce,” Odile said, and she ran to the health spa, which was open only to men. The beadle let her through when she whistled Vander's name. She passed the volley ball room, the badminton room, the shuffleboard room, the quoits and horseshoe-pitching room, naked men hissing at her, lurching for a towel or hopping with their genitals in their hands. “Holy shit,” Odile had to mutter. “It's a fags' house.” Vander might have told her that Sylvio was the porter of the ping-pong room. He sat hunched on a stool at the end of the room, a mop between his legs, snoring and jerking a shoulder to the clack of the balls. The room's five tables were occupied, and Odile marched around the players to get to Sylvio, the ping-pong shark. He had stubble on his cheeks. He looked at her slantily after she woke him with a tug of the mop. “Mama,” he said, “what you doing here? They don't allow any ladies. You fuck with my job, I burn your ass.”

“Sylvio, I came for you. With a recommendation from my uncle, Vander Child.”

Sylvio, who was something of a Christian, believed in epiphanies; he couldn't reconcile the contours of Odile's face, the sharp angles in her nose, under fluorescent light. He figured she might be one of the saints from his catechism book, come to bother him.

“Vander Child don't play here. Girlie, what's your name?”

“Odile. I need your paddle, Sylvio. I'd like to borrow you for an hour. I'll give you a hundred dollars if you can beat an uptown man.”

Sylvio began to mumble out a few of his saints. “Lucia, Teresa, Agnes.” He was staring hard. “Who is he, your hundred-dollar boy?”

She told him.

“I never heard of Coen. Where does he hit? At Morris' or Reisman's place?”

“It's Schiller's. On Columbus.” And she showed him the address.

Sylvio laughed into the handle of his mop. “Mama, the clowns go there. I don't take money off cockroaches. Reisman's, all right. Schiller's is a hole. I'm losing sleep because of you. So long.”

Odile wouldn't let him nod off.

“Coen's a killer, a killer paid by the City of New York. He belongs to an elite band of detectives. They persecute idiot boys, run them down with cars.”

Sylvio swiped a leather pouch from under his chair. “A ping-pong cop? Girlie, I'm coming.”

He pulled her toward the IRT, but Odile wouldn't go into a tunnel; she had never been on a subway in her life. She got him into a cab, closed the door. He sulked. “Mama, I don't dig the outdoors.” He gave her his pouch to hold; she could feel the imprint of a bat. He settled into a corner, dropped his chin down. Odile had to poke him when they arrived. He wouldn't go first, so she took the plunge into the cellar, Sylvio at her heels, falling away from the banister. The shock of foul air, crooked light coming off the walls (Schiller's was notorious for its spots of shadow), the irregular throw of tables (most of them with at least one hobbled leg), and the SROs leering from the gallery, disturbed Odile, who had gotten used to the quiet life and gentlemen players of the health spa. But the SROs did appeal to Sylvio; he hadn't expected this many
portorriqueños
at Schiller's club. “Friends,” he said, speaking English on purpose, “the lady, she brought me for your star. Coen the cop.”

The SROs were twittering now, and Sylvio lost his edge with them; he groped for the pouch in Odile's hand. She was already halfway to Coen. She had seen him sitting in street clothes at the end of the gallery, with Schiller. Coen wouldn't get off his rump for Odile; Schiller had to move him. “Manfred, I think the girl is talking to you.”

She stuck a hip out at him, presented the details of her profile, only she was at a disadvantage in the harsh, uneven light.

“Coen, I'm putting a hundred dollars on my man. I say he can trim you in your own sport. He's Sylvio Neruda from downtown.”

Schiller whispered to Coen. “Manfred, don't play him. He'll steal your shoelaces. That's the kind of guy he is. He's fierce when it comes to money. Otherwise his reputation wouldn't have spilled uptown.”

“Schiller, lend me a hundred.”

Coen undressed in the back room while Schiller counted singles and fives from his money box. He would have groaned louder, but he couldn't disappoint the cop. He called into the changing room. “Manfred, should I send for Arnold? Arnold brings you good luck.”

“No.”

Coen came out in his ping-pong suit, the holster clipped to his shorts. A weirdo, Sylvio figured, but he wouldn't give Coen the satisfaction of a smile. Sylvio had played with loonies before; he wasn't delicate about taking their money. Odile put her hundred dollars under the table; following the tradition of ping-pong sharks that Vander had explained to her once, she crumpled the bills. No hustler would perform with money lying flat on the ground; crumpled bills were a lucky omen; also, it was easier to grab the whole pot, if the bulls should decide to invade the premises. Schiller dropped Coen's hundred in a coffee tin, sliding it deep enough between the legs so it wouldn't distract Sylvio or Coen. Then he went for the balls.