Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (50 page)

“Really am not.”

“Is this how you abdicate sainthood? Don’t you have to turn in your robe?”

“I’ll send it to the cleaners. I’ll go through the tribunals, whatever is necessary. But I’m history.”

“You’re the life and death of the world in twenty-five words or less.”

“Less. What’s all this cash? Where did you get money to burn?”

“I hit the number, but I left the envelope in the car. I’ll get it and meet you at the hotel’s Eagle Street entrance in ten minutes.”

Quinn told Renata about the money and where he was meeting Matt.

“You didn’t want the money,” she said, “but now you’re Santa Claus with it.”

“Consider it short-term borrowing. Max can take me as a tax deduction.”

“It’s not Max’s money. It’s mine, and yours.”

“Not yet.”

Quinn was now acutely conscious of the precise amount of money in his trunk. Corporations rise and fall on less. Max couldn’t need that much to get into Cuba. He’s got fifty-plus in his briefcase; send him another hundred and that’s big money. Fidel will let him in for that. Won’t he?

For a hundred, yes, Quinn decided. He would hold that much for pickup whenever by Max or his messenger. He’d stash it, safe deposit, maybe; that amount was finessable. Also he’d keep Renata’s fifty. But the rest was too much—seven hundred and fifty thousand and change. Quinn needed to give that to somebody, someplace, where it would do some good.

This was precipitous, giving Max’s cash away even before he’s in Canada; but depriving him of three quarters of a million was a satisfying prospect. Would Max react like most humans, with rage and revenge against Quinn? No. He’s dying, and too blasé. Money never meant much to him. It was only a means of moving with the high life on whose fringe he was always scrambling. All right, maybe a hundred isn’t enough; give him back Renata’s fifty. She doesn’t need it. She only wants it. It was fast money as it came to Max; if it vanishes it’s fast in the other direction.

Give the money to Matt and let him found a new order: the Church of the Benevolent Dollar. He’d give it all away in six months. And you’re ready to give it away in three hours, Quinn.

Give it to Tremont? Instant disaster. The police would pull him in and do what they do so well with drug money: make it disappear.

Claudia and Better Streets? She’d spread it around, also buy a new house, new furniture, and everybody would see her sudden wealth as drug-related, which it would be.

Give it to the Brothers? That would really contaminate them—just what the machine wants. They’d sink forever as dealers.

Leave it on the street in front of Hapsy’s and let it be a random find. If Trixie got to it first it would go into her bank vault and seduce her into early retiremant, and Albany would never see a nickel.

Keep it yourself, Quinn, have a broker invest it, obliquely, even secretly; become, simultaneously, a philanthropist and a financial criminal. No. And no hiding it in walls, or banks, or underground, except for the hundred. Even that’s a major risk. And, hey, your fingerprints are all over the cash and the suitcase; so are Max’s, and who knows who else’s? Face it: it’s a goddamn worthless treasure.

“Daniel,” Martin said, standing up from his chair, surveying the racially mixed stragglers, “what happened to this hotel? I’m surprised they booked this party. I’ve been coming here since they opened in 1926 and they always barred Negroes. They rejected Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson.”

“Satchmo too,” Quinn said. “I interviewed him in 1956 at the Kenmore when he was here to play the Palace. He was a world celebrity but no major hotel in this town would give him a room. Mixed parties here now? I suppose it’s token time. But upstairs is still lily-white.”

Quinn parked in front of Vivian’s flat and put on his blinkers, turned off the car. George and Vivian were in the backseat and he said, “Pop, we’re here.”

“Where?”

“Vivian’s house.”

“Vivian? Vivian who?”

“Vivian me,” Vivian said, and she grabbed George’s face in her fingers and turned it close to her own. “Your date for the evening, one of your old girlfriends. It’s time to go home, George.”

“Then let’s go.”

“Yes, let’s.”

“Where do we go?”

“Here.”

“Here? Where are we?”

“Columbia Street. The Court House is up a block, the Kenmore’s down a block, and I live there, right up that stoop.”

“God bless you. Columbia Street is a wonderful street. I was born on this street.”

“Say good night to Vivian, Pop,” Quinn said.

“Good night, Vivian.”

“Good night, George. I had a lovely time.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Quinn got out of the car and opened Vivian’s door and took her hand. He walked behind her up the stairs. She found her keys.

“He was on his way to Beauman’s dance hall when I met him near the Court House,” she said. “Beauman’s closed years ago. We both went there when we were young and dancing our way toward romance, maybe even marriage. I could see George was young again and a bit of the sheik, like the old days. But he had that cracked memory. Then at the Kenmore he was hit on the head by flying glass and you should’ve heard him talk.”

“I’ve been hearing him all night,” Quinn said. “It’s a miracle. He resurrected memories that were gone forever, that he had no license to bring back. He got lost on State Street and was navigating among strangers, and then he bumped into you. Whatever you did, Vivian, it thrilled him. He doesn’t know my name or his mother’s name—‘I’d have to go to the book for that’s how he gets around it. But his mind cleared and there he was, walking the streets with a lovely woman, which indeed you are, Vivian, and he was again the old George Quinn out on the town.”

“That’s so nice, Daniel, but it wasn’t me who did it.”

“You had a great deal to do with it.”

“He seems to be losing it again.”

“He’s had quite a bit to drink and that may be it. Or not. But what happened was spectacular—that singing and dancing George of yesterday was back, a resurrection, and nobody can tell me that it didn’t nourish his soul, whether he remembers it or not. You can’t write him off. If he can sing he’s still up to snuff someplace in that threadbare brain of his. He’ll have a new angle of vision on life tomorrow, whether he knows it or not, thanks to what he went through with you today.”

“Oh, I hope so,” Vivian said. “He was so alive. We were both very happy.”

“We’ll get you together again, Vivian, but however much he learned today, he might not know you next time.”

“I’ll make him remember,” Vivian said.

“I’m sure he looks forward to that, even though he doesn’t know what he’s looking forward to.”

George opened the car door and stepped onto Vivian’s sidewalk. Renata opened her door. “Do you want something, George?”

“Look at that,” he said, and he pointed at the Court House and traced a line across the night sky full of stars.

“What, George? The street? The sky? What?”

“What,” George said, “what.” He looked at Quinn and Vivian on the stoop, and he sang:

“What’s that, who am I? Don’tcha know that I’m the guy,
I’m the guy that put the foam on lager beer.”

He poked himself in the chest with his thumb:

“I’m the guy that put the salt in the ocean,
I’m the guy that put the leaves on trees.
What’s that, who am I, don’tcha know that I’m the guy,
I’m the guy that bites the holes in Switzer cheese.
I’m the guy who put the hole in the donut,
I’m the guy who put the bones in fish.
What’s that, who am I? Don’tcha know that I’m the guy,
In the wishbone I’m the guy who put the wish.”

“Good night, Georgie, dear,” Vivian said.

“Good night, young lady. The breath of me heart to you.”

“Oh, my,” Vivian said. “Oh, my.”

Quinn pulled the car into the garage and opened the side door to the house with his key and let George and Renata enter, up the stairs to the kitchen. He locked the door after them and padlocked the garage. He went to the front door to check the mailbox, tucked the letters between the pages of a magazine, picked up the
Knickerbocker News
inside the vestibule door, and opened the inner door with his key. George was standing in the living room with his hat on.

“Home the same day,” George said.

“Actually it’s the next day,” Quinn said. “It’s after one o’clock—already tomorrow. Take off your hat and stay awhile.”

George took off his hat and set it atop the bridge lamp. Quinn lit the lamp and took the hat off it. He put the mail on the coffee table and hung his coat and George’s hat on the coatrack in the dining room. He saw George’s bandage and asked, “Does your head hurt?”

“Not at all. Should it?”

“Not if you don’t think so. How are you feeling, are you ready for bed?”

George nodded. “Early to bed, early to rise, your girl goes out with two other guys.”

“Wisdom on the hoof.”

Renata came from the kitchen. “You want anything?” she asked.

“I’ll have a nightcap, rum on the rocks with a splash,” Quinn said. “Have one yourself.”

“Did you enjoy your day on the town?” she asked George.

“There was a facsimile about it that was very comfortable.”

“I’m glad you liked it. It was nice having Vivian as part of it.”

“Vivian.”

“You remember Vivian?”

“I’d have to go to the book.”

“She was your dancing partner tonight.”

“That was Paggy. Pog.”

“You’re thinking of Peg,” Quinn said.

“Peg.”

“Peg Phelan. Margaret. You married her. Your wife, Peg.”

“Peg was a wonderful girl. She danced every dance. She was strong but not tough.”

“What does that mean—not tough?”

“Good and honest. She wouldn’t let anybody cut in.”

“Do you remember how you asked her to marry you?”

“Why do you ask such a question?”

“I never heard you talk about marrying her. I always wondered how it happened.”

“Don’t you love your girl, for chrissake?”

“I do.”

“I let her down, but she still comes around to love what’s left of me. I have no room in my heart for the blues.”

“That’s a fine attitude. Do you remember that Peg was my mother?”

“Was she? God bless you.” He stared at Quinn, a long silence.

“Do you remember?”

He nodded. He looked at Renata and back to Quinn. “You were the one and only one that come to us. You were my doll.”

“I’m glad I got here.”

George looked around the room. “You can’t beat this hotel. Everything here is very katish.”

“We do our best. We’re pleased you’re staying here. I think it’s bedtime.”

“Bedtime,” George said. “There’s always room for one more.” He found his hat and went up the stairs. Renata went to the kitchen.

Quinn turned on the television and found a Bobby Kennedy retrospective, but no new news about his condition on any station. He went back to the retrospective—Bobby having his clothes ripped off like a rock star in the campaign for president. The crowd loved every inch of him. “We want Kennedy,” they screamed. Quinn turned off the volume and let the images continue.

He sat on the sofa and looked at the mail: a letter from his publisher suggesting a schedule for publicizing his novel, signings at two local bookstores, a radio interview in New York, three local radio interviews, all of which add up to no push, no weight. So the book will develop momentum by itself, or it won’t. Also, a letter from the Albany County Sheriff to George Quinn, dated yesterday. In terse sentences the sheriff notified George that as of May 15, 1968, he had been taken off the payroll and his service in the Sheriff’s Office and the courts was terminated. George had not gone to work since his two cataract operations three months ago. He’d been in his slow fade for some months, who can count, but Quinn blamed the general anaesthesia the doctor gave him for its acceleration. The operation had begun with a milder sedative but it didn’t sedate, and George kicked a nurse when someone touched his eye. The operations were a success but the patient went senile.