Rumors from the Lost World (7 page)

“Not far from here.”

He looked incredulous. “You
live
in Chicago Heights?”

“T. J., be nice,” Trudy said.

Raines shrugged. “What the hell. Hossmoor's no better. Old fogies waiting on strokes and tumors, giving their cancers a walk every afternoon, taking their bottles of oxygen wherever they go.”

“The glamour capital of the world,” Trudy agreed, rolling her eyes like Betty Boop. “God protect me from getting old.”

“God ain't got nothing to do with it, sweetheart,” Raines said, then turned to Levoski. “What you do in the Heights?”

“Roofing business.”

“No kidding. Big outfit?”

“Twenty or so.”

“Not bad, Leonie. Matter of fact, I need somebody with some good muscle. There's a development I'm looking into, a dump. We're getting permits to put it someplace with no clout. Like the Heights.” He flashed a quick knife of a grin. “A lot of business for someone who don't truck with unions. You interested? You won't have to do much
roofing,
you understand.”

Levoski, his union card in his pocket, shrugged. “Sure. What the hell.”

“Good deal,” Raines said, helping Trudy into her wrap. “Put the kid in the business when he's done his time.”

“Done his time?” Levoski grunted to his feet.

“Uncle Sameroo.” Raines winked. “Your man and mine.”

In the parking lot he gave Levoski a business card. “New Year's Eve. Come early, stay late. Meet some people. We'll talk some more.”

“I'll be there.”

“What's your company, by the way?”

“Midwest Roofing.”

“Real original,” Raines said, writing it down. Then Trudy rubbed against Levoski for another kiss before the couple disappeared in a pink Cadillac.

Driving home, Leon imagined the words
LEVOSKI AND SON
painted on the panels of a step-van parked in exclusive Flossmoor. Even in the city, working the steel mills, Levoski had daydreamed about a father-son business. His decision to leave the Works in South Chicago had been provoked not only by layoffs, but also by the dream of that step-van. To hell with working for someone else; he could teach Paul the ropes, tell him small stories.

Marge was dozing, head against the window. Knocked out again. Taking pills for everything from her liver, non-prescription dealies bought on sale at the Walgreen's, to her nerves, little white tablets her woman's doctor gave her by the gross. What had happened since those days when they shared five rooms with his parents? The bells would ring at St. Michael's and they would worship. The rest of the week, he and his father put in time at the mills. Marge, pregnant with Paul, stayed with his mother. She didn't have much energy even then. Red mill dust covered everything, gases from furnaces and coke ovens settled in the lungs like the croup, and their bit of a neighborhood known as the Bush was packed like a sardine between great heaps of burning slag, rail lines, and the belching stacks of the Works. The air tasted like mildewed socks. Even now, Marge hated the place, but Levoski missed it. They couldn't have stayed, though. The Bush was hell in a handbasket. His parents dead, no overtime, crazy fools who would pull a knife on you and strip off your shirt as soon as say hello. Just like every other goddamn place—Levoski's mental map of Chicago was a patchwork of ghettos and tiny enclaves of civilization. Otherwise there were expressways and a thin strip of safe passage along the lake.

At his house, a small bungalow, the glare of the streetlight cast a metallic sheen over asbestos siding and khaki-green shutters. Marge stumbled to bed and he poured two fingers of whiskey. Outside he could hear bottle rockets whine, dogs yelp. Beyond the dim moon-glow of his gunmetal gray stoop were duplexes, small bungalows like his own, and apartment buildings decorated with wreaths and strings of colored lights. It looked pretty, the one time of year people pretended the place wasn't a dump. A tricycle lay deserted on the lawn next door. Paul had been a young freckled child who liked to look too long at things, study the way a train moved or the queer arthritic walk of the priest. It's the truth, Levoski thought. He joined the service for me. “All right, I've done it,” he said one evening, hair cut close. “It's done.” A few mornings later, single bag packed, he left. “Over the ocean,” he said. “The other side of the world. See you.” Levoski, teeth grinding, put down his newspaper, stiffly walked to the door, stood on the stoop until his son drove away, then climbed a shaky wooden ladder to the roof and worked until his eyes stung.

On New Year's Eve, he fingered the pebbled texture of Raine's business card and decided to continue the patchwork job he started the day Paul left. He gathered up his coat from the living room chair where he had tossed it the night before. Marge was in a trance, staring at her pictures, the soaps, talking back to the screen as though the men and women acting on it could hear her anxious shouts. On the roof, his scalp itchy with sweat, he fidgeted with each granulated shingle, trying to lose himself in the routine, and thought about his father. The old man lived and died with the unions. The union and the trumpet, that was his life. Even when he lost his wind, he kept the instrument shiny, endlessly told the same stories abut playing for Roosevelt once in the service band. He started Leon on lessons early. Too early. One day Levoski left the brass instrument in the practice room and went to play dirtball.

He climbed down from the roof, leaving the job unfinished. In the kitchen, holding down his shirt so it wouldn't ride his belly, breathing raggedly, he poured an orange juice over vodka for Marge. It's time to tell her about Paul, he thought, but she was dozing on the couch, a bony elbow shielding her eyes. On the TV, hundreds of people sang in perfect harmony. Each one wanted to buy the world a Coke. He turned off the set and covered her with an old knitted shawl.

That night, in Flossmoor, the tree-canopied streets were unlighted. Levoski, a little drunk, looked across wide lawns and finally parked near the curb behind a string of Cadillacs and Chryslers. At the lighted entrance, a stocky man with a glistening forehead waved them in. Marge, squinting in the kitchen's bright art deco fluorescence, took a chair, and Levoski went looking for the bar.

The feel of large spaces, of infinitely receding rooms, each a showplace, possessed him with an illusion of grandeur. Several couples were dancing deliriously around a huge fireplace to a frantic beat blasting from the entire wall. Above the fire, two lovers in an oil painting were having one another. In the dining room two men butted heads, the glass table shoved to one side. They snorted and pawed on white plush carpet. A stuffed elk above a tiled bar stared at a buffet loaded with hors d'oeuvres. Through a picture window Levoski could see a covered pool and a tennis court.

The roofer had been in such places, but only to present a bill or accept a cup of coffee. Now he helped himself to whiskey and looked for something sweet. As he jiggled mixers, one of the head-butters stumbled into him, draped a perspiring arm around his shoulder, massaged his collarbone. “Why do I do it?” he asked, a smile plastered on his face.

“Got me,” said Levoski.

The head-butter stroked his carefully-trimmed moustache and studied Levoski's two drinks. “You have a woman here? What's she like, this woman? Where is she, this woman of yours?”

“Later.” As he turned to pick his way through a cluster of people, an ill-tempered growl was his only warning. The head-butter smashed into his lower spine, nearly flipped him backwards. His whiskey slopped into his face, the orange juice with its dose of vodka drenched the white carpet. He picked himself up, red-faced, and to the sound of scattered handclaps and hoots took a step towards his attacker, who was tramping back to the bar.

Trudy swatted him on the rump. “Losing your balance?” she said. “Don't bother with Vinny. He ain't worth it. He's supposed to fix drinks, but he's loaded. Come on, honey, I'll fix you up.” In a halfbath under a stairwell near the front entrance she tended to his wounded pride by sponging his face neat of whiskey. She wore the same silk dress that hugged her figure with such abandon at the Stardust. “Don't worry. You're going to have a great time.” She rested a hand on his back. “Come on upstairs, we'll get a fresh shirt.”

T. J. Raines stood in the large open-beamed room. “You two looking for something?” He fingered his gold chain. “Or what, my man?”

“T. J., be nice,” Trudy said.

Raines belched, turned away from Trudy, and squinted into the fireplace. “Sit down,” he said to Levoski. “I'm surprised you had the guts to show up.”

Levoski sat on an ottoman. “More fun that bowling,” he said, ill at ease on the round cushion.

“Bowling? Like you mean bowling?” Raines leaned forward and launched an imaginary bowling ball into the fireplace. “A ball with big holes in it. Beer. Greasy burgers. Leagues. Unions, right?”

“T. J., be nice,” Trudy repeated.

“You're still here, sweetheart? Scram.”

Raines sat in the plush easy chair that belonged with the ottoman. “I thought we had an understanding.” He fondled a leather pouch of pipe tobacco. “You told me you'd consider a little deal. You told me you owned the company.”

“I didn't say that,” Levoski mumbled, too sober to find his voice. “You assumed it.” He ran his fingers over the ottoman's furred upholstery.

“Assume? You break that down, little man, and you know what it does? It makes an ass of you and an ass of me.” T. J. Raines allowed himself a brief smile, then turned and spat into the fireplace. “What you think? I couldn't check you out? You think money grows on trees? You take me for some kind of chump?”

“I just wanted a break.” At home in the Bush, he would sink into the old sofa and finger its vinyl iron-on patches, speechless, found out in some petty lie. His father lectured him, accompanying each point with the tap of a finger on an open palm, as though spanking a tiny boy. “You skipped practice, you left that comet lying in an empty room. You know how that makes me feel?”

“A break?” Raines said. “You set me up, I'll break both your goddamn arms, I'll break your goddamn neck. You force my hand, big guy, and I can be a real swinging dick.”

He laid down his pouch of tobacco and opened both hands, as though bestowing a blessing. “Look, boy, I just want you to know I checked you out. I don't give nobody the business without good reason, and I mean that any way you can take it.” He stood up and grinned, his face melting almost miraculously from something Corleone might fear to an aw-shucks deference. “You're my kind of schmuck, Leo. Now that you know what kind of meat I'm made out of, we might be able to work together anyhows.” He turned his back on the roofer and shot his cuffs towards the fireplace. “Look, I thought you were hitting on me, taking me for a Rufus. Now I see I was wrong. You're a good man, aren't you, Leonie? Working stiff, barely pays his bills. Am I right, Leonie? You just don't know how to bullshit a bullshitter. Play your cards right, I might be willing to teach you.”

Trudy walked into the room. Levoski, red-faced, took the business card from his damp pocket and tore it in half. Raines turned and shook his head cheerlessly. “Don't be a fool. If I thought you were a total moron, I'd con you out of your shirt. But I think we can use each other, my man. Besides, I like to help poor buggers crawl out of the gutters.”

“Baby, don't be mean, you really have a mean streak,” Trudy said. “Anyway, they're waiting for you downstairs.”

Raines picked up his pouch of tobacco and emptied it into the fireplace. “Damn stuff is stale,” he said. He gave Levoski's shoulder a squeeze. “What's up, my man? You're not ready to party? Have some fun? Isn't that what we're here for, why we're on this good earth? For fun? Or did you want Trudy to set you up with fingernail polish?” He smirked. “She sells that Mary Kay crap, you know.”

“It's not crap, goddammit,” Trudy said. “Besides, what paid the mortgage last month, your stock market crash or my troop of ladies?”

“Come on, leave her alone,” Levoski said, still sitting heavily on the ottoman, but coming out of his stupor. “What are you, some kind of attack dog?”

“Witty guy.” Raines whooped. “You hear that, Tru? Leo is a wit.” He squeezed the roofer's shoulder again. “I'll tell you one thing, though. It's good to see your spirit soar. I'm glad you had the guts to say that, Leonie. Not many talk back to the T. J. Raines.”

“Come on, sweetiepies,” Trudy said. “Let's party. Be nice, both of you. Give him the business if he wants it, T. J. For God's sake. We're starting a New Year.”

“I didn't come here looking for no business.”

“Is that right, my man? What you come here looking for, then? Maybe I'm wrong, Leo. Maybe you
belong
on somebody's roof. Maybe I'll see you around sometimes.” He spit into the now-smouldering fire.

“Baby. Take it easy.” Bracelet jingling, fingernails the color of chrome, she put a damp hand on his upper arm. “Remember your blood pressure. Remember your resolution?”

“Yeah, right.” Raines turned to Levoski with a boyish grin. “You know how important my blood pressure's become, Leo? I've got a goddamn cuff next to the toilet.” He whooped. “Can you
imagine
that? You were a big strapping kid, a football player I bet, a big strong piece of meat. You ever think it might come to this?” He opened his arms wide and puffed out his chest, as though presenting his heart to the room. “Well, what the hell. Make yourself at home. Take a nap if you want. I'm just real sorry I'm moody tonight. When I was a kid, I had a bad relationship with my old man. That kind of stuff gets to you, know what I mean?” Downstairs, people were stomping, clapping, shouting hysterically. “Look, when somebody hits on you, you hit back. It's natural, the way we're made. Kabisch?” He fingered a gold-plated crucifix around his neck. “I've dealt with some sleazeballs, Leo, that's the bottom line. The stories I could tell would make your dick crawl right up into the middle of your face. But I can see I had you pegged all wrong, so let's forgive and forget. One happy family?”