“Morrie, would you do me a favour?”
“Name it.”
“Would you marry the beautiful, but unbelievably dense Clara Teitelbaum for me?”
“Hey, what are you talking? She’s some number, Clara, very hoidytoidy too. Have you ever caught a look at her on the rink doing those figure-eights in that little skirt?”
“Unfortunately yes.”
“Her father leans against the fence, making sure nobody even talks to her.”
“What if I could fix you up with Clara tonight?”
“I’m glad to see you’re in such a good mood.”
“Oh yeah. Why?”
“Bernie’s really, really in love with Libby, but the Mintzbergs are giving him a hard time.”
“If you so much as mention those ridiculous contracts he’s drawn up I’ll throw you out of here.”
“Hold on. Don’t give me that look. But supposing that in order to win Libby’s hand he has to show those contracts to Mintzberg, but he also gave you a covering letter, nullifying the contracts, which would be torn up right after the marriage.”
“How could I be a party to deceiving the delightful daughter of such a worthy family of German Jews?”
So Morrie trudged back to the warehouse office and reported to Bernard that Solomon wouldn’t budge.
“I should have known better than to trust you with such an important thing, you little putz,” Bernard said, punching him in the stomach. Then grabbing his homburg and beaver coat, Bernard went flying out of the office.
Head lowered into the wind, Bernard went striding down Portage Street, cursing at anybody he banged into. Once more, in his mind’s eye, he saw Solomon, Ephraim’s anointed one, jump down from the fence into the flow of wild nervy horses in the corral. “Follow me, Bernie, and I’ll buy you a beer.” Turning a corner, tears freezing on his cheeks, he was confronted again by Lena Green Stockings. “It’s the boy with the two belly buttons.” Minnie Pryzack, seeing him reach for the towel, smiled at him, a tubby little man with wet fishy eyes who would have to scratch and bite to get what he wanted out of life, but never cheat, he thought, like Solomon certainly did in that card game, and yet to this day McGraw looks at me like I’m dog shit but would eat out of Solomon’s hand.
Bernard sat down in a booth in The Gold Nugget and ordered coffee and blueberry pie with a double helping of vanilla ice cream.
My God Lanksy phones and asks for Mr. Gursky.
Speaking, Bernard says.
I meant Solomon.
Well last time I looked I was Mr. Gursky too I’ll have you know.
Tell Solomon I called.
Click.
Hardly anybody in town could even qualify for a date with the unattainable Clara Teitelbaum, but Solomon was screwing her black and blue in the hotel. Yeah, sure. While he could win the Irish Sweepstakes easier than collecting a little good-night kiss from Libby.
“We all have to learn to control our desires,” she said.
“Yeah, well maybe not all. I could tell you something about your friend Clara Teitelbaum guaranteed to turn your hair white.”
“Like what?”
“Somebody is doing it to her.”
“Shame on you for making up such a thing. She isn’t even allowed out at night there isn’t a chaperone with.”
“So what about before lunch she’s supposed to be shopping?”
“You’re crazy.”
“About you, yes.”
“Then stop futzing around and get my father’s approval for the match.”
“There are problems.”
“Listen, Bernie, I’d marry you if you didn’t have even a dime to your name, but I can’t go against my father’s wishes. So get a move on, please, and you’ll see how warmly I can respond to your caresses,” she said, shutting the front door on him.
Goddamn it to hell. Working eighteen hours a day, Morrie more hindrance than help. Keeping the books. Sorting out cashier’s cheques drawn on banks in New York and Detroit and Chicago, everybody scared to carry too much cash now because of the hijackers. Checking out the boozatoriums and watching the tills in the hotels, every manager born to steal. Keeping the drivers from Minnesota happy, they got nothing to do all day but wait for dark, so suddenly they’ve started to rob the small-town banks and the yokels blame the liquor trade in general and the Gurskys in particular for welcoming such lowlifes into town. And meanwhile if Solomon isn’t shtupping Clara (her father finds out he’ll kill him for sure) or putting together a poker game, he’s in New York at Texas Guinan’s or better yet Mr. La De Da Himself is stuffing his kishkas at the Jockey Club with Arnold Rothstein and then wiring me for a hundred thousand here, fifty there, to settle his losses. He’s a menace. A makke. If I let him he’ll destroy everything I worked so hard to build and there will be nothing for my wife and children yet to come.
The following Tuesday night Bernard, wearing his homburg, grey serge suit, spats, and new wingtip shoes with elevator heels, called for Libby, as arranged, to take her to see The Kid at the Regal. A grim Mr. Mintzberg greeted him at the front door. “I’m afraid Miss Mintzberg can’t go out with you tonight.”
“She isn’t well?”
“God forbid,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
“So what’s the problem?”
“Shame on you,” Mrs. Mintzberg said.
And then Libby appeared behind her parents in the foyer, a wraith, her eyes red, twisting a damp handkerchief in her hands. “Gossips are saying your brother has dishonoured Clara Teitelbaum. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“I’m not like him, Mr. Mintzberg.”
“Didn’t I tell them you’re always the gentleman,” Libby said.
“You give the word, Mr. Mintzberg, I marry Libby tomorrow.”
“Not under the present circumstances,” Mr. Mintzberg said, whacking the front door shut, a tearful Libby calling out, “Do something, sweetheart.”
“I have a hunch,” Bernard said to Solomon a couple of days later, “that you wouldn’t mind getting out of town for a while.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
“There are three carloads of whisky arriving at the CPR station at North Portal tomorrow night. Can you handle it?”
“Certainly.”
“Don’t accept cashier’s cheques from the Nebraska boys, only cash, those crooks they use pads of blank cheques that were stolen from banks here. Can I count on you?”
“You’re beginning to irritate me.”
“You have to be at the station by midnight without fail because the drivers start arriving about that time. And you are not to blow the receipts in a card game, if you don’t mind.”
On arrival in North Portal the next afternoon, Solomon made directly for the hotel and started to drink with McGraw and the rum-runners. A bunch of them, including Solomon and McGraw, moved on to The Imperial Pool Hall to shoot snooker at a thousand dollars a game. Solomon, who was ahead twelve thousand dollars at a quarter to twelve, didn’t feel it would be proper for him to lay down his cue and retreat to the railroad station, so he sent McGraw in his place.
Solomon was lining up a sharp-angled shot on the pink ball into the side pocket when the game was disrupted by two shotgun blasts that came from the direction of the railroad station. Everybody piled into the darkened street, reaching the station just in time to see a lone figure, shotgun in hand, dashing across the platform and taking off into the night in a Hudson Super-Six. Solomon bent over McGraw, dead on the station floor, shot from the window, once in the head, once through the chest. As the others gathered around, Solomon slipped away, retiring to his suite in the hotel. It was three A.M., and he had consumed half a bottle of cognac to no avail before he phoned Bernard. “McGraw went to the station in my place at midnight and somebody shot him.”