“Try and get home early,” she said.
“I will.”
She opened the door for him. He stepped out into the hall.
They lived on 6th, up from H, in the same apartment house where Perry Angelos had grown up. Perry’s folks still had the same place, and Perry and his wife had a two-bedroom one floor down. Peter Karras didn’t mind living in the same neighborhood where he had been raised. It made Eleni a little uncomfortable sometimes, when the hookers and the runners and the bookies flooded into Chinatown after hours every night. But Karras liked the action, and he liked the noise. It was what he was used to, all he knew. Year round, he slept with the window cracked open; the street sounds down on H were his lullaby.
Perry’s door was open as Karras headed down the stairs. Perry stood leaning in the frame, reading the Times-Herald. The sound of a baby crying reached into the hall from behind him. Karras took the landing to where Perry stood, and put the pot down on the tiles.
“Perry.”
“Hey, Pete! What d’ya know?” Perry smiled, his large ears jacking up with the action. He had begun to lose his hair on top, and his work schedule and the new baby had left heavy baggage beneath his eyes.
Karras nodded at the newspaper in Perry’s hand. “Anything good?”
“Just readin’ the funny pages before I get back to work. ‘Gasoline Alley.’ Can you believe it, Pete? Skeezix has a kid! We must be gettin’ old, buddy.”
Karras shuffled his feet. “Still working for your old man?”
“Pullin’ double shifts down at the coffeehouse. Just until I can get enough for my own place. I’ve got my way of running things and he’s got his. It’s gonna be better when I get out on my own.”
“Put all that stuff they taught you in college to good use.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Helen walked up behind Perry, jiggling their baby girl in her arms. The baby continued to cry, reaching blindly for her mother’s breast. Karras noticed that Helen had gotten her figure back in just two months. She was all made up, too, her bottle-blonde hair falling down across her face on one side. Helen, still doing that Veronica Lake number a couple of years too late. Well, she probably didn’t know the Lake look was long gone. Helen didn’t get out much anymore.
“Hello, Pete.” Her red lips parted in a smile.
“Helen. How’s Evthokia?”
“Keeping me busy.” She looked him over. “Where you off to, all spiffed up?”
“Me and Joe got tickets to the fights.”
“The Moore fight?” said Perry.
“Yeah.”
“Damn,” said Perry.
“Want to go?” said Karras. “We could probably get you a ticket outside Turner’s.”
“No. I gotta work.” Perry tapped the newspaper excitedly. “Dick McCann says that you’re not gonna be able to tell Moore and Parks apart, on account of they’re both gonna be wearing purple trunks, and they’re both the same shade of brown.”
“McCann’s an idiot,” said Karras. “Don’t take everything in that newspaper for gospel, Perry.”
Helen chuckled and rolled her eyes. Karras felt a stab of guilt at making Perry look like a sap in front of his wife.
“I gotta feed this baby,” said Helen. “Enjoy yourself, Pete. Stay out of trouble.” She undid the first few buttons on her blouse, gazing back once at Karras as she drifted. His eyes took in the round tops of her breasts, the sight of them bringing back the memory of the rest of her. He knew better, but he couldn’t look away.
“Yeah, Pete,” said Perry, not catching a thing. “Have a good time.”
“Don’t work too hard, chum,” said Karras. He picked the pot up off the floor and headed down the stairs.
Out on the street, Karras tried to look as smooth as possible for a guy carrying a big black pot of food. On H, a couple of seagulls hovered above his head, followed him all the way. Seagulls, in the middle of the city, it always surprised him to see it, until he thought of the rivers, and the nearby bay. But the sight of gulls in the city always made him stop, just the same.
At 606, Karras took the steps up to his parents’ apartment. The door was open, and he pushed his way in. The place was dark, as it always was, and smelled of incense and garlic. His Murphy bed was up, a table pushed against it, but his old dresser was in place, probably still packed with his old clothes. Dimitri Karras sat in his white T-shirt at his normal spot at the eating table, a bottle of mastica in front of him, a cigarette burning in the tray. His mother stood in the kitchen stirring something over the stove.
“Pos eise, pethi mou?” said his mother.
“I’m okay. Ma,” said Karras, as he walked into the kitchen and put the pot in the sink. “I brought some kota and manestra from Eleni.”
“Hokay, boy,” she said.
He kissed her on the cheek. “You look good. Ma.”
“Ah,” she said, with a flip of her hand.
“Where you goin’,” Dimitri said, “all pretty like that. You gotta date?”
Karras looked over at his father, who was staring straight ahead, chuckling at his joke. His eyes were glassy, and his tonicky hair had fallen down about his face. Drunk, and the sun had not yet fallen.
“I’m goin’ to the Archie Moore fight. Pop.”
“Archie Moore. Thas’ one strong nigger.” Dimitri coughed, wiped at his moustache with his hand. “Yiorgia, when we gonna have a fayito?”
“It’s coming, Dimitri. I’m heating it up.”
Karras looked at his mother, her graying hair braided and pinned up behind her head. She was on the heavy side, built for work, with thick, calloused hands, and a weak brown moustache across her simian upper lip. But when she brushed her hair out at night, let it fall behind her back, her green eyes shining and relaxed at the end of the day, Karras thought she was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen.
He’d do anything to protect her. Once, before the war, when some American boys on the corner were making fun of her, calling her a “wop” and a “white nigger” as she walked down H carrying groceries, something had gone black inside him. He had called Joe Recevo, and the two of them had waited across the street from the poolroom where the American boys had gone inside, and when the Americans came out they followed them to an alley, and he and Joe had beaten the hell out of all three, busted them good and bloody with a baseball bat and a pipe. He could take care of things like that on the outside. The only thing he couldn’t do was protect her from the old man, in here.
“Yiorgia, the food!” said Dimitri.
“It’s comin’, Pop!” said Karras.
“I wasn’t talkin’ to you,” mumbled Dimitri. “Big Marine, now he’s gonna tell me what’s what.”
“Siopi,” whispered Georgia to her son.
All right, Ma, I’ll shut my mouth. Just let me get the hell on out of here.
“I gotta go,” Karras said to both of them. “I’m gonna be late.”
“Fight’s not till later,” said Dimitri. “What, you gotta go meet the Italos?”
“Yeah, me and Joe have to do a little business.”
“What kinda business?” said Dimitri. “Shakedown business? Like some kinda goddamn gangster? Huh?”
“I gotta go,” said Karras.
“When you gon’ get a real job?” said Dimitri,
“See ya. Ma,” said Karras, and he kissed her again on the cheek.
“Adio, Panayoti. Have fun.”
Dimitri stood up from his chair, walked unsteadily but quickly across the room. “What, you don’t have t’answer your old man? Big Marine, don’t have to answer his old man no more.” Dimitri reached Peter Karras, shoved him in the chest with the flat of his palm. “Huh?” He shoved once more. “Huh?”