Make Room! Make Room!(8)

“Hands off!” The stick crashed down on the edge of the cart and Billy jerked his fingers away.

“I’m not touching your junk,” he complained.

“Move on if you’re not buying,” the man said, an Oriental with lined cheeks and thin white hair.

“I’m not buying, I’m selling.” Billy leaned closer and whispered so that only the man could hear. “You want some soylent steaks’?”

The old man squinted at him. “Stolen goods, I suppose,” he said tiredly.

“Come on—you want them or not?”

There was no humor in the man’s fleeting smile. “Of course I want them. How many do you have?”

“Ten.”

“A D and a half piece. Fifteen dollars.”

“Shit! I’ll eat them myself first. Thirty D’s for the lot.”

“Don’t let greed destroy you, son. We both know what they are worth. Twenty D’s for the lot. Period.” He fished out two worn ten-dollar bills and held them folded in his fingers. “Let’s see what you have.”

Billy pushed the stuffed handkerchief across and the man held it under the cart and looked inside. “All right,” he said, and still with his hands beneath the cart transferred them to a square of heavy, wrinkled paper and handed back the cloth. “I don’t need that.”

“The loot now.”

The man handed it over slowly, smiling now that the transaction was finished. “Do you ever come to the Mott Street club?”

“Are you kidding?” Billy grabbed for the money and the man released it.

“You should. You’re Chinese, and you brought these steaks to me because I’m Chinese too and you knew you could trust me. That shows you’re thinking right….”

“Knock it off, will you, grandpa.” He hit himself in the chest with his thumb. “I’m Taiwan and my father was a general. So one thing I know—have nothing to do with you downtown Commie Chinks.”

“You stupid punk—” He raised his stick but Billy was already gone.

Things were going to change now, yes they were. He did not notice the heat as he dodged automatically through the milling crowds, seeing the future ahead and holding tight to the money in his pocket. Twenty D’s—more than he had ever owned at one time in his life. The most he had ever had before was three-eighty that he had lifted from the apartment across the hall the time they had left their window open. It was hard to get your hands on cash money, and cash money was the only thing that counted. They never saw any at home. The Welfare ration cards took care of everything, everything that kept you alive and just alive enough to hate it. You needed cash to get on and cash was what he had now. He had been thinking about this for a long time.

He turned into the Chelsea branch of Western union   on Ninth Avenue. The pasty-faced girl behind the high counter looked up and her glance slid away from him and out the wide front window to the surging, sunlit traffic beyond. She dabbed at the sweat droplets on her lip with a crumpled handkerchief, then wiped the creases under her chin. The operators, bent over their work, didn’t look up. It was quiet here with just the distant hum of the city through the open door, the sudden lurching motion as a teletype clattered loudly. On a bench against the rear wall six boys sat looking at him suspiciously, their searching eyes ready to fill with hatred. As he went toward the dispatcher he could hear their feet shifting on the floor and the squeak of the bench. He had to force himself not to turn and look as he waited, imitating patience, for the man to notice him.

“What do you want, kid?” the dispatcher said, finally looking up, speaking through tight, pursed lips reluctant to give anything away, even words. A man in his fifties, tired and hot, angry at a world that had promised him more.

“Could you use a messenger boy, mister?”

“Beat it. We got too many kids already.”

“I could use the work, mister, I’d work any time you say. I got the board money.” He took out one of the ten-dollar bills and smoothed it on the counter. The man’s eyes glared at it quickly, then jerked away again. “We got too many kids.”

The bench creaked and footsteps came up behind Billy and a boy spoke, his voice thick with restrained anger.

“Is this Chink bothering you, Mr. Burgger?” Billy thrust the money back into his pocket and held tightly to it.

“Sit down, Roles,” the man said. “You know my rule about trouble or fighting.”

He glared at the two boys and Billy could guess what the rule was and knew that he wouldn’t be working here unless he did something quickly.

“Thank you for letting me talk to you, Mr. Burgger,” he said, innocently, as he felt back with his heel and jammed his weight down on the boy’s toes as he turned. “I won’t bother you any more—”