Part 45 (2/2)

You know.

Valentine's Day, 1952. Willie buys Margaret flowers, chocolates. He sings to her. I don't wanna play in your yard, I don't like you anymore. She claps, jumps up and down, hugs him. I want to play in your yard, Mr. Loring.

You may, Margaret.

What we doing for Valentine's Day?

A rare treat, he says. We're going on an outdoor excursion. In broad daylight.

She gasps. Where?

You'll see.

They ride the subway. Margaret is so excited she can't sit. She has to stand, hanging on to a strap. Willie is excited too. But as they get off in the Bronx, as she grows still more excited because she realizes they're going to the zoo, his mood slowly changes. Walking through the front gate, seeing the animals in their cages, he realizes this was a bad idea. He recalls his many different cells-even his room on Dean Street is just one more. He can't hide his sadness. He doesn't want to. He leads Margaret to a bench near the lions and begins to tell her who he really is, all he's done.

She puts her hands over her ears.

Margaret?

I do not want to hear. You promise you hurt no one, that is enough. The rest is not for me. I do not want to know, I do not want this burden.

But- La la la la la.

He takes her hands away from her ears. You're afraid that you might think less of me if I tell you who I am?

I afraid to think less, I afraid to think more. I think of you just enough. You do not want to know everything I done to survive, I do not want to know everything you done.

Willie looks at the lions. They look away quick, as if ashamed to be caught eavesdropping. It occurs to him that though he cares about Margaret, though he wouldn't hesitate to jump into the lion cage to save her, she's a stranger. He knows only a story she told him, which he chose to believe. She might not actually be from Egypt. Her name might not be Margaret.

You're right, he says. Yeah. Sure. We know enough.

But later, lying in bed, Willie needs to know one thing. He asks Margaret if she's ever been in love.

Yes, of course.

A boy back home?

Yes.

Did you hurt him?

I never hurt n.o.body.

She rolls onto her back, kicks off the covers. In the glow of the streetlamp outside the window her body is breathtaking. She could be one of the nymphs in Mr. Untermyer's Temple. She sits up, sighs.

Everyone is loving someone else, Julius. No one is loving anyone they with. This is how is the world. I do not know what is G.o.d doing. He give us love, we so glad to be alive, and then He take it away. Why He do this? What He is doing? I still believe in Him. But He make it hard.

Willie sits up, lights a Chesterfield, hands it to Margaret. He lights one for himself. By the flame of his Zippo he notices that Margaret's eye is much larger than it was yesterday. And it's grown cloudy.

Margaret, dear. You need to see a doctor.

I do not like doctors.

No one does. But I'm taking you. Tomorrow. End of discussion.

He puts a hand on her cheek. She smiles. Yes, Julius. Whatever you say. Here is looking at you kid.

TWENTY-TWO.

They have a bank job scheduled tomorrow morning. They go over the fine points, the details, the driver. Once again it will be Johnny Dee, an old friend of Mad Dog. Willie doesn't like Dee, who looks like one of the Marx Brothers, the unfunny one, but Willie can't kick. Though he and Mad Dog have a good working relations.h.i.+p, Willie wouldn't put it past Mad Dog, in the heat of a disagreement, to break his elbow.

Just after one o'clock Willie rides the subway from Mad Dog's apartment on the West Side of Manhattan back to Brooklyn. He checks his watch. Margaret's doctor appointment is at two-thirty. Cutting it close. He sits where he always sits on the subway, near the doors, his back to the wall. He opens his copy of Sheen. A quote from St. Augustine. The penitent should ever grieve, and rejoice at his grief. He reads the same line three times. Rejoice at his grief?

He feels someone watching him. He looks up from Sheen, then quickly down.

It's just some kid. Early twenties, baby face. A Boy Scout face.

Again Willie looks up, down. Dark wavy hair, sharp beak-the poor kid's got to be self-conscious about that nose. He's nicely dressed though. As if for a hot date or a party. Pearl gray suit, starched white s.h.i.+rt, flowered tie-and blue suede shoes. Why does a Boy Scout wear blue suede shoes?

Because he doesn't want to be a Boy Scout. And he's not going on a date, or to a party. He's going nowhere, in every sense. He's got a humdrum job and doesn't want to be humdrum. He wants to be hip, cool. Everybody does these days. Maybe he's staring because he thinks Willie's cool.

Willie runs a finger along the thin mustache he's recently grown, tries to refocus his mind on Sheen. He can't. A third time he looks up. This time he makes eye contact with the kid, one, two, before looking back at his book. G.o.d's pardon in the Sacrament restores us to His friends.h.i.+p, but the debt to Divine Justice remains.

Debt? To Divine Justice? He thinks of Mad Dog collecting debts. He wonders if G.o.d has his own Mad Dog.

The kid's eyes are uncommonly dark, soulful, and they're definitely locked on Willie. Now, letting his own eyes drift from the book to the blue suede shoes, Willie can tell, can feel-the kid has made him. The kid has seen through Willie's plastic surgery, through his makeup, past his mustache. But how? Most mornings Willie barely recognizes himself in the mirror. How can some random kid, on a crowded local, in the middle of a Monday afternoon, recognize him?

Now you will come out of a confusion of people.

Willie turns the page, pretending to be engrossed. A fourth time he looks up, down. How is it possible? One of the kid's eyes is larger than the other. Is something going around, some epidemic of uneven eyeb.a.l.l.s?

The conductor announces Willie's stop. Pacific Avenue. Willie stands, shoves Sheen under his arm, lines up at the door. He can feel the kid's asymmetrical gaze following him. He pushes off the train, weaves through the crowd, hurries up the steps of the subway station, forcing himself not to look back.

On the street, a block away, he looks.

Pfew. No kid.

He walks three blocks, comes to his car. Again he looks.

Still no kid.

He gets behind the wheel, checks the rearview. No kid. He sighs, strokes his mustache, dabs his makeup. He wishes he could phone Margaret, tell her he's running late. She doesn't have a phone. He turns the key.

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