"Oh, yes. You don't know you're being coy, but you're being coy."

  "I was asked to dance and I didn't say yes. That ain't being coy."

  "Maybe the right person hasn't asked you, yet." Mike says.

  "I traced Spencer and Frye out the door of the Ma Maison restaurant," I say, thinking I'm changing the subject.

  "If you ever solve that one. Jim," my father says, sly as a fox, "you'd even have the Canarias people in your pocket."

  "So go find me the cab what took Spencer and Frye home," I say.

  "It ain't impossible," Mike says.

  Stanley Recore walks in without knocking and says. "Jimbly, ddere's this little round black bugger in a big black car down in front what wants to see you."

  Barker Jefferson's handing out nickels, causing a sensation with the kids on the block. Except for Stanley—who'll be a cop, a politician, or a con man someday—who looks him over with a doubtful eye.

  "Don't you want to go over and get your nickel?" I say.

  "Jimbly," Stanley says, "a nickel ain't wort a smile dese days."

  When Jefferson invites me into the back of the limousine, Stanley looks scared for a minute. I don't know if it's because he likes me or because he don't want Mary's friend hurt or taken away.

  "It's okay, Stanley," I calls to him and he settles down on the stoop to make sure.

  "Is that your bodyguard?" Jefferson says.

  "He's my main man in the building,. He used to be my alarm clock except he went off at the worst hours."

  "I envy you, Flannery," Jefferson says, leaning back against the seat covers. "You is with your people, living in the neighborhood, talking to them. You ain't lost your roots."

  "You want your roots, you can always move back into the Twenty-fifth."

  "That would screw up my upward mobility. My game ain't to be the man of the people. My game is to be up there in front of the parade. Besides, I go back to Twenty-fifth, how am I going to run for alderman in the Twenty-seventh?"

  He's circling in on what he come to see me about.

  "You think Delvin's got the ward in his pocket this time?" Jefferson asks.

  "I know the smart money don't say so. The neighborhood has changed. There's not so many Irish, Germans, Swedes, and Bohunks like there used to be."

  "Changed color," Jefferson says.

  "Changed complexion."

  He laughs at that.

  "There's other things," I say.

  "Like what?"

  "Like we still do what we can to help a neighbor. We see a woman finds her way to welfare without humiliation if her man decides to go west. We at least get a man a place to sleep and a meal in case he's lost his job or never had one."

  "You do favors and expect to get repaid."

  "I take care and don't expect nothing."

  Jefferson covers my kneecap with one of them hams he's got for hands.

  "Let me tell you, friend, I believe you. I believe that's what you do and why you do it. But old Delvin sits there wiping his eyes, letting people like you do the work for him. You got friends, but they don't translate into votes for your Chinaman."

  I don't say nothing.

  "The Twenty-seventh's mine," he says. "Rosenquist, Calcazone, and Trebova takes little bites out of Delvin's pie, but not out of mine."

  "They don't count for a hell of a lot."

  "Oh, they got no chance to win. But they is all small spoilers. It all adds up against Delvin."

  "There's Canarias."

  "Formidable. I give you that. She's got a coalition. But she takes her biggest share out of Delvin, too. A vote for anybody else ls a vote against Delvin and a vote for me. No, you got eyes, you can see you're looking at the winner of the primary sitting right here at your shoulder against the plush, Flannery."

  Now it comes, I think.

  "Except."

  I feel a prickling along the back of my neck.

  "Except maybe I don't run for alderman in the Twenty-seventh," he says.

  "You'll walk away and let Delvin and Canarias fight over it?"

  "I'll walk away if you run instead of Delvin."

  "What makes you think I can do that?"

  He squeezes my knee and I think maybe the cap's going to come off, but I don't wince and he lets up right away. I think, for a second, about the kind of damage a man as strong as Jefferson could do to a man. . .or two men.

  "Don't play coy with me. Flannery. Delvin's thinking of retirement—and about time, too—so who'd he be going to leave the chair to? Who's he going to want to give a leg-up except his own protege? Who else but Jimmy Flannery, the people's friend? Hasn't he asked you yet?"

  "I suppose you know Calcazone, Trebova, and Rosenquist are thinking about throwing in with Canarias."

  "Don't you worry about them. We take care of that."

  "You okay, Jimbly?" Stanley yells at me.

  I wonder what the kid sees on my face that makes him worry.

  "What's in this for you. Jefferson?"

  "Don't you worry about me. I'm upwardly mobile. Let's just think about you for a minute. With the mayor, what's left of the Machine in this ward, and Rosenquist, Calcazone, and Trebova backing you, this Canarias person ain't got a chance."

  "When was this deal cut?"

  "No deal. No smoke-filled room. No conspiracy to thwart the will of the people. A couple of phone calls. A few handshakes. When a man's as popular as you are, Flannery, things don't got to be complicated."

  "Does the mayor make this offer to me personally?"

  "Give me a break, my friend. When you make up your mind, the mayor's mind on the matter will become public. You can't expect him to give you an endorsement which you can use to embarrass him if you so choose."

  "How long do I have?"

  "Well, the candidate registry closes in five days. The Democratic Solidarity Dinner comes the night after."

  "Three days."

  "Make it two. Give us a little time to do it right."

  He takes his hand off my leg. I wonder can I walk out of the car. I can, but I limp a little. Stanley comes up and takes my hand as Jefferson's driver, Huron, takes him away.

  "For a minute there I was really worried about you, Jimbly," Stanley says.

  I go over to Jefferson's neighborhood. Which is right on the edge of Old Town where very fancy conversions have been made to some very old buildings. Taking the street his building's on for a reference line, I zigzag two blocks either way and five blocks either end. There's only three shopping blocks in that section, but there's little mom-and-pops scattered here and there: groceries, candy stores, and little sundry shops.

  I know Jefferson ain't going to go shopping hisself for a padlock to put on the door of the dry room at the Paradise Baths. Huron would do that little thing. Huron is blue-black and as tall as the late Mr. Bilina, not the sort of man you forget easy.

  I find the sign I'm looking for. KEYS MADE WHILE-U-WAIT. The lights are still on even though it's eight o'clock and no hope for any more business with all the people inside watching the tube. I walk in and I can hear a bell ring-in the apartment in back. A little old lady comes out.

  She looks so much like Mrs. Lipshitz, what used to own a candy store on the corner in the Fourteenth, where we lived when I was a kid, that I almost expect her to know me.

  "What you want?" she says.

  The smells even take me back thirty years. Mrs. Lipshitz owned a store what had a soda fountain, but wasn't exactly a candy store, what sold pencils, pens and paper. But wasn't exactly a stationery, what had screws, nails, and locks, but wasn't exactly a hardware store. And this place is just the same. Mrs. Lipshitz lived in the back and I know this lady lives in the back, too.

  "So, what is it?" she says.

  I remember something I used to do back then, something I thought I was getting away with when I did penny business with Mrs. Lipshitz. I'd get a cherry or vanilla phosphate—what you call a soda—for a nickel. Then I'd drink about half and say it was too sweet. So she'd put in some seltzer. I'd drink half and say it didn't have enough syrup in it. So she'd give me a squirt. I'd drink half. . .It'd go on like that until she'd had enough—until I thought she'd finally caught wise—and then she'd make out like she was mad and chase me out. All them years ago.

  "You don't know what you want, go somewhere else so I can lock up," the old woman says, and I see she's frightened.

  "You know a big black man named Huron?"

  "I don't want no trouble."

  "No trouble. Do you know the man what drives for Barker Jefferson?"

  "Yes. I know this man, Huron. A polite colored gentleman who buys a cigar from time to time."

  "He been in lately? Within the last ten days?"

  She don't even have to think. "He came in to have some keys made."

  "What kind of keys?"

  "For a padlock."

  "How many did you make for him?"

  "Just one."

  "Could you make me a cherry phosphate?" I say.

  "A plain?"

  "Yes, a five-cent plain."

  "A five-cent plain is thirty-five cents."

  She makes me a cherry phosphate. I sit there drinking it and thinking about the key—which would have made three unless somebody's lost one of the two what come with the lock, which I doubt. The old lady stands there smiling at me, maybe because I remembered a five-cent plain.

  When I finish half the glass. I say, "Please, this soda's a little too sweet," and she takes the glass and squirts a little seltzer in it.

  FIFTEEN

  Mike don't hear me push open the door to the roof even though the rusty springs and hinges let out a yell like I stepped on a cat. He's standing on the wooden catwalk where the women stand when, sometimes, they hang out the wash—even now with washers and dryers and laundromats—and he's leaning on the railing looking out across the city with what he calls old wishes in his eyes. I touch his arm. The mood the old lady what looked like Mrs. Lipshitz and the thing at the soda fountain puts me in, is still hanging on and it's like I got to reach up to tug at his sleeve because I'm just a little kid lost again.

  "Hey, Jimmy," he says, instead of Jim, so I know he's feeling lost in time, too.

  "Mary told me you was up here. You want to stay over and use the couch?"

  "No, no. I was just waiting for you. After you went out I went down to the cabstand near the firehouse. I ask around. I take a couple of rides down to the Loop, and here and there. I get very lucky. I find the cabbie what picked up them two fairies. . ."

  He checks my face to see if I'm going to yell at him, but I clam up. I got no cause to start any quarrels.

  ". . .and he's got the ride logged."

  "Where'd he take them?"

  "I don't like any of this. Jimmy. Why don't you give it a pass ? Let them think the gorilla done it."

  "You see the papers this last week? The letters are pouring in. All sorts of people are saying there's this dangerous animal what murdered two citizens. They want she should be put down. Executed."

  "Nobody's going to be damn fool enough to do that."

  "Oh, no? You get a slow news day. You get a district attorney what decides he needs a law-and-order issue to win the election for him or set him up for a judgeship down the line. Some hotshot what needs some headlines. What's a better headline than a gorilla what killed two citizens? Pretty soon there's a hearing. Just for the publicity. The hearing goes wrong. People take it serious. The gorilla's life ends up on the line. Maybe the gorilla's executed. A whole ton of people say, 'How could it happen? What damn fool let it happen?'"

  "You doing this to protect the gorilla?"

  "It ain't a bad reason, is it?"

  "No, it ain't."

  "So, where did the cabbie drop his fare that night?"

  "Over to the Canals of Venice."

  "Velletri's club?"

  "Which very few know is Velletri's club. Just a nightspot what will serve you anything you want: Italian food, red wine, cocaine, bimbos any color, he-shes and she-hes—anything you want. Also there's a banquet room in back where high-stakes poker's played. . ."

  "I know that."

  . . .and political deals get cut."

  "You telling me Velletri's in bed with the mayor?"

  "Velletri's a survivor. When his ward starts going black, what does he do? Does he waste his time trying to fight them off? No, he gives them the welcome mat. When the city has troubles over race in sixty-eight, does he stand back while the blacks and whites slaughter each other? No. He's got the black-power structure on his side and his ward is cooler than most others what got conflict. When heads roll and enemies are made during the last primary, does he get marked poison by the administration although he put his people out in the streets for the Machine? No, he don't. Of all the old guard, it's Velletri what's still sitting in a tub of butter. Velletri's a practical politician. He'll climb in bed with the warmest body. That don't mean he'll kiss and talk baby talk."

  "Are you saying that Spencer and Frye was called into a smoke-filled room, was made some kind of offer which they wouldn't take, and walked out marked men?"

  "I won't say that. I'm just saying maybe they stumble on something they wasn't supposed to see." I remember what Jefferson said about taking care of the alliance Calcazone, Trebova, Rosenquist, and Canarias were thinking about. “I'm just saying, ain't it funny they go to the Canals of Venice the night they end up dead? Ain't it funny Delvin thinks about retiring and wants to hand the palm to you? Ain't it funny Jefferson's ready to step aside?"

  "Who told you that?"

  "There's always a fireman down at City Hall on some business or other, and you hear things."

  "You got instincts, Mike," I say.

  "Well, I ain't been hiding under the bed."

  SIXTEEN

  I can't sleep, so I lay there in bed thinking, flat on my back and not moving, because I don't want to ruin Mary's sleep. Every once in a while a car goes by and the headlamps make light patterns on the ceiling. One car stops across the street in just the right place so the patterns don't go away. There's the sound of the engine idling, and two people talking and a woman laughing.

  "You think they really had a good time or are they making believe they did?" Mary says.

  "They wake you?"

  "No. I've been awake. I can hear your wheels going around," Mary says. "What are you thinking about?"

  "Politics."

  "Dooon't," the woman's voice says in a laughing, teasing way.

  "She read my mind," Mary says, "I was hoping you were thinking about me."

  I turn over and so does Mary. Her nose is up against my neck and her cheek is laying on my shoulder.

  "You're the warm place next to me and my heart," I say.

  "Is politics the warm place by your liver?"

  "What would you think if I ran for alderman?"

  "Heeey," the woman says, so soft that it's a wonder the sound carries so far. The driver shuts off the engine.

  After thinking my question over for a minute, Mary says, "One night I was watching the news. The sports section was about tennis, and this commentator was talking about the men and women who were top-seeded. The heavy professionals. The players who give their lives to the sport. And he was talking about weekend players who batted the ball around for the fun of it. Who wanted to be as good as they could be, but who had other things in their lives more important to them. And this fellow says, 'When I think about what I do out on the courts and when I see what the champions do. I know that somebody, either them or me, isn't playing tennis.'"

  "The only tennis I ever played was with a paddle on the tar over to the schoolyard," I say.

  "You don't get the picture? Okay. What you call politics is helping people, and perhaps gathering in some votes for your party and your candidate. It's doing favors. It's good and kind. Maybe you end up owing a little something to the power, but that's as near as you get to where the assassins do their business. You're not a killer, James, and never could be."

  "Puhleeeese, Billy," the woman says.

  The light-and-shadow show on the ceiling disappears.

  "You run for office, it's not the same thing anymore. There's compromises you've got to make with yourself. Things you do, but don't want to do. Favor for favor becomes payoff for payoff. I'm not saying a person has to get sucked into it, but that mudhole's deep and getting deeper, and you'd have to be born something else to survive in it."

  "Oooooh," comes drifting up from the street.

  I'm no longer thinking about politics. I'm thinking about the warm place next to my heart. Mary's body is mysterious in the dark.

  SEVENTEEN

  "With a last name what's Keane and slang being what it is, what else is a man named Patrick Keane, what works the streets of Chicago, going to be called but Peachy? Hacking can be dog eat dog. It can be fighting off the sharks. Or it can be finding a way to lift yourself above the crowd. I take the name 'Peachy' and make it work for me. I got peach-colored upholstery. I wear a peach-colored hat. I'm a Chicago character. Tourists love me."

  I see that Peachy Keane is a character for sure. Because the velvet tam ain't all he wears which is the color of a peach. His slacks and sweaters are variations of same.

  "You must be a favorite with plenty of the natives, too," I say.

  "You mean the sisterhood because of the way I dress?"

  "I don't mean nuns," I say.

  "The girlie-twirlies love me," Peachy agrees.

  "You make a specialty?"

  "You mean out of faggots? Well, maybe. But, you know, every cabbie makes a specialty. Oh, he works here and there around the town, but sooner or later, he digs a rut which he likes. It's the way the miles roll and the meter ticks. Like a hack what's an independent lives over to West Chicago. He starts his shift, he goes to O'Hare and picks up some travelers and takes the John F. Kennedy into town, or he goes to the hotels bunched up around two ninety-four and takes the Eisenhower in. He figures once he's in town maybe he'll work the Loop or the Near North Side, but he don't. He tries to catch a fare back to the airport. Back and forth, back and forth, so whenever he wants to run home and use his own crapper or see the wife, he's right there. Or you take a hack what likes sports. He works the ball parks and the arenas according to the season. It's like rut. Bam, bam, bam. Like that. Over and over. Or you—".

 

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