Pete Hamill - North River

“We have to get these guys some coffee,” he said.

“Of course.”

The boy was in Monique’s room, seated on a chair, his small legs dangling. The paddleball on the floor. He leaped up and ran to Rose. An odd emotion brushed across Monique’s face: annoyance. Or relief. But she said nothing.

He called Knocko and then Shapiro and told them about his meeting with Frankie Botts. Each said the same thing: It ain’t over, so watch your ass.

Rose brought coffee in a thermos to the watchers and handed each a cup. When she returned, her face was still ruddy from the cold. They had cheese sandwiches, each grilled into what she called a panino, and then they ate the ice cream. Delaney felt it move cleanly into his stomach, calming him. He was sure he felt even more creamy pleasure from the ice cream than the boy did himself. On the radio, Bing Crosby was singing “I Found a Million-Dollar Baby.”

“You okay, Dottore?” Rose said.

“For now. What about you?”

“For now,” she said. “For now.”

Delaney hugged the boy and then dressed to go out on house calls. He returned at dusk. Kids were everywhere. He saw Mr. Cottrell step out of his daily taxi, locked in his permanent solitude. Knocko’s men were still there. He dined with Rose and the boy on soup and bread, the boy delighted with both. Then the telephone rang in Delaney’s office.

Rose gave him an ominous look. The phone kept ringing. Delaney hurried into his office and lifted the black receiver.

“Dr. Delaney here,” he said.

“Hey, what’s doing?”

Danny Shapiro, with a chuckle in his cop’s voice.

“Hey, Danny,” Delaney said, trying to smother the nerves in his voice. “Everything’s normal here. Thanks to you and the rest of the neighborhood.”

“Just checking,” Shapiro said. “Hug that little boy.”

“I will.”

He stood there for a beat, then returned to the kitchen. Rose saw the relieved look on his face and smiled.

Alone in bed, Delaney saw again the metallic sunken eyes of Frankie Botts. Actors worked long hours in front of mirrors to master that look. But actors fired blanks. Botts had killed people, and would kill more. The offense didn’t matter. Killing was a form of power. He imagined a ballpark. A river in flood. The olive tree in the garden, bursting into life. Anything but Frankie’s eyes. He fell into a light sleep. There were no phone calls.

But in a dream, Delaney saw the boy in pajamas, walking the shoulder of a midnight highway. Trucks and cars roared by, while the boy kept saying, “Mamá… Mamá… Mamá.” Over and over again. Then a Packard pulled over on the shoulder, behind the boy. A man in a fedora and long coat stepped out. Delaney started running to them, and then the snow came. No highway now. No trucks. No Packard. No coiled man in a long overcoat. No boy. Just the snow whining and blowing.

And Delaney woke up with his heart beating fast and the echo of a word in the dark room. He knew that the word must have been “Carlito.”

In the morning, Rose smiled in a tentative way. The radio was on, with news from distant places. The boy walked into the kitchen, still bleary with sleep.

“Good morn’, Rose. Good morn’, Ga’paw.”

Rose hugged him.

“Good morn ing, Carlos. You wash your hands?”

He nodded yes, then corrected himself.

“No,” he said, and hurried off to the upstairs bathroom.

“First he tells a lie, like all kids,” she said. “Then he changes his mind and tells the truth.”

“That’s a good habit to develop.”

“He’ll never be a politician,” Rose said.

“You never know.”

When the boy returned, his face was damp from washing. The room filled with the odor of frying bacon. He smiled.

“Goody,” he said. “Bay-con!”

“You said it, boy,” Rose said. “Very goody.”

Delaney glanced at the Daily News. In Germany, the Nazis had rewritten the Psalms. In Vienna, there was talk of a socialist rising and Chancellor Dollfuss promised to smash it with all the power of the state. He remembered seeing Dollfuss at a street rally in Vienna: a small, vehement young man, lashing out at journalists who made fun of his size. Now he had power. And small men with guns were dangerous people.

He turned to the back page, where only sports mattered. There was a photo of Mel Ott after connecting with a ball during a spring training game in Miami Beach. Behind him in the box seats could be seen the blurred faces of exultant fans. Delaney was sure that a man in the third row, shaking a fist, was Eddie Corso. Out of focus. With a beard. And thought: Frankie Botts must read the News too.

He went on his house calls, charged with wary energy as he moved through the cold bright afternoon. He walked with energy, climbed stairs with energy, spoke energy into his patients. As he walked, he ignored the three feet of sidewalk directly in front of him and looked at everything. At men. At strange faces. At cars. It was dark when he came home. A lone guard sat in a parked car, a lone window open an inch to cut the steam on the windows. One of Knocko’s muscle boys. They exchanged waves. Rose was humming some vagrant tune as she heated his meatballs and dropped pasta into boiling water. Carlito was upstairs in his bed.

“You look better,” Rose said. “Color in your face…”

“It’s the wind, not me, Rose.”

“No phone calls today — I mean, from those guys.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re right. There’s too much goddamn worry around here.”

She ladled out the pasta and added the sauce, placed the food before him, and sat down to a cup of tea. The bread had been freshened in the oven.

“And Carlito?” Delaney said.

“Okay. He’s a good boy. But I told him, no more ice cream till his birthday.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll get fat, that’s why not. Get to look like a balloon in the Thanksgivin’ Day parade.”

Delaney laughed and so did Rose. He felt that this was now her domain, the room she ruled, as if she had been here for years.

After dinner he went into his office, the door open behind him. There were two new medical magazines, mail from St. Vincent’s, and a large envelope from the alumni association at Johns Hopkins, surely soliciting money. He put aside the medical magazines. For a long time now, he only glanced at the journals of his trade, looking at them within the context of his patients. He wanted to read about a vaccine that would cure their ailments. Stop gangrene. End tuberculosis. Dry up gonorrhea. These breakthroughs never came. And he never read the articles on advances in surgery.

Underneath the newspapers was a sealed letter. Addressed to him in Grace’s handwriting. With a Spanish stamp and postmark. He held it for a long moment. Then Rose was at the door, and he slipped it into his pocket.

“You better go read that upstairs,” Rose said. Her eyes were full of some unsettled mixture of pity and resentment.

“I guess so,” he said.

“Then go,” she said. “I’ll close up down here.”

“See you in the morning,” he said. Feeling all energy flee.

He laid the letter on the bed while he undressed. He washed and brushed his teeth, hearing Rose climbing the stairs, and then was alone in the silence. He donned pajamas and his robe and the old battered leather slippers. There was no sound from the street either, except the whine of the wind. He built a small fire to take the chill off the room. Then he was ready to sit down to read.

Dear Daddy,

I hope Carlito is well. I dream about him. I see his face when walking the streets or having a quick bite. I see a child his age and I fight back tears (most of the time). Sometimes I feel I’ve done the worst thing a mother can do to a child. Other times, I feel that I’m doing this all for Carlito. I hope that someday he will understand. Someday, when the world is more just, you will understand too, Daddy. Because I’m aware that I’ve done this to you too. You must be so angry with me, and so overwhelmed with things to do. Here in Barcelona, I see you too, walking the streets with your black bag.