Pete Hamill - North River

“It was.”

“Your father took care of my mother one winter, when we didn’t have what to eat.”

“He took care of a lot of people.”

“You keep boxing in the army?”

“No, I hurt my arm in the war.”

“That goddamned war…”

Carmine was working hard now, while Carlito ignored the talk, staring at Delaney’s shoes.

“Just last night, at the club, I heard you had some trouble, downtown,” Flanagan said, speaking out of an unmoving mouth like an old Whyo, or a Hudson Duster, the baddest of the West Side Irish gangsters.

“We’re working on it,” Delaney said.

Flanagan sighed and shook his head. “These new guys,” he said. “They gotta work it out.” He took a wallet from his jacket pocket and removed a business card.

“I’m a judge now,” he said, handing Delaney the card. “Thanks to your dad.” He smiled at Delaney. “You need anything, call me.”

Then he nodded down at Carlito. “Who’s this guy?”

“My grandson.”

“How are ya, kid?” the judge said. “Don’t let your grandfather make you into a doctor. Get a job that pays. ”

“Take care, Judge,” Delaney said, with a laugh. The boy squatted down and touched the gleaming surface of Delaney’s shoes.

“Hoo-shine, Ga’paw,” he said. “Hoo-shine.”

Delaney took the boy by the hand and walked out into the marble grandeur of the station.

They came out onto Lexington Avenue, easing past a man selling the remains of the Sunday newspapers, and two silent men peddling apples, and a woman beggar. They walked to the corner of Forty-second Street. Taxis arrived in a steady line at the station entrance halfway up the block. A heavyset cop in a long coat sipped from a cardboard cup of tea. Horns blared.

“Look up,” Delaney said to Carlito, gesturing above him with the camera.

The boy looked up and released a whoosh of astonished air.

Rising above the sidewalk across the street, glaring white in the hard sun, going higher and higher and higher, aimed into the sky, was the Chrysler Building. Neither Delaney nor the boy could see the top of the spire. They could not see the gargoyles on the sixty-first floor, designed like hood ornaments on Mr. Chrysler’s automobiles. The boy would see them in some future year. But now, on this cold Sunday, he was seeing the largest thing he had ever seen in his life. Delaney named it for him. Then he peered into the viewfinder and framed Carlito as the boy was looking up. He snapped that photograph. Then he snapped another, of the boy pointing, and then a third, squatting low, trying to get the Chrysler into the frame. He was sure he had failed, that the building would be out of focus. Carlito was still gazing into the sky.

They walked now to Forty-third Street, for another view of the immense building. Delaney snapped a few more pictures. They moved toward Third Avenue, where so many little restaurants were clustered under the El. There was a long line of men on the south side of the street, waiting to enter the basement of St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church. To Delaney they looked like prisoners of war. Carlito was puzzled about the mass of men, looking up at their faces, unshaven, gaunt, bleary. Delaney did not try to explain about a soup kitchen. Up a wide slate stoop, the doors of the red-brick church opened and parishioners streamed out, most with pink Irish faces, hats pulled low, scarves around necks. They did not look toward the men waiting for soup. Bells began to ring, calling parishioners to the noon mass. A few arriving men and women saw friends coming out while they went in. They smiled, shook hands, and kept moving. The line of defeated men now reached all the way to Lexington Avenue.

“Let’s eat,” Delaney said to the boy.

Carlito smiled: “Eat! Sí!”

At Third Avenue, they stopped on the corner as an elevated train pulled into the station. Delaney made a picture of Carlito with the El behind him, something that Grace would recognize. He had taken her on the El when she was a little girl, after the war.

“Subway!” the boy said in an excited way.

Delaney pointed at the ground. “No, the subway is down below. This is the El.”

“El?”

“Yes, and we’ll go up those stairs later and ride the El home. Let’s eat first.”

The odor of frying frankfurters drew him into a small place with stools at the counter and three small tables against the wall. The stools and table were full, a sure sign that the food was good. He saw some faces from the stoop of St. Agnes, all chewing, and leaned over the counter and ordered two franks and two orange drinks.

“Hot dogs,” Delaney said.

“Hot dog-sss,” the boy said, perfectly.

“This is mustard,” Delaney said, slathering his own frankfurter with the bright yellow sauce. “You might not like the taste, so first try mine…”

The boy examined Delaney’s hot dog with suspicious eyes. He pushed a tentative finger into the mustard and then tasted it. He made a face. No. He didn’t like mustard. Delaney handed him the plain frankfurter. With his small bare hand, Carlito had some trouble handling the roll and the hot dog together, and after the first bite, which he chewed earnestly, even thoughtfully, he took the frankfurter out of the roll and chewed it with increasing energy, alternating with bites of the roll. Delaney finished his own hot dog.

“That was good, ” Delaney said.

“Mmmm. Hmmmm,” the boy said, working on the last succulent inch of his frankfurter.

“Want more?”

Carlito shook his head up and down, smiling with his mouth full. He swallowed and said, “Yes, please, Ga’paw.”

Please? It was the first time he’d heard the boy use the word. Did he teach him to say it, or did Rose? Delaney waved at the counterman and held up two fingers.

They climbed the stairs to the El, both a bit drowsy, their stomachs full. Delaney made a final photograph as the downtown train came into the station. There were plenty of seats, and the boy sat beside him and then turned and gazed out the window at the passing tenements. A light snow was falling. Across the aisle, a young Italian woman sat primly, purse on her lap, avoiding all eye contact. High cheekbones. High unlined brow. Long nose, a trace of down on her upper lip. She wore rouge and lipstick too. Where does Rose go on Sundays? Is there a relative, friends? Is there a lover? The woman got off at Fourteenth Street.

“Next stop,” Delaney said.

The boy turned from the window. Delaney squeezed his hand. Soon they would be home.

MONDAY MORNING WAS NOISY WITH HAMMERING AND SAWING and the voices of workmen building the new passage from upstairs into the kitchen. When they were finished, Carlito would no longer be exposed to the germs of the patients on his way to lunch. It was noisy too with patients, during what Delaney called the Monday Morning Rush Hour. A man with an infected black eye. A six-year-old girl with raging fever and diarrhea. A fat woman with boils under each arm, screaming as he lanced them and cleaned them and covered them with wads of cotton. They came in one after another, gripped by the narcissism of pain. Take me first, Doc. I’m hurtin’, Jesus, I’m hurtin’… Again, he did what he could. After the last patient left at ten minutes to one, Monique slipped into his office, with a grim look on her face.

“There’s a guy here to see you,” she said. “He showed me a badge. He says he’s from the FBI.”

“What does he want?”

“To talk to you.”

“Give me a couple of minutes.”

She closed the door behind her, and Delaney stood at his desk, his eyes moving across the walls but seeing nothing. Any cheap hoodlum could have a fake badge. They all had them during Prohibition. At least Rose and Carlito were out, off to a shoe store on Fourteenth Street, so neither would be touched by a new sense of alarm. But he didn’t like visits from people who claimed to be the FBI. An agent wasn’t here to get something for a migraine. He thought of Eddie Corso, and the secret admission to St. Vincent’s. But that was a local matter, not the concern of the Feds, unless he failed to declare the money on his income tax returns. But that would be next year. No matter what, he would never discuss Eddie Corso. But then, the visit might be about something else. Someone from the Frankie Botts mob might have called in a tip about Rose. That she was a Wop — without papers. Someone might know that she had killed her husband in the old country.