The Americans (57 page)

tilde backslash The Mulberry Street Bend was just a few blocks from the New York Union and the solid, relatively uncluttered commercial area surrounding City Hall Park. The Bend, by contrast, was a colorful neighborhood, but a crowded and abysmally poor one. A slum. Drew had written that the neighborhood population was chiefly Italian with some Irish sprinkled in. Most of the Italians were recent arrivals. They eked out a subsistence by picking rags, or by working at the municipal dumps where garbage was loaded onto scows for disposal at sea. Years ago, Italian newcomers had begun to gravitate toward the dumps for reasons no one could adequately explain. It wasn't an elegant way to earn a living, but a few of the more unscrupulous had discovered ways to make it pay, and pay handsomely. Today, those men were powerful. They were addressed by the respectful title padrone. They controlled the dumps. With one hand they bribed municipal officials in order to maintain their exclusive rights to do all the work and all the hiring. With the other they held out jobs to their fellow Italians. The padrones employed the immigrants but paid them a pittance, and in addition deducted a weekly percentage- only fair, they said, since they had generously extended themselves and taken a chance on inexperienced workers. To the trusting newcomer, the padrones were benefactors. To those less naive they were merely businessmen doing business in the American way. It was a sad introduction to the new homeland, Drew said. The whole of Mulberry Street for several blocks had turned into an outdoor market this sultry Saturday afternoon. On the curbstone to Will's right sat women ranging in age from thirteen to ninety. Their heads were wrapped in red or yellow bandanas. Their tongues were busy with the day's gossip. Beyond them, in the street, was a row of pushcarts. A similar row ran along the far curb, which was equally crowded with women. The two lines of carts in the street were supplemented by two more on the sidewalks near the buildings. -Displayed on the carts Will saw sticks of stove kindling; cabbages and carrots blackened by mold; long loaves of bread already stale and crumbly; big fish with phosphorescent scales; thick, bloody-looking sausages; small mountains of snails. Behind the sidewalk pushcarts were grubby shops which advertised themselves in Italian and English as banks, steamship agencies, or employment bureaus. Each shop and cart had its gilded religious plaque or its painted plaster image of a benevolent-looking saint. Most of the saints cast their eyes up to heaven, no doubt because their earthly surroundings were so grim. Will passed a pushcart from which a toothless old woman was offering what appeared to be secondhand stockings and undergarments; Beyond the pushcart, a couple of dark-eyed, rough-looking men sat talking on a crumbling cement stoop. They noticed W. Their interest increased when they saw the obviously expensive gold watch chain hanging between the pockets of his open vest. The interest of the two men didn't strike Will as precisely innocent. One squinted at him through the blue smoke of a cheroot; he was younger than his companion, and wearing a derby. He grinned at Will and pointed to the gold chain: "Ehi, amico. Porti una bella catena d*oro. Hai un bell'orologio appeso alia fine?" Will kept walking. When he'd gone about six steps beyond the stoop, the two men exchanged sly looks, stood up and fell in step behind him.

his His neck prickled. He didn't turn but he knew they were following him. He worked his way through the crowd, the pounding in his head growing worse. He wasn't overly surprised at the unwelcome attention he was receiving. Drew had written that a certain few in every one of New York's many racial and ethnic groups were totally unwilling to better themselves by honest means. Hence every slum had its gangs. There were Irish gangs on the West Side; Chinese gangs on Mott Street; Negro gangs in enclaves along Seventh and Eighth Avenues; Greek gangs, Polish gangs, Bohemian gangs-even a gang in the small Arabian community down near the Battery. The gangs preyed on outsiders who ventured in, and when there were no outsiders, on their own neighbors. The slums guaranteed every man the opportunity to become embittered and desperate, Drew had said in one particularly caustic letter. Will passed a saloon. From its open doorway came lusty singing, and laughter. Two elderly men stood still as statues in the entrance, smoking those ubiquitous clay pipes. The men's eyes slid from Will's face to a spot somewhere behind him. Then the men glanced at one another. Those small signs told Will the two roughnecks were still stalking him. Ahead, the sidewalk was drenched with spray from an open hydrant. A crowd of small boys frolicked and splashed. Will walked right through the spray, not minding the soaking he got. The water felt cool on his aching head. A genial, mustached man in a fine, thigh-length coat of black alpaca leaned against the front of a shop identified as a bank. The man was peeling notes from a thick bundle. He handed the money to an eager customer who babbled thanks in Italian. Both banker and customer noticed the men following W. The banker reacted with cynical amusement; the customer's look was one of pity. On both sides of Mulberry Street, tilted telephone and telegraph poles angled toward the hot August sky. The lower sections of the poles bore marks of frequent battering by wheeled vehicles. Wagons stood hub to hub between the pushcarts. Just across the street, a hearse had its rear doors open to receive two children's coffins of unpainted wood, each carried by men in dark suits. Will tried to listen for footsteps behind him. The noise made it difficult. Preoccupied, he stumbled against the outstretched arm of a butcher skinning a kid. The dead animal hung from a metal hook on a kind of gallows attached to the butcher's cart. The butcher's hairy forearm was wet with blood. The blood spattered Will's vest when the two collided. Will apologized in English, the butcher in Italian. Then the butcher looked over Will's shoulder, blinked and bobbed his head-a clear warning of pursuit. Will nodded his thanks, then walked on to the corner-the intersection of Mulberry and Bayard Streets, according to a sign. To his left alone Bavard Street, tenements faced one another across a thoroughfare even m.crowded and noisy than Mulberry. Portions of the cross street lay in heavy shadow. If he went on, he'd have to pass through those dark sections. He decided that would be foolish with the two men still on his trail. He had a better chance of dealing with them here in the sunlight. Heart beating fast, he rounded the corner, stopped and dropped his valise. With his foot he pushed it into the shade near the building. His head was pounding as he turned to confront the pursuers. CHAPTER II Unexpected Help THE TWO MEN WERE taken by surprise when they rounded the corner and discovered Will standing there. But they recovered quickly enough, swaggering up to him while passersby hurried around without a second look. One stout man did perceive that something was wrong, but his thin-lipped wife refused to let him stop. The two roughnecks closed in on Will from either side. The one on his right, the older of the two, reached for Will's vest and started to finger the material. Will jerked his fist up and batted the hand aside. The younger man instantly reached under his soiled shirt and produced a clasp knife. He opened the knife one- handed, without so much as a downward glance. "Hey, my friend-was The young Italian's English-was heavily accented but clear. Beneath the brim of his derby, his eyes glittered. "That's no way to treat my pal. You come wandering into the Bend in your fancy suit, you have to pay visitor's tax." The other man guffawed. "That's good, "Sep. Visitor's tax. That's rich." "Get the hell away from me," Will said. The men weren't impressed. "Sure, sure," said the older one. "Soon as we collect that visitor's tax-huh, 'Sep?" The young man in the derby grinned, nodded, and put the point of his knife against Will's vest: "We'll take the tax or we'll take your gizzard. In your case the tax is this good-looking chain-was He flicked the knife upward, touching the gold links. "comand whatever's on the end. Hand it over and you can go along." Will didn't move. The knife moved lazily away from the gold chain and rose to a spot just below his collar. The point was perhaps half an inch from his throat. "Did you hear what I said, friend? We want the tax and we want it now" The young man's other hand shot toward the chain. Will jerked backwards, ramming his fist at the young man's face. The young man was quick and agile. He easily sidestepped the punch. His companion swore and grabbed for Will, but he too missed as Will ducked away from the slashing knife. It whispered past his left side. The point raked the brick wall and left a trail of sparks. Will slammed his left fist against the young man's outstretched arm, driving it against the wall. He yelled and dropped the knife. Will bashed the older man's throat with his elbow. He was desperate-and enraged at being robbed in broad daylight. On the corner, a small crowd had gathered to watch. No one moved to help him. "Ti sistemero io, bastardo!" the young man snarled as he crouched to retrieve his knife. Will kicked it out of his reach, at the same time using both hands to hold off the other thief. The young man groped for the knife. Over his bent back Will saw the crowd stir. Suddenly a woman bellowed, "You mean to say you'll stand by and let those two loafers attack a visitor to our neighborhood? Feccia indolente!" The crowd parted as she shoved through, a stout, dark- haired woman with a baby bouncing on her sizable bosom. The baby rode in a kind of sling hanging from her neck. The woman ran up behind Will's assailants. Folding both arms to shield her howling infant, she lifted her right knee. "Get out of here, low-life!" She rammed her knee into the buttocks of the young man groping for the knife. The man's derby fell off. He crashed head first into the brick wall. "Preziosissimo sangue di Gesii il Salvatore!" The young man clutched his scalp. His fingers came away red. "You've killed me, woman." "No," she said with a shake of her head. Her English was only slightly better than his. "But I will if you don't take yourself out of my sight. I know who you are, Giuseppe Corso. I know your mother, your poor abused wife, and half your kin from Naples. I see them all at Sunday mass. But I never see you because you're busy swilling wine and congratulating yourself on your manhood after robbing some helpless stranger." Protecting the yelling baby with her left arm, she used her other hand to shove the young man's shoulder. "But you never commit a crime alone, do you? You prefer two or three against one. By yourself it would be too chancy." Her brown eyes flashing, she swung to the older man. Will had released him, but he was too thunderstruck to move. "I recognize you also, Rocco Amato. Your wife hangs her laundry in the court behind Baxter Street." The man blushed and grabbed his companion's arm, pleading with him in Italian. The younger man fingered his bloody head. Then he fixed Will with a vengeful stare; raised his right hand; bit the tip of his thumb. He spilled out a stream of furious Italian: "Ti rivedro, bastardo! Ci puoi contare!" Still shouting, he let the older man pull him around the corner out of sight. Will shivered. "What the devil was he saying?" Unsmiling, the woman looked at him. "It's better you don't know." A moment later, she began to croon, "Now, now, baby. Hush, little one." She began rocking her child to soothe it. Soon the baby stopped crying and gurgled. Then the gurgling stopped too. The child was falling asleep again. The woman turned her attention to Will, who had dusted himself off and was picking up his valise. His benefactor was a powerfully built woman, heavy, and quite short. Her eyes were on a level with his upper arm. She had the blackest hair he'd ever seen, wound into a big bun. There was some gray in it, although she couldn't have been more than thirty-five. He studied her more closely. Wrinkles, weight, and a downy black mustache increased the impression of age. But they did nothing to diminish an impression of strength tempered by a good disposition. "If you're ready, young man, I'll conduct you wherever it is you're going." "Thanks very much," Will said. "I'm grateful for the help you gave me with those two. But I'm a little embarrassed too." "Why?" she shot back. "You'd better not say it's because I'm a woman. You needed help caret and you wouldn't have gotten any from those gutless loafers." She gave a withering look to the small crowd of spectators just breaking up. "I don't recognize any of them. That means they don't live in this neighborhood. You mustn't judge Mulberry Street by their behavior-or by that of men like 'Sep and Rocco either. 'Sep-the young one with the knife-he's totally worthless. But Rocco Amato is just weak. He's a working man. He supports a wife, a father, a mother-in-law, and four wee ones. When a man earns only seven dollars a month trimming the scows and must spend five to rent one filthy room with no air except that which comes up the shaft and no water except the foul stuff from the community sink-well, it's easy for a man like that to grow bitter and disregard his conscience. That doesn't excuse what Rocco did. But perhaps it explains it, eh?" The woman's brusque pronouncements made Will smile. He began to relax a little. "Yes, it does." He draped his coat over his arm. "I'm looking for Bayard Court." "You are? Fancy thatl Grimaldi's there right this minute." "Who's Grimaldi?" "The father of this little beauty-was As they began walking, she patted the infant's head. Will could see the anterior fontanel beneath a fuzz of dark hair; a newborn, then. "Little Miranda. Plus eight more. I don't doubt he'll want to plant another one the moment I permit him close to me again. Grimaldi's a regular bull. I'm not complaining, you understand. Many of my friends are envious. But sometimes I do crave a night's rest. Ah well-that's life, hah?" Again he smiled. "You're Mrs. Grimaldi, then-was Her plump cheeks grew pink and her mustache quivered. "Who else would I be? Do I look like some slut who'd bear nine children out of wedlock? Is that what you think?" "No, no, I didn't mean to imply that." "Good." "I apologize." "I accept." She studied his obviously expensive summer suit. "What are you doing in the Bend, Signer-?" "Kent. Will Kent." "I'm happy to know your name, but that isn't the information I requested." fe He chuckled. "I'm looking for a friend. A doctor who

practices at number four and a half Bayard Court." "Imagine! That's exactly where Grimaldi is-number four and a half." "Is that a fact?" Again the thunderous brow: "Of course it's a fact. Why else would I say it? Do I strike you as a frivolous woman who makes idle jokes? Is that what you mean to say?" He quickly raised his free hand. "No. Absolutely not." "Good. I don't want to think I made a mistake about you." "Is your husband seeing one of the doctors?" "Yes. He's having a cough looked after." "What a coincidence. Our meeting, I mean." "Coincidence? It's proof of God's guiding hand in hu- * man affairs. Tell me, Signor Kent. Do you know the doctors?" "I know one of them. He's a good friend of mine." "They are both good men. One is newer to the neighborhood than the other, but they are both Christians. They know that those of us who live here have little or no money, but they also know we have a need, so they never demand that we pay. And they never force us to sign anything, as the bankers do. Good men," she repeated with a nod that said she'd brook no other opinion. "Which doctor is your friend? The old one or the round one?" "The round-his Yes, that one." "Come on, then. Let's move a little faster. You wouldn't have found Bayard Court by yourself. Mind your step and hold your nose and we'll be there before you know it."