The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (11 page)

Sure, Duddy thought, sure, sure, maybe it was all on the legit, but applying it was another thing. A guy could get his face slapped, or worse.

There were various approaches, of course. He had learned some at the hotel. Paddy Schwartz, the bachelor who came to Rubin’s every summer for a two-month stay, had a crack at all the goods under
forty-five. “If nine say no,” he told Duddy, “then maybe the tenth will be agreeable. The thing is to keep in there pitching.” Paddy was tall and dark with graying curly hair, but Duddy was disheartened to discover that his private approaches were never nearly so dashing as his public style. After filling his filly of the night – that’s what he called them – with drink, he’d say he had a bum ticker and had been given only six months to live. Then, his eyes filled with tears, he’d add that the filly was the most beautiful he had ever met, and was she going to send him to his maker without a night of love? Ed Planter, the furrier in 408, pursued the single ones, the office girls, but only after it had become clear to them that the vacation was ending with no marriage candidate around. He’d take them out, spending lavishly, and then, back outside the single room at the hotel, he’d say, “I had a little dream about you last night, honey. I dreamt that you were nice to me,
very
nice to me, and I made you a gift of a little fur jacket to keep you warm in winter here … and here … and here.” Rubin confined himself to the chambermaids. “Why not?” he’d say. “To them it’s nothing.” But actually all he ever did was pinch them. He pinched hard.

Duddy knew that there were many techniques and he had had some experience himself. There had been that afternoon he had got Birdie Lyman’s brassiere half off when the goddam movie had suddenly ended, and once with a Belmont Park pick-up he’d had everything but. Still, he was scared.

“Yvette’s got a real lust for you,” Cuckoo told him one night. “Why don’t you do something about it? You could bring her here if you wanted …”

“Aw. Yvette. Those are a dime a dozen.”

But Linda was something else. Soft, curvy, and nifty enough for one of those snazzy fashion magazines, she seemed just about the most assured girl Duddy had ever met. She had been to Mexico and New York and sometimes she used words that made Duddy blush. Her cigarette holder, acquired on a trip to Europe, was made of real
elephant tusk. At night in the recreation hall she seldom danced but usually sat at the bar joking with Irwin and Paddy and other favorites. Every afternoon she went riding and Duddy had often seen her starting down the dirt road to the stables, beating her whip against her boot. Linda was nineteen and the daughter of a hotel owner – she was maybe an inch and some taller than he was too – and Duddy couldn’t understand why she wanted to go out with him. He’d been leading Thunder back to the stables when he had run into her.

“Day off today?”

“Yeah.”

“Buy me a drink?”

“Wha’?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Sure. Sure thing.”

He took her to the Laurentide Ice Cream Bar.

“No,” she said.
“A drink.”

It was not even dark yet.

“Let’s go to the Châlet,” she said.

The bartender there greeted her warmly. Luckily Duddy had lots of money on him because she drank quickly. Not beer, either.

“Well, Duddy, how do you like shoveling food into the greedy mouths of the
nouveaux-riches?”

“Your father is a very decent man to work for,” Duddy said earnestly. He couldn’t understand why she looked so amused.

“Why?”

“Jeez. I dunno. I mean …”

“Did you know that he pinches all the chambermaids’ little bums?”

“Maybe we oughta go?”

“No. Let’s have another. Hey, Jerry. Two more on the rocks.” Turning to Duddy again, she laughed. “You shouldn’t let Irwin pick on you like that. You ought to talk back to him.”

“I’m not scared. I keep quiet, but I’ve got my reasons.”

“Is that so?”

There was that amused smile again. He didn’t like it.

“Yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” he said, feeling a little dizzy. “I don’t really have to work as a waiter, you know. My father’s in the transport business. But I’m making a study of the hotel business like.”

“Shouldn’t I warn my father that he’s harboring a future competitor in the dormitory?”

Duddy laughed. He was pleased. “Hey, have you ever read
God’s Little Acre?”

Duddy figured if she had, and admitted it, there might be something doing. But she didn’t reply.

“I’m not much of a reader, really, but my Uncle Benjy has read millions of books. Hard-covered ones. My brother Lennie is gonna be a doctor.”

“What are you going to be?”

Without thinking, he said, “I’m gonna get me some land one of these days. A man without land is nothing.”

He told her about his brother Bradley and that the Boy Wonder, an intimate of his father’s, was willing to back him in any line he chose.

“Why don’t you take me dancing tonight?”

Duddy drank three cups of black coffee and took a swim to clear his head before he returned to the dormitory. Irwin, lying on the bed, made him nervous – Linda was supposed to be
his
girl – and Duddy couldn’t understand why the others watched him so apprehensively while he dressed. Duddy took half an hour combing his hair into a pompadour with the help of lots of brilliantine. He selected from among his shirts a new one with red and black checks and the tie he chose was white with a black and blue pattern of golf balls and clubs. His green sports jacket had wide shoulders, a one-button roll, and brown checks. A crease had been sewn into his gray flannel trousers. He wore two-tone shoes.

Bernie Altman looked hard at Irwin and stopped Duddy as he was going out. “Listen,” he said, “I’ll lend you my suit if you like.”

“Jeez, that’s nice of you, Bernie. I’m going dancing tonight. But this is the first chance I’ve had to wear this jacket. A heavy date, you know. Thanks anyway.”

Irwin choked his laughter with his pillow.

“Look, Duddy, I – Oh, what’s the use? Have a good time.”

Outside, Linda leaned on the horn of her father’s station wagon. Duddy ran.

“You’re a son of a bitch, Irwin. A real son of a bitch.”

“Did I pick those clothes for him?”

“Why is she going out with Duddy?”

“Yeah, what have you two cooked up?” Donald asked.

Duddy and Linda drove to Hilltop Lodge, the resort with the best band, and ordered Scotch on the rocks. Many of the bright young people there waved. Two or three raised their eyebrows when they saw that Linda was with Duddy. “We’re engaged,” Linda said. “He uses Ponds.”

Duddy danced with her three or four times. She was O.K. on the slow ones, but when the band played something hot, a boogie-woogie, for instance, Duddy switched to his free-swinging F.F.H.S. Tea Dance style and all at once the floor was cleared and everyone stood around watching. At first this seemed to delight Linda, she laughed a lot, but the second time round she quit on Duddy in the middle of a dance. Once, during a slow number, he held her too close.

“Please,” she said.

“This is called a ‘Y’ dance,” Duddy said. But she didn’t get the joke.

Linda invited three others to their table and Duddy ordered drinks for them. Melvin Lerner, a dentistry student, held hands with Jewel Freed. They were both working at Camp Forest Land. The other man was bearded and somewhat older than the others; he was thirty maybe. Peter Butler lived in Ste. Agathe all year round, he had built his own house on a secluded part of the lake.

“Peter’s a painter,” Linda said to Duddy.

“Inside or outside?”

“That’s good,” Peter said. “That’s very good.” He slapped his knees again and again.

Duddy looked puzzled.

“He’s not joking,” Linda said. “Peter’s not a house painter, Duddy. He paints pictures. Peter is a nonfigurative painter.”

“Like Norman Rockwell,” Peter said, laughing some more.

“Touché,”
Linda said, and she ordered another round of drinks.

“What do you do?” Melvin asked Duddy.

“He’s making a study of the hotel business like,” Linda said.

Peter and Linda danced two slow numbers together and when Duddy looked up again they were gone. An hour later Linda returned alone, her face flushed and bits of dead leaves stuck to her dress. “I need a drink,” she said. “A big one.”

“Maybe we oughta go. I’ve got to be up at seven tomorrow.”

“One for the road.”

So Duddy ordered another round. Maybe it was the liquor – he was certainly not used to it – but all at once it seemed to him that Linda had changed. Her voice softened and she began to ask him lots of questions about his plans for the future. She was not ridiculing him any more, he was sure of that, and he was no longer afraid of her. From time to time the room swayed around him and he was glad he wasn’t the one who would have to drive home. But dizzy as he was he felt fine. He no longer heard all her remarks, however, because he was thinking that hotel owners’ daughters had fallen for poor boys before and, given a shot at it, there were lots of improvements he could make at Rubin’s. There was the
Laurentian Liner
too.

“Well, Duddy, are you game?”

The room rocked.

“Tell me if you don’t want to. Maybe Irwin would …”

“No, no. I’ll do it.”

“It’ll give you a good start on your stake.”

She helped him outside and into the station wagon. His head rolling and jerking loose each time they hit a bump, Duddy tried, he tried hard, to remember what he had agreed to. He had told some lies about himself and the Boy Wonder, they had talked about the gambling house he ran, and the conversation had come round to roulette. Duddy pretended to be an expert and Linda just happened to own a wheel. Then what? He told her he had already earned more than four hundred dollars in tips and Linda said that was plenty. Plenty? Plenty for him to act as banker for the roulette game they were going to run in the recreation hall beginning at one
A.M
. Sunday night. Wouldn’t her father object? No, not if ten per cent of each win went into a box for the Jewish National Fund. He couldn’t lose – there was that too. She told him so. He might even come out a few hundred dollars ahead.

“Can you make it upstairs yourself?”

“Sure.”

“Aren’t you going to kiss Linda before you go?”

“Mn.”

T
HAT WAS WEDNESDAY, AND IN THE THREE DAYS TO GO
before the game Duddy began to fear for his money. “Sure you could win,” Cuckoo said, “but you could lose too. If I were you I wouldn’t do it.” But if he was afraid for his money, neither did he want Linda to think that he’d welsh on a promise. She was so sweet to him these days. At night in the recreation hall she sometimes called him over to join her for a drink. Still, he thought, maybe I ought to speak to her. I work hard for my money and I need it. Then people began to stop him in the lobby or on the beach.

“I’ll be there, kid,” Paddy said.

Farber slapped him on the back and winked. “Count me in,” he said.

Mr. Cohen stopped him outside the gym. “Is it O.K. if I bring along a couple of pals?”

The Boy Wonder, Duddy thought, would not chicken out in a situation like this. He would be cool. But Duddy couldn’t sleep Friday night and he was ashamed to go and tell Cuckoo again that he was scared. He wouldn’t want Linda or Irwin to know that, either. It was so nice, too. Suddenly people looking at him and smiling. He no longer had to go round to the back of the hotel to sit with the kitchen help and chambermaids for companionship. Aw, the hell, Duddy figured out that if the bank ever dropped below one hundred dollars
he would stop the game, but he withdrew three hundred just in case. Linda took him aside on Saturday afternoon. “Maybe we’d better call it off,” she said. “You might lose.”

“You said I couldn’t lose.”

“I said, I said. How do I know?”

“I’m not calling it off. I can’t. All those people. Jeez.”

Cuckoo pleaded with him once more. “But what if you lose, Duddy?”

“Simple,” Duddy said. “If I lose I drown myself. That’s show biz.”

On Sunday night the boys in Artie Bloom’s band, who were in on the story, broke up early and everyone pretended to be going off to bed or somewhere else. The lights in the recreation hall were turned out and the front door was locked. Fifteen minutes later some of the lights were turned on again and a side door was opened. The players began to arrive. Duddy set up the table and announced the odds in a failing voice. He would pay thirty to one on a full number and the top bet allowed was fifty cents. That would pay fifteen dollars, one-fifty of which would go into the J.N.F. box. Linda, who was helping him, began to sell change. Farber bought five dollars’ worth and Mr. Cohen asked for ten. Once Duddy had counted forty players in the hall he asked for the door to be shut.

“Don’t worry,” Linda said. “The more players, the more money on the board, the better it is for the bank.”

But Duddy insisted.

“I’ll only take ten dollars’ worth for a start,” Irwin said.

Duddy looked sharply at Linda and it seemed to him that she was even more frightened than he was. “O.K.,” he said. “Place your bets.”

Duddy counted at least thirty dollars on the first run. Jeez, he thought. His hands shaky, he was just about to spin the wheel when a voice in the darkness shouted, “Nobody leave. This is a raid.”

“Wha’?”

“My men have got the place surrounded. No funny stuff, please.”

A spotlight was turned on and revealed was Cuckoo Kaplan in a Keystone Cop costume. His nightstick was made of rubber and the height he shook it at made all the women laugh.

“You’re a dirty pig, Cuckoo.”

“Some cop.”

Duddy shut his eyes and spun the wheel and number thirty-two came up. Nobody was on it. He paid off even money on two blacks, that’s all.

Cuckoo took off his shoe, reached into an outlandishly patched sock, and pulled out a dollar bill. “Rubin just gave me an advance on next year’s salary. He’s crying in the kitchen right now.”

“Cuckoo!”

“Put the works on number six for me, but I can’t look.”