The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (12 page)

After an hour of play Duddy was ahead more than two hundred dollars. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Lots of you seem to be losing. I’m no chiseler. From now on you can bet a dollar on a number if you want.”

That’s when Irwin changed another twenty-five dollars and sat down at the table and began to play in earnest. His bets seemed to follow no apparent pattern. On each spin of the wheel he placed a dollar on numbers fifteen, six, thirty-two, three, and twelve, and it was only the next morning when he looked closely at the wheel that Duddy realized these numbers ran together there. Irwin won; he didn’t win on each spin, but whenever one of his numbers came up he collected thirty dollars and twice if his number repeated. Others, riding his streak of luck, began to bet with him, and once Duddy had to pay off three different people on number three. That cost him ninety dollars, not counting the side and corner bets.

“Don’t worry,” Irwin said. “David’s father is in the transport business. He doesn’t
really
have to work as a waiter.”

Duddy turned to Linda, his look astonished.

“His brother Bradley is a big rancher in Arizona,” Irwin said. “All David has to do is wire him for more money.”

“It’s getting late,” Mrs. Farber said.

Ed Planter yawned and stretched.

“Don’t go,” Duddy said. “Not yet, please. Give me a chance to win some of my money back.”

Farber saw that Duddy was extremely pale.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Mr. Cohen said. “Your luck will change.”

But Duddy’s luck didn’t change, it got worse, and nobody at the table joked any more. The men could see that the boy’s cheeks were burning hot, his eyes were red, and his shirt adhered to his back. When Duddy paid out on a number his hands shook.

Cuckoo pulled Irwin aside. “It’s your wheel, you bastard. I found out.”

“Really?”

“Do you know how hard that kid works for his money?”

Irwin tried to turn away, but Cuckoo seized him by the arm. “I’m going to speak to Rubin,” he said. “First thing tomorrow morning I’m going to talk to him.”

“Linda and I are going to be engaged,” Irwin said. “Rubin is very pleased about that. I thought maybe you’d like to know.”

“Come on,” Duddy said. “Place your bets. Let’s not waste time.”

The men at the table were tired and wanted to go to bed, but they were also ashamed of winning so much money from a seventeen-year-old boy and they began to play recklessly, trying to lose. It was no use.

“We want to see you upstairs later, Irwin,” Bernie Altman said.

On the next spin Duddy went broke and he had to close the game.

“That’s show biz,” Irwin said. “Right, Cuckoo?”

The men filed out without looking at Duddy, but Linda stayed on after the others had gone.

“Thanks,” Duddy said. “Thanks a lot.”

“How much did you lose?”

“Everything. Three hundred dollars.” Duddy began to scream. “You said I couldn’t lose. You told me it was impossible for me to lose.”

“I’m sorry, Duddy. I had no idea that –”

“Aw, go to hell. Just go to hell please.” He gave the wheel a shove, knocking it over, and rushed outside. Once on the beach he could no longer quell his stomach. Duddy was sick. He sat on a rock, holding his head in his hands, and he began to sob bitterly.

“Hey,” Cuckoo shouted, entering the lobby, “has anybody here seen Duddy?”

“No.”

“He still hasn’t shown up at the dorm,” Bernie said. “It’s more than an hour now …”

“What’s going on?” Rubin demanded. “I’m the boss here.”

Duddy clenched his teeth and pulled his hair until it hurt. “Goddam it to hell,” he said. Some stake. Six weeks of hard work and not a cent to show for it. He was back where he’d started from. Worse. He was probably a laughingstock too. Jeez, he thought. “Goddam you.”

Some scraping on the sand disturbed him and Duddy hid behind a rock. He recognized Cuckoo’s voice.

“Somebody saw him run towards the beach. There’s no telling what he might do.”

Linda said something he couldn’t make out and Cuckoo’s reply was lost in the wind. Then he heard Linda say, “I knew it was his wheel, but I never thought …”

Footsteps approached from another direction. Somebody had a flashlight.

“Duddy!”

Let them think I’ve drowned, he thought. It would serve them right. He had seen a drowned woman once at Shawbridge, and the thought of his own face bloated like that – Irwin hanging for it, the bastard, and his father maybe feeling sorry he hadn’t treated him as well as Lennie – made a hot lump in Duddy’s throat. He began to sob again.

“Duddy!”

There was a dip of oars and a rippling in the water. A boat had started out.

“Hal-lo! Duddy!”

Scampering barefooted across the sand, Duddy broke for the protecting woods. He heard Rubin’s gruff voice, “That little bastard, I’ll kill him. There was a drowning at the Hilltop Lodge once and the next day there weren’t two guests left at the hotel. If this got into the papers it could ruin …”

Duddy was seized by an uncontrollable fit of laughter. He rolled over in the grass, biting his arm to muffle the noise.

“… send for the cops?”

Next came Rubin’s voice. “Oh, no you don’t. No cops. That little bastard I’ll choke him to death.”

Duddy came out on a dirt road on the other side of the woods and started back into Ste. Agathe. Three times he stopped, his laughter immense. The thought of them searching for him all through the night and Irwin certainly catching shit galore almost made him forget the three hundred dollars. Almost, but not quite.

Pajama-clad guests drifted down into the lobby one by one.

“I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Rubin.”

“How could you let a seventeen-year-old kid lose all his tips in a roulette game?”

“I knew nothing about it. I swear I –”

“Save it for the reporters tomorrow. When they drag the kid out of the lake –”

“Bite your tongue,” Rubin shouted.

“The poor kid.”

“Next season it’s Hilltop Lodge for me,” Mrs. Dunsky said.

“Me too,” Mrs. Farber said.

Rubin reminded his guests that there had been a case of ptomaine poisoning at the Hilltop Lodge last year.

“You think your food goes down so good, Rubin? Around the corner at the drugstore bicarbonate sales are booming.”

“We’re doing everything humanly possible,” Rubin said. “All the boys are out searching.”

“The bottom of the lake?”

The guests stared accusingly at Rubin. “Why don’t you all go to sleep,” he said.

“In a hotel where tragedy has just struck?”

“Tomorrow,” Paddy said, “you can change the name from the Hotel Lac des Sables to Rubin’s Haunted Hotel.”

“Already it’s beginning to feel spooky in here. Hey, open up the bar, Rubin.”

“Yeah, we could do with some salami sandwiches too. This is going to be a long night.”

“All right,” Rubin said. “All right.”

Circling back over the highway, Duddy re-entered Ste. Agathe through those streets, remote from the lake, where the French-Canadians lived. His legs ached from the long hike; he was starved and searched for an open restaurant. He found a French-Canadian chip place open on the edge of town. Yvette was there.

“Duddy!”

Duddy didn’t realize it, but his clothing was muddy and he had ripped his shirt in the bushes.

“Were you in a fight?”

He sat down and told her, between explosions of laughter, what had happened. Yvette felt rotten about the three hundred dollars, but when he got to the part about Rubin she began to laugh too.

“Have something else?”

Duddy had already consumed three hot dogs and two orders of chips.

“I think they want to close,” he said. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

Avoiding the main streets and the lakeshore, or anywhere he might run into a searching party, they started out together holding hands. She led him towards the railroad tracks as the stars started to fade out and light began to spread across the sky. Duddy saw for the first time the
part of Ste. Agathe where the poorer French-Canadians lived and the summer residents and tourists never came. The unpainted houses had been washed gray by the wind and the rain. Roosters crowed in yards litered with junk and small hopeless vegetable patches and Duddy was reminded of his grandfather and St. Dominique Street, and he promised himself to send the old man a postcard tomorrow. There were faded Robin Hood Flour signs on some walls and here and there a barn roof or window had been healed with a tin Sweet Caporal sign.

“This way,” Yvette said.

Crossing the tracks, they came out on a rocky slope on the edge of the mountain. The dew soon soaked through Duddy’s shoes and trouser bottoms. His body ached. The excitement of the game and search past, he longed for his bed, but Yvette led him deeper into the field. Down a bumpy hill and up the other side onto a flat table of a rock. There she made him rest.

“It’s so nice to see you lie still for once,” she said.

“Wha’?”

“You’re always running or jumping or scratching …”

Duddy was surprised and flattered to discover that anyone cared enough to watch him so closely. “I like you,” he said.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Sure. Sure thing.”

He edged closer to her and, to his surprise, she didn’t withdraw. Duddy fondled a breast tentatively. She kissed him, forcing his mouth open.

“Listen, Yvette, I haven’t got a …”

But she didn’t care. Jeez, he thought, if the guys could see me now.

“You’re my speed, Yvette. You’re for me.”

Duddy and Yvette returned to Ste. Agathe by another route, separating before they reached the lakeshore. Yvette kissed him on the cheek. “You work too hard,” she said. “There’s nothing but bones …”

“Aw.”

She told him that she was off on Wednesday afternoon.

“Let’s go swimming,” he said.

It was almost nine when Duddy entered the lobby of the Hotel Lac des Sables and the guests were beginning to come down for breakfast.

“Duddy!”

“It’s the Kravitz boy. He’s back.”

Guests came rushing out of the dining room and smiled, still clutching orange juice or slices of toast. Linda embraced Duddy in front of everybody. “Boy,” she said, “am I ever glad to see you!”

Rubin slapped him on the back. “You little bastard,” he said. “You lousy little bastard.” But even he smiled and Duddy could see that he hadn’t shaved yet. Probably he’d been up all night.

“Are you O.K.?” Bernie asked.

The guests cheered when he entered the dining room.

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Cohen said with a meaningful wink. “Everything’s going to work out fine.”

Duddy looked puzzled.

“He can take the next two days off,” Rubin announced in a booming voice. There was some applause. “But no complaints please if the service is slow. Duddy’s my top man in the dining room.”

“
If
the service is slow. Is that what the man said?”

After breakfast Duddy went to the dormitory. He had only just sat down on the bed to rest when Bernie and Donald came in. They had brought Irwin with them. “He has something for you,” Bernie said severely.

Irwin smiled.

“Give it to him.”

“I want to tell you how thrilled I am,” Irwin said, “that you didn’t drown. I was so worried.”

“Give it to him right now, please.”

Irwin handed over his winnings. It was just short of three hundred. “I intended to return the money anyway,” he said.

“Nobody’s going to know about this, Duddy,” Bernie said, “so don’t worry.”

“They were afraid you might be too proud to take the money,” Irwin said. “Isn’t that amusing?”

“Shettup, Irwin.”

“You cheated me. You arranged it all with Linda and the wheel was crooked. I hope you had a good laugh.”

“The wheel wasn’t crooked.”

“Cheaters never prosper,” Duddy said. “I hope this’ll be a good lesson for you. I hope you’ll profit from it in the future.”

That night a delegation comprised of Farber, Mr. Cohen, and Paddy invited Duddy to have a drink with them in the recreation hall. Mr. Cohen, ever since he had winked meaningfully at Duddy, had been an awfully busy man. All morning and most of the afternoon he had waylaid guests in the lobby and on the beach and even – once the word had got out – in their rooms. “Think of what the poor kid must be going through,” he’d say for a starter.

“It’s my fault maybe.”

“Look,” he’d say, “if you can afford a month here you can afford this. Would it be better to spend the money on doctors?”

Everyone smiled at the delegation when they sat down at the bar with Duddy. Mr. Cohen held out a large envelope. “We want a promise from you first,” he said.

“Wha’?”

“How much did you lose last night?”

“Three hundred bucks, but –”

“No buts, Duddy. You’ve got to promise us no more roulette. Finished.”

“Sure.”

He handed Duddy the envelope. “It’s from all the guests together. A hundred and forty-two contributors.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I may have given more than Farber but we’re not saying. Twenty dollars is the same as five,” Mr. Cohen said, looking hard at Farber. “It’s the spirit that counts.”

“I don’t know what to say. I mean …” Duddy pressed the envelope, testing it for thickness and substance. “… Well, thanks …”

“You’d better go to sleep now. You must be tired.”

Duddy rushed upstairs, emptied the envelope on his bed, and started to count the money. There was close to five hundred dollars in the envelope. Duddy laughed, he shouted. He rolled over on the floor and did a couple of somersaults.

“Hi.”

It was Linda.

“I had no idea Irwin was going to bet that much. Honestly, I didn’t.”

With all your college education, he thought, what are you? A couple of crooks. “Sure,” he said tightly.

“Do you really think we were after your money?”

Will you go, please, he thought. I work for your father but that doesn’t mean I have to talk to you.

“I’ve broken with Irwin.”

“Congratulations.”

“It was a bad joke. I’m sorry. But I had no idea –”

“– that the wheel was crooked?”

“The wheel wasn’t crooked. But it’s only a toy and it’s an old one. It has certain tendencies. Irwin knew them.”