I
Rico felt small and unimportant in the Big Boy’s apartment. He was intensely self-centred and as a rule surroundings made no impression on him. But he had never seen anything like this before. He sat in the big, panelled dining-room, eating cautiously, dropping his fork from nervousness, and looking furtively about him.
Joe Sansone had dressed him so that he would look presentable. It had taken a good deal of management and tact, but Joe Sansone was a stickler for clothes and persevered with Rico, who swore at him at first and wouldn’t listen.
“Look, boss,” he said, “you’re getting up in the world. Ain’t none of us ever been asked to eat with the Big Boy at this dump. Hear what I’m telling you. Nobody’s ever crashed the gates before but Pete Montana. See what I mean? You don’t want the Big Boy to think you ain’t got no class.”
Joe had his own dress suit cleaned and pressed, and punctually at five he presented himself at Rico’s door with the outfit under his arm. Rico had resisted from the beginning; first, he balked at the suspenders, then the starched shirt. Joe, labouring with the studs, the buttoned shoes, the invincible collar, cursed and sweated. Rico resisted. But Joe won.
As Joe was ten pounds heavier than Rico, the dress suit was not precisely a perfect fit, but as Joe said “men are wearing their clothes a lot looser now.” To which Rico sardonically replied: “Yeah? Say, they rig you up better than this in stir.”
Finally Joe got Rico into his harness. Rico stamped about declaring that he’d be goddamned if he’d go out looking like that. Why, the Big Boy would think he was off his nut.
“You look fine, boss,” said Joe.
“Yeah,” said Rico, “all I need is a napkin over my arm.”
But Joe moved Rico’s bureau out from its corner and tipped the mirror so Rico could get a full length view of himself. He was won over immediately. Why, honest to God, he looked like one of them rich clubmen he read about in the magazines. The enormous white shirt front, the black silk coat lapels, the neatly-tied white tie dazzled him.
“I guess I don’t look so bad,” he said to Joe; “we got plenty of time, let’s go down to Sam’s place for a while.”
Rico played with his dessert and looked about the room. The Big Boy ate with gusto, smacking his lips. The magnificence of the Big Boy’s apartment crushed Rico. He stared at the big pictures of old time guys in their gold frames; at the silver and glass ware on the serving table; at the high, carved chairs. Lord, why, it was like a hop dream.
He shook his head slowly.
“Some dump you got here,” he said.
“Yeah,” said the Big Boy, glancing negligently about him, “and I sure paid for it. See that picture over there?” He pointed to an imitation Velasquez. “That baby set me back one hundred and fifty berries.”
Rico stared.
“Jesus, one hundred and fifty berries for a picture!”
“Yeah,” said the Big Boy, “but that ain’t nothing. See that bunch of junk over there?” He jerked his head in the direction of the serving table. “That stuff set me back one grand.”
Rico stared.
“One grand for that stuff?”
“Sure,” said the Big Boy, “that’s the real thing. Only what the hell, I say! A plate’s to eat off, ain’t it? What’s the odds what it’s made of? But I got a spell about two years ago. I had a pot full of money and I thought, well, other guys that ain’t got as much dough as I got put on a front, so why shouldn’t I? Sure, I could buy and sell guys that’s got three homes and a couple of chugwagons. So I got a guy down at a big store, you know, one of them decorators, to pick me out a swell apartment and fix it up A-1. So he did. I got a library too, and a lot of other stuff that ain’t worth a damn. I was talking to a rich guy the other day, and he said I was a damn fool to buy real books because he had a library twice as big as mine and dummy books. What the hell! If a guy’s gonna have a library, why, I say do it right. So there you are. I got so damn many books it gives me a headache just to look at ’em through the glass. Shakespeare and all that stuff.”
“Yeah?” said Rico, stupefied.
A servant took away their dessert and brought coffee. Then he passed a humidor full of cigars. Rico took one of the fat, black cigars, lit it, and tipped his chair back. What a way to live!
“Yeah,” said the Big Boy, “I got a lot of dough tied up in this dump. I get it rent free, though. Eschelman, the contractor, owns this dump and he knows how I stand in the city. Boy, he puts up what he pleases and gets away with it. See the idea, Rico? If a guy stands in with me, he owns the burg.”
“Sure,” said Rico, “you’re a big guy.”
“I get him contracts, too,” said the Big Boy; “ ’course I get mine out of it, but I made that guy. When he came here from down state he didn’t have an extra pair of pants; now he’s climbing. Yeah, if I had a wife and a couple of kids, why, I’d build me a big house out in some swell suburb, but as it is, I’d just as soon be here on one floor. I got everything I need and then some.”
“Sure,” said Rico.
“Let’s go in the library,” said the Big Boy, “it’s more comfortable in there.”
The Big Boy told the servant to take their coffee into the library. Then he got up and Rico followed him. Then Big Boy put his hand on Rico’s shoulder.
“Kind of lit up yourself tonight, ain’t you, Rico?”
“Yeah, I thought I better put on the monkey suit.”
“That’s right, Rico. May as well learn now.”
“Sure,” said Rico.
The Big Boy motioned Rico to a chair, then sat down. Rico looked about him at the great expanse of glass guarding tier after tier of books. Lord, if a guy’d read that many books he’d sure know a lot!
“Rico,” said the Big Boy, “let’s talk serious.”
“All right,” said Rico.
The Big Boy leaned forward in his chair and stared at Rico.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m gonna talk and you ain’t gonna hear a word I say, see, this is inside dope and if it gets out it’ll be just too bad for somebody.”
“You know me,” said Rico.
“All right,” said the Big Boy; “get this: if I didn’t think a hell of a lot of you I wouldn’t be asking you to eat with me. You’re on the square, Rico, and you’re a corner, see. You got the nerve and you’re a good, sober, steady guy. That’s what we need. Trouble with most of these guys they ain’t got nothing from the collar up. OK. Now, listen. Pete Montana’s through.”
Rico nearly leapt out of his chair.
“Yeah?”
“Now don’t get excited,” said the Big Boy, “because, when it gets out, there’s gonna be hell to pay. Ritz Colonna and a couple of other lowdown bums is gonna make a rush, see, and that means that somebody’s gonna get hurt.”
“Sure,” said Rico, settling back.
“But not you,” said the Big Boy; “you’re gonna lay back and let them dumb eggs bump each other off, then we’ll get our licks in, see? Pete’s through. The Old Man’s gonna have a talk with him tomorrow or the next day and Pete’s gonna mosey. He’s all swelled up, thinks he’s king and all that stuff, but wait till the Old Man gets through with him. Why, he can hang that guy. Besides that, he can turn the Federal guys loose on him for peddling narcotics. And boy, how he peddles them! He built that big house of his on ’em. Well, see how things are? I can’t spill no more.”
“Well,” said Rico, “I’m on.”
“All right,” said the Big Boy, “but listen: I’m doing a hell of a lot for you, and when I get you planted I want plenty of service.”
“You’ll sure get it,” said Rico.
Rico, with the Big Boy’s cigar still between his teeth, lay in the taxi and stared out at the tangle of traffic on Michigan Boulevard. Things were sure to God looking up! Five years ago he wasn’t nobody to speak of; just a lonely yegg, sticking up chain-stores and filling-stations. Chiggi had sure given him the right dope. He remembered one night in Toledo when he was pretty low. There was a blonde he used to meet at one of the call-houses and she sure did satisfy him, but, boy, she had to have the coin on the nose or there wasn’t anything doing. Well, he didn’t have a red. He was just sitting there in Chiggi’s thinking about the blonde, when Chiggi came over and said: “Listen, kid, you got big town stuff in you. What you want around here? Get somebody to stake you or hit the rods. Hell, don’t be a piker.” Well, Chiggi staked him, but he blew the stake on the blonde, oh, boy what a couple of days, and then he hit the rods with Otero. Little Italy sure looked good to them. They didn’t have a good pair of pants between them, and a bowl of mulligan tasted better than the stuff he’d ate at the Big Boy’s. Well, here he was riding taxis and hobnobbing with guys like James O’Doul, who paid one grand for a bunch of crockery. Yeah, here he was!
Rico saw nothing but success in the future. With the Big Boy behind him he couldn’t be stopped, and when he once got some place he knew how to stay there. Play square with the guys that are square with you; the hell with everybody else.
Rico smoked his cigar slowly (he had six more of them in his pocket), and looked absently at the jam of traffic: taxis, Hispano-Suizas, Fords, huge double-decked buses, leaning as they turned corners. Rico dropped the cigar butt out the window. Lying back in his seat he observed:
“And I thought Pete Montana was such a hell of a guy!”