Ivory Shoals Read online

  “He knows you’re here,” he said. “He’s well aware who’s in the barroom.”

  Gussie returned to his seat and Fozzy went back to his work, running his rag in circles under his big, stiff fingers, limping to the next table and the next. Gussie didn’t know what meanness or mishap had caused his lameness, but he couldn’t imagine the man whole. The slow, herky progress he made across rooms was part and parcel of his being, the dignified insolence it allowed him, the illusion of his own sweet time.

  Gussie tried not to stare at Rye’s back. His pressed suit. His combed hair. The man seemed to have always come directly from a shave. He was a barrel-chested sort, though short in stature and with thin arms and bandy legs. Fozzy made his way around behind the bar and poured Rye a measure of clear liquor, which his employer took no notice of. He produced an ash dish and rested it near Rye’s elbow.

  Rye lit a cigarette and turned to some loose papers he’d arrayed aside his ledger. When he turned askance on his stool, his belt buckle glinted like a sport fish in the lamplight. He ticked his finger line to line, ignoring the dish Fozzy had set out and letting his ashes fall where they would. Times beyond number Gussie had mustered false smiles for this man, and he regretted them each and every. Gussie was no longer beholden. His mother had taught him to be sparing of those deemed vile and leery of angels, but Gussie did not hesitate to hope ruin upon Rye. He’d never witnessed him threatened or cowed, had never seen him brought to a moment’s disadvantage.

  Gussie watched as Rye dropped his cigarette on the floor and leaned to step on it, as Rye raised up straight and partook of a full breath, tipping his head to crack his neck. Gussie believed his time had come, finally, but a young man appeared from the hallway and stepped over and arranged three large picture boards on the bar. They were sketches, and the man who’d brought them out was apparently the artist, his hands sooty to the wrists with pencil dust. Rye dragged his stool out of the way and raised one of the boards to the light, and when Gussie discovered its subject, he looked away. A nude woman. Gussie kept his eyes averted—gazing vacantly toward the empty table next to him but still seeing in his mind’s eye the breasts, the bare button of the woman’s stomach—as the artist pointed out details and Rye nodded and chuckled. The first picture to the next, and the next, until all three works had been inspected and approved.

  Rye stacked the boards on the bar and dismissed the artist with a clap on the shoulder, then took hold of his liquor and emptied the lot of it. He placed the glass on the bar and twisted at the waist and found Gussie with his pale, stony eyes and beckoned him with a pitch of his chin.

  He watched Gussie until the space was closed between them, the two standing with boots near to touching, then he turned back to the sketches and hoisted one upright. Gussie knew he ought to shy his eyes again but that was not what he found himself doing. He found himself staring, mesmerized and ashamed, at the girl before him, who was perhaps only two or three years Gussie’s senior. His chest went tight, his hands warm. The hullabaloo from the sodden troop at the windows was suddenly distant, like shouts from an opposite shore.

  The girl’s hair was arranged in a scalloped shelf. In one hand she held a shallow teacup, and with a finger of the other hand she stirred the contents. Close on the table before her was a bowl of sharp-cornered sugar cubes. A pair of pebble-grain slippers laid one flopped over its mate near her naked feet.

  “Simple of mind, I’ll grant you,” Rye said. “But awful complicated to look at.”

  Now Gussie did look off toward the coatroom, angry with himself, and Rye brought the board to rest on top of the others and sighed.

  “Trio of hard cases from the Home for Wayward Girls,” he said. “But you’d never know they were hard cases. Guess that’s the whole trick.”

  Rye’s bowtie hung loose from his collar. It was of lustrous silk embroidered with coral flowers.

  “Your momma—she wasn’t never in need of advertisement. Just more hours in the night. Till her health turned, of course. Sad business all around. Sad, sad business.”

  Gussie didn’t want to be angry. Didn’t want Rye strumming more notes on him. He stood tall, only half a head shorter than Rye.

  “I come to collect what she set apart.”

  “Have you now?” said Rye. He coughed in his fist and then granted himself a sweeping, listless audit of his barroom, washing his gaze over the rowdy and the solemn, over Fozzy, who stood sentry-like with hands clasped behind his back, out the windows where tied horses nickered and lone men pottered about the hard-packed street.

  “How about we hold this pow-wow in my office?” he said.

  He left the boards where they were and set the stool he’d moved aside back in place. He started toward the hallway, rocking side to side on his bowed legs, and Gussie followed him down the dark-paneled corridor, soon hearing sounds from both ends, the voices of the men he’d been hearing for nigh an hour and now the laughter of the ladies from the parlor—some throaty, some girlish. Rye trod a loose plank and it groaned; Gussie, in his turn, found the same plank and the same complaint resounded.

  Rye opened the door to his office and stepped aside so Gussie could enter. A lamp was already lit inside, hung from its bail on an iron hook like in a stable. Rye pulled his bowtie free and tossed it on his desk. He sat heavily and motioned for Gussie to take the chair opposite. But for the broad desk of blond wood and the pair of chairs, the office was nearly bare. The window behind Rye was dressed in stiff drapes the bright, deep red of a new barn, and in a doorless and otherwise vacant closet sat a squat, burly safe with its stubby legs and thick crank handle.

  “So,” said Rye. He unfastened his collar buttons and worked his neck around. “I’m to understand you aim to do some bankin.”

  “You understand correct,” said Gussie.

  “And the account under consideration, I assume, is that of the late Lavinia Dwyer?”

  “You assume right.”

  “And you before me are the lawful heir, Gussie Dwyer, beloved son of the deceased?” Rye laid his hands and wrists limply upon the desktop, like drowned rodents. “And your intention is to liquidate said account and transfer all proceeds to those there trouser pockets you most times use for hangin your thumbs?”

  “I come for my momma’s money,” Gussie said. “You put it pretty as you like.”

  Rye reached into his vest and came out with another cigarette. He felt around for matches without success, then opened a drawer of his desk and shifted the contents about.

  “You’d suspect a man what can operate a prosperous vice outfit, especially in these lean times, you’d expect that man could keep track of a match. Now wouldn’t you?”

  Rye’s face was pink and fleshy. He set the cigarette down gently on the desk next to his bowtie, which he then stretched out and smoothed flat.

  “How many ties you think I own?” he said. “Give us your best estimate.”

  “No great hand at guessin games,” said Gussie.

  “No, I reckon you ain’t,” Rye said. “Reckon you’re still waitin to find out what you’re a great hand at.” He used a careful thumb to move the tie just so on the desk. “I’ll tell you. Six dozen. That’s the answer. Last count, anyhow. I’m liable to add to the total any time the mood strikes. Maybe before long, one for every day of the year.”

  Gussie’s hands were clenched in fists, and he straightened his fingers and dried his palms on his trouser legs. Rye had left the door to the office wide open, but Gussie could hear nothing from without. He heard Rye’s breathing and the creaking of the man’s chair.

  “I’d donate you one—can set a boy apart, presentin proper to society. But a dock rat such as you wearin a fine tie like this—why, people might take it for a stage costume. They might take it you were spoofin your betters.”

  Rye smiled a moment. When the smile gave way, he appeared bone tired.

  “What you reckon you’ll put it toward, these new-got riches? Hope you don’t mind my askin. I know it’s not r
ightly my concern.”

  “First things first,” Gussie said. “I got to get it before I can spend it.”

  “Some ain’t got a mind for lofty schemin. For thinkin ahead. It’s the way of the world and can’t be different. Somethin comes natural to this one is a mighty struggle for this other. I did always think you got dealt your share of horse sense. That’s better than no sense at all.”

  “I ain’t turn up for advice, nor no bowtie.”

  Rye drew himself forward coolly, his elbows on the desktop. “Be a relief to me to hear you hadn’t worked up no ordained ambition for that money. That you don’t have your heart set on some special shiny play-bauble. That way you won’t get overly distraught.”

  Rye waited, his face expectant.

  “Distraught owin to what?” Gussie said.

  “Owin to the couple-three debits on the account in question. Debits you maybe ain’t apprised of.”

  The office had been growing closer since Gussie entered it. His head felt feverish. He was sweating under his shirt, the lamp radiating heat like a bonfire.

  “The furnishin of an oil heater and repairs to said heater, for instance.” Rye put a finger to his lips. “Human nature to forget all these expenses, but the ledger remembers. That special tea we had to send out for, calmed her lungs down, she swore. French shields ain’t free. Customer cigars—yes, she was months behind there. Launderin ticket, she liked that done every day—some do every two days, three. I don’t believe I’m breakin a headline your momma wasn’t one to turn a penny over and over.”

  Even the backs of Gussie’s hands felt hot now. His attention was fixed upon the bowtie on the desk, the repeating florets brilliant against the dark fabric they adorned. There was the shut window. There was the safe, which surely contained within its hollow a quantity of notes from which his mother’s due would constitute the thinnest cut.

  “Took to orderin brandy brung up this past winter. Feeble a winter as you get in these parts, she was forever catchin a chill.” Rye had no notation book out. He swung his eyes this side to that as he detailed the expenses, totting in his mind’s eye. “And lest we neglect the safe-keepin fee, hiked considerably, I admit, with the ongoin heightenin of hostilities, and payable upon withdrawal.”

  Blood was rushing through Gussie’s brain, pulsing in his fingers and ears. He should’ve known. He should’ve known this could go no other way. Rye—at once far off and right in Gussie’s face—was assuring him these sorts of setbacks were typical in the realm of free enterprise. He was counseling Gussie against hard feelings and grudges. “It ain’t your time to be settin terms, is all. You hadn’t sold a thing but your own sweat, and sweat is cheap. Me, I sold a whole lot of the dearest commodity on God’s earth and done it for a lot of years.”

  Rye stood up and dug in his trouser pocket, and Gussie was somehow on his feet as well. Rye was saying it wouldn’t do to send Gussie off with an empty hand. He reached a fist of loose coin out toward Gussie and then Gussie was holding the paltry offering, weightless in his two clammy palms.

  “I was you,” Rye said, “I’d judge myself fortunate Miss Ardelia’s willin to take me in. Claimants for helpless boys are hard to come by just lately.”

  “I maybe ain’t as helpless as you think,” Gussie said.

  “I didn’t have nobody take me in when I was your age. Nobody sweet as Miss Ardelia, that’s sure. Bastards like you and me don’t often have a carpet rolled out. Miss A, she’ll counsel you same as I have. Cool heads will prevail.”

  Though Gussie needed whatever meager capital he could get, needed it as much as anyone had ever needed it, he parted his hands and allowed Rye’s coins to fall onto the desktop, the first couple thunking down singly and then a plinking song of copper and silver that rang outsize in the low-ceilinged office. His mother had kept her savings with Rye because nowhere else was secure, banks unbacked against fraud and fluctuation and folding left and right, house robberies growing routine in the lesser sections of town. Gussie wished she would’ve entrusted it to him but knew why she hadn’t—because if something happened to it on his watch, he never would’ve forgiven himself. Something had happened to it anyway. And whether or not he ought, Gussie felt responsible.

  In the quiet after the ring of the coins, Gussie heard the men out front again. He let his hands to his sides. Rye did nothing. Just grinned. He said Gussie had a streak of rashness in him and that wasn’t cause to deride a boy. Told him he might come to something yet.

  “There them rascals are,” he said. He brought his hand up, clutching a brass match safe.

  “So, that’s the tale you’re tellin?” Gussie said.

  “Long and short,” said Rye. “Stout and skinny.” He had a match lit and the cigarette pinched in his lips and then the steamy office was filling with colorless smoke.

  “You and I are meant to be done here?” Gussie said.

  “I won’t take insult if you dispense with shakin hands. Won’t be the first time. Folks think it’s soft crabs runnin a notchhouse, but I’m here to tell you it ain’t. Was, everybody’d be doin it, now wouldn’t they? I can answer that—yes, they surely would.”

  Gussie managed to sidle around the chair, breathing shallowly the sour air. He made himself steady on his legs and again wiped his hands on his trousers, then strode with gathering determination to the doorway and, without looking back at Rye, wheeled swiftly out of the office and up the hall, hastening toward the yellow light of the barroom and past Fozzy and his drinkers, still hearing Rye’s assured chuckle when he was out of the building and still hearing it when he was well clear of the Night District, when he was back on the otherwise quiet streets that led to the home where he would no longer live.

  He managed to get the prunes into his belly, pushing them into his mouth mechanically with three fingers. The soda cake he stowed in his pack. He tapped the dottle from his pipe and packed that, too, along with matches and the remainder of his tobacco. He had made peace with his letter and put down his signature and sealed the envelope. It rested on the desk now, patiently awaiting its orders.

  Gussie sat down in the middle of the floor in his stocking feet, his mind a muddle. He thought of the careful-stepping white cat that had graced his mother’s service. He thought of Rye’s bowties and the new ladies from the Home for Wayward Girls. He tried to form a vision of his father, with Gussie’s own sharp features but bespectacled and wearing a groomed beard, poring over tremendous old volumes by lamplight, tepid tea at his elbow. Gussie looked at the candle flame across the room, still as if painted. His mother had told him never to steal so much as a button, but all the same to never brook so much as a button stolen from him. And Rye had looted them both. He’d looted the Dwyers good.

  Later, in the tranquil predawn, Gussie did not feel skittish. His hands and legs were ready to serve, his mind exhausted beyond all prudence. Gussie would not mislead himself. Whatever compensation he managed would certainly be missed, and reparation sought. So be it. It was a trouble for tomorrow. Numbered amongst his advantages, though, would be his early setting out and the fact that not a soul was privy to his destination. He felt not a grain of quibble as he shouldered his pack and picked the envelope up from the table. He extinguished the candle and slipped outside and eased the door silently back into the jamb, then followed a side road to the post hutch and slid his letter through the slot and listened to it flap to the floor inside. The moon was still bright above, lit underwise to resemble the bowl of a ladle. The lesser byway Gussie took was lined with stout, dusty palms that appeared made of stone. Gussie traversed the playlot of the Catholic grammar school, a path worn white in the weeds where the boys ran races, another spot trampled where they smoked after morning refreshment. A pang shot through Gussie that he would be unable to bid Miss Emily goodbye. He would have to send word of himself as soon as he was situated. Send word contradicting whatever Rye was sure to say, painting him the knave, the no-count thieving runaway.

  Gussie made water at the mouth of th
e back street, then strode down the center of it and stepped through the open gate at the hind of Rye’s property. He minced around a broken-down tumbrel, lowered his head for the thorn-decked branches of a Jerusalem tree. He scaled the back porch and let his pack down until it met the wood, then he held still, quiet a true minute, his ear perked for waking life inside. He stepped over and raised the already cracked window inch by inch until there was room enough to guide one leg through and lever his shoulders inside. He pulled the trailing leg in behind, then again stood motionless, again hearing not a whisper nor creaking hinge, before marking his first light steps through the rear foyer and into the parlor. The divans and club chairs, scattered about the room without apparent order, were only dim shadows. Gussie knew the room was bathed in rich color—the walls curtained and tables clothed, plush rugs on the floor, elegant tapestries—but all was dark now, the ladies retired to the upper stories with the evening’s last clients, Rye long departed for his rooms at the Fribley House. It was only the ladies with children who kept their own homes, and these numbered but Gussie’s mother and Miss Ardelia, whose daughter was grown, and another lady named Miss Cloyce who had lost her son in the early days of the fighting.

  Gussie picked his way across the parlor then stalked on the balls of his feet down the long hallway, running his fingertips lightly along the batten. The door to Rye’s office was closed. The safe inside likely held the bulk of Rye’s proceeds for the week, but Gussie knew Rye didn’t trust anyone else with the key, never had, and this was Gussie’s leg up: tonight’s receipts would be locked in the till until tomorrow, awaiting Rye’s late-morning arrival. Fozzy would be resting by now in cramped quarters behind the bar that had once been a kitchen of sorts.

  Gussie lengthened his stride to avoid the noisy plank and crept into the barroom. The air held the strangely sweet stink of hard-used men, of woodsmoke and whiskey and sweat. He heard the buzzing of a fly. The neighing of a horse from a few streets over. He passed down the length of the bar and soon heard Fozzy’s snoring, like paper lazily torn. Another sheet. Another. Rye’s ash dish still sat out, the moon so strong through the front windows that the stipples in the ivory were easily seen. Gussie rounded the bar’s front end and shuffled forward until Fozzy’s narrow chamber was in full view. The tender slumbered flat on his back, one arm flung over his chest as if in allegiance. Gussie couldn’t make out his expression, but he couldn’t imagine it different than the one he always wore, of forbearance and spite-edged superiority. The man took his rest on a leaf-stuffed mattress upon the floorboards, same as Gussie. Clutched what pride he could, same as Gussie.