The Autograph Hound Read online

  “This man’s very touchy, Mr. Derringer.”

  Mr. Derringer asks for Garcia. He has a pencil already sharpened. His pad’s right in front of him. On top of the paper it says BULLET BOB DERRINGER, and underneath, like an ad for a Broadway play, it says “The Banker Who Throws No Curves.”

  “Hello, Mr. Garcia … This is Bob Derringer of the New York Trust … I want some verification on Benny S. Walsh.”

  Mr. Derringer turns to me very surprised. “He says he has no comment.”

  “That’s because of the bombing …”

  “Mr. Benny S. Walsh’s right here beside me, Mr. Garcia …” Mr. Derringer holds the phone away from his ear. “What do you mean, ‘bombing’?”

  Mr. Derringer turns up a speaker by the telephone. We can both talk to Garcia and both listen to him. “It’s very important, Mr. Garcia. Could you check your files to make sure this is the right man?”

  “We no keep files,” says Garcia. “If we did, I never tell the Post.”

  “The Trust, Mr. Garcia. The New York Trust. This is Robert Derringer, senior officer in charge of loans. Mr. Walsh is here with me.”

  “Put Walsh on the phone.”

  “What about the bombing, Mr. Garcia. I want to know about the bombing?”

  “Tell Walsh that’s a bridge under the water.”

  “Sir, at New York Trust bombing’s a serious business. Mr. Walsh has applied for an On-the-Spot Moving Loan. He told us everything about himself. If there’s anything you can add …”

  “I no talk.”

  “You’ve got to talk for Walsh to get his moving loan.”

  “Don’t believe him. He no move. He ours. We need him at The Homestead.”

  “I can hear every word you’re saying, Mr. Garcia. You’ve howled wolf-wolf for the last time.”

  “Benny?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “Benny—you come home.”

  “I’m moving to Lutèce, where a busboy’s treated like a bus-boy.”

  “I no yell, Benny. I’m saying from the heart. There’s big problems in the kitchen, Benny. I don’t speak on the phone.”

  “I want one thing cleared up, Mr. Garcia. Does Benny S. Walsh have anything to do with your crisis at The Homestead? Yes or no.”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Mr. Garcia, you’re talking to an officer.”

  “Yes and no, sir!” Garcia squawks more Spanish through the speaker.

  “Mr. Garcia, we here habla three languages. Spanish was my major at college. So watch it.”

  “You don’t know how dirty he can talk, Mr. Derringer. That’s not school Spanish, that’s street Spanish. See why I want to move?”

  “Benny, please. I put you on station four. I make the last three days happy days. I pay big overtime.”

  “Can I eat with the kitchen staff?”

  “Si.”

  “Can I keep my autograph pad in my pocket?”

  “I look the other way.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Garcia. Did I understand you to say Benny S. Walsh has only three more days of employment?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Thank you for cooperating, Mr. Garcia. Goodbye.”

  Mr. Derringer hands me the application. “Read the fine print, Walsh.”

  “‘I represent, warrant, and affirm that all of the statements made by me in this application are true and correct and have been made by me to induce you to grant credit to me with knowledge that you will rely thereon.…’”

  “What do you think about that?”

  “I think it sounds good.”

  “It’s clear English?”

  “The clearest.”

  “He’s wasted Big D’s time. He sits here while Big D hustles a loophole in the bank bylaws. He lies like a rug. He’s out of a job in three days and he tells me three weeks.”

  “You said three weeks.”

  “With twenty-one days we could’ve parlayed it. Erlanger in our uptown branch probably got three While-You-Waits in the time I’ve been on the phone. Now Big D’s been insulted by a maître d’, and almost conned by a bomb-throwing busboy.”

  “I had nothing to do with it. The police know that. They checked with Johnny Carson.”

  “The typing pool’s going to be yokking it up for weeks. If this gets out, I’ll be eating alone in the Officer’s Dining Room. Big D. Steady fella. Hang loose.”

  “Mr. Derringer—it says outside ‘No wait. No red tape.’ We’ve been here twenty minutes. You’re a Trust officer, aren’t you? I trust you.”

  “I have my superiors to account to.”

  “I didn’t mean to fib. At least, I didn’t tell you about the quid pro quo.”

  “Mr. Walsh, I really must ask you to take your business elsewhere.”

  “But the New York Trust’s the friendliest and the best.”

  “And should be treated with more respect.”

  “Don’t I get my On-the-Spot? I answered all your questions. You’ve got me excited. Pay up!”

  “Guard,” says Mr. Derringer.

  The Post has two important stories on the front page, a picture of the astronauts in their capsule and a headline that makes me dizzy—TOM SEAVER LIFE THREAT. The Mets’ front office has received a note from a member of the Chicago Bleacher Bums.

  I’d have let you live if you’d kept your won-lost record below 15 games. You’re getting too good. You’ve gone too far. I’ll shoot you in the sixth inning when you start against the Cubs, Friday. The Cubs for first. The Cubs forever.

  DETERMINED FAN

  The spacemen are having trouble breathing near the moon. But it’s not easy down here, either.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeh!”

  The scream spins me around. My heart’s skipping. An old lady pushing her way along the building wall, standing on a subway grate. At first I want to slap her a good one with my Post. But I might rip the story.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeh!”

  “There’s nothing there, lady. Stop it!”

  I don’t want to see her. She’s got white hairs on her chin like Mom. Her stockings are rolled up to her knees. Her ankles are black with dirt.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeh!” Her fists tighten.

  “What did you do that for?”

  She smiles at me, like if I were shouting, not her.

  The Homestead stagecoach pulls up to the stoplight on 44th Street and Broadway. The horses are shiny with sweat, so is George Rumsey, the driver, who’s a dead ringer for Gabby Hayes and who used to break in horses on the back lot of MGM. Rumsey’s in street clothes—no bandanna, no boots, no hat with real bullet holes that kids can stick their fingers through. Usually, the horses are brought out after sundown to get the customers, who pay $40 or more, to the theater on time. The Homestead stagecoach is one of the sights of the city. It’s higher than your ordinary car and says THE HOMESTEAD across the luggage rack. The Homestead horses are authentic Western types, none of these phony English kind with their tails pointing in the air like pinkies.

  “You shouldn’t drive the stagecoach during the day, Rumsey. People are too busy to notice.”

  “Nine o’clock this mornin’ Garcia calls. He’s beggin’ for me to come down to the restaurant. The wife gets really pissed. ‘Reb,’ she says, ‘I may look good, I may give the impression of health, but I’m a very sick woman. I can’t take emergencies. Tell him to fuck off.’”

  “You shoulda heard me talk back to Garcia. He was on his hands and knees asking me to come back.”

  “I had a hard time hushin’ her up. The wife don’t like me ridin’ the streets of New York in an open carriage and cowboy suit. She thinks some crazy’ll mistake me for a plainclothesman and drill me.”

  “Garcia’s paying me overtime. It’s a grubstake.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Walsh. I ain’t afraid of rushing. The Rumseys rushed all over this fuckin’ country. Hightailed it to California in the Gold Rush around eighteen fifty-four. Back to Kansas in the Land Grab of ’sixty-two. That didn’t work out, either.
So Gramps up and came to Hollywood in the boom of ’nineteen. Things got tough for cowboys when they brought in those stunt men, so the family moved out to Colorado near the oil fields.”

  “I like staying in one place.”

  “You gotta pick up stakes to raise the stakes. Don’t this beat all? A grown man who’s rode with Andy Devine and Randolph Scott deliverin’ groceries and sendin’ ten-dollar telegrams to the Boss in Palm Beach. No time to even put on my outfit. ‘Guests and food must go through.’ You’d think Garcia was the Pony Express.”

  “Did you hear about my move? I’d like to stay at The Homestead, but I got an offer that’s too good to turn down.”

  “That’s the spirit, kid. Keep movin’. Don’t look back. The wife was talkin’ to her dead daddy at the spiritualist the night before last. The old man said to go back to the Tucson Trailer Park on account of her heart. ‘Molly,’ I says, when she sprung it on me, ‘you don’t have no heart problem.’ She looks at me all angry. ‘Dad means my asthma.’”

  “It’s not easy leaving The Homestead. I was there from the first. Sort of a pioneer.”

  “Shit, boy, who wasn’t? It’ll really raise your dander to see it today.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Garcia says not to quote him, but Chef’s flipped out.”

  “Did Garcia talk about me?”

  The light changes. Rumsey slaps the reins against the stagecoach seat. “Giddyap.”

  The Homestead looks like it’s being attacked. Most of the staff’s outside waving their hands at the restaurant from behind the gray and black barricades. They walk in circles like Garcia when he’s mad.

  I’ve dreamed of being many things, but not a protester. You don’t see quality on the hoof.

  The line’s a real melting pot. Waiters are marching with dishwashers who are marching with cook’s helpers who are being led by Jan the cashier at the bar. Their signs say THE HOMESTEAD IS UNFAIR TO EMPLOYEES. “Pass it by. Pass it by,” they yell. They don’t really mean it. The Homestead’s a brand name. When The Homestead does good, it rubs off on them.

  The policeman starts to ask me to leave the area. “He’s with us,” shouts Jan. She tosses a cardboard sign over my head and hands me a piece of paper with writing on it.

  “Welcome to the wildcat strike, Benny. Thanks to Desi, we’ve done it. Thanks to Desi, we’re organized. If they want rolled butter, let them pay for rolled butter! If they want to alienate labor, that costs extra!”

  Jan’s working her way through secretarial school. School’s where she gets her lefty ideas. She starts to sing “Solidarity Forever.”

  “What’s this paper about?”

  “It’s what we’re striking for, Benny. We’ve got a twelve-point program. I just touch-typed it up. There are four categories. You’re one of our nonnegotiable demands.”

  “I’m on that piece of paper?”

  “You’re number twelve.”

  “Who gave you permission to use my name?”

  “Desi.”

  The minute she mentions Zambrozzi, somebody hollers “Say it loud, say it proud.” The veins in Jan’s neck swell up. “Desi! Desi! Desi!” she screams.

  Zambrozzi’s a great chef. He shouldn’t allow his name to be used like this in public. It’s all right if it’s a food label like Fanny Farmer or Chef Boyardee, but this waters down his by-line.

  “Desi wrote the draft,” Jan says. “He’s a student of Gandhi.”

  “That guy was nonviolent. This is a stab in the back.”

  “We want you reinstated, Benny. Can you dig it? We’re prepared to go to the NLRB.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “We could have a decision in three months.”

  “That’s too long. I need money now.”

  “If we close the place down, there’s a strike fund. Forty-two fifty-five a week.”

  “The Homestead can’t close. We stayed open even after the assassinations as a tribute to America.”

  “We’ve got to get it together. Don’t you understand?” says Jan. “We’ve got to get it on.”

  I agree. The Homestead’s got to get on with business. Jan marches me around in the line and calls me “brother.” I don’t get it, she hasn’t said more than one hundred words to me in the last year. She must want one of the autographs from my collection—a gold digger of 1969.

  A cab pulls up to The Homestead. The marchers push against the street-side barricade. “Pass it by!” “Freeze ’em out!” “Keep going!” Jan starts making a speech about bringing The Homestead to its knees. David and Goliath and things like that.

  Inside the cab, I can see that it’s a lady. Short blond hair. Charm bracelet. She pays the cabbie and waits for her change.

  Who could miss the smile? The straight teeth? The cheeks? The red lips that always look wet? It’s Mary Martin—my world record for second acts. I snuck in twelve times to watch her in I Do, I Do. I couldn’t walk past the theater without getting the Martin itch. I had to have her smile and hear that Texas drawl. Just seeing her—one of the great, alltime money makers of the Broadway stage—makes you happy. It’s like thinking nice things before going to sleep, only you’re awake. She’s always sunny. Of course, it was no use trying to get her autograph then. People crowded in her dressing room until the late hours. Miss Martin’s a star from the old school—well-dressed, neat, proper, perky. That’s not the style these days. Jane Fonda, Mia Farrow, Vanessa Redgrave—they’re all kinky. They wear sandals and swear. They get political and pregnant. Of course, they’re still famous and fun to watch, but there’s something about the old-timers. They don’t pretend they don’t give a darn. They don’t slouch. All their colors match. What’s the sense of hiding you’re a star like Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford or Steve McQueen when you are one?

  Miss Martin looks beautiful stepping out of the car. She smiles and tries to pass by. Garofolo and Jan link arms. “Try another restaurant, lady!”

  “Get out of the way,” I shout. “Let her pass.” I push myself in front of them—a human shield.

  “Don’t do it, Benny!” says Garofolo. “United we stand.”

  “Jerk. That’s Mary Martin.”

  When they hear that, the protesters back away.

  Miss Martin’s grateful. As I get her to the door, she opens her purse and gives me a dollar.

  “I don’t want the money, Miss Martin. Just your signature.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Put ‘Benny.’”

  She laughs and draws beside her name. That’s Mary—bright as a daisy.

  “Tell me about your first Broadway smash in Leave It to Me. Gene Kelly in the chorus. A show-stopping song. Cole Porter said he loved writing for you and Ethel Merman best.”

  “Merman didn’t have my innocence.”

  “And there was a struggle, right? The hard but good times.”

  “I was a kid from Weatherford, Texas. I always had faith. When it finally happened, it was just the way it was supposed to be.”

  “Me, too. With The Homestead. I won’t let my autographs go to my head, either.”

  “Remember what I said in ‘Climb Every Mountain.’”

  “I know it by heart.”

  “It’s the climb that’s the thrill. The unattainable … I don’t know.”

  “People gave you a push up that mountain. A helping hand.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Speak to Mr. Garcia. Mention your South American ranch. Tell him I’m a good guy, that you want me to stay here. Tell him to cut the crap.”

  “Enrique!” Miss Martin says, turning toward the front door and holding out her hands for Garcia the way she did for Ezio Pinza.

  “Madame.” Garcia hurries to her and kisses her rings. When he clicks his heels, the spurs rattle. Some nerve.

  “This young man here nearly saved my life.”

  “Homestead hospitality, Mr. Garcia.”

  “Drinks are being served as usual, Miss Martin. I apologize for thi
s confusion.”

  “We live in troubled times, Enrique.” Miss Martin takes Garcia’s arm. I start to walk in behind them. Garcia’s looking at Miss Martin and smiling. Behind his back he motions for me to stay where I am.

  When he comes out, it’s not the usual “Mr. Ricardo Montalban” Garcia.

  The pickets are yelling—“Two, four, six, eight. Garcia’s second-rate.”

  “All day. This! Can you believe it?”

  “I wasn’t with them, Mr. Garcia.”

  “Then why you wear a sign?”

  “Don’t believe everything you read. I came as quick as I could. No hard feelings.”

  “Listen to them. The waiters, they call in sick. The hat-check girl, she slow down in sympathy. Zambrozzi only want to talk, no cook.”

  “The restaurant’s still running?”

  “Skeleton crew.”

  I take off my sign.

  “I don’t beat the bush around, Walsh. You know I hate your guts.” When Garcia talks quietly, everything makes sense. “They talkin’ a lot about you.”

  “I’m only number twelve. I feel so bad I could die.”

  “If I could only believe that …”

  Garcia puts his arm around me. The kind of man-to-man get-together that Joe and Weeb have, pacing up and down the sidelines.

  “I give you three-fifty an hour. That’s a big bankroll.”

  “Could you make it ten dollars an hour?”

  “The bartender, he don’t get ten dollars an hour.”

  “People can go without drinks, but who’s going to clear away their plates?”

  “You got me by the frijoles, Walsh. Seven-fifty. Three days only. Take it or let it go.”

  “Miss Martin put in a good word, didn’t she?”

  “We need manpower, Walsh. If Zambrozzi, he don’t get what he’s askin’, The Homestead’s gonna be hurting. He might leave. We’d lose our Michelin stars.”

  “I’ll work hard my last three days, Mr. Garcia.”

  “You better.”

  “The money’s great.”

  “A jackpot for a jackass.”

  The kitchen’s a ghost town. There’s nobody behind the pasta machine. The faces standing over the plate racks are all new. A few of the regular waiters are showing hired help how to lay a table Homestead style. Zambrozzi’s standing over the stove, stirring the soup himself. When he sees Garcia, he puts down the ladle and meets him by the chopping block. He waits for Garcia to speak.