THE CAR GLEAMED, without a speck of dirt or mud. I peered through the driver’s window. The dashboard was mahogany. Papa wouldn’t believe it. It must have weighed a ton and cost a fortune. The speedometer went up to eighty miles an hour. I wondered what it would feel like to go that fast. There was an altimeter, so if you drove up a mountain you’d know how high you were. The gauges were edged in silver. It had an automatic starter—all the classy cars did.
There was more mahogany around the windows, and a mahogany rail to hang on to, and a—
I heard footsteps and men’s voices. I crouched behind the car. Somebody wailed. No, not somebody—some thing. It was the strangest sound I ever heard. It seemed to be laughing.
I peeked over the hood. A colored man playing a trumpet—a laughing trumpet—was walking backwards around the corner at the far end of the block. Another colored man was following him, clapping out a beat.
The door of the building on the corner opened, the same building the couple had gone into. A colored lady came out and hollered, “Hush, Martin, you’ll wake the neighbors.”
The trumpeter stopped playing and hollered back, “Your neighbors are fools to sleep when they could be stepping.”
The other man yelled, “I told him to be still. I shouted ‘Be still’ at least three times, but no matter how loud I hollered, he wouldn’t pay me any mind.”
The three of them laughed. The men went to the woman and each of them kissed her on the cheek. Then they went inside. I stood up. This sure was different from my old neighborhood.
I looked up at the building, which was seven stories tall, made of cream-colored brick. A stone pedestal sat on either side of the door, and on top of each pedestal, dark green ivy grew out of a big stone urn.
On the third floor the lights were on. I saw shapes against the half-open windows—a woman with her arms raised, a man smoking a long cigarette, two people talking.
A piece of paper wafted out of one of the windows. As it drifted down, I saw that it was a dollar. I grabbed it before it touched the ground. Then I ran back to the park and hid. Somebody was going to come after the dollar.
But nobody came out. Upstairs, a trumpet now blared along with the tinkling piano. My stomach growled. They were a bunch of rich people if they didn’t care about a dollar.
I tucked the money into the toe of my slipper and crossed the street again. I stood looking up at the building. Maybe they’d toss more money out. I wondered if there was any food in there. Meatballs. My mouth watered. Chicken. Lamb—
“So, nu? Are you going to return the money?” The voice came from behind me.
I ran.
“Get him,” the voice said.
There were two of them! Or more.
Wings beat at me. A bird! It kept crashing into my face. I put my arm up to knock it away. It squawked, “Gozlin! Holdupnik!”
Somebody grabbed my arm. “So you’re a thief and—”
“Make your bird—”
“Enough already, Bandit,” the human voice said. “I got him.”
The bird stopped batting at me.
“I don’t have any money.” I turned to see who held me.
An old white man with a long gray beard. I squirmed, but he was strong. I couldn’t get away. The bird, a big gray parrot, perched on his shoulder and squawked, “Tell for you your fortune?”
“Not yet, Bandit,” the old man said.
“I don’t have any money,” I repeated. My stomach rumbled loudly.
“You think I’m stupid? It’s in your slipper. Should I look?” He started to bend while still holding me.
“No. Don’t look.”
He straightened up. “All right, I won’t. We’ll just go inside and you’ll give it back.”
If I gave back this dollar, maybe I could stay awhile and pick up a few more. But how could I go inside dressed the way I was? “In pajamas?” I said.
He stood back and looked me over.
The parrot squawked again, “Tell for you your fortune?”
He let go of me and unknotted his tie, which had orange polka dots on a bright green background. He tied it around my neck. “Now you could go anywhere. And I look better too. The tie was pretentious.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. His black suit sagged all over, and his beard could have belonged to Rip Van Winkle. His face sagged too, with bags under his eyes and drooping wrinkled skin on his cheeks. Tie or no tie, he was shabby.
“So, boychik, what’s your name? I should know my own grandson’s name.”
Why would he pretend I was his grandson? I didn’t answer. My stomach growled again.
“You’re hungry, boychik? There’s plenty of food upstairs.”
The parrot squawked, “Boychik.”
“Dave Rubino,” I said, borrowing our old boarders’ last name. I wanted this adventure to keep going. It was like a dream—a parrot in my face, a Peerless, pajamas and a tie.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Solomon Gruber. Solly the gonif.” He held out his hand for me to shake.
We shook. I wondered what a gonif was. I knew it was a Yiddish word. You couldn’t live in my neighborhood and not recognize Yiddish. I knew a few words. I knew what a boychik was—a little boy. But we were Sephardic Jews. We didn’t come from the places where people spoke Yiddish, like Russia and Germany. Papa spoke Spanish and Turkish and English and Ladino, which is a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew. I only spoke English.
We went up three stone steps to get into the building. “Hey, Solly,” the elevator man called as we came through the door.
“Shalom, your honor,” Solly said. “Who’s on the piano?”
“Jake.”
“Good.”
We stepped into the elevator. There was a flowered carpet, and the walls were red. The elevator man closed the brass gate. We rose, and I watched the second floor go by.
The parrot squawked, “In the cards. In the cards.”
The elevator man got out with us on the third floor. The music was louder here. The hall was filled with furniture—a dresser, a bed, a table, a couch, even a huge cactus. We had to pick our way around everything to get to the door of the apartment the noise was coming from.
“Who’s the boy, Solly?” A colored lady sat at a table outside the apartment. On the table was a glass bowl half filled with change. Twenty dollars or more. A fortune.
“My grandson. Dave Rubino, meet Mary Lou Barnes. Dave has the power, just like me. Not like his parents, the alrightniks.”
Alrightniks? Power?
She smiled. “Pleased to meet you. Pretty tie.”
“Thank you, Miss Barnes.” I blushed, feeling silly in pajamas and a tie.
“Ante up, Solly.”
“Ante up,” the parrot squawked.
He took a quarter out of his pocket and dropped it in the bowl.
“Your grandson, Solly.”
“He’s only six.”
“If he’s six, then I’m a mackerel. Pay up. It’s a good crowd. You’ll make plenty tonight.”
That meant he worked here. I didn’t understand.
“Okay, okay. I’m paying.” He put more money in the bowl. “And here’s a nickel for the boychik’s dinner. He’s hungry.”
Wait. What about me giving back the dollar?
“Come,” Solly said. “Show them you have the power.”