FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK, AIDAN SAT AT THE COUNTER AT ROSEN’S from half past one to two o’clock. Each day, he periodically scanned the entrance for any sign of Charles, but so far he’d had all his egg creams alone.
Three days in, as the soda jerk delivered his drink and Aidan dug into his pocket for a coin, he heard a voice in his ear: “Put your money away, Sullivan, it ain’t no good here.”
“Hey!” said Aidan with a start. “How did you get in here?”
“I believe the door is the usual way,” Charles said with a grin. He sat down on the stool next to Aidan. “Cherry phosphate,” he told the jerk. He swiveled toward Aidan. “This your regular haunt?”
“These days. Lotta places they give you a hard time if they think you should be in school, but here they leave you alone. Truant officer don’t come in much, neither.” Aidan took a sip of his egg cream as the jerk set Charles’s drink down on the counter. Charles took a roll of ones from his pocket and peeled one off the top, perhaps a bit closer to Aidan than was absolutely necessary.
“Can ya break a one?” Charles grinned as he handed the bill to the jerk, who rolled his eyes and headed off to the register.
“Okay,” said Aidan, “so you’re flush. Who’s missin’ their billfold today?”
“Hey, keep it down,” Charles said as he looked around, but he was obviously pleased that Aidan had noticed. “Had a little piece of good fortune last night. New ship came into dock full of sailors lookin’ for all the pleasures of the mainland, and I’d say they found ’em. ’Course, most is so desperate, being cooped up in a floatin’ tin can for so long, that they don’t exactly know when to stop, which works in my favor.”
“So you’re a lifter, like Willy?” asked Aidan in a low tone of voice.
“Well, in a sense, yeah.”
“In what sense aren’t ya?”
“Well,” admitted Charles, “I believe Willy’s marks are usually awake, if I ain’t mistaken.” He scooped up the coins that the jerk slapped on the counter and pocketed them.
“So you roll drunks,” said Aidan, almost at a whisper now.
“I prefer to think of it as educatin’ the intoxicated, but yeah,” Charles said quietly.
Aidan thought this over as he pulled his egg cream through his straw. “So yours is really nighttime work. I mean, you can’t be doing this in the mornin’, ’cause most people ain’t on a drunk at that time of day.”
“Even more than that, it’s gotta be dark.”
“So wintertime it gets dark earlier, more hours to work in,” postulated Aidan.
“Yeah, but when it’s cold, not so many people end up takin’ a whiskey nap in an alley,” countered Charles.
“And Friday, Saturday must be your best nights.”
“That,” Charles agreed, “is surely true, and it don’t matter the weather.”
They both sat sipping their fountain sodas, thinking about the bounty that the city delivered in the form of inebriated citizens.
After a time, Charles said, “Why the hell do they call it an egg cream? There ain’t no egg in it.”
“Dunno. No cream, neither. But it’s pretty good for a nickel,” said Aidan as he finished his. “I better go find Willy. He’ll want to make sure we get in a good afternoon of work before the rain sets in. Nobody wants a shoeshine in the rain, as he is ever so fond of telling me.” Aidan smiled and slid off his stool.
The two boys walked out the door onto the sidewalk. “See ya ’round, Sullivan,” said Charles, and he walked up the street toward the Common. Aidan walked down toward Washington Street. They had made no plans to meet again.
Most every weekday after that, they were both at Rosen’s at half past one. Aidan always had an egg cream, but Charles picked something different each time from the large selection of drinks one could get for five cents. A couple of times, Aidan offered to pay for both, but Charles rebuffed him with a scowl. “Ain’t so poor that I can’t buy me a nickel drink,” he muttered, sliding his own coin across the marble counter.
One day, after they gave their order, Charles said, “So how long you think Willy’s gonna run this bootblack game?”
“Dunno. Haven’t thought about it. It’s workin’ out pretty good, at least for Willy.”
“How many times have the police figured out what you two are doin’?”
“Well, a couple times a copper chased Willy, but he’s fast. Ain’t seen no one yet who could catch him.”
After a beat, Charles said, “Sully, I hate to tell you this, but I think your good thing might be closin’ down soon.”
Aidan looked at Charles with alarm. “What? Why? Why would he shut it down now, when we’re makin’ good coin?”
“Don’t you see? This town ain’t that big. Once he’s called out a couple times on a scam, word gets around. Soon the police is gonna be watchin’ every bootblack on the street, lookin’ for the lifter to move in. Willy only runs a game for so long, then he shuts it down before he gets pinched.”
“Well,” said Aidan after a moment, “He’ll just think of some-thin’ else for us.”
“But it ain’t a lock that you fit the part. What if his next scam needs a littler feller than you? Or some lame feller?”
“Or what if he just gets tired of me?” said Aidan, almost to himself.
“I’m just sayin’,” said Charles, “Good to keep your eyes peeled for another situation.” He finished his ginger beer and pushed his glass away. He looked up at the clock behind the counter. “Hey, it’s almost two. You don’t wanna be late for the Windbag. See ya ’round.” He made for the door.
“Hey, I’m comin’.” Aidan met him out on the sidewalk. They fell in step together. After a block, Aidan mumbled, “So I was thinkin’, maybe me and you could team up to make some coin.” He looked down at the gutter trash nonchalantly.
Charles looked skyward. He had thought it might come to this. What was the best way to let him down easy?
The truth was that over the last couple of weeks, Aidan had grown on him. Charles didn’t usually talk much with other people. He sometimes exchanged information with other boys living on the streets, but he wouldn’t trust them farther than he could throw them. A couple of months ago, Charles had emptied the pockets of an unconscious man and found not only cash but also, incredibly, a pocketknife with the initials “C.W.” embossed on it. The chances of lifting anything that happened to have his own initials on it seemed so fantastical to Charles that he’d felt an urge to tell someone, to show them to prove that he was not crazy, not seeing things. But he’d had no one to tell. He ended up walking down to the waterfront seeking Bess, but he could not find her among the other whores walking the streets, and when he arrived in front of her building, he suddenly felt stupid and hurried away.
But Aidan was someone he could have shown the knife to. Aidan didn’t expect anything from him, didn’t have any information that Charles didn’t already have, didn’t seem like he would take anything Charles had left unguarded. Charles had stopped trying to figure out what Aidan’s angle was and accepted that he didn’t have one.
Unfortunately, taking him on as a partner was out of the question. Not because Aidan was green—he was, but he wasn’t a dunce, and he could be trained. And not because he was Irish, which was becoming easier and easier to forget. It was because every day of Charles’s life since his mother died was a lesson in how you shouldn’t trust anyone. Anyone.
“Listen, Sully,” Charles started as they turned onto Washington Street, “You ain’t half bad and all, but I work alone.”
“Why?” asked Aidan.
“Because when you depend on other people to save your bacon, sometimes they don’t. Plus, if they screw up, they could bring you down with ’em.”
“But they could save you, too. They could pull you outta your own screwup. I mean, it’s possible, right?” Aidan looked over at Charles.
Charles flicked the brim of Aidan’s cap, nearly causing it to fall off his head. “Rosen’s, half one tomorrow,” Charles said with a little smile, and with a quick about-face, he disappeared into the crowd.
In the end, Willy didn’t have a chance to shut down the bootblack scam, because before he could, he was arrested. A few days after Aidan’s partnership discussion with Charles, Willy had just lifted the fat wallet of a mark when the man suddenly spun around, knowing that he had been robbed. As he spun, he grabbed the first thing behind him, which was Willy’s forearm. It happened so fast that neither the man nor Willy could believe that one had apprehended the other. As the shouting began and a police officer ran to the site of the commotion, Aidan stood frozen in fear, his hand still holding his brush in midair. A heated conversation ensued, during which Willy insisted that Aidan was his partner, but for whatever reason, the policeman didn’t want to hear it.
Once Willy was hauled away, Aidan’s knees began to shake, and he sat down on the pavement with his back against a building. In a few minutes, he felt a bit better. He realized that although he would not get paid for today’s work, at least he’d inherited Willy’s bootblack kit, which would allow him to earn legitimate money. But contemplating the wages he could expect to earn shining shoes, he felt deflated. And then he thought about Charles.