Collected Fiction by Irwin Shaw

Author:Irwin Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504047203
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

Triumph of Justice

Mike Pilato purposefully threw open the door of Victor’s shack. Above him the sign that said, “Lunch, Truckmen Welcome,” shook a little, and the pale shadows its red bulbs threw in the twilight waved over the State Road.

“Victor,” Mike said, in Italian.

Victor was leaning on the counter, reading Walter Winchell in a spread-out newspaper. He smiled amiably. “Mike,” he said, “I am so glad to see you.”

Mike slammed the door. “Three hundred dollars, Victor,” he said, standing five feet tall, round and solid as a pumpkin against the door. “You owe me three hundred dollars, Victor, and I am here tonight to collect.”

Victor shrugged slightly and closed the paper on Walter Winchell.

“As I’ve been telling you for the past six months,” he said, “business is bad. Business is terrible. I work and I work and at the end …” He shrugged again. “Barely enough to feed myself.”

Mike’s cheeks, farmer-brown, and wrinkled deeply by wind and sun, grew dark with blood. “Victor, you are lying in my face,” he said slowly, his voice desperately even. “For six months, each time it comes time to collect the rent you tell me, ‘Business is bad.’ What do I say? I say ‘All right, Victor, don’t worry, I know how it is.’”

“Frankly, Mike,” Victor said sadly, “there has been no improvement this month.”

Mike’s face grew darker than ever. He pulled harshly at the ends of his iron-gray mustache, his great hands tense and swollen with anger, repressed but terrible. “For six months, Victor,” Mike said, “I believed you. Now I no longer believe you.”

“Mike,” Victor said reproachfully.

“My friends, my relatives,” Mike said, “they prove it to me. Your business is wonderful, ten cars an hour stop at your door; you sell cigarettes to every farmer between here and Chicago; on your slot machine alone …” Mike waved a short thick arm at the machine standing invitingly against a wall, its wheels stopped at two cherries and a lemon. Mike swallowed hard, stood breathing heavily, his deep chest rising and falling sharply against his sheepskin coat. “Three hundred dollars!” he shouted. “Six months at fifty dollars! I built this shack with my own hands for you, Victor. I didn’t know what kind of a man you were. You were an Italian, I trusted you! Three hundred dollars or get out tomorrow! Finish! That’s my last word.”

Victor smoothed his newspaper down delicately on the counter, his hands making a dry brushing sound in the empty lunchroom. “You misunderstand,” he said gently.

“I misunderstand nothing!” Mike yelled. “You are on my land in my shack and you owe me three hundred dollars …”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Victor said, looking coldly at Mike. “That is what you misunderstand. I have paid you every month, the first day of the month, fifty dollars.”

“Victor!” Mike whispered, his hands dropping to his sides. “Victor, what are you saying …?”

“I have paid the rent. Please do not bother me any more.” Calmly Victor turned his back on Mike and turned two handles on the coffee urn.

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