The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

Author:Nelson Algren [Nelson Algren]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781847676429
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2009-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

That was the last sad afternoon that the dealer and the steerer sat together to pretend things were as they once had been between them. While the troubled light first wavered, then slanted and darkened across the floor and right outside the ice creaked once, for the puddles were freezing over in alley and street again and Frankie himself felt half frozen. He always felt half frozen of late.

Sparrow leaned across the same table at which they’d begun the afternoon, trying to beguile Frankie away from his concern for a dead man’s bankroll.

‘Wolfin’ is just like dog stealin’, Frankie,’ he confided earnestly the minute they had returned to the Tug & Maul. ‘You find out where they live ’n wait till they’re on the loose in the back yard.’

‘I like a dame with them glasses with the string on,’ Frankie conceded reluctantly, ‘it’s dainty-like.’

‘You know the kind I like, Frankie? The Bette Davis kind – you know, with them real poppy eyes.’

‘What’s so hot about poppy eyes?’ Frankie felt irritable. ‘I know one with poppy eyes ’n a goiter too – you want a introduction to one with a goiter the size of this bottle?’

‘I don’t mind poppy-eye goiters, Frankie.’ Sparrow’s enthusiasm picked up a phony momentum. ‘I’d like a poppy-eye on that Lincoln Park yacht – it don’t even have to have no engine, just have it settin’ there to point out to the chicks we’re walkin’ through the park, accidental-like – ‘Oh, there’s our yacht, the crew must of brought her in from Belmont Harbor’ –’ n when they don’t believe it we walk ’em right on board.’

‘You take the one with the goiter,’ Frankie decided firmly, going up the gangplank without looking back.

‘Once they’re on board they got to stay all night,’ Sparrow revealed. So Frankie drifted with him, borne by Old Forester, out of the Lincoln Park lagoon onto shoreless waters while Sparrow gestured unobtrusively for two more beers. ‘We’ll drift right out into the lake,’ the punk murmured dreamily, his eyes half curtained by the small waves’ dreaming motion; for one moment, behind that curtain, his eyes surveyed Frankie with the hard cold gleam of understanding. Only to soften as the glasses were refilled. ‘Maybe we better stay in the lagoon,’ Frankie cautioned himself in a faraway voice, ‘account of havin’ no motor we might not get back to shore in time.’

‘In time for what, Frankie?’

‘In time for everythin’ – I don’t know – somethin’ might be goin’ on on land, events might be happenin’ ’n we’d be elsewhere.’

‘We could tell the chicks we’re offshore anyhow, Frankie.’

‘That’s right.’ Cause it’s dark ’n they got to take our word. I point to the lights along the drive ’n tell ’em: “Now we’re passin’ Michigan City.”’N when we pull past the pier I say, “Look, you – Duloot!” ’N all the while we’re driftin’ we’re savin’ oil ’cause it’s just the little waves lappin’, we’re only two blocks away from the zoo so’s we can always get back in time.

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