The Mirror Thief(123)

What about your man? Claudio says. Your poet?

What about him?

Can your man help us get what we want? In a way that does not break any law?

Stanley thinks about that. Then he steps forward, pinches the elastic of Claudio’s shorts, and gives it a gentle snap. No dice, he says. From that guy, there’s something else I want.

Later, when Stanley’s new clothes are draped on the clothesline, when he’s watching the shallow curves of Claudio’s back sway beneath the pencils of light, he remembers something.

I changed my name again last night, he says.

Claudio makes a soft quizzical sound, his voice sleepy and thick.

I said I changed my name. It’s Stanley Glass now.

Why?

Stanley puts his nose between the boy’s smooth shoulder-blades and breathes in. It was time, he says.

Mmmm. I only will call you Stanley.

That’s fine. Oh, we need to steal a bucket, too.

A bucket?

Yeah, Stanley says, spitting on his fingertips. You know, a bucket. For fish.





43


The illuminated dial at the hardware store on Windward gives them the time: a little before nine o’clock. For an hour now it’s been raining hard, with no sign that it’ll stop. The sweep of headlights through the distant traffic circle makes it look like a dull carnival ride: the slow kind, for old people and little kids. From time to time a car rolls by, big drops streaking the air before it like scratches on a reel of dark celluloid.

Stanley and Claudio huddle under the colonnade between the Forty-Niner and Semper’s Men’s Wear, stepping to the wall whenever the wind gusts, watching water ripple over the laughing faces on the cast-iron columns. It’s about time Stanley stole himself a watch: he’s been telling time by daylight, but tonight’s sunset got snuffed by the incoming storm and put them out in the rain an hour too early. Claudio’s quiet, like he’s frosted about something. So long as they’re already soaked, Stanley figures, they might as well head over to Alex’s pad. Somebody’ll probably be around.

The boardwalk arcades keep them more or less dry till they’re halfway to Club House; after that, they scurry between canvas awnings and pinch their collars shut. As they make the turn they see three figures pass through the bright cone of a streetlamp, pails dangling from their fists, newspapers draped over their heads. The figures shout and pound at the door of Alex’s apartment, and after a moment they’re admitted.

Stanley hunches his shoulders, doubletimes down the sidewalk. Claudio’s right behind him; Stanley can hear raindrops ping off the tin bucket in the kid’s hand. Ahead, flecks of red and orange light escape the apartment’s blacked windows where the paint is chipped, then vanish when shadows pass over them. Soon Stanley and Claudio are close enough to hear laughter, voices.

A knock opens the door right away. A face appears: bespectacled and goateed, backlit and unintelligible. Not a face Stanley knows. Can I help you, man? it says.

Stanley wipes rainwater from his nostrils and lips. Alex around? he says.

Another shape steps into the doorframe, peeking over the goateed guy’s shoulder: Stuart, the bearded poet from the coffeehouse. He was among the three who just arrived: his shirt is soaked, translucent, and droplets glint in his black hair. Hey, he says, I recognize these two drowned rats.

Now Alex’s voice: Is that young Stanley already? he shouts. Don’t stand there in the bloody entrance, Tony. Let him in.

Swinging back, the door pushes aside stacks of buckets: they scrape against each other, against the concrete floor. Stanley shrugs off his dripping jacket; Claudio shakes rain from their upended pail and steps inside. I see you brought the items I requested, Alex says. But you’ve come a bit early, haven’t you?

Me and my buddy started Daylight Saving Time a month ahead, Stanley says. Trying to get a jump on the competition.

Alex and Stuart chuckle, and Stanley scans the hazy room. The orange-crates are all occupied; more young men sit Indian-style on the floor, skunky smoke rising from their cupped hands. A sharp-looking Negro is in the chair behind the typewriter; when his eyes meet Stanley’s, the guy gives him a cautious smile. From everybody else, suspicious stares: their gazes move from Stanley to Claudio to Alex and back again.

Fellas, Alex says, I’d like you to meet—if you have not yet met—Claudio and Stanley, two criminal toughs of my recent acquaintance with a burgeoning interest in art and poetry and other fine things. It falls to us, gentlemen, to see that these lads are not lost to the felonious abyss.

A voice from the corner: Maybe these two can save the rest of us from art and poetry, it says. Make us into honest crooks.

It’s Charlie. Stanley almost doesn’t recognize him: he looks sober, or nearly so. He’s giving them a tight smile and a narrow knowing glare, but it’s not convincing. It’s a look that says I had the goods on you, buddy, but then I forgot. Stanley plays it cool, laughs a little at Charlie’s joke. Nobody else does.

Clockwise from left, Alex says, meet Bob, Bruce, Milton, Saul, Maurice, Jimmy, Charlie, Stuart whom you know, and Tony, our doorman. Now take your friend’s jacket, Stanley, and come with me.

In the bedroom—sheets haphazard on the bare mattress, drooping indecipherable paintings tacked to the walls—Alex takes the jackets and hands Stanley a wad of bills. Count it, he says, and Stanley does: one-fifty. He nods, and Alex whisks him back to the main room.