Place in the City Read Free

in another. Or you could love him in every single way there was, like she loved Peter. If he were not king, surely some day he would be president of the United States, and she thought she liked that idea better than any other. She knelt down in front of him, took his hand, and kissed it.
    â€œWaddayu doin’?”
    â€œI luvyu, Pede.” She considered for a while; then she decided: “I wanna marry yu.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    They must have fallen asleep. The pea soup burnt, and that woke Sasha. Peter’s crown was crumpled on the floor, and Peter sat with his head hanging forward. It was very late then. When Peter woke, he found Sasha still on the floor, sobbing over the burnt soup. Then they sat and waited for Peter’s mother. But they couldn’t remain awake, and when his mother came back, they were asleep again.
    She came into the kitchen, stood there looking at them, her face pasty-white, and her eyes staring. She was a large woman, large as a man and well-formed, large breasts and large thighs. Shutzey could get more for Mary White than for any toothpick-limbed blond.
    She moved over to the stove, then went back to the door; then she moved about the room aimlessly, wagging her head from side to side. She looked at her hands, first at the palms and then at the backs. Then she took off her ring, and looked at the inside, where it said, Mary Richard White. She put it back on again.
    Something drew her over to the soup pot, and she peered into it, screwing up her nose at the burnt odor. Then she went away. In all her movements there was no purpose, no sense. At last, she fell into a chair.
    â€œGeesus Christ,” she said.

B EFORE he reached the United States Senate, before Congress, even before the Assembly, Timy Dolan was a big man. He had the ward under his hand, under his finger, like a cockroach. If he wanted to, he could press down, and then the cockroach would spraddle out and die. Or he could watch the cockroach and smile at it. Timy wore a chesterfield and a black derby, and when he walked through the ward, where everyone knew him, you could see just by the way he walked that he was a big man. He had his finger in everything.
    He knew all the pimps personally, and they heeled him personally. Then vice wasn’t the organized racket it is now. But it was big enough just in the district to give Timy five or six hundred dollars a week. And when Timy wanted a woman he knew where to go.
    He came to Shutzey this day, when the regular club held its monthly stag over Kraus’ Saloon, just across and around the corner from Meyer’s cigar store.
    He went into Meyer’s with Shutzey, and picked himself a twenty-five cent cigar. “Have one,” he said to Shutzey, who was only a pimp and smoked no better than a tencent brand.
    â€œHullo, Timy, and how is it?” Meyer said; but he didn’t say anything to Shutzey, except to think that it was a dirty shame to waste a good brand on a bum. All his life, Meyer had been longing to say one thing to Shutzey, “Get out and stay out, you rotten bum!” But what was the use, when Shutzey was six feet and strong as an ox?
    Shutzey sprawled over the counter, bit his cigar. “How’s business, Meyer?” he smiled.
    â€œShould it be good when you make my place into a whorehouse?”
    â€œNow, Meyer,” Timy said gently, “there ain’t no whorehouses in my district.”
    â€œAll right, Timy. With you I ain’t got a grievance. But this one with his whores—is it a thing for my wife to see, for my daughters? When I got three daughters, should I have whores outside my door, day and night? Does he got to come to me? Ain’t there nobody else, that I got to go to the synagogue and I can’t look nobody in the face? Is it right?”
    â€œG’wan, Meyer, I bring yu all yer business,” Shutzey said, still smiling.
    â€œSuch business I don’t