4

Jerry Dingleman, known to many as the Boy Wonder since Mel West had done a complete column on him, was a man with many offices. His most impressive office was on the top floor of his gambling establishment on the other side of the river, but on Wednesday mornings he did business in a poky little office off the Tico-Tico dance floor. The Boy Wonder was only a St. Urbain Street boy to begin with, he remembered well his own early hardships, and he liked to lend a helping hand. Time was precious, however, and so he limited his consideration of favors to Wednesdays. Wednesday was known to his inner circle as Schnorrer’s Day and from ten to four the supplicants came and went. Third cousins once removed and just off the train from Winnipeg came. Chorines too old even for the streets tried him and crackpot inventors who claimed to have been at F.F.H.S. with him came at least once a month. Cops who wanted to borrow against the pay-off and side men too far hooked to ever play again were among the Schnorrer’s Day regulars. The collector from the Liberal Party and aged lushes with lice crawling over their faces sat in the same stiff-backed chair opposite the Wonder’s maplewood desk. When the Jewish General Hospital went out on a building campaign it sent a representative too.

The Boy Wonder was a God-fearing man and he didn’t smoke or drive his car or place bets on the Sabbath. His father had spent ten years in prison and his Uncle Joe had been shot down on the street during the bad days, but Jerry Dingleman had never been involved even indirectly in any bloodshed or spent a day behind bars. Not before the time of his personal trouble, anyway.

His legs were twisted and useless. At the age of twenty-eight the Boy Wonder had been struck by polio and when he got out of bed many months later he could walk only with the help of crutches. He never once spoke about his illness but there were lots of stories about it. Mel West had printed the one about the insurance policy. The Wonder, it seems, had carried a polio policy worth fifty thousand dollars and, according to West, when the doctors told him he would never walk again the Wonder had replied with a tough smile, “Yeah, but I beat Lloyd’s. I never lose a bet.” This led West to compare Dingleman with F.D.R. and the Boy Wonder barred him from his clubs for two years.

The story nobody ever mentioned to his face had to do with the girl. There were many versions. But about several facts there could be no question. Before his illness Jerry Dingleman had been engaged to Olive Brucker and two weeks afterwards she had sailed for Europe alone. There was some dispute about who had broken the engagement, but there was no argument over whether or not the two young people had been in love.

“You must never repeat this. Not a word of it,” was how Max always began the Wonder-Olive story, “but you should have seen the Wonder in those days. Handsome? Handsome. had a smile that melted the rubber bands in the girls’ panties left, right, and center. For good looks he could have wiped the floor with Clark Gable or any other star. You take your pick. And Olive? A knockout! If old man Brucker wasn’t so stinking with cash, if it wasn’t that she needed money like I need a headache, she could have raked in plenty as a model. When she walked down St. Catherine Street it was enough to stop the traffic… only the Wonder was always by her side and the guys stepped on the gas quick again, let me tell you. They were inseparable. Not only that but they looked so right together that complete strangers would take one look and smile, they felt so good inside.

“That son of a bitch Brucker should only live long enough to choke to death on razor blades. They say it was the Wonder who called it off because he didn’t want her stuck with a cripple. But that’s a dirty lie. The old scum-bag, may his stocks fall through the bottom of a graph tomorrow and his balls float in sulphuric acid the day after, he was the one. He packed her off to Europe before she could say Jack Robinson.”

Some other facts were beyond dispute too. Polio wrought immense physical changes in Jerry Dingleman. At thirty he was no longer a handsome man. His shoulders and chest developed enormously and his legs dwindled to thin bony sticks. He put on lots of weight. Everywhere he went the Boy Wonder huffed and puffed and had to wipe the sweat from the back of his rolled hairy neck with a handkerchief. The bony head suddenly seemed massive. The gray inquisitor’s eyes whether hidden behind dark glasses — an affectation he abhorred — or flashing under rimless ones unfailingly led people to look over his shoulder or down at the floor. His curly black hair had dried. The mouth began to turn down sharply at the corners. But the most noticeable and unexplained change was in the flesh of his face. After his illness it turned red and wet and shiny. His teeth, however, remained as white as ever and his smile was still unnervingly fresh.

The smile that somehow retained an aura of innocence made those who feared or disliked the Boy Wonder resent him all the more. A man, they said, after a certain age is responsible for his face, and following that they always brought up in a whisper the riddle of the Wonder’s sex life since his personal trouble. He was still capable. But some insisted he was now indefatigable and others said that he had picked up some dirty specialties. There was the question of the girls in and out of his apartment three-four at a time, a rumor of incredible films imported from Europe, books of photographs, and amazing statues. Nobody really knew. It was intriguing, that’s all.

But people did know what had happened to Olive — and it was a dirty shame. She had gone through three husbands; two she had divorced and one had committed suicide. All of them had been handsome and, they said, had looked a lot like the Wonder before his personal trouble. Olive darted to and fro between Montreal, New York, Paris, and the Riviera. She usually looked potted and there were some who said you don’t get like that on booze: it was something else. Olive never stayed in Montreal for more than three weeks at a time but each visit spawned a multitude of scandalous stories. Murray Gold swore that he had seen her come running out of the Wonder’s apartment building one wintry night with a bloody nose and no shoes. She was not allowed into the gambling house on the other side of the river or any of his restaurants or night spots. Olive, they said, had a head-shrinker in New York that cost fifty bucks a crack. The same people said that although he wouldn’t see her in Montreal the Wonder visited her in New York. It was Dingleman, they said, who got her out of Bellevue that time.

But little was known for certain about the Boy Wonder’s activities. Only a favored few, not counting the girls, ever actually got inside his apartment, and even on Schnorrer’s Day his visitors had to pass Mickey “The Mauler” Shub before they were allowed inside the poky little office.

Shub, another F.F.H.S. graduate, had in his prime been rated number one challenger for the welterweight crown in Ring Magazine. had fought lots of bouts in Madison Square Garden in the days before television when a fight there drew maybe twenty thousand fans. People in the know said that had he been handled right, if he hadn’t got mixed up with gamblers, Shub could have been world champion. He had the stuff. He also fought too long and his two comeback attempts were disastrous. The last time out Ike Williams had knocked him silly in three rounds. So naturally Shub came to see Jerry Dingleman. He said he wanted to cash in while he still had a name and open up a fancy tailor shop right in the downtown area. His father and his younger brother would do the cutting for him. The Boy Wonder backed him, but the tailor shop developed into more of a hangout than a business. Shub’s father, for instance, seldom got a chance to use the cutting table because it was generally in use for poker. The occasions when it was free he just had enough time to scrub it clean of smoked meat fat and pickle juice before another game got started or some friend in a hurry came in with a girl and the old man was sent on a long message. After the tailor shop failed, Dingleman hired Shub to be his chauffeur and all-round personal assistant.

Shub was a pale, shuffle-shouldered man with little puzzled eyes and a huge spread of shapeless nose. From time to time he was fuzzy in the head and had to stay home. There were some guys who liked to suddenly bang a fist on the table when Shub wasn’t looking. This unfailingly made Shub leap to his feet, assuming his famous stance, and the guys would look at each other and laugh. Bang, bang, bang, the fist would come crashing down again. Then, while they still had him on the go, some guy was sure to shout in his ear, “Ike Williams!”

“Yeah, how long did you last against Williams?”

“… Fifteen rounds…”

“Three, you bastard. Three.”

But nobody ever got funny with him when the Boy Wonder was around and there were times when Shub got his own back too. “On Schnorrer’s Day,” Murray Gold once said, “Dingleman sits like God in that office and this one, a regular St. Peter, stands outside with the keys.” When one of his tormentors showed up for a loan Shub always kept him waiting.

Shub, however, had no grudge against Duddy and he did not keep him waiting. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Kravitz.”

Duddy sat down beside an embarrassed man with a briefcase on his lap and watched as Shub slipped inside the office.

“The Kravitz boy is here,” Shub said.

“Who?”

“Don’t you remember, Mr. Dingleman? The taxi driver’s kid. He was here to ask you about him a few days ago.”

“Oh, I remember. Listen, take him to see Charlie. Say I said he should start him as a busboy and see how he does. Will you send Kennedy in, please?”

Shub told Mr. Kennedy to step inside and turned to Duddy. “You’ve made it, kid. We’re going to take you on as a busboy right here at the Tico-Tico. Isn’t that something?”

“There must be some mistake. Did you tell him it was Kravitz? Duddy Kravitz.”

“Look, you’ve got to start somewhere. If you’re O.K. Charlie’ll be giving you some tables of your own in no time. C’mon.”

“Isn’t Mr. Dingleman even going to see me?”

“He’s a very busy man, you know.”

“But I’m no waiter. Didn’t you tell him that I was Max Kravitz’s boy?”

“Sure I did. Let’s go, kid. Come on.”

Duddy turned pale. “I’m not moving,” he said. “I’m staying right here until he comes out.”

The office door opened and Mr. Kennedy stepped out. He looked shaken. “By this afternoon,” Dingleman shouted after him.

“I’ll try my best, Jerry. That’s all I can do.”

Duddy slipped past Shub into the office. “I’m Max’s boy,” he began. “Duddy Kravitz. There must be some mistake. I —”

“What’s this?”

Shub grabbed Duddy quickly from behind. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dingleman.”

“I’m no shnook,” Duddy shouted. “I don’t need your help to become a lousy waiter.”

“Let him go.”

Duddy rubbed his shoulder where Shub had held him.

“Are you in the habit of barging into other people’s offices, sonny?”

“My father said we had an appointment.” Duddy whipped out his newspaper clippings. “I’d like you to look at these, please, sir.”

Dingleman grimaced.

“We can help each other,” Duddy said.

He laughed. “Another time, sonny.”

The phone rang. “Get it, Mickey. If it’s New York I’m here.”

“Won’t you even look at them? One’s from Mel West’s column.”

“Are you still here?”

“It’s New York, Mr. Dingleman.”

Dingleman wiped his face with a handkerchief and held the receiver to his breast. “I’ll see you next Wednesday, sonny.”

“Oh, sonny yourself, you big fat lump of —”

Shub gripped Duddy’s collar with one hand and the seat of his pants with the other and lifted him out of the office.

“He’s still got my clippings,” Duddy said.

“Are you looking for real trouble?”

Duddy picked up his coat and ran to the door. “Tell him he can go and kiss my ass,” he shouted on the run.

Shub started after him.

“Mickey! Mickey!”

“I’m coming. I’m here.”

Dingleman wiped his neck and spit into his handkerchief. “Where’s that boy gone to?”

“He beat it.”

“Get the car. I want to see him right away. Wait. Tell Shirley to book two sleepers on tonight’s train to New York. Tell her to phone Kennedy’s office and remind him that I said this