The Pawnbroker. Edward Lewis Wallant
released him and run away. Now, when he was “restless” (his own word for those strange, dizzying moods), he sometimes went to the Catholic church where his mother was a parishioner, to kneel without prayer before the crucifix and indulge an odd daydream. He would imagine the bearded figure was the father he had never seen, and, kneeling there, he would smile cruelly at the thought of his imagined father’s riven flesh. And yet, strangely, at those times he would feel the anguish of love, too, and his body would seem to contain a terrible, racking struggle. So that when he got up to leave the church, he would be exhausted and listless, and it would appear to him that he had banished the “restlessness.”
Several months before, he had seized on the idea of “business.” He had visualized solidity and immense strength in it and had even, in his wilder moments, begun to daydream a mercantile dynasty, some great store with his name emblazoned in gold on its sign. And so he had answered Sol’s ad for a “bright, willing-to-learn young man to assist in pawnshop. Opportunity to learn the business.” Once there, in the presence of the big, inscrutable Jew, he had become even more obsessed with the magic potential of “business,” for there had seemed to be some great mystery about the Pawnbroker, some secret which, if he could learn it, would enrich Jesus Ortiz immeasurably.
“Meanwhile, I see you still standing there,” Sol said. “You who are going to work so hard.”
But Ortiz wasn’t listening; he was staring raptly at the papers spread out before the Pawnbroker.
“You pay all your bills by check, do you?” he asked. “I mean that’s the most businesslike way, ain’t it? What do you do, just fill out how much and to who on that little stub like and then . . .”
Sol exhaled a deep breath of exasperation.
“Well Christ, man, I s’pose to be learnin’ the business, too, ain’t I? You ain’t done much learnin’ of me, far as I could see.”
“All right, all right, tomorrow, remind me tomorrow. When it gets quiet, late tomorrow afternoon, maybe we’ll go over a few things,” Sol said dully.
“Okay,” Ortiz said, flashing that sudden, almost shockingly irrelevant smile that sometimes affected Sol like a quick painful scratch against his skin. “I gonna rearrange them suits upstairs efficient! I been thinkin’ to break ’em down into type of suit an’ by price. They’s a shitload of summer suits. . . . You waste a good hour just gettin’ to the type suit somebody wants. I got me a bunch of cards an’ I’m gonna label . . .”
“You have a lot of plans. So how come you are still standing with your nose in what I’m doing?”
Ortiz dazed him with the peculiar beauty of his smile again. There was something dangerous and wild on his smooth face, a look of guile and unpredictable curiosity; and yet, oddly, there was an unnerving quality of volatile innocence there, too. He seemed to have some . . . what—a cleanness of spirit? Oh sure, the boy had sold marijuana, according to old John Rider, the janitor, and had probably stolen and pandered and God knew what else. And yet . . . somehow Sol had the vague feeling that there were certain horrors this boy would not commit. In Sol Nazerman’s eyes, this was a great deal; there were very few people to whom he attributed even that limitation of evil.
“Go already with your big plans, with your labeling!”
“You right, Sol, no question, you got my number. Take me time to get me a start on. But here I go, watch me move, I’m atom-power, shh-ht.” And with that he was around the corner and on the steps leading up to the loft, moving with the amazing litheness that so startled Sol. For a moment, as he heard the footsteps ascending and then on the floor over his head, he stared at the last point at which he had seen the boy, his eyes faintly bemused, his face seemingly caught on a shelf of ease. Briefly, he tried to recall the distant sensation of youth. With his head tilted a little, his expression became vapid, loose, and vulnerable looking. All the clocks ticked or buzzed an anonymous time. But then he suddenly wiped at his face as though at some unseen perspiration. A jagged darkness closed around his casting back, and he began frowning over the bills again.
There were only a few business bills; most of them were the personal expenses incurred by his sister’s family. Here was a staggering telephone bill, an electric bill twice the size of the store’s, and a bill for a new rug bought by Bertha. There were, in addition, several clothing bills incurred by his niece, Joan, a dermatologist’s bill and an internist’s bill for Selig, and a bill from the art school his nephew, Morton, attended. His lips hardened as he began making out the checks.
He heard a heavy jingling and looked up to see Leventhal, the policeman, standing and rocking on the balls of his feet.
“What d’ya say, Solly? How’s business?”
“You could be my first customer of the day. You want to hock the badge, or maybe the gun?”
“Can’t do that, Solly; need them to protect you.”
“Oh yes, to protect me,” Sol said sarcastically. Leventhal had been making it increasingly evident that he imagined Sol had something to hide, that he, Leventhal, might be in a position to expect some kind of favors from Sol.
“Speaking of protection, what the hell time were you here till last night?” Leventhal asked, with an expression of affectionate admonishment on his tough, blue-jawed face.
“Why do you ask?”
“Why! I’ll tell you why. Because you’re asking for trouble staying open so late in this neighborhood, all by yourself. All the other Uncles close up at six o’clock. What are you trying to do, get rich fast or what? Maybe you think you’re like a doctor, hah? Gotta be on call in case some nigger suddenly runs out of booze money or needs dough for a quick fix. I mean you got to wise up, Solly. You get some kind of trouble here and pretty soon the department starts poking their nose in your business and . . .” He shrugged suggestively.
“I appreciate your concern. I know what I am doing. Just do not trouble yourself worrying about me,” Sol said coldly, lowering his attention pointedly to the checks again.
“Aw now, don’t take that attitude. That’s my business to worry about you. Where would you be without law and order?”
“Oh yes, law and order.”
“I mean you ought to be more co-operative, Solly. Take my advice in the spirit it’s given. Look, we’re landsmen, got to stick together against all these crooked goys,” Leventhal said with a loose smile.
“Is that a fact?” He stared at the policeman with an icy, inscrutable expression. “Well thank you then. Now if you will excuse me, I have work to do.” A landsman indeed! And where was the heritage of a Jew in a black uniform, carrying a club and a revolver? Sol had no friends, but his enemies were clearly marked for him.
“Okay, Solly, we’ll leave it at that . . . for now.” Leventhal shrugged, looked slowly around with the pompous, constabulary warning, and walked slowly, insolently out, trailing a toneless whistle behind him.
And then, at ten o’clock, the traffic began.
A white man in his early twenties walked stiffly up to the grille. He had wild soft hair that rose up and was in constant motion from the tiniest drafts and crosscurrents of air, so that, with his drowned-looking face, he seemed to float under water. His clothing was threadbare but showed the conservative taste of some sensible, middle-class shopper. He held a paper bag before him under crossed arms, and he stared with cautious intensity at the Pawnbroker before even entrusting his burden to the edge of the counter.
“How much will you give me?” he asked in a low, breathless voice.
“For what?” Sol twisted his mouth impatiently.
“For this,” the man answered, his black eyes gleaming above the big blade of nose. There was something histrionic and a little mad in his manner, and he clutched at the bag as though against Sol’s attempt to steal it.
“This, this . . . what in hell is this? All I am able to see is a paper bag. What are