As Time Goes By by Michael Walsh Page B

her ankle to the precise angle of the curve of her calf, to the length of her thigh, and so on right up to the top of her head. Before he even got there, he knew he hiked what he saw.
    The girl, who appeared to be about eighteen, kept her hands folded in her lap, as she was probably taught by her mother, and her eyes on the floor, as no doubt she had already learned from experience. No matter how well brought up, however, any woman could suc cumb to the heat when it was hot enough or when she wanted to. Rick was hardly surprised when the young lady suddenly slumped to the floor with the daintiest of sighs: a puff of breath, and then she keeled over like one of the tugboats in the harbor that had just been holed below the waterline by a rock.
    Rick's stop was coming right up, but he forgot all about it as he leaped to her assistance. The el rattled past another ten blocks or so of third-floor windows before she opened her eyes, which were the purest blue Rick Baline had ever seen. Slowly he helped her to her feet, but she was still a little woozy from the inhalation of so much of Manhattan's dubious air, so he sat her down again, this time beside him. "Are you okay, miss?" he asked.
    For a long moment she didn't answer. Then she turned her head to the right and looked him in the face. "Thanks, mister," she said. "That sure was swell of you, helpin' me up like that."
    She had a shy, almost apologetic little smile that seemed out of place on such a gorgeous face. He was trying to think of something to say when she grasped him by the arm and tugged hard.
    "We've missed it! We've missed it!" she said with agitation.
    "Missed what?" asked Rick.
    "My stop," she said. "It was for my father." As if that explained everything.
    "What is?" said Rick, mystified, not for the first time, by the female mind.
    "The gefilte fish," she said. "At Ruby's." She smiled. "It's the best."
    Here he had thought she was an Irish girl from Mor risania. "Don't worry," he said soothingly. "We'll go right back. The conductor's a personal friend of mine."
    That made her laugh. "My name's Lois," she said, extending her hand.
    "Mine's Yitzik," he said, "but my friends call me Rick." He gave her what he thought might be a flirta tious wink. "You can call me Rick."
    "That's swell," said Lois. "Only my father says I'm not allowed to have boyfriends until he says so."
    They got off at the next stop and walked back to Ruby's. "What do you do, Rick?" asked Lois.
    "This and that," he replied evasively.
    "Oh, unemployed, huh?" said Lois, and his heart fell. He didn't want her to think he was the bum he thought he was. "Nothing wrong with that. Lots of fel las are. Maybe you ought to come home with me and meet Daddy. He gives away jobs like they was candy."
    "Yeah, sure," said Rick. In his mind's eye he envi sioned a wild-haired Einstein, like the teachers at City College, or a sweatshop drudge with a bullwhip and a chip on his shoulder. "What's his name?"
    "Solomon Horowitz," she said. "Ever heard of him?"
    Rick stopped talking, and men he stopped walking. Heard of him? Solomon Horowitz, the Mad Russian. Solomon Horowitz, the rackets king of upper Manhat tan and the Bronx. From the uptown numbers games in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood to loan- sharking in Riverdale, from arson-for-hire in East Tremont, right down to a couple of neighborhood crap games in Marble Hill, Solly had the territory covered. Heard of him? Hell, Rick wanted to be him someday.
    Lois brought him home to meet her parents and to deliver the gefilte fish, more or less in that order. Rick felt a stab of disappointment when she stopped in front of a new law tenement on 127th Street just west of Lenox Avenue and said, "Well, here we are. The Horo witz family mansion!" She laughed derisively. "You were expecting maybe the Vanderbilt estate?"
    Some of the apartment houses on the West Side had names. This one didn't. The anonymous building was no better or worse than any of its neighbors, and it