the Big Bounce (1969) by Elmore - Jack Ryan 0 Leonard Page B

with maple arms and kept his shirts, socks, and underwear in the bottom drawer of the secretary in the living room. He'd be sitting there at the dining room table doing his homework hearing the television in the living room, and his dad would come in carrying his changer, his blue-gray DSR hat on the side of his head and crushed in like a World War II fighter pilot's hat. If he had stopped for a drink, just a couple, you could tell it. On his day off his dad would sit at the dining room table with a clean sport shirt on, his hair combed and his shoes shined, and play solitaire. He would play it most of the day, with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, his head raised and his eyes looking down half closed. In the afternoon he would drink beer and read the paper. The paper was the only thing he read.
    You want some A-one?
    No, just ketchup.
    His dad never looked like a bus driver. He was nice looking. Dark hair. Sort of a slick guy. Good dresser. But he was a bus driver in his forties, making about a hundred and a quarter a week with a wife and three children and living in an apartment building with kitchen smells and peeling plaster out in the hall. He could crush in his hat and wear it hotshot on the side of his head and pretend he was piloting a 707 or a truckload of explosives up the Alcan, but it was still a DSR bus and there was no way to make it something else.
    How about dessert?
    I don't think so. Ryan sipped his water. You know, my dad died when he was forty-six.
    Well Mr. Majestyk was looking at his hand on his water glass and now Ryan's eyes dropped to the hand, a thick, toughened hand with swollen knuckles and cracked, yellowed nails, a hand that made the heavy restaurant tumbler seem thin and fragile I don't know. I guess a person just dies.
    Yeah, I guess we all have to die.
    I don't mean that, Mr. Majestyk said. I don't mean it that way. I mean we're supposed to die. You can't kill yourself, but that's what we're here for, to die. Are you a Catholic? With your name, I mean
    Yeah. I was.
    Well, don't you know what I mean?
    I never was an altar boy or anything.
    You don't have to be an altar boy, for Christ sake. You were taught, weren't you? You went to church.
    Let's not get into all that.
    Mr. Majestyk's serious gaze held, then began to relax, and he smiled with his perfect-looking false teeth. What're we talking about dying for. Come on, let's go over the Pier.
    He didn't see the waitress in the red pants. She was gone and a dumpy Indian-looking waitress was serving the tables. There were girls scattered around the place, but none of them seemed to be alone. There was more noise, the lights were on and there were a lot more people now. There was a long table of beer-drinking college-looking Hermans who had probably been out sailing or cruising around in their cruisers and were loud and never shut up. It wasn't as good as before.
    When they were at a table again with a pitcher of beer, he saw Bob Jr. come in with the girl. He didn't recognize the girl right away because he was watching Bob Jr. as they moved through the people down to the end of the bar. Bob Jr. was all slicked up in a real slick checkered sport shirt with the collar tips pointing out to his shoulders, short sleeves turned up once, silver expando watchband and everything, big can hanging over the bar stool now and his hair combed back like Roy Rogers. The girl with him went on to the ladies' room.
    You get these guys from Dodge Main off the shift, Mr. Majestyk was saying. But get them in at night, that's the trick.
    Bob Jr. looked this way, toward the front end of the bar, and, sure enough, his forehead was pure white.
    Well, it was August, so we figure how about fresh corn? All you can eat for fifty cents with this sign out in front. Now we only have one pot, Mr. Majestyk was saying. On purpose. One that would hold maybe a dozen and a half ears. So the guys come in and order the corn; they're going to see how much they can eat, see? Fifty