Elsinore by Jerome Charyn Read Free Book Online Page A

were you so sure the same trick would work?”
    â€œI took a chance. I’ve always been a gambler.”
    Holden’s nausea was gone. He had a bowl of tortellini soup, with great hunks of bread. Black wine arrived in tiny glasses. Holden drank six. He had chicken and potatoes. Broccoli and carrots. He had chocolate cake.
    â€œYou’re a glutton,” the old man said. “I couldn’t afford to keep you, Sid. You’d bankrupt me with an appetite like that. Want another dessert?”
    He whistled to the waiter in that special Italian of his, and they brought Holden a wedge of cake with towers and canopies of hazelnuts and dark cream. Holden took a bite, and he would have killed for that piece of cake. “What’s it called?”
    â€œIn English, Sid? College pie. It’s a local dish.”
    They had cups of coffee to wake Holden from the black wine. Then they got up and shook hands with all the waiters. But Holden never saw the bill.
    â€œHow come they didn’t charge us?” he asked in the street.
    â€œIt would take an hour to answer.”
    â€œI have the time.”
    â€œThis was one of my hunting grounds a long time ago. They recognized that from the way I spoke. They wouldn’t have dared charge us for the meal.”
    â€œAnd what did you hunt in New Haven?”
    â€œWhales. The hooch we delivered was kept in big white barrels called whales.”
    â€œAh, when you were a bootlegger,” Holden said. “Did you bless the barrels with kosher songs?”
    The old man fixed his bumper’s eyes on Holden. “What kosher songs?”
    â€œDon’t take it to heart. A friend of mine says you were a cantor once.”
    â€œDo I look like a cantor?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know.”
    â€œHave you been investigating me, Sid? What did you find?”
    â€œVery little. You were born in Milwaukee. You went to cantor’s college. You were a big draw in the best synagogues, but you had to pull out. You surfaced again as a Pinkerton man in Seattle. And your name is Feldstein, not Phipps.”
    â€œYour friend has an active imagination,” Phipps said. “I could show you my birth certificate.”
    â€œMr. Phipps, should I tell you how many birth certificates I keep in my drawer? I have enough social security numbers to field a baseball team. There were times when I had to disappear too. My dad loved the New York Giants. So I’m Johnny Mize. Jack Lohrke. Mel Ott.”
    â€œAnd I’m Howard Phipps.”
    They drove to Woods Hole and sat in a line of cars near the ferry slip. There was a fog over the water, and the ferry arrived out of the gloom. Holden heard the engines, and the boat docked with a soft bump. The ferry door opened and cars drove out of the ferry’s big barn. Holden stared into that ribbed well and thought of a whale’s mouth. Phipps shouldn’t have mentioned whales.
    Then it was Holden’s turn to drive into the barn. He didn’t want to sit in that enormous well. “Shouldn’t we go up to the deck? We don’t have to be baby-sitters for a goddamn car.”
    â€œIt’s safer here,” Phipps said.
    â€œI don’t get it.”
    â€œIt’s safer here. You can never tell who we might meet up on the deck. It takes one push, Sid, and we’re overboard.”
    â€œIs somebody after you, Mr. Phipps?”
    â€œNot at all. But we’ll be carrying a lot of paper on the return trip. And it’s better for both of us if we’re not conspicuous.… Stay in the car.”
    And so they sat inside the whale. The ocean beat against the metal door with a thick boom that sent tiny shivers through the ferry. It felt like some sort of attack, that relentless drive of water. The ferry leaked. Water spilled in through the bottom of the door and a pool began to build under the stairs to the main deck.
    â€œWe could drown,” Holden said.
    â€œI’ve been on