The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian Read Free Book Online Page A

our name. But we weren't beaten. Not by a damnsight. Nobody beats Ruby Lucile LaPointe! No, sir! In all the years she'd taken care of us kids alone, her pride had never let her seek public assistance, and it burned her up to have to do so now, but she'd been thinking about things all night long, and she couldn't let pride stand in the way of us kids having food on the table. There must be agencies and people that she could turn to, just until we were on our feet again. First she'd contact them and ask them for help... make them help us, goddammit! Then she'd look for work as a waitress. A hardworking, experienced waitress can always find work, even if it's only split-shift, or standing in for girls who call in sick. She'd go around to every goddamned restaurant in the city putting her name in with the managers. But first, she had to find out the addresses of the welfare agencies. If only she knew someone she could ask about things like this.
    “What about Mr Kane?” I suggested.
    “The grocery man? Oh, I don't know. I don't think we want any more favors from his sort.”
    “...His sort?”
    She shrugged.
    “But he's nice,” I said. “And smart, too.”
    She thought about that for a moment. She didn't like being beholden to strangers, but... Oh, all right, she'd go over to thank him for giving us credit. That was just common courtesy. And maybe while she was there she'd... “You know, come to think of it, this Mr Kane of yours just might help us out because if he doesn't, we won't be able to pay what we owe him. You can only count on people if there's something in it for them.”
    “He'd help us anyway. He's nice.”
    She humph'd. She often said, and honestly believed, that she was not prejudiced—well, except in the case of Italian mobsters and drunken Irish loafers and stupid Poles and snooty Yankee Protestants, but then who wasn't? Among the cultural scars left by her early years in convent school was a stereotypical view of 'the people who slew Jesus'. “On the other hand,” she said, always wanting to be fair, “I served some very nice Jewish people in Lake George Restaurant last season. They always chose my station. Real good tippers. But then they had to be, didn't they? To make up for things.”
    I accompanied her across the street, and Mr Kane spent half the morning looking up the appropriate welfare agencies and using the pay phone at the back of his shop to call people and make appointments for my mother, while I took occasional trips back to our apartment to make sure Anne-Marie was all right, but she could just look out the front window and see us in Kane's Cornerstore. Mr Kane gave Mother a dog-eared map of downtown Albany so she could find the addresses and he drew her up a list of things she should bring with her to the welfare offices: her marriage license, our birth certificates, her most recent address in Lake George, the telephone number of his store, where messages could be left for her... things like that. I looked up at my mother to give her an 'I told you he was nice' look, and I was surprised to see tears standing in her eyes. She said later that she didn't know what got into her. I think that Mr Kane's kindly manner sapped the constant background rage that gave her the grit to face difficult situations. Whatever the reason, the next thing I knew she was telling him about my father, and how he had run out on us twice before, and about our coming to Albany in the hope of starting life as a family, and about the Saint Patrick's Day party with the green cake... everything. Pushing the tears back into her eyes with the heel of her hand, she confessed that she didn't know what she would do if somebody didn't help her. One thing was sure: she wouldn't let her kids starve! No, sir! She'd steal—kill even!—before she'd let her kids starve. Distressed by her tears, Mr Kane rubbed his hands together, not daring to pat her shoulder compassionately lest she misunderstand the gesture (or, worse yet,