Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [90]
“Mebbe they croaked a’ the diabetes,” Jimmy said.
Fatso’s eyes narrowed beneath his huge brows. He shifted the chew in his cheeks from left to right and hocked. The spittoon rang like a new telephone.
“G’head and laugh,” Fatso said, “but I can count. Last week they was twenty guys in here. Week before was thirty, week before that, near fifty. You’re shrinkin’ like balls in a blizzard, palsy-walsy. And until you get some rats in here wanna kill my dog, guess I’ll hie me over the Camden side. I hear they got a pit there, one dog fights the other.”
Jimmy’s hollow cheeks lengthened in disgust. “Fuckin’ barbaric.”
Now he nearly bit through the cigar as Finlayson stood before him and emptied his sack into the pit. Twenty-odd rats spilled out and ran squealing for the ring’s edges. They were small and thin, cowards each not more than six months old. O’Mara surveyed them for a few seconds.
“Mice,” he said.
“I’m real sorry, Jimmy,” Fin said. “I don’t know if they’ve shut the sugar lockers tighter or they finally brought in their own catchers, but it’s like I’ve told ya—these past few months the pickins has been slim.”
“Mebbe,” Jimmy said, “or mebbe anymore, you’re not a proper ratcatcher.”
Finlayson’s face became a wound. “Whadaya mean, Jimmy? Ain’t I spent most my life bringin’ you the best?”
“Yesterday and a nickel rides the horse car, m’boy. Look at you. You used to be the pitcher of your occupation—dressed in rags with that stable’s manure attached. Same shirt and collar every day. Never could tell if it was gray from dye or dirt. And the stink! I could always tell you was comin’ before you ever hit the door. That popcorn smell of rats mixed with your own sweat and the blood from where you’d been bit. It did a man’s heart good to inhale that smell and know there was a true professional about the premises, a man you could trust. Now look at you.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“I was up Big Hearted John’s on Tuesday to buy a shirt and John tells me you been in. He says you bought that new coat and tie you’re wearin’ and what a bargain it was. Then I go to pay my bill at Mitford’s and the old man tells me you lit out and were holed up at the Caledonia Hotel. Now, the Cal’s a flea circus and them clothes are just what some guinea didn’t pick up after alteration. But for a ratcatcher, it’s like rentin’ out Vair-sye and wearin’ soup and fish. You ain’t dressin’ the part no more, bucko, nor actin’ it neither.”
Jimmy took the cigar from his mouth and crushed it on the floor. Then he turned to the poor excuse for vermin Fin had spent the night collecting.
“I can’t use these,” he said. “You can either drown ’em or I’ll set Blackie on ’em just for practice. Besides, it looks like the game’s dead. I’m sure as hell outta business.”
Finlayson made to say something but the words stuck sideways like fish bones. He certainly couldn’t tell O’Mara that twenty of the refinery’s finest specimens were presently in training to replace and enlarge Swain’s current troupe, or that thirty more were at this moment rutting in a series of breeding cages in the basement of Knox’s Triangle Saloon. In the preceding six months, Swain had paid him nearly one thousand dollars for his rats: more than he usually earned in five years. As for his clothing, it reflected his new station, as would the clothes of any man who’s come up in the world. Yes, he was still a ratcatcher, filthy and despised by the decent. But now, instead of being a supplier to a dying sport, he was a man of show business, a talent scout as it were, bringing new performers to a public blessed by a six-day work week and a hunger for amusement in the leisure time between factory and church. Finlayson took the canvas bag and turned toward the door. Jimmy O’Mara had already lit another cigar and turned to his ledgers.
Outside, autumn had come. The clouds gathering all night had broken into a gentle rain. Fin turned up his collar and crossed Delaware