As Michael got out of that red Buick on Greenwich Avenue, he knew that Frankie Zeppelin was sitting there behind him with a .38 Detective Special trained on his back, and he knew that if he did not advance into the Mazeltov All-Nite Deli as ordered, he would be shot in the back. Plus ça change, plus c’est la méme chose, as his mother had been fond of saying back in Boston each time winter howled in off the Common. His mother’s ancestry was French. His father’s was English. An odd match, considering that the English and the French had been traditional enemies even before Agincourt. Sometimes their house resembled a battlefield. Well, not really. Nothing but a battlefield even remotely resembled a battlefield. This empty, windblown, bitterly cold street was not a battlefield, either, even though Michael had one pistol in the pocket of his coat and another pistol trained on his back, and there was a man sitting inside whom he was expected to kill. Like fun.
This was not a battlefield, and Frankie Zeppelin was not a sergeant.
Michael opened the door to the deli. For a little past two o’clock on Christmas morning, the place was thronged. Men in suits or sports jackets or tuxedos; women in slacks or dresses or evening gowns.
Radiators clanging and steaming. Wooden tables, no tablecloths on them, paper-napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers. Waiters in black jackets and unmatching black trousers, white shirts, no ties, running frantically back and forth, to and from a counter behind which a steam table added yet more warmth to the place. The sudden aroma of food reminded Michael that he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch with Jonah today—yesterday actually, although his mind-clock always considered it the same day until the sun came up in the morning, no matter what time it really was.
Jonah Hillerman of the Hillerman-Ruggiero Advertising Agency.
Who had proposed a scenario for the upcoming Golden Oranges television campaign.
Beautiful suntanned blonde girl doing the commercial, okay? Wearing nothing but a bikini. Sun shining. Eating an orange in the first scene, juice spilling onto her chin. “Eat ‘em,” she whispers, and wipes away the juice with the back of her hand. In the next scene, she’s squeezing an orange. Frothy, foaming juice bubbles up over the rim of the glass. “Squeeze ‘em,” she whispers. “Mmmm, good,” she whispers. “Mmmm, sweet. Mmmm, Golden. Mmmm, Oranges!”
“Subliminal sex,” Jonah said. “The viewer thinks we’re asking him to eat the blonde’s pussy and squeeze her tits. We’re telling him the blonde is good, she’s sweet, she’s golden. Eat her, squeeze her! What do you think?”
“What about women?” Michael asked.
“They’re the ones who go shopping for the oranges.”
“That’s a sexist attitude,” Jonah said.
Michael was almost faint with hunger. He went to the counter and ordered two hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard, a side of French fries, a Coca-Cola, and a slice of chocolate cake. Isadore Onions—wearing a dark suit, red socks, a Hitler moustache, and the worst hairpiece Michael had ever seen in his life—was sitting at a table with a blonde wearing a very tight fluffy white sweater and a narrow black leather mini-skirt. Michael figured she could make a fortune doing orange-juice commercials. Or even working for Frankie Zeppelin.
“Two dogs,” the man behind the counter said. “Fries, a Coke, and a slice a chocolate. Pay the cashier.”
Michael picked up his tray and went to the cash register.
The cashier tallied the bill.
“Seven-forty,” she said.
Michael reached into his pocket for his wallet.
His wallet was gone.
Not again, he thought.
He patted down all his other pockets. No wallet. He wondered if Frankie Zeppelin had stolen his wallet. The cashier was looking at him.
“Seven-forty,” she said.
“Just a second,” Michael said.
He left the tray at the cash register, walked over to Isadore Onions’s table, pulled out a chair, sat, and said, “Mr. Onions?”
“Mr. Ornstein,” the man said. “No relation.”
“To who, honey?” the blonde asked.
“Nick Ornstein, the gangster who was Fanny Brice’s husband.”
“That was Nick Arn-stein,” the blonde said.
“Exactly,” Ornstein said. “So who are you?” he asked Michael.
“Mr. Ornstein,” Michael said, “there’s a contract out on you.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Ornstein said, “but what else is new?”
“What else is new is that I’m the one who’s supposed to shoot you,” Michael said.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Ornstein said.
“But you won’t have to worry about that if you give me seven dollars and forty cents to pay for my food over there.”
“Who is this person?” Ornstein asked the blonde.
“Michael Barnes, sir.”
“You look familiar,” the blonde said.
“You’ve probably seen me on television,” Michael said. “I’m already wanted for a murder I committed earlier tonight. So another one won’t matter at all to me. I work cheap, Mr. Ornstein. All I want is seven dollars and forty cents to forget the whole matter.”
“Get lost,” Ornstein said.
“Mr. Ornstein, I’m a desperate man.”
“Who isn’t?”
“I’m starving to death …”
“So starve.”