The radio doctor was talking now to a woman whose fifteen-year-old daughter was still wetting her bed, and Tommy Mungo dialed the station again, got a busy signal, tried again, got another busy signal. I could write her a letter, he thought, and put in all the things she never gave me time to say. But no: she must get thousands of letters; she could never read them all, or answer them. No. He glanced at the clock beside his bed. Ten minutes to two. She’d be on air until three. He got up and started to dress. He had to speak to her; it could be months before he got through to her again. He’d have to go to the radio station and see her.
All the way to Manhattan, driving the beat-up Pontiac across the Brooklyn Bridge and through the empty streets, he listened to Dr. Verity Ambler. He wasn’t angry at her; he was certain it must be his own fault, something in his voice, something in his manner. She was so logical with the others. She told a man whose wife was playing around that he must become “creatively selfish,” give his wife an ultimatum — tell her to stop fooling around — or leave. A man whose wife was an alcoholic was told to forget about her being cured; alcoholism can be treated, she told him, but not cured. “And you are obviously a terrific person,” she said, “so I think you should get into yourself more, okay?”
Now he was in midtown Manhattan, a block from the station. She would be finished in twenty minutes. He parked across the street, listening to the radio show, and smoked a cigarette. At five minutes to three, he locked the car door and walked to the station entrance. Beyond the locked double door, there was a long empty corridor leading to a bank of elevators. A security guard sat in a chair beside the elevators, reading a newspaper. Tommy Mungo waited. A taxi pulled up and double-parked, the off-duty sign burning.
Then a large man and a smallish woman stepped out of the elevator. The security man smiled and stood up, had them sign a book, and started walking with them along the corridor to the entrance. It was her. Dr. Verity Ambler. He had seen her picture once in a newspaper and another time on
“Okay, back up,” the large man said.
“But I’ve got to talk to Dr. Ambler,” Tommy said. “I was on the show tonight, talking to her, and I never finished explaining—”
“Back it up!”
The woman’s eyes seemed wide and alarmed, as the large man stepped between her and Tommy Mungo.
“I never got to tell you!” Tommy shouted. “I can’t leave my mother! She’s not like you think. But I need help, I need advice, you have to help me!”
He tried to get around the large man, but the man placed a huge hand on Tommy’s chest and pushed him backward.
“Jack!” Dr. Ambler said. “Don’t do that, Jack! He might sue me or something!”
“Please,” Tommy Mungo said. “Let me explain. I got through tonight! After months! After being on hold for hours and hours and hours,
“Come on,” the woman said, taking the large man by the arm and leading him to the waiting taxi. She slammed the door behind them, and the taxi pulled away. Tommy Mungo stood there for a long time, wishing that somewhere in the city there was a person he could call.
SHANK WAS SITTING ON the windowsill, staring down at Algren Street, when Maria came in. She was big now; the baby would come soon. A month at most. Maybe sooner. He walked from the small living room into the smaller kitchen to greet her. Her face was troubled as she placed the grocery bag on the kitchen table and removed her coat.
“He’s down there,” she said. “At the corner.”
“So what?”
“This time he said something to me.”
Shank tensed, took her hand.
“He did?”
She pulled away from him, opened the refrigerator door, put milk and oranges on the metal shelf. “He said, ‘Hello, honey. I’m Rojo. Gonna get your ol’ man.’ Just like that. With those eyes of his.”
“He’s crazy,” Shank said.
“I know,” Maria said. “That’s why we gotta move, baby. Now. Tonight. Tomorrow. We gotta move, before the baby. We gotta get out of here, all the way out of the neighborhood.”
“I can’t do that,” Shank said. “You know I can’t.”
Her voice rose. “Why not? Why not just get outta here?”
“’Cause I’m the president of the Dragons!” he said. “No punk Marielito makes
“Yeah, but you’re twenty-one years old! You’re married! You gotta baby coming! You can’t go on like this, baby. Bein’ what you was when you was sixteen! You got…responsibility!”
