Barbotte Read online

  Barbotte

  By

  John McFetridge

  Copyright ? 2010 by John McFetridge

  Cover illustration by Jean-Pierre Jacquet

  https://www.jeanpierrejacquet.com/

  Montreal 1946

  Nat Lawson had his head down running the phone cable when Sid Aidelbaum said they were taking a lot of Rockhead's action on Robinson.

  Harvey Gerber, walking through the backroom said, "So, spade money's still money." He looked at Nat and then back to Sid and said, "Right?"

  "Right."

  Gerber walked around like he owned the place, the Bellevue Theatre on Bleury, but he didn't. Sid did since his father died. He really had no intention of taking it over but when his father got TB and went into the sanitarium he had no choice. Gerber owned the book and the Barbotte room in the back which brought in ten times as much as the Marx Brothers and Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman flicking across the screen out front ever would.

  Gerber said to Sid, "That line better run silent."

  Sid said, "Sure, Mr. Gerber. Nat here's the best guy the phone company's got. No taps on this line, no traces, no records ever," and he looked over at Nat who stood up slow to his full six feet, half a foot taller than anybody else in the room.

  Gerber grunted something and walked out.

  Nat said, "Nice guy."

  Sid opened the green wax paper and asked Nat if he wanted a sandwich.

  "What is it?"

  "Wilenski special." Sid took a bite. "Pastrami." Nat said, no, that's okay, he'd get a smoked meat at Schwartz's later.

  Sid said, "It's making me nervous, all this action. But we have to do something, we didn't get anything on the Cup. Who'd take the Bruins?"

  Nat said, "You gotta give better odds, Sid," and Sid said, "if it was up to me."

  Nat looked at him and Sid tilted his head to the next room where Gerber was watching the Barbotte dice clatter. Nat said, oh, and went to back to the cable. Then he said, "What kind of odds is he giving on Robinson?"

  "First time a coloured guy steps up to the plate in white baseball? Three to one he doesn't get on base."

  "What about the next time?"

  "The whole game."

  "No wonder you're getting so much action."

  Sid stopped with the pastrami halfway to his mouth and said, why? "What do you know?"

  "A lot of those guys at Rockhead's, they were in the service, saw Robinson when he was at Fort Hood." The coloured guys, Americans, up to Montreal to hear the jazz at Rockhead's Paradise.

  Sid said, so. "Way I hear it he wasn't even the best one in the Negro League."

  "He wasn't even the best one on the Monarchs," Nat said. "Doesn't mean he won't tear the hide off it against Jersey City."

  Sid put the sandwich down and said, "Oy vey." He was sick about it, all the bets they'd taken. But hell, Gerber set the odds.

  Jackie Robinson's first game in all white baseball, April 18, 1946, playing for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers top farm team against the Jersey City Giants. He went three for four; single, double, homer, drove in four runs.

  ***

  Gerber looked in the toolbox and said, "That's a lot of money."

  "Twenty-one thousand dollars."

  "You better get some extra flatfoots out tonight." Gerber looked at Inspecteur Desrosieres of the Montreal Police, coming out of the back room down fifty seven bucks at the Barbotte table. "There's gonna be a lot of drunken niggers."

  Desrosieres said, "As long as they stay below St. Antoine."

  Nat closed his toolbox.

  Gerber said, "You sure about this?" and Sid said, yeah, it was the best way.

  Desrosieres looked at Nat and said, "A man like you, so trustworthy, have you ever thought of joining the police?"

  Nat said, no, "I'm trying to stay on the right side of the law."

  A nervous laugh from Sid and Desrosieres said, "Quite," his phony accent more British than the old ladies of the Golden Mile.

  "Everybody knows we took this action," Sid said. "The Italians will be looking for this cash, the frogs too."

  "And Rockhead's boys know it's coming. I don't like keeping it all in one place."

  Sid said, "It's got to be done," and Nat picked up his tools and walked out to his dark green phone company truck parked in the lane beside Gerber's brand new Fleetwood Cadillac, dark blue with whitewalls, one of the first ones off the assembly line when they stopped putting the V8 in tanks.

  ***

  Up on Ste. Catherine Street the big nightclubs, the El Morocco, the Latin Quarter, the Samovar, the Copacabana, they all advertised their acts as 'Direct from New York,' and a few of them might really have been, but down the hill at the bottom of Mountain Street and on St. Antoine, past Central Station and in the shadows of the grain elevators and the Redpath Flour Mill, at Rockhead's Paradise and Caf? St. Michel, the stars were 'Direct from Harlem.' Those clubs hopped. People coming in from Toronto and Albany thought it was wild up on Ste. Catherine but the folks from Chicago and New York thought it was wild down below.

  Nat Lawson parked his phone company truck beside the garage on St. James and took his tool box. Before the war, when he was a kid, Nat used to ride with his father, making deliveries for Dow Breweries. His father went back with Rufus Rockhead from when Rufus worked for the railroad, the Montreal to Chicago run and prohibition was good to them. Lawson's father could get all the booze Rockhead could move. And it was a lot. Rockhead saved his money and opened his club, then he bought the hotel next door to serve the coloured guys working the trains and musicians playing his club. Lately, though, it was getting an awful lot of servicemen on leave from Camp Pine in upstate New York. A three day leave, the white guys headed for New York City and the coloured men to Montreal where they could be men.

  Sam Lawson had a heart attack behind the wheel of his truck while Nat was in a hospital in Glasgow recovering from the pneumonia he got after spending two nights in the north Atlantic when the Corvette he was on got torpedoed by a U Boat.

  Now Nat was walking down St. Antoine carrying his toolbox. He heard something in the lane, thought it was a couple of the guys from the band smoking a reefer, but then he heard something banging a trash can and then a sob. Looked into the shadows and saw a waitress sitting on a trash can crying. As he got closer he saw she was white with dark hair. When he was all the way in the lane she looked over her shoulder at him and said, "I didn't want to do it, Nat, I didn't."

  He thought it was Evelyn from Caf? St. Michel, not really white but she could pass, and then the pipe hit him and he staggered, his eyes watering up. Another belt and he went down, rolled under a car and saw feet running away, a car door slamming, engine going, tires honest-to-God squealing. He jumped up but the blood was running down his face, drained right out of his head and he fell hard.

  ***

  "I knew that mick would flop on you."

  Sid said, "They could have killed him," and Gerber said, yeah, so what?

  He was standing in the doorway, his overcoat on, the cigar in his mouth.

  Sid's sister Leah was standing beside the desk shaking her head and saying, "Everybody knew we were making the delivery."

  "That's why the mick did it instead of you," Gerber said. "They weren't supposed to know about him."

  Sid was still sitting behind his desk. He looked from his little sister to Gerber. This had all happened while he was away in the navy. Before he left, before the war, he'd taken over the theatre when his father got TB and went into the sanitarium. It wasn't what he wanted to do at all but he had to take care of the family. Then, when the ships he was on were getting torpedoed out from under him by U Boats, Leah took over the theatre, needed money, and let Gerber in through a crack in the door.

  Sid knew what he
wanted now.

  He said, "It could have been anybody."

  Gerber nodded, even looked sympathetic. "Anybody? By me this is the niggers, either Rockhead himself, or Booker T at St. Michel."

  "So, we can get it back?"

  "We?"

  Sid looked at him.

  Gerber shrugged. "You still need to pay them."

  Leah said, "Pay them? Where are we going to get that kind of money? That was everything we had." She looked at Sid but he didn't say anything.

  Gerber just stood there, his look saying, not my problem. He waited, let the silence hang there and then said, "You've got something."

  Sid said, "Harv, come on."

  Leah said, "No, we won't."

  Gerber said, if you can find another way, and walked out.

  As soon as he was gone Leah started pacing in the small office. She said, there's got to be a way.

  Sid said, "Leah, we've done all we can."

  She stopped and stared at him. Then she got her cigarettes, Sweet Caporals, out of her purse and struck a match on the blotter on top of the desk. She inhaled and blew smoke at the ceiling, saying, "I can't see it being Rufus Rockhead. Who's this Booker T?"

  Sid had leaned back in his chair, now more interested in this new little sister of his. He said, "What are you going to do," and she said, "I'm not going to do nothing."

  Sid shook his head. "Look, I know you didn't have any choice during the war," and she cut him off, saying, you have no idea.

  "We all had troubles. But we didn't give up, none of us. We did what we had to do." She looked at him and he waited. "We're not going to give up now. I let Gerber in here, but I won't give him the theatre. I won't."

  "Maybe it's for the best."

  "Could Nat Lawson have stolen it?"

  "Given himself a concussion and fifteen stitches?"

  "Maybe he was in on it, didn't expect to get hit that hard."

  Sid said, "Leah, you've been sitting out there watching too many movies." He stood up and took his coat from the rack. "The only reason I'm alive is because of Nat. There's no way."

  He touched his sister's shoulder on the way out.

  ***

  Leah Aidelbaum rode the number 58 streetcar down Peel, south past the big brewery and then west along Wellington. Through the tunnel and she was in Point St. Charles, right away thinking how much the Irish slum looked just like the St. Urbain slum where she was born. Four story houses built right up to the street, no yards, no grass anywhere, noisy. These walk-ups didn't have the wrought iron railings out front but they had the same wooden sheds in the back lane. She saw women hanging out washing and kids playing kick the can in the muddy street.

  And then, she could hardly believe it, the sign actually said Bucket of Blood Tavern. Sid told her it was because most of the men who drank beer in there worked at the slaughterhouses south of Wellington, towards Goose Village, but she'd also heard it was because of the terrible fights there on Saturday nights. Or any nights.

  Further on she saw the Bridge Tavern on the corner, at the turn for the Victoria Bridge. She'd been across that bridge once, on the train to New York City with Sid and her parents, going to visit her father's brother in Brooklyn. Before the war, when it was looking for a minute there like they'd finally started to climb their way up out of the depression. When they'd dared to hope.

  Now she wasn't sure what she was going to do. This was where her plan ran out. It had taken so much just to get on the streetcar and ride down the hill to the Point.

  Standing on the corner, looking at the taverns, smelling the coal yards and slaughterhouses and the boiling cabbage, she didn't know what to do. There were even a few more taverns, barely bigger than her kitchen, but they didn't allow women.

  The neighbourhood was filled at that time of day, the late afternoon, mostly women and kids. She thought maybe she could ask around, see if anyone knew him, figuring he must be known around here and then she saw him.

  She ran across Wellington, sidestepping a horse pulling a wagon full of rags, and stepped in a huge puddle before getting off the street and standing in his path.

  She said, "Nathaniel Lawson, I'm Leah Aidelbaum," and she held out her hand.

  He looked at her for a moment, then shook. "Have we met?"

  She said, "I'm Sid's little sister. The bandages gave you away. Looks like you got them from Buster Keaton."

  Nat touched the white cloth wrapped around his head like a hat and said, "Feels like it."

  "Is there somewhere we could go to talk?"

  Nat took her into the Bridge Tavern.

  ***

  She ordered a Long Island Iced Tea and Nat said it was more of a beer and a shot kind of place. She tilted her head at him, her big brown eyes looking right at him from under her hat, looking years older than her smooth white skin and bright red lips.

  Nat didn't think she looked anything like Sid Aidelbaum.

  She looked a lot more like someone who could get him into a lot of trouble.

  He said, "A couple of 5 Crowns," and the bartender put two shot glasses in front of them and filled them both with Seagrams whiskey.

  She said, "What about the beer?"

  The bartender had already gotten two bottles of Dow and popped the caps off.

  Leah said, "Oh."

  "So, what brings you all the way down here?"

  "We were wondering how you were."

  Nat thought about that but didn't say anything.

  "We're going to lose the Bellevue."

  Nat drank his whiskey, downing it all in one slow swallow, savouring the taste going down. He put the empty glass on the bar and looked right at her.

  "I'm sorry about what happened, but I didn't just hand it over."

  "I know that. I'm not here to impugn your character."

  Nat kept staring at her and she said, "It means cast doubt on your character," and he said,"I know what it means."

  "Oh. Well. My grandfather started that theatre. My father built it into one of the best in the city." Then she said, quietly, "I don't want to lose it."

  Nat turned on the barstool and looked at her. At Leah Aidelbaum, came all the way down the hill to his neighbourhood. She stared right back at him, her dark eyes sparkling with fight.

  Nat said, "If you didn't want to lose it, you never should have partnered up with Gerber," and right away she started in with, I didn't have a choice, and the depression hit us all hard, and my father didn't plan on getting sick and dying and Sid didn't have to sign up. Nat held up his hand and she stopped.

  Then she said, "The war's over, everyone's getting back on their feet. We're so close."

  "The way the ball bounces."

  She said, "Yeah." She had a lot more to say, Nat knew it, a bunch of questions about what really happened in that lane and did he see anything and who could it have been but she just shook her head. Then she said, "My brother won't talk about the war."

  "What's to say?"

  "He didn't need to sign up, you know. That day he did, you could hear my bubbi wailing from St. Urbain to Caughnawaga."

  Nat almost smiled, hearing her mention the Indian reservation across the river from Montreal. "He did what he had to."

  "Why did you sign up? You were already in a year before the war even started."

  "Not like you couldn't see it coming."

  "Not everybody did."

  "Not everybody wanted to."

  She said, yeah, that was true. Drank some of her beer and stared at the glass.

  Nat couldn't help it, he said, "What are you going to do?"

  She turned the glass, shrugged. "Gerber's going to front us the cash to pay Rockhead, take over the theatre. He's been looking to go legit."

  "I thought he wanted to be Harry Feldman."

  Leah took her cigarettes out of her purse and offered one to Nat. He shook his head, no, and she said, "Am I supposed to be shocked you know the names of all the book makers in town, or are you testing me?"

  "Little of bo
th, I guess."

  Nat struck a match and held it up while Leah lit her cigarette.

  She blew out smoke and said, "You know I didn't do such a terrible job running the place. I just never had any capital. Now there's so much new building going on, I'd like to see what I could really do."

  "Aren't you supposed to give up your job like every other Rosie the Riveter, marry some hero and move out to Cote St. Luc."

  Leah said, yeah, and drank some more beer.

  Then she said, "Who's Booker T?"

  "You're never going to give this up, are you?"

  "You know him, don't you? Sid says you know everyone, you know this whole city. He says you can go anywhere, talk to people."

  "So?"

  "So, could you?"

  "Could I what?"

  "Ask around. Find out who really took our money."

  Nat shook his head and said, "Do I look like Humphrey Bogart to you?" and Leah said, yeah, a little and then she said, "You got those eyebrows, you know, and you frown when you look serious."

  He kept frowning. Said, "I don't think it was Booker."

  "Would it hurt to ask?"

  "It could."

  She looked at him, serious, and he looked back.

  Yeah, she could get him in a whole bunch of trouble.

  ***

  The big coloured guy at the door put his hand on the guy's chest and said, "Where do you think you're going?" The guy looked up at him and the doorman said, "Oh, hey Nat, didn't recognize you with the fedora."

  "Payday, I'm looking for a night out." He could see inside the club where Louis Metcalfe's International Band was on stage and the place was already crowded and smoke filled.

  "You want, you can sit at the bar."

  Nat said thanks, started to walk in and then stopped and said, "You seen Evelyn?"

  The doorman smiled, a tooth missing right in front, and said, "You really are looking for a night out." He glanced around the club and said, "I ain't seen her all night. You want to talk to Abby?"

  Nat said that was okay and walked along the back wall, then cut through the crowd to the bar. More than half the people in the place were coloured, and all seven guys on stage, but there were a few other white faces, guys who'd been in the service, seen the world and could tell the difference between real music and that swing crap they played up the hill.