Gods of Manhattan Read Online Free Page A

being greeted in such a way to be an honour worth more than rubies.
    He'd already counted out the three dollars, fumbling in his pocket as he walked the last few steps from the door with its wonderful bell, and now he laid them out on the counter with a smile, before picking up the sandwich that had already materialised, prepared in advance of his arrival. "You know, Alma, maybe the day comes I don't walk in that door, eh? And then, you'll be out a fresh sandwich."
    Alma snorted, shaking her head. "Oh, that will never happen, Rabbi. You're an addict, you are."
    Johann shrugged. "What, I have no will of my own? A slave to the salt beef? Suppose I'm trampled by a runaway horse, eh?"
    Alma shook her head and went back to slicing pickles. "Then I'd come to the hospital and throw the damned sandwich in your face for being such a god-damned fool as to not look both ways and you'd apologise to me for being so foolish and the sandwich wouldn't have been wasted at all, now, would it?"
    Johann chuckled to himself. "Such language!" He sniffed the sandwich, enjoying the tang of the pickle and the waft of the fresh bread.
    The bell rang again.
    The boy who walked in was barely more than sixteen, but he was six foot and muscular with it. He slouched as he walked, and his hair was carefully shaved into three stripes - blood red, bone white and a livid blue that seemed garish and clown like against his black skin. He was wearing a powder-blue t-shirt with the familiar lightning bolt decal torn off and pinned back upside-down, with the same safety-pins that pierced both his ears. His jeans were ripped, and around each wrist was a studded leather band.
    On his left bicep, he wore a tattoo of a scowling McCarthy and the word: AMERICAN.
    A futurehead.
    Johann stiffened, inspecting him carefully. Futureheads could be trouble, and this one was dressed to provoke. Still, usually with futureheads that was all it was - provoking a reaction. Shocking the old men. They were harmless. Oh, they'd turn the air blue if you crossed them, call you everything under the sun, but that was all they'd do.
    Johann allowed himself to drift into a daydream of the moments ahead. The young man would at the very worst say something he imagined to be shocking to the ears of an old Rabbi - little dreaming that an old Rabbi could already tell him stories that would make him faint - and the old Rabbi in question would play his part and tut and speak of kids today or it's just noise they listen to now and the dance would be complete. The two of them would go their separate ways, each having played a different game and each, in their own eyes, the winner.
    And in maybe five years, no more, Johann would see the boy grown to a man, dressed in ordinary clothes, and the boy would raise his hat respectfully and both would have forgotten this meeting had ever taken place, lost as it was in wild youth.
    It was a story Johann had played out countless times with countless disaffected young people, and it was a story he almost enjoyed. It was the story he would have preferred.
    "Gimme a sammich." the young man growled, and spat on the floor. Johann winced. Alma wouldn't take that well. Part of him felt he should leave, but he owed it to Alma to provide support in the face of what was sure to be an unpleasant customer interaction.
    Alma took the bait, as Johann knew she would. "May I have a sandwich please, you young hooligan! And no you may not after you spat on my clean floor! Were you raised in a barn?"
    The futurehead scowled. "I want a sammich."
    "Well, you're not getting one. Now clear off out of my shop before I throw you out! And don't think I can't!" Alma heaved and shook with indignation, her face beet red. In that moment, Johann believed that she really could have thrown the young man bodily out of her door, as big and surly as he was.
    The young man blinked, the scowl still on his face. Then - without a word - he simply reached, took the sandwich from Johann's grasp, and bit