Make Room! Make Room! Read Online Free Page B

twisted away through the jungle of pushcarts, stands and shelters that jammed the Square, the market where anything could be bought, anything sold. Billy stepped over the blind beggar who sprawled across the narrow opening between a concrete bench and the rickety stall of a seaweed vendor and worked his way inward. He looked at the people there, not at what they were selling, and finally stopped before a pushcart loaded with a jumble of ancient plastic containers, mugs, plates and bowls, with their once-bright colors scratched and grayed by time.
    “Hands off!” The stick crashed down on the edge of the cart and Billy jerked his fingers away.
    “I’m not touching your junk,” he complained.
    “Move on if you’re not buying,” the man said, an Oriental with lined cheeks and thin white hair.
    “I’m not buying, I’m selling.” Billy leaned closer and whispered so that only the man could hear. “You want some soylent steaks’?”
    The old man squinted at him. “Stolen goods, I suppose,” he said tiredly.
    “Come on—you want them or not?”
    There was no humor in the man’s fleeting smile. “Of course I want them. How many do you have?”
    “Ten.”
    “A D and a half piece. Fifteen dollars.”
    “Shit! I’ll eat them myself first. Thirty D’s for the lot.”
    “Don’t let greed destroy you, son. We both know what they are worth. Twenty D’s for the lot. Period.” He fished out two worn ten-dollar bills and held them folded in his fingers. “Let’s see what you have.”
    Billy pushed the stuffed handkerchief across and the man held it under the cart and looked inside. “All right,” he said, and still with his hands beneath the cart transferred them to a square of heavy, wrinkled paper and handed back the cloth. “I don’t need that.”
    “The loot now.”
    The man handed it over slowly, smiling now that the transaction was finished. “Do you ever come to the Mott Street club?”
    “Are you kidding?” Billy grabbed for the money and the man released it.
    “You should. You’re Chinese, and you brought these steaks to me because I’m Chinese too and you knew you could trust me. That shows you’re thinking right….”
    “Knock it off, will you, grandpa.” He hit himself in the chest with his thumb. “I’m Taiwan and my father was a general. So one thing I know—have nothing to do with you downtown Commie Chinks.”
    “You stupid punk—” He raised his stick but Billy was already gone.
    Things were going to change now, yes they were. He did not notice the heat as he dodged automatically through the millingcrowds, seeing the future ahead and holding tight to the money in his pocket. Twenty D’s—more than he had ever owned at one time in his life. The most he had ever had before was three-eighty that he had lifted from the apartment across the hall the time they had left their window open. It was hard to get your hands on cash money, and cash money was the only thing that counted. They never saw any at home. The Welfare ration cards took care of everything, everything that kept you alive and just alive enough to hate it. You needed cash to get on and cash was what he had now. He had been thinking about this for a long time.
    He turned into the Chelsea branch of Western Union on Ninth Avenue. The pasty-faced girl behind the high counter looked up and her glance slid away from him and out the wide front window to the surging, sunlit traffic beyond. She dabbed at the sweat droplets on her lip with a crumpled handkerchief, then wiped the creases under her chin. The operators, bent over their work, didn’t look up. It was quiet here with just the distant hum of the city through the open door, the sudden lurching motion as a teletype clattered loudly. On a bench against the rear wall six boys sat looking at him suspiciously, their searching eyes ready to fill with hatred. As he went toward the dispatcher he could hear their feet shifting on the floor and the squeak of the bench. He had