Prologue

Those who require their fairy stories to be from an olden time so they can believe in them, and short enough that they do not lose faith in that belief, will find one below which is very old, and very, very short:

Once upon a magic time, Nee-am of the Golden Hair, daughter of the King of Tir-na-nOg, The Land of The Forever Young, left her father’s kingdom on a snow white horse, in search of the perfect lover. She didn’t know who he was but in her heart she knew that when she found him she would recognize him. One day, riding across a meadow on her snow white horse, she came upon the young man named Usheen, and the moment she saw him knew that he was The One. And he, too, knew that she was The One. And so, when she asked him to climb up behind her on her snow white steed and ride with her, he did. And after the honeymoon, she returned with him to her father’s kingdom and thus, she made her prince an immortal.

For a longer and much newer fairy story, turn the page:

1

ONCE UPON A TIME, in the magical year of 1929, a girl with golden hair and a frown that marred her beautiful face, was being driven north on Chicago’s Sheridan Road in Big Augie Farrell’s big, black, bullet-proof limousine, and her angry thoughts explained the reason for her frown:

Anybody asts me, a girl should oughta be in charge a her own story - wich this is the numb a the thing, the gorilla don’t ast me nothin!

The “gorilla” was the owner of the limousine in which she was riding, and from the night in January when he had taken her by force from New York to Chicago, to this July morning, she had progressed from helpless anger to an inchoate rage that bubbled inside her like volcanic magma waiting to erupt. This seething resentment of her condition of servitude, which she could safely indulge only when out of sight of Big Augie, now made her oblivious of the streets through which she was being driven by Big Augie’s bodyguard, or the hot air that was riffling her bobbed and marcelled hair:

Nah, the gorilla don’t ast me, he just tells me! “Come to goddam Chicago,” he says, “or end up bottom a the river.” Course he don’t actual say it this way, he just says, “You’re gonna like goddam Chicago,” an Toddy is the one says his, “Or else” - but “Bottom a the river” is wat he means.

She glared at the passing scene as though it were the big man himself:

Wye I am ever put on this earth I don’t know! I try to figure this one eversince I am old enough to see how the dames I grow up with in Hell’s Kitchen are wore out with havin kids before they’re thirty, an beat up by their husbands intathe bargain - wich this is wen I realize I gotta fine a way out or I will end up one a them.It takes me a wile, but I fine a way out -

Her native honesty interrupted her meditation and forced her to correct herself:

Actual, it is Father Brannigan, runs our parish choir back in the oleneighborhood, puts me onta how to do it - alla time tellin me wat great pipes I got. So I work hard, pay my dues, sing my way up through every crummy beer joint onna West Side, get pawed by every creep buys a beer an thinks this gives him office, till I get wat looks like my big break - New Year’s Eve a this dingdong year, I am finely gonna be Headline Canary in Charley Neuf’s - wich this is one a New York’s classiest speaks - an along comes the gorilla an he shanghai’s me outa New York to here, an I don’t know how I am ever gonna get out from unner him!

Take I go to this new Chicago priest to ast him for advice an I sit there like a dummy till he has to ast me wye I am there - account since the gorilla grabs me, I don’t know who I am anymore, so I don’t know wat to tell him. Cause how’m Igonna tell him wat I can’t even tell myself? I mean, I am just gettin to really know who I am wen I get my big break inCharlie Neuf’s Speak. Wich if anybody asts me who I am, then, I tell ‘em, “I am Honey Burke,” account by the time I sing my way to Charlie Neuf’s I haveearned star billin, an it is okay to say this is who I am. Before that, back the ole neighborhood wen I am a girl an anybody asts me, I have to tell ‘em, “I am Jim Burke’s daughter.” Wich this means lotsa things: like you lay a hand on me, you know Jim Burke is gonna climb all over you. It also means accounta Jim Burke ain’t no crybaby an is a fighter, it is likely his daughter ain’t no crybaby an is also a fighter. Also, too, back there-an I don’tnever really give this a good think up to now-I am Molly Rogan’s daughter, wich this is who ma is before she marries my da, an wen I am little an I come toher with a beef she always says to me, “You just remember you’re my daughter an my daughter plays the hand that’s dealt her.” So if you are Molly Rogan’s daughter you also ain’t no crybaby...

She paused, having lost her track, then blushed as she recalled that something like this rambling going on in her mind now was close to what she had babbled her troubles to her new Chicago priest until the look in his eye had told her that she was confusing the poor man, and she had fled the parish house. Since that day, in this city of strangers, she had found no one in whom she could confide, and whenever she was alone she ached to unburden her anguish to someone; not to complain, but to help her in her search for an answer to that age-old question she kept asking herself in all its permutations: “Wye was I born, wye am I here, wye don’t I matter?” Now as she brooded on these mysteries in her mind, and as though in answer to her queries, her eyes suddenly focused on a passing sign:

“ENTER THE PSYCHIC WORLD WITH MME. SONYA”
“Tarot Cards or Palms $2 Psychic (Soul) Reading $5”
(the sign read)

““STOP!” she called to her chauffeur-bodyguard, but her driver paid no attention and kept on driving.
“You hear me, Packy!” she shouted. “I said, ‘Stop,’ goddammit! I wanna go into that there fortuneteller joint!”
Packy Moran locked eyes with her in the rear-view mirror. “Can’t,” he told her, “if we are late Big Augie gets sore at me.”
“YOU WANT I SHOULD GET OUTA THE CAR WICH IT IS STILL RUNNIN?” she yelled, and to reinforce her meaning, opened the door.
“Okay, o-kay!” Packy said. He braked the limousine and through honking, protesting traffic backed it to the curb in front of Mme. Sonya’s entrance. “Just make it snappy.”
For an answer, she slammed the limousine door behind her, stomped into the fortuneteller’s shop, sat down at the table opposite the dark-eyed proprietor and gave her a sign to begin.

ON HER WAY IN she'd decided to start without speaking, to give herself time while the Gypsy dealt out the cards, to plan how to tell this woman what she needed with all her being: time to find some way to speak her needs that wouldn’t confuse the fortuneteller the way she had the Chicago priest; and her effort was so intense that Madame Sonya felt it and stopped laying out the cards.
“You want something the cards do not tell you,” she said, as fact rather than question.
“Right!” said Honey.
“Then I tell you what your Past means,” said Madame Sonya.
“I awready know wat my past means,” Honey told her, in a tone that made Madame Sonya certain that her client did, indeed, know what her past meant and was disgusted with it.
Which surprised Madame Sonya, for over her young customer’s shoulder she could see the big Lincoln limousine that her pretty young meal-ticket had arrived in. The Lincoln had a big, fat, expensive white-walled tire in its fender well with shiny nickel plated casing and a nickel-plated mirror strapped to its top. She could tell that there was another big, fat, expensive white-walled tire in the street-side fender well, because she could see another nickel-plated mirror on the other side of the long, black, polished hood. Her examination took in the big nickel-plated headlights, the nickel trim on the running board, and the promise of a big fat fee that could match these big fat expensive things floated like a vision before her - until her eyes met the eyes of the limousine’s driver and without knowing why, the image of guns appeared beside the dollar signs in her mind, and she had to control a sudden impulse to shiver.
“The cards do not satisfy your thirst for what is to come,” Madame Sonya began carefully, stalling until she could think of a way to keep that hoped-for fee from getting away. “You want perhaps a soul reading?”
“No,” Honey replied.
“And you do not want interpretation of the Past.”
“No,” Honey agreed.
“This leaves only The Present,” said Madame Sonya, and her eyes once more drifted past her client’s head to the big Lincoln limousine. “Which is as it is.”
“Yes!” said her client, so vehemently that Madame Sonya tore her eyes away from the Lincoln to stare quizzically at her young customer.
“What remains in my power to tell you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Honey. “But I’m hopin.”
She took a deep breath and reached into that inchoate place in her mind where her primary desires lived.
“Wat it is,” she began, “is that for a long time I’ve had this kine a feelin about myself that ain’t just wrapped up in gettin ahead - or fightin to make a livin even. Somethin bigger’n me an yet is me. You follerin?”
She could see that the Gypsy wasn’t, so she took another tack:
“Lissen. My name is Honey Burke. Does this tell you anythin?”
Madame Sonya’s head shake of non-comprehension made Honey pound her fists on the table in frustration.
“It’s accounta my hair!” she yelled.
To reinforce her meaning, she grabbed a handful of golden hair, thrust it at Madame Sonya.
“See?” she commanded. Then, more calmly, she continued, “Since I’m this little -” With her free hand she measured out the height she had been at the time she was recalling: “everybody always says, ‘It’s just like honey.’ Wich this is how I even get my name! It should oughta be Mary Frances. This is wat I am called wen I am born. It is wat I am baptised. But accounta my hair I am called Honey!”
“I do not understand,” said Madame Sonya.
“It ain’t my name! It’s wat I’m called! An I don’t pick it! I don’t even have any say about it!”
Madame Sonya’s eyes returned to the big Lincoln limo: “You are rich,” she said, with an involuntary shade of wistful yearning in her voice.
“RICH!” Honey shouted. “LISSEN! I AM TRYNA TELL YOU SOMETHIN!” She felt her voice getting tight and stopped to take a breath:

Wat am I tryna tell her? she asked herself. Slow down, get a handle on it.

“Lissen,” she began again, in a calmer, lower pitched voice, “Lissen. Alla women I know, my ma, my sisters an neighborhood friends - they been wore out early from work an havin one kid after another. Or if they ain’t pratticly dead from it, it is account they hide out from the neighborhood in a convent or workin the streets.”
“Is same thing for women everywhere, no?” said Madame Sonya. “Unless you are rich. With big black limousine.”
“This is the point!” Honey shouted again. “It ain’t mine!”
“It is yours to ride in,” Madame Sonya said. “If you do not like to ride in this big black limousine, you could leave it.”
“Any places I run, the gorilla fines me an I am dead,” Honey shouted. “So lissen wat I’m tryna tell you! Charley Neuf’s Speak in New York, you ever hear of it?”
Madame Sonya shook her head “no”.
“Well, it’s big-time. Wich it ain’t called just Charley Neuf’s Speak, it is called Chateau Neuf, like it is this Frenchy kine a thing, an it’s bigger’n Texas Guinan’s. So beginnin a this year - actual it’s New Year’s Eve - I am the headline canary there. I get there atter warblin my way up through a lotta crummy beer joints. So - I am booked for two whole weeks. With options for more. An if I click, star billin! You know wat that means?” She could see by Madame Sonya’s impassive expression that she didn’t, so she explained: “It means I paid my my dues an my name goes top a the billboards an show cards. It means alla work I do puttin myself together perfessionally is finely gettin results. Wich you wanna know wat this work is, I tell you. Some beer joint canaries, they got good pipes, they warble the notes, jazz up the words a little, some even maybe work out a kine a style - so you hear a coupla notes you know it is them singin. But wat I figure is, like they say, there’s a broken heart for every light on Broadway - well, I know everybody I’m singin to is got a dream a some kind. An this dream is maybe owney about one night wen - if somethin had turned out differnt - their whole life coulda been differnt. Course this most likely ain’t actual true - but it’s wat they have made theirselfs believe. So I try to sing to that - use a part a each song to tap inta wat it is they’re dreamin. Like take Irving Berlin, a lotta the songs he’s been writin he writes to this actual dame he’s tryna marry. All Alone an - an - What’ll I Do? An he does it so simple, the words are like - like you just think ‘em wile you’re singin ‘em an you can make the people you’re singin ‘em to fall in love all over again, an if they ain’t never been in love, wish they had been -”
She noticed that Madame Sonya’s eyes were beginning to have the same anxious look her Chicago priest’s had, and shifted gears.
“Wat this means - wat I am tellin you about other canaries an wye I sing differnt from them, first off, it means I am not gonna be like alla women I grow up with. I decide way back, if somebody else is gonna hand my name to me, I am gonna make it inta somethin, somethin wich it is mine, make people reckanize my idea of Honey Burke; an makin that Honey Burke be somebody! This is wat I mean wen I tell you back there, I have this feelin about I matter. This is wat bein booked inta Charley Neuf’s means to me - even the bookin is owney two weeks, it means I am gettin to be a winner. First one in my whole family! Account my contrack says if I click at Charley Neuf’s I get booked for a run. An I do click, I even get a mention in the newspaper colyums, Winchell an ghees like that - So Charley Neuf doesn’t even wait till the end a the two weeks, end a the first week I am renewed! I am It - With I got a agent, even! An like my agent says, I am even gonna start takin lessons how to talk proper - like, you know, Uptown. So’s I can move up to the Big Time, do a legit show on Broadway, maybe. A course wen I sing I awready pernounce the song-words right - an wen I interduce my numbers I learned how to do it like Uptown. But talkin - like now - this is a whole other thing. I ain’t comf’table talkin Uptown alla time. I mean, to think Uptown I need work - special on wat words mean - this is the numb a the thing. I’m tryna learn words, wat they actual mean. Account I fine out a long time back they mean more’n just wat the dictionary says if you sing ‘em right - with the right kine a feelin under ‘em, that is. So in my wardrobe trunk I got all kindsa books on wat they mean-”

I’m ramblin again.

She stopped, took another deep breath, then finished off this first part of her confession: “So wat I am tellin you is, this is the first break a my whole life an before I even collect on it the gorilla shanghais me!”
“I do not understand this ‘shanghai’,” said Madame Sonya.
“I AM TELLIN YA!” Honey yelled at her. “THE GORILLA WICH OWNS THAT BIG LIMO YOU KEEP LOOKIN AT, HE TELLS ME I GOTTA COME OUT TO HERE IN CHICAGO WITH HIM OR I END UP BOTTOM A THE RIVER, WICH THIS IS HOW COME I AM ASSOCIATED WITH HIM.”
She blinked back angry tears that welled up in her eyes, and continued in a calmer tone. “But for two whole weeks before that I am a Star! You shoulda seen my outfit I sing in - a genuine Chanel copy! Gold sequins. With I got a gold lamé bandeau to hold my hair. An every night Charley Neuf, hisself, comes to my dressin room with flowers an says like this, ‘Honey, you go on out there an’ knock ‘em dead again for me.’ An this night I am tellin you about I knock ‘em dead all right.”
Once more she had to fight back tears.
“My openin number is ‘Side By Side’ - I do it like a jump number, real upbeat, to get their blood goin - an I do my own accompaniment.”
Madame Sonya noted the touch of pride that flickered across her young client’s face as she said that.
“I am at the pianer an almost through my first chorus wen I see these two big ghees come in. They are across this tiny dance floor from me. An wat I notice right off is the way the biggest one stops an stares at me like he’s pole-axed. In fact he is so gone that the other ghee has to lead him to the table the headwaiter gives them. An alla way through my number I can feel him starin an starin. I look over at him again just in time to see him point to me - like he’s givin some kine a order to the other ghee. So the other ghee gets up an comes over to my pianer, an soon as I finish my number, he grabs me by the wrist an pulls me offa my seat.
“‘Hey,’ I tell him, ‘I gotta do my act.’
“Later,’ he says, an pulls me across the dance floor to the table with the gorilla. ‘This here is Big Augie Farrell,’ he says, like he is interducin the Kinga somethin or other.
“‘That’s me, all right,’ the gorilla tells me. ‘Big Augie Farrell from Chicago, you maybe heard of me?’
“Well, even in New York I have heard of him - he is a ghee who makes people disappear - an I can see by the expression on his phiz that he reads on mine I have heard of him. But I stick my chin out at him anyways. ‘Tell this big ape to take his paws off,’ I say to him back.
“So the gorilla says to the other ghee, ‘Toddy, take your paws off the broad.’
Then he turns back to me an says, real hoity-toity polite, ‘You wanna sit down?’
“Do I got a choice?’ I say to him.
“An like he hasn’t heard this, he says, ‘You like a drink, maybe?’
“I look around an I don’t see Charley Neuf or his bouncer anywheres, so I got no say for the minute, an I sit down. ‘Just coffee,’ I tell him, ‘I’m workin.’
“So the ghee the gorilla calls ‘Toddy’ grabs a waiter an says, ‘Bring the broad some coffee.’
“Then the gorilla says to me, again real polite-like, ‘I am here in New York on business. I go back to Chicago tomorruh,’ he says - with this sappy kine a smile an some kine a funny accent, wich it is on top a soundin like New York, but it is account way back he is from St. Louis. So then he tells me, ‘You’re gonna like Chicago.’
“An I tell him back, ‘I got no plans to go to Chicago.’
“‘From now on,’ the gorilla says, ‘I make your plans for you.’ “So I get up an start to leave. This makes the gorilla smile again. But this smile - this smile is the kine a smile I never see before but I know wat it means even before I fine out wat it means - an wile he smiles like this he says to Toddy, who awready steps in fronta me so’s I can’t leave even if the gorilla’s smile don’t stop me in my tracks, ‘Tell her, Toddy,’ he says.
“So Toddy clears his throat a coupla times. ‘Honey,’ he says, real sweet-like. ‘Lemme lay it out for you. Wen Big Augie says you’re gonna like Chicago, he means you’re gonna go to Chicago. Or else. You unnerstan?’
“I look from his phiz to the gorilla’s. Wich it is now smiling this new kine a smile, like he’s got the eagers I should grab Toddy’s meanin. Wich it is pretty clear that if I say ‘No,’ I end up just another dead broad - maybe swole up and floatin down the East River. An lookin in their eyes I see I got no time to use my willies even -”
Madame Sonya held up a hand to stop her. “I do not understand this willies,” she said.
“Willies!” Honey said, with a touch of asperity that this foreteller of all things didn’t understand such basics known to all women. “Willies, for cryin out loud! All females got ‘em! Wich they are powerful stuff to use on a ghee, like eyelash-battin, an hip wigglin, an - an - stuff like that. An the way the cards are stacked against females, ma always says, a woman shouldn’t oughta hesitate to use her willies on a man to get wat she needs.”
“Ah,” said Madame Sonya, suppressing a smile. “I see. Willies.”
“So with even my willies are no use in this situation, everythin I work for, alla work puttin myself together till I’m somebody - alla that is blowed apart by two words, ‘Or Else.” Even my name on top a the sign out front, wich I work so hard to get there, don’t mean nothin - nobody, nowhere is listenin, nobody nowhere cares. An this is wen I sudden know I don’t matter. This is the numb a wat I am tryna tell you - I don’t matter. An I gotta. I gotta fine a way to - to-”
She stopped, out of steam, all her energy spent, and looked away from Madame Sonya to hide the tears of frustration that were welling up and stinging her eyes.
“I see,” said Madame Sonya.
“No, you don’t,” Honey told her, bitterly. “Accounta, in a way, it is kine a my own fault.”
“Ah,” said the gypsy, with a knowing smile. “You want the big limousine.”
“No!” Honey said, so loud she sounded hoarse. “No! Wat it is, wen my da is sick in bed dyin a the T.B. I tell him how I figure to break outa workin in the Five an Dime, or maybe gettin married to some neighborhood ghee, livin in Hell’s Kitchen an gettin the life sucked outa me raisin a buncha brats on never enough dough. I tell him how Father Brannigan is alla time tellin me I got such good pipes, so I am gonna start singin in the beer joints, an my da says to me like this, ‘Honey,’ he says, ‘You do that, you gonna meet a lotta rough ghees, so you put yourself unner Dingbat O’Brien’s arm. His da an my da come over on the boat together from the Old Country. Dingbat, he is out in Chicago now, runnin the best horse parlor on the North Side. So you call him, say you are Jim Burke’s daughter, an put yourself unner his arm an nobody or nothin touches you’.”
Again Madame Sonya was mystified. “What is this ‘under arm’ thing?” she asked.
“It’s a Irish thing. Means if I ast him, Dingbat will pertect me from anybody. But I don’t do wat my da says, wich this is wye I say it is kine a my fault -”
She stopped as she felt a breeze from behind lift her hair; knew that the front door behind her had opened; knew from the sudden pallor on Madame Sonya’s face that it was Packy Moran who had come in and not another of Madame Sonya’s clients. Packy had that effect on people: his eyes had a way of sizing people up like he was doing it over a gun sight, and Honey appreciated the effort Madame Sonya had to make to pull her eyes away from his to look once more into hers:
“Again, I ask,” Madame Sonya said, “what is it you want me to tell you?”
“Wat I want is -” Honey paused, and to keep Packy Moran from hearing, leaned across the table and whispered, “To fine some way to prove that I ain’t just another dumb blonde like all my life ghees keep tellin me I am.”
“Smart or dumb,” Madame Sonya whispered back, “There is only Destiny.”
“Wat’s destiny?” Honey whispered back.
“Road you travel to where you must go,” whispered Madame Sonya.
“Who drives?” Honey wanted to know.
“Driver is not important. Sometimes you ride, sometimes walk. Sometimes other roads meet yours. Important thing is company you meet on way, sometimes good, sometimes not. Is what you call ‘Fate’.”
“Lissen,” Packy broke in, “we gotta go.”
Honey ignored him: “Never mind Fate!” she yelled at Madame Sonya, “Wat about provin a person matters?”
“To whom?” asked Madame Sonya.
“To - to -” Honey waved one arm around, desperately trying to suggest what she had no words for.
“Perhaps to Heaven?” the Gypsy suggested with disdain.
Honey weighed whether she was worthy of heaven, then waggled one hand in an iffy gesture. “Could be,” she whispered.
“Ah,” Madame Sonya said, and leaned forward to whisper derision directly into Honey’s ear: “You want miracle, perhaps?”
“If that’s wat it takes!” Honey hissed back.
“There is no such thing,” said Madame Sonya. “In whole Cosmos, is no such thing.”
Honey frowned. “Wat’s ‘cosmos’?” she asked.
“World, stars, everything,” said Madame Sonya.
“Time to go,” said Packy, putting a hand on her shoulder. “How much she owe you, lady?”
Honey shrugged him off and to counter Madame Sonya’s put-down of her hopes, demanded, “How’s about the Bible?”
“Ah,” Madame Sonya sighed. “But that was long time ago.”
“How much she owe you, lady?” Packy repeated.
Before Madame Sonya could answer, Honey snapped at him, “Give her a twenty, for cryin out loud!” then turned back to Madame Sonya: “Lissen!” she said, with her jaw stuck out belligerently, “If it happens once, it can happen again, can’t it!”
“Don’t argue with the lady,” said Packy. “Here y’ are, ma’am,” he told Madame Sonya.
And with a sigh, Madame Sonya noted that the man called Packy was peeling her twenty from a roll of bills which was as fat as the tires on the big black limousine toward which he was propelling her client by one elbow.
“CAN’T IT!” Honey insisted over her shoulder as she was being pulled toward the front door, “IF A MIRACLE HAPPENS TO SOMEBODY BACK THEN, A MIRACLE CAN HAPPEN TO ME, NOW, CAN’T IT?”
“Knock it off, Honey, knock it OFF!” Packy barked as he got her to the door. “B.A. is waitin for us at the cemetery an he don’t want we should be late gettin there.”
But clutching the door frame, Honey called out, “CAN’T IT?”
“Perhaps,” Madame Sonya called back. “But for miracle to happen, will have to be your Destiny.”
“WICH THIS IS THAT ROAD THING?” Honey shouted as Packy disengaged her fingers from the door frame.
“Yes,” Madame Sonya answered. “Is possible only if on that road you meet Man of Perfection who is this miracle maker.”
"AN IF I CONNECT WITH THIS WATCHACALL MAN-A-PERFECKSH’N, THAT CAN DO IT?” Honey shouted as she was half-carried through the door, across the sidewalk to the curb, and into the limo.
Madame Sonya went to her window and nodded her head. “Only that,” she murmured as her client disappeared from her view.

While Packy maneuvered the big limousine through the morning’s northbound traffic, Honey reviewed the information she’d just gleaned from the fortuneteller:

“But for miracle to happen, will have to be your Destiny,” she tells me. Account everybody’s got this kine a Road she has got to be on-an the ghees you meet on this Road has somethin to do with wat happens to you-wich this is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Like right now Packy is one a the people I meet.

She looked at Packy’s reflection in the rear view mirror: he felt her eyes on him and returned her look in time to see her shake her head, like she was saying “no”.

Nah, she told herself, Packy ain’t who the Gypsy means, he’s just drivin me along Sheridan Road. But the gorilla. He is a differnt article. He takes me from Charley Neuf’s to here. So is he the one drivin me to my - wattid she call it - Fate?

Once again she shook her head:

Nah. She says the driver don’t matter, it’s the company you meet on this dingdong Destiny Thing. An right this minute the biggest goddam company on my Road is still the gorilla. An the owney Fate he guarantees is I am associated with him or I am dead. An top a that, there is this Cosmos thing-wich she says there ain’t no place in it for a miracle. An a miracle is wat I gotta have to gimme a sign that I matter...

Packy had never seen Honey’s face so screwed up and flushed as he now saw it in his rear-view mirror, and it worried him: “She could maybe bad-mouth me to B.A.,” he reminded himself, “account she’s sore I hustle her outa the Gypsy’s place.”
“Lissen,” he said over his shoulder while keeping his eyes on the thickening traffic, “Wen I hustle you back there at the Gypsy’s an tell you we don’t wanna be late, this here is the reason. There is this ghee with B.A. wich lemme tell you about him so you don’t put your size 6 in your mouth wen we get there. First off, he is a freakin sassiety ghee, wich even his name is different - with numbers after it, like his full moniker is Richard Watson Gilder the Three, so’s you figure there is maybe a coupla more RWGs you got to go through to get to him. Wich this means, right from wen he is a little shaver an goes to school he does not just go to P.S. 90. Oh, no, he goes to school someplace his folks got to pay. An wen he gets bigger, he is a college-type ghee - wich if you are one a the ghees around the horse rooms you prolly never get past the eighth grade - but The Three does not just go to college; he goes to someplace wich you don’t even know how to fine it account it is hid under all this ivy, wich his da signs him up for this place the day he is born. But The Three ain’t finished there. Atter he gets outa this first place wich it is hid unner alla ivy, he goes to this other place, wich it is also hid under ivy an is called Harvardlaw. An at this place he gets made into some kine a fancy mouthpiece.
“Now here comes the funny part - wile The Three is goin to alla these freakin schools an is heavy inta books, his da, RWG The Two,, is heavy inta Bookies, so wen The Two blows his heart an croaks from watchin a close finish at Hialeah, pratticly all he leaves The Three is wat he owes on them markers.
“An this is how B.A. an The Three begin their association, account wen The Two goes, The Three does not have a pfennig to his name - all he has is wat B.A. calls connections. Wich it is these connections that gives B.A. his big idea. Account before he meets The Three, he hears how the Feds are nosin aroun town tryna fine out where alla moo from the rackets is bein stashed, so B.A. tries to lay off some a the moo from his beer joints, his red-light houses, his bet shops, inta legit stuff, like a dry cleanin chains. But down the South Side, Al Black also thinks a this at the same time an pretty soon the papers are fulla stories about how B.A. an Al, they are blowin up each other’s dry cleanin shops all over town. But B.A. is one up on Al Black - account before they blow each other up, he does some missionary work with the labor unions, wich they are organizin the dry cleaners. This missionary work is mostly about gettin people to change their way a lookin at stuff - like it is maybe better to keep fifty percent a somethin than a hunnert percent a nothin. An this missionary work brings him inta contact with legit business ghees who got all this trouble with these unions. So wile he is in contact with some a these legit ghees, one day he mentions all this moo he has an how he wants to invest this moo with them an get to be legit, an they all turn white like they are awready dead.
“So B.A. calls The Three an tells him they gotta meet, account he has bought up The Two’s markers for fifty cents onna dollar. So they meet an B.A. essplains his “Or Else” proposition to The Three an The Three thinks a little, then tells B.A. if he will back off with the threats to bump him off he will fine ways to ease B.A.’s moo inta legit stuff - slow an easy like, so the Feds don’t notice the changeover. So first off, wat The Three does, he takes B.A. outa the dry cleanin business - wich this stops alla newspaper stories about B.A. an bombin. Next, The Three shovels some a B.A.’s moo inta a coupla three charity enterprises, wich this gets B.A. in the papers with some good stories. Then The Three gets B.A. inta Florida real estate.
“Now, wat this real estate is, it’s a dog track bein built down in Tampa. Dog tracks is cleanin up all over the country, but in Florida it is so big even some sassiety people put their moo inta the tracks - like before The Two croaks he tells The Three he has put a buck or two inta this track, wich it is called The Flamboyan. It is right outside a Tampa, an it ain’t quite finished wen The Two blows his heart at Hialeah.
“Wich this brings us to today. The owney other thing The Three inherits besides the markers an this dog track is wat B.A. wants ta show you. An this is wye I hustle you back there with the Gypsy.”
He took his eyes off the traffic for a quick look in the mirror to see how his recitation had gone down with Honey, but her face gave him no clue and made him wonder if she’d even been listening.
“Speakin a wich,” he said, “wat is all this ‘miracle’ stuff you are talkin back there in the Gypsy’s dump?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, as though she hadn’t heard him, she turned her head toward the hot breeze coming in the side window.
“Lissen,” he said, “I say to you -”
“I know wat you say to me,” she replied with her head still turned away from him. “I hear you, I ain’t deef!”
“Okay,” he said, holding a tight rein on his anger. “You hear wat I say to you. So wye don’t you answer wat I say to you?”
“Because!” she said. “Because I am tryna think! An wat I am tryna think ain’t nonna your business!”
“Lissen,” he said, and she could feel his barely controlled anger: “Lissen! An looka me wen you lissen!”
She turned from the side window to meet his eyes in the rear view mirror.
“Big Augie tells me,” Packy continued, “Keep a eye on the broad, she don’t do nothin she shouldn’t oughta,’ he says. So I got to know is this miracle stuff somethin you shouldn’t oughta, don’t I?”
“Alls I am tryna do with the miracle stuff,” she announced calmly, “is thinka some way -”
“Hey!” he shouted, as the driver of a car cut in on him. She watched him yank his steering wheel to the right, felt the back of her seat press against her as he stomped hard on the accelerator. He soon pulled alongside the offending car and through his open window he waved a forty-five automatic and yelled at the other driver, “You do that again I blow your freakin head off!” With another spurt of speed, he pulled ahead of the car, cut in, and then turned his angry attention back to her. “Miracles!” he snorted, “Wat kine a crap is that?”
“It ain’t crap!” Honey said, in a voice that would have been louder if her throat hadn’t suddenly gotten so tight.
“It is so, too - this is Nineteen Twenny Nine, for cryin out loud!” “I don’t care if it’s Nineteen Ninety Nine - a girl should oughta have a say about who she is associated with!”
He gave her a sharp look in the rear-view mirror. “You should oughta thunka this before you are associated with Big Augie,” he told her.
“This is my whole point!” she told him. “I don’t never have a chance to think before I am associated with him. Alls I get is, be associated with him - or else.” She flicked him a look in the rear-view mirror, and his eyes told her that she wasn’t going to get any understanding of her point:
“Lissen,” he said, “You’re ridin in a nice limo, you got seventeen trunks fulla clothes, even it’s summer an hotter’n a two dollar pistol, you got maybe half a dozen fur coats, an you eat good, so wat’s your beef?”
She looked out the window again without replying.
My beef is, she told herself, a girl should oughta be The Star a her own story.
The rest of the way to the gated cemetery she was silent, re-reviewing all aspects of the mystery that Madame Sonya had laid on her:
So wat if I do somethin that changes the Destiny driver. Do I end up somewheres else? An am I allowed to do this? An who do I ast, am I allowed?