The Professional Page 20

“Is it still raining out?” Doc said.

  “I don’t know,” Jay said.

  “Do me a favor,” Doc said. “Go see.”

  At nine o’clock we went into the kitchen. Girot’s wife, Katie, had just finished cleaning up, but she made us a hamburger apiece and coffee. Then we went back to the bar, and at ten o’clock Eddie and Jay and Penna stopped by. They had been watching television, and were on the way to bed.

  “Are you two guys still at it?” Jay said.

  “Is it still raining?” Doc said.

  “I already told you before. It stopped. I think it’s gonna be nice tomorrow.”

  “Good. Then we can celebrate that, too. The good old weather, and the good old Bunny Williams show, too.”

  “Some broad, hey?” Penna said to me. “I watched it, and I’d like to get on that show.”

  “Frankie called me,” Eddie said. “He watched it, too. He didn’t think it was so bad.”

  “See if it’s raining out, will you?” Doc said to Jay.

  “Sure,” Jay said, and then to me: “You don’t want me to wake you tomorrow, do you?”

  “If you don’t I’ll excommunicate you.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll leave you out of the story. So help me, I will.”

  “You want to get waked, I’ll wake you. It’s up to you.”

  18

  The next morning I felt the hand on my shoulder. I felt it and then I felt it again, this time shaking me, and then, finally, I made out a figure bending over me and I knew where I was.

  “Frank?”

  “Yes? Jay?”

  “No. It’s Eddie.”

  “Oh. I thought you were Jay.”

  “Doc wants you.”

  “Who?”

  “Doc?”

  “Yes, sure. Doc? What’s the matter with him? Is he all right?”

  Eddie was gone, the door open and the light from the hall coming in. I got up and got into my slippers and put on my robe. Doc was standing in the doorway of Eddie’s and Jay’s room, with his blue flannel robe on over his pajamas, and he looked terrible. His hair was uncombed and he needed a shave and his eyes were baggy and his face was almost as white as his hair and he looked a hundred years old.

  “You all right?” I said to him. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Jay,” he said. “Come in here.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “He’s what?”

  The overhead light was on in the room, bright, and I looked at Jay’s bed against the wall and he was lying there with the khaki Army blanket up to his chin, the white sheet folded down over the edge of the blanket. Just his face was showing, the eyes closed, the head on the pillow, all of it, Jay and the bed, in that corner against the wall.

  “He’s dead?” I said. “How do you know he’s dead?”

  “He’s dead,” Doc said.

  “But why is he dead? How could he be dead?”

  “A heart attack,” Doc said. “A heart attack, I guess.”

  “A heart attack? Did he have a bad heart?”

  “Sure. Two years ago he had an attack.”

  “I didn’t know that. Nobody ever told me.”

  Doc was sitting on the straight-backed chair near the table with Jay’s tape and bandages and bottles on it. Eddie was sitting on the edge of his bed, his robe over his pajamas, staring at the floor, and they said nothing.

  “I never knew that,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “He told me the doctor said he should take it easy,” Doc said. “I told him to listen to the doctor. I always brought another man into the corner to do all the carrying. Maybe he shouldn’t even have been here?”

  “Where else would he be? This would have happened wherever he was.”

  “Eddie woke me. He said: ‘You better get up. There’s something the matter with Jay.’”

  “I didn’t know what it was,” Eddie said. “The alarm clock went off and Jay always gets up. He didn’t get up and I got up and shut it off, and I tried to wake him up. How did I know he was dead?”

  “C’mon, men!” Penna said. “Hit the road!”

  He was standing in the doorway in his road clothes. He could see that something was wrong, and he came into the room.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Jay’s dead,” Eddie said.

  “What?”

  The others were in the hallway now, crowded in the doorway and looking in—Barnum and Memphis and Booker Boyd and DeCorso and Cardone—all of them heavy in their road clothes.

  “Jay’s dead,” Penna said to them. “Eddie said Jay’s dead.”

  “He’s what?” Barnum, in the beret, said.

  They followed him into the room, then, cautiously. They seemed almost to fill the room and they looked at Jay. I looked at him again, too, at the form under the khaki blanket and at the head on the pillow, bald, with that bashed, broken nose and that gnarled left ear. Now that I knew he was dead, he seemed a yellowing, curious figure out of a wax museum. He was so still. Move, Jay, I was thinking. All you have to do is move.

  “What happened to him?” DeCorso said.

  “He had a heart attack,” I said.

  “Why don’t we all get out of here?” Memphis said.

  “Yes,” Doc said.

  “You goin’ on the road?” Penna said to Eddie.

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are,” Doc said.

  “I don’t want to go. I don’t feel like it.”

  “You’re going,” Doc said. “You had yesterday off.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Doc’s right. You’re in training here, and the sooner you get back into it, the better.”

  “But I’m not even dressed.”

  “We’ll wait,” Barnum, in the doorway, said. “We’ll wait downstairs.”

  “Sure,” Penna said. “We’ll wait for you.”

  They left and Eddie got out of his robe and pajamas and dressed slowly. When he went out, Doc closed the door and sat down again.

  “Well,” I said, “what do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. What do we do?”

  “Is there any family? Did Jay have any relatives?”

  “No. He had a sister, married, but she died a couple of years ago. There’s her husband—if he’s still alive—but he’s old and wouldn’t give a damn.”

  “Where did Jay live?”

  “He’s got a room on West Ninety-third Street. I’ll have to take care of that, too.”

  “Forget it for now. I suppose we should get Girot. I suppose he knows an undertaker in this town.”

  “What time is it?”

  “That clock says five of seven.”

  “We kept Girot up until one o’clock. He’ll like this.”

  “He doesn’t like anything. Katie will be in the kitchen by now. I’ll tell her.”

  “I’ll get dressed,” Doc said.

  When I told Girot’s wife she threw up her hands and sat down and kept slapping her hands onto her lap and shaking her head. I got her to go and wake Girot, in the cottage where they slept, beyond the south end of the parking space, and I went upstairs and dressed quickly and went into Doc’s room. He was just finishing dressing when Girot came up the stairs.

  “Do you mean he’s dead?” he said. “This is terrible. Where is he?”

  “In his bed,” Doc said. “Go see for yourself.”

  Girot went across the hall and, in a moment, came out, closing the door behind him and shaking his head.

  “This is terrible,” he said. “Why did this have to happen here?”

  “Do you know an undertaker in town?” I said.

  “There’s only one.”

  “One’s enough,” Doc said. “Call him, will you?”

  “I’ll call him,” Girot said. “This is terrible.”

  Doc and I went down to the kitchen and Girot’s wife commiserated with Doc and poured us coffee. We carried it out into the
dining room and sat at a table by a window on the lake side with the new sunlight flooding the white tablecloth. When we finished the coffee, Girot’s wife came out and refilled the cups, and finally we heard the fighters come back and we went out into the lobby.

  “Go up and use my room,” Doc said to Eddie. “Cool out in my room.”

  “All right,” Eddie said, and he followed the others into the sitting room and we could hear them going up the stairs.

  “I’ll go up with him,” I said.

  Doc went to the kitchen to get the cup of hot tea for Eddie, and I followed Eddie into the room and closed the door. There was a wicker armchair with a cretonne-covered cushion in it by the window, and Eddie, sweating, sat down in it.

  “How was the road?” I said.

  “All right.”

  “Here. Use Doc’s towel.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Look. I know how you feel about Jay, but you have to forget it. It may sound unfeeling, but the only important thing is the fight. You don’t want to blow the fight.”

  “I’m not gonna blow the fight, but Jay was a nice little guy. Why did it have to be Jay?”

  “Who knows?”

  “He was with me for all my fights. From the time Doc took me, Jay was with me for every fight except one or two out of town the first couple of years.”

  “I know.”

  “How did I know he was dead? I was shaking him and saying: ‘Jay, come on and get up.’ I didn’t know he was dead.”

  “Of course not.”

  Doc came in with the tea and gave it to Eddie. Then he went across the hall and came back with Eddie’s robe and shower clogs and another towel.

  “After you’ve had your shower I’ll get your clothes,” he said to Eddie.

  We heard feet on the stairs and Girot came up with a man in a blue serge suit. He was short and fairly stout and looked about sixty. He had a round, pink face that was expressionless, and his hair, gray now, was plastered back in a pompadour with a straight part right down the middle.

  “This is Mr. Edwards,” Girot said. “The undertaker. This is Mr. Doc Carroll and Eddie Brown and Mr. Hughes.”

  “May I extend my sympathy?” Mr. Edwards said.

  “Thanks,” Doc said.

  “Tell me,” Mr. Edwards said to Girot, “where is the deceased now?”

  “Across the hall,” Doc said. “It’s that room right there.”

  “I understand. Would you, uh, prefer to talk here or shall we go somewhere else?”

  “If you’re going across the hall we’ll talk there,” Doc said. “Eddie doesn’t have to be a part of this.”

  “I understand. Fine.”

  “Will you come with us, Frank?”

  “If you want.”

  We left Eddie, and Girot went back downstairs and Doc led the way into the room. Mr. Edwards walked over to the bed and looked down at Jay and then turned back to us.

  “As I understand it, there was no physician in attendance at the time of death?”

  “That’s right,” Doc said. “He must have died in his sleep. Eddie—my fighter—found him just like that. He had heart trouble.”

  “Well, I shall need a certificate of death. Is there a doctor here who was treating him?”

  “Up here? No.”

  “Then I’ll call the coroner.”

  “Why the coroner?”

  “Well, that’s the law. It’s just a matter of procedure. In the absence of a physician the coroner must certify to the death.”

  “So call him.”

  “I’ll do that. Have you informed the surviving relatives?”

  “There are none. I’ll handle everything.”

  “Oh. Well, have you had a chance to think about the funeral and interment? Where it will be?”

  “I don’t know,” Doc said. “This thing just happened.”

  “I suppose he should be buried in New York,” I said.

  “I suppose so,” Doc said. “In Woodlawn, I guess. How do I go about getting him in there?”

  “I judge Mr. Jay owned no plot?” Mr. Edwards said.

  “No.”

  “Well, I can arrange that for you. Will there be a church service?”

  “No. He didn’t go to church. Can’t we use Cooke’s or one of those funeral parlors somewhere around midtown?”

  “Certainly. I’ll make my call now and then go back to my office—I have a burial later today—but I’ll be back. I’ll see to everything.”

  “Thanks,” Doc said.

  “I suggest that this room be locked. I imagine the coroner will want to see everything as it is.”

  “Whatever you say,” Doc said.

  “But he wants to get Eddie Brown’s clothes out of here,” I said.

  “Clothes?”

  “Yes. He ran on the road this morning. He’s probably getting out of those clothes now. After he’s had his shower he wants to put on other clothes—slacks and a shirt and sweater. They’re probably right there in the closet.”

  “He couldn’t wait? It probably won’t be long.”

  “Wait?” Doc said. “Wait for what? What difference does it make?”

  “Well, it would be better to leave everything.”

  “Look,” I said. “I’ll pick out the clothes right now, while you’re here. Then we’ll all go out together and close the door.”

  “There aren’t any keys for these doors anyway,” Doc said.

  That seemed to convince him, so I went over to the closet and opened it. I saw some of the things Eddie had been wearing, and I took a pair of slacks and a plaid shirt and a light-blue sweater and shoes with socks stuffed into them. There were a pair of shorts and a T-shirt on a hook, and I took them, too.

  “That’s all,” I said, showing Mr. Edwards.

  “All right,” he said. “You understand that I just want to avoid any complications later.”

  We all walked out and Doc shut the door. Mr. Edwards went downstairs, after telling us again that he would handle everything, and Doc and I went into his room and I put the clothes down on the bed.

  “Is it all right?” Eddie said.

  “What’s this about the coroner and everything being left where it was?” Doc said to me.

  “I don’t know. It’s standard operational procedure, I suppose.”

  “The law. Always the law. The politicians and the lawyers haunt a guy right to his grave. Can’t they ever leave him alone?”

  After Eddie had had his shower and dressed we went down to the dining room. The others were finishing breakfast, and we sat by one of the windows again. Eddie passed up his cereal but had a couple of soft-boiled eggs, and Doc and I had coffee and toast.

  “Anyway,” I said, “the weather is nice. It’s beautiful out.”

  “Yeah,” Doc said.

  “What are we going to do?” Eddie said.

  “I’ll have to go into the city,” Doc said. “Is there a bus this afternoon or tonight?”

  “If you could drive,” Eddie said, “you could take my car.”

  “Go in tomorrow morning,” I said. “You won’t have the funeral until Thursday. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. I’d drive you, but for the purposes of this thing I’m supposed to be doing here I should stay with Eddie.”

  “I want you with him anyway. Funeral. Can you get out of having a funeral?”

  “Sure. You can call it private.”

  “Private. It’ll be private enough, even when it’s public.”

  “Mr. Edwards is here again,” Girot said, walking over to us.

  Mr. Edwards was waiting in the lobby with the coroner. He introduced the coroner as Doctor Bernardi. The doctor seemed to be in his early thirties, stern-faced and black-haired, wearing a dark gray suit and carrying a black medical bag and a black brief case.

  “You want to go upstairs?” Doc said.

  “I’ve already seen the body,” the doctor said. “There are some questions to be answered, so I’d like to find a place to sit down.”

  “You go u
pstairs,” Doc said to Eddie. “Go to my room.”

  “I’ll go with him,” I said.

  “I’d rather have you here,” Doc said. “Eddie’ll be all right.”

  We went back into the dining room with the doctor and Mr. Edwards following us. We sat down at one end of the long table that had been cleared of the breakfast dishes, and the doctor took a printed form out of his brief case and placed it on the table and took out a fountain pen.

  “To begin with, the name of the deceased?”

  “Johnny Jay,” Doc said.

  “He’ll want his legal name,” I said.

  “Yes, his legal name.”

  “That’s right,” Doc said. “Joseph Giorno. G-i-o-r-n-o.”

  “He had an alias?”

  “Not an alias,” Doc said.

  “Well, what was it, if it wasn’t an alias?”

  “It was his fighting name.”

  “He was a fighter?”

  “Years ago.”

  “Was he a good fighter? Well known?”

  “Does that have to go down there, too? Do you mean to tell me you’ve got a line on that form for that?”

  “I’m merely asking.”

  “What else do you want to know?”

  “Was there a middle initial?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  The doctor filled in a couple of lines on his own.

  “Was he married?”

  “No.”

  “Ever?”

  “No.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “July 14th, sixty-three years ago. Figure it out.”

  The doctor took a piece of blank paper out of his brief case and did the subtraction on that. Then he marked the date on the form.

  “Place of birth? Do you know that?”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “Father’s name?”

  “Tony. Anthony, or Antonio. Whatever you want to make it.”

  “Mother’s maiden name?”

  “God, I don’t know.”

  “As I understand, there are no relatives who would know?”

  “Correct.”

  “Usual occupation?”

  “Prize-fight trainer.”

  “Kind of business or industry?”

  “What? Prize fighting. Boxing. Make it boxing.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Yes. As long as we’re being so legal, prize fighting is outlawed. It’s boxing. Boxing is legalized.”

  “Was the deceased ever in the U.S. armed forces?”