Kane & Abel (1979) (31 page)

He saw George and his constant succession of girlfriends regularly at weekends, but spent most of his evenings during the week at night school improving his ability to read and write English. Within two years he had made himself fluent in his new tongue, retaining only the slightest trace of an accent. He now felt ready to leave the meat packers’ - but for what, where and how?

Three months later, he found out.

Abel was dressing a leg of lamb one morning when he overheard one of the shop’s biggest customers, the catering manager of the Plaza Hotel, grumbling to the butcher that he’d had to fire a junior waiter for petty theft.

‘How can I find a replacement at such short notice?’ the manager complained.

The butcher had no solution to offer. Abel did. He put on his only suit, walked forty-seven blocks uptown and was offered the job of junior waiter in the Palm Court, at $10 a week, with a room provided.

Once he had settled in at the Plaza, he enrolled for a night course in advanced English at Columbia University. He worked conscientiously every evening, secondhand
Webster’s
open in one hand, pen scratching away with the other. During the mornings, between serving breakfast and setting up for lunch, he would copy out the editorials from
The New York Times
, looking up in his dictionary any word he didn’t know the meaning of.

For the next two years Abel worked night and day at the Plaza - overtime was a word he didn’t need to look up in his dictionary - until he was promoted to become a waiter in the Oak Room. He now made about twenty-five dollars a week, including tips. In his own world, he lacked for nothing.

Abel’s teacher at Columbia was so impressed by his diligent pupil that he advised him to enrol for a further course, which would be a first step towards taking a Bachelor of Arts degree. He switched his spare-time reading from linguistics to economics, and started copying out the editorials in
The Wall Street Journal
instead of those in
The Times
. His new studies totally absorbed him and, with the exception of George, he quickly lost touch with the Polish friends of his early days in New York.

Each day Abel would carefully study the list of those who had reserved tables in the Oak Room - the Bakers, Loebs, Whitneys, Morgans and Phelpses - and try to work out why the rich were different. He read H. L. Mencken,
The American Mercury
, Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser in his endless quest for knowledge. He studied
The Wall Street Journal
while the other waiters flipped through the
Mirror
, and read
The New York Times
in his hour-long break while they dozed. He was not sure where his newly acquired knowledge would take him, but he never doubted the Baron’s maxim that there was no substitute for a good education.

One Monday in August 1926 - he remembered the occasion well because it was the day Rudolph Valentino died, and many of the ladies shopping on Fifth Avenue wore black - Abel was serving one of the corner tables, which were always reserved for important businessmen who wished to lunch in privacy without being overheard. He enjoyed serving there, as he often picked up pieces of inside information from the conversation. After the restaurant had closed for the afternoon, Abel would check the stock prices of the diners’ companies, and if the tone of the conversation had been optimistic, he would invest a small amount of money in the company. If the host had ordered cigars at the end of the meal, Abel would make a larger investment. Seven times out of ten, the value of the stock he had selected doubled within six months, the period he would allow himself to hold on to any stock. Using this system, he lost money on only three occasions during the four years he worked at the Plaza.

What was unusual about this particular day was that the two diners at the corner table ordered cigars even before they sat down. Later they were joined by more guests, who ordered more cigars and bottles of champagne. Abel looked up the name of the host in the maitre d’s reservation book. Woolworth. Abel had seen the name in the financial columns quite recently, but he could not immediately remember why. The other guest was a Mr Charles Lester, a regular patron of the Plaza, who Abel knew to be a distinguished banker. The diners showed absolutely no interest in their unusually attentive waiter, which allowed Abel to listen intently. Abel could not discover any specific details, but he gathered that some sort of deal had been closed that morning, and would be announced after close of business that evening. Then he remembered. He had seen the name in
The Wall Street Journal
. Mr Woolworth’s father had started the first five-and-dime store; now the son was trying to raise money to expand. While the guests were enjoying their desserts - most of them had chosen the strawberry cheesecake (Abel’s recommendation) - he took the opportunity to leave the dining room for a few moments to call his broker on Wall Street.

‘What is Woolworth trading at?’ he asked.

There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Two and one-eighth. Quite a lot of movement lately; don’t know why, though,’ came the reply.

‘Buy up to the limit on my account until you hear an announcement from the company later today.’

‘What will the announcement say?’ asked the puzzled broker.

‘I am not at liberty to reveal that,’ replied Abel.

The broker was suitably impressed: Abel’s record in the past had led him not to enquire too closely about the sources of his information. Abel hurried back to the Oak Room in time to serve the guests’ coffee. They lingered over brandies for some time, and Abel only returned to the table as they were preparing to leave. The man who picked up the check thanked Abel for his attentive service and, turning so that his friends could hear him, said, ‘Do you want a tip, young man?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Abel.

‘Buy Woolworth stock.’

The guests all laughed. Abel laughed as well, took the $5 bill the man held out and thanked him. He also took a further $2,412 profit on Woolworth stock over the next six weeks.

Abel was granted full United States citizenship a few days after his twenty-first birthday, and decided the occasion ought to be celebrated. He invited George and his latest love, Monika, and a girl called Clara, one of George’s ex-loves, to see John Barrymore in
Don Juan,
and then on to Bigo’s for dinner. George was still an apprentice in his uncle’s bakery, working for eight dollars a week, and although Abel still looked upon him as his closest friend, he was aware of the growing difference between the penniless George and himself. Abel now had over $8,000 in his bank account and was in his last year at Columbia University studying for a BA in economics. He knew exactly where he was going, whereas George had stopped telling everyone he would be the mayor of New York one day.

The four of them had a memorable evening, mainly because Abel knew exactly what to expect from a good restaurant. His guests all had a great deal too much to eat and drink, and when the bill was presented, George was shocked to see that it came to more than he earned in a month. Abel paid without comment. If you have to pay a bill, always make it look as if the amount is of no consequence. If it is, don’t go to the restaurant again. Whatever you do, don’t complain or look surprised - that was something else the rich had taught him.

When the party broke up at about two in the morning, George and Monika returned to the Lower East Side. Abel felt he had earned Clara and invited her back to the Plaza. He smuggled her through the service entrance into a laundry elevator and then up to his room. She did not require much enticement, and Abel didn’t waste any time on foreplay, mindful that he had to catch some sleep before reporting for breakfast duty. He rolled over at three o’clock, fully satisfied, and sank into an uninterrupted sleep until his alarm rang at 6 a.m. This left him just enough time to make love to Clara a second time before he got dressed.

Clara regarded him sullenly as he put on his white bow tie, before giving her a perfunctory goodbye kiss.

‘Be sure you leave the way you came in, or you’ll get me into a load of trouble,’ he said. ‘When will I see you again?’

‘You won’t,’ said Clara stonily.

‘Why not?’ asked Abel, surprised. ‘Something I did?’

‘No, something you didn’t do.’ She jumped out of bed and started to dress quickly.

‘What didn’t I do? You wanted to go to bed with me, didn’t you?’

She turned around and faced him. ‘I thought I did, until I realized you have only one thing in common with Rudolf Valentino - you’re both dead. You may be the smartest thing the Plaza has seen in a bad year, but in bed, I can tell you, you’re a non-event.’ Fully dressed now, Clara paused by the door, composing her parting thrust. ‘Tell me, have you ever persuaded any girl to go to bed with you a second time?’

Stunned, Abel stared as the door slammed behind her. He spent the rest of the day thinking about Clara’s accusation. He couldn’t think of anyone he could discuss it with; George would only have laughed at him, and the staff at the Plaza all thought he knew everything. He decided that this problem, like any other he had encountered in his life, could be overcome with study or experience.

After lunch that day he visited Scribner’s on Fifth Avenue. The bookstore had in the past solved all his economics and linguistic problems, but he couldn’t find anything on its shelves that looked as if it might even begin to help his sexual ones. The books on etiquette were useless as he knew how to hold a knife and fork, and
The Moral Dilemma
turned out to be utterly inappropriate.

Abel left the store without making a purchase, and spent the rest of the afternoon in a dingy Broadway fleapit, not watching the movie but still going over what Clara had said. The film, a love story starring Greta Garbo and Errol Flynn, did not reach the kissing stage until the final reel, and provided no more insight than Scribner’s had.

When Abel left the movie house it was early evening, and there was a cool breeze blowing down Broadway. It still surprised Abel that any city could be almost as noisy and bright by night as it was by day. He started walking uptown towards Fifty-Ninth Street, hoping the fresh air would clear his mind. He stopped on the corner of Fifty-Second to buy an evening paper, so he could check the closing stock prices.

‘Looking for a girl?’ asked a voice from the corner by the newsstand.

Abel turned around. She must have been about thirty-five, heavily made up and wearing the latest fashionable shade of pink lipstick. Her white silk blouse had a couple of buttons undone, and she wore a long black skirt, black stockings and black shoes.

‘Only five dollars, worth every penny,’ she said, pushing her hip out at an angle, allowing the slit in her skirt to part and reveal the top of her stockings.

‘Where do we go?’ asked Abel.

‘I have a little place of my own on the next block.’

She inclined her head, indicating the direction she meant, and for the first time he saw her face clearly under the streetlight. She was not unattractive. Abel nodded his agreement, and she took his arm.

‘If the police stop and question us,’ she said, ‘you’re an old friend, and my name’s Joyce.’

They walked to the next block and entered a squalid little apartment building. Abel was horrified by the dingy room, with its single bare lightbulb, one chair, a wash basin and a crumpled double bed, which had obviously already been occupied several times that day.

‘You live here?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Good God, no. I only use this place for work.’

‘Why do you do this?’ asked Abel, wondering still if he wanted to go through with his plan.

‘I have two children to bring up and no husband. Can you think of a better reason? Now, do you want me or not?’

‘Yes, but not the way you think,’ said Abel.

She eyed him warily. ‘Not one of those weird ones, an admirer of the Marquis de Sade, are you?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Abel.

‘You’re not gonna burn me with cigarettes?’

‘No, nothing like that. I just need to be taught how to make love. I want lessons.’

‘Lessons? Are you joking? What do you think this is, baby, a fucking night school?’

‘Something like that,’ said Abel. He sat down on the corner of the bed and told her what Clara had said that morning. ‘Do you think you can help?’

The lady of the night studied Abel more carefully, wondering if it was April 1st.