The Autograph Hound (6 page)

“Take from any file cabinet. I think I can guess from all three. I study them after work. I add conversations to the back even if I already have the autograph.”

“'Forty—nineteen—thirty-five and a half.'”

“That could be anybody.”

“You'll never get this one, Benny.”

“I think I've got it.”

I take a pad and write an impersonation of the autograph. I fold it over. “The person whose card you're holding is Vera Jane Palmieri.”

“Wrong. You missed it. You really flubbed this one!”

I open the piece of paper and show her my Jayne Mansfield.

“Fantastic! You were just fooling about Vera Jane.”

“That was Miss Mansfield's first name.”

“It's unbelievable.”

“That was a tough one. I wasn't expecting someone from the dead file.”

“Your mind's a trap.”

“I've trained it for autographs. Sometimes I forget my own apartment number, walk right past it. But figures of the performers are gummed into my skull …”

Gloria wants me to do some more. I don't want to. After spending so much time with entertainers, some of their secrets sink in—get on, get your laugh, and get off. As a favor, I tell her to take two cards and read me the names. David Merrick and Wayne Newton are her picks. I do the Merrick with short, broad lines. I keep the letters crammed tight together. I take my time, but try to make it look like I'm in a terrible hurry.

“Tadah! David Merrick at your service.” I put my impersonation next to the real thing.

“That's interesting,” she says.

“Interesting! That's a perfect imitation.”

“Mr. Merrick's signature slants to the left. Yours is all the way to the right.”

“You're a tough critic. My Wayne Newton will surprise you.”

“I've really got to go, Benny. It's been nice making your acquaintance.”

“Wayne Newton coming up. Please?”

The trick to Wayne Newton is to remember he's a singer and he's short. Like most smallies in the business, he signs very large and swirly. I use a ball-point pen for this one. The pen skates along the paper.

“Don't ask me, Benny.”

“It's a dead ringer.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere.”

“I've been doing him for years. Let me try another.”

Gloria buckles on her ‘Chase Me' shoes. She stands up tall as Cyd Charisse, and walks to the door. “Thank you for a nice evening.”

I pull out another card. “It's not over.”

“I said I'm not playing.”

“I got this at the Pepsi-Cola Convention. I knew she'd be there. She's on the Board. I have triples. This one's yours.”

She looks at the Joan Crawford for a long time. This is the part I hate—the happy ending. She takes my hand and holds it to her cheek.

The door clicks shut. No “thank you.” Nothing.

I sit on the edge of my bed. I sniff the perfume off the back of my hand the way I used to smell glue. I'm dozy.

I lock up the collection for the night. I turn on the television. Abbott and Costello. I turn it off.

Should I curl up in the chair or take the bed? I remember Mom's letter. I'll take the bed.

Benny:

Your last two letters have been about these muscle-boy football players. There must be more news of the big city. Are you a faggot? Keep well. All love.

Francine/Mom

P.S. Good contacts are good business.

I turn out the lights. I put the shell to my ear. Soon I can hear Ocean Beach and my eyes get very heavy.

Chapter Two

THE MORNING NEWS HASN'T been the same since Jack Lescoulie retired. At 7:30—the TV's saying that it's Monday, that Hollywood's dying, that theater attendance's falling off, that the air's killing us, that the Mets lost. That's hooey. I've talked to thousands of healthy, happy people. I've got autographs to prove it. Americans take the word of one man sitting behind a desk who hasn't even seen what he's talking about with his own eyes. These young announcers think they know it all. They talk with the man in the street, not stars. The man in the street doesn't know shit, that's why he's in the street.

I cut the announcer off. I watch his head shrink to the size of a pin. I think nice thoughts. The perfume's still fresh on my hand. I go back to sleep.

At 9:00 things are looking better. The announcer says the astronauts are on their way to the moon. Five days, 263,000 miles away. Think of that.

I clock in. My name looks very big on the card, BENJAMIN S. WALSH typed in baby-blue ink. There's a special box for my card on the wall. Today, at 10:42 A.M., I slip the card into the machine, wait for the punch and the bell. I like the bell. There's a note in my box. It's written on Homestead paper—Mr. Garcia.

Morning's the nicest part of the restaurant day. Lunch is nearly two hours away. The kitchen's quiet. Light shines off the copper pots. Tiles smell sweet from mopping. Zambrozzi's taken the meat out of the freezer and laid it on the marble table-top. It's his custom every day. He inspects his meat like John Wayne checking the troops. Lamb. Ribs. Pork. Beef. Zambrozzi walks slowly around it, flops it over, pokes it, feels the grain. Meat hangs in our cellar for days. “Great food takes great care and time,” according to Chef. Zambrozzi says meat has to decompose. This helps taste and tenderness. People pay up to $15 a portion.

Since Garcia put a clock over the stove, Zambrozzi's set up a table in the far corner. He sits there when he needs to rest or to think. It's a home away from home. Zambrozzi has his books between lion's head bookends:
The Philosopher in the Kitchen, Cooking in Copper, Dining at the Pavilion
, and many others. Zambrozzi's a very historical man. It's fun to hang around and hear Chef talk. He knew Tetrazzini of the chicken, his grandfather served Melba her first peach dessert. Behind his chair are two framed pictures with sayings underneath. The first is Escoffier's menu for George V's coronation at the Carlton Hotel in London, 1911. Under it is typed—“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star—Brillat-Savarin, 1826.” The other's a picture of Vatel, the famous seventeenth-century chef standing in what was called in those days “the galley.” According to Zambrozzi, he was the king's chef and killed himself with a kitchen knife when Louis XIV's filet of sole didn't arrive on time. Zambrozzi quotes himself under this one—“No hurry, no worry—Desidario Zambrozzi, 1969.”

I step into the kitchen, keeping to the dry tiles.

“
Va bene?
” Zambrozzi says. He never gets my name right. “Garcia stink up the place looking for your autographs. He find nothin'.”

“Mad, huh?”

Zambrozzi makes a sign with his hands. Very mad.

The letter says to go to Mr. Garcia's office immediately. I show it to Zambrozzi. “You wait some minutes,” he says, pointing back to his table, where Victor's just clearing a place for the soup tureen. Anthony carries the big bowl. The ladle is stuck in his belt. The kitchen crew gathers around.

“We gonna draw,” Zambrozzi says. “Monday. Eleven o'clock. Every week. Every year. Rain or shine.”

Zambrozzi's big on tradition. He's Catholic. In Europe, he worked only for hotels with long-standing reputations. He brought Claridge's drinking song from London to The Homestead.

“Pool Parties,” he says, “are Homestead custom.” The chef decides when they will happen. He orders the wine that hasn't been drunk the day before by the customers poured into a bowl and chilled. He could call for a pouring every day, but Zambrozzi saves it for special events. He puts cut flowers on his table. He gets out his cooking medals. He takes the first sip and then calls out the name of each member of the staff, who dips in and joins him. Zambrozzi only allows the kitchen help to take part. He says waiters make too much money in tips. He considers me part of the kitchen. I don't get tips. I don't talk back, either. I listen. Standing by the big bowl, lifting his special goblet of Baccarat glass, Zambrozzi talks of restaurants long ago.

Zambrozzi reads to his staff each Monday morning. He says this makes us proud of our calling. It does. Every week he quotes a famous menu and tells another installment of his history of cooking. In less than five years he's made professionals of greenhorns.

Today, Zambrozzi says, is the two-hundredth installment of his history. He stands tall behind his desk. A book lies open on the table in front of him.
The New York Times
is at his right hand. In honor of the occasion, he says, he'll read from the
Memoirs of Carême
and try out the New Big Draw.

“Thank God,” whispers Anthony. “I haven't won squat for two years.”

Zambrozzi asks for quiet. “Like I say before, your clock-in time's your number. If that number matches the enemy body count
or
American casualties—you're a winner.”

“You mean two people split the pot?” says Garofolo, moving closer to the table.

“Poor bastard,” Anthony says to me. “Garofolo came in early this morning just to get a better number for the prize.”

Zambrozzi clears his throat. “Carême, Marie-Antoine. Born 1784. From the third chapter of his memoirs translated by the best-selling French author, Alexandre Dumas fils …”

At first it was just the drinking and the song by the Big Bowl. The Draw came later. Each time we'd pick a player from a hat and pay fifty cents into the kitty. If nobody's player was leading the league in anything, the money went back into the till for Zambrozzi's next Pool Party. The New Draw is better than the Old Draw. The numbers are higher, so is the pot.

“‘… The illustrious pastry cook Avice was then flourishing. I sought to follow without imitating him. I learned to execute every trick of the trade. But to get there, young people, how many sleepless nights.'”

“What about the Draw?” Victor pipes in.

“I no finish,” says Zambrozzi, taking the book in his hand and looking at us as he speaks. “‘From behind my stoves, I contemplated the cuisines of India, China, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Germany, and Switzerland. I felt the unworthy methods of routine crumble under my blows.'”

Chef snaps the book shut. Then, putting on his glasses, he picks up the
Times
. “Now,” he says. “Everybody know their numbers?”

“Yes.”

Zambrozzi studies the small print. He looks up, smiling. “A lot of money in this one.”

“C'mon, Chef. How many of our boys wounded?” says Victor.

“Eight hundred and thirteen this month,” says Zambrozzi.

Garofolo throws up his arms. “Great!” he says, walking around in circles, grinning, pounding his fist like a mitt. “I had a hunch. I knew it. I knew it!”

“Now the big number,” says Anthony. “The enemy body count.”

The room gets as quiet as the inside of the freezer. I've got butterflies in my stomach.

“The total is one thousand forty-two. The winner—Benny Walsh.”

I feel like Audie Murphy and Bobby Thomson rolled into one. I'm blushing. Hands slap me on the back. The crew talks clubhouse talk to me. “How you go big fella,” “The luck of the Irish,” “Easy come, easy go!”

Victor puts his hairy arms around me and gives me a brotherly hug. It's embarrassing. “You done it, Benny. You split the fifty smackeroos with Garofolo.”

Zambrozzi asks Garofolo and me to come forward. He gives us our money and glasses of wine as full as his. The others stand in a semicircle around us. Only the winners keep quiet. The rest of the crew, including Chef, raise their glasses and sing:

“Drink her down

You Swazi warrior!

Drink her down

You Zulu chieftain

Chieftain!

Chieftain!

Chieftain!

Chieftain!”

I can't gulp my wine as fast as Garofolo. I hold it in my cheeks. The crew keep chanting, “Chieftain, chieftain, chieftain, chieftain, chieftain” until I've swallowed the last drop.

“How do you feel hitting it right on the nose like that,” says Anthony, putting his hat on my head for a second.

“Dizzy,” I say.

Everybody knows about Garcia's office. He leaves the door half open when he's out front. We've seen the picture of his three kids and the wife with hairy legs. We've touched the famous Kitchen Devil carving knives on the wall that he says beat Henri Soulé's record for cutting a chicken in forty-eight seconds. We even know what's hidden under his desk set. When Garcia's in the office, the rule's to knock three times. Only the Boss enters without knocking.

Garcia's by the blackboard. “Walsh,” he says. “We have what night school she call a
comunicación
problem.”

“Communication.”

Garcia turns and smiles at me. He sits down and puts his boots up behind the desk. “What we gonna do?” He points to the collapsible director's chair. It's light and easy to open, but a tight fit. I take my autograph pad out of my pants pocket to squeeze in.

“Walsh, where you think I learn to carve like I do? The streets of New York—that's where. I had to defend myself.”

“Really?”

“I can attack meat from any angle. I keep my knives sharp as switchblades. I slice thin. I jab and cut. I fought my way up. Carving's in my blood.”

“I never knew that.”

“There's much you should know.” Garcia stands and walks back to the blackboard. “Look here, Walsh. This is the
organization
. The ideal the Boss and me we work out before his first stroke.”