Ben and the Crooked Mile

In February 1946, Ben Rosenthal lived above a button wholesaler on West Thirty-eighth Street, in a room whose radiator knocked like a creditor with excellent manners. He owned two suits, one good shoe, and a photograph of his mother that he turned toward the wall whenever he counted his money.

That morning, he turned her around before breakfast.

His horse had finished last at Hialeah. His bookmaker, Mickey Glass, had finished being patient.

Mickey conducted business behind a cigar counter, although nobody had ever seen him sell a cigar. Beside him stood Eddie Crumb, a broad man whose cauliflower ears suggested he listened to arguments professionally.

“Three hundred by Friday,” Mickey said.

“It’s Wednesday.”

“You always were quick with figures.”

Ben tried a smile. Eddie took his hat.

Outside, the city shivered under dirty snow. Returning soldiers crowded the luncheonettes, carrying themselves like men who had misplaced the instructions for civilian life. Ben had spent the war unloading freight after an Army doctor rejected his lungs. He sometimes wished the doctor had inspected his judgment.

At noon, he found Ruby Bell eating pie in a diner near Times Square.

Ruby worked nights in a hotel where the desk clerk rented rooms without asking for luggage. She had red hair, practical shoes, and a habit of reading newspaper editorials before checking whether anyone she knew had been arrested.

“You look expensive,” she told him.

“I need a favor.”

“That’s usually the expensive part.”

She slid an envelope across the table.

Inside were forty dollars and a photograph of a thin boy beside a horse.

“My brother Danny. He works at a stable. Somebody’s been paying him to carry messages. Now he’s frightened.”

“Tell him to quit.”

“He did. They said quitting costs fifty dollars.”

Ben looked again at the money. Mickey’s three hundred rose before him like a brick wall.

“What messages?”

“Names. Horses. Which ones aren’t supposed to win.”

That evening Ben met Danny beneath the elevated tracks. The boy had a split lip and smelled of hay, a clean smell in that neighborhood.

He handed Ben a folded racing sheet.

“Man called Voss runs it. Says they’ll find Ruby if I talk.”

Ben knew Voss: silk scarves, pink fingernails, a smile that never reached the unfinished part of his face.

“Go stay with your aunt,” Ben said.

“I haven’t got an aunt.”

“Then acquire one. Somewhere in Jersey.”

By Thursday afternoon, Ben understood enough. Voss was collecting bets on favorites whose chances had quietly been spoiled. Mickey took the wagers. Danny carried instructions because nobody noticed a stable boy.

There was money in knowing which horse would lose.

Ben sat on his bed with Ruby’s forty dollars spread beside the racing sheet. He could back the right outsider through another bookmaker. Pay Mickey. Return the forty. Maybe buy shoes that agreed with each other.

He pictured Danny’s lip.

Then he pictured his own knees.

He put on his coat.

At the cigar shop, Mickey listened without interrupting. That frightened Ben more than Eddie did.

“You’re mistaken,” Mickey said.

“Sure. I’m famous for it.”

Ben laid the sheet on the counter.

Mickey glanced down. His expression changed just enough.

“How many copies?”

“Enough.”

Ben had made none. His hands remained in his pockets so the men could not watch them shake.

“Danny leaves town,” he said. “Ruby gets left alone. My account disappears.”

Eddie came around the counter.

“And if we don’t?”

“Then a sportswriter receives the names. I know one who drinks breakfast on Eighth Avenue.”

Ben did know one. Whether the man could still write was another matter.

Mickey stared through the window at a delivery truck blocking traffic. Someone outside leaned on a horn, then surrendered.

Finally, he tore a page from his ledger.

“Get out of my neighborhood.”

“New York’s crowded.”

“Try the ocean.”

On Friday, Ben returned Ruby’s envelope with forty dollars inside. She counted it, then studied him.

“You didn’t bet?”

“No.”

“You sick?”

“Probably.”

Danny was already gone, riding west with a horse transporter who owed Ruby a favor. Ben declined to ask what kind.

Ruby touched his cheek. The gesture unsettled him more than the threat had.

“You could come by tonight,” she said. “Just to eat.”

Instead, Ben bought a bus ticket to Atlantic City.

On the bus, a sailor offered him a cigarette and asked whether he was traveling on business. Ben considered the question. He had carried crates, delivered flowers, collected debts, and once impersonated a missing waiter through an entire wedding reception. None of those occupations had followed him out of town before.

“Something like that,” he said.

The sailor nodded, satisfied. Ben envied him his understanding.

As Manhattan slipped behind him, he discovered Mickey’s torn ledger page in his pocket. Across the bottom, beneath the canceled debt, someone had written an address on Atlantic Avenue.

Ben folded it carefully.

He had always suspected that escape was another game with rules nobody explained.