Out of the clothes box he took a pair of gray sweatpants and a green T-shirt that was only a little too small.
“You’re in pretty good shape for a homeless,” Frankie said, as she served him a fried rib-eye steak with white rice and shredded brussels sprouts sautéed in butter with garlic and soy sauce.
“I live in a hole in the ground,” he said, savoring the meal. “But I’m not homeless. No more than you are.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“How come you picked me off the street like that?”
“I needed a partner, and the last guy I worked with punked out on me.”
“You needed a black man to distract security?”
“Uh-huh. You want some red wine?”
“I don’t think so. No, no, I don’t.”
“You need a job, Albert?”
“I’d like to work for you, Frankie.”
“I’m not getting up off of any pussy. My last partner, Joby, didn’t understand that.”
“These his clothes?” Albert asked. He was thinking about his deceased Tibetan master and the ideal of balance, of the moon arcing through the sky and all the many tons of rock he’d piled over the years.
“Yeah,” Frankie said, “but they belonged to a guy named Teddy before that.”
“You know a lotta men.”
“My father had Huntington’s disease,” she said, as if in answer. “He’d go into these wild rages, and my mother had me and my sister padlocked in our rooms at night. She gave me a pistol. I still have it.”
“Did he ever try to hurt you, your father?”
“Only all the time.”
“What’s that got to do with all the men you know?” Albert was wondering about the reasoning behind his own question.
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” she said.
“I won’t steal,” Albert said, as if in answer, “but I don’t mind walkin’ around in a store.”
3.
Albert “walked around” while Frankie shoplifted from drugstores mainly, but they also hit hardware stores, art-supply stores, little knickknack places down in SoHo, and some Midtown department stores. Frankie knew the most valuable items to boost (and where to sell them), and all Albert had to do was look at things that interested him.
He was especially interested in portable electronics and colored pens.
He was arrested twice but then released for lack of evidence. He made sure to have twenty dollars in his pocket so that he could always claim to be shopping.
Frankie set up a room for him down the hall from her suite. She padlocked her doors and told him that if he broke in on her, she still had the pistol her mother had given her.
“I’ve shot men before,” she warned.
Early one Thursday morning, Frankie knocked on Albert’s door. He was already awake, lying on the futon she’d had the man Childress deliver. She paid an extra hundred dollars a month for Albert. He stayed on Broome Street, even though he had another illegal home uptown.
He heard the knock but didn’t answer immediately. He was lying there thinking that he hadn’t had a drink since the day he met Frankie.
“Yeah?” he said at the second knock.
“You wanna get breakfast and do some shopping?”
“I have something to do today.”
“What’s that?” She pushed the door open and walked into the small office.
“I’m going up to Central Park to beg.”
“You don’t need that. We make more than enough.”
“I don’t do it for the money,” he said.
“Why else would somebody beg on the street?”
“To save souls and redeem karma.”
* * *
They left the building together and walked up Broadway toward Houston Street. Just before crossing Prince, Frankie stopped and turned around, pretending to be looking in the window of a little perfume boutique.
“Stand in front of me, Al,” she whispered forcefully. “Stand in front of me. Not there. On the other side.”
Albert did as she said and looked around.
Coming toward them were two burly white guys in jeans and white T-shirts. They had crew cuts and tattoos. They were the kind of men that Albert had learned to avoid on streets and back alleys.
One of the men looked at Albert as he passed.
Albert smiled, and the white man sneered.
“Are they gone?” Frankie asked.
“Yeah.”
They stopped outside the entrance to the F train near Broadway and Houston.
“Who were those guys?”
“Toad Boy and Westerling,” she said.
“They got a problem with you?”
“When the police asked me where they were, I told ’em—because they killed my friend Bobby. I guess the case fell through.”
“What’ll happen if they see you?”
“You might have to start begging full time.”
Nine days later Albert and Frankie were sitting in her makeshift apartment eating a dish she called Yankee stew. It had potatoes and beef and a good amount of beer in it.
“I like you, Al,” Frankie said as they ate.
“Me too. I mean, I like you too.”
“Is there anything you want from me?”
“You already gimme a job and a place to stay.”
“I’ve played this game with a lotta guys. All of them have tried to get in my pants at least once. I never let ’em. You’re the first one didn’t want it. Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Don’t like white girls?”
“I would like one thing from you, Frankie.”
“What’s that?”
“Could you . . . would you let me . . . let me call you Alyce?”
“Alyce?”
“Yeah. I used to know a girl by that name when I was in college . . .”
“You went to college?”
“I loved her so hard, and when she left my heart broke, and it never got better until I met you.”
“You fell in love with me?”
“You took her place, kind of,” he said. “You don’t look like her, but you have the same spirit. If I could call you Alyce that would mean a whole lot to me.”