“Three weeks,” Mitch said.
“Three weeks,” Cogan said. “And I was there five days, inna middle. How the fuck’m I gonna do that?”
“I dunno,” Mitch said. He picked up the glass. “Empty again.” He got up. “Sure you won’t join me?”
“Not late enough yet, either,” Cogan said.
Mitch went into the bathroom. Cogan heard ice go into the glass. He did not hear water running. “Sammy did it,” Mitch said from the bathroom.
“The guy from Detroit,” Cogan said. “Sharp-looking little ginzo.”
“Sammy’s Jewish,” Mitch said.
“Okay,” Cogan said. “I didn’t mean anything.”
“No trouble,” Mitch said. “He looks like a ginzo. I wished he was. But he’s Jewish. All the years I known that guy, he still did it. The son of a bitch.”
Cogan heard water running in the bathroom. Mitch emerged with a dark Scotch and water. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his left hand. “It’s my own stupid fault,” he said. “The night before I’m leaving, we’re having dinner and he comes over, I introduce them and everything. I don’t know why this bothers me, you know that?”
“No,” Cogan said.
Mitch sat down. He put the glass on the end table. “I mean, I know. When I’m there, I’m there and she’s with me. When I leave, you’re there, and she’s with you.”
“She wasn’t with me,” Cogan said.
“I didn’t mean you,” Mitch said. “I mean: any guy. Anybody that’s there, she’s with him. You leave, she’s not with you any more.”
“Oh,” Cogan said.
“See,” Mitch said, “that’s what I mean. I know that. I give her, well, last year, I’m down there, I was only there two weeks. No, three weeks. Anyway, that’s how many nights?”
“Twenty-one,” Cogan said.
“No,” Mitch said, “ah, anyway, I had her all signed up. It was fourteen nights. You know what that cost me? Three thousand dollars.”
“Now,” Cogan said, “that really oughta do it. I wouldn’t pay no broad three thousand to do anything. I wouldn’t care what she could do. I wouldn’t pay it.”
“I didn’t care,” Mitch said. “I was still with the union then, and the guys that had the jobs, they were always very nice to me. You didn’t have no wildcats or anything, well, see what I mean? I didn’t care. So it’s a lot. I’m not in love with the girl, right? I only give her for when I’m there.”
“She’s still a great-looking girl, though,” Cogan said.
“She is,” Mitch said. “That fuckin’ Sammy. The night you saw her, what’d she have on?”
“Tell you the truth,” Cogan said, “I didn’t notice what she was wearing, so much’s what she was wearing it on. Some yellow thing or something. You could see quite a lot.”
“There’s quite a lot to see,” Mitch said. “The night Sammy comes by, right? She’s got this gray thing on. It’s like silk, and it’s gray, and there isn’t any back on it and she’s got these mammoth tits, she’s really something. I could’ve beat up five guys with the horn I had on, and I, I had her all them other nights, right? So Sammy comes up and I introduce them, and how long am I there for and how long’s he there for, and I’m not really paying attention or anything, we’re having some wine and so I asked him to sit down. And pretty soon I got to go to the Men’s. So I go, and I’m gone a pretty long time, because I got this huge prong on and I gotta practically stand on my head if I wanna piss in the hopper and not in my own fuckin’ mouth, and still, I wanna be careful with it, you know? It was really big. I don’t think I could’ve blinked. I don’t think I had no skin left. She’s good, Sunny’s good about that. Sunny can’t get you up, you’re probably dead. But this’s the last time, and she’s not gonna have to. Because I’m all ready to go, I can ever get through dinner. My friend, I don’t care what you say, I seen every kind of ass there is, you know that?”
“You’ve seen it this week,” Cogan said. “You been here, what, three days, what I hear you had a look at most of the ass there is in Boston.”
“I like it,” Mitch said. “That’s what it is, I like it. It’s like, it’s a hobby with me, you know? I never do nothing when I’m home. Nothing. But that’s why, I go the races. Once a year, I go to the races, and I get laid. Only this year, probably I’m not goin’ the races.”
“I couldn’t do it,” Cogan said. “I’d get all fucked out. You, I think you’re probably in good shape. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t fuck for three days, is all. I couldn’t do it.”
“I was your age,” Mitch said, “I felt exactly the same way.”
“Sure,” Cogan said. “I got work I got to do.”
Mitch drank from the glass. “I used to think the same way,” he said. “Then, I dunno when it happened, I dunno why it happened. I just started doing it. I went down there, the very first time I went down there, I got the suite. I was having a terrible time with Margie, and she finds out about it and she’s giving me all kinds of hell about it, you asked her and she’d tell you she drinks because I go down there. Well, it was her or me. But I can tell you, boy, you want ass, get yourself a, there’s no ass inna whole wide world like a young Jewish girl that’s hookin’.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Cogan said.
“That broad,” Mitch said, “she was in Oberlin, she was in college, right? And she quit. Whaddaya think of that?” He drank.
“You’re gonna be all right,” Cogan said, “tomorrow or the next night?”
“I’m all right, right now,” Mitch said. “Christ sake. Lemme alone, willya? Well, she quit. And she took up hookin’. Now you get a broad like that, they really go right to work on it, you know? And they get so, they really know their fuckin’ business. That broad, Sunny, she’s not, she isn’t half my wife’s age and she knew things which, if Margie knew them she’d go down the station and turn herself in. She really would.
“So, I come back the table,” Mitch said. “I finally get rid of that wine without pissing on my own fuckin’ chin and they’re both there and Sammy’s being very polite and all, and finally he leaves and then we finish and I thought to fuckin’ God, I can pole-vault up to the room with just what I got of my own, and we go up there and I want to tell you, three thousand bucks, it’s not cheap and I don’t care whether you got it or not, it’s fuckin’ expensive, but it’s worth it, it was honestly worth it. I give her three for the whole time and that night alone, it was worth it all. Only, I don’t tell her that, of course.”
“Mitch,” Cogan said.
“So the next day I get up,” Mitch said. “I also get up, but I hadda twelve-thirty plane so it’s just a quickie. Just a quickie with Sunny’s about nine times better’n a whole fuckin’ date with another broad. And then I go down and I get some steam, and I come back up and I got to give her the rest of the money. See, you give them half when you get there and then when you’re through, down there, you give them the rest. So I say, I tell her, I really appreciate it, I know what this means, all that time right out in one chunk and all. And she tells me, see, she’s out of circulation and everything, she tells me: ‘It’s all right,’ there isn’t any problem, and I give her the money and everything, and she’s leaving, and, well, she’s gonna stay with Sammy the next two weeks and he’s hitting her four for it. That cocksucker.”
“Look,” Cogan said, “this after, I’m supposed to meet a kid, all right? I think I got a guy that can take you around and all.”
“I can’t go out,” Mitch said.
“I didn’t mean fuckin’ around,” Cogan said. “You come up here to do something. For that. I was gonna talk to him and then if I’m satisfied, he can do something without having his brother hold his hand all the time, I was gonna bring him up here and talk about it with you.”
“It’s all right with me,” Mitch said.
“Well,” Cogan said, “I’m glad to hear that. Only, it’s not all right with me. Because you’re not gonna be able, be able to make it tonight, and I don’t want this kid thinking about things too long, he’s liable to go tell his brother.”