Jimmy the Stick by Michael Mayo Page B

little squirt, always trying to do what she told me, and learning from what I saw. So she decided I could be more profitable to her in other areas.
    One night, she told me we were going to meet someone important and I was to put on special clothes. She settled on my most comfortable pair of dungarees, a white shirt neatly buttoned to the neck, a jacket that wasn’t too snug, a cap to tuck my unruly hair under, and my best Keds. She tried to make me put on a nice little tie but gave up when I kept pulling at it.
    As we walked the long crosstown blocks, I could tell she was nervous. If I’d known she was nervous for me, I might have shared the feeling. But I had no idea what lay ahead even after we stopped outside Reuben’s Deli on Broadway and Seventy-Third. She checked my clothes, roughly rebuttoning my shirt and explaining what to do even though she’d told me three times already. Reuben’s was a busy, smoky place. Mother Moon pushed through a crowd of men to a table near the back stairs. And there he was, Arnold Rothstein. I recognized him right away. I didn’t know exactly who he was or what he did, but all the older guys spoke his name with genuine respect. To them, Rothstein was simply “The Man.” He wore a black wool suit and bow tie, his boater on the table beside an open paper bag. He had a long, rounded face and nose, a very high forehead, and tiny ears. He was talking to a massively muscled man with a bald bullet head. That was Monk Eastman. I was awed and frightened to see such legendary figures in the flesh.
    The other men around Rothstein spoke to one another in low buzzing voices, waiting their turn for his attention. Some of them tipped their hats as Mother Moon approached. They paid no attention to me, but made room for another boy, a ragged-looking kid about my age who kicked up his legs in some kind of silly dance that made Mr. Rothstein smile. They stopped talking and he stopped smiling when Mother approached the table.
    â€œNice to see you,” Rothstein said in a low voice that was hard to hear.
    â€œA. R., this is the lad I told you about.” She tapped my head, and I took my hat off before stepping up to the great man. I paid no attention to the others or to the foolish dancing boy, and tried not to look at Monk Eastman. Mother Moon had told me not to say a word unless I was asked a direct question.
    Mr. Rothstein looked me up and down. I curled my fingers around the knucks in my pocket and stared back at him. In doing that, I forgot one of the things Mother Moon told me: “You can look at Mr. Rothstein, but you don’t stare at him.”
    Now she said, “First, the boy won’t steal from you. Not ever. I’ve taught him who he can steal from and who he can’t. He’s smart but not smart enough to be a problem. He can do sums with a scrap of paper and a pencil, even long division, and you can see this adorable little Mick phiz.” She squeezed my cheek and turned my face so he could see that it was adorable. “He can walk into any office or station house and nobody will look at him twice. Anything you need delivered or retrieved, he’s your boy. He hasn’t done any work in Brooklyn. Doesn’t know the streets but he’s fine in most of the neighborhoods around here.”
    â€œI can always use another runner,” Rothstein said. “And as it happens, I’m involved in an enterprise where such a lad might be useful.”
    I had no idea what they were talking about. But Mother Moon knew what he meant, and that was the reason she’d asked for the meeting. Later, I learned that the government was promoting the sale of Liberty Bonds to pay for the Great War. Everyone said the bonds were almost as easy to deal with as money, with hundreds of them moving between Wall Street banks and brokerage houses every week. A. R., as I came to call him, knew exactly which messengers were handling the transfers. For the