The Thomas Berryman Number

“Scrambled eggs, coffee, burn the rye toast—and keep it coming.” A woman named Mrs. Riley was sitting at the counter giggling. Her comic material was a straight lift from a serious breakfast order the groundskeeper from St. Joe’s had given Cubbah. Knowing the way Joe Cubbah operated around the store, the order had broken the neighborhood woman up.

Cubbah didn’t even hear her, though. He was in the store strictly as a favor to Angela. He cleared over twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and he figured he could take or leave the six grand the little store brought in. That went double for Mrs. Riley’s eighty cents a day.

“Scrambled eggs,” the woman gagged on a mouthful of bialy, “coffee, burn the rye toast … Where’s your sense of humor, Joe?”

“Shove it up your can,” Joe Cubbah muttered. He looked over at the back of the woman’s dirty white wedgies; he wondered how Angela could stand it all day in the store… But then he was watching a young priest play basketball, H-O-R-S-E, in the schoolyard; and he was back having generally good thoughts about the world.

A little after nine o’clock the day’s first real customer arrived in the store. This was a rich old dentist who drilled in the neighborhood, but who lived out on the Main Line. His name was Dr. Martin McDonough.

“Hello Mister Cubbah,” he called back to the pay phones. “How are you doing today?”

“Eatin,” Cubbah smiled. He hitched up his trousers and started toward the front.

He leaned over the gum and cigars to talk with the dentist. “Angela tells me you’re screwin around with one of those lay teachers over the school…”

The dentist chuckled, but he was already lost in the

Inquirer

’s sports section.

“What do you think of the Phils?” he asked.

Joe Cubbah, “Jockey Joe,” didn’t think of the Phils. “Seven gets you six over the Expos,” he said. “Fucking Expos,” he added for the fun of it. “Assholes are losing me my underwear this year.”

The dentist laughed. Cubbah laughed with him. At least the old gentleman had fun losing his money.

The first bet of the day was for ten units on the Philadelphia Phillies, and “the strong right arm of Gentleman Jim Lonborg.”

Coca-Cola and Wonderbread delivered their wares during the morning, and that was all that kept Cubbah from sacking out and letting Mrs. Riley run things for a while.

Wonderbread bet ten on the Philadelphia Bells over Chicago, and Coca-Cola told Cubbah that Angie was fooling around with Seven-Up. He also dropped off twelve nickel-and-dime bets from his plant.

At lunchtime Cubbah’s twelve-year-old, Bennie, showed up from St. Joseph’s. Bennie was supposed to help his father with the lunch crowd. This started by taking all the three-ounce hamburger patties out of the fridge, and stacking them on the counter.

“How’d you do on your big math test?” Joe Cubbah asked as they worked.

The boy bit off some Boarshead liverwurst. “Ninety-three,” he said.

“Ninety-three your ass.” Cubbah’s face showed some pain. “What’d you get, a fucking thirty-nine, Bennie?”

The boy shrugged, smiled, talked with brown meat all over his teeth. “Sister d’in finish correcting them. Sister Dominica had a heart attack or sum’n. So Sister Marie d’in finish correcting the math.”

“So now you’re all happy poor Sister Dominica had a heart attack, huh?”

“Nah … Well, a little bit.”

Joe Cubbah laughed. Bennie was fat and funny, and sometimes he liked the little chublet better than anybody else.

Just then Cubbah looked up and saw a police detective he knew named Michael Shea. Shea was a nothing plainclothesman, but he dressed better than the mayor of Philadelphia. He was wearing a neat gray plaid suit with patent leather loafers. He was standing by the screen door, looking around like he owned the place. He nodded to Cubbah, then started to walk back toward the kitchen.

Cubbah poured two cups of coffee, then went back himself.

“Hey, sweets.” Shea gave him smiling Irish eyes. “How you makin it?”

“Little of this, little of that,” Cubbah said. “How’s it with you?”

“Can’t complain,” the nattily dressed policeman said. “That your boy?” he pointed a finger and a signet ring out to the main store.

“That’s Bennie,” Cubbah said. He was trying to be nice. “He’s failin’ out of grammar school, the chooch.”

Shea grinned effectively. “Listen Joey.” He sat down on the edge of the stove. “I have a possible for you…”

“Yeah, I know,” Cubbah said. “Tell me about it, Mikey.”

Shea told Cubbah all that he knew—which was basically that another hired gun, a tricky, expensive guy, was being set up somewhere down South. He said someone else would be around with all the details if Cubbah took the job. They’d give him the place, and the exact time schedule he’d need to work under.

“They’re offering ten plus expenses.” Shea took a Danish to go with his coffee. “Somebody thought you might be the perfect guy for it.”

“Yeah, that’s real nice of somebody,” Cubbah said. “Does this other guy have any idea somebody might be out after him?” Cubbah asked.

“My people say

no.