across its pebble-glass pane reading Acme Insurance Group. Hesitating only long enough to give my cap a cunning tilt, I opened the door into an anteroom that was bare but for a desk, a telephone, and a young woman applying makeup to a theatrical degree. Under the desk I could see the sheen of her crossed legs in their rolled-down stockings; I could hear a radio playing “Ukelele Lady” from beyond the inner office door.
Several moments elapsed before the young woman deigned to acknowledge my presence. When finally she did, she ran her eyes over the length of me and seemed not displeased with what she saw, though she said in a tone of bedrock boredom, “What do you want?” closing her compact with a gesture like snapping teeth.
Remembering the sign on the door, I submitted: “I wanna take out a life insurance policy.”
The feather aigrette in her sulfur-yellow hair shimmied beneath the ceiling fan. “We only deal in property insurance,” she announced in a listless impression of an actual receptionist.
“Then I wanna life insurance policy on my property.”
She smiled with her tight mouth only, apparently used to wiseguys. “You look like a nice boy,” dropping the charade. “Better get outta here if you know what’s good for you.”
Removing my cap which I used to wipe the sweat from my brow, I decided to try a different tack. “Is Mister, um…,” I began, but “Mr. the Sport” somehow didn’t seem right. “Is Mr. Kupferman in?”
“Who wants to know?”
I considered. “Tell him Ruby Kid Karp.”
She said with her kohl-ringed eyes that I had to be kidding. At that point the door to the inner office opened a crack, the radio blared, and one of the characters I’d tailed from the ice plant, the spokesman, in fact, poked his eagle beak into the anteroom. The height of his head suggested that he was seated, his chairback probably propped against the wall as he twisted his neck to peek beyond the door. “Hey, Birdie,” he said in a voice like an emery board, “how bout a shtikl your sweet pierogie later on?” Then he noticed me. “What’s this?”
She raised her plucked brows. “This,” she announced with a sigh, “is Kid Karp. Kid, meet Shtrudel Louie Shein.”
“Howdja do,” said the tough guy, whose reputation (like his boss’s) had preceded him in the lore of the neighborhood. “Now get lost.”
That’s when the righteous anger came over me again. “My papa don’t need your protection,” I practically spat at him, thrilled by my own impertinence.
Shtrudel Louie frowned, his head disappearing from view as the door shut again. I heard a muffled mumbling under the voice on the radio cautioning the audience to stay tuned; an orchestral arrangement of “Runnin’ Wild” was next on the program after a message from “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” Then the door opened again and out stepped Shtrudel Louie with his shnozzle and monobrow, his crooked bowtie, from a room I now saw was as barren as the one I stood in: a few items of furniture paying homage to the radio receiving outfit with its tuba-size speaker that served as centerpiece. Shtrudel was followed by his shorter, stockier companion from the icehouse, who was tugging his waistcoat like a corset over his tumid belly. They took up their stations on either side of me like groomsmen, as a third man emerged from the office to confront me, his expression—as he gave me the once-over—seeming to infer that this was going to be fun.
“Who comes at the Cliquot Club Eskimo Hour to disturb us?” he asked, like fee fi fo fum.
A sensible person might have beshat himself then and there, but fear didn’t yet figure in my frame of reference. “Ruby,” I told him, “Ruby Kid Karp,” exulting in the sense that now there was no turning back. “Who are you?” Of course, his patterned golf hose and knickers, along with his patent leather shoes and center-parted patent leather hair, had already identified him as Naf the Sport himself.
Ignoring my question, he continued his own line of inquiry, a heavy lid drooping over his lazy eye. “And your papa, kid? What did you say his name was?” Hearing the “kid,” I wondered was he patronizing me or earnestly employing my freshly coined nom de guerre? In either event, I saw no reason to prevaricate.
“Shmerl Karp of Karp’s Ice Castle,” I pronounced as if I were proud of it.
“Am I to understand he sent you here, your papa, to reject the generous offer