‘He was getting paid out of it?’

‘Oh sure, there was a lot of good money in it. I got a housemaid. But no cook. I always like to eat my own cooking. We were doing all right for a while. But then the others started horning in on us. I mean the other outfits. He tried and tried but the others wouldn’t get together and amalgamate. Some of them out there are crazy as coots. All they know is Jew, Jew, Jew, and no business sense. You know?’

‘Uhhuh.’

‘Naturally the membership started getting all mixed up about which outfit was better and after a while it got so that one meeting we’d have two thousand people and the next meeting maybe fifty would come and the next there’d be three thousand. Like that. We never knew where we was any more. Naturally dues fell off because the membership didn’t know from one week to the next whether we would be in existence. Anyway, the wind-up was that he decided his outfit was going to be different. He started up a new thing, an action corps. It was just for young guys who had plenty of what it takes. They’d go to work on a neighborhood and lay for some Jew and beat up on him. They modeled themselves after the Front. They got results too. For a while there I really began to think they’d scare every Jew out of Los Angeles. Naturally though, the cops began coming around because of the complaints. So it got to a pass where we would stay out late just to make sure we wouldn’ t be paid a visit. I got very nervous and disgusted with the whole thing because it wasn’t getting anywhere really. Everything would be fine for a month, but as soon as he would lay off the beatings the corps would start fading away. They wanted action and he couldn’t hardly have them going out every night. You know. And all the time he was fighting the other outfits and arguing and making plans to disgrace them and things like that. And the wind-up was I got a big headache out of it and I finally put it up to him.’

‘Oh, you wanted him to keep clear of it.’

‘That’s right. I said, either pull out or I’m going. It wasn’t any fun with him any more, you know? I could see where it was all headed. Straight for the jailhouse for us. And I’m not the type. Well, he wouldn’t give it up, and we had a big argument and I left.’

She reached over to the night table and got a cigarette and lit it. He got up and brought her an ash tray from the bureau and held it for her. She put the match in and exhaled the smoke.

‘That’s how I happened to come back to New York,’ she went on.

‘Why didn’t you just stay there?’

‘Well. Because of this.’ She thought, turning the cigarette slowly. ‘I made up my mind to make a new start in life. I just wanted to have a nice house and nice things and live like other people do. See, he paid so much attention to his outfit that his business started going to pot. And it was getting to the point where I’d be going out to work again to support him. I could see it coming.’