Pinball Read Online Free PDF

prevent black patrons from entering the premises, the manager would seat them at the least desirable tables, well back in the room, and then tell the waiters to ignore them until they either left of their own accord or provoked a disturbance by complaining too loudly, in which case the management would call the police—always friendly to the establishment—and have them thrown out.
    One evening, dressed to the teeth in a silk-lined vicuna coat and tails and accompanied by a glamorously attired date, Domostroy arrived at Kreutzer’s well before the scheduled time for the floor show. In a heavy East European accent, with urgency in his voice, he asked the captain to set up the two best tables in the house for a dozen of his distinguished United Nations friends, whom he had invited to dinner. Prompted by Domostroy’s generous tips, the staff flew into action setting up the club’s best silverware and linen with vases of fresh flowers on two center tables.
    The room soon filled to capacity, and to the great delight of Kreutzer’s management, a number of press photographers, alerted by Domostroy, arrived to take pictures of the international dignitaries.
    Just as the show was about to begin, a commotion at the entrance proclaimed the arrival of Domostroy’s guests. The captain and a fleet of waiters rushed to the door to greet them and lead them to their tables; the photographers in attendance set their cameras and flashes at the ready. As the new arrivals proceeded through the aisles of tables to take their places, the manager, captain, and waiters discovered to their horror that the distinguished guests they had been anticipating so eagerly were black and, judging by their dress and speech, were Americans—from Harlem. As the Negro men and women sat down and raised their glasses of champagne, the photographerssnapped their photographs, and the following morning the picture of these blacks prominently seated in Kreutzer’s appeared in most of the city’s newspapers. The papers remarked, tongue in cheek, that, of all the big New York nightclubs, Kreutzer’s still took the lead in attracting the smartest clientele in town. With that, Kreutzer’s color barrier was broken, and the club was never the same again.
    That was more than two decades ago. There was no one at Kreutzer’s now who could remember—or would even care to remember—Domostroy’s place in the club’s history. Just as Domostroy’s looks and fortune had changed since then, so had the looks and fortune of Kreutzer’s. As the South Bronx deteriorated, fewer and fewer Manhattan patrons wanted to risk their safety traveling there, and without them the nightclub could not maintain its luxurious standards. Eventually the place changed hands and later on became a dive, with rows of pinball machines, a jukebox, and electronic video games filling what once had been the polished dance floor. To attract customers and make the food seem palatable, the Oboe d’Amore Room still offered nightly entertainment, but these days it consisted of a seedy opera singer, an occasional combo of local rock players, a female stripper who could no longer get decent bookings in Manhattan clubs, and—four days a week—Patrick Domostroy, accompanying or backing up these acts on a Barbarina organ, an electronic spinet with a panel of preset tone selectors to provide the sounds of most major instruments, including piano, accordion, saxophone, trombone, guitar, flute, and trumpet, as well as a rhythm section and a mixed chorus.
    When Domostroy first saw Andrea Gwynplaine walk through Kreutzer’s, he had felt a moment’s anguish, aware of an impression she made on him, of his need to impress her. But he’d had no expectations, and when she came over to him, handed him a letter, and humblyasked him to read it, he was surprised to the point of disbelief to have her so suddenly reverse his whole frame of thought.
    He looked up and saw Andrea staring at him. She edged closer, piled up