Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde Page 10

  Paddy cursed, chucking down the cards fan-wise. “Don’t you see it, you sap? He thinks it a business. Like bonds or real estate or somethin’. Work hard and you’re bound to get ahead. Like hell.”

  “Chiselers got no place.”

  “Chiselers don’t get wiped out.” He filled two glasses, tapping the bottle with his ring, smiling. “Believe me. Jeez, he’s got nerve. Always had, the sonufabitch, shaking me down.”

  When Madge came in, McMann, as if he’d been hanging around for her all the time, crossed the room, grabbing her tight about the waist, squeezing her against his body with a persistent power. “Howya, kid? I been workin’ that Bill to hand you some dough. A gal gotta live, I says, give her some dough. He says naw, she makes more’n me.”

  “Push off, willya?” said Madge.

  He pressed her tighter, bending her backwards with a steady mechanical application of pressure. “You don’ mean it?”

  Paddy’s face was sardonic. “You red bastard, that’s why you shelled out the wop’s dough, so you can get it for nothin’.”

  Paddy shuffled the cards. Madge kicked at her attacker. He tugged and dragged her to the bedroom. The shades were lowered, the light flowing through with the sad shadowing that seems to emanate only from tenement backyards with their long clothes-poles hung with wash-lines, their sheds and garbage cans. The dismal rear end of the house opposite stared its windows blankly at Paddy’s secrecy.

  McMann partially shut the door, flinging her down in her coat, her wild slanting eyes glaring. He took her who was fresh from the street, the wind’s red fading from her cheeks. Paddy could’ve witnessed the taking, but he turned towards the table, starting a new game of solitaire, seeming blind, deaf, and dumb, a eunuch except for the smile on his lips, a smile that was an awareness, an appreciation of power.

  When McMann was through with her he said: “Keep your coat on. We’re gonna see a coupla friends of mine.”

  Paddy hollered. “You red skunk. It’ll cost you dough.”

  “Like hell.” Madge powdered her face. “I get five or nothin’ doin’. What the hell you think?”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “Who’s the friends?” said Paddy. “Duffy’s kids?”

  “You’re smart. Ray and Schneck.”

  “Holy Jesus, he means it.” Madge and McMann left. Paddy was overwhelmed with admiration. McMann was a peach. If he didn’t croak he’d be sitting pretty.

  At police headquarters Hanrahan, the plainclothes man assigned to the Ninth Avenue holdups, had the theory that Wiberg and Soger and the wop grocer had all been hit by the same bunch. There was a unity in all three cases. All three had been robbed when they had an unusual amount of money on hand. Hanrahan was thinking some guy — who the hell could it be? — some guy had wind of this fact. Like all logical lazy men he loved unity. One stickup man was easier to find than three.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SUNDAY was like an autumn day. The wind blew swift out of an ice-blue sky. “It might be home,” said Joe, “with the leaves sailing past the lawn.” Bill was tying the laces of his shoes.

  “We got river air down here,” he said, tense.

  The puppy had grown a great deal, running up and down the flat, barking at the brothers as if they were both at fault.

  The great iron gate was shut down like a stubborn lip.

  Joe went to the gas range, flipping in the slices of bacon. “Three enough, Bill?”

  “Plenty. How’s the grind?”

  “It’s no grind.”

  “Why didn’t you eat breakfast instead of waiting for me?” He yawned. Despite the shower, fatigue dominated his face, his eyes blurry, his features gross, his lips dry. “How after the grind — Hell, I’m groggy — And you don’t even sleep late on Sundays. What time’s it?”

  “Past noon.”

  “How do you get up?”

  “I was up at eleven.”

  “He calls that late. You’re an iron man.”

  Joe cracked open the eggs. The coffee smelled black and strong. The dog sat down on his haunches, gazing up at the smell of food, mixing food up with Joe, food was Joe, Joe was food, his sad hound eyes learned and patient, his long white tail dragging. Joe looked fine. Hard work wasn’t harming him any, his cheeks red, strong as a horse, thought Bill. “I used to lick you,” he said regretfully, “when we were kids, but I bet you could lump me with one fist.” Joe sliced the oranges, peering at the halves with their firm glinting orange color. He felt strong as iron, but his loneliness crippled him. He seemed to be leaning on a crutch, he was that lonely, anticipating the moment when Bill’d heel out.

  Bill snapped on his felt, wondering what Joe’d say this time. “Sorry.” Damn kid brothers. They acted like girls, like sweethearts. Let ‘em stand on their own feet like men.

  “Weren’t we going to a show?”

  “I thought we were, but it’s off. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re always sorry.”

  “I can’t help it. I’ve got to tend to something important. Take Cathy out. She’s a nice kid. You’ll have a better time. Because I’m busy, don’t you think I don’t notice things.”

  “You’re damn smart.”

  “Christ’s sake, let’s not fight again.”

  “Cathy’s a good kid.”

  “Who’s saying she ain’t?”

  “I didn’t like the way you spoke of her.”

  “I didn’t mean a thing.” Already in thought he was hurrying down Greenwich to Christopher. The busy life. The paint shop on Ninth was due. The gink had dough. Would Duffy loan his kids for the job? Showdown soon. Soon the showdown.

  He took out a ten-spot. “Have a good time.” Joe wouldn’t take the money. He put the two fives on the table.

  “You make money pretty easy,” said Joe.

  “Let’s not go into it again.”

  “Sunday’s the only chance. If I ever saw you awake any other day I’d die.”

  “Didn’t we cover it all last Sunday? Cut out the whining. I’ve got enough in my mind without you nagging.”

  “Enough that shouldn’t be there.”

  “You’re pretty clever.”

  “We’re brothers.” They stared at each other, forgetting they were brothers, like two men meeting the first time. Bill put on his camel-hair coat. From under his felt his lean handsome face, thinner now, with the nose and chin jutting out more strongly, confronted the rounder fairer face of his brother. Their eyes were the same blue. This was the one resemblance, the only thing that made them brothers.

  “I advise you to mind your business.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. You’re in something fishy and I’ll say it all I want.” He grinned at the barking dog, running up and down with the optimism of animals that nothing can be wrong.

  “So long, have a good time.”

  “See you next Sunday.” He was alone in the flat, prisoned by the slamming door. He patted the dog’s head with an uncertain hand. He looked like a kid brother now. He hadn’t told Bill what was really important. Ninth Avenue was gossiping about the robberies, admiring the guys who pulled off jobs just when there was most in it. Wiberg. Soger. Petrucci. Who was next? Those guys were the nuts, just happening along when the storekeepers were flush. But Bill would have said: What’s that got to do with me? … It had lots to do with him when you were a brother and knew he’d collected rents all over Ninth, when you knew he wasn’t working, what with his funny hours, when you knew he had lots of jack. The other day Metz had told him: “See, no robberies when your brother collects them fellers, and now when he’s gone, one hard luck after another.” Wiberg. Soger. Petrucci. All three had been collected by Bill. That was a coincidence. He’d thought he’d die, but Metz hadn’t meant anything. He took the fives on the table. Bill set a swell example. Maybe he ought to set Bill an example? And return his dough? Maybe not. Money was money. He sweated a week to find that out. He’d show Cathy a good time. He hollered at the pup to shut his damn face. Money was a funny th
ing. Even dirty money could do good. A good time with Cathy was something.

  He made up the room, glancing around with a Sunday hostility in his eyes. His city home. It stunk. He punched the pillows, reversing Bill’s. Bill was using olive oil to stop his falling hair. His pillow was dark and greasy. Staring at the stain. Bill seemed to be lying there in bed, his face haggard. He socked that pillow. Hell, what sort of life was Bill leading? The stain was a reminder. He washed the dishes and went downstairs.

  The Gebhardts had returned from St. Veronica’s on Christopher. Every day when he walked to the El, the church’s doorway was a hush of peace. Behind the El structure the doorway was all peace, all green things, all the Gebhardts….

  Mr. Gebhardt was rocking himself, stiffish in his Sunday suit, the pants so sternly creased that the peace of the Lord was suddenly comical, a fashion show. Mrs. Gebhardt sailed the white cloth over the table. “Good Sunday, Joe,” they said. The preparations for dinner continued, sanctified in that shadowed room with the shaftway light subdued, filtered quiet from the yellow sun. They all seemed participants in a merrier, more domestic mass. The light was meek as prayer, the adults prim and happy, the kids reading the jokes, their soft blond faces gleaming like choir boys’, in the flat become a cathedral, Gertrude, baby Carl, Fred, all alike somehow, sexless, pure, churchly.

  Cathy was in the kitchen part of the dining-room, bending down, the gas-range door open, her manner observant and wifely, her nostrils indrawn from sniffing at the roasting chicken.

  “Dinner soon,” said Mrs. Gebhardt, patting down the cloth. “You eat with us. Sauerkraut. Chicken. Noodle soup. Kartofflen. Apple Kuchen.”

  “Nein,” said Gebhardt, “him and his brother better eat spaghetti, that ginny food.” The kids laughed.

  “I’m meeting Bill for dinner,” Joe said. “Thanks just the same, Mrs. Gebhardt.” He felt lonely without a home, without Bill, without the Gebhardts. He’d beat it now, mope around, and come back later when they’d be through eating. “Say, Cathy, Bill isn’t going to a show with me as we were supposed to like I told you. Want to go?”

  Cathy wiped her hands on her apron, glancing at her parents. “Sure, if Pop and Mom say I can.”

  “Go right ahead,” commanded Gebhardt, autocratic as the Kaiser. The kids laughed. His wife smiled at Joe, her placid head with the high cheekbones, the dry yellow hair parted in the center, making her seem more than ever like a farm woman instead of the janitor. The bedroom window, looking out on the backyard, was bright, jeweled, stained with sun streaming in upon all of them, the strong man, the woman near her white cloth, the three kids turning the papers, Cathy floating in the space between the range and the table, her hair glinting. He felt the strong Sunday peace enfold him, this sanctity of their lives relaxing on the Lord’s Day so that it was easy to imagine a ghostly presence in their home, the merry presence of Jesus blessing them all in the flat smelling of soap, chicken, sauerkraut. “I’ll be back around two, Cathy. So long.”

  The sun advanced upon him like a glaring face when he opened the street door. He blinked on Leroy Street isolated in the Sunday vacuum, detached from purpose and work. The warehouse and printery were deserted by men. No raw truckers shouted. No vans trundled upon the side-walk.

  An El was speeding north on Greenwich, the windows rattling, the fleeing roofs of the cars traveling under a huge and measured blue vault. The faces peered down at him, the eyes of strangers uninterested in the train’s destination, Burnside Avenue. That was in the Bronx. With Bill’s money he was going to have a good time. The best time would be traveling to the Bronx. He laughed at ten bucks being made so unnecessary for a good time. He crossed under the El, the light zigzagging through the ties, walking through a constant eternal series of light-shafts, all slanting and full of sun motes. His life was a deep and foul rooting in narrow places. He hurried past the trucking offices ready to resume their traffic with a hundred cities, come Monday. He was wasting his life. What could he do? Maybe Bill’d get him another job. Or a job like Bill’s. To drink, live danger, to know lots of hot tough women; hell, that was life anyway. The grind at Metz’s was an insult to any guy with spunk. He pushed his legs out vigorously, leaving Greenwich, striding into the sun again, westward to Washington Street and the smell of the harbor.

  Many buildings had been razed here by the landlords and mortgage companies. Washington Street was an area devastated by war, a battlefield, the few remaining buildings presenting cracked windows, disused. Business had collapsed, lost foothold and position. Eastward the massed city behind Hudson Street spread to the East River, South to the Battery, north to Times Square. He was happier near the river. The wind unconfined, lurching into the lots, picking up the tag ends of paper. Families were strolling. The street had the aspect of a park lane. The city had retreated. And he wished Cathy were with him.

  He had intended going down to the river, beyond West Street, the railroad terminals and steamer berths, until coming to the last land he might sit on the dock, staring at the greasy heavy water, foul and green. Here a man could look the river in its face, the red tugs, the anchored leviathans, at New Jersey’s opposite shore, the roadway out of New York, the start into the plains and mountains of America. Not today, he thought, recalling lonely Sundays when he had sat with the waters. He’d go to Burnside Avenue. Uptown with Cathy. He was cheered at his own daring like one embarking on journeys. Devil take Bill and blue Monday. He liked Cathy. She liked him. What more could a fellow want? He day-dreamed, his eyes slitted against the sun like half-closed shutters, thinking rosily of uptown and gleaming cities. Hell, he’d forgotten to take the poor mutt out for an airing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE LEFT the dog with the Gebhardts, the kids mobbing it enthusiastically, baby Carl murmuring bawa bawa, holding out his hand as if towards a jewel of price. “Have a good time,” cried Pop and Mom.

  The two of them hurried down the corridor. She was ahead of him, the nape of her neck fluffy with tiny blond hairs. The flight of stairs, each step edged with a shining strip of metal, seemed to push him at her. In this gloomy transit between home and street he grabbed her from the rear, kissing her protesting face. She blushed down to her throat, ashamed and surprised. He thought of all her pale body, crimsoning, her breasts and thighs and toes, until she was rose-beautiful all over. He let loose and they were walking to the door as if nothing much had happened.

  “You shouldn’t,” she said.

  “I like you. You didn’t say anything when I kissed you in the movies.”

  “This is too near.” Her eyes were so miserable he imagined the ghostly fathers of St. Veronica, the Gebhardt home, the doctrine of sin and a thousand other religious inhibitions.

  He flung the door open on sunlight and fresh air and had his answer, breathing deeply. “You’re bugs. Don’t you like me?”

  “I like you.”

  “What you mean then? Shouldn’t I kiss you if I like you? Your family kisses you.”

  She giggled. “You’re a faker.”

  “Liking’s liking. If I like somebody, I kiss them. You ought to be glad I like you.” She blushed as they went down the stoop. She didn’t know what to say, feeling his lips on her cheeks, thinking of her parents. She’d never been kissed before, even if he wouldn’t believe it. She liked kissing, flushing redder. She was in the second year at high school. When she was a kid she’d cried and prayed many nasty things away. At public school she had heard all the bad words many times, seen them scrawled in chalk on the yard walls or whispered in the classrooms by young sports. You couldn’t shut your ears, although she brought her legs together, shuddering. Then, walking home from school at three o’clock, the boys used to rush past her and the other girls, whipping out hands against their black-stockinged legs, sometimes jumping full on them like men leaping from horseback, pressing their hard nasty bodies against the girls. Then, lots of her friends petted. She’d even seen a boy lying on a girl behind the stairs, both of them sort of undressed and naked
somehow. There were many nasty things. Going to high school, men’d wink and young fellows’d make cracks. High was wonderful. There were no boys, only girls, no one to get fresh except strangers on the street, and the loafers on the corner.

  But all she said from this lifetime’s experience with males was that he shouldn’t do it, he should behave.

  What dumb ideas she had! Back home, he told her, all the girls knew what kissing’s for. But then, she was a Catholic. His eyes were wicked, as if he had hit the reason. “But lots of girls I used to know were Catholic and they knew their onions.” His voice was the metallic worldly one of nineteen, wise about women because he’s had a maid on her back on a summer night. Hell, what didn’t he know about women? Cathy walked dumbly by his side, her head lowered as if he were one of those almost forgotten public-school kids whispering in her ear when teacher wasn’t looking, whispering a brutal ravishment. She’d been raped that way so many times she was wiser than he. She knew more about men than he, the taker of a few cheap bats, knew of women.

  “Plenty girls’d like to know me, smiling at me in the El, and in the store, too.” It was a pain for him, a man, to be treated in that kiddish way. But her downcast head with the calm curve of forehead balancing against the straight fine nose and rougeless lips, the line of neck swelling out into her budding breasts, her virginal beauty, created the first agony in his heart. He was nineteen. His heart pounded, his eyes were almost veiled with tears of joy, tears for his own youth and her youth, and the wonder of their springtime on this blowing cold day. He forgot the wisecracks, jerking the words out. “I love you, Cathy. Honest I do. When I said I like you, gee, I meant I love you.” Hell, he wasn’t a man any more, the tough wisecracking fellow the clerks down at Metz’s called Der Starker, who could lift tubs of butter like nothing. He was just a kid speaking for the blood humming in him, speaking for the life, the youth, the male fertility in him.