Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde Read online

  “You like Madge?” He doubted whether Paddy had really spoken. Madge was a nice kid. He said: “Hey, Bobbie, what does the paper say?” It was difficult speaking. Through talk, through imitating the actions of a living man, he would finally move into life out of his doped dreaminess.

  “Nothin’ much,” said Bobbie. He wanted to talk of headlines. He knew some. Tony The Wop Wiped. Paddy The Pimp Sought. Bill The Rent Collector Implicated…. He was amazed at her reading the muck of other crimes. The blood was still hot in the poor ginzo. A short time ago he’d wanted things. Tony had gone home. The guy in the trunk was somebody else. The trunk was empty, maybe. It was easier to believe ties and shoes were there. If the tabloid had said: There’s somebody in a trunk in Paddy’s joint, it would’ve been different. Murders belonged in newspapers. Clothes in trunks.

  “We’re all conventional,” he said.

  “You’re crazy,” Madge said.

  He wasn’t crazy even if they didn’t get it. It was the most natural thing for Paddy and the whores to be conventional. “It’s tough on you,” he whispered to Madge. The murder was real for her even if the papers hadn’t announced it. She didn’t answer and he thought the murder was a fake. There would be no future consequences. It was a perfect job and nobody would ever find out. He had nothing to worry about.

  The radio was in the middle of a jazzy number when Gene entered with McMann. McMann was thin, with a face of hard contours as in the photos on taxi licenses. They were all a little excited. McMann was the second shock to Bill that night. He was significant to him. He didn’t know why. It was just so. It was like seeing the one face in a crowd that means something, that shocks one into thinking: Somehow I ought to meet him or her, or I have met him long ago and can’t forget. He breathed hard, baffled at the yoke uniting him with a stranger. McMann glanced at him, his eyes far away. The red-brown eyes held neither recognition nor interest. “What the hell you lookin’ at?” said McMann.

  “Don’t mind him,” said Paddy. “Want a drink?”

  “Yep. That trunk heavy?” Bill knew with the knowing of instinct that McMann was hard, ruthless, courageous. These qualities were in himself. He was pulled to this stranger like a sun fragment to its sun.

  “Who the hell you lookin’ at?” exclaimed McMann.

  Paddy grimaced. “He’s just a snoopin’ weasel.”

  “A brain guy, huh?” He grabbed one of the trunk’s handles, Gene the other. They complained it was pretty heavy, tugging it to the door. There was nothing in that trunk but clothes. Bill listened to them clumping downstairs. A man had been killed, but it was of no importance.

  Paddy glanced at Bill. “You phenagler, see a damn?”

  “Nothing. I’m worrying about my job.”

  “You gave McMann the once-over.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A hack. Here’s ten bucks. You’ll be needin’ it if you get canned.” He laughed some more, thinking only of the fun of the moment, not confusing the fun with the murder.

  Bill pocketed the bill. “If that cop sees my boss — ”

  “There was no cop, sonny.”

  “Can I go?”

  “Sure. Unless Madge wants you?”

  “Naw.” He lingered as if he really ought to write his name in some visitor’s book. Was there someone special he should say good-by to? There was no one. He was thinking of putting his coat on, but it was on. He’d worn it all night.

  Even Madge had no use for him. Her eyes were blue dark in the whiteness of her face. Well, he’d seen a ghost too. Damn her. He’d like to give it to her where it’d do the most good. Everything was rotten, spoiled, stinking. The hell with the fake of her youth. He slammed the door. For the first time feeling gay, giddy. His heart sang in his breast. He was free. The fear that had hooked arms with him let go and skulked out of mind. It was easier than hell to kill a guy and dump him in a trunk. He was alive. He hurried down the tenement stairs. Out on the street he rubbed his eyes. “That was a party!” he exclaimed.

  A few cabs were parked waiting for stray drunks. The mist hadn’t thickened or lessened. It was exactly as it’d been. He whistled, stepping big steps down the street of speaks, garages, clip joints, and tenements of poor respectable folk.

  Was he glad to be alive? Thinking of Paddy, McMann, the women, was thinking of a strange race visited in a distant land. This was New York. This was nineteen hundred and thirty-one. This was getting on to the New Year. In his pocket he had Paddy’s ten bucks. It represented the mathematical number of times some machine had come across. It represented Madge’s earnings. He ought to pity himself, a louse if there ever was one. What about his job? If he lost his job it’d be pretty tough what with his brother coming to town. His brother was bringing a dog. A dog. A puppy. That just showed you how innocent Joe was.

  He choked with hysterical laughter. Not once had he thought of ratting on Paddy. Aw, what was he eating himself up for? If he lost his job he’d make dough in some other way. He was one guy that wasn’t going to starve. Guys like McMann never hit the breadline.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A PARALYSIS of hate stiffened his limbs as the boss recited why “I must dispense with your services just at the present.” The boss made an efficient picture in his swivel chair, the photographs of the real estate he owned hanging on the wall behind him. Flanked by all these possessions, each of which symbolized so many regiments of dollars, the army of which he was the general, he naturally girded up his loins as the interview progressed. For some time he’d been a collection of newspaper headlines. DEPRESSION CONTINUES. INDUSTRY SLACKENS. PRESIDENT HOOVER COUNSELS AMERICAN SPIRIT. BANKS FAIL.

  The light came back to where they were like an old man applying for a job. The boss had yellowish hands that went swell with what he had to say. Bill hated himself. How comical and cool he was, behaving just like the Mr. Meek and Mild of the comic strips! He could give the boss a headline. MAN FOUND IN TRUNK. Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it. He had to speak up. No use letting Stanger go on forever.

  “I realize all you’re telling me, Mr. Stanger. What with foreclosures and tax sales we’re losing many collections. Business is punk. Conceded. But I’ll take a cut gladly.” He stared at the boss as if the boss were an animal in a trap. Stanger nodded. No use. The trap wouldn’t hold. “I’m sorry, Bill. But we must do without you entirely. Damn the times. Put yourself in my place. You know how the office’s been hit.”

  “I wouldn’t have lost my job if it weren’t for that mess. I appreciate your reticence, but that cop did spoil it for me. I heard all about it, how he said we were maintaining a nuisance at 348 and I was wise to it. If that cop hadn’t found out, I’d still be here.”

  “Well, we all know that houses down here in the west side are loaded with all kinds of joints, but, the point is, our knowing isn’t official. I’m not blaming you. Most rent-collectors tax these joints. Why not? With real estate shot to hell, nine landlords out of ten are damn glad a brothel or a crap joint’s paying rent for a flat that’d otherwise be empty. A rent’s a rent. But I can’t keep you now. If I did, the cops’d watch all my properties like hawks. They’d be out to hang up one of their nuisance signs. Therefore, if a collector of mine gets caught he must go.”

  “That clears the ground.” He had an idea the boss was more glad than sorry. The damn hypocrite got a pleasure out of the mistakes of others, smirking now because he’d got it in the neck.

  “I probably would’ve been forced to let you go anyway. The little landlords are getting squeezed out, and with their properties reverting to the banks and mortgage people, I’m losing out on customer after customer. And the decline in insurance. What would you do in my place but stifle all feelings, despite my friendship with your father. I can’t help it, Bill.” He was happier, his heart contained in the formula, sacking Bill the second time. He shifted his eyes towards the ceiling as if asking God to approve of his humanity.

  “I guess so.”

  Bill listened. What would McMa
nn’ve done? Spit in his damn face. Oh for the guts to cry out: “The hell with your damn job and your damn fight talk. Shove both up.” But something might be gained from the boss, something might be gained yet. The million strangers in town wouldn’t help him with a dime. He felt suave, like a fellow everybody admires at a party. Where’d the calm come from? McMann couldn’t’ve been smoother. He put the job behind him. It was the edge, but he refused to jump off.

  “If my father were in your place he’d act the same way.” That was it. Force some sentiment out of the dry man before him. Try, try until you succeed. “The times are against all of us.” He observed the effect of this with the scientific scrutiny of a kid waiting for the rocket to flare.

  The boss lit a cigar and thought of Bill’s far-away father. He’d been dead fifteen years in time and many centuries in memory. “Your father was a fine man,” he conceded irritably as if speaking of George Washington, reluctant to make the admission, suspecting his ex-employee of some game.

  “He spoke often of you. You were his best friend.” This was putting dart after dart into the boss’s conscience.

  The boss trembled. He was like a woman resisting a ravishment, fighting memory. It was no use. He couldn’t order Bill to shut up. There was a Sunday code a fellow had to respect even if it hurt like hell. “Yes yes,” he said as if saying no no.

  “He used to speak of your days at college, always sorry he couldn’t live in New York. When I finished college he was happy to send me here, away from home, to work for you.” He didn’t curse the hypocrite. He just tied him up. The boss couldn’t move a muscle and now Bill jabbed him with dose after dose of “memory” as if from a hypo. The boss fidgeted. Pink spots appeared on the ivory of his yellow cheekbones. It was a pleasure to contemplate his agony, for that’s what it was, the agony of someone in a hell, in a past irrevocable but still meaningful. It had held Bill’s father, an old friendship still holding some truth for the man Stanger had become. He stared the longest time at Bill, the smooth-shaven face smelling of lilac and talcum, the crisp jaw lines, the full mouth, the blaze of blue eyes balanced finely the straight nose. He was envious, and regret wrinkled his face. This Bill was a ladies’ man, and so young. So young and handsome. He thought of Bill’s father when he too had hummed with animal energy, had been a man. Wonderful to be young, needing no stimulus. He was sick to be reminded of the fertility pills he took, hating Bill for shoving him back into the world before the war. It was gone and no use haunting it. He suspected the young man was seeking for an advantage. It was all right for Bill to try to put one over with his talk of the past, but it would not be all right for him to be a sucker. He glanced at Bill as if he were a landlord asking for a loan he wouldn’t get in a million years. The boss felt better. “Since I didn’t give you notice and because of our connection, well, this envelope is a month’s salary.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be needing it. My young brother’s in town. We’ll need it to live on.”

  “Joe in town? Why?”

  “It hasn’t been so good for him since my mother died. You know how it is. Living in a small town like Easton. It was no go. He’s a proud kid and couldn’t hit it off with our cousins. Without parents, well …” He was heaving his darts openly, shameless, stabbing sympathy into the boss. He could imagine the boss thinking: The two poor kids, no father no mother, orphans orphans orphans in the cruel world. Bill quivered, gloating at the reactions of his target. Say “orphan,” and the boss’d react one way. Say “whore,” he’d react another.

  “But couldn’t you two go home where you have relatives? If I weren’t tied up I’d like to do something. But I’m in the red and this is a rotten town to be in without a job or family.”

  “Impossible. We’d rather starve or sleep in the park than go home.” The boss sighed, his eyes sad and tragic. He became limp like a woman who has fought her attacker and at last surrenders. It was a rape. “I’m sorry, Bill. If I could help — ”

  “You can help. You’ve many properties full of empties.”

  “Well?”

  “My brother and I could stay in one until we got work. It’s a nerve, but I’m remembering your friendship for my father and my family. Why, Joe’s always regarded you as an uncle.” He felt cheap, ashamed at his peddler’s psychology.

  “Taxes and interest are sky-high.”

  “We don’t want to move into one of your good houses where you’ve a chance of renting.”

  “Yes?”

  “How about those properties of yours off the El, near Greenwich Street? The houses on Leroy that are always empty? I’ve heard you say a thousand times they’re worthless.”

  “You’d move into one of those?”

  “Better than sleeping in the park.”

  “Hell, if you’re willing to live down there you can stay as long as you want. You’re kidding?”

  “No. They’re better than the park or a flop-house.”

  The boss was plaintively eager to shy away from talk of money. “For the sake of our special connection — Why, Bill, only too happy.” He seemed cheerier, hearing himself recite to friends what he did for the sons of his old crony. “The best of the lot’s one on Leroy, between Greenwich and Hudson. A slum neighborhood, but it’s a clean house. Stay there as long as you want. It’s a roof at the least. Maybe something’ll turn up.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stanger. Thanks awfully. It’s swell. My father couldn’t’ve been more decent.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more. The janitor’s a Mrs. Gebhardt. Have her phone me for instructions.” He smiled, admiring Bill. “You’re a conniver working me up to a free apartment. But I don’t regret it. Not in the least. I owe something to the sons of my best friend.” He paused as if about to add: Remember me to the folks. “You and Joe drop around for lunch any time. No need to go hungry. Come up for dinner, any time at all.”

  “Good-by and thanks.”

  “Good-by.” He fumbled with a letter, a dodge he always resorted to to end an interview.

  Bill shut the door, smiling at the outer office. He had the sack. What a skunk he was to rake up his father’s bones for charity! But a fellow had to live. None of the other collectors were around. They were all out hounding tenants, shaking down joints. The three stenographers, with the wisdom of those whose jobs are still solid, guessed he’d got it between the eyes. Their faces were three pennies.

  Hell, if he wore a brassiere and rouged up like a fast number or a dame ready to be convinced, he’d be set too. Stinky Stanger and the damn stenos. He was sorry for them. “So long, kids. Best of luck. I’m out in the snow and got to find a dame to keep me.”

  Miss Tassio laughed. The lean redhead who always looked hungry stared straight at him. Miss Kornitz, who lived over on Avenue A, hung her head, ashamed. He patted her shoulder. “Don’t mind me, kid. It’s a lousy world, and no one can help what they’ve got to do. People got to eat.”

  The dust roared up the street. The New Year was just entering people’s consciousness. Although Christmas hadn’t tinseled into sight, he seemed to feel the New Year. Ring the bells. It’s coming. Hoorah! The stenos were watching him through the plateglass window. Then they began to work. Typewriters clicked. He laughed. Time must go on, and Progress. What grand sayings! He studied his reflection in the glass, the camel coat and snapbrim felt. That was a good build he saw, handsome face. It was himself and it wasn’t. This reflection was a ghost bidding him good-by from the office. The Bill walking away was his new self, mysterious, strange to him. He’d been newborn. The old was dead. His new life was undetermined, unlived. Maybe Paddy’d get a job for him. Easy dough wasn’t bad. A fellow had to live. Life must go on. You bet. He thought about his brother, Joe. What a lie! Joe wasn’t due in New York until after New Year. Joe and the pup. By New Year he might be in the dough. You never could tell. One thing, he was going to get his hands on dough, he didn’t give a damn how.

  He had forgotten completely about the murder at Paddy’s. And really there w
as no reason to remember it. It was just another one of those things that never make the papers and leave no impress on the minds of the performers. The star of the show is got rid of, and that’s all. When he thought of it, it was simply an unimportant accident that had caused the loss of his job. It was a banana peel and he had slipped.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE November sunshine was so bright on his eyes they felt shot to hell. He acted as if he had nothing to worry about. Yet he had the God-damned gate, and what was he moping for? He was aware of the granite city, and all things, masses, lights, people, were scratched on the surface of his eyeballs. He entered a Horn & Hardart. The money changer slid out two nickels towards him. He took them with a feeling that his cash was going, that he was flinging his money into air with drunken fists. More than ever he needed dough. The tiled eating-place was haunted by the presence of the bus-girls cleaning up the tables, treading silently. Here was a place to hug his misery. The food displayed behind glass was a museum exhibit bought by men who neither smiled nor frowned. He bit into his doughnut with a lonely intensity. He was right at home. He wasn’t the only one in the boat. He sipped his coffee with the cheeriness of one who has begun to accept his misfortune. The hell with it all. He was young. The world was full of easy money. Maybe it was a good thing he had lost his job. Maybe he could coin more dough if he was on his own.

  He wondered what was to be done? He had no money in the bank. He’d spent every nickel fast as he made it. Salary, graft, shakedown money. And Joe coming to town after New Year. Joe and a pup. Just a happy family. Joe depended on him. He had twenty bucks in the dresser at the hotel room. A month’s salary. Four times twenty-five plus twenty. One hundred twenty. That was dough. That was something. What a sucker to think he was licked! He had a place to live in. Two guys could buy a lot of food for one hundred twenty bucks. He grinned at working the boss into a free flat. Why, he was a bloated millionaire. Near him an old man was guzzling soup. The old man murmured to himself. Bill laughed. Christ, he was young, smart, strong. He had some money. The city was jammed with a million devils worse off than himself. No one paid any attention to him laughing. They were used to anything. What he had to do was simple as pie, a cinch. He had to shake down as many speaks and joints as he could before everyone wised up that he was canned.