Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde Page 20

  McMann got rid of the stolen jewelry, hocking the rings and stickpin with certain fences. He sold the tickets and had about three hundred in cash. The watch he kept. They divided another hundred equally, smiling on lower Sixth Avenue in a neighborhood of French delicatessens and bleak spinsterlike houses. “The two hunerd’s for the club. Right? Them kids don’t hafta know every damn thing.”

  “You’re a prize. You’d gyp your grandmother.”

  “So would you.”

  They grinned, their lips fixed with the mutual admiration of two outwitting a third party. It was eleven in the morning. The El curved at right angles, looping east. It was a gray morning; February had ended on a deathbed of immense gray clouds, March born gray as the mother month. They discussed a few of the houses they’d seen, knowing all the time which one both of them preferred. It was funny. They had the dough. The decision was easy and yet they argued, sharpening their teeth.

  “You’ll tell the kids it was my idea. I’m the brain guy. You’ve elected me.” Bill grinned again as if to add: Whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t think I’m a fool falling blind.

  “What’s wrong with that?” His profile was all hard straight lines, the cigarette rigid in his lips. No guessing what a phiz like that thought. Bill regretted his wisecrack. He’d never learned to keep his trap shut.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” His heart was weighty and dull before the danger. Here his body was keeping step, his body was safe so far, but there was no ease for him. McMann couldn’t kid him forever. He knew the rat was waiting for the chance to get rid of him. For an infinite second McMann was ageless, neither old nor young, with the vague ageless eternity of a gun or a knife.

  “You’re drivin’ at something, Bill.”

  “You know what it is, well as me. What do you mean by this brain-guy crap?” Oh, what a fool he was, an ass speaking out of turn, tipping McMann! His words were the vilest idiocies. His head must be softening up.

  “You’re nuts.” His teeth showed in even rows out of his red face. It was childhood returning to Bill again. He grinned sickly. Here were the woods and himself in the role of Little Red-Riding-Hood. “We gotta build each other up. You gotta make those kids think you’re somebody.”

  They dropped the subject as if it were some common secret possession brought up out of a chest and put back again. They were too busy to bother much, examining the house. It was a three-story sixteen-footer on Sixteenth Street, situated in a block of tenements, the ash-cans and kids in two armies. Across the way was a butcher store. In a big cleared space on the corner the Socony Company sold oil. Eighth Avenue wasn’t a hundred feet away and because of the gas-station their house was practically the corner. They received the key from an Armenian tailor who occupied the first floor, passing through the separate entrance to the upstairs. The two floors were exactly alike, two three-room flats in the front and the same number in the rear overlooking a yard with a clumsy shed and a small tree with gaunt branches like a thin beggar’s arm. It was part of the works. “Some joint,” said McMann, sniffing at the unused atmosphere of the wood and peeling paint. The floors were dusty and the former occupants had worn black silk dresses. “It’ll need a good alteration.” He said the landlord ought to take a month’s rent, and then with the money left they could buy paints. The kids could clean and paint their clubhouse up.

  “How do ya know he’ll only take one month?”

  “He’ll take what he can get. If we sign a lease we ought to be good for two months’ concession.”

  “Boy, we’ll have a joint.” He smiled blandly, his eyes glinting with a sense of might as if he were a baron or millionaire setting up an establishment. “Then a speak’ll chip in, huh?”

  They returned the key to the Armenian, a burly man with thick hair and a curved nose that made him appear Jewish. He stood in his undershirt above the pressing-machine, the pressed suits hanging like an army of apparitions behind him. “You take the house?”

  “If we do, you’re in luck,” said McMann.

  “All political clubs have lots of suits to press and clean for the members. Politicians are snappy,” Bill said.

  “And dresses maybe,” laughed McMann.

  “It won’t be that kind of political club.”

  “I give you good service,” said the Armenian with an effect of bowing.

  “Me’n him,” said McMann, “gets a cut. Savvy? A nickel on each suit you press. We’re the leaders at the club.” The Armenian shook his head.

  At the gas-station they glanced back at the house, whitewashed by the gas people on the side facing the avenue. “Why grab a nickel on a suit? It won’t make you rich.”

  “Won’t make ya poor. Anyway, it’s the principle. All I wants is our stuff pressed free. Big shots are chiselers. You oughta get it, you’re a brain guy.” Bill did most of the talking at the real-estate office. The old feeling among the typewriters clicking out the February statements, pictures of buildings on the wall with certificates of membership on boards and taxpayer groups. They sat opposite a partially bald man with thin dry hands. His name was Gunther and he had the district charted in his head, every house, every loft. After palaver and mutual heeling, they shook hands. Gunther gave Bill a receipt for two months’ rent. McMann counted out eighty dollars. It was a hard bargain, said Gunther. Eighty a month was twenty a week, less than twenty, as there are more than twenty-eight days a month. And the month’s concession. Why didn’t they consider a lease? Not that leases meant anything in these times. Bill declared he’d rather be a monthly tenant. Listen, begged Gunther; he was the agent and knew the details of the estate owning the property. It’d been empty over a year. If their club would sign a lease for two years he’d get the estate to clean and paint their floors from top to bottom. Wouldn’t that be ideal for their organization?

  “And you’d get a larger commission,” grinned Bill. “What do you say to his proposition, president?” he asked McMann.

  “Oke, secret’ry. The organization can use the dough that woulda gone for painting to buy furniture.” They chuckled at the estate that was going to get the raw deal, and why not? It was rich as hell.

  “It’s a go, Gunther. We’ll sign a lease for two years, but at seventy-five a month.” There was a long debate, with the agent insisting they were ruining him, but finally it was settled. “As for cleaning and painting, that won’t cost you much. I know these offices. Loads of carpenters and painters are working for what they can get these days. Union wages be damned.” It was settled. They were to move in the first of April. “Now, president, hand Mr. Gunther a ten-spot for cigars.” Gunther was hesitant. “Keep it. We want a decent paint job. We’re a powerful club and maybe you’ll want us to fix a ticket for you some time.” They were paid up to June first. Gunther thanked them effusively. If it wasn’t too much trouble, what was the official name of the organization? “Make the lease out to The Young Hamilton Democrats Club.”

  They said good-by. McMann thought it was a swell name, and now that they were set they’d better divvy the dough left. They’d put a sum aside for furniture and food for the opening night. They’d have a swell party. They oughta go big. They didn’t even havta knock off another speak. They were set, and the blow-out they were gonna have was gonna be a blow-out.

  “Think Duffy’ll like it?”

  “The hell with him. If he makes a stink I’ll slap the bastard down. The Young Hamilton Democrats Club. You thoughta it like nothin’. Can’t kid me, you’re a brain guy.” They laughed like enemies who inevitably must come to blows.

  “I wonder if Hamilton was a Democrat.”

  “He’s a Democrat now.” He sighed, almost sentimental. “We got a clubhouse. Yeh. Would you believe it? Me boss of a clubhouse, boss of a bunch of kids. Would you believe it? I don’t until I see it with me own eyes. Holy cow, me. Me?”

  Duffy stood at his hotel window. Outside, the rain, confined between the defiles of the building, swept furiously. Spring is on the road, thought Duffy. Spring is a
lmost here. His bathrobe was too viciously colored for this somber day. Below the gray sky the underneath city was dominated by rain, everything wet, blackish, misty. The city of hard contours and sun dazzling on windows had never been. Duffy retreated gratefully into the warmth of his room. He pulled on a pair of silk socks over his delicate ankles, sheathing them in what might have been their normal covering. He was fastidious, careful. Something had to be done about McMann. The clubhouse over on Sixteenth. Could you beat it? Ray had brought him an invitation to attend the gala opening night on April first. There’d be roast beef, beer, booze, cheese, women. McMann had to be stopped.

  His mind presented the evidence like a district attorney. His kids had been used. McMann wanted all his kids. McMann had licked Spat and was easing him, Duffy, out. McMann was starting a clubhouse and would be boss. These deeds were crimes, and he had tolerated them although punishment was deserved and long overdue. He’d got Hanrahan after McMann, but you could never depend on bulls. Hanrahan might be letting McMann ride and haul him in when he was bigger, so Hanrahan’d get more credit. Duffy flung off his bathrobe. His meager body built in flat contours seemed impossible of violence, youthful, weak, almost pitiable. McMann had to be wiped out. That’d be only fair for the lumping he’d taken. His decision annoyed him as if he were some kindhearted judge compelled by law to be stern. How and when was the job to be pulled? Before the clubhouse opened. Sure. Before McMann pulled off another holdup, chiseling himself in deeper with the kids. Spat? Spat was too soft and respectable. He had a good job collecting policy slips and the nickels of the suckers. Spat wasn’t the guy any more.

  He buttoned his vest and his double-breasted blue jacket, more formidable, as if he’d got into armor, his shoulders wider. He belted his suède raincoat, lifting the collar high as if he intended walking five miles. Beyond the revolving door he marched under the canopy. The doorman whisked open the cab door. One drop of rain hit Duffy’s nose. He breathed deep with an out-of-doors feeling. Soon he was indoors again, sitting down at the table in another hotel room. Three young men were playing pinochle. Duffy watched as if he were happy to be official kibbitzer. The red queens and kings, the aces represented real dough. He blinked as the cards slid across the varnish and were molded into fans in each fist. Duffy drank, smoked a cigar, refused a second time to become a fourth, snorting the stakes were too high. Upon which the players, all under thirty, their eyes netted with the wrinkles of power and dissipation, murmured modestly. On a small pad one of them recorded the game’s progress while the others observed carelessly but with their attentions wide awake. He wasn’t scribbling figures just for nothing. It was the real dough. Duffy had endless patience, lingering so indefinitely that the keeper of the accounts caught on, glancing up every half-hour or so as if to wink: It’s business, ain’t it, Duff? Well, you wait and I’ll be right with you. The cards slid out, the game seemed perpetual as the rain, the gamblers yawning, deploring the rotten weather. One of them had a date.

  They exchanged checks. The game was over. The loser wrote out two checks for the winners. They left, smiling the smile of charm and affluence. Duffy stared at his host as if the game were still in progress, the cards gathered up by greedy fingers, the exhalations of breath, the slapping down of trumps.

  “What’s on your mind, Duff?” He was twenty-eight, his clothes the best money could buy, his nails and body immaculate with the lordliness of a peasant risen in the world. There were thousands exactly like him driving trucks, working in the building trades and subways, thick-shouldered, blue-eyed, with brash handsome faces and dirty fingernails.

  “Nothing much.”

  They smiled. Carney’d been one of the winners. “How’s things, Duff? You’re lookin’ swell.”

  “Not so bad. And you?”

  “Not so bad.”

  “That’s swell.”

  “You waited a long time. You must have important — ”

  “Nothing much.”

  “I thought it was important. Bet you were here two hours. Damn that lousy rain.”

  “I’d astayed anyway.”

  “Things are slow when you ain’t playin’. I gotta play. No sittin’ still for me. How’s Spat and the kids?”

  “Not so bad. I hear you boys are stepping.”

  “Not so bad with us. Listen, Duff, I never was the guy to stall. What d’ya want?”

  “I was wondering to myself if some of your boys still do odd jobs? You’re getting so big. Maybe some other mob’s doing the small-fry stuff?”

  “Fer instance, what small fry your kids ain’t doin’?”

  “One thing, my kids don’t fool with guns much.”

  “That kinda job.”

  “If you don’t handle it, le’s forget it.”

  “I might do it for you as a strict favor, Duff, but that kinda stuff is small fry, just as you say.”

  “Didn’t I say so? A guy comes to me and says: ‘Duff, I’m willing to pay more than usual if you do a certain thing for me.’ You see, tha’s how it is. I can’t name this guy, but he’s big and won’t do it himself, although if I mention his name you’d be surprised. That big. But he don’t want the job nohow and so I’m the in-between just to favor him.”

  “I see. How much he give you, jus’ between us?”

  “You’ll be surprised. I got two-fifty with me. And two-fifty more when it’s done.”

  “Five hunerd for a job like that?”

  “It’s a helluva lot. You can get it done for a hunerd anywhere.”

  “Though I don’t do that kinda thing, Duff, as we got pretty big, I’d do it for you as a favor’n all, providin’ I get two-fifty. I’ll take your word on’t.”

  “You don’t botch it and we both make two-fifty.”

  “If I botch, money back. Nonea my boys’d bother. We’re too big for that kinda stuff, but we got dopes allus hangin’ round. Somea them are swell shots.”

  “What you getting now, Carney?”

  “Seventy-five clear on every tin for the boys. You see why they don’t like rough stuff. N’ seventy-five’s like nothin’ at all.”

  “So it’ll go through O.K.? It’s a favor all around. Me doing it for the guy, and you for me.”

  “I know the feller to get spotted?”

  “His name’s McMann, a red-headed guy, usta drive a cab, running around with a kid called Bill.”

  “Don’ know him.”

  “He’s only peanuts.”

  “Five hunerd’s a helluva lot for a peanut.”

  “The guy wants the job done’s lousy with dough.”

  “Justa same, he’s careless.” Duffy took out two hundred-dollar notes, two twenties, and a ten. “Have it done the nex’ few days. I want to get my money that’s waiting.”

  Carney reached for the phone. He spoke a few minutes, grinning at his visitor like a salesman putting through an order. “A dope’s comin’ up. You point out this McMann to’m. He’s a good worker and’ll go to hell for a snifter.” They sat around talking about things in general. Carney apologizing why he was taking such a small fry on. It was peanuts and no money. He’d do things for a pal like Duff. They drank like two bad kids getting ready to do something bad. Duffy glanced over the rim of his glass at Carney boasting of how good he was in pinochle. He didn’t count the cards like some of the guys, he just played hunches. If a guy was lucky, that was all he needed. Today didn’t Duffy see him take over them experts? Experts stink. He shined goldenly, a man befriended by luck, his lips wide apart, his thick short nose also seeming to smile, the nostrils twisting up as his cheeks curved, proud, benevolent, a princeling doing favors for friends.

  The newcomer made them both serious, a lean man with a wry apologetic mannerism. He was dead sober, sober and dead, without hope in his dope-fiend eyes. He was an Italian, but his voice belonged to no dialect. He was a living man’s ghost without any allegiance, smiling uncannily at Carney with a ghoulish hope that he’d be granted hope again, would be given a return to life. To win life he’d do al
l things. His morality was honest; nothing is more precious than life; to attain it after death is godly. His face lowered and fanatic, he listened to his instructions like one to God’s voice. “So long,” said Duffy, leaving with the coke at his heels, who followed with the unquestioning obedience of a dog or black spirit.

  For two days the coke spied on McMann. McMann was never alone. There’d be another guy with him, a handsome gink in a camel-hair coat, or else a couple kids. That McMann was never alone. It struck him as spite work, a nasty way of getting at him. As he glared through narrowed lids, McMann was the meanest guy alive, always going out of his way to hurt him. Why wasn’t he alone? Everybody was alone once in awhile. Gradually after two days, McMann lost reality to him, who’d never been much of a person in the beginning, but now wasn’t a person at all — merely something inanimate, tremendously immortal, like a natural manifestation, a mountain, a desert that the coke had to conquer like the ancient heroes of old before he could get what he desired most in life. Life itself, the snow of life.

  He was dead sober. From some former existence, some memory distant as a former incarnation, he knotted his tie, dressed, loitered on Twenty-third. He carried a gat and a long knife. Both these weapons had also come down to him, an inheritance from another self. He didn’t care for them, remotely knowing their use, trailing McMann from speak to hotel, seeing him walk with kids and women, but somehow with never the chance to use death, tempted to draw a bead on McMann in open daylight and then run for it like a beast who has struck. But he mustn’t be caught. If he got caught, how’d he get the snow? He wandered eternities while other men ticked off the minutes and complained the days were speeding by like lightning and soon it’d be April, and spring around the corner.

  He haunted the streets almost as invisible as a man can be, his face on his chest, his hollow light body attracting the gaze of no one. Not a woman, not a child looked at him to reaffirm his existence. At night he slept in a furnished room for which he paid three dollars a week. When the gnawing in his belly became a dull ache he got some doughnuts and coffee, not knowing or caring when the next meal’d be or where he’d eaten last.