Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (14 page)

Cathy thought he looked a lot like Bill.

P
USHING
open the door of the pool parlor, Bill forgot about Joe, the poor kid. All the way uptown he had confused Joe with the dog, sorry for both with the luxurious regret of one intending to do nothing about matters. What could he do? The big yellow lights flared down on the tables, picking out highlights on the ivory balls. The proprietor, a lanky man wearing a striped shirt with plain white attached collar, yanked up his lowered eyes from the Sunday sports section. “Howza boy?” he said.

“McMann here?”

“In there.” He jerked his thumb to a door in the rear. He put the wrestling dope aside, staring at Bill as if to get his mug down once and for all. A couple of lazy pool-room boys, hanging around for a sucker, drinking pop with the phlegmatic calm of petty gamblers, gave him the once-over as well. He felt photographed, important, uneasy, thinking for the last time of poor Joe. McMann had been arguing with Duffy and Spat, sitting in a chair tilted against the wall, smoking a cigar as smoothly as a junior executive. Bill was embarrassed by the convergence of cool measuring eyes, almost as impersonal as the eyes of cameras. He pulled his lips taut on his clenched teeth, grinning, seeing Duffy and Spat the first time, silently figuring what there was to him. McMann was as stony as the others, as if he were taking judgment too. Duffy was a skinny man with a dead white face, his hands long-fingered and corpse-like, his brown eyes flecked with fire, the only things alive in his burnt-out energy. Spat’s mouth was crooked; shouldered like a wop laborer. They were each about twenty-five.

“No use stalling,” said Duffy. “Schneck rode that cab for you. He shot off his mouth about it.”

“And said what swell workers you guys are,” said Spat.

“What about it?” asked McMann.

“You’re using our kids,” said Duffy.

McMann smiled like a conscious good fellow. “Let’s get together. No stinkin’ aroun’, Duff. We get the dope and the kids pull the job off. That’s on the square.”

“You’re trying to start a mob by using ourn. Hell with that.” His eyes blazed at both of them, the freckles on his nose standing out dark. He pulled up his trousers, showing ankles small as a girl’s.

“We’re not trying anything of that sort,” said Bill.

“That’s what you say.”

“Let me speak. We’re on the square. It happens I’m wise to plenty jack. I know when, the hour when the storekeepers got it.”

“Yeh,” bawled Spat, his big chest wanting to burst from his tight vest. “It’s no secret who’s workin’ the avenoo.”

“Schneck musta told you lots,” said McMann.

Spat glared like a wild stupid animal. “Huh? Don’t have ta tell us. It’s you’n him.”

“So what?” said Duffy. “What you driving at?”

Spat smacked his fist on his knee. “It can be done.”

“You’re thick,” said Duffy.

Spat was dumb as a whale, thought Bill. Duffy was the guy to win over, Duffy the corpse, with his small brown eyes darting swift as if trying to escape his inert body. It boiled down to this, Duffy declared. He didn’t doubt their dope was O.K. As Spat had said, the town was wise to their raids. He didn’t begrudge them a cent but when it came to horning in on his kids. And he didn’t want to split with anybody. The hell with it. Suppose they took the dope and the kids pulled off the jobs, the risk’d be his, Duffy’s. He didn’t want none of it.

“What you crabbin’?” said McMann. “You know damn well you’n Spat play safe.”

“So what?”

“You got a mobba hustlers.”

“They’re mine.”

“Who says they ain’t?”

“What of Schneck driving that cab for you?”

That was an accident. Nothing else. Sure it was, said Duffy, hitching up his trousers. Say the kids don’t get nabbed, they break clear. They got to be paid. Spat and him had to be paid. Then McMann and Bill had to be paid. Christ, they weren’t holding up any banks to get enough dough for such a mob. And with the depression, those storekeepers didn’t have so much. Bill felt better. Duffy might be convinced or he might pretend he was convinced. He’d never forget about Schneck, but the easy money might win him over.

“Yeh,” said Spat. “That’s the point. Too many guys to share.” He didn’t fool anybody into thinking he was smart. He nodded his thick head with the small ears pinned tight into the hard bone.

“Suppose I find a ten-spot in the gutter,” said McMann, “and split it four ways. That ain’t much, but why turn it down?”

“What’s that gotta do with it?”

“Spat, you’re a lunk. Ain’t it pickin’ up dough?”

“Don’t you call me lunk.”

“I was kiddin’.”

“Cut it.”

“Aw right,” said Duffy. “For the sake of the hell of it, a coupla kids stick up a store. They net some dough. How much? O.K. Let’s say two hundred. Them kids are worth fifteen each.”

“Ten,” said McMann.

Spat sneered. “You wouldn’ work for no lousy ten.”

“I ain’t no lousy green kid.”

“Aw right. Fifteen each. Thirty for two kids. One-seventy left. Spat’n me keep a hundred. You guys get the rest.”

McMann poured drinks, the bottle staunch on the round table, surrounded by their glasses and Spat’s fists. “You’re beginnin’ to talk. Them kids are mopin’. You gotta slip ‘em a fiver once awhile to keep ‘em goin’.”

“Gotta keep ‘em satisfied,” said Spat like a father. “Gin we give ‘em. If they don’t fix themselves up, we gotta get ‘em a dame to line up. Those kids are good.” Duffy puffed at a butt, the tiny coal brighter than his eyes.

“Necessities of life,” Bill said.

“Sure,” said Duffy.

“What’s wrong then, with them earnin’ their keep?” McMann had him there.

“Well,” said Duffy, “it don’t pay for a coupla smart kids to get nabbed for ten cents.”

The kids were plantation Negroes, thought Bill, the plantation the town of the Big Stink. The kids were worth so much a head. They were worth dough. He and Mac’d never get anywhere without help. Mac was right. No use puking around. The big gamble. Duffy’s kids were the stake. With them he might make a few grand. “What’s keeping you back, Duffy? Is it you think we’re trying to start a mob by stealing yours?”

“We think what we want,” said Spat.

Duffy, languid, hardly moved. What a pair they were, thought Bill, a corpse and a wild man! “I said it. Ain’t it so?”

“No,” hollered McMann. “Who wants your kids? We’ll give ya the dope in advance.”

“Go on.”

“You pull it off as if it’s your job. We’ll take a chance you don’t pull no doublecross. What more you want? Ain’t that square?”

Bill thought it wasn’t so hot. They wouldn’t get more’n some change out of an arrangement like that. Was Mac nuts?

“Why you so square?” said Duffy.

“ ‘Cause I’m a square shooter. Ask Paddy, anybody.”

“I’ll ask Bill. Hey, Bill, your pal square?”

“I don’t know.” He laughed.

“It sounds good,” said Duffy. Spat’s fist reached for the bottle. Bill, catching McMann’s eye, wanted to speak with his eyes. Oh, if he only could! His stare said: They’ll doublecross us. But McMann was pinkfaced, cold, unreachable. Duffy said the proposition suited him. It looked on the level. It proved they weren’t trying to hook his kids. And the times were bad. Spat heeled his boss, insisting the times were lousy. Why, they had eight kids and a bunch of others and there wasn’t work for most of them. When a kid had the chance for something better, he lammed out. Last week a kid got a respectable job, running errands for a whore-house at fifteen a week. Showed what things are. Two years ago that same kid was knocking out forty slugs working twice a week, rest of the time free for whoring.

They grinned at Spat, even Duffy’s lips snarling upwards, incredulously amused at the harangue.

“Why don’t you quit?” said McMann.

“Me?” He waved his hand in a grandly stupid gesture of pride. “I count. I’m a book. I got sidelines. I’m in numbers. I make eighty a week average.” Duffy was smiling like a dead man. He wanted to know what the dope was on the first job. Bill didn’t like his lazy voice with the vicious devil hiding behind his restless eyes. What the hell was wrong with McMann? McMann stared at Bill. “Give’m the dope. We’ll see how he makes out. Bill’s the brain guy, Duff. He figures the dope.” Duffy was interested. “Yeh?”

I’ll give him a joint in the neck, thought Bill. No gold mine for that bastard. And Mac calling him brain guy to boost his reputation. What for? “This store’s on Ninth near Thirty-sixth. A paint supply. He’s got two men working for him, but don’t pay them on Saturday. Thursday morning he pays all his bills. At ten o’clock in the morning. The money’s in a little bank in the rear. He’s usually got a couple hundred for bills and salaries. When he draws the dough from the bank he takes some for his wife. A week from this Thursday he pays his rent.”

“I don’t like that business about the bank. That why you give us the job?”

“You want it on the counter?” said McMann.

“This job’s lousy. If he don’t open up at a gat, what then? Naw. It’s n.g.”

“Why’nt you let me finish? I’ve real dope. The kids’ll be outside. The first collector drops in to get paid. The boss opens the bank. That’s the time to knock him off. You get what he has in the bank, plus what the collector has.”

“You’re a brain guy,” said Duffy.

“It gives me a headache.”

“That job would need three kids,” Spat declared. “Two to cover the paint guy and the collector. One outside to lay puts.” “Four kids,” corrected Duffy. “One at the car, one outside the window, two inside.” It was a good layout, but risky. He wanted twenty bucks for each kid, everything over to be split fifty-fifty. Duffy walked out, followed by Spat, led like a bull.

“How’s Madge?” said McMann. It was a Duffy joint and they were going to pull an act for anybody snooping.

“I haven’t see her in weeks. You ask me about her too often. You making a play for her?”

“That skinny kid?” He winked, the outer surfaces of his red eyes glinting jovially while the body of each, set hard in his laughless skull, shone angrily. When they were hurrying east to Broadway, McMann cursed his heart out. That bastard Duffy. The world’s crookedest skunk. He wouldn’t trust him for a jit. They’d get rooked sure as hell. But they’d get some dough out of it. Could they pick up dough for nothing? You didn’t see dough lying on the streets. That’s why he went partners with that louse.

“Anyway, I gave him a real hard joint to crack.”

“You’re a brain guy.”

“When you say that, I feel dumb as Spat.”

“Maybe you are.” The El cut from Ninth to Sixth Avenue. Behind its ugliness lay the bawdy beauty of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, the Paramount Building. The streets were clean. A few actors from the sidestreet boardinghouses were hoofing it, panning the new models in the auto windows. But most of the Broadway crowd didn’t get this far north, the grifters, chiselers, fakers, fags, business men on the tear.

“Maybe you’re dumb, too.” They smiled, hostile. The white wings hadn’t neglected this grand street of America. If any dough’d been lying around, it’d been picked up.

“We’re all dumb.”

“You’re dumber than dumb.” He smiled. “What’s to stop pal Duffy from freezing us out?”

“Naw. He wants other stores. Question is how much. The big boys let Duff coast. The west side’s nobody’s and he ain’t big. His mob’s all kids, hustling at the gin mills and gambling joints, doin’ odd jobs, the lousy small-time business the big boys don’ want.”

Duffy didn’t make booze and didn’t sell it. Maybe he sold a tin of dope once in awhile. He was strictly a small stinker.

“What the hell are we?”

“The smallest stinkers in the world. I get griped. Christ, maybe we oughta raid a coupla big joints. Maybe we oughta cut Duffy out.”

“He’s wise.”

“Sure. He knows we’re afta his kids.”

“Why does he go in with us?”

“The dough. N’a strong guy thinks he gotta be strong all the time.” Bill nodded gloomily. “He isn’t so wrong.”

“We’ll fix the rat.” It’d be pie. He wouldn’t monkey around with a tough mob. Duffy only had a bunch of wild kids, younger’n hell, no brains, ready for anything. Did he get it? They’d work in close to Duffy. Let the rat rook them. The idea was to get in; then they’d kick him out and have a bunch ready for anything. The kids were wild. Pep ‘em up with talk of real dough and real dames and they’d make a grab for the King of England.

They strode below the El into the smug moneyed heart of Broadway, where schemes about making money sprouted as one walked into dream fulfillments. They’d get hold of Duffy’s kids. If things broke they’d be set. McMann suggested they get some grub and take out a pair of dames, not Madge and Bobbie; he was sick of their stuff. He turned his brutal-chinned face. “Nex’ week you’n me’ll make a call. I gotta friend with a shootin’ gallery. We’ll fool around for the hell of it. You know nothin’ about a gat? Well, you will.”

Twice that week he stood in the long cellar of McMann’s friend, out in Brooklyn, pointing the pistol at the target. It was fun, like when he’d owned an air rifle. All you needed to know about a gat, said McMann, was to get the feel of it. Most shooting was at close range. He came in Saturday on the B.M.T. and went home. It was after seven. Cathy was cleaning up. He hadn’t seen her for a long time. He laughed. “How do you like Joe?”

She said she liked him all right. He laughed louder. She was a good clean little thing. If Joe had any sense he could have a good time. She said she’d be back later. There was no need to leave on his account. But she seemed scared, going towards the door as he hurried forward. He smacked her soft buttock. She ran downstairs. He’d given her a send-off. Taking off his pants, he thought of the pistol practice and the holdup due Thursday. That’d mean dough. Things were moving. Duffy better watch out. He’d finished shaving when Joe came in. “Holy Christ, what you doing here Saturday, Bill?”

“You’re early yourself.”

“Metz let me off. I got a date with Cathy. It’s almost eight. I got to wash and dress.”

“I wonder if you know she’s pretty.”

“I know it.”

“If you feel that way — How’s Metz?”

“In the dough as ever. I saw him put a load of dough in his tin bank today back in the storeroom — ” He stopped short. “He felt good. That’s why he let me off.” He regretted the crack about money. “Don’t you be taking up anything I said.”