Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (2 page)

Paddy was interested in the same problem. The two of them seemed to be debating in a forum. “They ain’t no witnesses. You ain’t one. Gene ain’t.” (Gene had finished wiping his knife and was dragging the trunk from the corner. He’d snapped up the top, dropping the bloody handkerchief to the bottom with a casual elegance as if it were a flower.) “The dames ain’t witnesses.”

Bobbie crossed herself, sitting down on the bed next to Madge. Both women were leaning on their elbows, scented, lewd, hard. Bill wondered how much there was in’t for Paddy. Gene said: “I won’t be no strongarm for him no more.” He peered down at the corpse he’d been paid to protect as if remembering their business together. This was the only clue. The killing was over, ended forever. They were all safe and tomorrow would only be another day. Paddy stepped over. They lifted it off the rug, the weight running into the hips all of a sudden, lowering it into the trunk. The head hung back desperately, getting a last look. Paddy shut down the top, pulling the straps tight. He circled back to the chair, searching for stains, for any proofs that here a man had lived and died in a second. Gene lit a cigar. What was that? Christ. A fist pounded on the door. Bill gasped as if the corpse had decided to come out for another look. Paddy sat down on the trunk. “All you bastards,” he said hotly. “Talk. Damn you, talk.”

“A swell party,” Bill said, punch-drunk. “How’re the girlies?”

“Open up. Open dat door.” The fury of the tough domineering voice smacked through the door. Only a cop could yell like that.

Gene let him in. He was a fat man, tramping in with a stride as if he were on his beat. “What the hell’s the row?”

“What row?” said Paddy.

“You got no ears? With the block callin’ the station.” His eyes circled about. “Ain’t it classy?”

Paddy kicked his heels against the trunk. “Gwan home.”

The cop was amazed. “You lousy pimp.”

“You lousy flatfoot, ever hear of Kerrigan? He’s my friend. He can tell you how to spot a joint. A coupla plainclothes rats knock the dame off, then pull the marked two bucks outa her sock and they got a pinch.”

“I’ll pull you in for riotin’.”

“See how far it gets you.” Bill thought that under Paddy’s behind there was the electric chair. “Don’t be dumb, cop. This ain’t a joint. This feller’s the rent-collector. Ain’t that proof things are oke?”

“What’s your name?” the cop growled.

“Gwan, Bill,” shouted Paddy.

“Bill, what else?”

“Bill Trent,” said Paddy. “He collects for Stanger.”

Bobbie giggled. They all seemed to be saying: You see what you get fooling around with Paddy, you see.

Bill choked. Yes, that was his name. The cop scowled at Paddy, neutral. He’d find out if Kerrigan was wise. He was gone, sore at not getting five bucks.

“Why’d you tell him my name? I’m liable to get in dutch if that cop sees my boss.” The cops had his name. He was an accomplice. He couldn’t rat. If the office got wind of this he’d be out of a job.

“Chase after the flatfoot. Hey, flatfoot, me name is Bill Trent.” Paddy was delighted at his fun.

“Your hot joke’s liable to cost me my job.”

“I’ll stick a brassiere on you and peddle you to the boys.”

“You’re funny as hell.”

Paddy glanced at Gene seriously. “McMann’s waiting. Tenth and Fiftieth.” He’d forgotten about Bill, speaking to him now with little interest. “Inside with the dames. Gwan.”

Even now, Bill thought, in a fix and all, my job in the air, I pick my dames. He grinned sickly at the fool who sat down on the bed next to Madge and not next to Bobbie. He was afraid the pimp’d bawl out: “You like the young un, don’tcha?” He shook his head. It’s all happened to him, no fooling. He’d barged in for a shakedown. What a shakedown he’d got!

Paddy switched the radio on, stretching out on the couch, his eyes on Bill. Bobbie read a tabloid. The two men and two women were silent.

“You like the young un?” Paddy remembered. His brain was split up with different thoughts. The women and Bill could only think of the trunk, waiting for Gene to return, but he had other ideas. “I love her.” He seemed to be speaking to himself, his lips shut, his head an auditorium in which talk roared…. You were calm at the killing, so calm I admire you. You are Bill. I am Bill. You were smooth even with the cop snooping. He struggled to get inside of himself, to feel that Bill was himself, that he wasn’t an outsider to himself, but a real fellow called Bill. His job was in the air. He was a witness. Here he was sitting on the bed, the kid close to him. He was balled up. What a joke, shaking down Paddy. He listened to the radio, trying to get hold of himself. Maybe the trunk was empty? He stared at the old-fashioned trunk with its broad straps. Madge was trembling. Poor kid. She wasn’t more than sixteen. She wasn’t shivering for nothing. Murder.

Bobbie read her tabloid with the stupendous peace of morons, the murder as forgotten as last week’s customer. She was fake. He wouldn’t touch her for anything. She was already filling in the time until the next excitement. Paddy grinned. If it weren’t for Madge groaning a little, he’d never believe the trunk held a corpse. The radio played. Bobbie chewed gum. Again Paddy ribbed him about liking young uns. And what would the boss say? “You’re fired, Bill, because the cop says you’re a rat, and didn’t you rent a flat to a pimp against my orders?” What a fix. And his kid brother coming to town. Joe was a decent young kid. Joe thought him a wonder. He was Joe’s hero and therefore had both their lives to consider. Joe was the type of kid who thinks himself independent, but invariably follows the leader towards either good or evil. He’d be one swell leader for Joe. Dear God, he prayed, let me not spoil him.

“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.

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 McMann’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.