Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (26 page)

McMann dropped the attacker on the floor. His face flushed pink, flushed white, as he contemplated the little man sprawling on his rug. He kicked out once and said as if to someone very near him: “Quit cryin’. It’s only in the arm. Shut up.”

She flopped to the bed in her fur coat, one hand gentling the place where the blade had entered. Over and over again in words pale and lifeless as her face she repeated: “You pushed me inta it.”

“Pete sake, it was blind actin’. Honest to God, I wasn’t thinkin’ at all when that bastard poked his knife. I didn’ know what I was doin’.” He lit a cigarette, pushed it between her pallid lips. She puffed slowly like a big bloodless mechanical doll. He poured her a shot of gin, forcing her to drink. All the time the coke lay on his face, his head on one arm as if he were grieving at his failure.

She felt better, the drink like a man’s hand against her belly, but inside of her, warm, intimate. “Get a doctor.”

He helped her off with the fur coat. The sleeve of her thin dress was red with blood. The knife had slashed the fleshy part of her upper arm, missing the biceps. He wiped the coke’s knife on a towel and slit open the sleeve. The girl didn’t glance at the wound, puffing steadily as McMann swathed it with handkerchiefs. He brought back a small bottle of iodine from his bathroom. He had used the iodine for corns. “It’ll burn like hell,” she said.

“Quit belly-achin’. You’re lucky it’s only a scratch.” He pulled off the handkerchiefs and spilled the iodine on the wound. The long knife had gone deep. The iodine spread all over her arm, running down the white skin in little coppery rivers. She fainted.

“Poor Madge,” he said. He soaked a towel and placed it on her head, bandaging up the wound tightly. She was completely out. The blood seeped through. He’d make it right for her, fix up the coat and buy a new dress. God, looka the blood. He tied several new handkerchiefs about the wound, but still it bled, carrying the antiseptic stain away in a red flow. He’d havta call a doctor. He tightened a handkerchief above the wound, inserting a fork, which he moved around and around like a clock-hand. He looped another handkerchief about the fork, tying it opposite the stress. She’d be all right. Her heart was beating O.K. He yanked down twenty bright ties from his rack, binding the coke’s feet together with seven or eight, cross-binding with another batch. He fastened the coke’s hands behind his back, heaving him over as if he were a turtle, stuffing a handkerchief into the mouth until the thin cheeks bulged with a horrible sense of being fat. That gag’d hold. He raised his fist, gazing at it a second as if it were a hammer, and then smashed the unconscious face a few times as if working out a sculptural problem, pounding the fist into the stomach. That’d keep the bastard. He dragged the body out of the living-room into the bedroom, pushing it into a closet. He slammed the door, returning to Madge. The knife he put in a drawer. Now he could go downstairs and phone a doctor. He searched in his pockets and tugged out quarters and dimes. No nickel. She had many nickels in her pocketbook. All chippies had plenty nickels. He unlocked the door, hurrying downstairs to the phone booth under the stairs. This doc oughta come right over, only a lil shyster fresh outa the hospital with no practice.

He watched the blood stain and restain the handkerchiefs until the doctor knocked, a young man of thirty with a black mustache and a sallow complexion that seemed competently medical. His popping eyes twinkled as if to say: This is the little patient. Madge didn’t say anything.

“Hello, Doc,” said McMann, slipping him two fives.

“Hello, McMann. An accident. How unfortunate!”

“Yeh, she was slicin’ bread. Snap on’t, she’s fainted again.”

The doctor had already opened his black bag, his hairy hands skillful as an old hag’s. He stripped off the handkerchiefs, surveying the wound, and then set to work with cotton, adhesive, gauze, sterilizing it, stopping the flow of blood, rapidly bandaging the wound so there was no sight of red, the bandaging neat as a bracelet. His hands had been gentle. “Now, young lady, you’re all right now. I’m right in the neighborhood and you see me tomorrow morning. Before eleven.”

“O.K.,” said McMann. “I’ll give her the address and she’ll be round.” He smiled grandly as a baron. The doctor was gone. McMann smoked with the air of one who’s done a good day’s work, treating himself to a drink. “You see, it was nothin’. Your arm’ll be dandy in a few days.”

“Hell, it’s gonna be in the way.”

“Way of what?” He laughed, guessing. “Hell, they don’ shell out for no arms.”

“Gimme a drink. I shouldn’ come with you. I don’ like you. I like Bill. He knows how to treat a girl. I mighta been killed.” It was her first lengthy reproach, her triangular face pallid, her eyes seeming black in the light, her lips scarlet and sensual, prominent in her pallor. Two small pimples were near the corner of her mouth. She told him to ring Paddy to send a girl over. She was going pronto and get some sleep. She looked at him, smiling faintly as he threatened she was to keep it under her hat about the guy in the closet. Sure, she would, she cut her arm cutting bread; the louse stabbing her up, he could go to hell as far as she cared.

“You can tell Paddy we were at a party and some ginzo got nuts with booze and run wild before we could smack him down. Get me. You’re gonna get a dress and fixed coat outa it, so keep shut.” Downstairs again, he switched on the light above the phone, then rang up.

After the call they smoked. Who’d Paddy send? It was a fat blond, Jackie. She gave the customers a motherly sympathy and a strong thrusting of amazonian hips. Jackie was sorry as hell, her round face crinkling, particularly about the nose and mouth, like a bull pup’s. She got Madge in her coat. McMann slammed the cab door, Jackie shouting: “You damn men, can’t even protect a gal. Now, don’t you worry, Madge. You’ll be O.K.”

McMann hurried upstairs, locking the door. It was a lucky break. That bastard had come close. He’d square it with Madge. Now, who the hell was behind the coke? He was a coke, he’d noticed that when he was smacking his jaw. The pouches under the eyes. It was a coke, and who’d sent him? Bill? Naw. It was only one guy, only one guy, and why kid himself? He’d known it the second the killer had slashed at them in the corridor. The guy behind it was Spat’n Duffy. He thought of them as one guy, a corporation of crime, his feet on the table, his face impassive, abstract, as if considering an astronomical problem. Spat was a muscle man. Spat’d been licked. If Spat was sore he’d acome after him himself. Spat carried a gat and if he’d awanted him bad enough he’d abeen got. McMann felt his stomach turn inside out. So guys might be after him. It wasn’t Spat. It was Duffy. Duffy was a fag, a bitch of a man. Duffy had hired the coke. Yeh.

First thing, he thought, I’ll slip Spat some dough. Spat had to be on his side. Spat was dumb as hell, but he’d foller a dollar anywhere. Couldn’t afford guys like Spat after him. He dragged out the coke from the closet, yanking down the bedroom shades. He slapped the guy’s cheeks, slopping water on his face. He removed the gag and poured whisky down his throat. The coke opened his eyes, moving feebly.

“The dame you cut’s dyin’ in the hospital.” The coke’s eyes had become black with fear, not fear of death primarily, but fear of a banishment to a somewhere without snow. “Yeah?”

“I got you’n her upstairs. The ambulance took her away.”

“Don’t bunk me.” He rolled his tongue about in the dry cavern of his mouth. The handkerchief had absorbed all the moisture.

“Who put you on my tail?”

“Nobody.” McMann slapped him. “It was Duffy.”

“I never hearda Duffy.”

“You’re a liar.”

The coke writhed, moaning. He’d spoiled the job, there’d be no snow, nothing. What tough luck! His eyes bulged, he chewed at his lips, raving: “Damn ya for spitin’ a poor man. Spitework. You’re too hard on a poor man.”

“Who sent you after me? You tell me and I’ll turn you loose and get you some dope.”

The bound man’s eyes gleamed. He had no faith in McMann, but still he hoped, still his eyes yearned to believe. “You’re a lousy liar.”

“Want me to turn you over to the cops? They’ll put you away without dope. They’ll cure you, you bastard.”

The coke glared at McMann like a victim at his inquisitor. He begged mercy, pity, his eyes starting, his teeth showing as if he were being seared with hot irons, tortured too foully. Jailed without snow. God. He cursed, the sounds coming from his throat in another speech, not human, an animal tongue as if he were a beast, a crow with split tongue who had learned to make certain sounds men used. Then sharply, his eyes cunning, as if remembering the time when he’d been a man, he spoke with man’s reason. “Fat chance you handing me to the cops. Not you.”

“Right,” said McMann. “If you don’ speak up who put ya on my tail, I’ll fix ya meself.”

“Go ahead,” he snarled. Death was the same as prison. There’d be snow in neither place. What’d he care?

McMann wrenched one arm until the bone almost cracked. He let go. The coke was shouting too loudly, his mouth open, shrieking his pain. “I’ll cut ya into small hunks if you don’ tell me. Was it Duffy? Who sent ya? Who sent ya?” He stuffed the mouth with the handkerchief. “Holler your head off. No one’ll hear ya. Gwan. Holler.” He flung the coke on his face, the thin hands resting on the small of the back, held together by bright maroon, green, and blue striped ties. There was a bulge on the hip. McMann pulled out the gun. Crazy not to have gone through the bastard before. He searched him swiftly. Nothing else. “You gonna tell me who it is? Ain’t it Duffy? Duffy?” He snapped the bullets out of the gat, holding it like a hammer. “Shake your head for yes if you’re gonna tell.” The head was motionless. He smacked the butt down on the elbow. The body was in agony. “Shake your bastard head if you’re gonna tell.” Without pausing, the butt landed on the elbow the second time. He slammed it on the buttock, feeling the hip bone. He tossed the body on its back, the coke’s corpselike face deep red. Torrents of blood had roared into the head, the body donating all its blood to the head so that the tongue might shout out: Enough. “You ain’t hollering,” grinned McMann. The coke was mute as a fish, no longer a man, but a tongueless creation compelled to suffering in silence. “Who was it? I’ll quit foolin’ and bang your damn eyes out.” He lifted the gun butt, the head rolling from side to side. McMann yanked the gag loose. The coke couldn’t speak. The veins in his neck were choked with blood, thick as cords. McMann gave him a shot of booze. “So it was Duffy?” Who’n hell was Duffy? His boss was Carney. He whispered it was Duffy.

“You’ll get the snow I promised,” growled McMann. “You’ll get it in hell.” His lips were fleshless, two stiff hard wrinkles, two white scars. He tapped the butt down on the coke’s skull. It was nicely judged. The coke was still alive, paralyzed, voiceless, unconscious, his eyes shut. McMann untied him, flinging the ties on the floor. He put gloves on his hands, unlocked the door. A radio was hooting, there were several parties on, drunken voices bellowing. McMann shoved the knife into his overcoat pocket, thinking of the parties, men in shorts getting woozed up. He shoved the hat on the coke’s head, lifting him upwards, his arm under the armpits. The coke looked like a guy staggering home from a party. As if in a dream, like a drunk almost completely out, the coke dragged his feet. McMann helped him downstairs. They looked like two drunks, McMann grinning falsely, his pal scraping along. On the midnight street the stores were closed, the apartments and furnished-room joints blank and desolate as if everyone were indoors and about to go to bed. He called a cab.

McMann said to the hack, “Short haul, buddy. I wanna take me pal home. Lives in Twenty-foist, Eight’n Ninth.”

They sped towards the avenue, the Bickford’s on the corner like a genial night spider enticing the stray homing flies. The cabbie pulled up, making change. He stared at the tail-light dimming into a small red dot, laughing as if his pal were troublesome, helping him into the hallway. Through the glass panel on the heavy vestibule door, the stairs led up to unknown lives. McMann propped the coke against the wall. He took the knife out and thrust it into the unseen heart. The coke dropped, sprawling like a drunk. He placed the knife under the body. In the darkness, the corpse was sleeping. He hotfooted it back to his apartment and cleaned the place up. Time to check out even if he was safe. He filled two valises, cramming in his property. He didn’t own much, the three extra suits the only big items. Ninety outa hundred, when the cops found the coke, the papers writing up the story of so-and-so murdered in a hallway, the hack wouldn’t say a word even if he remembered his short haul. This was the weak spot. The hack might talk even though most of them minded their business. Nothing like playing safe when a guy was coming up in the world, with a clubhouse and all. Nothing to worry about. The doc’d keep shut. In his house hardly anyone lived under his right name. They knew him as Smith. Let ‘em sue Smith. Screw them. Damn the red hair.

He hired a room on Ninety-second Street. The clerk yawned and McMann was out five bucks for it. He’d look around later. He went to sleep. It was over with. So it was Duffy. The coke said it was. It was plain that Duffy had to be fixed early in the morning before the papers could tip him off. Duffy wasn’t wise yet. Duffy was a late riser. That was gonna be Duffy’s hard luck.

M
C
M
ANN
awoke a few minutes after seven, some mysterious and urgent alarm ringing in his bowels. He dressed, gulped down a cup of coffee in a cafeteria, boarded the downtown elevated. In the inner pocket of his navy-blue overcoat the coke’s gun, with its empty chamber, was like an iron wart on his body. His hands were unprotected, the gloves folded up. He chewed a toothpick, seemed like a business man, calm, factual, mapping out the activities of the day. At Christopher he got off. It wasn’t eight yet. A bunch of roughly clothed workers piled around him on the way to the machinery plants and welding companies. Bill’s name wasn’t on any letter-box. He rang the Super’s bell, chewing his toothpick, the letter-boxes gleaming golden in the vestibule.