Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (3 page)

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 was 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.

T
HE
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.

When he stepped into the sun again, he had walked out of respectability. This Forty-second was a new street in a new town. His life was new. He passed Hubert’s Flea Museum, the posters of legless women and bearded men, the burlesques with the big color portraits of tenement girls who’d made good and were stripped naked to prove it. A huge sign read: TILLY PIPICK FROM THE BRONX. He was accosted by the sexiness of a street turned whore, bragging of a good time for little money; the radio stores, the burlesque queens, the cafeterias, dance halls, and cut-price haberdasheries pleaded for his attention. He’d been in a murder. He’d lost his job. So what? He hit Ninth Avenue and Paddy’s Market. The wagons of yellow and orange fruit, the apples and bananas, shone under the drab bridge of the El. The only immaculate things were the fruits, the piles of silvery fish, the masses of coffee beans. Bill pepped it up, briefly helloing the barbers, grocers, and other tenants who knew him and still thought he was the rent-collector. He said to them: “See you tomorrow, Wiberg.” “Too busy, Gus.” “Got work to do.” Up the sidestreets yellow and cheap with sun, where the cars were parked from corner to corner, the tenements also in lines, but forever immovable with the eternity of squalor, he chased the dollars.

A fellow was gabbing with one of those skinny hot girls who eye every male. Bill brushed by them in the doorway where they courted, thinking of Madge. The perfume of the kid, the smell of her, belonged to Madge, though the girl was someone else. He knocked at many doors and chiseled Jewish and Greek gamblers with flabby card-sharp hands, owners of brothels and speaks, all the easy-money boys in shady rackets. “Hell,” said Herman. “You leech. I lose all my cash to some Greeks — ”

“If it ain’t Billy. No dough, Billy.”

“Five’s all I can spare,” said Pete.

“Come nex’ week.”

“Go to hell.”

“Wednesday. O.K. Positive.”

“Come next week.”

“Come next week.”

“One sawbuck’s all you get.”

“I’m tired shellin’ out.”

“Come next week. I ain’t no Morgan.”

“Take a drink like a good feller.”

“The hell with you, you bastard. Beat it.”

“I’ll give ya ten when you move me.”

At the end of the day he had over forty bucks. The boys had belly-ached, but forty wasn’t bad. So long, easy money. When would he be seeing it again? It wouldn’t be bad making a lot of it. A smart guy always could. And was he smart? He was smart.

The next morning even the loafers on the corner were wise to him. The word had got around that Bill Trent was canned. Angelo, the bootblack, tipped him off the bookie was out to collect. The little wop ran out of his parlor, stuck on to the building proper like a coffin-shaped wart. Ninth and Tenth Avenues, that he had bossed as the landlord’s representative, were comically hostile. They were sorry, but laughed just the same. The hundred and twenty bucks didn’t look so big. Yesterday’s shakedown money didn’t help much.

He was dispossessed. He was outside, no more one of the employed, one of the host of inside men, the bankers, butchers, gamblers, streetcleaners, who all had some function in the city and were paid for it. He moped the morning away. He checked out of his hotel. They could shove their room and bath and circulating ice water for eleven bucks a week. He’d go down to Stanger’s joint on Leroy and pick out his duplex with toilet in the yard so you could get fresh air any day or season.

He took the downtown El, getting off at Christopher Street station, hurrying along the platform with its urinal old New York smell. He was bust, but he wouldn’t stay that way. Loads of dough in town. He’d shaken down enough pimps, gamblers, snow-peddlers, to realize that. Guys like Paddy or McMann always had plenty. Ninth Avenue, twisting southwest at little West Twelfth, had become Greenwich Street, completely covered over by the El. The light slanted between the crossties, holding the gloomy sun. As he walked, the sun darkened. It was colder. Far up ahead, Greenwich, somber, deserted, seemed to end in a grayness without bulk or dimension. Warehouses, machine-shops, trucking offices, with their great wagons backed right up on the cobbled sidewalk. It was a district of huge brown horses and heavy men, remote from uptown New York. It made him think of pennies, of men in caps. Three blocks west, the Hudson was a multitude of hoarse river voices.

He tightened his fists, pushing his jaw forward. He pulled his hat brim lower over his eyes, holding anger in his hand like a blackjack. Didn’t he have plenty contacts with the easy-money boys? Take Paddy for instance. He’d known Paddy two years. Maybe Paddy’d show him a few things, especially since he was in on one of Paddy’s little jobs. Leroy was between Hudson and Greenwich Streets. Opposite Stanger’s house a printing plant and a warehouse divided the entire side. Small red three-story houses went from corner to corner. There were battered ash-cans. No doubt a spinster and a cat lived in each little house. His new home. Hoorah! He missed the push of people; smoking on the sidewalk, his guts flowing out of him. His lips hung slack. Where was everybody? This part of town, destitute, forgotten, a ghetto of solitude, was outside the walls, cast out from the prosperous boroughs. To the east autos were speeding to South Ferry. On West Street the elevated highway was crowded with wheels beating it away. He smiled at his home. The paint on the red bricks was peeling. Wasn’t he a lucky guy to get his rent free? That bastard Stanger. No wonder he’d been so liberal. In the vestibule he rang Mrs. Gebhardt’s bell.