Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (7 page)

BOOK: Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde
11.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Watchin’ your ear.”

“Thanks, Paddy. Thanks for nothing.”

“You got your nerve speakin’ to me like that.” His mouth hung open, his skin finely wrinkled. “Believe me
Jeez,
he’s the champ. The bastard. Sucking around for a break and me fool enough to get you an’ a coupla boys to fix Wiberg, and this sonufabitch with the gall to gripe.”

McMann howled, having a good time. Bill imagined McMann approved his gall. “I’m glad for the break, but why rook me?”

“Rooked? Holy Moses, I rook’m by givin’m the chance to make twenty-two bucks.”

“Why’nt you guys shut up?” shouted McMann. “Me’n Bill’s takin’ out a coupla dem dames. That’ll square it.”

“Like hell.”

“Don’t be cheap. Give’m a ring.”

Paddy phoned. “Yeh, this is Paddy. Say, Madge, you and Bobbie come right over. Yeh. Hop a cab.” He was still gaping at Bill. “I feel like hell givin’ it to him free.”

“Aw, you’re a good guy. N’ you got twenty bucks ‘cause your name’s Paddy. No wonder the kid’s griped.” He winked at Bill, his red hair cropped close, his tiny blue eyes the only soft things in his hard bony face. He gave an impression of being all jaw and cheekbone, all stone surface flushed pink and handsome with a brutal reckless youth. Bill liked his approval, excited by the thought of a night with Madge, almost pitying Paddy, the poor damn pimp. It was swell to be tough, biting at old Paddy. Again he was being champ fool. They’d doublecrossed him sure as fate. Wiberg had more than one-eighty. Paddy had been too quick calling up the women; it was a rook, arranged before he got there. The idea was if he got Madge he’d forget the doublecross.

“Let’s forget it,” he cried. “It’s done with. There’s plenty more dough. I got the habits of these storekeepers down pat. A cinch. I know when and where they keep their cash. More than that, McMann. I’m wise to the guys with the joints.” He bragged carelessly, his eyes on their noncommittal faces, daydreaming of fortune, of himself as a Napoleon of the Underworld, owner of yellow Packards and of whores de luxe. McMann’s thin lips were fitted one to the other like two edges of stone.

“You know lots,” he said.

“Sure. Game guys can knock off some real dough. Why fool around with shopkeepers for nickels?”

“You through?” said Paddy.

“You bet I am.”

“Quit hollering about knocking off joints.”

The old disgust lurched into his heart. He’d said too much. Now McMann knew. “I’m just nuts with booze. I don’t mean a word. Who the hell’d kid around with guys with gats?”

Bill poured sick laughter out of his mouth. Talk of certain things, dare certain things, and you became a big shot. All he had to do was brag, expand holdups into hijackings of mobsters, and they got cold feet. Talk like a wolf and they ran for cover. They knew how tough it was to pick up a grand.

“I’m nuts,” he said contritely, “but I can’t help thinking of the easy dough in this town.”

“You sonufabitch,” said Paddy with the monotony of an almost impersonal contempt. “Don’t you think a million guys haven’t itched for the dough in joints? But who wants to get wiped? You’re a baby, a dope. It ain’t like taking a storekeeper.”

“But it ain’t so hard, Paddy,” said McMann. “It’s a pipe. You get a gat. You knock off a coupla joints. You got luck and you’re set.”

“Don’t be giving him ideas. The sonufabitch’s nuts enough as is.”

“It’s a pipe. Don’t get clipped and you’re in the dough. Two, three, six months and they’ll be feedin’ outa your mitt. King of the crap-house.”

“Cut it. He’s nuts enough.”

“Maybe he ain’t so nutty. Maybe it’s the smart thing. I dunno.”

Paddy sighed, utterly shocked. “You’re hopped.”

“Maybe gettin’ hopped’s smartest.”

Bill was wild. McMann on his side. With that guy on his side anything was possible. “You bet it is.”

“Holy smoke!” exclaimed Paddy. Somebody knocked at the door, the three of them lifting their heads like conspirators, hearts beating at the door yawning open, two women slicking in, rouged, powdered, proud of their hips, groggy with booze. “Hello,” said McMann.

“You old horse,” said Bobbie, tapping McMann’s flank.

“Howya?” said McMann. Bill thought: So Madge’s mine. A break. It was hard to remember the holdup. Wiberg’s smacked-in skull, with his flesh turning hot and tight. Hell with the cops. Hell with them. He was glad of the booze he’d drunk, glad Madge’s lips were so red, brightly painted with a blood that was not blood. Her roundish face on top of the heavy collared coat was so small a face, so lacking in the solid meatiness of Bobbie (Bobbie’s big-chinned full-cheeked face proclaimed she was a woman, a swell lover and don’t let anyone forget it) that her long legs, sensual in their stockings, were an unexpected break. He thought: She’s not a kid, even if she looks like one, she’s a woman. “Come on,” said McMann. “Get your coat. The ladeez’re steppin’ out.”

Paddy, smoking a big cigar, vanished gradually behind blue smoke. “Free stuff,” he moaned. “Jeez believe me, I’m givin’ it free.”

“Cut the crabbin’,” said McMann.

“Always did like the young uns,” Paddy shouted at Bill.

“Merry Christmas,” said Bill.

“Chris’mas? Holy hell!” exclaimed Madge with profound unbelief. They hurried through the tenement smell, down the dark corridors with the pair of doors at each end like blind hopeless eyes. McMann pounded down the steps ahead of everybody. Bobbie giggled.

Out on the street, Bill’s head cleared. McMann took Bobbie and went on ahead. Bill snickered at the swagger of her hips, the good full-meated zest of her, the shapely poundage that had once rested on the lap of a corpse. Me for that, he thought; fannies for me and I’m for fannies. He grabbed Madge’s arm.

Her head was lowered, downlooking like a nun’s, the features in profile soft and delicate, the Irish tilted nose, her lips and eyes reminding him of pictures of women painted long ago. He trembled.

“You’re not so bad for a kid. Of course, you’re not a real woman.”

“Go hop yourself.”

“Sure, if you help along.”

She laughed. “I seen you lots of times at Paddy’s and you never give me a tumble but a coupla times only.”

“How old are you, Madge?”

“Almos’ seventeen.”

“I’m not used to the fast life and fast dames like you.” She liked that crack. “You’re some kid.” He suddenly blazed with laughter. “I almost forgot and I bet you did too. Remember the night at Paddy’s when Gene fixed that ginzo?”

“I saw nothin’.”

“I only saw you. I like you; that’s why I’m so nosey. C’mon, sister, tell papa about yourself.”

“Bobbie said I musta been dumb as hell. I musta been. Bobbie says even the girls they pull outa the schools is smarter. I was dumb. I lived in Brooklyn.”

“That’s awful dumb.”

“Don’t let ‘em kid ya. Brooklyn’s a lively burg.” She laughed proudly. “I knew the ropes. They were linin’ me up two years ago and yet I fell. I was dumb.”

“I don’t get you.”

“It’s this way. One night I goes ridin’ with a coupla fellers, not kids I hung out with reg’lar, but strange fellers. They brought me to Paddy’n he paid two hundred for me. But, man, was I dumb? Bobbie says even the school kids knows better, most of them, than go ridin’ with strange fellers they never seen before.” She glanced at him serenely, her face calm, with a quality like innocence. “Now, you punk, don’t bother me. Bobbie says every stinker’s always wantin’ to find out about a girl.”

He stared at her and then said:

“Where’s McMann going?”

“To the Greek’s. He nuts about Greeks’n their cabbyrets. Them Greeks stink. Coffee ain’t bad, naw the lamb chops. But me, I like Broadway, but McMann’s always heelin’ around Eighth like a cheap skate.” He laughed. The night was fantastic. All along he’d been thinking Madge a little school kid who’d been raped by some devils and made a whore. His laughter burst into the night, strong and animal.

“You’re a queer,” she said simply. “You’re a queer.”

“Give me another chance, honey.”

“You’re a new guy, ain’t ya? You usta shake Paddy down. I saw ya. You was a rent-collector or somethin’.”

“I’m a dummy. I’m cockeyed. I’m a baby. I’m singing my hymns and feeling sorry and I’m a fool for that. By God, I can’t get it straight in my bean that every business is a business. Only dummies don’t know that.”

“You give me a pain.”

“I’ll give you more than that.” McMann had turned the corner into a sidestreet. Three stone steps descended from the sidewalk towards a curtained door. The narrow window was lettered in Greek. Madge whispered they meant a good time. A glare came through the curtains. They stood a second like supplicants waiting for charity. McMann knocked again, cursing the damn Greeks for keeping a party like them kicking their heels. The door opened on plaintive wailing music.

“I like jazz,” said Madge. “This Greek stuff is lousy. Cats in a yard.” Bobbie meowed, and they laughed with the idiocy of people ready to laugh at any crack. The music whined out of a big brown victrola. Twenty tables surrounded a cleared space in the center. No one was performing right now, although the crowd was staring at the waxed space hopefully. It looked as if some act were just over. The diners were mostly Greeks.

A skinny waiter, with an oily skin that reminded Bill of anchovies, got them a table. He was happy, hungry, glad to be with Madge. The joint was fun. Foreign, but fun. Little Greece. The swarthy gambler faces, the black eyes gleaming over tiny cups, reminded him of Pop’s down in the ghetto. He was moving in highclass circles.

The waiter brought food, plates of lamb chops broiled brown, cups of Turkish coffee, bottles of wine. They smoked and ate. Both hands free, McMann attacked the food lustily. Hell with women, food came first. That McMann knew how to live the real life, the caveman modern life of grub, dames, murders. Bill held a greasy bone in his fingers, tearing at the meat with his teeth, his lips slimed with animal fat. Bobbie and Madge were no slouches either, packing it away. All of them were like animals eating as if they weren’t sure when they would eat so hearty again. Someone shut off the main flow of light. In the mysterious room each table was alone in space, solitary as an island in the night, the red lamps burning. The small and large glowing eyes of cigarettes and cigars shifted about like wild eyes.

McMann shouted: “Hey, kid, not here.” His voice laughing with Bobbie’s. The dark had one memorial usage. Before he actually realized what he was doing, Bill grabbed Madge, kissing her full on the lips. “You sonufabitch, your lips’ greasy as a pig. Phew, you greaseball.” A spotlight stabbed quick, instantaneous as lightning. Here and there skulls were picked out as if the spotlight had struck them dead or half-dead, the eyes black holes, the cheekbones savage and gaunt. The glare traveled around the room. Opposite him, McMann’s head was a geometry of planes and angles. McMann didn’t seem human but a devil put together of hard woods. Bobbie was almost comely, a plump ghost, but Madge was the same. The dancer sidled out, her long powdered legs moving to the heartbeats of the spectators. She was almost naked, her body dead-whitened with powder. Her black hair loose upon two breasts solid as apples. She did not dance, but swayed to the erotic sighing music. At all the tables the men smoked or sipped wine, their male gestures a chorus.

As the woman’s body sang of its beauty and desire, the solid apple breasts wavered in Bill’s mind. Her heavy thighs followed the winged naked feet, white and strong, the five toes distinct from one another. His own toes were prisoned one to the other. Summertimes the beaches were ugly with thousands of female feet civilized in tight shoes. He whispered groggily something about the glory that was Greece, not these greaseballs, the ancient Greece with all her glories.

“You gimme a pain in the behind,” said Madge.

“I’ll bust you in the jaw.”

“Sh,” whispered McMann.

The dance ended, his heart remembering the apple-breasted woman in her stark moment of beauty. The house applauded. He clapped his hands, confused, as if the dance had happened somewhere else, and drank more wine. The lights flashed on like sharp slaps. The place was jammed with anonymous good friends, guzzling, smoking. He sat with the pals of a lifetime, immortal buddies of his. McMann had slipped his arm about Bobbie. Madge squeezed tight against him, her hands teaching him her kind of love, humming a song similar to: “I can’t give you anything but love, baby.”

They all staggered out finally, up the three stone steps into a cab spinning out of the night. The men flopped on the seat, holding the women on their laps. Bill was insisting he couldn’t let Mac treat, no sir, when the cab seemed to hit a wall, stopping, McMann pushing everybody out. Madge and Bobbie jigged on their heels, it was that cold. They were on Twenty-third Street. Bill said the Greek’s had been warm, and this weather was a blizzard, and he was going to divvy up or know why. The cabbie slipped McMann his change. McMann announced he was glad to put dough in circulation. The cab rolled west under the El. Ninth Avenue was only a half-block away, the station lonely above the street.

“You’re spending all your dough.”

“Aw, dry up. It ain’t mine.”

Bobbie shivered and wanted to go where it was warm. “Whose dough is it?” Madge asked, pressing tight against Bill. He gripped her around the waist and told her to mind her damn business. The crosstown trolley banged down the street and he thought of Wiberg falling down like an empty suit. On this very night. He stared at the street, the quiet rows of brownstone fronts across the way, the tailors and Chink laundries spaced in dark stone, and then they were all trooping upstairs. McMann unlocked the door of his two-room apartment. It smelled male. A pair of silk stockings hung on a chair. McMann hauled off his overcoat. The bedroom faced the street. The second room could be used for sleeping. Bobbie yanked off the cover of the studio couch and made it up as a bed, plumping down the two couch pillows, tucking the blankets in. Not the first time for Bobbie, thought Bill, but was Madge always dame number two? “Hit the hay, kid,” McMann advised, “and don’t fix her more’n fifty times. Boy, I’m tired.” He unbuttoned the shirt on his white chest. He didn’t wear an undershirt. His red hair tousled like a married man’s at bed hour, he walked into the bedroom, trailed by Bobbie, her hips broad and matronly. She shut the French door and began to undress behind the curtains. She might’ve been concealed by a high wall, already out of her dress, yawning from the wine, in a pink brassiere and step-in. A second later he doused the lights. Bill sprawled in one of the chairs. “What a guy! He’s burned cig holes all over the joint.” He was talking big because he felt uneasy, his heart bursting. His body wanted to shake violently. Maybe because he didn’t go about these things in just this way? He had to get used to it. And then a fellow shouldn’t stay on the wagon so long.

BOOK: Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde
11.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Jeff Corwin by Jeff Corwin
Deep Desires by Fox, Cathryn
The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux
A Deal With the Devil by Louisa George
Murder on the Salsette by Conrad Allen
The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette van Heugten
strongholdrising by Lisanne Norman