Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde (8 page)

Madge sat on the studio couch, her thin green dress folding over her legs. Her thighs were spread far apart. She nodded her head, the narrow triangle of face with the slightly oriental eyes staring at him with some female knowledge that almost provoked him into shouting: What the hell you thinking of? “Hell with landlords,” she said.

“I’m nuts about you.” He pulled his jacket and vest off, aware she was observing him with a knowledge more certain than truth. What the hell was she finding out? He was plain crazy. Why should he feel she was getting into the core of him? It was a lousy trick of women when about to give themselves. The only way to hide himself from her was to fix her. Damn her, so young and acting so smart.

He imitated McMann, chucking his shirt on the table, his bare arms haired yellow, stuck out of his jersey.

“Hey, you,” he said, “get outa your dress.”

“O.K.”

“You’re a skinny runt.”

“Nuts to you.”

“Hell, you’re tough.” He hated the idea that she had lived life more strongly than himself. “C’mon, strip.”

She crossed her white legs, again contemplating him with her immense calm. “You’re a bad boy, ain’t you?”

He thought of the crowds that had slept with her, youth or no youth. What was her idea about things, about himself? He was just another guy. “You think you’re slick. You’re just a kid.”

“Yeh, what you think?”

He glanced at her. She knew more than him. She knew ten times as much, kid or no kid. He remembered her story, the lineups in Brooklyn, the abduction, and now whoring it regular. His knowledge, gross with age, with stale usage, with death.

“C’mon,” said Madge. “What you mopin’?”

“I’m wondering.”

“About what?”

“About you, you poor little bitch.”

“You got fever sure as hell. Aw, come to bed. You act worse’n a kid.”

“I’m thinking I am one.” His voice was soft.

Her eyes lost their diabolical sure knowledge of the male animal, her nose wrinkling like a puzzled child’s. “You’re a funny feller.”

“I’m Save-a-Soul Billy.”

“You’re nuts.”

“You like me?”

“How do I know how you act up in bed? I seen some of the huskiest turn out punks.”

“Let’s find out.” He laughed, switching off the light, stumbling down the black room, his bare feet sliding along the rug. He sat down next to her, feeling her cold thigh against his own. “You poor kid.”

She hugged him. “You crazy galoot.” In the dark she was made of silver and he wasn’t sorry for her or himself any longer.

H
E AWOKE
to McMann’s hand shaking his shoulder, snapping awake with that sense of loss of one sleeping in a strange place. McMann yawned, although his hard-surfaced face showed no fatigue. Bill got off the couch immediately. “Hello.”

“Sh, Bobbie’s still snorin’ inside, the ole pig.” He winked like a small boy. “I like ‘em hefty. Madge’s skinny, but she’ll be all right in a coupla years.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Madge was asleep, turned on her side towards the wall. He marveled at the quietude of her face. A voice like Mac’s ought to wake the dead. Even his whisper had guts to it. It was early afternoon, the air frosty and clean. “How’d you wake up, McMann?”

“My belly hurt. I near starved.”

Bill scrubbed his face in the bathroom, soaking his hair and sleeking it down. They were cozy inside the bathroom, just the two of them, McMann boasting of his private toilet, the class to it, no chasing out in the halls for him, he liked to live nice. Bill squeezed a pink worm of toothpaste on his finger and mauled his gums, combing his hair. They gazed kindly at one another with the peace of men after a night with women.

McMann shut the door gently behind on last night’s old smell, walking downstairs into sunlight. The crosstown tracks glinted. People’s ears were nipped red. The windows of the stores were bright with sunny winter. The hanging wooden flags, advertising furnished rooms, swayed in the wind.

“Le’s grab some food, kid.”

“You bet. You were saying how you like to live nice. What about last night, then? Suppose you get pinched or shot?”

“Gotta make a livin’.” That didn’t have nothing to do with living nice. The best thing was not to worry and not to expect too much. “An’ here’s another thing. Forget Madge.” That dame wasn’t settled down like Bobbie. He wanted a dame to stick by him. They saw each other in daylight the first time, their eyes shining two kinds of blue. McMann ordered bacon and eggs in the corner coffee-pot. It was a male place, although a floosie was sitting at a table watching the guys feeding at the counter.

“I don’ like stinkin’ around with women when I got no use for ‘em,” said McMann, monastic, healthy. He always beat it out early as he could. When the dames cleared out, he went back for a nap. They cut into their eggs, the yellow dripping on the hot bacon. Maybe he should’ve let Bill sleep? But he figured Bill figured the way he did.

It was exciting meeting this new McMann, who wasn’t drunk or tough, but was almost gentle, a
human being.
McMann wasn’t more than twenty-five or six. Last night he’d seemed ageless. Bill sighed, one buddy with another. “You slug, Mac, I’m paying for this. Last night nicked you for plenty.”

“Hell, if I didn’ wanta treat I’d asaid so. I don’t go blowin’ my dough away for nothin’.” They got up from the counter, chewing on toothpicks.

“Want to come over my place?”

“Naw. I’ll chase them skirts out.”

“Well, I’m beating it. Kiss them for me.”

“Sure thing, kid.”

“Don’t you kid me. I’m old as you.”

“O.K. See you at Paddy’s some time.” Spitting out soggy bits of toothpick, he added casually: “You got stuck the other night, but them guys had to get their slice. Nex’ time we’ll do it ourself or maybe borrer Duffy’s kids. Get me? Me’n you can knock off a joint easy. Lotsa stores. That dairy guy Metz got dough. S’long.”

McMann was the devil and he’d been fooled because the sun was out. He foresaw himself led by McMann into the unarrived tomorrows. That was swell to think about. What could he expect? McMann knew his inside dope was worth something. His dope’d help Mac to live nice, to pay for the private toilet. He walked up Leroy Street as Mrs. Gebhardt came out into a world not his own. He distinctly felt the difference. The light eyes in her peaceful face angered him. She’d gone to bed at ten and guessed maybe he’d been bumming. “Every time I see you you’re fresh as a daisy.” She didn’t thank him. It wasn’t a compliment.

“You don’t see us so often.”

“I’m busy buying Christmas presents. Sure, a present for myself. I bought myself a job.” He went upstairs and undressed. McMann and him could make dough. Was he a sap? Saps had thought the same thing and been socked with lead. How many saps’d been bopped because they thought they were wise? He was getting to talk like McMann even. Hell. The luck was with him. He’d be careful and luck’d do the rest. His veins were rested. He was healthy, tired, successful, even if only to the tune of twenty-two bucks. He hopped into bed, his arm feeling for Madge, and fell asleep with the profundity of one whose heart and future are arrogant with youth. Did he dream of Duffy’s dopey kids shooting pool? The dopes waiting for a break, Schneck, Ray, Mike, shooting pool? Did he dream that he was the boy who gave them the break? His pipedreams broke up into darkness. He slept.

He awoke differently this time from an unknown nightmare to see the sun outside in one fat yellow bar. He bolted upright, his heart shaking. He had a terror of McMann, imaging the high-boned face, pink, impassive, the small blue eyes in pinkness that weren’t windows of the soul, weren’t anything, the lids constantly narrowed as if he didn’t use his eyes for sight. What went on behind those eyes, in that boxer’s skull? Damn his loose tongue. McMann might be stringing him along for a sucker. Christ, if he didn’t feel yellow as a louse. But Mac was T.N.T. and was no joke. Bill’s brain ignited into a flash of inspiration. McMann was out to get control of Duffy’s kids. That was it. And he was the way to do it…. His body reacted normally to the night before. His eyes were puffy, intricate with tiny red veins, the back of his neck ached. His tongue hung heavy in his mouth yet slid across something nauseous. He put his head under the clean fury of the jetting water, got into a fresh shirt frayed at the collar. It was almost five o’clock. Across the way the sidewalk sloped down to the gutter in a gradual diagonal, trucks and wagons backing up close to the building. The huge boxes on wheels were loading up. They were always busy across the way. The guy that owned that joint was one lucky stiff. The truck-drivers were working with the laborious grubbiness of their class, hefting and lifting. The black bars of the raised iron gate were shaking as the wind tore and shook them. He went downstairs into the afternoon. Beyond Greenwich, higher than the El, the autos sped down the elevated highway. Everything was overhead, trains, roadsters. The world beneath was trivial. Past the El, blocking out sight of the river, the great greenish gray buildings of the steamship and railroad companies usurped the lower sky. A flag was waving and his heart was desolate. The only path leading out of hell was the path of McMann’s….

He was tense with resolve, wondering at his gift for the right thing even after so many blunders. He had a flat rent-free, and now he had an idea for a job for Joe. He waited on the El station for the uptown El finally rattling in, square and snaky-jointed. In the small pilot box in the first car the motorman was pale and steely. He got off at Forty-second. On the far side of Ninth, Wiberg transacted business. He grinned, fascinated by the granite endurability of the place they’d robbed. It showed no sign of last night’s holdup. Metz was a former tenant of his, his window architectured with round red cheeses and slabs of Swiss. Eggs were piled up, peculiarly and grotesquely similar to huge worthless pearls. Inside, the floor was fresh with sawdust and the smells of cheese, butter, milk. Two clerks in white aprons were behind the counter, their cheeks red. He thought of the story that Metz never permitted his help to go outside for lunch, compelling them to lunch on pot-cheese, rolls, buttermilk. What a diet! Joe’d be healthy working for Metz. Metz himself, wearing the straw hat that somehow was his official dairyman’s guild token, smiled, a small dark man with an unctuous flashing of teeth and a ceremony of hairy hands. “Billy Trent, ain’t it?”

“What you think, Metz? C’mon in the back. I want to see you private.” He grinned, not expecting Metz to spill the beans about Wiberg, but hoping he might. “How’s geschaft since I quit hounding you for rent?”

“So-so,” said Metz, his hands adding a commentary of: It might be worse. “You working?”

“Part time for a friend of mine.”

“Dot’s something. I always said it, the whole world can be on the breadline, but this Bill, he’ll have something to do.”

“You’re wondering now why I want to see you privately. I want a Christmas favor from you. When I had the chance I did plenty for you.”

“You should a businessman been,” said Metz, frowning with admiration. “I give you plenty Christmas presents, not only Christmas, but in July too.”

“I want you to give me a break now. I don’t make much dough and my kid brother’s coming to live with me after the first. He’s nineteen, huskier than me, and not afraid of work. You got three stores. Give him a job.”

“How can I, Bill? These fellers are all cockeyed relations of mine. My stores’re full of my wife’s relations. She should an orphan’ve been.”

“You can take on one more clerk. He’s a goodlooking kid. He’d bring you trade. Don’t your Irish Dutch Wop customers complain about those schnozzolas?”

“So long’s the merchandise is good I got no complaints.”

“I can do you a favor, Metz.”

“Lemme hear.”

“How’d you like to get your rent cut again?”

“Why not?”

“This is a real Christmas gift. I know some facts about the people who hold the mortgage on this house and how a smart guy can get his rent cut.”

Metz was still sleepy behind his glasses. “You always know plenty things,” he said heavily. “I wonder why you’re not a rich man.”

“It’s the times. I’ll be rich. Don’t worry.” He stared at Metz. He had damned good dope, and Metz ought to chip in cash as well as a job. “First I want twenty-five bucks. I’d ask for more, but since you’re hiring my brother I’ll let it go.”

“Much obliged.”

“How much rent you pay, Metz?”

“You know better’n me. Four hundred for this rotten corner, with the peoples all moving away to Long Island’n Brooklyn.”

“I want your word I get twenty-five and my brother that job.”

“I ain’t ever disappointed you.” He wrote out a check for fifteen. “I cash it soon you tell me, right here and now.”

“Gypping me already.”

“A job’s worth money. You don’t buy them.”

“Keep this under your hat. The landlord’s in hot water. Yeh, Delhota, even him. He expects to drop this corner. Taxes and interest aren’t met by the rental. Strike him hard for a reduction and you’ll get it. Show him the color of a few hundred and you’ll get a nice new lease. He’ll be foreclosed anyway. What does he care?”

“If it works out so, your brother gets the job. I’ll break him in. Twelve dollars a week. Nothink for overtime.” They went out to the cash register. Bill had a swift glance at the stacked greenbacks. “I keep my word.”

“You’re a sap to keep all that dough in there.”

Metz glared hot and wild for a second. “Ain’t you heard? Wiberg was hit on the nut last night. Took seven hundred, the bummers.”

“That’s bunk. Where the hell’d he get seven hundred? Probably took five smacks and he claims the rest for the insurance people.”

“No no no.” He waved a finger. “He’s dying for a cent, but I know they take three hundred for sure.”

“How do you know it was three hundred and not one-eighty? You seem positive.”

Metz smiled bashfully. “Take my word.”

“Did you loan it to Wiberg? Did you loan him any?”

“You should a Jew be. Some of you goyim is more Jewish than the Jews. Send your brother around, but if it don’t work out mit Delhota, no job.”

“If you weren’t sure, you’d never shell out dough.”