Make Room! Make Room! (29 page)

“Where to? Show some sense, will you, we’re lucky to have this much room to ourselves. Do you know how many people still sleep in the streets—and how many bodies get brought in every morning?”

“I couldn’t care less. It’s my own life I’m worrying about.”

“Please, not now.” He looked up as the light bulb flickered and dimmed, then sprang back to life again. There was a sudden rattle of hail against the window. “We can talk about it when I get back, I shouldn’t be long.”

“No, I want to settle it now, you’ve been putting this off over and over again. You don’t have to go out now.”

He took his coat down, restraining his temper. “It can wait until I get back. I told you that we finally had word on Billy Chung—an informer saw him leaving Shiptown—the chances are that he had been visiting his family. It’s old news too, it
happened fifteen days ago, but the stoolie didn’t think it important enough to tell us about right away. I guess he was hoping to see the boy come back, but he never has. I’ll have to talk to his family and see what they know.”

“You don’t have to go now—you said this happened some time ago….”

“What does that have to do with it? The lieutenant will want a report in the morning. So what should I tell him—that you didn’t want me to go out tonight?”

“I don’t care what you tell him….”

“I know you don’t, but I do. It’s my job and I have to do it.”

They glared at each other in silence, breathing rapidly. From the other side of the partition there sounded a shrill cry and childish sobbing.

“Shirl, I don’t want to fight with you,” Andy said. “I have to go out, that’s all there is to it. We can talk about it later, when I come back.”

“If I’m here when you come back.” She had her hands clenched tightly together and her face was pale.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know what I mean. I just know something has to change. Please, let’s settle this now….”

“Can’t you understand that’s impossible? We’ll talk about it when I get back.” He unlocked the door and stood with the knob in his hand, getting a grip on his temper. “Let’s not fight about it now. I’ll be back in a few hours, we can worry about it then, all right?” She didn’t answer, and after waiting a moment he went out and closed the door heavily behind him. The foul, thick odor of the room beyond hit him in the face.

“Belicher,” he said, “you’re going to have to clean this place up. It stinks.”

“I can’t do nothing about the smoke until I get some kind of chimbley.” Belicher sniffled, squatting and holding his hands over a smoldering lump of seacoal. This rested in a hubcap filled with sand from which eye-burning, oily smoke rose to fill the room. The opening in the outer wall that Sol had made for the chimney of his stove had been carelessly covered with a sheet of thin polythene that billowed and crackled as the wind blew against it.

“The smoke is the best smell in here,” Andy said. “Have your kids been using this place for a toilet again?”

“You wouldn’t ask kids to go down all them stairs at night, would you?” Belicher complained.

Wordless, Andy looked around at the heap of coverings in the corner where Mrs. Belicher and the smaller Belichers were huddled for warmth. The two boys were doing something in the corner with their backs turned. The small light bulb threw long shadows over the rubbish that was beginning to collect against the baseboard, lit up the new marks gouged in the wall.

“You better get this place cleaned up,” Andy said and slammed the door shut on Belicher’s whining answer.

Shirl was right, these people were impossible and he had to do something about them. But when? It had better be soon, she couldn’t take much more of them. He was angry at the invaders—and angry at her. All right, it was pretty bad, but you had to take things as they came. He was still putting in a twelve-and fourteen-hour day, which was a lot worse than just sitting and listening to the kids scream.

The street was dark, filled with wind and driving sleet. There was snow mixed with it and had already begun to stick to the pavement and pile up in corners against the walls. Andy plowed through it, head down, hating the Belichers and trying not to be angry with Shirl.

The walkways and connecting bridges in Shiptown were ice coated and slippery and Andy had to grope his way over them carefully, aware of the surging black water below. In the darkness all of the ships looked alike and he used his flashlight on their bows to pick out their names. He was chilled and wet before he found the
Columbia Victory
and pulled open the heavy steel door that led below deck. As he went down the metal stairs light spilled across the passageway ahead. One of the doors had been opened by a small boy with spindly legs; it looked like the Chung apartment.

“Just a minute,” Andy said, stopping the door before the child could close it. The little boy gaped up at him, silent and wide-eyed.

“This is the Chung apartment, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping in. Then he recognized the woman standing there. She was Billy’s sister, he had met her before. The mother sat in a chair against the wall, with the same expression of numb fright as her daughter, holding on to the twin of the boy who had opened the door. No one answered him.

These people really love the police, Andy thought. At the same instant he realized that they all kept looking toward the door in the far wall and quickly away. What was bothering them?

He reached behind his back and closed the hall door. It wasn’t possible—yet the night Billy Chung had been seen here had been stormy like this one, perfect cover for a fugitive. Could I be having a break at last? he wondered. Had he picked the right night to come here?

Even as the thoughts were forming the door to the bedroom opened and Billy Chung stepped out, starting to say something. His words were drowned by his mother’s shrill cries and his sister’s shouted warning. He looked up and halted, shocked motionless when he saw Andy.

“You’re under arrest,” Andy said, reaching down to the side of his belt to get his nippers.

“No!” Billy gasped hoarsely and grabbed at his waistband and pulled out a knife.

It was a mess. The old woman kept screaming shrilly, over and over, without stopping for breath and the daughter hurled herself on Andy, trying to scratch at his eyes. She raked her nails down his cheek before he grabbed her and held her off at arm’s length. And all the time he was watching Billy, who held out the long shining blade as he advanced in a knife-fighter’s crouch, waving the weapon before him.

“Put that down,” Andy shouted, and leaned his back against the door. “You can’t get out of here. Don’t cause any more trouble.” The woman found she couldn’t reach Andy’s face so she raked lines of fire down the back of his hand with her nails. Andy pushed her away and was barely aware of her falling as he grabbed for his gun.

“Stop it!” he shouted, and pointed the gun up in the air. He wanted to fire a warning shot, then he realized that the compartment was made of steel and any bullet would ricochet around inside of it: there were two women and two children here.

“Stop it, Billy, you can’t get out of here,” he shouted, pointing the gun at the boy who was halfway across the room, waving the knife wildly.

“Let me by,” Billy sobbed. “I’ll kill you! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

He wasn’t going to stop, Andy realized. The knife was sharp
and he knew how to use it. If he wanted trouble he was going to get it.

Andy aimed the gun at Billy’s leg and pulled the trigger just as the boy stumbled.

The boom of the .38-caliber shell filled the compartment and Billy pitched forward, the bullet hit his head and he kept going down to sprawl on the steel deck. The knife spun from his hand and stopped almost at Andy’s feet. Shocked silence followed the sound of the shot and the air was strong with the sharp reek of gunpowder. No one moved except Andy, who bent over and touched the boy’s wrist.

Andy was aware of a hammering on the door behind him and he reached back and fumbled to open it without turning around.

“I’m a police officer,” he said. “I want someone to get over to Precinct 12-A on Twenty-third Street and report this at once. Tell them that Billy Chung is here. He’s dead.”

A bullet in the temple, Andy realized suddenly. Got it in the same spot that Big Mike O’Brien did.

It was messy, that was the worst part of it. Not Billy, he was safely dead. It was the mother and the sister, they had screamed abuse at him while the twins had held on to each other and sobbed. Finally Andy made the neighbors across the hall take the whole family in and he had remained alone with the body until Steve Kulozik and a patrolman had arrived from the precinct. He hadn’t seen the two women after that, and he hadn’t wanted to. It had been an accident, that was all, they ought to realize that. If the kid hadn’t fallen he would have gotten the bullet in the leg and that would have been the end of it. Not that the police would care about the shooting, the case could be closed now without any more red tape, it was just the two women. Well, let them hate him, it wouldn’t hurt him and he wasn’t ever going to see them again. So the son was a martyr, not a killer, if they preferred to remember him that way. Fine. Either way the case was closed.

It was late, after midnight, before Andy got home. Bringing back the body and making a report had taken a long time. As usual the Belichers hadn’t locked the hall door—they didn’t care, they had nothing worth losing or stealing. Their room was dark and he flashed his light across it, catching a fleeting glimpse of their huddled bodies, a glimmer of reflection from their eyes.
They were awake—but at least they were all quiet for a change, even the baby. As he put his key into the lock on his door he heard a muffled titter behind him in the darkness. What could they possibly have to laugh about?

Pushing the door open into the silent room, he remembered the trouble with Shirl earlier that evening and he felt a sudden dart of fear. He raised the flashlight but did not squeeze it. There was the laughter behind him again, a little louder this time.

The light sliced across the room to the vacant chairs, the empty bed. Shirl wasn’t here. It couldn’t mean anything, she had probably gone downstairs to the lavatories, that was all.

Yet he knew, even before he opened the wardrobe, that her clothes were gone and so were her suitcases.

Shirl was gone too.

“What do you want?” the hard-eyed man asked, standing just inside the bedroom door. “You know Mr. Briggs is a busy man. I’m a busy man. Neither of us like you telephoning, saying someone should come over, just like that. You got something you want to tell Mr. Briggs, you come and tell him.”

“I’m very sorry that I can’t oblige you,” Judge Santini said, wheezing a little while he talked, propped up on pillows in the big dark double bed, smooth blankets carefully tucked in around him. “Much as I would like to. But I’m afraid that my running days are over, at least that’s what my doctor says, and I pay him enough for his opinions. When a man my age has a coronary he has to watch himself. Rest, plenty of rest. No more climbing up those stairs in the Empire State Building. I can confide in you, Schlachter, that I really won’t miss them very much….”

“What do you want, Santini?”

“To give you some information for Mr. Briggs. The Chung boy has been found, Billy Chung, the one who killed Big Mike.”

“So?”

“So—I had hoped you would remember a meeting we had where we discussed this subject. There was a suspicion that the killer might be connected with Nick Cuore, that the boy was in
his pay. I doubt if he was, he seems to have been operating on his own. We will never know for certain because he is dead.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough? You might recall that Mr. Briggs was concerned about the possibility of Cuore moving in on this city.”

“No chance of that at all. Cuore has been tied up for a week in taking over in Paterson. There’ve been a dozen killings already. He was never interested in New York.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. But I think you had better tell Mr. Briggs about this in any case. He was interested enough in the case to put pressure on the police department, they have had a man on the case since August.”

“Tough. I’ll tell him if I get a chance. But he’s not interested in this any more.”

Judge Santini settled wearily into the covers when his guest had gone. He was tired tonight, more tired than he could ever remember. And there was still a memory of that pain deep inside his chest.

Just about two weeks more to the new year. New century too. It would be funny to write two thousand instead of nineteen something or other as he had done all his life.

January 1, 2000. It seemed like a strange date for some reason. He rang the bell so Rosa could come and pour him his medicine. How much of this new century would he see? The thought was a very depressing one.

In the quiet room the ticking of the old-fashioned clock sounded very loud.

“The lieutenant wants to see you,” Steve called across the squad room.

Andy waved his hand in acknowledgment and stood and stretched, only too willing to leave the stack of reports he was working on. He had not slept well the night before and he was tired. First the shooting, then finding Shirl gone, it was a lot to have happen in one night. Where would he look for her, to ask her to come back? Yet how could he ask her to come back while the Belichers were still there? How could he get rid of the Belichers? This wasn’t the first time that his thoughts had spiraled around this way. It got him nowhere. He knocked on the door of the lieutenant’s office, then went in.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Lieutenant Grassioli was swallowing a pill and he nodded, then choked on the water he was using to wash it down. He had a coughing fit, and dropped into the battered swivel chair, looking grayer and more tired than usual. “This ulcer is going to kill me one of these days. Ever hear of anyone dying of an ulcer?”

There was no answer for a question like this. Andy wondered why the lieutenant was making conversation, it wasn’t like him. He usually found no trouble in speaking his mind.