Never Love a Stranger (42 page)

She stood up, pad and pencil in hand, her voice still cool and impersonal. “You might be wrong too, you know. Tomorrow I’ll bring my brother down and ask him to look at you

—maybe Jerry Cowan too. They’ll know.”

“It won’t be any use,” I said. But I knew differently. They’d know in a minute, no matter how I had changed.

“My brother’s interning at a hospital uptown and he won’t be able to get here before noon, but we’ll see. I hope you are the one. There are many things we have to tell you.” She stood there waiting.

I almost went for that. There were many things I wanted to know—my folks. Questions ran through my mind quickly. I fought them down. Ruth hadn’t lost any of her cleverness.

“As you like, lady,” I said as if I were tired with it all, “but I tell you it won’t do any good.”

Disappointment flashed across her face. It was gone almost immediately. “Maybe,” she said, turning away. “Good night.” I watched her walk down the ward and out without answering. Then I reached for a cigarette with trembling hands and lit it. Noon tomorrow! That meant I would have to get out of here by then. I didn’t dare stay and try to bluff my way past them. I made up my mind to put away a big breakfast before I left. They couldn’t keep me here; I wasn’t a criminal.

I leaned back, trying to think why I had failed to get a job—why I seemed to be messing things up. Maybe it was because I didn’t have a plan? Maybe it was because I tried to grab at anything. That must be it. I must have a plan this time. I couldn’t afford to miss again. This time it must be it. But what could I plan? What could I do that couldn’t miss? There had to be something, something solid and sure and indestructible.

I turned one thing after another over in my mind. One wild thought after another. They chased themselves through my head. And as soon as I had thought of them, I threw them out. I looked around the ward. Down at the end of it near the door was a small placard. It read “Ward 23—Bellevue Hospital.” And then I had it. It raced through my mind so quickly I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. This one couldn’t miss. It was sure-fire. I put out the cigarette and went to sleep.

I stood on the street corner and looked at the clock in the window across the street. It was eleven o’clock. Close call! I thought. I had a little trouble convincing the doctor I was all right. But what could he do if I said I was O.K.?

He had looked a little worried when I asked him to let me leave. “You should stay here a few more days,” he said. “You really need the rest.” He was putting it mildly.

“But, doc,” I said, “I feel better. Besides, I have some friends that will look after me.

I’ll be all right.”

“Well,” he said, “if you say so. We can’t force you to stay here, but you’d better take it easy. You’re more run down than you think. When you get up there with your friends, stay in for a couple of days and rest.”

“Don’t worry, doc,” I assured him, “I will.”

I watched him sign the discharge slip and give it to a nurse. “Don’t forget to do what I told you.”

“I’ll do it, doc,” I replied. “Thanks a lot. Thanks very much.” I held out my hand.

For a moment he looked at my hand in surprise, then he took it. The nurse returned

with my clothes. I got dressed and walked towards the exit and out.

I looked at the clock again—eleven o’clock. Now I had a job to do. I started to walk uptown. I had to find Silk Fennelli —today. He would remember what I did. I probably saved his life by getting him to the hospital in time. Today would tell the story. If I had to go back, I’d go all the way back.

He couldn’t turn me down.

Interlude

FRANCIS

J
ERRY
walked over to the sideboard and mixed another drink. He held it up to the light reflectively. Just right: liberal with the Scotch, but just a splash of soda. He turned toward Marty and waved him to a seat. “The lost years,” he spoke quietly. “The way you said the phrase summed it up for me. Somewhere in that period of time, from the time he ran away until the time we saw him next, Frankie was growing up too. Maybe not in the same sense that we were. But in another way. Something must have happened to him during that time that turned him back to the only way he knew for certain he could get along.

“I don’t know what it was. Probably no one does or ever will know now. But there are traces of his start on the way back into our lives. Faint traces, meagre traces—but enough to give us clues as to what was happening to him and what he was doing.

“It started, oddly enough, a little while after I had gone to work as an assistant D.A. It was in April 1936. The police were investigating a gang shooting in one of the mid-town hotels. There were rumours around that involved certain well-known gamblers. We were checking all the angles and were getting nowhere, when one of our stoolies came in with a strange story about a man who worked for Fennelli—a man we had never heard of before. But according to the stoolie, he had moved up in a few years—maybe two, maybe three—from a bookie’s runner to one of the top spots in the organization. A guy by the name of Frank Kane. I was busy on another case at the time and was in court, and so I missed it completely until several years later when I picked up the file.”

The boys were sitting around playing penny-ante poker when the door opened and a man came in. They stopped their game for a moment to look at him. His age was hard to tell. He was thin and his face gaunt almost to the point of emaciation. He wore no overcoat though it was bitterly cold outside. There was a youthful quality about his complexion that gave the lie to his eyes and grey-black hair. His eyes were brown, almost black, and had no depth, no expression. His mouth was small and he spoke through thin, compressed lips. It was a strange voice—old and tired and empty of expression as his eyes. It had a flat, hard undertone. He stood there in the doorway looking at them, meeting their gaze unwinkingly.

“Where’s Fennelli?” he asked.

Piggy Laurens, who fancied himself as a wisecracker and jokester generally, got out of his chair and walked over to the stranger. “Screw, punk!” he said. “Fennelli don’t give no handouts.”

The stranger quietly closed the door behind him, stepped into the room, and placed

himself in front of Piggy. His hands dangled loosely at his sides, no expression crossed his face, his voice was even, flat, controlled, hard, and quiet. His eyes gazed unblinkingly into Piggy’s face. “I don’t take advice from the cheap help,” he said.

Piggy flushed and took a step forward towards the stranger, and then he looked into the man’s eyes. Piggy was by no means a coward, but he didn’t like what he saw there. However, it was too late to turn back; it was his move. He took another step forward.

The boys looked up from the table with interested eyes. They wondered how long it would be before the stranger would back down and beat it.

Piggy’s hands began a threatening move towards his pockets. The stranger’s voice froze them into an empty gesture.

“If you do that,” he stated in the same tone of voice, “I’ll kill you.” His hands still dangled easily at his sides, but his lips had drawn back in a half smile that resembled a snarl and lights seemed to flicker in his eyes.

Silk’s voice came from the door of the back room. “Sit down, Piggy.” Piggy went back to his chair and sat down uneasily.

The stranger and Fennelli stared at each other across the length of the room. For a moment the room was still. Then the silence was broken by the stranger’s footsteps as he crossed the room.

“I came for the job you promised me,” he said, stopping in front of Fennelli.

Fennelli looked at him appraisingly, then stepped out of the doorway and motioned for him to go in. The stranger crossed into the room and Fennelli followed him in.

“You took a hell of a long time getting here, Frankie!” the boys heard Fennelli say as he shut the door.

They went on with their card game.

Jerry took another drink of his highball. “The stoolie said that this man was organizing the entire gambling setup in the city; that he was going to put an end to the constant wrangling and warfare between the different gangs that was drawing the public’s attention and ire. There had been a period of gang war that the newspapers had played up, and they were raising hell with the department for not stamping it out. Kane had the answer all figured out. He was going to establish a cartel, an organization that would set up territories for the different groups, and enforce them. He had asked the principal leaders in the city to come to a meeting.”

If Fennelli had known what was to happen, he might never have given Frank a job. He started him out as a runner, but Frank didn’t stay at that long. He was too much of an organizer. In a little while he had others out picking up the bets for him, and he split commissions with them. Then Silk took him into the group and put him in charge of all his runners.

To the others in the business, Frank Kane always remained a stranger. Fennelli was the only guy who knew who he was and where he came from, and Fennelli didn’t talk.

Frank sat at Fennelli’s right at the table. The city was well represented at the meeting: Madigan and Moscowits from the Bronx, Luigerro from South Brooklyn, “Fats” Crown from

Brownsville, “Big Black” Carvell from Harlem, Schutz from Yorkville, Taylor from Richmond, Jensen from Queens, Riordan from Staten Island, Antone from Greenwich Village, Kelly from Washington Heights.

They met in a hotel room and it looked as if it were a board-of-directors meeting of some large company. A pad and pencil were on the table in front of each man. Cigars and cigarettes and ash-trays were there. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun came streaming in the open windows when Fennelli got to his feet to talk.

“You all know why you were asked to come down here. There is talk of the Governor appointing a special prosecutor to clean up the city. If a guy comes in that we can’t get to, we’re sunk, unless we first clean house ourselves.” His voice was low, pleasant, and well modulated. His manner of speaking was simple. He was one member of a group of business men talking to the others in hopes that they would see the light and protect their business. The fact that he had it in his mind to be king-pin was incidental. When Frank had first suggested the idea, he had laughed. He was convinced when Frank had explained it further. He decided to give it a fling when public indignation began to mount and two of his boys were knocked off.

“Under this plan here,” he continued, “we’ll all be able to operate without interference by the police. We can eliminate friction between ourselves by laying our differences before the commissioner.” He liked the sound of that word. It made him think of Judge Landis, and how well baseball was organized to the exclusion of outside interests. “No more shooting, no more publicity, no more pressure from the people to clean up the city.

“There’s lots of dough in it for all of us—more than enough if we’re smart. Even if being smart isn’t what we thought it meant, we’d better get smart right away. We’re a big business —one of the biggest in the country. If anything happens to a business that threatens its interests, they take steps to counter it. That is all I’m suggesting—a way to protect our investment.” He sat down.

Madigan was the first on his feet with a question. “It all sounds very pretty to me but who’s going to make a guy stay in his territory if he feels like expanding?”

Fennelli answered, “The commissioner.” “How?” Madigan persisted.

“By talking it over with the people involved.” “And if that don’t work?”

“Torpedo!” Silk answered.

Madigan made his point with an air of triumph. “Then we’re right back where we started.”

Fennelli was stumped. He hadn’t thought about that.

But Kane had. He got to his feet quickly. “That’s just what we’re trying to avoid,” he said, “and we can avoid that by agree ment. If all you men are willing to work together on this, we can work it out.

“My idea,” he said, boldly taking away the credit from Fennelli, who had called the meeting, “is this: you men will appoint the commissioner. He will open operations in an office that eventually will become the nerve centre of the business. He will set up an exchange to help you control prices, apportion layoffs, fix odds. He will see to it that you

get your fair share of the business and your fair share of the combined profits. He will be your representative and will operate solely to protect you.”

“And who will this guy be?” asked Madigan.

Fennelli relaxed in his chair. He knew what was coming—Frank would suggest him. “Me,” said Kane flatly.

Fennelli bolted upright. “You!” he almost shouted. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” Kane faced him quietly.

“The first double cross!” thought Moscowits. “This will go the way of all the other attempts.” He was getting a little tired of this business anyway. He wanted to retire and go away somewhere—far away. But if there could be a little peace instead of this dangerous play and counterplay, he might be tempted to stick it out a little longer.

“I’m the right guy for the job,” Kane answered evenly. “I’m the only one here who has nothing to protect. I don’t owe any of you anything, I don’t benefit if any of you guys get more or less. Besides, none of you will agree on any of the others. The only choice you have is me—or the special prosecutor.”

Fennelli relaxed. “Hell’s bells, the kid’s right!” he thought. “I wouldn’t trust any of them no more than they’d go for me. Besides, I can control him and that’s all I need.” “O.K.,” he said aloud, “I see what you mean.”

Kane faced the table. Excitement was simmering deep within him. “This is it!” a voice was saying over and over in his mind, but none of this showed in his manner. “Any other objections?” he asked.

“How much will it cost us?” Antone wanted to know.

“It will vary according to the business you do,” Kane answered. “The shares will run from five to twenty-five hundred a week to start. In your case the amount is written on a slip of paper in an envelope in my pocket. I have one for each of you. Your name’s written on the outside. You can talk about it or not. It’s up to you if you want to keep your business to yourself or not, because it’s based on the amount of business you do.” He took a group of envelopes from his inside jacket pocket and tossed one to each man around the table.