Street of No Return (19 page)

12

He climbed over the fence and moved slowly, very quietly, across the back yard. He was focusing on the cellar window that had no glass in it.

The opening was stingy and he had to worm his way through. He went in legs first, his feet probing for support as he arched his back, his hands clutching the upper side of the window, his torso squirming, pushing past the splintered frame. Then, as he went through and down, his feet found a narrow shelf. From there it was just a short drop to the cellar floor.

There was no light in the cellar. He took a few steps and bumped into the side of a coal bin. A few more steps and his knees came up against the pile of coal. He groped in his pockets, searching for a match. There were no matches and he wondered how he could get past the coal without making noise. It was a lot of coal, and if he tried to crawl over it, the chunks would give way and there'd be considerable noise. The important thing now was quiet. It had to be handled with a maximum of quiet.

He backed away from the pile of coal, then moved parallel with it, got past the wooden wall of the bin, inched his way forward, and hit another obstruction. It felt like an ash can. He touched it and it was metal and he knew it was an ash can. And then another ash can. And still another. He decided the best way to get past the row of ash cans was to get down on all fours and do it by inches.

Crawling, using his forehead to feel what was in front of him, he kept bumping very lightly against the ash cans. He was moving sideways and then there were no more ash cans and again he went forward, still crawling. He kept on that way, going toward the middle of the cellar, gradually feeling the heat coming from the furnace, and then seeing the thin ribbon of bright orange glow that showed through a crack in the furnace door. He crawled toward it, thinking: Maybe we'll find something to light up and use for a torch.

Coming closer to the furnace, he reached out, felt for the handle of the furnace door, found it, and worked it slowly and very carefully. With very little noise the furnace door came open. The orange glow flowed out and showed him the floor surrounding the furnace. He saw a used safety match and got his fingers on it, put it in the furnace to get it lit, and thought: Well, now we can find the stairs.

The flaming match showed something that postponed the stairs.

It was a neatly laid-out row of brand-new baseball bats. And knives, all sorts of knives. In the instant that he sighted it, he thought of the similar but sloppier collection he'd seen in the Puerto Rican meeting place. Then, frowning, staring at the bats and knives, he noticed something else. It was a stack of small wooden boxes, say a dozen of them. The ones on top displayed labels and he came closer, peering past the flare of the match, and saw the printed words: "Handle with care--.38 caliber!'

For another instant he looked at the cartridge boxes. And then he saw the glint of metal near the boxes, the glinting barrels and butts of several brand-new revolvers.

Well, now, he said without sound. Well, now.

The burning match was dying fast and he held it higher to find the stairway. The glow showed the stairway off to the right and he checked the distance and then blew out the match. Now he was on his feet and moving lightly toward the stairway, telling himself to do as it said on the cartridge boxes, to handle these stairs with care.

Sure enough, it was a very old flight of stairs, and when he hit the first step it creaked. He crouched low, using his hands on the higher steps, going up monkey style and distributing his weight between the steps to lessen the creaking.

He was halfway up the steps when the mouse came running down.

Or rather, it came falling down, it must have been blind or sick, or maybe one of them lunatic mice that just can't do things in a sensible way. Its tiny furry shape hit him full in the face and instinctively it fought for a hold with its legs. He locked his lips to hold back the startled yell and heard the mouse giving its own outcry of shock. It squeaked as loud as it could, decided this was not the place for it to be, and leaped off.

Whitey shook his head slowly and thought: That almost did it.

He rested there a few moments, trying to forget the feeling of the mouse dancing on his face. He said to himself: Let's disregard these minor issues, you got more stairs to climb, keep climbing.

So then it was the next step going up. And the next. And as he climbed it was like the very slow and precise action of thread passing through the eye of a needle. His head was down and he was watching the barely visible edges of the steps, gray-black against the blackness. Then gradually the steps were tinged with a faint amber glow and he knew it was light coming from the first floor. He raised his head and saw the yellow seeping through the crack in the door at the top of the stairs. The door was maybe five steps ahead. He tightened his mouth just a little, and thought: Careful, now, don't get excited, please don't get excited.

A moment passed. It was a very long moment and he felt it pressing hard on him as he negotiated the next step. The feeling of anxiety was a set of clamps getting him in the belly and squeezing like some practical joker carrying the joke too far.

Or maybe he was the joker, and not a very good one, at that. A first-rate joker never took himself seriously and it was everything for laughs. For instance, that on-and-off comedian who worked from the Thirty-seventh District, that detective lieutenant, that Pertnoy. Now, if it was Pertnoy going up these stairs, it would be a breeze, nothing to it, the man would be grinning and having himself a grand time. On the other hand, if it was Lieutenant Whatsisname, the fashion plate, name starts with D or T--oh, yes, Taggert--well, if it was Taggert climbing up these cellar steps, he'd be strictly business, absolutely a machine, except maybe it would bother him that his clothes were getting dirty. He's sure a sucker for the haberdashers and the tailors, that Taggert. And for barbershops, too. Guess it's always the same routine when he sits himself in the chair. You can hear him saying, "The works, Dominic." But why's it gotta be Dominic? Not all barbers are Italians. Like with Poles, not all coal miners are Poles. You know, Phillips was a coal miner, and Phillips is-- As if it makes any difference what he is. As if race has anything to do with it. Yeah, go try and tell that to the Puerto Ricans. People call them Puerto Ricans and right away they're branded like with an iron and given a low road to travel, the lousiest places to live, like that house where you saw them jam-packed sleeping on a cold floor. But you saw some damn fine quality in that house. That Chavez. He was really something, that Chavez. And Luis, too. Luis almost got himself slashed bloody going to bat for you.

Say, come to think of it, you have been having yourself a time tonight, you've come across some real personalities. Take, for example, that Jones Jarvis. If conditions were different it could be Admiral Jarvis, U.S.N. And you know he could do the job, you know damn well he could do it. So it figures it's mostly a matter of conditions. Sure it is. Take Captain Kinnard and put him in charge of a nursery, he'd be like melted butter and them kids would run all over him. But how do you know that? Well, you just know it, that's all. It's that way with some people; you take one look at them and later when you think about it, it hits you and you know. Or sometimes you get hit right away. You ought to know about that, when it comes to that you're an old campaigner. That first time you saw her, the way it hit you. And the way it's been coming back tonight, hitting you, hitting you. All right, for Christ's sake, cut it out. But I wonder if Firpo is still alive and sometimes at night he wakes up and remembers the way Dempsey hit him.

He went up another step and it brought him to the top of the stairs. He stood against the door and his hand drifted to the knob. His fingers tested the give of the knob and at first it wouldn't give, not soundlessly, anyway. He tried it again and felt it turning. A little more, and still more, and then there was the faint noise, more feathery than metallic, of the latch coming free. And now very carefully, working it by fractions of inches, he opened the door.

It showed him the lit-up kitchen. There was no one in the kitchen. But he could hear voices coming from the next room, and there was the clinking of glasses on a wooden table.

He had the door opened not quite two inches. There was the scraping of a chair and then someone was coming into the kitchen. He gave a slight pull on the door to make it appear closed. For some moments there was activity in the kitchen, the sound of a running faucet, glass tinkling against the sink. He heard Chop shouting from the next room, "Not from the sink! There's cold water in the icebox!' And in the kitchen the icebox was being opened and he heard Bertha's voice saying, "The bottle's empty." A pause, and then from the next room it was Sharkey's voice: "We got any beer?" and Bertha replying, "It's all gone," and Chop again, "There's some in the cellar."

Whitey closed his eyes. Without sound he said: Goddamn it.

He heard Chop yelling, "We got some quart bottles down there. Go down and bring up a few."

Then Bertha's footsteps were coming toward the door.

He thought: Some people have it nice, they can travel anywhere they wanna go. But you, you can't travel anywhere, you can't go down the steps, and when the door opens you can't get behind it because it don't open in, it opens out. You're gonna be right here when it opens, right here at the top of the stairs where there ain't no room to move around, so this looks to be the windup.

Then he realized the footsteps had stopped. He heard Bertha shouting, "Go get the beer yourself. I ain't no waitress."

Chop yelled, "What is it, a big deal?"

"Get it yourself. Run your own errands."

"You goddamn lazy--"

"Aw, go break a leg."

"Lazy elephant, she won't even--"

"Make it both legs," Bertha yapped at Chop. "I'm tired of you giving me orders. All day long I'm running up and down the steps. This morning you were--"

"I was sick this morning."

"You're gonna be sick tonight if you don't lay off me."

Whitey heard Bertha's footsteps going out of the kitchen. In the next room the argument continued between Bertha and Chop and finally Sharkey cut in with "All right, the hell with the beer. We'll drink what we got here."

There was more tinkling of glasses. And then he heard them talking but now their voices were low and he couldn't make out what they were saying. Again he worked on the door and got it open a few inches. Then a few more inches, and he was straining to hear, gradually getting it.

Sharkey was saying, "Go on, Gerardo. Have another drink."

"I no need--"

"Sure you do." Sharkey's voice was soft and soothing. "We'll make this the bracer."

There was the sound of liquor splashing into a glass. Whatever it was, there was a lot of it going into the glass.

"Drink it down," Sharkey said. "Go on, Gerardo, get it all down!'

"But I--"

And then loudly, from Bertha, "You hear what Sharkey says? You do what he says."

"Is too much whisky," Gerardo complained. "I no--"

"Yes, you will," Bertha shouted. "You'll drink it or I hold your nose and force it down."

"Why you do me like this?" Gerardo whined.

"Like what?" It was Chop and he was laughing dryly. "You're lucky, Gerardo. You're lucky Bertha ain't giving you lumps."

"I got lumps already," Gerardo said. Then, drinking the whisky, he gasped, went on drinking it, gasped again. There was the sound of the glass coming down on the table, and Gerardo saying, "Enough lumps I get tonight. Look at lumps. Look at my nose."

"It looks busted," Sharkey said.

"All smashed up," the Puerto Rican wailed. "Was perfect nose and now look at it."

"Finish what's in the glass," Bertha said.

"But I can't--"

"Drink it all up," she said. "Drink it up, Gerardo."

"Please--"

"You'll drink it if I hold your nose," Bertha said. "And then you'll really have a nose to worry about."

Then again there was the sound of the glass, the gurgling and gulping as Gerardo forced it down, and the bitter rasping, the gasping.

"Very good," Bertha said. "Not a drop in the glass. But you got some on your chin. I'll wipe it off!'

Whitey heard the sound of a backhand crack across the mouth, then louder with the open palm, then very loud with the backhand again. He heard a chair toppling, and a thud, and he knew that Gerardo was on the floor.

He heard Gerardo whimpering, sobbing, "I no understand."

"It's instruction," Bertha said. "You're getting instruction, Gerardo. You gotta learn to do what Sharkey says!'

"My mouth!"

Whitey visualized Gerardo's mouth. He knew it was a sad-looking mouth right now. It had received the full force of Bertha's tree-trunk arm, with over three hundred pounds of hard-packed beef behind Bertha's oversized hand. Whitey said to himself: You know how it feels, you had a taste of it, a big taste, and--