The Deep (6 page)

He waved again and they left, then pulled a chair out slowly and sat down. “You shouldn't be too care-free with those boys, Deep.”

“They different?”

“They're different.”

“I'll find out soon for sure and tell you, Lenny.”

“You seem to know them pretty well already.”

“I get around good. Anybody to know, I know. You know?”

His smile was getting tired now and he glanced over at Helen. “I see we've recaptured old times.”

Her eyes picked up a strained look. “Lenny ...”

“Perfectly all right, my dear. When a man is impetuous as is our old friend Deep, one can easily get caught up in his backwash.”

It sounded funny coming from him. I said, “Picking up class, Lenny?” I grinned when he stared at me. “It's better'n the old days now. Then you were just a hood playing angles. Now you got class. Polish.”

“You're looking for trouble, Deep.”

“I'm expecting to get it, Lenny.”

“You will. You came back for trouble, didn't you?”

I leaned back easily in the chair and from any place in the room you would think it was just a nice friendly conversation. I said, “I didn't have to come back for trouble, buddy. I had plenty of it where I was and I sat on top of it and squashed it without any sweat at all. Not any.” I tasted my drink again, swirled it in the glass and put it down. “You know why I came back, Lenny.”

“Tell me.”

“I'm taking over.”

“You think?” His smile had angry tics at the comers.

“I already have,” I told him.

He started to come out of the chair, his pudgy fingers tight around the arms, squeezing into the wood. The cords of his neck rippled under the fat and only the thin edge of his teeth showed between his lips when he spoke. “
You little punk. You street-corner bum. You lousy little cellar rat
...”

Real softly I said, “Remember when I shot you in the behind, Lenny?” Something in his eyes said that he did. Very well. “There were people looking then and I didn't give a hoot.” I stopped and grinned again. “There're people here and I still don't give a hoot.”

He seemed frozen in that half-standing position until I pointed for him to sit down. He let his breath out, sat down and his composure came back slowly. He almost seemed ashamed of having thrown his bit.

When he was ready he said, “You didn't come here just to eat, Deep.”

“That's right. It's more of a visit. I'm seeing all the boys, the big ones, the little ones, all the laddies with the dirty, sticky fingers. I'm letting them know what they got coming and they better get in line. I came here to tell you that I have your operation pretty pat in my head and if you have any ideas about coming aboard you'd better figure on doing it with your hat in your hand.”

He shook his head in wonder at what I had said, his eyes searching my face to find a chink in my attitude. “You've thought this thing out?”

“Not especially. Not until Bennett got killed.”

“You amaze me, Deep.”

“I shouldn't.”

He bobbed his head earnestly. “But you do. Here the organization is bigger than it ever was. It reaches into every phase of politics and commerce and has fingers to reach out overseas if it wants to. It has millions to buy and sell what it wants and you're taking it over, just like that.”

“Just like that,” I agreed.

Lenny folded his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “Tell me, Deep, what makes you think you can do it?”

“Because I've been thinking.”

“Like what?”

“How another punk like Bennett was able to do it.”

He tried but he couldn't control the sudden gasp. The lines worked in his neck again and made a lie out of his soft smile. “Your ... erstwhile partner was an organizer.”

“Sure.”

“He was tough. He shot his way in. He was lucky, too. He intimidated the right people exactly at the right time. He had a brutish nature about him that made killing a pleasure, and a childish lack of responsibility that made him a terrible sort of person.”

“I'm embarrassed. You're analyzing hoodlumism to which I've devoted my career.”

“Don't laugh about it, Deep.”

“I'm not, feller. I'm just curious about the other reason.”

His face darkened. “What other reason?”

“The one you haven't told me about yet.”

I stood up, waved to Stashu and handed him a bill to more than cover things. “Let's go, Irish. Our pudgy little friend here will now carry the news to all the biggies who haven't already heard.”

Very deliberately I looked down into Lenny's porcine face. “Tell them straight, chum. I'm in. I'm on top. If I yell jump they ask how high and if I say spit they ask how much. Anybody goes after my skin gets gunned down fast and if there's any doubt about who makes the try I'll rack up a couple of big fish just for samples. Meantime I'm finding out who bumped Bennett. It's not going to be a hard job and it won't even be a long one. But it sure will be fun when I find him. Or her. I'd kind of like it to be you, Lenny. I haven't shot you for a long time, have I?”

The collar was too tight around his neck now, cutting in so deeply his face was suffused with red. “I won't even have to touch you, Deep. The chair'll get you. The first time you put the heat to somebody, even if it's a Bowery bum, you'll get fried. You're marked, Deep. You got that smell of frying around you right now.”

“You lost your class talk, Lenny. Let's not fall back into character at this late date.”

“Get out,” he hissed.

“Coming, Irish?”

Without looking at her Lenny said, “She can stay if she likes.”

“Uh-uh,” I told him. “She doesn't dare. I might get killed without her watching and she'd never forgive herself. Come on, Irish.”

“It would be better if you stayed,” Lenny told her.

She shook her head, her eyes cold and serious. “I'm sorry, Lenny. He's right. I want to be there when it happens.” She picked up her purse and shrugged her magnificent shoulders into her coat, then stepped ahead of me to the aisle.

Behind us Lenny laughed with genuine humor, a soft, furry kind of laugh.

 

Outside the rain had started again and the taxis cruising past all had the flag down. I took Helen's arm and edged along the buildings out of the wet and started walking toward Sixth Avenue. We crossed over, headed south until we reached Martin's and went in out of the drizzle.

There wasn't anybody in the place except the bartender, a thin, graying man with Broadway-wise eyes who nodded hello, brought out two coffees on order and withdrew to the end of the bar to watch TV.

I spread my change on the bar, picked out the dimes and told Helen to hold tight. Her answer was the same cool stare of disgust, with her face mirroring the anticipation she knew would be realized.

My three calls took as many minutes and when I went back to the bar I finished my coffee. When I put the cup down she said, “Where away now, big man?”

I said, “Did you ever make bread?”

Her eyes caught mine in the back bar mirror. “A long time ago.”

“Remember how yeast worked?”

Only her eyes were visible over her cup and they seemed to take on an upward slant. She nodded without speaking, finished her coffee and called to the bartender for a refill.

 

The guy who came in had little mouse eyes and a limp mustachio. The peak cap was a throwaway and a little too big and his pants and coat were alley stained and smelled sourly of sweat and garbage.

I said, “Hello, Pedro,” then waved to the bar stool next to me. “You want a drink?”

“No. No drink.”

“Money?”

“No. I want nothing from you, I just come here. What you want?”

“Sit here.”

“I don't sit.”

I reached out, lifted him by the arm and sat him on the bar stool. “You sit,” I said. When I looked at Helen the lushness had left her mouth and she was hating me again. I grinned at her. “He's the kind of people you like, Irish? He's the kind you use your influence to protect?”

“Keep going, Deep. You're doing great.”

“Thanks, baby. I'll keep on trying. I want you to be overjoyed when I get killed. Our friend Pedro here is an important man in the scheme of things. That right, Pedro?”

“I don't know how you talk.” He held his hands bunched into fists close to his belly.

“What are you doing to him, Deep?”

I shrugged noncommittally. “Nothing. It's just that Pedro is going to tell me a story. You know the one, Pedro?”

He shook his head nervously.

“So I'll clue you, Pedro. I want to hear about how you found Bennett when he was killed.”

Helen's cup stopped halfway to her mouth. Pedro's hand began to twitch so hard he had to hold it with the other. He shot a quick glance toward the door and when I shook my head his eyes rolled piteously and he seemed to shrink down inside his clothes.

“I ...”

“Go on, Pedro.”

“I don't know this thing you are saying. I don't know ...”

“Okay, man. Then we stop playing. Suppose I put it this way. Feel in your left-hand pocket.”

Instinctively his hand dropped to his side, felt the contents of his coat and in that one second he got the picture and tried to jerk away. I grabbed his arms, made him hold the edge of the bar and watched him while he shook.

Helen said, “What happened to him?”

I grinned nastily so Pedro could see it. “Nothing special. I just put our buddy in the path of law and order. He's a junkie, so I dropped a few days' poppilng in his pocket with the gimmicks and if he gets picked up he goes cold turkey downtown. In five minutes a cop'll walk in here and off this laddie goes. Unless he talks, of course. In that case he can even keep what's in his pocket.”

The distaste of it made Helen slide away from me. “There are names for people like you,” she said.

I nodded. “So I hear. Now let's listen to a speech. You got maybe four minutes left, Pedro. You can have it any way you want it.”

“You no tell?”

“I don't have to tell, friend”

“This one ... Bennett. I did not keel him. He was already there. You understand?”

I nodded again.

“He was already very dead. This you know? I did not keel him. He had one very big hole here ...” he tapped his throat where the neck joined the body. “I take his watch. It was not a very good watch. For it I got one dollar. I take his wallet. He has twenty dollars. In his pocket he has ten dollars. That is all I take. I sell the watch. That is all. I run away. I do not think anybody knows this.”

“Where's his wallet?”

“I throw it someplace.”

“Like where.”

“I think I know.”

“You get it, Pedro. You find it and bring it to where you live and keep it there until I come by. You understand this?”

His head bobbed again. “Si. I understand. You know ...” he hesitated.

“I know where you live,” I said.

He started to say something else, stopped and slid off the stool. His departure was noiseless, like a shadow leaving. When the door closed Helen looked into her cup, the puzzle plain on her face. “Bennett was found dead in his room,” she said.

“That wasn't the first time he was found dead.”

“How did you know?”

It was the same question Pedro almost asked.

“Only one person in the world could get close enough to Bennett to shoot him in his own house,” I said.

“Who?”

“Me, sugar. He always had a pathological fear of relaxing his eternal vigilance in his own place and getting creamed on his Persian rug. It was one of his little foibles.”

“You called it real smart, Deep.” Her tongue ran lightly over her lower lip. “You had an inside track?”

“No ... just a reputation. The watch had an engraving on the back and he sold it to a Scorp who knew what it meant.”

Her hand stopped me. “What?”

I said, “I boosted that watch from a department store in '32 and engraved the back
To Ben from Deep
. It was a cheap job, but he always liked it. The Scorpions are a punk club on the other side of Amsterdam Avenue, but they knew what those words meant. The kids are on it all the way. Junkies have a bad habit of blowing off at the mouth when they're flying and he let the bit leak out. Like I said, it reached me fast.”

“How did you hear of it?”

My eyes started to squint up. “The ties that bind,” I said. “Even the punks have their heroes. Bennett was one. I was a dark horse, but still running.”

“But never the police. They didn't know about this,” she said sarcastically.

I looked at her disgustedly, “You're forgetting your early upbringing, kiddo. You weren't hothouse raised. That block was your block as well as it was mine and you had your fingers in a few pockets for pennies. Don't make me recite times and places. Those punk kids wouldn't give the cops the right time and you know it. To their own personal heroes they'd run off, maybe, but not to cops.”

“Who was your hero?”

“Dillinger,” I said.

“It figures,” she said seriously.

The bartender came down and emptied the Silex in our cups. He fingered the change out of the pile and went back to the other end, those funny wise eyes of his a little too all-knowing.