At the ground level, I paused once again. I could hear Murphy going up the steps. I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Then, cautiously, I looked up the stairwell. I saw his hand grip the banister as he went up to the third floor. Then his hand disappeared, and he paused, and I saw him leaning back against the railing. A knock, then the door opened and he moved out of sight.
I waited there a moment, then took off back to the car.
“You find it?” Herbie said.
“Yeah. Third floor on the right.”
“Good. How many?”
I was sitting down, fumbling for a cigarette with trembling fingers. “How many what?”
“Voices. Didn’t you go up and listen at the door?”
“Are you crazy?”
“That’s what I would have done,” he said and, looking at him, I realized it was true.
“You are crazy.”
“It’s important to know how many people are in that room,” he said.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“That’s true,” Herbie said. “Only it would be nice to know before we find out.”
“Yeah, well.”
Silence. I smoked and tried to get my hands under control. In the back of my head was the feeling that this might work after all, that we might really pull it off. I hadn’t really believed that all day. I didn’t expect we’d get this far, and in some ways I had hoped we wouldn’t get this far. Because from now on the trip was for real.
Murphy came out of the brownstone about ten minutes later. He was empty-handed, and he whistled “As the Caissons Go Rolling Along” as he got into his car.
We waited a few minutes after he’d driven off, and then Herbie said, “Ready?”
I nodded.
We got out of the car and walked to the brownstone.
47
IT IS WRONG TO SAY we were nervous. We were terrified. We stood in the ground-floor hallway of the brownstone, smelling the combination of old cabbage, urine, dust, and mildew which hung in the air. As we started up the stairs, Herbie gave me the gun. “Just remember,” he said. “Watch your fingers.”
“Is it loaded?” I asked. It felt light for a piece.
“Yeah,” said Herbie. “Just watch your fingers. If they see—”
“Okay, okay.”
We came to the third-floor landing and walked around to the door. Herbie moved forward and I stayed behind him, keeping the gun out of sight, as we had agreed. Staring at the door, I had a vision of a six-foot-six, two-hundred-forty-pound spade standing behind it, just waiting to grind up a couple of college punks.
Herbie knocked, looked back at me, and smiled.
Herbie was enjoying himself, in his own nervous little way. He didn’t know any better, I thought.
He knocked and waited. Nothing happened. Right at that point I was ready to forget the whole thing and leave, but Herbie knocked again, louder. Then I heard soft footsteps inside. They didn’t sound like the footsteps of anybody big; I began to feel better.
A voice said, “Who is it?” Herbie glanced back at me, uncertain what to say. “Who’s there?” said the voice.
“Murphy,” I growled. As soon as I said it, I knew it was stupid. Murphy wouldn’t use his real name with a Roxbury front.
Behind the door, a pause. “Who?”
There was nothing to do but barge ahead. “Murphy,” I said, in a louder voice. “I’m twenty bucks short.”
We heard the chain rattling. Then the door opened and a pimply, white creature nosed into view and said, “Listen, you counted it right in front—”
He broke off, staring at us. He started to slam the door, but Herbie got his foot in. “One moment,” Herbie said. “We wish to make you a business proposition.”
I pushed Herbie from behind and there was a creaking and then the soft crunch of rotten wood breaking as a chain lock ripped out of the door. We stepped into the room and the cat jumped back and stared at us.
“B-business,” he said, “I-I’ma not innarested.”
The last word came out in a tumble and as I looked at him I saw why. He was thin and pale and his pupils were tiny. Arms covered with tracks. Speed freak. Probably paranoid as hell to begin with, I thought, without a couple of dudes barging into his room and pulling a piece on him. Then I realized that the way we were standing, he wouldn’t be able to see the piece, and I moved aside from Herbie enough so that he could dig it. He crumpled on the floor and babbled as Herbie said, “Hear us out. We have no intention of doing you any bodily harm.” He paused to look around the room. “You seem quite capable of taking care of that yourself.” At this the guy only babbled some more, the words flowing out in an unintelligible staccato, and groveled on the floor. “Please sit down,” Herbie said, giggling again, and the guy pulled himself over to the single mattress in the room and collapsed. The room was definitely a speed freak’s home-sweet-home. The walls were peeling and there was the one mattress and a couple of posters that covered the places that were peeling the worst. The floor was littered with empty soda cans and candy wrappers, and right next to the mattress was a set of works and an old spoon in a glass of water. Ho hum. A couple of bags of what looked like hydrochloride. Nothing else.
By this time the cat was speaking in sentences.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t got no money, honest I don’t—”
Herbie motioned him to be silent. “We don’t want your money,” he said. “We have an offer to make.”
The guy jumped up, and I waved the gun at him. “Don’t mess with me,” I said, doing my best to sound lethal. “I’m getting nervous with this piece.” He sat down again and Herbie went over and started fooling with the telephone. It was my rap.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the deal. We’re willing to give you two hundred and fifty, a good fucking price, for every one of those bricks Murphy laid on you.”
“Bu-but,” he said, and I looked down at the piece.
“Murphy,” I said, “the cat who was just in here. We’ll give you two-fifty for every one of his bricks. Think about it. You could be out of town before they even knew you’d gone wrong on them. And you wouldn’t have to shoot that shit any more…” waving the gun in the direction of the hydrochloride. “Get it? You’d be a rich man. Nothing but pure meth, pure coke, anything you wanted. Pure. No more street shit for you, brother.”
He looked at me, or rather squinted, with new respect. I had touched his frame of reference. The word meth, the very idea of pure meth, filled his mind and a soft glow spread over his face. An involuntary “Wow!” seeped out of him.
“Okay,” I said, “now you got the picture. And all you gotta do for that bread is produce those bricks.” The words broke his reverie.
“Lissen, fe-fe-fellas, I’d like to he-help ya, ba-but I can’t tell you what I don’t know, da-dig? I don’t have a-nothing. Da-dig? I’m a dra-drop, dra-drop, I’m a dropoff man. They give me the ra-room and I pay out the bread. I never seen a bra-brick for two years now, da-dig? The cats come in here and I pa-pay ’em what I got.” He stopped and looked at the piece. “Honest.”
“Listen, Speedy,” I said, “we haven’t got the time, da-dig?” Herbie laughed. “Now who pays for this room and who gets the stuff and who sets you up with guys like Murphy?”
“Mm Ma-Murphy?” he said, or rather tried to say.
“The punk who was just in here, the pig you paid off. Who sets you up with him?”
“Th-th-that guy’s a pa-pig?” said Speedy, incredulous.
“Herbie,” I said, “he’s gonna need a little work.” Herbie nodded. He was enjoying the whole thing tremendously.