“You are, junior, you are. You’re the only guy who can put his finger on a million dollar baby that we want bad. So you’ll cooperate.”
“Like a good citizen?” I made it sound the same as he did. “How much rides on Vetter and how much do I get?”
The sarcasm in his eyes turned to a nasty sneer. “Thousands ride, junior... and you don’t get any. You just cooperate. Too many cops have worked too damn long on Vetter to let a crummy kid cut into the cake. Now I’ll tell you why you’ll cooperate. There’s a dame, see? Helen Troy. There’s ways of slapping that tomato with a fat conviction for various reasons and unless you want to see her slapped, you’ll cooperate. Catch now?”
I called him something that fitted him right down to his shoes. He didn’t lose a bit of that grin at all. “Catch something else,” he said. “Get smart and I’ll make your other playmates look like school kids. I like tough guys. I have fun working ’em over because that’s what they understand. What there is to know I know. Take last night for instance. The boys paid you off for a finger job. Mark Renzo pays but in his own way. Now I’m setting up a deal. Hell, you don’t have to take it... you can do what you please. Three people are dickering for what you know. I’m the only one who can hit where it really hurts.
“Think it over, Joey boy. Think hard but do it fast. I’ll be waiting for a call from you and wherever you are, I’ll know about it. I get impatient sometimes, so let’s hear from you soon. Maybe if you take too long I’ll prod you a little bit.” He got up, stretched and wiped his eyes like he was tired. “Just ask for Detective Sergeant Gonzales,” he said. “That’s me.”
The cop patted the tools on his belt and stood by the door. I said, “It’s stinking to be a little man, isn’t it? You got to keep making up for it.”
There was pure, cold hate in his eyes for an answer. He gave me a long look that a snake would give a rabbit when he isn’t too hungry yet. A look that said wait a little while, feller. Wait until I’m real hungry.
I watched the car pull away, then sat there at the window looking at the street. I had to wait almost an hour before I spotted the first, then picked up the second one ten minutes later. If there were more I didn’t see them. I went back to the kitchen and took a look through the curtains at the blank behinds of the warehouses across the alley. Mrs. Stacey didn’t say anything. She sat there with her coffee, making clicking noises with her false teeth.
I said, “Somebody washed the windows upstairs in the wholesale house.”
“A man. Early this morning.”
“They haven’t been washed since I’ve been here.”
“Not for two years.”
I turned around and she was looking at me as if something had scared her to death. “How much are they paying you?” I said.
She couldn’t keep that greedy look out of her face even with all the phony indignation she tried to put on. Her mouth opened to say something when the phone rang and gave her the chance to cover up. She came back a few seconds later and said, “It’s for you. Some man.”
Then she stood there by the door where she always stood whenever somebody was on the phone. I said, “Joe Boyle speaking,” and that was all. I let the other one speak his few words and when he was done I hung up.
I felt it starting to burn in me. A nasty feeling that makes you want to slam something. Nobody asked me... they just told and I was supposed to jump. I was the low man on the totem pole, a lousy kid who happened to fit into things... just the right size to get pushed around.
Vetter, I kept saying to myself. They were all scared to death of Vetter. The guy had something they couldn’t touch. He was tough. He was smart. He was moving in for a kill and if ever one was needed it was needed now. They were all after him and no matter how many people who didn’t belong there stood in the way their bullets would go right through them to reach Vetter. Yeah, they wanted him bad. So bad they’d kill each other to make sure he died too.
Well, the whole pack of ’em knew what they could do.
I pulled my jacket on and got outside. I went up the corner, grabbed a downtown bus and sat there without bothering to look around. At Third and Main I hopped off, ducked into a cafeteria and had a combination lunch. I let Mrs. Stacey get her calls in, gave them rime to keep me well under cover, then flagged down a roving cab and gave the driver Helen’s address. On the way over I looked out the back window for the second time and the light blue Chewy was still in place, two cars behind and trailing steadily. In a way it didn’t bother me if the boys inside were smart enough to check the black Caddie that rode behind it again.
I tapped the cabbie a block away, told him to let me out on the corner and paid him off. There wasn’t a parking place along the street so the laddies in the cars were either going to cruise or double park, but it would keep them moving around so I could see what they were like anyway.
When I punched the bell I had to wait a full minute before the lobby door clicked open. I went up the stairs, jolted the apartment door a few times and walked right into those beautiful eyes that were even prettier than the last time because they were worried first, then relieved when they saw me. She grabbed my arm and gave me that quick grin then pulled me inside and stood with her back to the door.
“Joe, Joe, you little jughead,” she laughed. “You had me scared silly. Don’t do anything like that again.”
“Had to Helen. I wasn’t going to come back but I had to do that too.”
Maybe it was the way I said it that made her frown. “You’re a funny kid.”
“Don’t say that.”
Something changed in her eyes. “No. Maybe I shouldn’t, should I?” She looked at me hard, her eyes soft, but piercing. “I feel funny when I look at you. I don’t know why. Sometimes I’ve thought it was because I had a brother who was always in trouble. Always getting hurt. I used to worry about him too.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was killed on the Anzio beachhead.”
“Sorry.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t join the army because he was patriotic. He and another kid held up a joint. The owner was shot. He was dead by the time they found out who did it.”
“You’ve been running all your life too, haven’t you?”
The eyes dropped a second. “You could put it that way.”
“What ties you here?”
“Guess.”
“If you had the dough you’d beat it? Some place where nobody knew you?”
She laughed, a short jerky laugh. It was answer enough. I reached in the jacket, got out the pack of bills and flipped off a couple for myself. I shoved the rest in her hand before she knew what it was. “Get going. Don’t even bother to pack. Just move out of here and keep moving.”
Her eyes were big and wide with an incredulous sort of wonder, then slightly misty when they came back to mine and she shook her head a little bit and said, “Joe... why? Why?”
“It would sound silly if I said it.”
“Say it.”
“When I’m all grown up I’ll tell you maybe.”
“Now.”
I could feel the ache starting in me and my tongue didn’t want to move, but I said, “Sometimes even a kid can feel pretty hard about a woman. Sad, isn’t it?”
Helen said, “Joe,” softly and had my face in her hands and her mouth was a hot torch that played against mine with a crazy kind of fierceness and it was all I could do to keep from grabbing her instead of pushing her away. My hands squeezed her hard, then I yanked the door open and got out of there. Behind me there was a sob and I heard my name said again, softly.