He backed away from the table so fast that I didn’t know he’d moved for a second. He walked around the players quickly and rammed a big hand at me, wrapping it in the lapels of my jacket.
He brought his other hand back across his chest and then sideways, catching me across the face with his knuckles. My head bounced back, and then his forward slap caught me on the other cheek.
That was all I needed.
I brought my balled fist forward in a short, chopping jab to Julie’s gut. He was surprised, all right. He was so surprised that he dropped my jacket and was reaching under his armpit when my other fist looped up and exploded on the point of his jaw. His lips flew open and the cigar flopped out of his mouth. He still had his hand on the bunny-in-the-hutch, so I picked up my knee fast and rammed it into his groin. He folded over like a jack-knife, and I brought my fist down on the back of his neck hard, hard enough to crack a couple of vertebrae. He pitched forward like a drunken sailor, kissed the floor with his face, and then sprawled out without a care in the world. Julie was out.
I kicked him in the ribs to make sure, wanting to break a few, but figuring maybe Mr Williams wouldn’t like the way I’d roughed him up.
‘Get this crud out of here,’ I said. ‘How can you play with that stink in here?’
The boys laughed it up, and then one of them dragged him out of the bedroom. I sat down at the card table and played a few hands, just to let them know I could sit in Julie’s chair any day. When I lost the deuce, I left.
The word came from Mr Williams two days later. It came down through Turk, and for a minute I thought Turk was just hopped and talking through the top of his skull. I figured that Turk would never dream that up, though, no matter how wigged he was, so I went up to see Mr Williams fast.
He was sitting behind a big desk. He had blond hair, and blond eyebrows, and pale blue eyes that pinned you to the wall.
‘Hello, Manny,’ he said. ‘Pull up a chair.’
I sat down, and my eyes ran over the hand-tailoreds he was wearing, and over the glistening pinky-ring, the manicured nails. He was the top. King of the hill. I watched him light a cigarette with a thin, rolled-gold lighter.
‘A little trouble, Manny,’ he said.
‘Anything I can do to help, Mr Williams?’
‘Well, it’s a little trouble concerning you,’ he said. He blew out a stream of smoke, pinned me with his eyes again.
‘Oh,’ I said lamely. ‘You mean Julie. I-‘
‘To hell with Julie,’ Mr Williams said. ‘He had it coming to him. I’m glad you worked him over.’
‘Well, thanks. I-‘
‘Your girlfriend,’ Mr Williams said.
‘My... girl?’
‘She was here, Manny. Just a little while ago.’
‘Betty? Here?’
‘She made a lot of threats, Manny. She said she was going to the police. She said she was sick and tired of your taking orders from a big crook.’ He paused. ‘Do you think I’m a big crook, Manny?’
‘No. No, Mr Williams. You have to excuse Betty. She’s just a kid. Sometimes, she...’
‘No, Manny,’ he said coldly. ‘She doesn’t “sometimes” any more. Things have gone much too far, I’m afraid.’
‘Wh-what do you mean by that, Mr Williams?’
‘I mean she talks too much. She said she’d give us a week, Manny. After that, she’d go to the police and tell them all about Gallagher and the girl. And a few others.’
‘She... she said that?’
‘I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. Not that she can touch us, Manny. She’d have a hard time proving anything. But I had big plans for you. You’re young, a boy, one of the best boys I’ve got. I hadn’t counted on a hysterical woman, though.’
‘I... I’m sorry, Mr Williams. I’ll talk to her. I’ll...’
Talk!’ he said. ‘Nonsense! Do you think you can talk her out of this?’ He was mildly disturbed now. He got up and began pacing the room, back and forth in front of the desk. ‘Once a woman acquires a loose tongue, she never gets rid of it. She needs more than talk.’
‘But...’
‘If you want to go places in this organisation, you’ll know what to do, I won’t have to tell you. You’ll know.’
‘I... I don’t understand.’
‘You’ve got a week, Manny. After that, your girl begins screaming, and we’ll be shaking the police out of our hair for a month after that. Disturbances like that annoy me.’
‘A week,’ I repeated dumbly.
‘It’s too bad you’re attached to her, Manny. It’s really too bad. A woman like that can be a millstone around a man’s neck. Unless something is done about it.’
I nodded and got up. When I reached the door, Mr Williams smiled and said, ‘You could be a big man in this organisation, Manny. A really big man. Think it over.’
And I thought it over. I thought it over for four days, then I tried talking to Betty. It didn’t get me very far.
‘I don’t want to listen,’ she said. ‘You either quit your Mr Williams, or I go to the police. That’s it, Manny. I’ve had enough.’
‘You ain’t had nothing,’ I said. ‘Baby, we’ll be in the chips. I’m moving up. Mr Williams-‘
‘I’ll scream!’ she shouted. ‘If you mention his name once more, I’ll scream.’
‘Baby-’
‘Shut up! Shut up, Manny!’ She started crying then, and I’ve never known what to do with a chick that bawls, so I left her alone and walked the streets for a while.
I found Turk, and I bought a few joints from him. Marijuana was candy to Turk. It never gave him a jolt, but he was willing to sell it so he could get his paws on the needle stuff. I lit up one of the joints, sucking it in with loose lips, mixing it with air for a bigger charge. The street got longer and the buildings seemed to tilt a little, but outside of that, I didn’t feel a thing.
I lit the other joint and smoked it down to a roach, and then I stuck a toothpick in that and got the last harsh, powerful drags out of it. I flew down the street, then, and I forgot all about Betty and her goddamn loose mouth. I was on a big cloud, and the city was just a toy city down below me, and I felt good. Hell, I felt terrific.
It didn’t last. You pick up, and the charge is great, but it wears off and you got the same old problem again. Unless you’re Turk, and then your big problem is getting the stuff that makes you forget.
On the sixth day, I knew what I had to do.
She went to a movie that night, and I walked the streets thinking it all over in my mind. Around eleven o’clock, I took a post in an alley near her pad. I knew the way she came home. She always came home the same way. The army .45 was in my pocket. It felt heavy, and my palm sweated against the walnut stock.
I heard her heels, and I knew it was her when she was still a block away. She crossed the street under the lamp-post and the light danced in her hair, threw little sparkles across the street. She walked like a queen, Betty, with her shoulders back, and her fine, high breasts firm under her coat. Her heels tapped on the pavement and she came closer and I took the automatic out of my pocket.
When she reached the alley, I said, ‘Betty,’ soft, in a whisper.
She recognised my voice, and she turned, her eyebrows lifting, her mouth parted slightly. I fired twice, only twice.
The gun bucked in my hand and I saw the holes go right through her forehead, and she fell back without screaming, without making a sound. I didn’t look back. I cut down the alley and over towards Eighth Avenue. I dropped the gun down a sewer, then, and I walked around for the rest of the night. It was a long, long night.
The party was a big one. I stayed close to Mr Williams all night, and he called me his boy, and all the punks came around and looked up to me and I could see they were thinking, ‘That Cole is a tough cat, and a big man.’