Pick-up on Noon Street
PICKUP ON NOON STREET
ONE
The man and the girl walked slowly, close together, past a dim stencil sign that said: Surprise Hotel. The man wore a purple suit, a Panama hat over his shiny, slicked-down hair. He walked splay-footed, soundlessly.
The girl wore a green hat and a short skirt and sheer stockings, four-and-a-half inch French heels. She smelled of Midnight Narcissus.
At the corner the man leaned close, said something in the girl’s ear. She jerked away from him, giggled.
«You gotta buy liquor if you take me home, Smiler.»
«Next time, baby. I’m fresh outa dough.»
The girl’s voice got hard. «Then I tells you goodbye in the next block, handsome.»
«Like hell, baby,» the man answered.
The arc at the intersection threw light on them. They walked across the street far apart. At the other side the man caught the girl’s arm. She twisted away from him.
«Listen, you cheap grifter!» she shrilled. «Keep your paws down, see! Tinhorns are dust to me. Dangle!»
«How much liquor you gotta have, baby?»
«Plenty.»
«Me bein’ on the nut, where do I collect it?»
«You got hands, ain’t you?» the girl sneered. Her voice dropped the shrillness. She leaned close to him again. «Maybe you got a gun, big boy. Got a gun?»
«Yeah. And no shells for it.»
«The goldbricks over on Central don’t know that.»
«Don’t be that way,» the man in the purple suit snarled. Then he snapped his fingers and stiffened. «Wait a minute. I got me a idea.»
He stopped and looked back along the street toward the dim stencil hotel sign. The girl slapped a glove across his chin caressingly. The glove smelled to him of the perfume, Midnight Narcissus.
The man snapped his fingers again, grinned widely in the dim light. «If that drunk is still holed up in Doc’s place — I collect. Wait for me, huh?»
«Maybe, at home. If you ain’t gone too long.»
«Where’s home, baby?»
The girl stared at him. A half-smile moved along her full lips, died at the corners of them. The breeze picked a sheet of newspaper out of the gutter and tossed it against the man’s leg. He kicked at it savagely.
«Calliope Apartments. Four-B, Two-Forty-Six East Forty-Eight. How soon you be there?»
The man stepped very close to her, reached back and tapped his hip. His voice was low, chilling.
«You wait for me, baby.»
She caught her breath, nodded. «Okey, handsome. I’ll wait.»
The man went back along the cracked sidewalk, across the intersection, along to where the stencil sign hung out over the street. He went through a glass door into a narrow lobby with a row of brown wooden chairs pushed against the plaster wall. There was just space to walk past them to the desk. A bald-headed colored man lounged behind the desk, fingering a large green pin in his tie.
The Negro in the purple suit leaned across the counter and his teeth flashed in a quick, hard smile. He was very young, with a thin, sharp jaw, a narrow bony forehead, the flat brilliant eyes of the gangster. He said softly: «That pug with the husky voice still here? The guy that banked the crap game last night.»
The bald-headed clerk looked at the flies on the ceiling fixture. «Didn’t see him go out, Smiler.»
«Ain’t what I asked you, Doe.»
«Yeah. He still here.»
«Still drunk?»
«Guess so. Hasn’t been out.»
«Three-forty-nine, ain’t it?»
«You been there, ain’t you? What you wanta know for?»
«He cleaned me down to my lucky piece. I gotta make a touch.»
The bald-headed man looked nervous. The Smiler stared softly at the green stone in the man’s tie pin.
«Get rolling, Smiler. Nobody gets bent around here. We ain’t no Central Avenue flop.»
The Smiler said very softly: «He’s my pal, Doe. He’ll lend me twenty. You touch half.»
He put his hand out palm up. The clerk stared at the hand for a long moment. Then he nodded sourly, went behind a ground-glass screen, came back slowly, looking toward the street door.
His hand went out and hovered over the palm. The palm closed over a passkey, dropped inside the cheap purple suit.
The sudden flashing grin on the Smiler’s face had an icy edge to it.
«Careful, Doe — while I’m up above.»
The clerk said: «Step on it. Some of the customers get home early.» He glanced at the green electric clock on the wall. It was seven-fifteen. «And the walls ain’t any too thick,» he added.
The thin youth gave him another flashing grin, nodded, went delicately back along the lobby to the shadowy staircase. There was no elevator in the Surprise Hotel.
At one minute past seven Pete Anglich, narcotic squad under-cover man, rolled over on the hard bed and looked at the cheap strap watch on his left wrist. There were heavy shadows under his eyes, a thick dark stubble on his broad chin. He swung his bare feet to the floor and stood up in cheap cotton pajamas, flexed his muscles, stretched, bent over stiff-kneed and touched the floor in front of his toes with a grunt.
He walked across to a chipped bureau, drank from a quart bottle of cheap rye whiskey, grimaced, pushed the cork into the neck of the bottle, and rammed it down hard with the heel of his hand.
«Boy, have I got a hangover,» he grumbled huskily.
He stared at his face in the bureau mirror, at the stubble on his chin, the thick white scar on his throat close to the windpipe. His voice was husky because the bullet that had made the scar had done something to his vocal chords. It was a smooth huskiness, like the voice of a blues singer.
He stripped his pajamas off and stood naked in the middle of the room, his toes fumbling the rough edge of a big rip in the carpet. His body was very broad, and that made him look a little shorter than he was. His shoulders sloped, his nose was a little thick, the skin over his cheekbones looked like leather. He had short, curly, black hair, utterly steady eyes, the small set mouth of a quick thinker.
He went into a dim, dirty bathroom, stepped into the tub and turned the shower on. The water was warmish, but not hot. He stood under it and soaped himself, rubbed his whole body over, kneaded his muscles, rinsed off.
He jerked a dirty towel off the rack and started to rub a glow into his skin.
A faint noise behind the loosely closed bathroom door stopped him. He held his breath, listened, heard the noise again, a creak of boarding, a click, a rustle of cloth. Pete Anglich reached for the door and pulled it open slowly.
The Negro in the purple suit and Panama hat stood beside the bureau, with Pete Anglich’s coat in his hand. On the bureau in front of him were two guns. One of them was Pete Anglich’s old worn Colt. The room door was shut and a key with a tag lay on the carpet near it, as though it had fallen out of the door, or been pushed out from the other side.
The Smiler let the coat fall to the floor and held a wallet in his left hand. His right hand lifted the Colt. He grinned.
«Okey, white boy. Just go on dryin’ yourself off after your shower,» he said.
Pete Anglich toweled himself. He rubbed himself dry, stood naked with the wet towel in his left hand.
The Smiler had the billfold empty on the bureau, was counting the money with his left hand. His right still clutched the Colt.
«Eighty-seven bucks. Nice money. Some of it’s mine from the crap game, but I’m lifting it all, pal. Take it easy. I’m friends with the management here.»
«Gimme a break, Smiler,» Pete Anglich said hoarsely. «That’s every dollar I got in the world. Leave a few bucks, huh?» He made his voice thick, coarse, heavy as though with liquor.