Engel said, “One of us is crazy,” and that earned him the closed fist. He moved his head enough to catch it on the cheekbone instead of the nose.
Fox said, “Nick, please don’t mark him. We still got to transport him.”
Nick Rovito stepped back again, massaging his knuckles. “You’re right. I shouldn’t lose my temper with him.”
Engel said, “Just tell me what you think I did. I deserve that much.”
“Why waste your time, you punk? You don’t convince me, so drop it”
“All I ask is tell me in words what I did.”
Nick Rovito shook his head. “You just keep trying,” he said. “That’s one of the things I always liked about you, how you just kept trying. You want me to say it in words? Even though that guy Whatsisname, Rose, that guy Rose was here, you still think there’s a chance I mean something else, something you can weasel out of. All right, punk, you want it in words, I’ll say it in words.”
Engel waited, listening harder than he’d ever listened before in his life.
“You used my name,” Nick Rovito said. “You used your connection with me. You went to businessmen, legitimate businessmen like this guy Rose, and you held them up. ‘I’m Al Engel,’ you said. ‘I work with Nick Rovito, and you know who he is. You pay up to me, or I see to it you start getting trouble. Union trouble. Racket trouble. Cop trouble. All sorts trouble.’ That’s what you told them, you rotten greedy bastard. You worked your own racket inside the organisation.”
Engel shook his head. “I never,” he said. He knew how serious a thing that was, to use the threat of the organization for personal advantage. There was nothing you could do more serious than that except try to overthrow Nick Rovito himself. An organization can’t survive if the members are all trying to be boss, and it can’t survive if the members are all out for themselves all the time. So what he was being charged with was enough to make the sweat break out on his forehead and his hands start trembling at his sides.
Nick Rovito said, “I didn’t bring you here to listen to you lie.”
Engel said, “I wouldn’t do such a thing, Ni — I wouldn’t. I never saw that guy Rose before in my life.”
Nick Rovito shook his head. “Then why would he say it? Why would he accuse you? Why would he identify you? If you never saw him before, if he doesn’t know you, why should he take the chance?”
“I don’t know. All I know is I never been less than a hundred per cent with you, and you’ll know that some day.”
Fox laughed, and Gittel motioned like he was playing a violin.
Engel said, “I’m loyal to the end. Callaghan’s watching me, he’ll want to know where I am. He’ll make things hot.”
Nick Rovito grinned and shook his head. “Not if you’re a killer. Cops don’t waste time at all trying to find out who bumped off a killer. And as of tonight you’re a killer.”
“I am?”
“You went out with a gun tonight, and you killed a punk name of Willy Menchik. Over in Jersey, as he came out of the Bowlorama. You shot him, and then you dropped the gun when you ran away. The cops have it by now, and they’ll find your fingerprints all over it.”
More and more Engel was convinced he was dreaming. “My prints?”
“You might call me a string saver,” Nick Rovito said. “I never throw anything away. Like the gun you used on Conelly?”
“You kept it?”
“A nice set of prints, kept fresh in cold storage. By morning Callaghan will be looking for you with a warrant on murder one. By tomorrow night hell find you, rubbed out. No witnesses, no questions, no evidence. No need to waste time and money on a trial for you. Hell wash his hands and go think about something else.”
It was true. Engel shook his head, trying to rid himself of the notion, trying to make the last half-hour go away and not have happened, but it did no good.
Nick Rovito gave him a mock salute. “Good-bye, you punk,” he said. “Good-bye, you second-rate cheap bastard.”
“Nick—”
“Take him out of here.”
Gittel and Fox closed in, getting him by the arms just above the elbow, squeezing hard, in a grip he’d used himself more times than he could count. They took him out of the black room and through the office with its blinking fool and through the main meeting room and out to the street and across to the car.
The hubcaps were all gone. So was the radio antenna. So was the glass from the taillights. The glove compartment had been rifled and the rear seat had been slashed with a knife.
Gittel looked this way and that along the quiet street. “Those kids,” he said. “They got no respect for nothing.” To Engel he said, “You drive again.”
Fox said, “Are you crazy?”
“Engel won’t try nothing. Will you, Engel?”
Engel would, but he said, “Not me. I know you guys.”
“That’s right,” said Gittel. “He’ll play on our sympathy, and on friendship, and he’ll try to buy us off, but he won’t pull anything cute, will you, Engel?”
“You know me, I guess,” said Engel.
Fox said, “I am doubtful. I just want you to know that.”
They all got into the car again, Engel behind the wheel and the other two in back. Fox let Engel know he had his gun out and ready for anything, and Gittel again told Fox there was nothing to worry about. Engel asked where to now and Gittel said, “Triborough Bridge. Up to a Hundred Twenny-fifth Street.”
“Right.”
Engel bided his time. He concentrated a lot of his attention on the car, shifting constantly back and forth, pushing the car uptown practically by physical strength. He also, in order to keep Gittel and Fox unsuspicious, talked away to the two in the back seat, using the exact techniques Gittel had prescribed for him, alluding to their past friendship, trying for their sympathy, subtly leaving himself open to suggestion on bribes. But he didn’t expect any of this to do him any immediate good. What he had to do, somewhere along the line, was purely and simply get away from these two.
The tollbooths for the Triborough Bridge were right up in the middle of the bridge. Engel contemplated simply getting out of the car there and walking away, doubting that Gittel and Fox would dare shoot him next to the tollbooths, but the problem was there was nowhere to run away to. If the toll-booths had been down at ground level he might have tried it, but not this way, stuck on the bridge on foot.
After the bridge they directed him onto the Grand Central Parkway, which curved around through Queens. “Take it to the Long Island Expressway,” Gittel told him, “then take the Expressway east.” Which meant out on the Island, out away from New York.
Grand Central Parkway was landscaped on both sides, with a central mall. Now, a little after one o’clock in the morning, there wasn’t much traffic moving in either direction.
Engel waited, biding his time. He stayed in the farthest left lane of the three, driving at about forty miles an hour. He waited, driving along, talking to the two guys in the back seat, and finally the conditions were just right. There was no traffic near him in any lane. The road was straight. There were no overpasses immediately ahead.
He put the gear shift in neutral, opened the door, and rolled out onto the mall. As he left, he heard somebody say, “Hey!”
It was quite a sensation, hitting turf at forty miles an hour. Engel had rolled himself into a ball as he was leaving the car, and now he just went tumbling forward, end over end, until he gradually lost momentum and opened out flat on his back in the middle of the greenery.
He sat up, with difficulty, finding himself dizzy and a little nauseous. Ahead of him and still pulling away, down now to about twenty miles an hour but far from stopped, the black Chevy was still moving along. It had drifted over to the center lane, but was still going pretty straight. Kenny would see to things like wheel balancing and front-end alignment.