boss, for the love of God.
Dinner was veal chops. Veal chops and mashed potatoes and green peas. She served them all and they sat down to eat. Dinner for the boss. A strange tableau. She described the two apartments to Joe, told him about both places. “I think I liked the one in Gramercy a little better,” she said. “It’s smaller but there’s only the two of us. And it’s a nice place.”
“Sounds good,” Joe said.
“The Bank Street place is nice, too. But I’m a little sick of the Village. And I didn’t like the building there as much. The rent is higher and you don’t get as much for your money.”
“Whatever you want,” he said. “It’s up to you. Just so we get a nice pad.”
The veal chops were good, the potatoes smooth, the peas young and sweet. They finished and she carried the plates to the sink and ran water on them.
The water was still running when the door was kicked open.
The man who kicked it open was Detective First Grade Peter J. Samuelson, Narcotics Bureau.
He had a gun in his hand.
Chapter 10
The detective said: “You never learn. You have to push your luck. You have to lean until you fall. Now you fall.”
The running water in the sink was very loud. Anita took tentative steps toward Joe, but an unmistakable motion from Samuelson halted her.
“A long fall,” the detective said. “A long, long fall. Possession with intent. Rather obvious intent. You had a chance last time and you blew it, you damned fool.”
What happened next occurred in slow motion. Shank unwound like a cobra. He stood up and grabbed Anita in one fluid movement. Then Anita was being propelled swiftly at Detective Samuelson. His gun was pointed between her breasts but he did not fire it.
And Shank moved behind her. He moved with the grace of a dancer. His legs thrust him forward while his hand dipped in his pocket and brought out his knife.
The knife danced in his hand and the blade leaped out, alert.
Anita’s softness bounced into the detective. She fell away, limp, and Shank’s knife bit, cobralike, into the man with the gun. Slow motion. The knife sneaking between ribs, ripping upward. The gun, still unfired, dropping from limp fingers and clattering inanely on the bare floor.
The detective’s hard body losing its hardness. A hand clutching at the hole the knife had made, the man trying to hold life in place. The knife withdrawn, and flowers of ruby blood blossoming from a hole in a chest.
A body falling slowly, crumpling, folding to the floor.
A suppressed scream from Anita, a gasp from Joe.
Then quietude, except for the running water slap-ping at the dirty dishes in the sink.
A tragicomedy in one act, a quick act. A gun on the floor, unfired. The knife dripping the detective’s blood.
The detective on the floor.
Dead.
The water in the sink was still running.
Anita spoke first. Her voice was a loud whisper. “You killed him. Oh, God, God in heaven, you killed him. He’s dead and you killed him.”
“I had to.”
“Had to? A year and a day for possession of pot. That’s what you would have gotten. Now you’ll get the electric chair. Murder. Murder in the first degree. The electric chair. Holy mother of God!”
Shank’s brain was swimming. This was what it felt like, he thought. This is how killing felt. A strange feeling of power combined with the damnedest emptiness. A funny sort of a feeling.
“A year and a day. That’s what they would have given you. Possession of pot.”
Shank grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Possession of pot,” he snapped. “You think that’s what it is, huh? You think that’s the whole ball game. You know all the answers, don’t you? You think you know just what your man sells, baby. You’re all mixed up. All wrong.”
Then he opened the dresser drawer, took out the little box. He opened it and showed her the capsules of heroin and smiled when she drew in her breath sharply.
“God!”
“A year and a day,” Shank said savagely. “Try ten years. Try fifteen or twenty. And not just for me. For me and for your man, Joe. For both of us with a little bit thrown in for you just for being here. How would you like to do a few years?”
“Murder,” she said, numb. “Heroin. God in heaven.”
Joe sat and stared. He, too, was numb, unable to think straight. It had happened so quickly while he simply sat and watched. The detective, the gun, the knife. Death, so quick. He felt left out now. But he stood up. He walked to Anita, put an arm around her. He looked at Shank.
“What do we do now?”
“We move,” Shank said. “We get out of town. What else can we do?”
“We have to run?”
Shank shook his head impatiently. “The cop let the world know where he was. If he doesn’t call in within an hour they’ll come looking for him. Even if we ditch the body it won’t do us any good. They’ll shake us down until they break us. They’ll nail us to fourteen different crosses. They’ll hang us, put us in the chair, whatever they do. We’ll die.”
“You’ll die,” Anita told him, “You killed him. We didn’t do it.”
“Read another law book. You’re guilty, too, sweetheart. Possession with intent to sell is a felony. We all possessed with intent. And if somebody kills in the commission of a felony, it’s murder one. The detective was killed and we were all here. We all get the chair.”
“But—” Joe began.
“So we run,” Shank said. “We got two hours to get out of town. Breeze to Grand Central and take the first train out. Get out far and fast. They won’t know where to look. We leave the state and keep going and they call it unsolved. We leave New York and we stay living. Otherwise we die. I don’t want to die.”
“You can go,” she said. “Joe and I don’t have to go. They’re not after us. They’re after you. We didn’t do anything and we don’t have to run with you.”
“They’ll catch you,” Shank said. “They’ll pick you up and they’ll squeeze you. They’ll ask you where I went.”
“Don’t tell us. Then we won’t be able to tell them anything because we won’t know.”
“They’ll call you accessories,” Shank said. “They’ll put you in jail.”
“No—”
“You got no choice. We hang together or we hang separately. You’ve got to come with me.”
Joe was nodding. “He’s right,” he said. “But not all the way. I’ve got to go with him, Anita.”
“No you don’t. No—”
“I’ve got to,” Joe said again. “But you don’t. They don’t know anything about you. You can disappear. Go back to Harlem. Forget about us. We’ll run and we’ll get away but you can go on living. The fuzz doesn’t know who you are. You can forget us and live your own life.”
Shank nodded. “I’ll buy it,” he said. “She could get away. But Joe and I have to run.”
Anita hesitated only for a moment. She knew she was making the wrong decision but she knew also it was the only decision she could possibly make. She was committed. She shared their guilt in her own small way. And she and Joe were thrust together. She could not walk away from him. Not now, not ever.
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“You don’t have to.”
