really look like the class of person that belonged in this neighborhood. He had a shock of black hair that stood up around his head in a wiry bush. On his right cheek was deep red scar, cut roughly like a Z. It was so dark that it looked as though someone had painted him with lipstick.
“What kept you two so long? Earl’s getting angry,” he demanded, ushering us into a wide hallway. Plush brown carpet on the floor, a nice little Louis Quinze side table, and a few pictures on the walls. Charming.
“Earl warned us this goddamn Warshawski bitch was a wise-ass, but he didn’t say she was a goddamn karate expert.” That was Ribs. He pronounced my name “Worchotsi.” I looked down at my hands modestly.
“Is that Joe and Freddie?” a nasal tenor squeaked from inside. “What the hell took you guys so long?” Its owner appeared in the doorway. Short, pudgy, and bald, he was familiar to me from my early days in Chicago law enforcement.
“Earl Smeissen. How absolutely delightful. But you know, Earl, if you’d called me up and asked to see me, we could have gotten together with a lot less trouble.”
“Yeah, Warchoski, I just bet we would’ve,” he said heavily. Earl had carved himself a nice little niche on the North Side with classy prostitution setups for visiting conventioneers, and a little blackmail and extortion. He had a small piece of the drug business, and the rumor was that he would arrange a killing to oblige a friend if the price was right.
“Earl, this is quite a place you’ve got. Inflation must not be hurting business too much.”
He ignored me. “Where the hell’s your jacket, Joe? You been walking around Chicago showing your gun to every cop on the beat?”
Joe turned red again and started to mutter something, I intervened. “I’m afraid that’s my fault, Earl. Your friends here jumped me in my own hallway without introducing themselves or saying they had come from you. We had a bit of a fracas, and Freddie’s ribs got separated-but he pulled himself together nicely and knocked me out. When I came to, I was sick on Joe’s jacket. So don’t blame the poor fellow for ditching it.”
Earl turned outraged to Freddie, who shrank back down the hall. “You let a goddamn dame bust your ribs?” he yelled, his voice breaking to a squeak. “The money I pay you and you can’t do a simple little job like fetch a goddamn broad?”
One of the things I hate about my work is the cheap swearing indulged in by cheap crooks. I also hate the word
Earl gave Freddie a vicious look and sent him off to see a doctor. He motioned the rest of us into the living room, and noticed Joe limping. “You need a doctor, too? She beak your leg?” he asked sarcastically.
“Kidneys,” I replied modestly. “It all comes from knowing how.”
“Yeah, I know about you, Warchoski. I know what a wiseass you are, and I heard how you offed Joe Correl. If Freddie knocked you out, I’ll give him a medal. I want you to understand you can’t mess around with me.”
I sank down into a wide armchair. My head was throbbing and it hurt to focus on him. “I’m not messing around with you. Earl,” I said earnestly. “I’m not interested in prostitution or juice loans or-”
He hit me across the mouth. “Shut up.” His voice rose to a squeak and his eyes got smaller in his pudgy face. In a detached way I felt some blood dribbling down my chin-he must have caught me with his ring.
“Is this a general warning, then? Are you hauling in all the private eyes in Chicago and saying ‘Now here this- don’t mess around with Earl Smeissen!’?”
He swung at me again, but I blocked him with my left arm. He looked at his hand in surprise, as if he wondered what had happened to it.
“Don’t clown with me, Warchoski-I can call in plenty of people to wipe that smirk off your face.”
“I don’t think it would take very many,” I said, “but I still don’t have any idea what part of your turf I’m messing in.”
Earl signaled to the doorman, who came and held my shoulders against the chair. Joe was hovering in the background, a lascivious look on his face. My stomach turned slightly.
“Okay, Earl, I’m terrified,” I said.
He hit me again. I was going to look like absolute hell tomorrow, I thought. I hoped I wasn’t shaking; my stomach was knotted with nervousness. I took several deep diaphragm breaths to try to relieve the tension.
The last slap seemed to satisfy Earl. He sat down on a dark couch close to my chair.
“Warchoski,” he squeaked, “I called you down here to tell you to lay off the Thayer case.”
“You kill the boy, Earl?” I asked.
He was on his feet again. “I can mark you good, so good that no one will ever want to look at your face again,” he shouted. “Now just do what I say and keep your mitts outta that.”
I decided not to argue with him-I didn’t feel in any shape to take on both him and the doorman, who continued to hold my shoulders back. I wondered if his scar had turned redder with all the excitement but voted against asking him.
“Suppose you do scare me off? What about the police?” I objected. “Bobby Mallory’s hot on the trail, and whatever his faults, you can’t buy Bobby.”
“I’m not worried about Mallory,” Earl’s voice was back in its normal register, so I concluded the brainstorm was passing. “And I’m not buying you-I’m telling you.”
“Who got you involved, Earl? College kids aren’t part of your turf-unless young Thayer was cutting into your dope territory?”
“I thought I’d just told you not to pry into my affairs,” he said, getting up again. Earl was determined to pound me. Maybe it would be better to get it over with quickly and get out, rather than let him go on for hours. As he came at me, I pulled my foot back and kicked him squarely in the crotch. He howled in anguish and collapsed in a heap on the couch. “Get her, Tony, get her,” he squealed.
I didn’t have a chance against Tony, the doorman. He was trained in the art of working over loan defaulters without showing a mark. When he finished. Earl came hobbling over from the couch. “This is just a taste, Warchoski,” he hissed. “You lay off the Thayer case. Agreed?”
I looked at him without speaking. He really could kill me and get away with it-he’d done it to others. He had good connections with City Hall and probably in the police department, too. I shrugged and winced. He seemed to accept that as agreement. “Get her out, Tony.”
Tony dumped me unceremoniously outside the front door. I sat for a few minutes on the stairs, shivering in the heat and trying to pull myself together. I was violently ill over the railing, which cleared my headache a bit. A woman walking by with a man said, “Disgusting so early in the evening. The police should keep people like that out of this neighborhood.” I agreed. I got to my feet, rather wobbly, but I could walk. I felt my arms. They were sore, but nothing was broken. I staggered over to the inner drive, parallel to Lake Shore Drive and only a block away, and hailed a taxi home. The first one pulled off after a look at me, but the second one took me. The driver clucked and fussed like a Jewish mother, wanting to know what I’d done to myself and offering to take me to a hospital or the police or both. I thanked him for his concern but assured him I was all right.
6
In the Cool of the Night
I’d dropped my purse by my door when Freddie and I were scuffling, and asked the cabdriver to come upstairs with me to get paid off. Living at the top of the building, I was pretty confident that my bag would still be there. It was, and my keys were still in the door.
The driver tried one last protest. “Thanks,” I said, “but I just need a hot bath and a drink and I’ll be all right.”
“Okay, lady.” He shrugged. “It’s your funeral.” He took his money, looked at me one last time, and went downstairs.
My apartment lacked the splendor of Earl’s. My little hallway had a small rug, not wall-to-wall carpeting, and an umbrella stand rather than a Louis Quinze table. But it also wasn’t filled with thugs.
