And about the door, front or back. Anybody comes you don’t open till I give you the nod. Got all that?”
Malone said they did. Ellen said nothing.
“Okay. Soon as we tear your bedroom apart I’ll let the two of you go up there, I’m sick of looking at you. But you stay there and no tricks. Remember about that phone.”
“There’s no phone in their bedroom,” Goldie said.
“Anywhere.”
“My child,” Ellen said. “Is it all right if we take my child in with us?” She added quickly, “In case she wakes up, Mr. Furia. I don’t want her to be any trouble to you.”
“After we search your room, okay.” Her humility seemed to gentle him. Or maybe he’s turned on. Can he be high on junk or LSD? No, not him. He’s got to have control.
“She can remind you the spot you’re in, missus.”
Malone saw suddenly that Furia’s bag was fear.
“Thank you,” Ellen said humbly.
Furia had done a job on their room all right. While Hinch held the Walther on them downstairs. Every once in a while making a face at Ellen. He seemed to enjoy watching her shrivel and blanch. Malone could see Hinch’s lips, red and wet as fresh blood, and occasionally the gray tip of his tongue. Those lips on Ellen. The picture made him pull his legs up as if he had been kicked in the groin.
Everything in their bureau drawers had been tossed every which way. The clothes in their closet had been ripped apart garment by garment. The bedroom rug, a handhooked American Colonial that Ellen had wheedled out of her mother, had been slashed in three places-how could it have hidden anything?-and kicked aside. A loose board of the old chestnut floor Ellen kept in a perpetual gleam had been hacked with Malone’s handax from the cellar and pried up; they could see in the cavity before Malone replaced it a fossilized rat’s nest that had probably been there for generations. Their imitation maple double bed had been taken apart and two of the slats broken, sleep-on-that- damn-you they seemed to say in Furia’s alto, Malone had had to put the bed together again before they could transfer Bibby from her room. The child’s head was lying on his hunting jacket. Furia’s switchblade had disemboweled their two pillows, goose feathers lay all over the room.
They sat on the floor at the foot of the bed in the wreckage listening to Barbara’s heavy breathing. She had waked from her alcoholic sleep when Malone picked her up and begun to cry, complaining that her head hurt, and Ellen had had to get the boss man’s permission to go for an aspirin in the upstairs bathroom. She finally got Bibby back to sleep. Malone was holding an icebag to his swollen jaw, and with the bandage on his bloody head that Ellen had applied he looked like a refugee from a defeated army.
Ellen said with a shiver, “Hold me, Loney.”
He held her.
“I’m scared.”
“We’re still alive,” Malone said.
The Irish in her stirred, and she showed the faintest dimple. “You call this living?”
He lowered the icebag to kiss her. “That’s my girl.”
“Loney, are we going to get out of this?”
“I think we’re all right for the time being.”
“And how long is that?”
He was silent.
“Couldn’t you make a rope out of the bedclothes and climb out the window while they’re tearing up the house?” She’s back at the movies again. “You could make a call to Chief Secco from the Cunninghams’ or the Rochelles’… “
“How long do you think you and Bibby would last if they found me gone? You’ve got to face it, Ellen. We’re in this alone.”
She was silent.
I’m in this alone.
A glass crashed downstairs and they heard Hinch laughing. He’s found the bottle of scotch Don James gave me for finally catching that white kid who kept heaving trashcans through their front windows. He tried not to think of Hinch drunk and tightened his grip on Ellen.
After a while Malone said, “Our best chance is if we can get the money back or at least figure out who took it. I could maybe make a deal with Furia, the money for him letting us go.”
“I thought you thought Furia stole it.”
“I thought he did. Now I’m not sure. A punk like him could put on an act, I suppose, but I think I’d see through it, I can usually tell when they’re lying. He sounded pretty convincing to me.”
“But if it wasn’t Furia who could it have been? Maybe it was Hinch after all, Loney. He could have been like in a crouch-”
“Can’t you remember anything else about the man who hit you?”
She set her head back against the patchwork quilt. “I told you all I saw.”
“Sometimes things can come back. We’ve got to try, baby. Ellen?”
“Yes?”
“I know you’re fagged out, but don’t go to sleep on me now. Think! His suit. What color was it?”
Ellen’s head rolled a negative.
“Was it a suit? Or could it have been a sports outfit? Did the pants and jacket match?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”
“Or maybe a leather jacket?”
She shook her head again.
“Could he have been wearing a topcoat?”
“I just didn’t see, Loney.”
“A hat?”
“No,” Ellen said this time. “No hat, or I’d remember. The stocking was drawn over his whole head.”
“You can see
“Just a mashed nose.”
“Mashed? Like Hinch’s?”
“A stocking would mash… anybody’s… nose… “
“Ellen, you’re falling asleep again.” He shook her, and she opened her eyes.
“
“Hair? Ears? Tie? Hands? Feet?”
She kept shaking her head. But then her eyes got big and she pushed away from the bed. “His feet, Loney! He was wearing galoshes. Or overshoes.”
“Overshoes.” Malone stared at her. “Today? It’s been dry all day, not a cloud in the sky. You sure, Ellen?”
She nodded.
“That’s a hot one. Overshoes… What’s the matter?”
“I just remembered something else.”
“What?”
“His hands. He was wearing gloves. I saw the hand coming down after I was hit. I didn’t see flesh. It was a man’s glove. Black leather.”
“Gloves,” Malone muttered. “That could figure. If he kept his face covered he might also be careful not to leave his fingerprints around… if he was, say, a housebreaker.”
“In New Bradford?” Ellen actually smiled. “You’re making like a detective again, Officer. Why would a sneakthief in this town worry about fingerprints?”
“I admit it’s a lot likelier one of them, the way we’ve been figuring. But why gloves? All three of them came here tonight barehanded… “
Malone looked surprised at the destination of his train of thought. He set the icebag on the floor carefully and
