“Lay off. We want to know about Vetter.”
The long eyebrows settled down low. He looked at me, then Helen, then back at me again. “You’re making big sounds, boy.”
I didn’t want anyone else in on it. I leaned forward and said, “He’s in town, Bucky. He’s after Renzo.”
He let out a long whistle. “Who else knows about it?”
“Gerot. Renzo. Us.”
“There’s going to be trouble, sure.”
Helen said, “Only for Renzo,”
Bucky’s head made a slow negative. “You don’t know. The rackets boys’ll flip their lids at this. If Vetter moves in here there’s going to be some mighty big trouble.”
My face started working under the bandages. “Renzo’s top dog, isn’t he?”
Bucky’s tongue made a swipe at his lips. “One of ‘em. There’s a few more. They’re not going to like Renzo pulling in trouble like Vetter.” For the first time Bucky seemed to really look at us hard. “Vetter is poison. He’ll cut into everything and they’ll pay off. Sure as shooting, if he sticks around they’ll be piling the cabbage in his lap.”
“Then everybody’ll be after Vetter,” I said.
Bucky’s face furrowed in a frown. “Uh-uh. I wasn’t thinking that.” He polished off his drink and set the empty on the bar. “If Vetter’s here after Renzo they’ll do better nailing Renzo’s hide to the wall. Maybe they can stop it before it starts.”
It was trouble, all right. The kind I wasn’t feeling too bad about.
Bucky stared into his empty glass and said, “They’ll bury Renzo or he’ll come out of it bigger than ever.”
The bartender came down and filled his glass again. I shook my head when he wanted to know what we’d have. “Good story,” Bucky said, “if it happens.” Then he threw the drink down and Bucky was all finished. His eyes got frosty and he sat there grinning at himself in the mirror with his mind saying things to itself. I knew him too well to say anything else so I nudged Helen and we walked out.
Some days go fast and this was one of them. She was nice to be with and nice to talk to. I wasn’t important enough to hide anything from so for one day she opened her life up and fed me pieces of it. She seemed to grow younger as the day wore on and when we reached her apartment the sun was gilding her hair with golden reddish streaks and I was gone, all gone. For one day I was king and there wasn’t any trouble. The laughter poured out of us and people stopped to look and laugh back. It was a day to remember when all the days are done with and you’re on your last.
I was tired, dead tired. I didn’t try to refuse when she told me to come up and I didn’t want to. She let me open the door for her and I followed her inside. She had almost started for the kitchen to cook up the bacon and eggs we had talked about when she stopped by the arch leading to the living room.
The voice from the chair said, “Come on in, sugar pie. You too, kid.”
And there was Johnny, a nasty smile on his mouth, leering at us.
“How did you get in here?”
He laughed at her. “I do tricks with locks, remember?” His head moved with a short jerk. “Get in here!” There was a flat, nasal tone in his voice.
I moved in beside Helen. My hands kept opening and closing at my side and my breath was coming a little fast in my throat.
“You like kids now, Helen?”
“Shut up, you louse,” she said. His lips peeled back showing his teeth. “The mother type. Old fashioned type, you know.” He leered again like it was funny. My chest started to hurt from the breathing. “Too big for a bottle, so…”
I grabbed the lamp and let it fly and if the cord hadn’t caught in the wall it would have taken his head off. I was all set to go into him but all he had to do to stop me was bring his hand up. The rod was one of those Banker’s Specials that were deadly as hell at close range and Johnny looked too much like he wanted to use it for me to move.
He said, “The boss don’t like your little arrangement, Helen. It didn’t take him long to catch on. Come over here, kid.”
I took a half step.
“Closer.”
“Now listen carefully, kid. You go home, see. Go home and do what you feel like doing, but stay home and away from this place. You do that and you’ll pick up a few bucks from Mr. Renzo. Now after you had it so nice here, you might not want to go home, so just in case you don’t, I’m going to show you what’s going to happen to you.”
I heard Helen’s breath suck in with a harsh gasp and my own sounded the same way. You could see what Johnny was setting himself to do and he was letting me know all about it and there wasn’t a thing I could do. The gun was pointing right at my belly even while he jammed his elbows into the arms of the chair to get the leverage for the kick that was going to maim me the rest of my life. His shoe was hard and pointed, a deadly weight that swung like a gentle pendulum.
I saw it coming and thought there might be a chance even yet but I didn’t have to take it. From the side of the room Helen said, “Don’t move, Johnny. I’ve got a gun in my hand.”
And she had.
The ugly grimace on Johnny’s face turned into a snarl when he knew how stupid he’d been in taking his eyes off her to enjoy what he was doing to me.
“Make him drop it, Helen.”
“You heard the kid, Johnny.”
Johnny dropped the gun. It lay there on the floor and I hooked it with my toe. I picked it up, punched the shells out of the chambers and tossed them under the sofa. The gun followed them.
“Come here, Helen,” I said.
I felt her come up behind me and reached around for the .25 automatic in her hand. For a second Johnny’s face turned pale and when it did I grinned at him.
Then I threw the .25 under the sofa too.
They look funny when you do things like that. Their little brains don’t get it right away and it stuns them or something. I let him get right in the middle of that surprised look before I slammed my fist into his face and felt his teeth rip loose under my knuckles.
Helen went down on her knees for the gun and I yelled for her to let it alone, then Johnny was on me. At least he thought he was on me. I had his arm over my shoulder, laid him into a hip roll and tumbled him easy. I didn’t want too much noise.
I walked up. I took my time. He started to get up and I chopped down on his neck and watched his head bob. I got him twice more in the same place and Johnny simply fell back. His eyes were seeing, his brain thinking and feeling but he couldn’t move. While he lay there, I chopped twice again and Johnny’s face became blotched and swollen while his eyes screamed in agony.
I put him in a cab downstairs. I told the driver he was drunk and fell and gave him a ten spot from Johnny’s own wallet with instructions to take him out to the Hideaway and deliver same to Mr. Renzo. The driver was very sympathetic and took him away.
Then I went back for Helen. She was sitting on the couch waiting for me, the strangeness back in her eyes. She said, “When he finished with you, he would have started on me.”
“I know.”
“Joe, you did pretty good for a kid.”
“I was brought up tough.”
“I’ve seen Johnny take some pretty big guys. He’s awfully strong.”
“You know what I do for a living, Helen? I push a junk car, loaded with iron. There’s competition and pretty soon you learn things. Those iron loaders are strong gees too. If they can tumble you, they lift your pay.”
“You had a gun, Joe,” she reminded me.
And her eyes mellowed into a strange softness that sent chills right through me. They were eyes that called me closer and I couldn’t say no to them. I stood there looking at her, wondering what she saw under the bandages.
