“He said for you to take a good look…at me. I’m an example. A little one. He says to do what he told you.”
“He knows what he can do.”
“Joe…for me. Lay off, huh? I don’t feel so good. Now I can’t work for a while.”
I patted his arm, fished a hundred buck bill out of my pocket and squeezed it into his hand. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him.
He looked at the bill unbelievingly, then at me.
“Dough can’t pay for…this, Joe. Kind of…stay away from me…for awhile anyway, okay?” He smiled again, lamely this time. “Thanks for the C anyway. We been pretty good buddies, huh?”
“Sure, Nick.”
“Later we’ll be again. Lemme knock off now. You take it easy.” His hands came up to his face and covered it. I could hear the sobs starting again and cursed the whole damn system up and down and Renzo in particular. I swore at the filth men like to wade in and the things they do to other men. When I was done I got up off the bed and walked to the door.
Behind me Nick said, “Joey…”
“Right here.”
“Something’s crazy in this town. Stories are going around…there’s gonna be a lot of trouble. Everybody is after…you. You’ll…be careful?”
“Sure.” I opened the door, shut it softly and went back to my room. I stripped off my clothes and lay down in the bed, my mind turning over fast until I had it straightened out, then I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
My landlady waited until a quarter to twelve before she gave it the business on my door. She didn’t do it like she usually did it. No jarring smashes against the panels, just a light tapping that grew louder until I said, “Yeah?”
“Mrs. Stacey, Joe. You think you should get up? A man is downstairs to see you.”
“What kind of a man?”
This time the knob twisted slowly and the door opened a crack. Her voice was a harsh whisper that sounded nervous. “He’s got on old clothes and a city water truck is parked outside. He didn’t come to look at my water.”
I grinned at that one. “I’ll be right down,” I said. I splashed water over my face, shaved it close and worked the adhesive off the bridge of my nose. It was swollen on one side, the blue running down to my mouth. One eye was smudged with purple.
Before I pulled on my jacket I stuffed the wad of dough into the lining through the tear in the sleeve, then took a look in Nick’s room. There were traces of blood on his pillow and the place was pretty upset, but Nick had managed to get out somehow for a day’s work.
The guy in the chair sitting by the window was short and wiry looking. There was dirt under his fingernails and a stubble on his chin. He had a couple of small wrenches in a leather holster on his belt that bulged his coat out but the stuff was pure camouflage. There was a gun further back and saw the same thing Mrs. Stacey saw. The guy was pure copper with badges for eyes.
He looked at me, nodded and said, “Joe Boyle?”
“Suppose I said no?” I sat down opposite him with a grin that said I knew all about it and though knew he got it nothing registered at all.
“Captain Gerot tells me you’ll cooperate. That true?”
There was a laugh his eyes, an attitude of being deliberately polite when he didn’t have to be. “Why?” I asked him. “Everybody seems to think I’m pretty hot stuff all of a sudden.”
“You are, junior, you are. You’re the only guy who can put his finger on a million dollar baby that we want bad. So you’ll cooperate.”
“Like a good citizen?” I made it sound the same as he did. “How much rides on Vetter and how much do I get?”
The sarcasm in his eyes turned to a nasty sneer. “Thousands ride, junior…and you don’t get any. You just cooperate. Too many cops have worked too damn long on Vetter to let a crummy kid cut into the cake.
I him something that fitted him right down to his shoes. He didn’t lose a bit of that grin at all. “Catch something else,” he said. “Get smart and I’ll make your other playmates look like school kids. I like tough guys. I have fun working ‘em over because that’s what they understand. What there is to know I know. Take last night for instance. The boys paid you off for a finger job. Mark Renzo pays but in his own way. Now I’m setting up a deal. Hell, you don’t have to take it…you can do what you please. Three people are dickering for what you know. I’m the only one who can hit where it really hurts.
“Think it over, Joey boy. Think hard but do it fast. I’ll be waiting for a call from you and wherever you are, I’ll know about it. get impatient sometimes, so let’s hear from you soon. Maybe if you take too long I’ll prod you a little bit.” He got up, stretched and wiped his eyes like he was tired. “Just ask for Detective Sergeant Gonzales,” he said. “That’s me.”
The cop patted the tools on his belt and stood by the door. I said, “It’s stinking to be a little man, isn’t it? You got to keep making up for it.”
There was pure, cold hate in his eyes for an answer. He gave me a long look that a snake would give a rabbit when he isn’t too hungry yet. A look that said wait a little while, feller. Wait until I’m real hungry.
I watched the car pull away, then sat there at the window looking at the street. I had to wait almost an hour before I spotted the first, then picked up the second one ten minutes later. If there were more I didn’t see them. I went back to the kitchen and took a look through the curtains at the blank behinds of the warehouses across the alley. Mrs. Stacey didn’t say anything. She sat there with her coffee, making clicking noises with her false teeth.
I said, “Somebody washed the windows upstairs in the wholesale house.”
“A man. Early this morning.”
“They haven’t been washed since I’ve been here.”
“Not for two years.”
I turned around and she was looking at me as if something had scared her to death.
She couldn’t keep that greedy look out of her face even with all the phony indignation she tried to put on. Her mouth opened to say something when the phone rang and gave her the chance to cover up. She came back a few seconds later and said, “It’s for you. Some man.”
Then she stood there by the door where she always stood whenever somebody was on the phone. I said, “Joe Boyle speaking,” and that was all. I let the other one speak his few words and when he was done I hung up.
I felt it starting to burn in me. A nasty feeling that makes you want to slam something. Nobody asked me… they just told and I was supposed to jump. I was the low man on the totem pole, a lousy kid who happened to fit into things…just the right size to get pushed around.
Vetter, I kept saying to myself. They were all scared to death of Vetter. The guy had something they couldn’t touch. He was tough. He was smart. He was moving in for a kill and if ever one was needed it was needed now. They were all after him and no matter how many people who didn’t belong there stood in the way their bullets would go right through them to reach Vetter. Yeah, they wanted him bad. So bad they’d kill each other to make sure he died too.
Well, the whole pack of ‘em knew what they could do.
I pulled my jacket on and got outside. I went up the corner, grabbed a downtown bus and sat there without bothering to look around. At Third and Main I hopped off, ducked into a cafeteria and had a combination lunch. I let Mrs. Stacey get her calls in, gave them time to keep me well under cover, then flagged down a roving cab and gave the driver Helen’s address. On the way over I looked out the back window for the second time and the light blue Chevvy was still in place, two cars behind and trailing steadily. In a way it didn’t bother me if the boys inside were smart enough to check the black Caddie that rode behind it again.
