The Deep Read online

  She pulled back, a frown across her face. “All right, I’m uptown. But I had one friend in my life.”

  “Not Tally.”

  “No, not Tally. Her sister.” She saw me studying her and shook her head. “You don’t remember her. Girls didn’t mean that much to you then. She was my age and we were in the same class. You know what happened to her?”

  Tally had told me that herself. I said, “Yeah, Bennett got her hosed up. She flipped.”

  Muscles and cords made tight lines in her neck. “Off a roof she flipped. She killed herself.” Her smile was deadly and hard. “That was your friend who did that.”

  “So?”

  “So you stink, Deep.”

  I slapped her across the mouth with the back of my fingers and watched the red seep into her face. “Stay at ease, kitten. With me, stay at ease.”

  It was almost as if I hadn’t touched her. “You’re tough, aren’t you?”

  “Real.”

  “Mind if I stick around and see you get killed?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “I’m going to enjoy it.”

  “I’ll try to put on a good show.”

  “Of that I’m sure. And I’ll help you. I’ll try to get you killed just as hard as I can.”

  Her arms reached up and went around my neck and that warmth I had felt at the door wrapped around me like an oven and her mouth was a tantalizing, wet kiss of death, a quick fiery thing that was hello and goodbye in one.

  When she drew away she glanced down at the bed. “Why’d you come?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I said.

  “Try me.”

  I took a check out of my pocket with Tally’s name on it and showed it to her. “A grand.”

  “Hardly worth her sister’s life.”

  “You stupid dame, it isn’t compensation. It’s payment for information.”

  “What makes you think she’d give it to you?”

  When I glanced at her she almost backed away. “Because she’s like you,” I said. “She wants to see me killed too. She’d give me anything I wanted to get me killed.”

  “Not anything.”

  “But you would,” I said. “You’d give me anything.”

  “That’s right. Just so I could be sure it would get you killed.” Her breath was coming too fast and there was a hot depth in her eyes.

  I wrote a short note, clipped it to the check and put it on the empty pillow beside Tally. When I looked up I said, “I’ll see if I can’t arrange it that way. Come on.”

  Downstairs I found a neighbor who, for twenty bucks, would stay with Tally, and a doctor who, for another twenty, would look in on her at intervals. A quick call to Augie got me a guy who would stake out the house and make sure everything went okay.

  When I came out of the phone booth Irish was waiting, nicely tucked into a mink that did nothing to disguise the contempt she felt when she had to look at me.

  But that was okay too. It’s more fun catching a mouse than playing with one and she was some mouse.

  I steered her outside, waved a cab over and nudged her in. I told the driver the name of a club and leaned back. Irish looked across the seat at me, the contempt clouded by curiosity. “Why all the business with Tally?”

  “Because anybody who hates so hard is bound to have something I can use,” I said.

  “Use for what?”

  “To find Bennett’s killer.”

  “A very noble crusade.”

  “And you want me to get killed.”

  “More than that, remember? I want to be there to see it happen.”

  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get sick?”

  “Maybe, but it will be worth it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hate too. I hate just as hard as Tally. I hate whatever turns little kids into filthy, immoral things who can turn on their own kind for something like money or power. I hate the political lusts and greed that drive decent people to the wall so one person can be big. I hate that so hard I could spit and that’s why I hate you.”

  “And yet you’re Lenny Sobel’s... friend?” There was contempt in my voice now.

  “It’s a point you probably couldn’t understand,” she said, “but I’ll tell you anyway.” The corners of her eyes drew up in nearly oriental points. “By being his... friend, I can exert enough influence to make it easier on... some people.”

  “And maybe rougher on others?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you ever forgotten the night on the roof by the chimney?”

  “No.”

  I grinned to myself.

  “But that doesn’t stop my wanting to be there when you get killed. I’ll give anything to see it happen.”

  “Anything?”

  She nodded earnestly. “Anything.”

  Chapter Five

  When they tore the guts out of Fifty-second Street, one of the bistros was overpaid for expediency’s sake, changed its name from The Kickoff to The Signature, and with a small move north and the perversity that belongs only to New York, became an overnight bang and by now a two-year success story.

  It had good food, smooth music, premium beer and whisky and top prices, and you still needed reservations even for lunch unless you were big enough to bandy Lenny Sobel’s name around and make it stick.

  When we got out of the taxi, Irish Helen’s face was beautifully quizzical, not so much at me as at herself, not knowing whether to stick it or run out.

  I overtipped the driver a buck for luck, took her arm and started toward the door.

  She said, “You know where you’re going, don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I nodded. “Your boy’s place. Maybe you’ll sound off and he’ll be hot for my head.”

  “Smart guy. You’re real smart, Deep.”

  “I’ve been told already.”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes were real cold. “You should be scared stiff, man. You should be shaking in your shoes.”

  I stopped with my hand on the ornamented handle of the door. “You ever see me scared, sugar?”

  “Maybe not in the old days.”

  “You won’t see me now either.”

  “So you’re a big one,” she said flatly.

  For a couple seconds I just looked at her, then nodded. “Everybody’s asked me that lately. I told them, so I’ll tell you too. Yeah, I’m a big one. They never saw anyone big like I am.”

  The frown creased her eyes again. “How did you know this was Lenny’s place?”

  I grinned at her. “I’m a big one, remember?” I opened the door and eased her through.

  The headwaiter was an impeccable Slav imported in ’49 from Paris by the Galveston and lately lured to The Signature by the big buck. His name was Stashu, he wore two hero pips in his lapel for underground activity in the last war and a nod of recognition from him could put you on the smart list in anybody’s book.

  Others were standing in the lobby, a few accepting cocktails on the house from a pretty waitress. Some of the junior exec types waited their time at the bar, preferring the side lines of the main room to the ignominy of just waiting.

  I handed my hat and raincoat to the kid in the checkroom and turned back to Irish Helen. She was tall and cool, feeling everyone’s eyes on her and playing it just right. She was waiting to see what happened next and waiting to laugh when it didn’t. I walked to the plush chain where Stashu was quietly talking to a waiter. He looked up, smiled and nodded, lowered the plush chain and led Helen and me to a table and discreetly removed the reserved sign that had somebody else’s name on it.

  He took our orders personally, smiled again and left. Helen looked up at me, something like a shadow across her face. “That went too nice, Deep.”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ve never been here before.” It was a flat statement.

  I just looked at her and waited.

  “How’d you work it?” she asked.

  “Headwaiters are paid to know people. Everybody.
”

  The shadow left her face and now I could see the tight lines of indecision that touched her. “He’ll tell Lenny,” she said.

  “He’d better.”

  The drinks came then, timed flawlessly to make lunch the thing that it should be. Twice Stashu stopped by, inquired with his flavored English if everything was all right, and left happily when assured that it was. At two-thirty the lunch music faded into cocktail hour numbers, the room partially emptied and Lenny Sobel made his appearance.

  He was fatter now. Still greasy looking, but able to wear five-hundred-buck suits and a ten-grand ring with an air of authority.

  Lenny Sobel never walked fast. It might have been that he couldn’t. It might have been that he didn’t want to. He neither walked nor strolled. It was sort of a step that he took. He made it hard for the two who walked behind him. They had to either stop a moment then catch up or quarter the area at a slow pace merely to stay abreast.

  He reached the table, smiled a fat smile first at Helen, then smiled a fat smile at me.

  I said, “Hello, pig,” and if it weren’t for Lenny’s fast hand wave I would have been shot right there and the two boys back of me on somebody else’s kill list.

  But I knew the slob would wave them off fast and my grin told everybody I knew it. I said, “Make them come around in front, Lenny.”

  His smile was still there. It was a friendly smile, bunching the fat under his eyes into humorous lines. He brought them around in front and they stood there docilely, just waiting. If Lenny said kill... they’d kill. Right now he said to stand. So they stood.

  One was a TV western type, tiny-hipped and over-broad at the shoulders where his jacket was cut to carry a rod. The other was as average as a person can get. I nodded to them both and in order said, “Harold ... Al. Good to see you.”

  Only Al, the average one, flicked. I said. “Your buddy’s a Q and Dannemora grad, Al. Lousy partner.”

  Lenny Sobel’s hand touched my shoulder. “You know my associates?”

  “Sure. Great guys. Al’s the smart one, though, and you got to watch him. Not a rap to his name and looking to go places.”

  The hood looked at me steadily, nothing showing in his face this time.

  Sobel asked, “That right, Al?”

  “I work for you, Mr. Sobel. You know what I can do.”

  Lenny’s smile broadened. “You ever meet this man, Al?”

  “Not yet, Mr. Sobel. I think I’m going to like it if you want me to introduce myself.”

  The fat wreathed itself into a laugh around Lenny’s mouth. “Deep?”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “For fun why not pull the cork and let me shoot all three of you. First you, Lenny, then these two schmarts in order. It should be fun. Go ahead, pull the cork.”

  Helen’s voice was a hoarse, “No ... Deep!”

  The two hoods came in a step.

  I said, “Tell them for me, Lenny.”

  They looked at him and watched his fat smile fall apart. Lenny said, “Let it drop.”

  Al started, “If you want, Mr. Sobel ...”

  “Let it drop, Al,” he repeated softly. “You and Harold wait for me outside. I’ll be along.”

  He waved again and they left, then pulled a chair out slowly and sat down. “You shouldn’t be too care-free with those boys, Deep.”

  “They different?”

  “They’re different.”

  “I’ll find out soon for sure and tell you, Lenny.”

  “You seem to know them pretty well already.”

  “I get around good. Anybody to know, I know. You know?”

  His smile was getting tired now and he glanced over at Helen. “I see we’ve recaptured old times.”

  Her eyes picked up a strained look. “Lenny ...”

  “Perfectly all right, my dear. When a man is impetuous as is our old friend Deep, one can easily get caught up in his backwash.”

  It sounded funny coming from him. I said, “Picking up class, Lenny?” I grinned when he stared at me. “It’s better’n the old days now. Then you were just a hood playing angles. Now you got class. Polish.”

  “You’re looking for trouble, Deep.”

  “I’m expecting to get it, Lenny.”

  “You will. You came back for trouble, didn’t you?”

  I leaned back easily in the chair and from any place in the room you would think it was just a nice friendly conversation. I said, “I didn’t have to come back for trouble, buddy. I had plenty of it where I was and I sat on top of it and squashed it without any sweat at all. Not any.” I tasted my drink again, swirled it in the glass and put it down. “You know why I came back, Lenny.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m taking over.”

  “You think?” His smile had angry tics at the comers.

  “I already have,” I told him.

  He started to come out of the chair, his pudgy fingers tight around the arms, squeezing into the wood. The cords of his neck rippled under the fat and only the thin edge of his teeth showed between his lips when he spoke. “You little punk. You street-corner bum. You lousy little cellar rat ...”

  Real softly I said, “Remember when I shot you in the behind, Lenny?” Something in his eyes said that he did. Very well. “There were people looking then and I didn’t give a hoot.” I stopped and grinned again. “There’re people here and I still don’t give a hoot.”

  He seemed frozen in that half-standing position until I pointed for him to sit down. He let his breath out, sat down and his composure came back slowly. He almost seemed ashamed of having thrown his bit.

  When he was ready he said, “You didn’t come here just to eat, Deep.”

  “That’s right. It’s more of a visit. I’m seeing all the boys, the big ones, the little ones, all the laddies with the dirty, sticky fingers. I’m letting them know what they got coming and they better get in line. I came here to tell you that I have your operation pretty pat in my head and if you have any ideas about coming aboard you’d better figure on doing it with your hat in your hand.”

  He shook his head in wonder at what I had said, his eyes searching my face to find a chink in my attitude. “You’ve thought this thing out?”

  “Not especially. Not until Bennett got killed.”

  “You amaze me, Deep.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  He bobbed his head earnestly. “But you do. Here the organization is bigger than it ever was. It reaches into every phase of politics and commerce and has fingers to reach out overseas if it wants to. It has millions to buy and sell what it wants and you’re taking it over, just like that.”

  “Just like that,” I agreed.

  Lenny folded his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “Tell me, Deep, what makes you think you can do it?”

  “Because I’ve been thinking.”

  “Like what?”

  “How another punk like Bennett was able to do it.”

  He tried but he couldn’t control the sudden gasp. The lines worked in his neck again and made a lie out of his soft smile. “Your ... erstwhile partner was an organizer.”

  “Sure.”

  “He was tough. He shot his way in. He was lucky, too. He intimidated the right people exactly at the right time. He had a brutish nature about him that made killing a pleasure, and a childish lack of responsibility that made him a terrible sort of person.”

  “I’m embarrassed. You’re analyzing hoodlumism to which I’ve devoted my career.”

  “Don’t laugh about it, Deep.”

  “I’m not, feller. I’m just curious about the other reason.”

  His face darkened. “What other reason?”

  “The one you haven’t told me about yet.”

  I stood up, waved to Stashu and handed him a bill to more than cover things. “Let’s go, Irish. Our pudgy little friend here will now carry the news to all the biggies who haven’t already heard.”

  Very deliberately I looked down into Lenny’s porcine face. �
��Tell them straight, chum. I’m in. I’m on top. If I yell jump they ask how high and if I say spit they ask how much. Anybody goes after my skin gets gunned down fast and if there’s any doubt about who makes the try I’ll rack up a couple of big fish just for samples. Meantime I’m finding out who bumped Bennett. It’s not going to be a hard job and it won’t even be a long one. But it sure will be fun when I find him. Or her. I’d kind of like it to be you, Lenny. I haven’t shot you for a long time, have I?”

  The collar was too tight around his neck now, cutting in so deeply his face was suffused with red. “I won’t even have to touch you, Deep. The chair’ll get you. The first time you put the heat to somebody, even if it’s a Bowery bum, you’ll get fried. You’re marked, Deep. You got that smell of frying around you right now.”

  “You lost your class talk, Lenny. Let’s not fall back into character at this late date.”

  “Get out,” he hissed.

  “Coming, Irish?”

  Without looking at her Lenny said, “She can stay if she likes.”

  “Uh-uh,” I told him. “She doesn’t dare. I might get killed without her watching and she’d never forgive herself. Come on, Irish.”

  “It would be better if you stayed,” Lenny told her.

  She shook her head, her eyes cold and serious. “I’m sorry, Lenny. He’s right. I want to be there when it happens.” She picked up her purse and shrugged her magnificent shoulders into her coat, then stepped ahead of me to the aisle.

  Behind us Lenny laughed with genuine humor, a soft, furry kind of laugh.

  Outside the rain had started again and the taxis cruising past all had the flag down. I took Helen’s arm and edged along the buildings out of the wet and started walking toward Sixth Avenue. We crossed over, headed south until we reached Martin’s and went in out of the drizzle.

  There wasn’t anybody in the place except the bartender, a thin, graying man with Broadway-wise eyes who nodded hello, brought out two coffees on order and withdrew to the end of the bar to watch TV.

  I spread my change on the bar, picked out the dimes and told Helen to hold tight. Her answer was the same cool stare of disgust, with her face mirroring the anticipation she knew would be realized.