Killing Town Read online

  Rex was big and he was stupid but he was fast, and he came around that bar on the run, work boots clomping under frayed denim, growling like the dumb animal he was, with a baseball bat ready to hit a home run with my head.

  And as he came, bat high, he yelled, “Aaaaaaaaalllf!”

  I was down between tables, in the sawdust, where I’d landed on my side, my head spinning, but when he got near enough to swing, I kicked straight out, the heel of my shoe catching his left knee. That took the world out from under him and tossed him onto the floor and the bat got hurled God knew where, and now he was the one eating sawdust, right next to me. He turned over, spitting shavings, and I gave him an elbow in the throat that started him gurgling. He was still down and I was halfway up when his brother—the Alf he’d called out for—came barreling out of the backroom. He had dark curly hair, eyes dark in an angry clenched face that looked dirty from need of a shave; stuffed in a lumberjack shirt and denim trousers, he was not as tall as Rex but every bit as burly, though he had a gut on him, so he wasn’t as fast.

  He paused just long enough to size up the situation, seeing his younger brother on the floor, clearly put there by this stranger in a suit, and that gave me time to sink a fist into his belly past my wrist and double him over, like he was bowing to me. Then I gripped my hands together and slammed them down into the back of his neck and he went down to dine on sawdust, too.

  But arms from behind came looping around me and hugged, hugged hard, and suddenly that blond dope’s face was pressed next to mine, cheek to cheek like Fred and Ginger.

  “Get up, Alf! It’s him! It’s that son of a bitch who killed little Jeannie!”

  Alf got to his feet slowly, kicked a table out of the way, and gave me the kind of snorting look a bull gives a matador. He started his charge and was almost on me when I threw my weight backward with Rex right behind me and took him down with me, landing on him hard, his grip loosening. I squirmed free and rolled away. While the younger one was down there on his back with the air knocked out of him, hands and legs flailing like an upended turtle, the older one was lumbering toward me with fists like the heads of ten-pound sledges. I was still on the floor, so I kicked out with both feet, catching his ankles, rolling out of the way as he went down on his face like a bridge helped by dynamite charges.

  On my feet again, I went over and started kicking Alf in the stomach. Behind me, I didn’t see Rex get to his feet, but when he kidney punched me I felt his presence all right, and the pain went through me like a hot poker. I swung around and threw an elbow in Rex’s throat and sent a hard underhanded right into his balls. That took him backward into a table and he collapsed with it, chairs tumbling. He was down there crying now, hands gripping his groin in that protective way that is always too late. His older brother was puking, which is why sawdust comes in handy on the floor of a hell hole like this.

  I frisked them both, while they were indisposed, and found a switchblade on Rexie and on Alfie a .38 revolver in his back waistband—almost certainly he’d taken that shot at me yesterday. I collected both weapons, feeling lucky that when his brother called out for him, Alf hadn’t realized who was out here causing trouble. If he knew, he’d have come with the rod out and ready, and maybe that sawdust would be soaking up red stuff leaking out of me about now.

  I brushed myself off. Where the rotgut hit the fabric, the sawdust clung. The suit would need cleaning. Shit. I retrieved my hat, brushed it off, too. Alf had stopped puking, so I went over and kicked him in the side a few times. Nothing gets a guy’s attention like a few broken ribs.

  Rex was leaning on an elbow, thinking about getting up, or he was till I kicked him in the head and put him back to sleep. That kind of thing can kill a guy, but Rex was breathing, and anyway there wasn’t enough in that skull to suffer much damage in the first place.

  Alf was on his back, breathing hard. At the side of him where he hadn’t puked, I leaned in, resting a knee on his belly, which tightened up and gave me some support.

  “I didn’t rape your sister,” I said, “and I didn’t kill her either. Got that?”

  He spat blood at me. Got it on the suitcoat!

  Damnit!

  Time for playtime to be over.

  I got the .45 out from under my arm and Alf ’s eyes widened at the cannon-like size of the thing and his bloody mouth opened wider than his eyes, and I shoved the snout of the .45 between his teeth, letting the gun sight carve the roof of his mouth a little on its way to where it stopped just short of making him gag.

  Alf was shaking his head a little—not much, the .45 barrel he was eating didn’t allow for much motion.

  I said, “If I had killed your sister… if I had raped your sister… wouldn’t I blow your head off now?”

  His eyes got even wider, wondering the same.

  “I should do it,” I said, “just to pay you back for taking that potshot at me yesterday.”

  His eyebrows tightened and fear and sorrow got together and pleaded for his life.

  “But I’m not going to blow your head off,” I said. “Or your numbskull brother’s. Because I didn’t kill your sister or rape her or any damn thing. It was just another frame-up in this crooked town.”

  I got up. They stayed down. At the door, I said, “If I had done it, you’d be dead now. You get that don’t you?”

  Rex was still out, but Alf nodded.

  “But come after me, and I will kill you. Don’t make me sorry I was nice. Understood?”

  Alf, still on his back, nodded.

  Rex was coming around. “…what?”

  “Tell him,” I said, holstered the rod and went out.

  * * *

  Wouldn’t you know it?

  You buy a new suit and the first thing that happens is you get it messed up brawling. So I tooled the Packard back onto Broadway and found a one-hour dry cleaner, where I changed into the other suit I bought and went off to find a diner for lunch to kill time while I waited out the cleaning and pressing job.

  A corned beef sandwich and fries, and a vat of black coffee, made me feel human again. It occurred to me there was somebody I owed a phone call, since this Killington stay had extended itself in unexpected ways. The plan had been to sneak into town, deliver my war buddy’s dough to his missus, then—assuming no unexpected problems arose—take the bus back. No need to put myself through another dance recital with the railroad dicks.

  But I had a good friend back in the big town who I’d left dangling, and I owed him an explanation, or anyway enough of one to pass. I couldn’t go into great detail, because Pat Chambers was a patrolman with the NYPD and I couldn’t risk sharing everything.

  He and I had gone into the service together, though wound up in different outfits, and when we got out, we enrolled in the academy and started on the department at the same time. But he was better than I was at sticking to the rules, and was making a go of it. I’d struck out on my own, where I could make my own rules.

  The bus station was just down the street and, after getting a couple of bucks turned into change at the diner, I headed there. In the waiting area, I settled into one of a row of telephone booths and started feeding the operator quarters and dimes.

  Pat lived with his folks in Brooklyn. I got his mother. “Is Patrick home, Mrs. Chambers?”

  “Yes, Mike, but he’s sleeping. He’s working nights, don’t you know.”

  I didn’t know, but I said, “Wake him up.”

  “Oh, he’ll be mad as a wet hen!” Then she gave me a sigh that turned into a laugh. “But he’d be madder if I didn’t. He’s been tryin’ to get a hold of you for days, and you’ve got him half out of his ever-lovin’ mind!”

  “Well, shake him awake, and tell him it’s long distance. No time out for a stop at the john—he can do that on his own dime.”

  “Oh, Michael, you’re a rascal!”

  “All the girls say so, Mrs. Chambers.”

  Pat was on the phone within a minute, and he already sounded wide-awake. “What th
e hell’s wrong with you, Mike? You leave town and don’t even tell me! And what’s this crap about a murder charge? And rape? Jesus!”

  “And how are you, buddy? Your concern touches my heart. I got cleared of both charges, thanks.”

  “You’re still in Rhode Island?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re lucky it isn’t death row. What kind of job are you on, anyway?”

  “A job my client wouldn’t care to have shared with somebody in a blue uniform. Look, I just wanted to check in with you and tell you I was okay.”

  “Well, that’s fine, that’s swell. I must’ve called your office, what, a dozen times? Why don’t you get yourself a secretary?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “You have any kind of idea what you’ve stirred up? What kind of trouble you’re in?”

  “I ran into some up here, but I’m on top of things.”

  “Really? Well, I got hauled in to talk to some dicks on the robbery detail about you. What’s this about you being the last person to talk to Bob Lewis in the jail ward at Bellevue… maybe an hour before they draped a sheet over him?”

  “Bob and I were friends overseas. You know that.”

  “I’ll tell you what else I know. He was in custody after getting shot by a security guard when he robbed Evello Vending Company in Queens. The cops caught up with him, bleeding, a couple blocks away. Do I have to tell you who Carl Evello is? Or that his vending-machine outfit is a syndicate front?”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that.”

  “The people at Evello Vending say Bob got away with a few hundred dollars. Do you believe that? You do know that your old pal was part of that mob before the war—and that he’d have been in the perfect position to know when some real money was in the safe. Not nickels and dimes from coin machines, but the green stuff casinos and prostitution and narcotics generate.”

  “Pat, I’m gonna run out of nickels and dimes myself. This was just a courtesy call, buddy.”

  “Don’t ‘buddy’ me. What’s going on, Mike? What part do you have in this? Please tell me you haven’t gone over to the other side.”

  The cop on the door knew me. He was my age, and Pat’s, another beaming young Irishman from our graduating class at the academy. When I told him Bob was a friend of mine from army days, he let me right in. He didn’t realize that when Bob was allowed a phone call, the call hadn’t been to a mouthpiece, but an old war buddy.

  I knew at once he was dying. He had the sunken cheeks, the gray skin, the watery eyes, but most of all he had the look.

  The look.

  The look we’d seen when one of ours took enough rounds to make the outcome unquestionable. The look that saw past everything into what awaited. The look that wondered if Heaven and Hell were a myth and only a big empty awaited.

  But then the look turned into something else, something with some sparkle in it when he saw me. I didn’t sit. I just leaned in and rested a hand on his pillow next to where his head was barely making a dent. Christ, he must have lost a lot of blood. Several bottles were hanging like shrunken heads feeding something into his veins.

  “There’s easier ways to get rich, kid,” I said.

  He nodded. “I know. I screwed up. I got greedy. Not… not a bad kinda greedy, really. I got greedy for my kid.”

  “What kid? You get married when I wasn’t looking?”

  I hadn’t seen him since maybe a month after we got back.

  “I met a girl,” he said. “She lives up Rhode Island way. I moved up there. Got a job, decent job. But when she told me she was expecting, I wanted something better. For her. And for him or her or whatever God gives us. And I knew about some easy money.”

  “Yeah. I heard. You hit your old boss’s favorite money laundry. For a few measly hundred.”

  He grabbed my sleeve. The hand looked skeletal but the grip was full bore. “No. I got over thirty grand, Mike.”

  It was a whisper that screamed.

  “It’s under the seat of my car in a parking lot about two blocks from where the cops picked me up.”

  “There’s a lot of parking lots in New York, boy. You remember a name?”

  He did and gave it to me.

  “Get it,” he said. “Get that dough and give it to my wife. Her name is Mitzi Loomis. I changed my name up there. Bob Loomis. But for God’s sakes, Mike, don’t lead them to her! Sneak in, sneak out. If they find out whatever you’re up to, you’re dead. And so is she. And so is… my kid. Promise me, Mike! Promise me!”

  I promised him.

  “Look, Mike… this isn’t a favor. You’re a private operator now. Yeah, yeah, I kept track of you. Proud of you, man. You didn’t screw up. So this is a job I’m asking you to take on. Help yourself to a grand and whatever expenses you rack up.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Damnit, Mike! I’m not going out of this world owing anybody anything… Well, the cops won’t get what I owe them, and I can live with that. We got a deal, Mike? We got a deal?”

  “We got a deal.”

  “One last thing… Mitzi, she don’t know anything about this. She knows Lewis is my real name, yeah, and that I wasn’t always an honest working stiff. But she thinks I’m down here seeing friends. Knows nothing about the score. And if I don’t make it, Mike… and let’s face it, I ain’t gonna make it… she won’t even know. I’m not a story that’ll make the papers, out of state. Tell her I’m gone, Mike—you tell her.”

  “Now you are asking a lot.”

  “But you’ll do it, won’t you?”

  “What do you think? But this wife of yours—she’s not going to want to take this kind of loot.”

  “I know. You tell her… you convince her… it came from friends and relatives, passing the hat.”

  “Sounds like a big hat.”

  “Make her believe it, Mike. And she’ll be upset, not being at the funeral and all…”

  “Quit talking like that. You aren’t dead yet.”

  “Now who’s silly? You just tell her that I wanted to be buried in a family plot at Woodlawn. That she can visit me some time, my next birthday maybe.”

  “Does your brother Bill know about Mitzi?” The rest of his family was gone.

  “Yes.” His eyelids were sliding down like blinds being pulled. “When… when things settle down, he can… get in touch with her.”

  “Bob, I know you think you have this all worked out. But she’s bound eventually to find out the circumstances of your…”

  But he was asleep.

  He had summoned all the energy left in him for this meeting, and there wasn’t any more. I had everything I was going to get from him.

  I nodded to the cop outside the door and went out. My pal was dying, but that part of it wasn’t my business. I knew what I had to do.

  Pat said, “The robbery detail guys think your buddy Bob pulled down a major score, and the Evello bunch is covering up, since money laundries don’t advertise. Do you know anything about that, Mike?”

  I ignored his question but asked one of my own. “How did you know I was in Killington?”

  “The robbery dicks told me. I’m just a lowly patrolman, but detectives like that can check the wire and see what’s shaking state-wide.”

  “So what if they can?”

  “So you maybe’ve heard the rumor that the syndicate boys have certain… resources on the department. That means if the NYPD knows about your situation up north, so does Evello and his crowd—who probably also know you were in conference with Bob Lewis right before he went.”

  “And these robbery detail boys were specifically asking about me?”

  “Oh yeah. I’m your friend, remember? Nice to know while you’re out getting yourself killed, you’re ruining my career.”

  “Who says I’m out getting myself killed?”

  “Oh, I’m saving the best for last, chum. The robbery guys say the word is the Two Tonys are looking for you. You’ve heard of the Two Tonys, right? Tony Pigo
zzi and Tony Scarnetti? Evello’s favorite torpedoes. Seems they’re on the road. Looking for somebody. I wonder who.”

  The operator interrupted, wanting another twenty-five cents. I didn’t give it to her.

  Pat said, “ Mike! You get your tail back here! I got friends on the department who can give you protection—”

  But the call had ended.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  First the two Warburton brothers, now the Two Tonys. The animals were coming at me two by two. Now I knew how old Noah felt, particularly with another gray sky floating overhead, dark clouds moving at a slow boil.

  This flashy Packard didn’t exactly make me hard to spot, and swapping Melba for her yellow Ford Super De Luxe convertible wouldn’t be an improvement. My rearview mirror didn’t report anybody on my tail, but I couldn’t risk calling on my buddy Bob’s fresh widow, not till I knew this new threat was dealt with.

  The last thing I wanted to do was lead Evello’s boys to her.

  So I headed back out to the cottage to re-group, and found another conspicuous car pulled in on the little gravel skirt out front. Snugged next to Melba’s Ford was a sleek black Alfa Romeo, one of the new post-war jobs that I’d never seen in the flesh before. But more guys drooled over pics of that baby in the auto mags than they did over Rita Hayworth in Esquire. If you have ten grand, you can have one, too—the ride, not Hayworth.

  I pulled around back and left the lowly Packard at the mouth of the garage. While I didn’t figure the Two Tonys were driving around in a machine like that, I was taking no chances—it was Italian, after all. I got out of the raincoat and draped it over my left arm and unbuttoned my suitcoat, to give me free and easy access to the .45 in its sling. Then I came cautiously around the cottage to try to find the right window that would tell me who belonged to that black beauty.

  The window onto the kitchenette did the trick.

  Listening intently, Melba, in a pale yellow blouse and white slacks, was seated at the little round table across from a well-groomed guy of maybe thirty-five in the kind of sharply cut charcoal pin-striped suit that goes well with an Italian sportscar. The same was true of his slicked-back black hair and his broad-shouldered but slender physique.