Me, Hood! Page 9

  Inside my heart was slamming against my ribs because I knew it was coming and I didn’t know whether it would hurt or not and I was scared. I looked at her and tried to see inside her mind but I couldn’t get past the tears. For some reason she smiled and it was like before when I didn’t know all the things I did now and when I could look at her and want and hope. Her eyes were soft and misty and in their depths saw what happened to her… saw the realization come, the analysis, the rejection of the future and the decision. I saw her suddenly love and give the only thing she had to give and with the yell still choked in my throat and before I could move to stop her she said, “I love you, man.”

  Then she folded her arms and turned the gun against her heart and said the same words again only this time they were shattered by the blast of the gunshot.

  Return of the Hood

  Chapter 1

  NEWBOLDER and Schmidt were decent about it. They came in, nodded and sat down at their table with coffee in front of them and let me alone to finish my supper. Sometimes you just can’t figure cops. But once they made their touch, there was no sense running. Try it and you can get shot down. Go along with the game and you have a chance. Besides, the Cafeteria was a popular place and the owner a swell egg who didn’t deserve getting shook by a big punch right in the middle of his rush hour.

  So I nodded back and let them know I was ready when I cleaned my plate and that there wouldn’t be any fireworks or tough talk no matter how big the beef was. And it was a big beef. Real big. I was a murder suspect and in a way it was lucky the cops made the scene first because in the same neighborhood the Stipetto brothers were canvassing the area for me too and with them it meant playing guns.

  With them I could play. I had a .45 calibre instrument that could sound off loud and clear, but with cops you don’t play like that. On somebody else the fuzz would have stepped up and made the pinch without waiting. For this one time I had to be an exception because of what happened a year ago, and for that they were being decent. Something like General Arnold’s boot if you got enough smarts to know what I mean.

  The cops didn’t watch me. I was there, part of their peripheral vision, they weren’t in any hurry at all and were glad to sit in out of the rain and the cold for a few minutes. They had the faces of cops all over the world that you can’t miss if you’re in the business on one side or the other.

  Across the room with his back to the wall, Wally Pee who ran numbers for Sal Upsidion started to sweat and couldn’t finish what was on his tray. He kept glancing from Newbolder and Schmidt to Izzy Goldwitz, who was at the counter getting seconds, because Izzy had six grand in cash in the overnight bag he carried and with Sal Upsidion you didn’t give any excuses if it didn’t get turned in. When Izzy paid the cashier and started back he caught Wally’s signal and turned white, but by then it was too late to do anything except finish supper, so he sat down and tried to bluff it out.

  I could have gone over and told them, but it didn’t make any difference anyway and for them it was better to sweat a little so that the next time they’d be on their toes more. Newbolder’s quick case of the place didn’t make them since I was his target and not much else mattered, so the numbers boys were off the hook for this time, anyway.

  Funny, funny.

  New York after dark, a vivid chameleon who by day was a roaring scaly dragon of business and ceremony, and by night a soft quivering thing because the guts of the city had gone home leaving the shell to be invaded by parasites.

  The few who stayed, and the tourists, kept to the Gay White Way as they used to name it, clubbing, bar hopping or taking in a show. But the perimeter of life had closed down to the very heart of the city. Beyond the perimeter was where the dying came. A few arteries of light and life extended crosstown, went up a ways and down a ways, but that was all. The great verdant cancer of Central Park was like a sparkling jewel, laced with the multicolor of taxis whose beams probed ahead of them with twin fingers, always searching. Like Damocles.

  Around me the restaurant was packed with people from Jersey, Brooklyn, the Island, all getting ready to go home or take in the town a little. The regulars were there too, the handful of natives whose home was Manhattan no matter what. Some were night people like me and Wally Pee and Izzy; the others came because the food was good and inexpensive.

  I wondered what my chances were on the rap. They didn’t look good at all.

  Somebody had knocked off Penny Stipetto. Two days before I had belted his ass from one end of 45th and Second all the way to the next corner for shaking down Rudy Max and when he healed up he strapped on a rod and went looking for me with a skinful of big H to keep his courage up.

  Word travels fast in this town. I got the news and passed it back that I was ready and available any time, any place and if I saw him first he was going to get laid out.

  Trouble was, I didn’t see him first.

  Somebody else did and they found Penny Stipetto wedged behind a couple of garbage cans two blocks away from my pad with a hole in his head.

  That was enough for the remaining brothers Stipetto. They spread out a net across the city that was as efficient as any the fuzz could throw and pulled the strings tight until I only had one block to run in and one place to go.

  The condemned man ate a hearty meal.

  Hell, I was glad Newbolder and Schmidt found me first. This was the age of enlightened crime and a gang shoot-out comes only of immediate necessity. Revenge is a thing of the past except for the extreme occasion, and if the law will do the job equally as well, then let it go, man. In fact, the brothers Stipetto would only be too happy to help the fuzz nail my hide. They’d make damn sure somebody saw me in the area at the time Penny took the big slide and damn sure any alibi I had would fold if they had to remove it forever.

  In other words, I was a dead duck. I had no alibi to begin with unless a warm solo pad could be called one, the hole in Penny’s head was big enough to be made by at least a .45 and no spent slug was recovered for comparison. I had the motive, the time, a probable weapon and on top of it all, the critical, anti-social personality that, according to the psycho meds, made such a deed possible.

  In short, I was a hood.

  Newbolder sipped his coffee and glanced at his watch. He wasn’t rushing me, but I knew he’d like to get off his shift on time and a cop can only be decent so long. By then Wally Pee and Izzy Goldswitz had caught the pitch and were begging me with their eyes to get the hell out before the cops decided to case the place for any other interesting characters and spotted them.

  Let them take care of themselves, I thought, and went back to the Hungarian goulash. It was good and there was no telling when I’d be getting another plate of the stuff.

  I had almost finished when the broad sat down. Like they’ll always do, she sat down directly opposite me rather than at the side, trying to make out as if she had the table all to herself. I knew she was an out-of-towner when she ate without taking the dishes off her tray, something a cafeteria regular never would do.

  There was something odd about her I couldn’t place, but in New York you don’t stare too long or take deliberate second looks because privacy is a funny thing, like the props in theatre-in-the-round. Privacy exists because you pretend nothing else is there and in a chow joint you’re expected to obey the rules of the game.

  But I couldn’t help the second look. I made it as surreptitious as possible and found the flaw. The tall girl with the deep chestnut hair was made up to perfection, if perfection meant deliberately disguising a classic beauty to become just another fairly pretty dame worth smiling at sometimes, but not much more.

  They do that sometimes. Broads get screwy ideas about their looks and plenty of times I’ve seen real treats done up in trick suits in the beatnik shops.

  Who are you today, honey—Hepburn? You could be LaMarr if you liked. You have a luscious mouth with the kind of pouty lips that can kiss like crazy but the lipstick is wrong. That eyebrow pencil accent is way off too.
Way off. And you can’t quite erase genes that put a tricky, exotic slant in your eyes and cheekbones with cleverly applied green shadows and too-pale makeup.

  When she shrugged the white trench coat off, I saw it was only her face that had been changed to the mediocre. Nothing could have been done to alter the magnificence of her body. There was just too much of her, just too much big, lovely much.

  The condemned man ate a hearty meal. Visually, that is.

  So while they waited for me, those outside watching to make sure those inside didn’t slip, I feasted a little bit and knew I was wearing a crooked grin that couldn’t be helped but could be hidden if I chewed hard enough.

  Newbolder had shifted his seat a little so he could see around the broad, not giving up his cop’s habits for any reason, and I finished my goulash and started in on my pie.

  It was just a voice. It was strangely low, detached and was there without seeming to come from any one point. It was almost totally lost in the grand hum of voices that kept the room in motion and for a second I couldn’t place it.

  When I did I kept on eating, doing a quick think because it was the broad speaking to me con style without moving her lips or changing her expression, and all the while managing to eat as if she were completely alone.

  “Can you talk without looking at me?”

  In my racket you learn to play by ear real fast or get dead real fast and I had nothing to lose at all any more.

  So I said, “Go ahead, honey,” and like her, my mouth didn’t move either except to eat.

  The broad caught it immediately and said, “You did time?” and there was a hesitancy in her voice.

  “No. Not quite. The fuzz would like me to go down though.”

  “Service record?”

  That was a peculiar angle for a new line to take. I was trying to figure her for a high class hooker or a tomato with a hot item for sale, but this bit threw the picture out of focus. I did a mental shrug and said, “A whole war, kid, but that was twenty years ago.” I half-laughed and smothered it. “Even got a few medals out of it.”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “It figures,” I said.

  She buttered a piece of roll, bit off a bite and glanced vacantly around the room. I cut into my pie with my fork and concentrated on my last meal.

  “You’ll have to help,” she finally got out.

  I swallowed and forked out another bit of pie. “Why?”

  “You’re the only one who looks capable.”

  “Of what?”

  She lifted her coffee cup and sipped at it. “Killing somebody if you have to.”

  This time it wasn’t so easy to swallow the pie. I kept chewing, wondering why the hell I always drew the loonies. Sooner or later they always wind up in my lap. “Come off it, baby,” I told her softly.

  She didn’t try to argue about it. She made it a square, simple statement that put her either way out or close inside and left me right in the middle no matter what happened.

  She said, “My name is Karen Sinclair. I’m a government agent working with Operation Hightower. In my mouth I have a capsule containing a strip of microfilm that must be delivered to the head of our bureau at once. It’s a matter of national safety. Is that clear? National security is involved. I’m going to bite into a roll, push it inside and put the rest of the roll down. When I leave you pick that roll up and get it in the hands of the nearest F.B.I. agent. Can you do that?”

  “Sure.” It was all I could think of to say. It still wasn’t making sense. Finally, I added, “What’s the act for?”

  Unconcernedly, she said, “Because outside there are three men who are going to kill me to get that capsule back and we can’t let it happen.”

  I was almost done with my pie and couldn’t stall much longer. Newbolder and Schmidt were getting impatient. “More, baby.”

  With an involuntary gesture, she bit her lip, remembered in time to fake it and sipped at her coffee again. “They were almost ready to take me on the street. They know I have no contact here and am headed for a certain point so they suppose I really stopped to eat. What they don’t realize is that I spotted them.”

  “Look, if you’re serious…”

  “I’m serious.” Her voice was the same flat monotone, yet had a new note to it, quiet and deadly. She wasn’t lying.

  “Hell, girl, I can…”

  “You can do nothing, mister. If you want to help do as you’re told. That’s the only way this information can be passed on to the right people. You’re the only chance I have. I know what I’m up against. I’ve been in this game a long time too and knew the odds when I started. I hate to have to pass this to amateurs but when I picked you it was because you had all the signs of the kind of man who can live outside the law and still hang on to certain principles. I hope I’m right.”

  She picked up a roll, broke it in half and nibbled into it. What she did, she did quickly, putting the remainder of the roll back on the plate, then washing it down with the rest of her coffee. She finished quickly without seeming to be in a hurry, put her arms back into the trench coat, belted it and picked up her pocketbook.

  Before she left I felt her eyes scan my face briefly and sensed the greenish heat of them.

  “Thanks,” she said, then turned and walked away.

  Indifferently, I picked the half a roll up, dunked it in my coffee, and chewed into it. The capsule was a brittle plastic against my teeth and when I wiped my mouth I spit it out in my hand and quietly stuck it in my watch pocket, then finished the roll.

  If it was a gag, it was a beauty.

  If it wasn’t, then there was big trouble happening too fast for me to think out.

  Newbolder stood up and so did I. It was about that time and now I was going to have the blocks put to me but good. Both cops knew I had the .45 on me and although they knew it was there for the Stipetto crowd they didn’t take the big chance and kept their hands held just-so right above their Police Specials. This one time they’d play it neat all the way to the squad car for old time’s sake and after that all bets were off.

  I put on my hat, picked up my coat when two shots blew the night apart outside and a great blast tore the window out of the restaurant and scattered fragments all over the place. Women screamed as though they were given a downbeat and tables overturning in the sudden rush away from the front were like the crashing cymbals of a mad symphony.

  I saw Newbolder and Schmidt pull at their guns and run for the door as another handful of shots were triggered off and in that one instant the door was open as they ran through I saw the big girl falling against a car at the curb while the gun in her hand pointed at something out of sight and spouted tiny red flashes.

  The decision wasn’t mine at all. She had made it for me. I did the same thing everybody else did and ran, letting the crowd cover me. There was only one difference. I knew where I was running. I got to the door leading to the dishwashing section, went through quickly and paused, looking for another exit. I spotted it down the end, took a fast look through the small window in the door behind me and knew that it was no kind of a gag at all. A harmless looking rabbity guy whom I had unconsciously noticed trying to come across the room against the fleeing crowd had reached my table and was going through the remnants around the girl’s plate. He finished, made a gesture toward where I had been sitting and stopped, then looked around thoughtfully and followed the crowd toward the main kitchen doors.

  I would have liked it if he had come in beside me, but he hadn’t as yet. He would, but I wasn’t going to wait.

  Any broad that would go all the way out, even knowing she was going to get hit, just to deliver a small package, needed a hand up. I fingered out the capsule and looked at it for the first time. It was transparent and inside was a packed white powder. Clever. It could appear to be a medicine. But there was a faint pinpoint of dark against the plastic where a corner of hidden microfilm touched it. I grinned, put it back in my pocket and took off for the doorway.

&nbs
p; It swung out into a corridor lit by a single overhead bulb. By the exit doorway was a light switch I flicked off so I wouldn’t step out silhouetted against a bright room.

  My precautions almost worked.

  Almost. Not quite.

  There was a funny shock you hear rather than feel when metal hits bone and an overwhelming stuffiness began to smother me and I knew that I hadn’t made it after all.

  Chapter 2

  ALL RIGHT, I thought, where the hell am I now? I realized I was conscious without first experiencing sight or sound, a peculiar awareness that was common to a person coming out of a deep sleep. I lay there a moment, deliberately thoughtful, concentrating on the moment, trying to retrieve my last hours of remembrance.

  They came with the physical sensation of restriction and with a sudden jolt I felt the ropes that bit into my ankles and wrists. I was sitting up, hands and legs tied to a chair, my mouth open slackly and my head hanging forward limply. For a while I stayed like that, watching my feet and thinking. Just thinking.

  From behind me the girl said, “Why did you bring him here, Fly? You crazy?”

  A nervous, slimey voice said, “Maybe you got a better idea? Why you think Big Step made me stay back there. He figured this guy might pull something and he sure did. That he sure did.”

  “Big Step didn’t want him here. He wasn’t going to bring him here. They was supposed to go someplace in Jersey.”

  “Sure they was, but who knew this punk had guns around? Outside he had two guys and a broad who started shooting up then Carl and Moe figured they was part of this guy’s bunch and cut loose at ‘em. Then them two cops come outa the joint and everything goes to hell, like. Man, ain’t nothing like that since that business in Havana before Castro.”

  “I don’t care,” the girl insisted, “you better take him someplace else.”

  “Not me, Lisa, not me. You think Big Step won’t want him even more now? First Penny dead, now Little Step and Carl and Moe. Big Step, he’s gonna wanta carve on this here punk now for sure and whoever puts him outa reach is in for it.”