by Jerry eBooks
“Hello,” Joe said. “Get sick,” the man suggested. “Throw up or something. Don’t go on tonight, pal.”
“I’m show folks. There’s a tradition. The show must go on,” Joe said slowly.
“I’ll stick around,” the man said. “I’ll be right here, in the building. I guess you know how things stand, pal.”
“Who was that?” Alec asked, as Joe joined him. “Just a guy, Alec.” Joe glanced at his watch. “Getting toward show time. Let’s get up there.”
The clock in the studio said a quarter of the hour. Joe Caterisano, or Buddy Burton, faced the TV cameras and exchanged a few lines of banter with the announcer, Ben Barlow, and with Kitty Anderson, his feminine guest star. He sang a song and the studio audience, the far greater audience watching his image on TV sets throughout the city, noticed a strangeness in his manner as he sang this evening. He was obviously tense. His gestures were jerky.
When the big red hand moved past the hour and the fifteen-minute show was over, Joe suddenly turned to Ben Barlow, and snapped, “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you Ben?”
The portly announcer stared at him. “What’s the matter with you, kid? Are you nuts?”
“You loused me up on my lines,” Joe gritted at the startled announcer. “I’m wise to you, Ben. Tryin’ to make me look bad. I’m onto your game. You never did like me, did you?”
“Kid,” Ben Barlow said smoothly, trying to put a pudgy hand across Joe’s shoulders and steer him off stage, away from the startled eyes of the studio audience, “you’re kind of mixed up. You—”
“Take your hands off me!” Joe said. He had the gun out of his pocket. “I don’t like you either, Ben. You know why?” he said, pointing the gun right at the popeyed announcer. “You look like a Kraut. That’s what you look like to me, a Kraut.”
“Kid, kid,” Barlow said weakly. “Take it easy. You’re upset. You—”
“Shut up,” Joe said. He heard stealthy footsteps behind him and wheeled to see Alec Thornbush sneaking up on him. “Back off,” Joe grated, “before I have to plug somebody with this thing. It’s been a long time, but I guess I still have the knack of it.”
Alec Thornbush stood still, not breathing. He appeared to have lost all desire to play the hero.
He half-ran from the television stage, brandishing the gun with the air of a man who itched to kill somebody with it. He raced toward the hallway. The receptionist stared at him. She wore glasses.
“Why, Mr. Burton—”
“Baby, give me those glasses.”
“Whatever—”
“The glasses, baby. The glasses.”
He let her see the gun. She seemed to freeze for a moment. Slowly, like a person confronting a deadly snake, she slipped the glasses off and handed them to him.
On the way out of the reception room he paused beside a coat-and-hat rack long enough to appropriate a tan coat and a tan hat to match it. He ran out into the hallway just as Jimmy stopped at that floor with the number five elevator.
A man started to step out, but backed up quickly, staring at the gun Joe brandished. Joe followed him into the elevator, pointed the gun at Jimmy, and said, “Take her down a floor or two, kid.”
“Hey,” the kid gulped. “What kind of a gag is this, Mr. Burton? That thing looks real. Quit pointing it—”
“Let’s go down a floor or two, Jimmy. Nice and easy.”
“But—”
“You heard me all right, didn’t you, Jimmy?” Joe asked.
Jimmy looked at the gun. Jimmy said, “Yes, sir. Okay, Mr. Burton. Down, nice and easy.”
“Look here,” snapped the man Joe had backed into the elevator, “you can’t—”
He was a portly, red-faced man with an officious manner. Joe pointed the gun at him and said, “Shut up, please.”
The man gulped. His mouth closed and he was sullenly silent.
“Stop here, between floors,” Joe suggested. “We’ll sit awhile, Jimmy.”
“Okay, Mr. Burton,” the kid said placatingly. He stopped and they stood quietly in the motionless elevator for perhaps three minutes. The portly man’s face grew increasingly sullen, but he didn’t say anything.
“All right,” Joe said. “Street level, Jimmy.”
The kid took him down. He walked out into the tiled corridor, with the glasses in place over his eyes, the hat brim turned down over his brow, the gun in his hand hidden under the topcoat he had borrowed.
The man came over from the other side of the newsstand and stood nonchalantly beside him. Jimmy had hurriedly closed the door of the elevator behind Joe, taking his important passenger up where he’d intended to go in the first place.
The man said, close to Joe’s ear, “Pal, you should’ve known better.” His voice was almost plaintive.
“It’s in my blood,” Joe said. “I just had to do it.”
“What’s the gag with the glasses? And that hat you’re wearing. It don’t even fit you, pal . . . Walk, friend. I’m focused on you.”
“You’re taking a chance, aren’t you?” Joe stalled, and he was wondering how long it would take them to get there. A phone call from up above there shouldn’t take more than a matter of seconds, and the cops had radios in all their prowl cars, didn’t they? A guy gone berserk, with a gun in his hand, should rate faster action than he seemed to be getting. “You can’t get away with this,” he said.
“Walk, pal.”
“Maybe I called in the cops. Maybe they’ve got the building staked out.”
“Walk.”
“Maybe I don’t even walk. Then what?”
“You’re makin’ me nervous, Caterisano. Walk.” Behind them, an elevator’s doors opened, and passengers disgorged from it. “There he is,” somebody said, and some of the hardier souls edged carefully across the tiles toward Joe and his nameless companion.
“Which one?” somebody was gasping. “Which one is Burton?”
“Pal,” the man hissed at Joe’s ear, “you been up to something. I—”
The first cop came in then. He must have been an excitable rookie. He came barging in with his gun out, just asking for trouble from an armed man gone berserk.
The man at Joe’s side swore gutturally and shot through his coat pocket. The cop groaned and went down. Joe knew he was almost certainly next in line for it, and he acted upon instincts developed during his hitch in the Army. He shot the man, his gun still hidden under the topcoat draped over his right arm.
He hit his man in the chest, mindful of the crowd in the corridor, of the very real danger to all those present. The man went down like a stone, coughing and gasping. Joe kicked the gun out of his fingers, dropped his own gun, and the tan coat he had used to conceal its presence, and lifted his hands high as more of the cops spilled into the building.
“All right,” the chief said, disgruntled. “I guess I owe you an apology, kid. That dumb rookie, O’Hara, will live, and it could be he owes his life to you. The corpse could be your twin brother, so that proves you were telling me a straight story.”
“Who was he?” Joe asked. “John Davis,” the chief sighed. “Accordin’ to the identification card in his wallet. We got nothing in our records to tab him, and that checks with the story you said he told you. One of those smarties. A top operator, but working alone. I guess you did the public a service when you plugged him,” the chief admitted, somewhat grudgingly, it seemed to Joe. “But did you have to be so melodramatic about it? Where was the need of staging that nut act, up in the studio?”
“You wouldn’t listen to me,” Joe grinned. “I had to do something drastic. You put the bug in my bonnet, Chief. I really ought to thank you for that.”
“Don’t thank me for nothing,” the chief snapped. “I still don’t like crooners.”
“Well, thanks for the publicity, anyway,” Joe grinned. “I’ll get a big play from the papers on this. And a sponsor, if I know the radio business. Be seeing you on your TV set, Chief.”
He turned his back on the c
hief, who was muttering into the mangled stogie, and went out to his car. He drove pretty fast, on the way out to Jersey. Marie would be waiting up, to hear all about it, and they always garbled things on those newscasts.
MURDER WITH ONIONS
Philip Weck
Eddie came out of stir determined to play it straight, but easy money spelled trouble—and so did a girl. . . .
YOU don’t have any friends, Eddie Donohue, they told him. You don’t have any family; you don’t have any home. You’re a bum and a fool and you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail. You don’t have a chance.
For six years they told Eddie Donohue that. Then they put him in a bus and dumped him in the middle of the big city and left him. And he laughed.
He stood on the corner and laughed at the bus as it pulled away. The summer breeze whipped the new blue cuffs of the new blue suit around his ankles, and in his pocket the ten-dollar bill was crisp and crinkly. The world was ahead of him, a bright, new, free world. Friends, family, home? Why, his name was Donohue. He’d show ’em.
And then, because his name was Donohue, he went direct to Fatso’s.
Sure, he was going to play it straight; the only way to stay out was to play it straight. Sure, his old friends had been a bad influence. Sure, he had a job to find. But it wouldn’t hurt to drop in at Fatso’s and see the old gang again—just once—would it?
So Eddie Donohue, fresh out of stir, went to Fatso’s grubby tavern again.
Fatso was still there, behind the bar, his face still puffed, his eyes still tiny and black. But that was all. The two men at the bar were strangers.
Eddie Donohue put his ten on the bar and said, “A beer, Fatso. How’s the boy?”
Unblinking, Fatso stared at him. He didn’t move an inch; he didn’t crack his face.
“Gimme a beer,” Eddie said. “What’s the matter with you?”
Fatso pushed the ten back toward him. “Stir money,” he said. “Keep it.”
Red rage blazed inside Eddie Donohue. He crumpled the ten in his fist, knuckles white. He glared at Fatso; he looked from one of the strangers to the other. No one moved; no one made a sound. And Eddie Donohue, the boy who wanted to play it straight, walked away from the bar.
He was almost outside, the ten burning a hole in his pocket now, when Al came in. The same old Al. Dapper, smooth, oily Al. The operator.
“Eddie Donohue!” he cried. “How are you, boy?” He put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and brought him back to the bar. “How’s the boy, Eddie?” he said. “Have a drink! Give him a drink, Fatso.”
Al, still the operator.
So they had a drink, and Al said, “How long have you been around?” and “What are you going to do?” and then he took a bill out of his pocket.
It was a twenty. A fat, juicy twenty, folded lengthwise the way a dice shooter folds it. The first twenty Eddie’d seen in six hungry years.
“This is on me, kid,” Al said. “Sort of a celebration.” He laid the twenty carefully on the bar and Fatso filled the glasses again. “Handsome, ain’t it?” Al said.
He meant the twenty. Strangely, Eddie’s throat was dry again, drier than it had ever been.
“There’s a lot of ’em around, Eddie,” Al said. “Just waiting for somebody to pick ’em up.”
Carefully, Eddie said, “Let ’em wait.”
Al held his beer glass to the light, inspecting it. “Sure. Sure, kid. No hurry. Tomorrow, next week, next month.”
“Not any month,” said Eddie.
“Sure,” Al said. “You know where to find me, kid. Any time you need a connection—”
OUTSIDE, Eddie moved rapidly down the street. He had a destination now. He wanted that job fast, that solid feeling beneath his feet, that security. He wanted to be sure he wasn’t going back.
Around the corner he went and down the street and then up to the house. From the outside it was just like it had been. But some things had changed, Eddie saw when the door opened in answer to his ring.
Take a gangly, skinny girl of sixteen. Six years could change her. Round her out, pad her, put lipstick on those full lips and a tight blouse, skin tight, on her blooming figure. It could take the innocence out of her eyes and make them wild and predatory. All that, and all it meant, in six years.
She recognized him, of course. She said, “Why, Eddie! Eddie Donohue!”
“I want to see your father,” Eddie told her stolidly.
“He’s busy. But come on in and talk to me.”
“I’ll—maybe I’d better come back,” Eddie said.
“Don’t be silly!” She took his arm and led him into the big front room. “It’s nice to see you, Eddie.”
Eddie said. “Yeah.”
“Sit down, Eddie. What are you afraid of?”
Eddie sat down, very gently. “I’m not afraid.”
Close to him, she smiled. “Yes you are. You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”
“Why should I be afraid of you?” Eddie asked.
But he was. Afraid of her and of himself. Of six years’ pent-up dreams. Of this ripe, luscious girl who was a woman now.
She knew it, too. Her lips were half parted, her wild eyes wilder, her blouse rising and falling as she breathed.
She was sitting like that, on the sofa close to him, when Mylin came in.
Mylin. Big now, with an important stomach, hair gray at the temples and his face pudgy and soft. His eyes were as they’d always been—wild like his daughter’s, but harder, like little buttons he could see with but which brought him no feeling or understanding.
He had a cigar in his mouth and he glared first at Eddie, then at the girl. He jerked a thumb toward the door and addressed the girl.
“Git!” he said.
She rose slowly.
“Git!” he said again.
She left the room.
Then Mylin took the cigar from his mouth. Staring at the wet end, he said, “Get this, Donohue, and don’t forget it. Stay away from my daughter. Don’t ever let me catch you with her.” They were hard, violent words, the way Mylin said them.
Slowly Eddie replied, “I didn’t come here to see her.”
Mylin put the cigar back in his mouth. “I don’t owe you nothing, Donohue. And I don’t want you around here.”
Eddie flushed. He got slowly to his feet.
“All I want,” he said, “is a job. Any job. Washing cars, fixing flats. Anything. You’re on the legit now; so am I. Give me a chance.”
“You had your chance, kid,” Mylin said. “I don’t want you around me. See?”
His fists clenched, Eddie could see only Mylin’s round, pudgy face. He said slowly, “I could tell a good story.”
Mylin waved the cigar toward the door. “Go ahead. Nobody’s going to listen to you; you’re a punk. Now git—and don’t come back.”
Darkness had come when Eddie reached the sidewalk again. The darkness of a long and beckoning night. A darkness that covered the rich and the poor alike, that clothed the ex-convict in the same black other men wore. A darkness that brought terror to some, riches to others.
EDDIE walked alone through that darkness. So I’m out now, he thought. So I’m out, and Mylin gets fat. A month from now, six months, maybe a year, I’ll be back in again, and Mylin will be bigger and fatter and nastier. Play it straight, Eddie. Sure!
Then a car was at the curb beside him and he heard a voice: “Eddie! Get in!”
He whirled. It was Joe Murphy, with the sergeant’s stripes new on his sleeve and a squad car under him. “Get in, Eddie,” he said again.
“Whaddaya want?” Eddie blazed. “I ain’t done nothing!”
“Get in, Eddie,” Joe Murphy said. So Eddie got in.
For half a mile they drove before Eddie said. “What do ya want?”
“Just some talk, Eddie,” Joe Murphy said. “I got nothing to talk about.”
Another block and Murphy said, “You were up to see Mylin. Right?”
Eddie didn’t answer.
<
br /> “Things have changed, Eddie.”
Still Eddie didn’t answer.
“He’s respectable now, Eddie.”
“All I got to do,” Eddie said slowly, “is open my yap.”
Joe Murphy sighed. “Sure. Go ahead, talk. You’re a punk kid; he’s big. Who’s going to listen?”
“I clouted the car,” Eddie said. “Just one car—and I took my medicine. Bui not him. I didn’t clout any papers with it, copper, and he didn’t ask for papers. Where did he get the title when he peddled it again?”
“You couldn’t prove it, Eddie,” Murphy told him. “You’re just a punk kid with a grudge.”
They drove on, Murphy quiet and taking it easy, the youth beside him still feverish with rage, fists still clenched, riding aimlessly on the city streets.
At last they pulled in beside the little restaurant.
“Kid,” Murphy said, “you were a short-order cook once. Remember?”
It was the sort of place that would be called a diner on the outskirts of town, long and narrow, with a row of booths and a counter, a grill between two coffee urns behind the counter. A little fellow with a big nose and light blue eyes was twisting dials on the coffee urns.
“Shorty,” Joe Murphy said, “you still looking for a short-order man?”
Shorty turned around. His grin was as friendly as his freckled face.
“Sure,” he said. “How about it, kid? Had any experience?”
It was a clean place, gleaming—the counter a startling white, the floor mopped and glistening—warm and peaceful and inviting.
Eddie said, “I been out of touch for six years.”
Shorty pulled off his apron. “Give it a try. Fix up four hamburgers.”
Eddie fried the hamburgers. They were dried out, overcooked, when he served them.
“You’ll catch on,” Shorty said. “You can handle it.”
“I dunno,” Eddie said glumly.
“Sure you can. Fifty a week and food. Now you and Murphy eat them hamburgers and you get behind that counter.”
That night, Eddie had a job. For a stinking, lousy, measly fifty a week, while a slob like Mylin grew big and fat.