"I got to leave," I said. "Emergency."
She sat up. She began swearing, her voice rising. "You can't leave now."
"Watch me give a good imitation of it."
She screamed at me like an alley cat. Then she picked up her drink and hurled it across the room at me. I ducked splintering glass and flying ice cubes. I ran to the door, buttoning my shirt.
The ruckus had taken place in a cigar store on the corner of Bragg and Fifth. It was an evil looking, dimly lit hole with a clutter of old magazines and smoking tobacco in the dust-shrouded show windows. A small crowd had gathered around the doorway, mingling and pushing. Grimm shouldered his way through with me on his tail.
Inside, a uniformed beat cop was holding the crowd back. The dead man was over in a corner. He'd been shot while standing in the middle of the room and had crawled in a trail of blood to the corner where he tried to claw his way up to his feet and had died there, half propped up. He reminded me of a wounded rabbit I had once seen crawl into the brush to die.
Grimm took hold of his hair and pushed his head back so the light fell on his face. "You recognize him, Street?"
I looked down at the pasty white countenance with the staring eyes. My stomach squirmed. "Lewis Rosson. A kid that hangs around the poolrooms with Stirmska's crowd. I think he works on Stirmska's coin machines, but we haven't proved anything yet."
Grimm's smile of contempt told me what he thought of methods like that. "The only way to find proof on these Bragg Street punks is to beat it out of them." He turned and walked to the frightened old man behind the counter.
"You here when this happened, Dad?"
The old man looked like a withered leaf. His palsied hands fluttered along the counter top. He bobbed his head and swallowed.
"What happened?" rasped Grimm.
The old man looked from Grimm to me and back to Grimm. A pulse fluttered irregularly under the parchment-like skin of his temple. He looked gray. "They come in. A crowd of 'em. Young guys, mostly," he explained in a quavering voice. "They seemed to be crowding that one—"he jabbed a frightened finger toward the corpse—"pushing him around. Then there was a shot and a scream and they scattered out of here and he was on the floor."
"Recognize any of them?"
"It happened so quick," the old man whined. "I—I don't see so good any more ..."
Grimm closed his hand on the old man's shirt front and shook him. "You've been here long enough to recognize every man, woman and child on Bragg Street. And you see well enough to run a book for Stirmska. I asked you a question. Recognize any of 'em?"
The cigar store owner's false plates rattled. His bulging, rheumy eyes stared at Grimm, fascinated by the look in Grimm's face. "I r-recognized one," he whispered. "Yeah, I recognized him. That one—" he jabbed again, at the victim, "put a knife in him while they were struggling."
"Who was it?"
"Young Tony Murray."
"Was he the one with the gun?"
"I—I don't know."
"Stop stalling." Grimm gave him another shake. "If he got knifed, he must have been the one who pulled the gun and shot. Isn't that so?"
"I—I guess." The old man mopped his face. "Yes, I guess that's so."
"What do you mean, you 'guess'?"
"Well," he swallowed, "I mean, Tony had the gun. Yeah, that's the way it was, 1 guess—I mean," he hurriedly corrected, "that's the way it was. Tony got knifed and he pulled the gun in self defense." He seemed satisfied with the way that sounded, so he repeated it more firmly. "I was standing here and they came in and that one stuck a knife in Tony and Tony grabbed out a gun and shot him and then they all ran."
"I don't guess he ran far. Murray, I mean. With the knife in him like you said."
"No, I don't guess he did."
"Where would you say he ran?"
The old man looked sick. He wiped at his face again. "Tony's sister works at the Silk Stocking bar. Maybe she'd know."
"Yeah," Grimm agreed. "Maybe she would."
The ambulance had pulled up outside the cigar store and the boys were bringing in the stretcher to carry the remains of Lewis Rosson to the morgue. Grimm and I pushed back through the crowd and walked down the street. It was a narrow street filled with dirty gutters and stinking alleys. But at night the blinking neon signs and open bars gave it an illusion of glamour. The sound of hot jazz and a blues piano floated out of the places we passed.
The Silk Stocking boasted a three piece combo and a girl singer, Patty Murray. I had known Patty a long time ago. We went to high school together and we had quite a crush for a while. Then she went off to study voice. She wanted to be an opera singer but I guess she never quite made it. Six months ago I'd heard she was back in town, singing torch songs in a Bragg Street bar. I'd intended to look her up, but had never gotten around to it. I still thought about Patty now and then.
We went into the place and I saw that she had changed. She was grown up now. She was prettier than I remembered, but she still had the sweet, clean look in her eyes. When we came in, she was standing in front of the mike, singing Stormy Weather, backed softly by the piano, drums and guitar.
The band was fair. It wouldn't bowl you over, but it had a good rhythm. Patty had a sweet little voice, but nothing sensational. I could see why she had never made the grade as an opera singer.
We stood at the bar and had a drink while Grimm looked the place over. "He owns the joint," Grimm said, nodding at the piano player, a roly-poly gent with a shiny bald pate fringed by a white halo. "Papa Gentry. He had a saloon on this street when they still hauled beer around with horse teams."
Grimm had his whisky neat. Then we went over to the band dais. He leaned on the piano and looked down at Papa Gentry. "We're looking for a boy named Tony Murray. We wondered if you might have seen him tonight."
"And who might you be?" Gentry inquired politely.
Grimm took out his buzzer and flashed it.
I saw a look of fright cross Patty's face. I went over to her. "Hello, Patty," I said.
She looked up at me. "Jimmy Street," she said. "You've grown up."
"We all grow up after a while."
"You're—on the police force now?"
I wondered if she had ever heard about what happened to me that day on Okinawa. "Yes. A year, now."
She came up to my chin. She had naturally wavy brown hair and nice brown eyes. She looked up at me and she was frightened. I could see it in her face.
Grimm came around the piano and addressed her. "You're Patty Murray?"
"Yes—Yessir."
"Have you any idea where your brother, Tony, is tonight?"
"No. What's the matter?"
Grimm evaded the question. "I think we better go somewhere where we can talk in private."
"My office is back here," Papa Gentry offered. He looked worried. His shiny round pie face looked unhappy. We went back into the office. Papa Gentry sat down in a swivel chair. Patty stood in one corner, her eyes wide and black. Grimm sat on one corner of the desk and leaned toward Papa Gentry. "Gentry, do you know what the penalty for hiding a murderer is?"
I heard a smothered gasp come from Patty. Gentry's face was inscrutable. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You know what I'm talking about." He switched his gaze to me. "Street, lock the door." I hesitated, looking at Patty. Grimm's voice was like buckshot pelting the side of a house, "I said, lock the door, Street!" I obeyed.
Grimm leaned closer to Gentry. "Do you know what I saw outside? I saw some drops of blood on the floor around the band dais. Fresh blood. Cut your finger recently, Gentry?"
Sometimes I had to admit that Grimm has some of the talents of a good cop. I hadn't seen the blood stains.
Gentry continued to keep his face blank. "I don't know anything about that. Look here, Lieutenant, you can't come busting into a man's place of business this way without a warrant. You got to have a warrant—"
Grimm hit him. He hit him twice in his roly-poly stomach and Papa Gentry doubled forwar
d, hugging his belly, his eyes bulging as he gasped for breath. Patty screamed.
Sweat popped out across my face. I felt myself getting sick again. I took a step toward Grimm and put my hand on his arm. "Grimm—"
"Yes?" He looked at me. "Did you want something, Street?" He continued to look at me that way.
I stood it for about ten seconds and then I took my hand away. It was a rotten and degrading thing to be afraid of a man like this. I said, "No, I didn't want anything."
Grimm turned back to the pink-faced bar owner. "These are my warrants," he said, shoving his fists under Gentry's gasping mouth. "They get me in a lot of places. They're going to clean this street of scum and two-bit punks like Tony Murray so decent people can be safe here."
Patty's voice suddenly lashed at him. "Then why don't you go to the source of evil on this street, Mr. Brave Cop?" She walked up to him, her face white, hands clenched at her sides. "Why don't you stop picking on the little people and go to the man who's really responsible for the crime in this district, responsible for twisting the lives of young kids who might have gone straight? Why don't you go to Boss Stirmska?" She turned and looked at Gentry. "I can't let you be hurt on account of me, Papa, darling." A tear ran down her cheek. "Come on, Brave Policeman. I'll take you to my brother."
"Patty," Gentry gasped. "Shut up. Don't be a fool."
But Patty Murray went to the door, her shoulders slumped, unlocked it and led us down the hall to a room in the back of the place. Tony Murray was in there, on a cot, holding a blood-soaked bandage to his side. His feverish face was turned to the door when we came in. Fear entered his eyes when he saw Grimm.
Ross Grimm stood looking down at him and a smile came over his face. "Get up, murderer," he said, smiling that way.
Patty went to her brother's side. Tony struggled to a sitting position. Pain brought sweat dripping from his face.
"Get up," Grimm repeated. "We're going to walk down to the station."
"He can't walk," Patty said, a rising note of hysteria in her voice. "He's hurt. Can't you see he can't walk?"
Grimm kept smiling. He took out his heavy service revolver. "Get away from him," he said, smiling. "He can walk. We don't give free rides to murderers. You can walk, can't you, boy?"
Tony Murray got to his feet. He swayed there, his face a staring mask of pain. Grimm waved Gentry and Patty away from him with his gun. "Go on," he whispered, with the frozen smile on his face. "You're doing fine. Take another step, now."
Murray made his feet shuffle. His eyes bulged, staring straight ahead. His face was the color of bread dough. The bandage that he pressed tightly to his side suddenly became red and soggy. Blood dripped through his fingers and ran down to the floor.
"That's the stuff," Grimm smiled. "You're almost to the door. Now you just have to walk out of this place and a couple of blocks down the street to where our car is parked. You can do that fine, can't you, murderer?"
Tony Murray stopped. His lips moved. Then he whispered something so faintly it sounded like paper rustling. "I want to say something. I didn't kill Lewis Rosson. I was there, but I didn't kill him."
Patty choked back a sob. She looked directly at me, her eyes wide and pleading. "Jimmy—" she breathed. She was begging me to stop this inhuman thing. And me, Jimmy Street, I could only stand there and look away from her eyes, furious at this debility in me that made my will something foul and sick.
Tony Murray made it as far as the door. Then he fainted. With a cry, Patty rushed to his side, ignoring Grimm's gun. She didn't ask me for any more help that night ...
A week went by. Tony Murray rallied. He passed the crisis and began mending. We kept a police guard over him in the hospital. The District Attorney's office filed a charge of murder. In a few more days Ross Grimm would have his turn to "question" the boy.
I got drunk and stayed that way. Moira came to my apartment. Every night she came. I was living in hell, but I had to have her. Grimm would find out soon. The man wasn't blind. I drank steadily, wondering when it would be, tonight, this week, next week ...
One night I got a telephone call from Patty Murray. "You must come right away, Jimmy," she said. "I don't know who else to turn to. We can save Tony. I have proof—"
I went to her room. The owner of the cigar store where Tony was knifed and Lewis Rosson was murdered was waiting there with her. The old man looked frightened out of his wits. His palsied hands were almost shaking off the wrists. He looked around the room, wetting his lips. Patty urged him and he began talking.
"Tony didn't kill that feller," he croaked, his false plates clicking. "I was scared. That police feller scared me. And I'm scared of what Boss Stirmska is gonna do to me."
"Please, Mr. Gambino," Patty pleaded, putting her hand over his.
He nodded, patting her knee. "Don't you worry none, Patty, I ain't gonna let that boy go to the chair for a murder he didn't do. I ain't gonna have that on my conscience. I'm gonna tell the truth, just like I told you I would. But I'm sure scared, just the same."
"We'll see that you have police protection," I told him.
"Will you do that, young feller?" he asked eagerly. "Will you keep Boss Stirmska from hurtin' me?" He shook his head, swallowing painfully and rolling his eyes around the room. "He's a bad one, that Boss Stirmska. He'd do somethin' awful to me."
"Are you trying to tell me," I asked, "that Stirmska murdered Lewis Rosson?"
The old man nodded, his face splotched with white. "I was right there. I saw him do it with my two eyes. He came in with that crowd of his hoodlums. He had his gun out, poking it in Lewis Rosson's stomach, callin' him awful names. He said that Lewis Rosson was workin' for him, tendin' to his marble tables and Lewis has been stealin' from them for a year. Stirmska just found out. Rosson took out a knife and started slashin' with it and Tony got hurt. But Tony didn't shoot him. Stirmska, himself, did. I saw it. With my own two eyes, I did."
"Okay." I told Patty to take the old man down to headquarters. Then I got busy on the telephone. First I called toe D.A.'s office and got a warrant for Stirmska. Then I called the chief at headquarters and got a detail of men assigned to help me bring in Stirmska. I was leaving Ross Grimm out of this show completely. This was going to be my baby. For once I was going to steal some of Ross Grimm's glory,
We went down on Bragg Street to where Boss Stirmska had his office in the back of a poolroom, six men besides myself in two prowl cars. There was a big hole in my middle when we walked into his office. Nobody had ever taken Stirmska in before.
He sat behind his desk, looking dapper and sure of himself, preening his nails with a clipper. He had a few strands of brown hair plastered tightly to a shiny scalp.
The uniformed boys covered the place while I told Stirmska that I was taking him in for the murder of Lewis Rosson. I served my warrant on him, adding that we had a witness and after we got through checking his gun against the bullet they dug out of Rosson, he was going away for a long vacation at the State's expense.
His face got mean and he grabbed up his phone and dialed his lawyer. One of his strong arm boys uncoiled himself from a sofa and took a gun out and started waving it around. I felt my knees go watery. But one of the uniformed policemen with me shot him before he could do any damage with his gun. Stirmska looked at his dead punk as if he didn't believe what had happened. He put the phone down and stopped arguing with us. He knew a smart lawyer wasn't going to get him out of this rap.
Later, we were all in the D.A.'s office. Stirmska was swearing and Ross Grimm was sweating. Grimm looked like a big, uncomfortable bull in a pen that had gotten too tight for him.
After disposing of the Stirmska business, Patty Murray filed a complaint against City Detective Ross Grimm for assault against a law-abiding citizen, Papa Gentry, and for forcing his way into a private establishment without a warrant. I backed her up as a witness.
Ross Grimm looked across the room at me. His small eyes were inflamed with hate. He knew without my word, Patty's case wouldn
't stand a chance. "I'm going to get you for this, Street," his eyes said. "I'm going to get you." It was a promise.
I went out of the building, sick in my insides and the most alone I had ever felt. It was raining dismally. I went into a bar and had a couple of whisky sours. It was like drinking water. Farther down the street, there was a place that made Singapore Slings strong enough to make a man forget his troubles. Three of them didn't give me any amnesia.
I walked to a lot of other places in the rain and everywhere I went, Ross Grimm's small, hate-inflamed eyes followed me. I saw them in the bottoms of glasses, in the red neon tubes around bar clocks, in the spinning disks on nickelodeons. My shirt was soggy with sweat and the drinks kept sliding around in my wet hands. I couldn't stop thinking about the boy suspect lying in Ross Grimm's office.
Finally, I went home. The whisky wasn't doing anything. Maybe I was drunk. But a little spot in my brain remained cold sober ... the spot that continued to see the face and eyes of Ross Grimm.
A car was parked at the curb in front of my apartment building. Moira's car.
I unlocked my front door, went in and snapped on the light. I walked into the dark bedroom and looked down at the blond woman lying across my bed.
She was sleeping soddenly, drunkenly. She had nothing on except a slip. Her shoes were lying on the floor where she'd kicked them and her dress was thrown across the foot of the bed. An empty fifth was in the tangled bedclothes beside her. She had twisted around and there were a few inches of naked flesh showing between her stocking tops and the hem of her slip.
"Moira ..." I whispered. I shuddered. I reached out to shake her; instead, I lit a cigarette and went over to the window. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.
After a bit I opened them. I looked through the window, across the rain-denched street and I saw Ross Grimm standing on the corner. He was there, with his trench coat turned up at the collar. He had followed me. The cigarette in his fingers made a little spatter of fire in the gutter when he flipped it away. Then he started across the street. I watched him come, with my guts churning and whimpering animal sounds in my throat.
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 Page 16