Death Comes Early

by William R. Cox

“Your sentiments are touching.”

  Cancelli said, “You know about his affairs. What’s with that lodge, or camp, or whatever?”

  “Ask your lawyer. You can’t collect a gambling bet from a corpse, Pete. You should have thought of that.”

  “Why should I have thought of it?”

  “You should have given him protection,” said Jack smoothly. “How come you let him get knocked off?”

  “Oh, you are funny!” Cancelli’s face was grim. “You should be a cop, you are so funny.”

  “The cops already checked you out. What are you worrying about? Fifty thousand isn’t much to you. What’s your beef? How come you’re giving me the stare? I don’t get it, Pete.”

  “Fifty gees and a double cross. Then you turn up with Lila, you sit around with that bastard Cy Camp. You got the finger on me. You think I’m going to sit still for it?”

  “No, I expect you’re going to holler like hell.”

  “I do more than holler.”

  Jack said, “You’re acting like a ten-cent hood. You know that. Now, why?”

  Cancelli’s rage was deep and thick in his throat. “How the hell much do you think I’ve got to take?”

  “From me, you take nothing. I’m not doing a damned thing. I’m minding my own business, you’re coming at me.” Jack chuckled. “I expect it’s because you can’t go after Damon or Camp. They’re too much. You’d like to take a whack at Lila, one way or another, for some reason I can guess; but of which I cannot be sure. I’m handy at the moment, so you charge me.”

  “When I charge you, I’ll take you out,” said Cancelli. “You’re a goddam buttinski.”

  “You’ve been drinking,” said Jack, maintaining his cool withdrawal. “You’re too smart for this kind of jazz. Why don’t you go back to your table?”

  For an instant it seemed Cancelli would lunge across the white cloth, then he leaned back. Heavy lids fell over the frog eyes which had glared like twin taillights, red and menacing. “You’re a fascinatin’ sonofabitch. Your pal gets killed, you move in on his broad. You play it cool with the rich slob who got Ted in trouble. You mix it with Damon and you think you can screw around with me.”

  “I haven’t said a thing about taking care of you.”

  “I deal in what people have in their minds.” Cancelli was suddenly sober and intelligent. “In my business you learn to think ahead of people and all around them. I’m onto you, Ware. You’re goin’ to mess into things.”

  Jack got up slowly and moved around the table. Cancelli jumped up hastily, overturning his chair. Jack pulled him close and sniffed at him. Then he gave him a slight shove toward his own table, where the two loyal bodyguards were already rising.

  Jack said, “You know what, Pete? You don’t smell just right.”

  He had put Cancelli between him and the advancing strong-arm boys. He waited, poised.

  Cancelli did not turn his head. He said to his men, “Later. Not here. Later.”

  Jack shrugged, went past them, past the bandstand, through the heavy curtains, into the small foyer off which were the dressing rooms. He knocked and Lila’s voice bade him enter.

  She was sitting before the mirror. Their glances met in the glass. She was white and tearful.

  “It just hit me hard,” she whispered. “Ted … his blood on my blouse.”

  “Do your show.”

  She agreed. “Yes, I can do the show.”

  “There’s going to be trouble with Pete.”

  “I knew there would be.”

  He took Ted’s will from his pocket “Got an envelope?”

  She went to a small writing case and found one. He sealed the will into it, addressed it to himself and said, “Stamps.”

  She produced several. He stuck them on the envelope and said, “I’m going to mail this. I’ll be back before you finish.”

  He went out and through the big room. It was filled with people, his own table was already occupied. He hit the night air and walked quickly toward a corner post box.

  They must have telephoned ahead. He was attacked from an alleyway, two men, swinging blackjacks. They were very efficient.

  He went down and rolled. A foot caught him in the ribs. He tried to protect his head and lash out with his feet. A kick in the ankle hurt worse than anything.

  Then he caught a blow at the base of his skull and never knew the rest of it.

  six

  On the late show it was necessary to give the customers something extra, because they had been drinking and their inhibitions were loosened and they could not, for the most part, appreciate the subtleties of ecdysis. Lila moved with a more sinuous rhythm, swirling a weighted skirt of diaphanous material, working the cups loose from her breasts.

  Her mind was not on her work, but then it need not be, after ten years. She was thinking of Jack Ware.

  It was strange, the way she had been attracted to him long ago, on first meeting, the animosity which had grown on his part, the coming to understanding at Ted’s death. It was strange, and it was foreboding.

  Even as she worked, with consummate timing, hearing the drunken gasps and beginning applause of the ring-siders, she was worried about the dark cloud which hung overhead. She wanted Jack Ware, she knew that. There was a mountain between them.

  Not only because of Ted, she knew. Jack had understood that situation at once, had accepted it. She could tell, after the talk in her apartment, from the way he treated her since they had left the death scene. Maybe it was only the strain. She was fully aware of her exhaustion of this moment.

  Yet she could go on. Pete Cancelli, sitting down there with his two hoodlums and his women, had made her tough. She was very young when she married Pete. She had thought she had ideals, as well as ideas, but she confused the two. It was a tragic error. Before she could extricate herself she had been indoctrinated into bedroom horrors which had forever callused her private life. She had learned endurance and stoicism as part of the practice of self-preservation.

  Ten years was a long time. She was twenty-eight now. A young woman but eons from a girl.

  She made the last swift gesture, fully disrobing in the fading light. She seized the robe hanging convenient to her hand, ran from the shattering handclaps and whistles to the dressing room. She flung open the door, calling Jack’s name, wanting sympathy, wanting surcease of some sort.

  When she saw the room was empty, she threw on her street clothes without hesitation, knowing what she must do. Again experience was showing her the way. She said nothing to anyone in the club. She eased her way out, still wearing the light stage make-up. She looked up and down the street, saw a mail box on the corner, headed for it, her eyes going right and left.

  She remembered a time when Pete had not been so powerful and they had got to him, several of the Hollihan mob, and she had found him in an alley, beaten to within an inch of his life, the beginning of an incision in his throat, which had been prevented from a death stroke only by her screaming advance. At that time she had been completely disillusioned about Pete, but she was eighteen and life had seemed important to her, even his life.

  Now she was all nerves, as if they were extending from her like tentacles, reaching out to Jack Ware. She was certain that he had been attacked because he had not returned to the dressing room in the allotted time. She had that vision of an alley and when she came to it, she knew.

  He was lying on his face, his arms outspread and she thought he was dead. She knelt down and gently felt for a pulse. It was beating with surprising strength. She tugged at him in the dark, realized that this was futile. There was blood on her hands when she regained the mouth of the narrow alley. For the second time that day there was a man’s blood on her.

  She managed to get back to the Greystone and into a booth unnoticed. She dialed Max Somerwell’s home number. She told him swiftly what had happened. She hung up and called Dr. Stone, who had a private hospital in the Sixties and with whom she had a long acquaintance. Only then did she think of the pol
ice.

  She decided against calling them. She fled back to the alley. Jack had turned over on his side, curling up, but he was still unconscious. She lit a match and saw the lump at the base of his skull like a hen’s egg, and shuddered.

  She remained there. People came and went, solitary or in twos, along the street. No one as much as glanced into the dark passage in which she nursed Jack’s bruised head in her lap. She never knew how much time went by before Max Somerwell arrived.

  He was a gnomelike man with a large, unwieldy head. He wore thick eyeglasses. He had an electric torch, which he shone carefully on Jack.

  She said, “Max, he had Ted’s will in his pocket. He was going to mail it to himself. He was afraid Cancelli would get us when we left for the night.”

  “You and Jack? You were… together?”

  “He was working on the killings,” she said sharply.

  “Oh.” Max had a small, asthmatic voice. “I see.” He felt in Jack’s pockets. “Nothing. They cleaned him.”

  “I didn’t call the police.”

  “Of course not. I knew you wouldn’t.” Max was a lawyer who did not practice, a CPA who handled some of the biggest private fortunes in town, a tax expert who cut only the corners he knew could be managed. “I think we are in bad straits as it is. Ted left a copy of the will with me, of course. That isn’t any problem.”

  “You mean that Pete, knowing I’m Ted’s heir, will do something?”

  “Among other things. Did Pete’s boys hit Jack?”

  “No. They were still in the club when I phoned you.”

  “Interesting. Someone was staked out, waiting for him.”

  “Pete may have telephoned earlier.”

  “Of course, my dear.” The little man stood up. There was the sound of a siren, muted. “Where do you think we should take Jack?”

  “His place—or mine. Not the hospital, unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  Max said, “All right. I can handle Doc Stone.”

  They waited. She wondered about Max, as she had a hundred times before. He was everybody’s confidant. Including hers. There was something about the bent little man which drew confidences and inspired trust.

  Was it all a trick? There was a thin line which Max must walk, as between Ted and Jack. He had not been frank with Jack in regard to Ted and Alvin; was this because he owed as much to one as the other? Or was Max using everyone to his own end?

  Dr. Stone came, a man with every weakness except that of carelessness toward his profession. He was tall and thin and watery of eye and he smelled of alcohol, but his examination was thorough. He said, “Pulse strong, respiration good. Where do you want him?”

  “The skull?”

  “Concussion. No fracture, I’m positive. Lay him up for a while—days, perhaps.”

  Max said, “His place, maybe?” to Lila.

  “No. Not over the restaurant. Not enough privacy.”

  “The hospital then,” said Dr. Stone.

  “My place,” said Lila. “And we must bring him in on his feet. Drive around, Doc, work on him in the ambulance. I’ll go on and meet you at the hospital. I’ll have a cab. We’ll put him in and take him to my place.”

  “That’s not too clever,” Max said.

  “It’s the way I want it,” said Lila. Two strong men came and whisked Jack into the ambulance with such speed and skill that the few scattered onlookers attracted by the incident could scarcely tell what happened.

  Max said, “I don’t like this. Damon will be snooping.”

  “Let him,” she said, wondering why she had been so insistent, remembering now that Jack kept another apartment. “You’d better do something about Ted’s will. Maybe someone wants the shooting lodge. I don’t want it, but whoever does may have had something to do with the killings.”

  Max said, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Later, when Jack can listen,” she said. She was aware that he stared, that he was displeased, but then she had affected Max that way from the beginning, a long time ago, when they had first met.

  He said, “Whatever you decide, Lila.” He went away, a misshapen small figure in the darkness. It was after two o’clock in the morning. She found the strength to walk to the cab stand. She was grateful to see Izzy Blatsky slumped behind the wheel. Everybody knew Izzy, it was the best of luck to engage him for this errand.

  He said, “Mr. Ware? You bet, Miss Lila. Like a rabbit, already. Anything you say, believe me. Get in, Miss Lila.”

  She sat back in the cab and wished she could fall asleep, even for the short ride. Her mind swirled around, grasping at the repeated tragedies of the past twenty-four hours, not quite able to comprehend them, much less their cause and effect.

  Izzy kept talking, as usual. “My wife’s got the Asiatic flu, she should be international, yet. The Doc says she will be too weak to work for days. You should see the house. It’s like the atomic bomb fell out on it. Who gave Mr. Ware the hit on the head?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “I wish I knew, too. Mr. Ware, he is a good guy.”

  “We’ll take care of him.”

  “Sure, you will. Doc Stone’s joint, huh? Many’s the time I took somebody there. Or took ’em home when they were dried out, huh? The Doc’s a great one, now. On the booze himself, so he makes a thing, yet, from taking care of booze artists. A good guy, though, he can operate on a brokester for nothing, keep his mouth shut, do a first class job. It takes all kinds to make up a world, Miss Lila. Good and bad, it don’t necessarily come in separate packages.”

  “That’s right, Izzy.”

  She stopped listening to the wry, kindly ramblings of the Bronx philosopher. She nodded, almost slept. When they stopped at a discreet distance from the private hospital she waited, still in a daze.

  It was an hour before they brought Jack out, wobbling between the two strong attendants. Doc Stone helped put him in the cab. Jack looked at her and winked.

  “How you, baby?” he asked faintly.

  “Just fine,” she said.

  Doc Stone said, “I see you’ve got Izzy. Between you, it’ll be all right. He’s coming around good. But keep him in bed until I give the word. Be around late tomorrow.”

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  The cab slid away, and Jack leaned against her. She held him tight.

  He murmured, “Woozy. They gave me a good one. Doc says they were careful not to bust anything, just to work me over. Couple of experts, Doc thinks.”

  “I don’t think Cancelli and his slobs left the club.”

  “Cancelli’s too goddam smart,” sighed Jack. Then he seemed to lose interest. He was very heavy, leaning against her.

  Izzy brought the cab to a careful stop, came around, opened the door. He said, “I can manage him, Miss Lila. You go ahead and open the door.”

  The street was deserted. It was almost four a.m. Lila went up the steps and unlocked the door. Then she went halfway down and got on one side of Jack and they brought him inside and closed the street door and began the climb to the second floor.

  Izzy was all tenderness. She gave him a ten-dollar bill and refused change and he beamed upon them. “You guys, you make it easier for me always. I can hire help, now, my wife shouldn’t get up too soon with the Chinese flu. If you want anything, you should call me, ask for Number 2012. Remember the number. I’ll be here, quick like a rabbit.”

  He left. Jack, semiconscious from the effort of getting up to the apartment, was shaking his head. She lifted him to his feet, afraid he would fall asleep in the chair. She half carried him into the bedroom.

  It was a task to undress him, but she managed. He gave her a slight struggle when it came to his undershorts and she left them on him, stretching him on the bed at full length, covering him with the blanket.

  He murmured, “You smell… awful… good, Lila. Thanks, pal … for everything… Thanks … a heap.”

  She staggered into the bathroom. The stains of his blood were still on her hands, the bl
ouse she had worn when she had found Ted dying lay on the hamper. She shut her eyes, opened them again, saw her reflection in the mirror, saw the deep circles, the dark hollows.

  She made herself run the shower, afraid of the tub for fear she would fall asleep and drown. She scrubbed and soaped and scrubbed again. She dried herself with a soft towel and wandered, half awake, into the bedroom. She meant to get a blanket and go into the living room and sleep on a divan.

  She looked at Jack, bandaged, bathed in healing lotions. She went into the living room and called Max.

  He was wide awake. “Yes, Lila. What’s happened?”

  “I want you to start divorce proceedings against Pete.” There was a long silence. She repeated her request. Max said wearily, “I heard you, dear.”

  She said, “I can’t go on being scared. I want to quit my job. I’ve got to be free.”

  “You have an Equity contract.”

  She thought about that. “Can he hurt me in Equity?”

  “It’s a legal contract, my dear.”

  “And I can’t get a divorce until I fulfill it?”

  “You could—but you know who’s paying your salary. You know Pete. You know the whole score, Lila.”

  His voice was weary, dead. She felt as though she were going to burst into sobs.

  She said, “Max, what can I do?”

  “I think you know that, too.”

  “All right.”

  “You should have acted when I wanted you to.”

  “Yes. I know what I should have done. What about now?”

  There was a long pause. Then he said, “These murders. They complicate matters. Wait a while. You’ve waited this long. Start your fight to be free when the thing is cleaned up. Maybe Pete will be in trouble by then.”

  “Pete in trouble? Don’t be comical.”

  “I don’t know what else to tell you, Lila.”

  They hung up. She had never known Max to be uncertain, this was new and frightening. She repressed her tears, she felt she could not afford them.

  She came into the bedroom and looked at Jack Ware beneath the covers. She stared at him for several minutes.

  She took off the robe and climbed into the bed and lay full length against him. It was the only gesture of which she was capable.