She was standing there, looking scared silly, the package of meat still in her hand. “What is this all about? Are you two crazy?”
I shook my head. “Just a natural animosity we share. Big talk, here, thinks he can fire me. I want to know if he can.”
She looked from him to me and back. “He’s upset, Carl. He’s just come from the funeral of a relative. You can understand that.”
His face showed nothing. “I’ll phone you, tomorrow, Claire. We’ll talk it over.”
Then his back was to us, and he was heading for the door. Claire turned, and I thought she was going to call him, but she didn’t. She looked back at me as the door closed.
Her voice was hoarse. “Have you gone insane?”
“I guess. Crazy jealous, maybe. What difference does it make? We don’t need him.”
“We — ? They’re his rugs. I have an interest in them, but they’re his, just the same. What happened to you?”
“You. Before you happened to me, I was a little lark, joyous and jovial. Claire, I’m sorry — only, he’s such a — a typical type. I’ve seen so many of them.”
“Not like him, you haven’t, believe me. How were the folks?”
“I didn’t talk to them. Or rather, we didn’t get a chance to talk to each other. I went with Ann. Came back with Ann and Berjouhi.”
“And how is little Berjouhi?”
“Sad. Let’s eat. I’m hungry.”
“Yes, master. Would it be too much to expect an answer regarding why Berjouhi came back with you?”
I went over to put an arm around her. “You broil those and I’ll tell you while they’re broiling.”
While the steak broiled, while the toast toasted, while she made the salad and the coffee, I told her about the funeral.
When I’d finished, she sniffed. Not scornfully, but with a small tear. “That Berjouhi sounds so grand. Is she pretty, Lee?”
“I used to think so. Until I met you. Am I better-looking than Carl Lieder?”
“Oh, stop talking about him.”
“He was the first one you thought of when I was delayed. You didn’t waste any time phoning him.”
“Don’t be so damned juvenile. You sound like like — like — ”
“Like you do about Berjouhi. Just a couple of adolescents. Don’t burn that steak.”
It was fine steak. It was a fine salad, with Roquefort dressing. Coffee, we had after that, and some Goodman. And the bed. All of it fine, vintage, soul-restoring.
On the silk sheets we lay, quiescent, holding hands, staring at the dim ceiling.
“I’m all right now,” she said. “I’m not frightened any more.”
“You mean I can go? You’ve had your fill of me?”
“You can go if you want. Or you can stay. I can live without you until tomorrow. And you’re harmless, now. Even Berjouhi couldn’t stir you, I’ll bet.”
“Don’t bet too much. I have remarkable recuperative powers. Why can’t we always be like this?”
“In bed, you mean?”
“Friends, I mean. We’re always clawing at each other.”
She said quietly. “You can’t leave home. You can’t grow up and adjust to the wickedness of the world. You want to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“And I want you to be my fairy princess, my virgin queen?”
“I suppose. You’re a little late for that show.”
“You can be so damned honest, at times.” I swung over to the edge of the bed and sat up. “I think I’ll leave you — for now. I’m expecting a telegram.”
“Something I should know about?”
“No. I’ll see you tomorrow. I want to take my mother to lunch. Maybe we could — all go together?” I started to dress.
“You’d better ask her about that, first. You don’t expect me to go to the door with you, do you?”
“Not if it will strain anything.” I put my tie in my pocket and slipped into my jacket. Then I leaned over the bed to kiss her. And almost stayed the night. I should have.
Because when I got home, the boys were waiting, again. Waiting in the hall, the storm hall. Art and Al.
The light from the entrance hall was dim in here, but bright enough to show the malignance on their faces.
Art said, “They got the boss in the can. He’s a sick man. You put him in the can, didn’t you? You — ”
Al said, “Quiet, Art. I’ll — ”
“You’ll nothing,” Art interrupted. “Talk, talk, talk, that’s all you’ve got left.” He took a half-step toward me. “I’d rather hear this monkey talk.”
Shock was the first reaction on seeing them, and now fright took over. Bone-deep, it was, and I turned toward the door behind me, trying to get out, out and away.
I heard the scrape of a foot, and a grunt from Art. The knob of the door was in my hand — and pain lashed out from my brain. My knees collapsed, and I went down, grabbing at the door for support.
Then there was a hand under my left armpit and I heard Al say, “You damned fool, this is no place to — ”
No further words came through. I was half-aware of another hand, this one under my right armpit. I could feel my heart pounding at the top of my head. I could smell the coolness, suddenly, of the night air, and knew I was walking, being led, supported on both sides, but didn’t know where — until I fell forward into the rear seat of the Buick.
I was unconscious for three hours, the way I figured it, later.
I came to in the living room of a cottage. It was a fairly large room, heated by a fireplace at one end. I was on a couch. Al sat in a chair near the fire; Art sat in a rattan chair near me.
Both of them were watching me. There was no sound but the cracking of the fire, no outside sounds of traffic, no inside sounds of neighbors.
Al saw my eyes open, and asked, “How’re you feeling? This wasn’t my idea. It was Art’s. But I’m going along with it, unless you’re really smart.”
My head started to throb, and I closed my eyes again.
Al’s voice went on. “You ready to talk?”
“About what?”
“Oh — say — Bugsy Pastore?”
“I’ve heard of him. In the papers.” The throbbing diminished. I could feel the sweat running down my sides, and hear the hammering of my heart. Bugsy Pastore was one of the Mr. Bigs in the crime news.
“That doll of yours, that Lynne babe’s heard of him, too, hasn’t she? In Miami, you’d think they were married, the way they were always together.”
“She never mentioned him to me,” I said.
“You’re a liar,” Art said. And to Al, “What good’s talking to the stupe? Let me have him.”
“Later,” Al said, and looked again at me. “Bugsy doesn’t scare us, if you’re figuring on that. We’ve known him too long. When he was a punk, driving for Joe Revere, we knew him. He’s in, now, and the boss is — retired, but nobody will mourn Bugsy, so don’t figure on him. He’s not big; he’s just loud.”
“I don’t know him,” I said.
Art got up from his chair, but Al said, “Later, Art. Damn it, give me some time.”
Art looked over at Al for seconds, and sat down again.
Al said, “Sit up. You can sit up.”
I put my hands beneath me, and swung my legs off the edge of the couch. When I brought my body up, the throbbing seemed to burst out behind my eyes and the room rocked for a second. I put my hand up to massage my neck, and felt the lump on the lower half of my skull, a few inches over from my right ear.
Al said, “Art’s kind of an artist with a sap.”
Overhead, I heard the drone of a plane. The fire cracked, and sparks bounced against the screen in front of it. I took a deep breath.
“Last time we talked,” Al went on, “you sounded like a man who had some sense. Then you go yacking to the law. That didn’t make any kind of sense. What do you think they can hold the boss on? There’s nothing. You think he’s going to make some kind of deal? Is that what Bugsy th
ought?”
“I don’t know Bugsy Pastore. If it would do me any good to talk about him, I would. But I never met him. Somebody’s been giving both of you boys a bum steer. And I think I know who it is.”
Al smiled. “Bey? That hoodoo hop-head? Guess again.”
“That’s the only guess I’ve got.” There was a sourness in my mouth and my stomach rumbled.
“This trip, the one you claim you didn’t make to Green Bay. How about that?”
“I didn’t go to Green Bay. I went to — Badger Junction.”
“Bull — ,” Art said. “Had enough talk, Al? So, if he spills everything he knows, what do we win? But we fix him up and drop him off at Pastore’s, it makes sense all around. Especially to Bugsy. There’ll be no kick-back. Bugsy isn’t that solid. Especially when it gets around he’s running to the law.”
Al took a deep breath and looked at the fire. “The Old Man wouldn’t like it.”
“He’s not going to know it.”
“Yes, he will. That Waldorf will be camping in his hair.”
“All right. So we don’t drop him at Bugsy’s.”
The room swayed, back and forth, back and forth. The crack of the fire came from a million miles away. Sweat ran down the back of my hands and dripped on the carpeted floor.
So much shock, so much fright, and the mind can absorb no more. They meant to kill me. At least Art did, and Art seemed to be taking over the show.
They’d killed Sam. I was sure of that, now. Maybe they hadn’t meant to. Maybe he’d been intended as a “warning,” too. But he’d died. And I was next.
Who’ll find your body, Lee Kaprelian?
I said quietly, “Getting rid of me wouldn’t do you any good. I’ve no connection with Bugsy Pastore. And I’m sure Miss Lynne hasn’t. She’s known a lot of wealthy men, and Pastore was probably just one of them. She knew Ismet Bey, too, and Ducasse and probably your boss.”
Silence.
Then Al. “Starting to talk, aren’t you? It isn’t hard, is it? Keep talking.”
“Miss Lynne and I are selling some rugs she owns, or rather, in which she has an interest. She never mentioned Bugsy Pastore to me. I told Dykstra that Sam Sabazian had told me some things. That was a lie. He never told me anything about Dykstra. If I stay here the rest of my life, I can’t tell you any more than that.”
Al looked at Art. Art continued to look at me.
Art asked, “How about this Bey? Where does he fit in?”
“We’ve got a rug of his. He’s offered us thirty thousand dollars for it, but we’re not ready to sell.”
Al’s gaunt face showed nothing. Art’s broad face was a caricature of disbelief. Art laughed. “Boy, you’re full of it, aren’t you?”
“Ask Bey,” I said.
Al shrugged his shoulders and looked at the fire. Art said to him, “How long do we ride with this monkey?”
Al looked at him, and away.
Art’s voice had some gravel in it. “We’re sulking, again. What’s eating you, now?”
Al’s eyes came back. “Your muscle. The boss can live only if he lives quiet. You know that. Maybe you forgot what happened to Sid Greene. He had to get loud, so Congress steps in. Pastore’s got no beef with the Old Man. Why should he? He’s got the business, hasn’t he? So this blonde knew Pastore. Name me a blonde who doesn’t know Pastore. And he happens to have a summer place near Green Bay. You put all this together in your scrambled brain and go on the prowl. And the Old Man sits. And the boys begin to sweat, wondering if hell break, being sick. And maybe thinking it’s better if he’s fixed so he can’t break. All because you started to believe you’ve got something. God damn it, you moron, the muscle days are over.”
Art took it all, smiling. And said, “Scared, Al?”
Al’s bony face was harsh in the light from the fireplace. “I’m scared. For the Old Man, I’m scared. He took me out of the gutter. And you, too. If it wasn’t for him, you’d still be driving a truck. And now you want to kill him.”
“Kill him? Me — kill him? You crazy?”
Al shook his head. “No. You are, though. I used to think you were just simple. An all-right guy, but dumb. You’re more than that — you’re kill-crazy.” He stood up. “It’s your show, Einstein.”
“Where you going? Al — you nuts?”
“I’m going back to town.” He was standing near the door, now. “I’m going to wait for them to release the Old Man. I’m sticking close to him. Somebody had better stay with him, after all the mess you got him into.”
“Don’t take the car. I’ll need the car. Walk out if you’re yellow, Al, but don’t take the car.”
Al said nothing. He looked at neither of us before walking out.
The fire crackled in the quiet room. Art sat in the chair, staring at me, his squat body as motionless as a rock. Then there was the grind of a starter, and he jerked, and his head swiveled.
The cough of a motor, and he was up, and over at the window looking out.
Headlights outlined him in the window, and he said, “The son of a bitch. The yellow son of — ”
Quiet. The headlights went away, and the sound of the motor went away. Art turned, to look at me.
Nothing from him. Nothing in me. I had the feeling of being a spectator, outside of myself, watching something inevitable shaping up, along the path of uncontrolled violence.
My voice came from somewhere, not from me. “You killed Sam Sabazian.”
His broad face considered me without interest.
“Maybe you didn’t mean to, but you did. Trying to scare off Miss Lynne, were you? That’s why you dropped him off in front of her place. Maybe you thought Pastore was there, with her.”
“Maybe.” He came back to sit in the chair. He leaned forward in it, like a fighter on his stool, his forearms on his knees, his fists clenched. “Thirty thousand for a rug. If you can lie like that, you must have lied about the rest.”
“Your boss paid twenty-three thousand for one,” I said.
“I still don’t believe it was just a rug he was buying. He and Al were bullshipping me about that.”
I said nothing.
“You tell me,” he said. “You tell me what Sabazian was selling him.”
“A rug. They’ve brought more than that, oriental rugs have. Where are we, now?”
“Pewaukee Lake. Why? Want to go swimming?”
I said nothing.
“Well — ,” he said, and stood up. Standing up, he was within a few feet of me. He stood there, regarding me with interest, and what looked like an almost sensual anticipation.
Then his right hand came swinging.
It was open-handed and caught me flush on the left ear. My head was full of bells, but I didn’t go down. I came in for him, clawing.
He put a hand on my chest, and shoved me back to the couch. Again, he regarded me, and this time the sensuality was naked on his broad face. It was the first sign of any true emotion I’d seen on that face. This he liked; this he needed.
He didn’t want me to talk. He was hoping I wouldn’t. He wanted gratification, not information.
“Come in, again,” he said. “I like a jerk that shows some fight.”
“Why don’t you get married?” I said. “There’s less danger, that way. It’s legal, that way.”
His left hand caught me, this time, and the bells tolled once more. I made another try for him, coming in with my head down, aiming the top of my head at his broad face, driving with what strength was left in my legs.
I missed him completely, and fell full length onto the floor. I didn’t try to turn over; I waited for the kick that would be due, now.
It didn’t come. I turned my head and saw his feet close by, and then I saw him kneel, and his hand was on my shoulder.
He turned me over, like you’d flip over a beetle.
He was unbuttoning my jacket.
I reached for him, and he drew back, smiling at me. I tried to get up, and he pushed me down almost gently.
He crouched there, studying me, and I made the final effort, scrambling like a crab, rolling over to all fours, trying to get up.
Something caught me behind the ear and put me out of this world.
Chapter Eleven
THE SNOW came down, shrouding the hills, silhouetting the black trees, the quiet, covering snow. My mother said, “Not today, Levon. Papa needs you at the store. On Sunday, we’ll all go to the park and you can coast on the hills.”
Soft and rounded, the hills were, and white. Like a young woman’s breasts. And the kids screamed and shouted, and the parents stood on top, watching. There wasn’t room for both Ann and me on the sled. It was a small sled, a cheap, small sled. We took turns.
The other kids had toboggans and skis and big sleds, and their parents’ cars were waiting on top of the hill. We took turns. It was all right, I’m not kicking. It was better than not coasting, better than working in the store. It was fun.
Glacial hills, made how many years ago by the huge ice pack out of the arctic. Gouged by the millions of tons of ice, worn round by weather and time, now serving the kids.
And as the sun went down, the early, winter sun, it got colder and the breeze from the lake was raw, and most of the kids were gone. Papa and Ma were still up there, on top of the hill. After a while, they were the only parents left, and the cold was getting to me, a little, and Ann let me have all the rides.
It got colder and darker — and I opened my eyes.
The fire was just a dim, red glow, and the quiet was absolute. I was still on the floor. I was naked.
I saw his feet. And moved my head quietly until I could see his legs. Just shadows in the ember-lighted room. He was on the davenport, half reclining against the cushioned arm at this end.
I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see whether he was awake or asleep. The grass rug beneath me was rough against my bare body; the draft along the floor made me tremble.
No sound, no way of knowing if he was aware of me. I started to crawl. My head throbbed with the beating of my heart. He couldn’t be asleep; he’d be waiting for me to regain consciousness. There’d be no kicks in it for him unless I was conscious.
Crawling, like a damned snake. Toward the door. No sound of breathing, no movement from him. How strong were my legs, what moxie did I have? Could I rise, when I got to the door? Would I have the strength to run if I got through it?
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