by John Roeburt
I caught his left fist on my palm and brought up my shoulder to absorb the right cross which was blossoming toward me. I’d forgotten my wound and grunted as a sharp needle of pain stabbed through the left side of my body. Five O’Clock pressed forward, shuffling at me flatfooted. His eyes were fighter’s eyes which could feint you out of position without a muscle moving.
I parried his left again, but with a shrewd animal instinct he made for the injured shoulder. I had to protect it and wound up on the receiving end of a right cross with plenty of leverage behind it. The hall tilted crazily, fat Auntie in her black-eyed susan dress, Doris with her open mouth and breasts heaving, and all. My back jarred the floor as I went down and I had time to think Louis must be worrying that one of the beds had collapsed. Then Five O’clock’s shoe swam at me out of the dimness and the heel suspended there, ready to strike. I caught it flush in the mouth and spat blood, expecting teeth to follow.
I squirmed away and tried to get enough distance to climb to my feet, but the heel stamped down on my shoulder on the second try. The injured shoulder. I lay there throbbing with pain and cursing Five O’Clock, lifting my hands to ward off the next downthrust of his shoe. He came plowing at me sideways instead, kicking me in the ribs. I rolled over on my stomach and over again, clutching at Five O’clock’s shoe and twisting it. He lost his balance and bellowed something Doris was never meant to hear, no matter what business she was in.
I pawed the waxed floorboards and struggled to my feet first, but Five O’Clock was not far behind. We stood there pummeling each other’s guts and you could hear it, thud, thud, thud, and our harsh breathing, and nothing else. Then the bastard butted me with his head so hard I nearly bit the tip of my tongue clean off. Someone yowled. Me.
Five O’clock’s knee came up between my legs and I thought, as I collapsed toward the floor, he had no respect for the Marquis of Queensbury. He took a deep breath and came hurtling down after me but I’d learned a couple of tricks myself in prison. I did a kick-up, the soles of my shoes catching him right under the rib cage, lifting him up and tossing him away.
He crashed into the wall and I was after him, getting in a couple of good pokes at his immense jaw before he slid down the wall to the floor. Afterwards my shoulder would ache like it wanted to fall off, but not now. Now I was thinking of Guido and Jo-Anne and Steffy. Also of myself.
I kicked Five O’Clock in the kidneys and listened to him scream. I kicked him in the chin, in the great jutting chin, and watched his head slam against the wall. I sank the toe of my shoe into his gut, exposed now, the muscles not tensed. His head lolled to the side and I kicked it, laying open the skin and flesh along one cheekbone and watching the blood splash down on his white shirt.
“Where’s the girl?” I said.
Five O’Clock couldn’t talk just yet. His mouth opened and closed but he only succeeded in drooling.
Doris crouched there, her skin glistening with sweat, trickles of it running down her chest and between her breasts. She looked like she both hated the fight and loved it. Auntie was gawking at me with new respect. Then footsteps came pounding up the stairs. Louis coming to investigate the ruckus, I thought, or Mr. Jack.
It wasn’t Louis and I was willing to bet it wasn’t Jack.
He was big and round and had a huge pig nose tip-tilted and spread over his face. His skin was swarthy and I figured he had a name: Puggie LaBetta. I whirled to face him but Five O’Clock had enough strength left to stick out his leg and trip me. I plummeted head first toward Puggie, off balance. He obliged by straightening me with a couple of left hooks and sitting me down alongside Five O’Clock with a right cross. Puggie used his dukes like he’d once fought professionally.
More feet pounded on the stairs. I sat numb, shaking my head, next to the bleeding Five O’Clock. Louis called, “Everything awright up there?”
“Hunky dory,” Puggie told him. Louis retreated downstairs. I started scrambling to my feet, but Puggie kicked me in the chest.
Then he reached into his pocket, crouched alongside me and laid a sap across my forehead. I hardly felt it but I knew I was going to pass out. Doris opened her mouth to scream but I closed my eyes and shut my ears and chased the sound away.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a room, a lot like Doris’ place of business, with a double bed, a wing chair, a bureau, an alcove leading off in the direction of the bathroom. All this I saw when I opened my eyes.
Then I saw Steffy.
“Don’t talk,” she said. “Don’t try to get up. What did they do to you? I was so afraid you would…
“Not this boy,” I said. I sneezed. I’d been deposited on the floor and now I sat up.
“I think I stopped the bleeding,” Steffy said. “They threw you in here about an hour ago, without saying a word. Jason, what do they want with us?”
“Tell me what happened after you went to see Wompler, then maybe we’ll figure it out.”
I touched the sore spots on my head gingerly and felt the caked blood there. I listened as Steffy spoke.
“First of all, stop looking at the door. It’s locked from the outside.”
I stopped looking at the door. I looked at Steffy instead and wound up kissing her. She was kneeling beside me and I pulled her down gently and could feel her trembling.
“I was so afraid, Jason.”
“I love you, kid.”
“I love you too.”
She sighed. I sighed. I pushed her away and said, “So?”
“Well, I told Mr. Wompler I knew about the pictures. About how he had plotted with Ken to use a picture of me and make believe it was Julia so he could ‘blackmail’ your brother.”
She stopped to kiss me.
“You’ll catch cold,” I warned.
“Mr. Wompler said the whole idea was your brother’s. Then someone called him on the phone, and he called someone else. He stalled a while, then that man with the scar on his chin walked in. Mr. Wompler was scared of him and hardly said anything. I could tell Mr. Wompler didn’t like what was going on, but he left me with the man with the scar on his chin, whom he called Mr. McGuire. McGuire showed me a gun and said I better not try and get away. Then he took me downstairs and drove me here. We’re in Brooklyn, aren’t we?”
“Brooklyn,” I said. “Go on.”
“That’s all I can tell you, Jason. They locked me in this room and went away. The window frame is nailed so you can’t open the window, and see those bars? They’re nailed right across the frame…You can’t get out even if you smack the glass. They brought you in here, that Mr. McGuire and another man, and haven’t been back since. Jason, what are they going to do with us?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. I couldn’t see the connection, though. Five O’Clock and Puggie were working for whoever had taken the Kincaid papers. They’d killed Jo-Anne, according to Guido, and they had sprayed him and me and Nostrand Avenue with bullets. But just how did they tie in with Wilson Wompler? Or my brother Ken, who was blackmailing himself?
“Jason, they’re coming!” Steffy stiffened in my arms and we both turned to face the door. A key scraped in the lock. The door opened, then closed, admitting Puggie and a battered Five O’Clock to the room.
“He’s up,” Five O’Clock said. His left cheek was bruised and purple, his left eye swollen shut. His lips were swollen too. He seemed very sullen until he looked at me. Then he smiled. I must have looked even worse.
“I’m telling you,” Puggie said, “it don’t figure. We got no orders on this guy, so we can’t just make him part of the package.”
“The louse,” said Five O’Clock. “He butted in, he goes along for the ride.”
“We’ll wait till we get told, see?”
Five O’Clock shrugged broad shoulders. “I ain’t in no hurry,” he said. “But I owe this guy something.”
“That,” said Puggie, “is your business.”
“My pal,” Five O’Clock said. “My budd
y, Puggie. I done you favors.”
“So what you want I should do?”
“Keep him covered. Keep the dame covered. I want to kick the teeth out of him.”
Puggie nodded without expression and took a .45 automatic out from under his jacket. This close, it looked like an elephant gun. Five O’Clock said, “You sit still, lady. I ain’t fooling.”
Steffy looked at me. I nodded.
Five O’Clock grinned crookedly out of the unswollen side of his mouth. Then he hit me.
It was a pretty fair wallop and it spilled me over on my back. My bum shoulder started to ache again. “Get up,” Five O’Clock said.
I climbed to hands and knees and got spilled again when Five O’clock’s foot thudded against my ribs. Steffy screamed and Puggie told her to shut up.
“Get it over with,” Puggie said.
“I ain’t in no hurry,” Five O’Clock reminded him and dug his heel into my back. I wasn’t finished yet. I could have gotten to my feet before the count of ten and still made a fight of it. But there was Puggie and his .45, meant as much for Steffy as for me. I lay there and let Five O’Clock drag me up into a sitting position. Then he kicked me again and I was clawing at the worn threads of the carpet on the floor.
The hell with him, I thought. I’d come up fighting. I lay there a while, breathing dust from the carpet.
Five O’Clock returned with a water-soaked towel just as I climbed to hands and knees. He swung the towel like a flail and it almost tore my head off, but I stayed that way, on hands and knees. Steffy was sobbing.
“Holler, you bastard!” Five O’Clock screamed. “Why don’t you holler?” He was swinging the towel again and while it had lost some of its moisture it was still wet and heavy. I rolled over on my good shoulder and plucked the towel from his hands, rolling again and scrambling to my feet. He came lumbering toward me, amazed that I could still operate after he’d done his worst. I slammed the wet towel across the side of his head, where it raised a red welt from ear to jaw as he fell.
“That’s enough,” Puggie said, waving his .45. “Drop that towel.” It sounded ridiculous: drop that towel. I laughed and Steffy, who’d been crying, started to laugh, too. I dropped the wet towel on Five O’clock’s face and he came up with it in his hands and mayhem in his eyes.
He screamed something meaningless, like one of II Duce’s balcony speeches. It was easy to sidestep and shove him in the direction he was already traveling under a full head of steam. He plowed into the door and moaned and sat down there, mumbling to himself.
“You struck out,” Puggie told him. “That’s enough. Better stay put till the boss gets here.”
“There are ways to kill a guy,” Five O’Clock was promising himself, “and ways to kill a guy. Slow, so he dies an ounce at a time. That’s how he’s going to get it, Puggie. An ounce at a time.”
“We better wait for the boss,” repeated Puggie, lifting Five O’Clock to his feet and opening the door and ushering him outside.
We listened to the door being locked. We stood there looking at each other. Then I grinned. Steffy tried it too and said, “You look positively hideous. Jason, please hold me tight. You think they’re going to kill us?”
“I don’t know.”
“But why?”
“I know too much. Still, I can’t figure out why they brought you here.”
“Jason, they can’t…just…can they?”
I tried to comfort her. I cursed Puggie and Five O’Clock, and wondered who was behind them. Wompler? Was he man enough?
Suddenly we heard the door being unlocked again. It swung open. Someone was thrust into the room.
My brother Ken.
Chapter Seventeen
He immediately spun around and pounded on the door and twisted the knob futilely. He hadn’t noticed us yet. “You can’t do this to me,” he said. “Let me out of here.” It was all automatic. In such a situation, people say things like that. Ken was opening his mouth and the sounds were coming out, syllable following appropriate syllable. This was Ken, even when he faced death. Ken with his automatic, proper, socially acceptable responses.
Giving it up, he turned away from the door, meaning to inspect the room.
“Jason,” he said abruptly, seeing us for the first time. “Maybe you can explain why they’ve brought me here, boy.”
“Maybe you can tell me,” I said.
“It’s all so confusing.” Ken limped toward us on his bad leg with the built-up heel and for the first time it was completely Ken’s leg, Ken’s injury, and not mine. He didn’t notice my battered face at all, and that helped. “Pop Grujdzak called me,” Ken said. “He wanted to know if Wilson Wompler was blackmailing me over his daughter. He seemed to know a lot about it. I told him the truth, how Julia had been unfaithful to me with Wompler and how Wompler was bleeding me dry because of it.”
“That isn’t the truth,” I said. “You arranged for Wompler to blackmail you. You wanted it. You thought you could keep Julia in line that way. You thought if she figured Wompler had pictures—”
“What are you saying, Jason boy? What are you telling me? A man doesn’t blackmail himself.”
He was sick. Give him time and soon he wouldn’t believe the truth himself. “Just go ahead with your story,” I said.
“Pop Grujdzak told me he was calling from Wompler’s and that his daughter was in bad trouble and it was my fault. I said how could that be, Julia was right with me. But it must have been you he meant, is that it, Stephanie?” This was the first word Ken had addressed to her. “What is it? Anything I can help you with?”
“Never mind Steffy,” I said. “What happened next?”
“I rushed down to Wompler’s because I had to get this blackmail business straightened out. Pop Grujdzak wasn’t around any more. I was told he had gone to Brooklyn—after you.”
“Who told you?”
“The policemen there with Wompler and that big blonde woman who works for him. Wompler was a broken man! You wouldn’t recognize him if you saw him. Brace yourself, Jason boy. The cops said he’d confessed to murdering the Phyllis Kirk girl and stealing those Kincaid papers!
I nodded grimly. At the beginning, it would have had to be Wompler, of course. He was the only one who knew about the papers. Phyllis Kirk had told him, and had died for it. But someone must have taken it from there.
Who?
Ken, who could have frightened Wompler out of the deal with a kind of reverse blackmail? You’re blackmailing me because I’m paying you to blackmail me, but try to get anyone to believe that.
The girl Audrey, who must have known most of Wompler’s secrets and could do more with them than he could?
Pop Grujdzak, maybe? He’d been on all sides of this thing right along. What was keeping him, anyway? Why wasn’t he on hand, rescuing his daughter? In a police car, he didn’t have to worry about speed limits or red lights.
Something was still chewing at the back of my mind.
Maybe it spelled Pop Grujdzak and maybe it didn’t but right now there was no getting it out into the open where I could study it.
“Keep talking,” I told Ken.
“Wompler said you had taken the blackmail pictures. Then the phone rang—it was for me. Somebody by the name of McGuire. Said he had the pictures at The House That Jack Built, and I should come out to get them.”
“The cops at Wompler’s place didn’t question you? Ask you about that phone call?”
“Why should they?” Ken said. “I’m a reputable citizen. I wanted to lay my hands on the pictures as soon as possible, so I found a taxi and came over. I asked for McGuire, and he pulled a gun on me. Then he forced me in here, but I don’t know why. Do you know what they want?”
It was almost funny. Ken had come streaking over the Williamsburg Bridge after me to maintain the fiction of blackmail. It wasn’t necessary at all and he must have known that in the part of his mind which didn’t do the motivating, yet he had come anyway. And might get killed for it.
>
The poor guy was really nuts!
But why had they sent for him? There was a connection between Ken’s self-blackmail and the Kincaid business that I failed to see.
“Listen,” I said, “did the police tell you your father-in-law was on his way here?”
“They certainly did. That’s what I don’t understand, Jason. Where is Pop Grujdzak?”
“A good question.” I looked at Steffy.
“Don’t stare at me like that. I can’t answer for my father. Maybe he went to a Brooklyn precinct station first, I don’t know.” Steffy’s voice trailed off lamely. With his own daughter in trouble, Pop Grujdzak wouldn’t stop to get reinforcements, and Steffy knew it.
Whatever the reason, it looked like we’d have to do our own rescuing. I went to the window and tried it, but the frame and thick wooden cross-bars were nailed firmly. There was nothing in the room I could use to pry out the nails. I stood thinking, rubbing a circle of condensed moisture off the cold pane with the palm of my hand and staring at the snow still falling thick and white outside. The flakes fluttered and fell and formed an image for me of Jo-Anne smiling and saying she didn’t care about anything as long as I wouldn’t send her away.
And I wondered if Ken, Steffy and I would follow her and the others to oblivion, soon becoming nothing more than someone’s fading memories.
I tried the door but its lock was as effective as the window nails. I found myself studying Ken’s face, the sagging weakness where lips met jowls, the uncertain eyes. Somehow I felt sorry for him and all his frustrations and lackings and incompleteness. It was a new kind of sympathy, an objective sympathy. I didn’t feel sorry for Ken for what I had done to him; I felt sorry for Ken because he was somehow gravely, tragically hollow. He had all the necessary assets. The arms and the legs and the features, the proper clothing. But he was not a physical man, not a mental man, not an emotional man. He was my brother Ken, the social man. He was all appearances.
“This is New York City,” Ken said. “They can’t do this to us. Not here, not now. This is a civilized place. There are police for such things. We have nothing to worry about.”
My platitude of a brother.