“What did you boys think of Bannon?” Macon threw out the question.
“He was all right,” Benny said.
“Did you like him?”
“I guess we liked him as well as we liked any other teacher,” Frank replied.
Macon ground his cigarette into the ash tray. “Which means you didn’t like him.”
“I didn’t say that,” Frank replied.
“You didn’t,” Macon admitted. “Did you like school?”
“I’d rather be working,” Frank said.
“Me too,” Benny chimed in.
“But my father and mother want me to stay in school, and Benny’s do too. That’s why we’re here.”
“Sure.” Benny took a deep breath. “If we were working we wouldn’t’a been cuttin’ classes and horsing around and we wouldn’t be sittin’ here now.”
“You mean if you were working you wouldn’t be in trouble now?”
“Why are we in trouble?” Benny got his second wind. He wasn’t frightened any more. “What’ve we done? We were clowning like the other guys. That’s all.”
Macon leaned back in his swivel chair and rocked. “I guess I was running ahead of myself,” he admitted. “You mean if you kids had been working instead of going to school you wouldn’t be a part of this investigation?”
“That’s right,” Benny said. “Believe me, Mr. Macon, I’m getting plenty from my old lady because of this.”
“Your mom’s found out about your going on the hook?” He laughed.
“You can say that again.”
“Well,” Macon said, “you deserve it. What did you kids do after you left school?”
“Who do you want to talk?” Benny asked Macon.
“No difference to me.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“You tell him,” Frank said to Benny.
Benny hesitated for effect. To begin talking immediately would show the dick that this had been rehearsed. All he had to do was tell the truth, but to make the dick drag some things out of him.
“Well,” he began, “when we got out of the schoolyard we stood around for a couple of minutes and talked. Then me and Frank walked along Sutler Avenue and we went to our club—”
“You belong to a club?” Macon interrupted.
Frank nodded. “The Amboy Dukes. We got a clubroom in East Flatbush.”
Macon lit another cigarette. “Nice place?”
“Sure is,” Benny said.
“I may step around to see it someday.”
“The guys’ll love that,” Frank said dryly.
Macon grinned as he puffed on the cigarette, and his face twisted into a grimace of mock pleasure. “I bet they will,” he said. “Go on, Benny.”
“Well, we went down to the club and played the victrola and then we went to Davidson’s to eat. After one o’clock, wasn’t it, Frank?”
Frank thought for a moment. “I guess so.”
“Then what?” Macon prodded him.
“Then after we ate we walked around on Pitkin Avenue for a while looking in the windows and then we walked over to Lincoln Terrace Park and sat there. We were feeling pretty lousy about having to tell our folks about school.”
“Your fathers and mothers work?” Macon asked them.
Frank and Benny nodded affirmatively.
“Go on.”
“So we sat there, down in the dumps and feeling sorry for each other and cursing Mr. Bannon, though we’re sorry we did that now.”
“Sorry you did what?”
“Cursed him,” Benny replied. “What else?”
“Go on.”
“So then we called up our dates and told them we’d meet them about a quarter after nine, and we went to eat in Cohen’s Delicatessen on Pitkin near Douglass. Then we met the girls about the time we said, and say, Mr. Macon—”
“Yes?”
“These girls are good kids and we don’t want their names in the paper or things like that. So you won’t get them in bad, will you?”
“No,” Macon said. “Miss Reid”—he turned to the stenographer—“make a note that if we check the girls these boys were dating the reporters are not to be informed who they are.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“So that’s okay. Now go on, Frank, you take up from there.”
Frank cleared his throat. “Well, we went with the girls to Jacob Riis Park and sat in the parking lot and necked.” Frank’s face flushed and he looked embarrassed. “Gee,” he went on, “the girls’d be sore if they knew what we were saying.”
Macon winked at them. “Don’t worry. Then what did you do?”
“We took the girls home about eleven-thirty. Then we went home and told our folks about their coming to school.”
“When did you find out that Mr. Bannon had been killed?”
“The next day.”
“You didn’t see an evening paper?”
“No,” Benny said.
“Frank?”
“No.”
“Do you boys ever buy a newspaper?”
“Once in a while,” Frank said.
“So you didn’t even see the headlines Thursday morning?”
“I didn’t,” Frank said. “My mother was too busy bawling me out for me to do anything else.”
“I didn’t see a paper either,” Benny said. “Honest.”
“How did you boys get out to Jacob Riis Park?”
Now it was coming. “We got out there,” Benny said vaguely.
“You said you were necking in the parking lot. Who was driving the car?” Benny was silent.
“Come on,” Macon said to Frank. “Who was driving the car?”
Frank looked at the floor. “Were you boys in a stolen car?”
“What difference does it make whose car it was?” Benny asked.
“Honest”—Frank raised his right hand—“it wasn’t stolen.”
“Then why won’t you tell me who the car belonged to or who was driving?”
“I was driving,” Frank said suddenly.
“You?” Macon shuffled some papers on his desk. “You’re not eighteen. You were driving without a permit?”
“Yes.”
“I was driving too,” Benny said. This was working just the way Frank said it would. Frank was an all-right guy who had something between his ears. If only he were more certain that he could trust him.
“And you’re not eighteen either.”
“I know.”
“Oh,” Macon said slowly, “now I get it. So who does the car belong to?”
“You won’t get him in trouble?” Benny asked.
“I’m not making you kids any promises.”
“Then I’m not gonna tell you,” Benny said.
“Me neither,” Frank said.
“You want me to turn you in for driving without a license?”
“You’ll do it anyway,” Frank replied. “We know what you said about you trying to be our friend was a lot of cr—I mean—” He fumbled for a word.
“I know what you mean.” Macon nodded. “Now you’re trying to play on my sympathy. It won’t do you any good unless you tell me the truth about everything I ask you. Now I’m not going to waste any more time with you because I’ve got at least fifteen other kids out there that I’ve got to see, and I’ve got a home too. So if you’re not going to tell me I’m just going to have you booked and locked up overnight until you do. So make up your minds, and you haven’t even got two minutes to do it in.”
Benny looked at Frank and Frank shrugged his shoulders.
“It was my brother’s car,” Benny said. “Oh boy”—he put the palm of his hand to his cheek—“now I’m gonna get it!”
“What’s your brother’s first name?”
“Samuel.”
“And how’d you kids drive out to Jacob Riis?”
“Out Linden Boulevard to Rockaway Boulevard and then over to the park.”
“Miss Reid”—Macon swung around in his chair—“check and see if a Samuel Semmel own
s a car. What kind of a car is it?”
“A Dodge.” Benny’s voice was weak. “A blue convertible—1941.”
“And check,” Macon instructed Miss Reid, “whether anyone remembers seeing a ‘41 Dodge convertible driving out to Jacob Riis. Are you boys good drivers?” he asked them.
“My brother wouldn’t have lent us the car if we weren’t. Please,” Benny pleaded, “don’t get him in trouble. I’m in hot enough already, and Sam’ll really fan me if I get him in trouble.”
“I’ll see,” Macon said. “In the meantime I’m warning you not to do any more driving.”
“I won’t,” Benny promised. “Honest.”
Frank also raised his hand. “Me too.”
“Now tell me the names of the girls.”
“Must we?” Frank asked helplessly.
“Yes.”
“Betty Rosen.” Frank decided that he had to see Betty that night. Benny had to tell the cops they had gone to Jacob Riis by another route because there was always the chance that the cops might drag the channel for the gun. And suppose they decided to drag underneath the Flatbush Avenue Bridge? Frank shut his eyes to prevent Macon from observing the way they narrowed. It didn’t look like the perfect setup any more.
“And yours?” Macon smiled as he questioned Benny.
“You promised not to give it to the reporters,” Benny reminded him.
“I know. What’s her name?”
“Ann Kleppner.”
“Did you kids go right to your club after you left the school?”
“Aw, what the hell,” Frank interjected, “you’ll get it out of us anyway. We stopped off and bought a pint and we drank it down at the club.”
“So you kids got high?”
“No,” Frank went on, “we didn’t get drunk.”
“Regular drinkers.” Macon rubbed his hands together. “And where’d you buy the bottle?”
“On Sutter near Junius.”
“Check if there’s a liquor store there,” Macon said to Miss Reid.
“So you don’t know who might’ve had a grudge against Mr. Bannon?”
Benny wrinkled his forehead and squinted. “I don’t know. That Wednesday was the first time Mr. Bannon really got sore at us.”
“What about Frank?” Macon asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“If you knew would you tell me?”
Frank and Benny were silent.
“You’re through.” Macon dismissed him. “You’ll report back if we need you, and stay out of trouble.”
“We’ve never been in trouble,” Benny said.
“That’s fine. Just stay out of it.”
Frank and Benny stood on the steps of the station. It was almost six o’clock, and they wondered when the guys they’d left waiting in the station would get out. Frank wanted to get away, but Benny stuck to him, for although he tried to forget what Crazy had said about Frank he could not. He didn’t dare. It wasn’t a question now of feeling sorry for what he—no, they—had done. Now it meant keeping in the clear, and as they walked up Rockaway Avenue past the furniture stores with their elaborate displays of mahogany and walnut period furniture embellished, grained, and swirled to the saturation point of decoration, Benny wasn’t going to take a chance. Not if he had to stick to Frank every minute of the day and night.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he began the conversation. “I said it wasn’t so bad,” he repeated when Frank did not answer.
“I know.”
“What’re you doin’ tonight?”
“I’m stayin’ home.”
“How about seeing the girls? You know we didn’t go out to Riis Park like we told that dick. And the babes better be tipped off.”
Frank wished that Benny would be quiet, that he had never seen or been friends with Benny. All this talk and being careful of what he said and weighing each word so that there wasn’t a chance of being tripped up was winding him up, making him want to scream and curse and kill Benny. And things were coming too easy. If only he could be sure that their alibi would stick. Maybe someone saw them get on the bus and ride back to the school, or go into the school, or come out of the school, or walk away from the school. Maybe there was someone who might suddenly remember having seen them near the school, for there was always the chance that a casual and even disinterested reader would recognize their pictures in the papers—then good-by to the perfect setup. Maybe someone saw them go over the Flatbush Avenue Bridge, and although he was certain that no one saw Benny throw the package into the channel, still he was not sure. And he knew that Benny no longer trusted him. Benny was a lousy actor and unable to conceal the fear and misgivings that consumed him. He was cold and metallic in the police station, but the calmness was engendered by a desperate determination to stay alive, and that frightened Frank. For he knew that Benny would not think twice about getting rid of him if he felt that Frank might crack, and walking along the avenue with a guy who had killed one man and might do him in thinned his blood and drained the color from his face.
“Why the hell don’t you answer me?” Benny asked him angrily.
“I was thinking,” Frank replied, “about what’re we gonna tell the kids about our wanting them to tell the cops if they have to about our driving out to Rockaway a different way.”
Benny dug his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. “You got something there.”
“Maybe we ought to tell them they’ve got to trust us and not ask any questions,” Frank suggested without hope.
“Don’t be a sap!” Benny flung at him. “And another thing”—he pulled Frank close to one of the store windows—“can I trust you?”
“Let go of me,” Frank said quietly.
“Answer me.” Benny shook him. “Can I trust you?”
“You’ve got to,” Frank said. “We can’t help ourselves.”
Benny laughed nervously and rubbed his face with his hands. “Geez, I’m jumpy. Come on, let’s forget it. Let’s call up the kids and tell them we’ll meet them. We’ll take them dancing tonight at Roseland and we’ll figure out what to tell them. You wanta call Betty?”
Frank nodded. “You call. And tell them we’ll meet them in front of the Fox. I’ll meet you there too. About nine o’clock.”
“Where you going?”
Frank stared at him. “Listen, Benny,” he finally said, “let’s get some things straight. You can’t go tailing after me like a cop. I’m in this with you. I’ve got no out. The only way I get away is if you get away, and the way you don’t trust me, I’m worried about you shooting off your big trap. You jerk, don’t you realize that if we hang around together every minute somebody is gonna get wise? We’ve always been good friends, but not like this, with you hanging onto me and wondering where I am and what I’m doing. We gotta be natural, and if we aren’t”—he shrugged his shoulders—“then we’re up the creek. So I’ll meet you in front of the Fox at nine, and let’s stop acting like Siamese twins.”
“Save the crap,” Benny said abruptly. “I’ll meet you at nine.” Then he walked into the crowd and was gone.
Roseland was a riot of noise. On the stage in the center of the ballroom, Mad Monk and His Cats were beating it out as the hot blonde in the flame-red velvet gown swayed before the microphone and sang “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” The dancers were locked in a tight swaying mass in front of the platform, while in the middle of the floor wildly gyrating couples whirled as the beat of the music increased in intensity. The revolving spotlights of sick green, red, and blue distorted and twisted the dancing shadows on the floor and walls and ceilings, and a blue pall of smoke drifted about the ballroom, fouling and contaminating the little fresh air that was left. With sweat running down their cheeks and their eyes and lips twisted in a rapt ecstatic grimace, the dancers spun through the intricate maddening routine of the lindy, pausing only as the band slackened its beat before passing the lead from the trumpet to the sax and then to Mad Monk, who pounded on the drums with a fury that made the dancers i
n front of the bandstand whistle and shriek. The sticks beat on the snare drum in two seemingly solid arcs while he pounded the bass wildly with the foot hammer. With a final rapid-driving tattoo, a whirring crash of the cymbals, and a shrill insane note from the trumpet, the number was over.
Now the whistling ceased as Monk signaled the musicians to get ready for the next number. Frank stood on the floor with flexed knees, waiting for the first bars of music. His collar was wet, and small beads of perspiration glowed on his forehead. He held Betty’s left hand loosely and at the first crash of the cymbal sent her into a spin. Betty minced on her toes in a light tap step and twirled toward Frank, who passed her hand over his head and sent her into another spin. They glided together for a moment, moving rapidly from side to side with the swift beat of the music, and again they went into a half spin, with free arms flung out, before Betty whirled toward Frank. Now they broke again, and Betty clapped her hands as she swaggered saucily toward Frank. With her buttocks thrust back and her breasts high and jiggling as she moved her shoulders, she strutted toward Frank, and Frank felt the blood rush to his face. As she came close to him he kissed her swiftly and they whirled about rapidly, lost in the blue haze, the shifting lights, and the insistent beat and rhythm of the band. Now Mad Monk took the lead again. First he worked the drums with the brushes so that the taps were low and soft, and as the whirring of the brushes grew louder and more rapid he changed to drumsticks. Monk’s body was bent low over the drums, and his tongue flicked out to lick his lips as he shifted from drum to tom-tom and back to drum. Now the cymbals crashed, and with a press of his feet Monk switched on the dim red light that glowed inside the bass. “Beat it! Beat it out!” the crowd milling around the bandstand shouted. “Beat it, Monk!” And Monk bared his teeth and grinned.
So fast that Frank knew it was only the marijuana that enabled him to keep up with the music, he led Betty through the maze of swift shuffling dance steps as his jacket began to soak through with perspiration. Betty danced with eyes half shut and lips parted. With a last violent surge of notes Monk smashed the cymbals and the dance was over, and from the milling mob on the floor there arose a short sigh as the orgasm of frenetic music expended itself. Frank and Betty swayed for a moment, and then Frank locked her in his arms and stood rocking on the dance floor.
The Amboy Dukes Page 10