by Ed McBain
I started walking again, and I stumbled again, and then I got to my feet and burped, and I said, “Son’fabitch,” like a drunk cursing at the world in general. I didn’t have to act very hard. I knew the role exceptionally well.
I passed a second alleyway, and I saw the shadow snake out over the brick wall an instant before the pipe hit the back of my head. I’d been waiting for the blow for three weeks, and I rolled with it now, my thick matted hair cushioning the strike a little, the roll taking away some of the power behind it, but not all of it, the pain still rocking my head and erupting in a sort of yellow flash. But the pain passed before I dropped to the sidewalk, and my head was clear because Farvo’s killer was about to try to act again, the act that was always good for an encore.
I lay there like a dead man, and then there were footsteps coming from the alleyway, and I felt hands under my armpits, and then a high voice said, “Come on, bum,” and the voice trailed away into a delighted kind of laughter, an almost hysterically ecstatic laughter.
My heels dragged along the sidewalk, and I tensed myself, waiting for what was coming, ready for it. The hands under my armpits released their grip, and my back hit the concrete, and then a shoe lashed out, catching me on the shoulder, hurting me, but I didn’t make my play, not even then. Another kick came, and I tried to roll with it, waiting, listening in the darkness.
“I got him,” the voice said, and it was a lower voice, just the way Diego had said, but it sure as hell wasn’t the same voice that had spoken first. And then, out of the darkness, a third voice said, “Come on, come on,” and I figured the full cast was there then, so I went into action.
The “I-got-him” voice was starting to straddle me, ready to use the fists he’d used on Diego and Farvo and all the other boys. I didn’t wait for him to finish his straddle, and I didn’t waste a lot of time with him. I jackknifed my leg, and then I shot out with my foot, and I felt the sole of my shoe collide with his crotch, and I was sure I’d squashed his scrotum flat. He let out a surprised yell, and the yell trailed away into a moan of anguish. He dropped to the pavement, clutching at his pain, and I got to my feet and said, “Hello, boys.”
I’d underestimated their numbers. There were four of them, I saw, and four was a little more than I’d bargained for. I-Got-Him was rolling on the floor, unable to move, but the other three with him were very much able to move, and two of them were blocking the mouth of the alleyway now, and the third was a big hulking guy who stood across from me on the opposite wall.
“Having a little sport, boys?” I said.
They couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. They were big boys, and the summer heat had put a high sheen of sweat on the young muscles that showed where their T shirts ended.
“He ain’t drunk,” one of the boys in the alley mouth said.
“Not drunk at all,” I told him. “Does that spoil the kicks?”
“Let’s get out of here, Mikie,” the other boy blocking the alley mouth said.
The boy opposite me kept looking at me. “Shut up,” he said to the boys. “What’s your game, mister?”
“What’s yours, sonny?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“And I’ve got the answers, sonny. All of them. I figured you for just one crazy bastard at first. One crazy bastard with strong fists and feet. But then things began getting a little clearer, and I began to figure you for more than one crazy bastard. I asked myself, Why? Why beat up bums, guys with no money? Sure, roll a fruit or roll an uptown lush, but why a Bowery bum. It figured for nothing but kicks then, kicks from a deadly dull summer. And then I asked myself, Who’s got time on their hands in the summer?” I paused. “What high school do you go to, sonny?”
“Take him,” Mikie said, and the two boys rushed in from the alley mouth, ready to take me.
The boys were amateurs. They had got their training in street fights or school fights, but they were strictly amateurs. It was almost pitiful to play with them, but I remembered what they’d done to Farvo, just for kicks, just for the laughs, just for the sport of beating the piss out of a drunken bum, and then I didn’t care what I did to them.
I gave the first boy something called a Far-Eastern Capsize. As he rushed me, I dropped to one knee and butted him in the stomach with my head. I swung my arms around at the same time, grabbing him behind both knees, and then raised myself from one knee and snapped him back to the pavement. He screamed when he tried to break his fall with his hands, spraining them, and then his head hit the concrete, and he wasn’t doing any more screaming. I pulled myself upright just as his pal threw himself onto my back, and I didn’t waste any time with him, either. I went into a Back Wheel, dropping again to my knees, surprising the hell out of him. Before he got over his surprise, I had the little finger of his left hand between my own hands, and I shoved it back as far as it would go, and then some. He was too occupied with the pain in his hand to realize that I was tugging on it, or that his body was beginning to lean over my head. I snapped to my feet again, and he went down, butt over teacups. Then I reached down for him and drove my fist into his face with all my might.
Mikie was huddled against the wall. Mikie was the leader of those pleasure-seekers, and I saved the best for Mikie. I closed in on him slowly, and he didn’t at all like the turn of events, he didn’t at all like being on the other end of the stick.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen, can’t we—”
“Come on, bum,” I said, and then I really closed in.
Detective-Lieutenant Randazzo was very happy to close the case. He was so happy that he asked me afterwards if I wouldn’t like him to buy me a drink. I said no thanks, and then I went home to the Bowery, and that night we all sat around and passed a wine jug, me and Danny and Angelo and Diego and the Professor and Marty and, oh, a lot of guys.
My friends and neighbors.
KID KILL
It was just a routine call.
I remember. I was sitting around with Ed, talking about a movie we’d both seen when Marelli walked in, a sheet of paper in his hand.
“You want to take this, Art?” he asked.
I looked up, pulled a face, and said, “Who stabbed who now?”
“This is an easy one,” Marelli said, smiling. He smoothed his mustache in an unconscious gesture and added, “Accidental shooting.”
“Then why bother Homicide?”
“Accidental shooting resulting in death,” Marelli said.
I got up, hitched up my trousers, and sighed. “They always pick the coldest goddamn days of the year to play with war souvenirs.” I looked at the frost edging the windows and then turned back to Marelli. “It was a war souvenir, wasn’t it?”
“A Luger,” Marelli said. “Nine m/m with a three and five-eighth-inch barrel. The man on the beat checked it.”
“Was it registered?”
“You tell me.”
“Stupid sons of bitches,” I said. “You’d think the law wasn’t for their own protection.” I sighed again and looked over to where Ed was trying to make himself small. “Come on, Ed, time to work.”
Ed shuffled to his feet. He was a big man with bright red hair, and a nose broken by an escaped con back in ’45. It so happened that the con was a little runt, about five feet high in his Adler elevators, and Ed had taken a lot of ribbing about that broken nose—even though we all knew the con had used a lead pipe.
“Trouble with you, Marelli,” he said in his deep voice, “you take your job too seriously.”
Marelli looked shocked. “Is it my fault some kid accidentally plugs his brother?”
“What?” I asked. I had taken my overcoat from the peg and was shrugging into it now. “What was that, Marelli?”
“It was a kid,” Marelli said. “Ten years old. He was showing his younger brother the Luger when it went off. Hell, you know these things.”
I pulled my muffler tight around my neck and then buttoned my coat. “This is just a waste of time,” I sa
id. “Why do the police always have to horn in on personal tragedies?”
Marelli paused near the table, dropping the paper with the information on it. “Every killing is a personal tragedy for someone,” he said. I stared at him as he walked to the door, waved, and went out.
“Pearls from a flatfoot,” Ed said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
It was bitter cold, the kind of cold that attacks your ears and your hands, and makes you want to huddle around a potbelly stove. Ed pulled the Mercury up behind the white-topped squad car, and we climbed out, losing the warmth of the car heater. The beat man was standing near the white picket fence that ran around the small house. His uniform collar was pulled high onto the back of his neck, and his eyes and nose were running. He looked as cold as I felt.
Ed and I walked over to him, and he saluted, then began slapping his gloved hands together.
“I been waitin’ for you, sir,” he said. “My name’s Connerly. I put in the call.”
“Detective/First Grade Willis,” I said. “This is my partner, Ed Daley.”
“Hiya,” Ed said.
“Hell of a thing, ain’t it, sir?”
“Sounds routine to me,” Ed put in. “Kid showing off his big brother’s trophy, bang! His little brother is dead. Happens every damned day of the week.”
“Sure, sir, but I mean …”
“Family inside?” I asked.
“Just the mother, sir. That’s what makes it more of a tragedy, you see.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Well, sir, she’s a widow. Three sons. The oldest was killed in the last war. He’s the one sent the Luger home. Now this. Well, sir, you know what I mean.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s get inside before I get like the brass monkey.”
Connerly led us to the front door, and rapped on it with a gloved hand. Ed stole a glance at me, and I knew he didn’t relish this particular picnic any more than I did.
The door opened immediately, and a small woman with quick blue eyes stood there. She might have been pretty in her youth, but that was a long time ago, and all the beauty had fled from her, leaving a parched, withered shell. Only the eyes remained to testify to what had once been—and they were misted with carefully guarded tears now.
“This is Detective/First Grade Willis and his partner, Mrs. Owens,” Connerly said.
Mrs. Owens nodded faintly, pulling her shawl around her against the wind that shoved its way through the open door.
“May we come in, ma’m?” I asked.
She seemed to remember her manners all at once. “Yes, please,” she said. “Please do.” Her voice was stronger than her body looked, and I wondered if she were really as old as she seemed. A widow, one son killed in the war. Death can sometimes do that to a person. Leave them looking more withered than the corpse.
“We’re sorry to bother you,” I said, feeling foolish as hell, the way I always did in a situation like this. “The law requires us to make a routine check, however, and …”
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Willis.” She moved quickly to the couch and straightened the doilies. “Sit down, won’t you?”
“Thank you.” I sat down with Ed on my right. Connerly stood near the radiator, his hands behind his back.
Ed took out his pad, and cleared his throat. I took that as my cue and said, “Can you tell us exactly what happened?”
Her lower lip began to tremble, and I saw the tears fighting to spill from her eyes. She bit down on her lip, and lowered her head, and when she raised it again, she’d succeeded in keeping the tears in check.
“Well, I—I don’t really know, exactly. You see, I was in the kitchen baking. This is Wednesday, and I usually bake on Wednesdays. The boys …” She hesitated and bit her lip again. “The boys like pie, and I try to bake one at least once a week.”
“Yes, ma’m.”
“I—I was putting the pie into the oven when I heard this—this noise from the attic. I knew the boys were up there playing so I didn’t think anything of it.”
“What are the boys’ names, Mrs. Owens?”
“Jeffry. He’s my oldest. And—and …”
“Yes, ma’m?”
“Ronald.” She choked the word out and ducked her head again. “Ronald was the one—Ronald …”
“Was Ronald the boy who was shot?”
She didn’t answer. She simply nodded her head, and the tears ran freely now. Then she began shaking her head, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. I got up because I was embarrassed as hell, and I began walking around the room. On top of the upright piano, four photos in silver frames beamed up at me. One was of an older man, obviously the dead Mr. Owens. A second was of a young man in an Army uniform, with infantry rifles crossed on his lapel. The other two were of the younger boys.
Mrs. Owens had stopped crying. She blew her nose in a small handkerchief and looked up.
“Which one is Jeffry?” I asked.
“The—the blond boy.”
I looked at the photo. He seemed like a nice kid, with a pleasant smile, and his mother’s light eyes. “Is he in the house?”
“Yes. He’s upstairs in his room.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
“All right.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to see the attic first.”
She seemed about to refuse, and then she nodded. “Certainly.”
“You needn’t come up, Mrs. Owens,” Ed said. “The patrolman can show us the way.”
“Thank you,” she said.
We followed Connerly up the steps, and he whispered, “See what I mean? Jesus, this is a rotten business.”
“Well, what are you gonna do?” Ed philosophized.
The attic had been fixed as a playroom, with plasterboard walls and ceiling. An electric train layout covered one half of the room. In the other half, covered with a sheet, lay young Ronald Owens. I walked over and lifted the sheet, looking down at the boy. He resembled the older Jeffry a great deal, except that his hair was brown. He had the same light eyes, though, staring up at me now, sightless. There was a neat hole between his eyes, and his face was an ugly mixture of blood and powder burns. I put the sheet back.
“Where’s the gun?” I asked Connerly.
“Right here, sir.”
He fished into his pocket and produced the Luger wrapped carefully in his handkerchief. I opened the handkerchief and stared at the German gun.
“Did you break it open, Connerly?”
“Why, no, sir. A patrolman isn’t allowed to …”
“Can it,” I said. “If you broke it open, you’ll save me the trouble.”
Connerly looked abashed. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“Any shells in it?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even in the firing chamber?”
“No, sir.”
“One bullet, then. That’s strange.”
“What’s so strange about it?” Ed wanted to know.
“A Luger’s magazine fed, that’s all,” I said. “Eight slugs in a clip. Strange to find only one.” I shrugged, handing the pistol back to Connerly. “Let’s see what else is around here.”
We started rummaging around the attic, not really looking for anything in particular. I think I was just postponing the talk I had to have with the young kid who’d shot his own brother.
“Bunch of books,” Ed said.
“Mmmm?”
“Yeah. Few scrapbooks. Old newspaper clippings.”
“Here’s something,” Connerly cut in.
“What have you got?”
“Looks like a box of clips, sir.”
“Mmmm? For the Luger?”
“Looks that way, sir.”
I walked over to where Connerly was standing, and took the box from the shelf. He had carefully refrained from touching it. The box was covered with a fine layer of dust. There were two clips in the open box, and they too were covered with dust. I lifted one of the clips out, running my eyes
over the cartridges. Eight. The second clip had only seven cartridges in it.
“Only seven here,” I said.
“Yeah,” Connerly said, nodding. “That’s where the bullet came from, all right.”
“One of these is about the older brother,” Ed said, looking up from where he squatted on the floor.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Scrapbook, Art. All about the soldier. He was quite a hero.”
“That right?”
“Lots of stuff on the way he died. Nice collection.”
“Anything else there, Ed?”
“Few other loose newspaper clippings. Nothing really—hey!”
“What’ve you got?”
“Geez, that’s strange as hell,” Ed said.
“What? What is it?”
He got to his feet and walked over to me, holding a clipping in his big hand. “Take a look at this, Art.”
The clipping was scissored from one of the tabloids. It was simply the story of a boy and a girl who’d been playing in their back yard. Playing with a Colt .45 that was a war souvenir. The .45 had gone off, blowing half the girl’s head away. There was a picture of the boy in tears, and a heartrending story of the fatal accident.
“Some coincidence, huh, Art?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Some coincidence.”
I put the box of clips back on the shelf. “I think I’d better talk to the kid now,” I said.
We left the attic, and Connerly whispered something about the way fate sometimes works. He called Mrs. Owens, and she came up to lead me to the boy’s room on the second floor of the house.
She rapped on the door and softly called, “Jeffry?”
I could hear sobbing beyond the door, and then a muffled, “Yes?”
“Some gentlemen would like to talk to you,” she said.
The sobbing stopped, and I heard the sound of bare feet padding to the door. The door opened and Jeffry stood there drying his face. He was thinner than the photograph had shown him, with bright blue eyes and narrow lips. His hair hung over his forehead in unruly strands, and there were streaks under his eyes and down his cheeks.
“You’re policemen, aren’t you?” he said.