Little Men, Big World

by W. R. Burnett

  The door was violently banged back, and Reisman gave a wild jump, almost upsetting his ancient, creaking swivel-chair.

  Red Seaver stood in the doorway, staring at Reisman in almost comical surprise. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale, his freckles prominent. “Jesus! I found you!” he yelled, then he came in, slamming the door and knocking a few masterpieces down from a shelf.

  “You uncircumcised dog!” cried Reisman, waving his arms. “Do you realize that you almost made me fall over backwards and break my neck? Me!"

  Red uttered with feeling a four-letter word and pulled up a chair.

  “Listen, Ben…” he began, but Reisman waved him to silence.

  “I’ve just gone through a great experience.”

  “Yeah?” cried Red, eagerly.

  “Yes. An experience I haven’t had for a long time. I’ve just read an intelligent new novel.”

  “Christ, Ben,” cried Red. “Will you please...?”

  “I repeat. An intelligent new novel. The author is not selling anything, not even himself; not even one of the smelly little orthodoxies that are now contending for our souls. Don’t look at me like that, Red. I didn’t make up that wonderful phrase: smelly little orthodoxies. It was George Orwell—God rest his soul!”

  “Orwell, eh?” said Red, trying to restrain himself and enter into the conversation. “I heard of him.”

  “Your wife belongs to the Book-of-the-Month Club probably.”

  “Yeah, she’s a great reader.”

  “Well, tell her about this book. It’s called the Barkeep of Blémont, and I think Maupassant, or maybe Anatole France, wrote it under an assumed name.”

  “You’re crazy. They’re dead.”

  “Really?” said Reisman, sadly.

  “You didn’t even know they were sick. You bastard!” said Red. “Look, if you give me any more of this literary gab when I’m trying to talk to you I’m going to forget you’re a friend of mine and—”

  “Here’s the book. Take it home to your wife, Red.”

  Red grabbed the book and flung it against the wall, knocking down a few more volumes.

  “Ben, listen to me—please! I work on the same paper, remember? I can’t scoop you—nothing like that. It’s all in the family…”

  “You’re bringing tears to these old eyes…”

  “A punch in the nose will bring ’em quicker. Ben—why did you fly to the Capitol?”

  “I’m lobbying for better working conditions for the glamour-girls on the Front.”

  “All right. You flew to the Capitol. That much I know. Now I’ll tell you something. The Commissioner’s right here in town at this minute.”

  “Naturally. He came back for Judge Greet’s funeral—dope!”

  “Okay. Why did he stay? I hear he’s in hiding.”

  “My goodness—these politicians! What do you suppose he did?”

  Red took his head between his hands and sat staring for a long time at the top of the desk.

  “I’m assigned,” he said finally. “Understand? Mush Head assigned me personally. Where is Leon Sollas? Nobody knows. Who shot Judge Greet so efficiently he died of it? Nobody knows.”

  “You mean there is a connection?” asked Reisman innocently.

  “Of course not!” screamed Red. “I’m just trying to tell you... what’s the use! But there’s a big story knocking around all the same—and there’s a cover-up in the police department. Did you ever hear of Herman Frick being sick before—that big bull!”

  “Only when convenient.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “But a cover-up in the police department is an old story, not a new one.”

  “Maybe, maybe. But things are cooking in the so-called, frigging underworld. There’s a lot of talk about Harry Radabaugh I don’t understand. The other night a drunken bookie told me the new motto was: See Harry. And why did Harry get canned by the D.A.?”

  “I wouldn’t know. All I know about Harry is that he slugged me one night, and you slugged him.”

  “I wish to God I’d let him slug you a couple more times now,” said Red vehemently. “He’s in the Regent bar every night. Won’t talk to me. Won’t look at me. Got hoods around him. Guys who smoke cigars and try to look interesting—you know. Why has he got hoods around him? And why does the bartender almost kiss him now? You know—Emil. Never used to.”

  Reisman yawned and began to clean his fingernails with a desk-knife. There was a brief silence, then Reisman said: “Look, Red. All right. I’ve been clowning. Now I’ll tell you the truth since it doesn’t matter anymore. Judge Greet and the Commissioner were friends. The Commissioner was deeply shocked about the Judge’s death, and not trusting the police department, at least some sections of it, he wanted to know what was being done to run down the guy who killed him. So he called me. I hopped around as best I could to see what I could find out, then I flew to the Capitol to talk to the Commissioner. To tell you the truth, I found out practically nothing. There you are, Red. Now ain’t you ashamed of yourself for hounding me?”

  Red sat nodding sadly to himself, and patting a huge freckled paw on the desk; then he sighed and got up. “All right, Ben. Sounds reasonable. What a life! You think maybe I could learn to write sports?”

  “Well, you played enough of ’em.”

  “Don’t seem to help. I been knocking at Gushy for years. He won’t even give me tickets to things. Now he’s boss in sports, he’ll hardly speak to me.”

  “Trouble is,” said Reisman, “Gushy’s a polo, tennis, badminton, aquacade man; you’re a lowbrow who knows nothing but baseball, football, and horse-racing.”

  “Yeah, but those three are the most important.”

  “Red,” said Reisman, “the trouble with you is, you have got too much common sense. You think things are done in this world according to reason, when they are actually done only according to emotion and prejudice. It’s an irrational world, Red. So just because you know baseball backwards is no reason why Gushy is going to ask you to write about it. On the contrary.”

  “Well, you ought to do all right then,” said Red after a moment. “Because you’re more than half crazy.”

  “If I was all crazy I’d do better. But thanks at least for the small compliment.”

  Red hesitated, then he bent over and picked up the book he’d flung against the wall.

  “I think I’ll take this to my wife at that,” he said. “She’s always beefing I never bring her anything.”

  When Red had gone, Reisman hesitated for a long time, thinking he might pop back in; then, reassured, Reisman called Commissioner Stark and gave him the information about Harry Radabaugh. The Commissioner, sounding harassed, thanked him and hung up abruptly.

  Reisman sighed and turned to stare out the window. In a moment an office-boy burst in yelling:

  “Mr. Reisman—hear the news?”

  “No. What?”

  “Big battle with the Reds in Korea. Full scale! The works!”

  “Sure?”

  “Just came in.”

  “Okay, son. Thanks.” He picked up a book at random and, without looking at it, tossed it to the boy. “Here, son. A present for you.”

  “Gee, thanks,” said the kid.

  The book was called The Well of Loneliness. The boy clutched it and went out.

  Reisman was staring out the window when the door was banged back violently again. He turned and glanced mildly at Red, who was regarding him with fury.

  “Ben!” cried Red. “The Judge wasn’t dead yet when you flew to the Capitol. He died later that same day.”

  “I know,” said Reisman. “But I’ve got a special news service, like those Washington news-letters. I always know about it before it happens.”

  Red sat down, took off his hat, propped up his feet and lit a cigar.

  “Better call your wife and tell her not to expect you for supper. Ben.”

  “Did you know there was a full-scale battle with the Reds going on?”

 
; “There is? Goodness me! More special-service stuff, eh?”

  “No. It’s true.”

  “You’re not going to get me out of here that way.”

  “I’ll bet you a new hat it’s on the wires right now.”

  “All right. You got a bet. Give me the phone.”

  They were driving north through the city in Leon’s big black Cadillac, on the way to the upper river. It was a warm day; the streets were bright with sunshine, and yet there was a thin, vague haze over everything: fall seemed close at hand.

  The Turk was driving. He hardly looked like the same kid. Arky had bought him a lot of new clothes, including a good blue serge suit that he was now wearing with a white shirt, a dark tie, and black shoes. Arky had even told him to let his hair grow longer. “Then,” said Arky, “you won’t look so much like you just graduated from reform school.” The Turk seemed to notice his butchered hair for the first time and, becoming self-conscious about it, had doused it in oil, hoping it would grow faster.

  Arky sat beside Turk. Robbie was in the back seat with the baby, who was chortling in his basket and waving his little fists.

  “He’s beginning to notice things,” said Robbie. “He’s watching that streetcar. What a love he is!”

  Arky made no comment. In spite of himself, though, Robbie’s attitude toward the baby pleased him. Okay, so maybe she was putting it on—promoting; all the same it sounded fine.

  After a moment he turned to the kid. “How did you ever happen to get the name of Turkey?”

  The kid glanced at him sideways. “One time I’m fifteen, mister; it’s Christmas, and I win myself three raffles, and there I am with three frigging big turkeys. We et turkey till it come out of our ears—me, and the rest of the family. So I been Turkey ever since.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Joe Batz.”

  “All right, you’re Joe from now on.” He turned to Robbie. “The kid’s name is Joe. We’ll call him that. I don’t like this Turkey routine.”

  “Me neither,” said the kid, “but I got tired beating guys up over it, skinning my knuckles all the time. And I don’t like hitting guys with tire-irons and stuff. That’s for panty-waists.” Robbie shook with laughter in the back seat. Arky glanced at her in annoyance, but made no comment. Silence fell. They rode for miles without speaking through the jammed streets of the big town. The kid had a sure hand with the wheel and after a while Arky stopped paying any attention to his driving, and sat lost in thought.

  In a way it was a kind of wrench leaving Zand and the Ward where he’d spent so many years. Zand had been flabbergasted and kept stammering.

  “But you’ll be back!” he cried.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Arky. “The place is all yours. I’m turning it over to you lock, stock, and barrel. Like I said one day, makes no difference any more whether I’m here or not. You know how to handle it. However, better get a good guy or two to spell you. Like maybe Cherry Nose Ryan. He won’t drink on the job, only in off-hours. He’s a pretty honest guy and knows horses and percentages.”

  “But, Jesus, Arky, you’ll be back.”

  “Whether I come back or not, the place is yours. The profits are yours. Now here’s the thing. I want you to do something for me. Spread it around I’ve left the city. You’re kinda disappointed in me because it looks like I been run out. Know what I mean?”

  “No,” cried Zand, “I’m not going to give out talk like that. I’ll be damned if I will. What do you take me for?”

  “It’s important, Zand. Don’t be a chucklehead.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind. Listen now: this is the story. Anna got killed here, see? And I got hit in the head. Maybe it changed me. Anyway, I’m scared, like. I took a powder. But you don’t give it out straight. You ease it out. Maybe to a couple of coppers from the Pier, and four or five young hoods. They’ll tell everybody in the Ward. Understand?”

  “No,” said Zand. “Nothing doing.”

  Arky wagged his head from side to side. “All right. Be a mule. Then maybe you can come down to the morgue and see me and say don’t he look natural.”

  Zand stared in unbelief. “You mean you’re really running?”

  “No. I’m just disappearing for a little while till I can string my bow…”

  “I wish, for Christ’s sake,” yelled Zand heatedly, “that you’d talk English. Chocolate-head ... stringing the bow ... what kind of language is that?”

  “There’s a certain guy I want to run down. If it wasn’t for him the Mover would still be flourishing, and Anna’d still be bouncing Orvie on her knee. But I want to do it my way. I want to make him look like the yellow jerk he is before they pat him with a spade.”

  “All right, Arky,” said Zand. “It’ll kill me to do it, but I’d do it.”

  Zand hated to see him go, and kept detaining him. Lola got very tearful over the baby, irritating Arky so that he had to move away from her to keep from telling her what he thought. She had had her chance with Orv, hadn’t she? And folded?

  At last they got away.

  Downy, frantically telephoning every place, finally, much to his surprise, reached Reisman at his office at the Journal Building. Reisman, reversing himself for a reason he could not put his finger on, was sitting at his battered typewriter, which spaced erratically and occasionally stuck altogether, trying to write a short story about his youngest daughter, Selma, who asked questions that would have baffled Einstein and then was too impatient to wait for the answers and passed on immediately to something else.

  “Ben? Downy.”

  “Well, wherefore art thou Romeo? Couldn’t thou be Mercutio? Or even the noble County Paris? I don’t like guys working for me who mess around wit’ dames.”

  “Only in off-hours, Ben. She’s a real cutie, like I told you, and fives alone.”

  “I always preferred to jump out windows myself. It’s more fun; that is, if the girl lives on the first floor.”

  “I’ve got nothing to jump for yet. But I’m hopeful. Ben, there’s a rumor going around the Ward. May be true, and it may not. But they say Arky’s gone.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  “Nobody knows. They say he hasn’t been the same since that woman got killed and he got hit; they say he lost his nerve, figuring they’ll make a good job of it next time. But big Grier—a copper down here—you know him—he says it’s all lies. Arky’s around some place.”

  “Okay. Keep plugging.”

  Reisman hung up, then he sat looking sadly at the mass of words in front of him. It seemed so futile to be sitting pecking at a typewriter with life swirling around him on the Boulevard, the town seething and ready for an explosion, guys getting shot at, running for their lives...! Who cared about Selma and her unconsciously funny antics? Who cared about any characters in any books?

  Maybe he’d made the right choice after all. A newspaper mirrored life as it was lived from day to day—at least that was the general intention. News had some value, even garbled, slanted, or butchered news; value for the moment, at least. But not one book, story, or play in a hundred thousand had any value at all, either momentary or permanent.

  Reisman jerked the page out of his typewriter, read a few phrases with a wan smile, then tore it up. Finally he called the Commissioner and gave him the rumors about Arky.

  Robbie was delighted with the cottage on the upper river, could in fact hardly get over it. While Arky talked interminably on the phone, she settled Orv into his new quarters, a beautiful little alcove with pale-blue wallpaper covered with silver stars; then she went from room to room—the place being much larger than it seemed from the outside—and examined the wallpaper, all imported, the drapes, the furniture, the cabinets and knick-knacks, and lastly the many modem paintings scattered about. She had known quite a few art students in Detroit and Chicago, and was familiar with this type of picture. She tried to connect Arky with the elegant cottage but could not. It was obvious that he’d had nothing to do with furni
shing it. She was very curious about the whole thing, but decided to ask no questions.

  She spent a long time hanging up her clothes, taking a bath, and loafing about in the beautiful bedroom, just off Orv’s alcove, that Arky had assigned to her. Strange guy, this Arky. He made her feel like a governess for the kid. What was cooking in his narrow, impenetrable skull?

  At six o’clock Orv began to howl like a banshee and kick his sturdy legs. He was hungry as a little wolf. As Robbie changed him and he lay grunting and swinging at the air with his fat little fists, she talked to him in a low voice:

  “If you’re Mountain Music’s son, little man, you surely must have had a beautiful mother. Look at you! Prettiest baby I ever saw in my life—and I’ve seen quite a few. The huskiest, the strongest! And look at that so-called old man of yours. Lean as a rake and with a face cut out of wood.” A sudden thought struck her and she studied the baby carefully. “Yeah,” she said. “Of course. That big blonde has to be his mother. He looks like her, as a matter of fact. Take fifteen pounds off of her and she wouldn’t have been bad at that. The Big Mamma type, of course—but I never saw any of them starving to death. Some men like a lot for their money, or, as Leon once said, plenty for all!”

  Shortly after she’d got Orv fed and back to sleep, Arky came out of the study, looking for her.

  “How do you like the joint, Robbie?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Belongs to a friend of mine. He’s sick in a hospital so he said I could use it. If we stay here very long, though. I’m going to go nuts if we don’t take down them pictures.”

  “They’re good pictures, Arky.”

  “Good for what? Who wants to sit around, trying to relax, and then look up and see something like that? Looks like they were painted in a bug-house.”

  “I used to know a lot of painters. They all painted like that. Except some of them painted fairly realistic nudes to sell. I posed for a lot of them.”