Runaway

by McBain, Ed

  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked.

  “Kid here on the lam,” The Flower said.

  “Yeah?”

  “They hangin’ a frame on him.”

  “What kind of frame?” Bart asked.

  “Murder,” The Flower replied.

  “What’s he doin’ here?” Bart asked Barney.

  “He … he …”

  “I ain’t got a place to stay,” Johnny said. “I thought Barney could help me. Barney knows a lot of people.”

  “This your cleanin’ boy, Barney? That your coat he’s wearin’?”

  “Yes,” Barney said softly.

  “You ain’t got a place to stay, huh, man?”

  “No,” Johnny said.

  “You lead the bulls here?” The Flower asked.

  “No.”

  “You sure?” Bart put in.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “So you the one killed that spic, huh?” The Flower said.

  “No, I didn’t kill him.”

  “You jus’ now told me it was a frame,” Bart said to The Flower.

  “I know. I was figurin’ we might have a spot for somebody handy with a gun.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Johnny said.

  “Yeah, I know that. That’s what you said, ain’t it?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Still …” The Flower paused. “What you think, Bart?”

  “I don’t know. What’re you thinkin’?”

  “Hate to see the cops get their mitts on anybody. I mean, anybody. You know what I mean?”

  “Keep out of it,” Bart said. “It’s his headache.”

  “Why, sure, no doubt about it. Still, I hate to see the cops happy. Don’t you feel the same way?”

  “I don’t feel no way,” Bart said. “I ain’t yearnin’ for an accessories after.”

  “Why, the boy just said he didn’t do it!” The Flower said.

  “They all say that,” Bart answered. “Man, if I had a cent for every time I said I didn’t do it!”

  “I didn’t,” Johnny insisted.

  “Yeah, I know. This guy just killed hisself.”

  “I’ll get rid of him,” Barney said. “You fellows go back to the game.”

  “No, wait a minute,” The Flower said. “What you think, Bart?”

  “I already told you what I think. This boy’s hot. I don’t want none of him to burn me.”

  “Look, Johnny,” Barney said. “Why don’t you go? Can’t you see all the trouble you’re causin’?”

  “We don’t have to touch it at all,” The Flower said meditatively. “We call some of the boys, and they’ll take care of it. We don’t have to come nowheres near it.”

  “When there’s a kill stinkin’ up the joint.” Bart said, “it ain’t possible to come nowheres near it. Some of it rubs off. Let it lie, Flower. Get rid of the kid.”

  “No,” The Flower said slowly. “I don’t think so.”

  “Flower, I can handle this,” Barney said. “Just let me—”

  “Shut up, Barney!” The Flower said. “Where’s your phone?”

  “In the living room. You … you think we should help him, Flower?”

  “We ain’t gonna help nobody,” The Flower said. “Jus’ remember that. We never even seen this kid. We jus’ gonna make a few phone calls, that’s all.” The Flower walked into the living room.

  “He’s a crazy bastard,” Bart said, shaking his head. He looked at Johnny significantly. “Nex’ time, tell your friends to stay away from here, Barney.”

  “Is it my fault he come?” Barney asked. “Hell, I give him a coat and a fin. Ain’t that enough? Did I tell him to come back here?”

  They walked into the living room as The Flower dialed and waited for his party. In a moment he said, “This is Flower. Who’s around?”

  He listened and then said, “I need two boys and a car.… What?… No, a short trip.… No, nothin’ like that. Look, this is a routine job, now don’t give me a third degree.… Well, all right. I need them right away.… What?… Right away means right away, what the hell you think it means?… Right away, five minutes … Yeah, just a minute.”

  He covered the mouthpiece with one hand and asked Barney, “What’s your address, man?”

  “They’re going to come here?”

  “Where you think they going—Grant’s tomb?”

  “I just thought it might be better—”

  “What’s your address?”

  Barney gave him the address, and The Flower repeated it into the phone.

  “You got that now?… Have them come up and ring the bell.… What?… Oh, just a secon’.”

  He covered the mouthpiece again. “What’s your apartment number?”

  “Three-C,” Barney said.

  “Three-C,” The Flower said to the mouthpiece. “I’ll ’spec you in five minutes.… Yeah, yeah, all right.… Yeah, that fine. Just get them here, that’s all.”

  He hung up abruptly. “They’ll be here in five minutes,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Johnny said.

  “You want to play a few rounds while we wait?” The Flower asked. “Watched pot never boils, you know.” He waited for his laugh, and when he got none, he provided it himself.

  The boys arrived in seven minutes flat. One stayed at the wheel of the black Buick downstairs. The other rang the doorbell and stepped into the apartment as soon as the door was open. The Flower told him where to go, and the big man just nodded and then led Johnny out of the apartment.

  Neither of the two men spoke during the ride.

  When Johnny asked, “Where we going?” they both shrugged. He sat between them uneasily, wondering whether or not The Flower’s idea of helping was the same as his own. He began to recognize landmarks then, and he said, “Hey, we going to the river?”

  The driver nodded.

  “I don’t get it,” Johnny said.

  “A boat,” the driver said, and that was all he said until they reached the Harlem River. They doused the lights on the car and then worked their way over the discarded oil drums and assorted garbage leading down to the riverbank. There was hardly any moon, and Johnny didn’t see the boat until they were almost upon it.

  “That it?” he asked.

  “Mmm,” one of the men said.

  “Won’t the cops look here?”

  “This boat’s been here for years. Hole in the back end,” one of the men said. “You sleep up front, and you won’t get wet. Don’t worry about cops, they won’t look for you here.”

  “I don’t know,” Johnny said dubiously.

  The driver laughed. “Only thing you got to worry about here is rats.”

  “Rats!”

  “Size of your head.” The driver laughed again. “You get down there, boy. We got to cut out.”

  They helped Johnny into the gutted boat, and he watched them climb back up to the car. He stood in the bow until the car pulled away. They did not turn on their lights until they were several blocks in the distance.

  The boat was not a large one. Its bow was pulled up onto the bank, and Johnny could hear the water lapping against the stern plankings, inside the boat. A cold moistness blew off the river, and he bundled his coat around his throat and tried not to smell the aroma of garbage. There was a small cabin up forward, and he went into it and tried to make himself comfortable on the deck. The windows of the cabin were shattered. The entire boat, in fact, looked as if it might slip into the water at any moment, giving up the struggle with the elements. Well, at least it was safe from the cops, and a place to spend the night.

  If only the cops hadn’t been watching Cindy’s place. Damnit, why were all the breaks running against him? A rat like Luis gets … Rats, they said.

  Only thing you got to worry about here is rats.

  He didn’t like rodents. He hadn’t liked them since he was seven years old, shortly after his mother had died. There used to be a big vase on the mantel, and Molly used to drop n
ickels and dimes into it. He’d wanted an ice-cream pop one night, and Molly wasn’t home, so he’d pulled a chair over to the mantel and reached into the vase for a nickel. He’d felt sharp teeth clamp onto his middle finger, and he’d screamed and yanked his hand out of the vase. A mouse was clinging to his finger. It was a tiny little thing, gray, and it loosened its grip almost instantly, falling to the floor and scurrying away for its hole.

  But terror had struck deep within Johnny when he’d felt that mouse’s teeth and seen its furry shape. The terror had remained with him. He could not even think of mice or rats without feeling a shudder of apprehension.

  Thinking of them now, he felt a cold chill start at the base of his spine and travel up his back until he brought the wings of his shoulders together in an involuntary tremor.

  He sat with his back against the cabin of the boat, and he listened to the lapping of the water in the stern, and the creeking of the wood, and the city noises in the distance. He started at every sound, and his eyes pierced the darkness, wary, afraid.

  He thought he heard a rat once, and he leaped to his feet, only to discover it was a loose piece of canvas flapping against the cabin top.

  He did not sleep that night.

  Nine

  It was morning in Harlem, morning on the day after Luis Ortega was shot to death with a zip gun. A foggy mist clung to the roofs of the tenements, spread its gray tentacles over concrete and brick, swirled around the television antennas and the back-yard clotheslines.

  For Johnny there was a vast nothingness of gray fog that smothered the boat and the river and the riverbank, that smothered everything the day held for him. Somewhere in that gray fog was the man who’d killed Luis Ortega, and somewhere out there were the cops, too, but the cops were looking for Johnny and not the man who’d really done the job. He’d sat awake all night, and his body was stiff now, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He did not want to leave the boat, and yet he sensed the boat would not be safe during the daylight hours. He had to leave the boat, but he felt too weary to make it to the street, and he wondered if he would simply collapse, making the job nice and easy for the cops.

  He was hungry again, too, and his arm was beginning to pain him, a dull sort of pain that gnawed at his elbow. He needed help, and he couldn’t go to Barney Knowles again, not after the trouble he’d caused last night, but neither could he walk the streets, because he would most certainly collapse.

  He didn’t want to go to his own place because the cops would be there sure as hell, and he didn’t want Molly to get in trouble. You shouldn’t go around getting your own sister in trouble, not when she was the one who raised you.

  There must be a lot of places I can go, he thought. I’m not the first guy who was ever hunted, and I won’t be the last guy. They hole up somewhere, I know that, but where? There are a lot of places, and I know there are a lot of places, but I can’t think of any offhand. If I had murdered Luis, I’d have picked out a spot to hide beforehand, but I didn’t murder Luis, and so I didn’t think that far ahead.

  Someone murdered Luis, and I should be out looking for him, but how can I look for him when everybody else is looking for me?

  Now we’re thinking clearly, he told himself. Now we have the world where the hair is short. All I have to do is find the killer before the police find me. That’s simple.

  Except I’m tired, I’m so goddamn tired. Why’d they have to tell me about the rats? Why couldn’t they have kept their fat mouths shut? I’d have slept if I hadn’t known. Sure, and then I’d have had my throat ripped out in my sleep.

  The thought chilled him. He shuddered, and then climbed wearily out of the boat and began climbing the embankment.

  I’ve got to try Cindy again, he thought. Maybe the cops got tired and went home. Besides, what is she thinking by now? Hell, she gave me a key and I never used it. She probably thinks I’m lying dead in some gutter. I’ve got to get to Cindy’s.

  He was glad to be doing something again, glad to have set a goal for himself. As he walked, he felt the stiffness leave his body, but the fuzziness was still inside his head, and he knew he had to get some sleep soon. He could get sleep at Cindy’s. He could sleep curled up in her arms.

  He thought of Cindy, and he walked steadily toward her apartment, keeping the collar of his coat turned up against the fog. He was glad for the fog now. The fog hid him, and he wanted to be hidden. If only his arm didn’t hurt so much, and if only he weren’t so sleepy, if only he’d had a little more to eat, if only he knew who’d killed Luis.

  When he reached her street, he looked down it quickly. There was no squad car in sight. That didn’t mean anything, of course. The cops might be hiding out in a building across the street, just waiting for him to show. Well, he’d have to chance that. If they wanted him that bad, if they wanted him bad enough to stop him from getting the sleep he needed, well, they could have him. He was getting tired of all this running, anyway. How long can you run without getting tired?

  He walked down the street, his head low, his hands in his pockets. When he reached her building, he did not turn to look over his shoulder. He went up onto the stoop and then into the hallway, and then up the steps to the fourth floor without once looking behind him.

  He walked directly to Apartment 42, fished the key out of his pocket, and was inserting it into the lock when Cindy’s voice came from behind the door, startled.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” he whispered. “Johnny.”

  He heard the rustle of bedclothes behind the door, and he twisted the key and pushed the door open, stepping inside and locking it quickly behind him. He saw her long legs as she stepped out of bed, and then she was running toward him, wearing a pajama top buttoned to the throat, looking very much like a little girl except for the firm outlines of her breasts beneath the pajama top, and the long curves of her legs.

  She threw herself into his arms, and he held her close, leaning against the door, feeling the warmth of her against him.

  “Johnny, Johnny, I was so worried!”

  “It’s all right,” he said, soothing her, his palms open flat against her back. He could feel the smoothness of her skin beneath the pajama top. She sucked in a deep breath that caught in her throat, and he felt the tremor that passed through her body. She pulled away from him suddenly, holding him at arm’s length, looking up into his face. She wore no make-up, and the light passing through the drawn window shade put a pale yellow tint onto her face. Her eyes were clear, and she parted her lips slightly as she studied his face.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m sleepy,” he said.

  “Your arm. Is it all right?”

  “It’s all right. It hurts, but it’s not bleeding any more.”

  “I’ll give you a bandage.”

  “It has a bandage.”

  “A fresh one,” she said. Her voice was edged with sleep, and they both whispered unconsciously, he too tired to use a full voice, and she talking with the muted voice of someone who’d just come from a warm bed. “Take off your coat, darling.”

  He took off the coat, wincing when it slid off his right arm.

  “Does it hurt bad?”

  “Yes. Yes, it does. Well, not too bad.”

  “Come on. Lie down.”

  She led him to the bed, and he flopped onto it, feeling the warm sheet beneath him, and under that the softness of the mattress.

  “This is good,” he said, sighing.

  “What happened last night?” she asked. She walked to the bathroom, and he watched the loose pajama top flap idly above her legs, just covering the curve of her buttocks.

  “Cops here,” he said. “Downstairs.”

  “Here?” she asked, rummaging through the medicine chest.

  “Mmm. Downstairs.”

  “They weren’t here when I came home. Johnny, I was worried to death. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I stayed in a boat on the river. Some of Barney’s friends took m
e there.”

  “Barney Knowles?”

  “Yes.”

  She came back into the room with a roll of gauze and a bottle of iodine. She put down her medicine and bandage, and then fluffed up the pillows behind him. Quickly she began unbuttoning his shirt. When she pulled the sleeve from his right arm, he opened his mouth in pain.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” she said.

  “It just hurt for a minute. The cloth was stuck.”

  She unwrapped the bandage from his arm, and when she saw the cut she blanched for a second.

  “Johnny, I … I think we should get a doctor.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Your arm …”

  “No doctor. Honey, we can’t take the chance.”

  She bit her lip and nodded, and then she opened the bottle of iodine and poured a little of it into the cut.

  An “Agh-agh-agh-agh” sound rushed from Johnny’s open mouth as the iodine began to sting. Cindy poured it into the cut more freely now, and then she began bandaging the arm again. He felt the gauze tighten there, and he began to feel a little better. The pillows were very soft, very, very soft.

  “I want to sleep in your arms,” he said.

  “All right,” she answered.

  “Do you mind?”

  “No,” she said softly.

  “I know it’s crazy, but that’s what I want. Can you understand, Cindy?”

  “I understand.”

  “Cindy, why do you work in that club? Cindy, I wish you wouldn’t, I mean it.”

  “Yes, darling,” she said.

  His eyes were beginning to close, and he fought to keep them open. She pulled off his trousers, and then pulled the blanket to his neck.

  “Cindy, really, I wish you wouldn’t work at the club.”

  “We’ll see, darling,” she said.

  She climbed in beside him and said, “Lift your head a little, darling.”

  He lifted his head and her arm slid beneath his neck. With her other hand she tilted his head down until it rested in the hollow of her shoulder, her sloping breast soft against his cheek.

  “Now sleep,” she said. “Sleep, Johnny. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Suppose the cops—”

  “Never mind the cops. Just sleep, baby.” She began stroking his hair with her fingers, and he felt the length of her body against his, warm, supple.