He sweated. He mopped his face and shook his head. “I don’t know, Mike. I don’t want to know. It’s still a family matter. I don’t want trouble in my department. Christ, isn’t that plain enough? All you got to do is—fly right. It can still be all right, if you just cooperate. It’s that simple.”
“Sounds real easy,” I said.
Chapter Three
It was ten-thirty before I could get over to the Ubangi Club on Eighth.
I parked in front of the striped awning. I felt myself tightening up inside, without knowing why, except I hated everything about the Ubangi Club. Zebra-striped booth upholstery, indirect lighting, gleaming white tables, all looking so clean. And I knew better. Maybe that was what I really hated, the pretense of respectability.
Nothing was happening at the Ubangi in the morning. Tom Biggs was polishing glasses behind the luxurious bar. He poured a glass of bourbon and set it on the bar.
I sat down, touched the glass. “Luxtro around?”
Tom Biggs nodded. I finished off the drink and went across the dining room to the rear corridor. Pretense was abandoned back here. Walls were scabby, paint peeled.
A dark man stepped out of the shadows and stood between me and the door marked “Manager.” He started what looked like a tap on the back but ended a short kidney jab. Hard and friendly.
I felt currents of pain.
“Where you think you’re going, flatfoot?”
I stepped away from him and turned.
“Get lost. I’m busy. I’ll forget you touched me.”
He got pale and removed a snap-blade knife from his coat pocket. I didn’t even wait for him to get it all the way out. He never made a pass with it. I drove my fist so hard in his groin he dropped the half-opened knife and folded toward the floor.
I brought the side of my hand across his neck. I pushed him out of the way and stepped over him. That was when I saw Orzatti leaning in a doorway across the corridor. He was small and his clothes were expensive.
“Not real sporting, copper. That blow was low. Real low.”
“I fight for one reason, punk. You got anything else you want to say?”
“Big, tough, bought cop. You don’t scare me.”
I glanced at the man on the floor. I prodded him with my toe, watching Orzatti. “You want a dose?”
“You won’t take me like that, copper.”
“Tell Luxtro I’m out here. Tell him I want to see him and I’m in a hurry.”
Orzatti looked me over, taking his time. He opened the door, closed it behind him. I leaned against the wall, watching the little man with the knife. He moved away from me, staying on the floor.
Orzatti opened the door. “Luxtro says he’s busy, flatfoot. Why don’t you go out to the bar and wait?”
I stepped forward, caught Orzatti by the coat lapel. He made a noise in his throat and tried to leap backward. I jerked him through the half-open door. I closed my fist on his coat, twisting it.
I shoved the door open with my shoe.
Luxtro looked up from his desk. He looked from me to Orzatti dangling at the end of my arm.
“All right, Mike. I’ll see you now.”
I shoved Orzatti through the door so hard he sprawled against the wall outside. I closed the door, locked it.
“That wasn’t friendly,” Luxtro said. “Orzatti was doing what he was ordered.”
“Then don’t send them with messages they should know better than to deliver.”
Luxtro was tall, middle-aged, with a broken nose to mar the ultrarespectability of his face. His hair was iron-gray, the top close-cropped. He stood up and for the merest fraction of a second, the gutter showed through his smooth exterior.
“You’re getting hard to handle, Mike. I don’t like that.”
I shrugged. “Any time you’re unhappy, say so. I’d as soon raid this place as any other rat nest in town, Luxtro. You know that.”
Luxtro closed his fists, opened them. “What’s the matter with you, Mike?”
I shrugged. “The commissioner is having me investigated.”
Luxtro sat down. “Investigated? Now look here, Ballard. That’s what I pay you for. I don’t like investigations. Of any kind. You know an investigation of you might cause me embarrassment.”
“I thought maybe you were behind it.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“All I know is you play bridge with the commissioner.”
“Listen to me, Ballard. I worked hard to get where I am. I pay hard money to stay there. I’m not going to have it fouled by a detective who got snarled up. I’m a respectable member of this community. You’re right. I do play bridge at the club with the police commissioner. I go to church with a lot of other people. I intend to keep what I have—one way or another, and at whatever cost. You swagger around pretty big. But I pay you. Don’t ever forget that.”
“No.”
“And I pay you to be smart. If you’re not smart enough to keep the department off your tail, I’ve been wasting my money, and you can get out.”
“I am smart enough.” I kept my voice even. “That’s why I’m here.”
Luxtro just watched me across that flat, polished desk.
“I’m smart enough to know that investigation has got to be called off. Now. And if you’re as smart as you keep telling me you are, you’ll call the police commissioner and tell him so.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
I shrugged. “All right. It’s your funeral. What else have they got on me, Luxtro? I’m a vice cop. There is vice in this town. Brother, how there is vice in this town. Why don’t I clean it up? When they’ve found the answer to that one, they’ll know why I can afford to drive a new Olds Ninety-eight, live in my apartment, wear the clothes I wear, and bank the money I bank. Then they’ll want to know where that money comes from.”
Luxtro licked his lips. “If they ever trace a penny of that money to me, Ballard, you’re going to be a sick lad. I don’t think you’ll recover.”
I just smiled at him. “Whatever it is I’ll die of is going to be contagious as hell, Luxtro. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t catch it, too. Like you say, it might prove to be fatal.”
“Why, damn you! Don’t you come in here threatening me.”
I leaned across his desk. “Luxtro, I know you. But I don’t like the way you talk. I know how you got rich and fat. I know where school kids get dope. I know who sells women in the alley back of that church he attends.”
“You need proof to make anything of that kind of slander.”
“No. You’re wrong. If we met in court, I’d need proof. You and I know about courts, Luxtro. If we settle anything we won’t bother with courts, and I’ve got all the proof I need.”
For the last time, Ballard, I’m telling you. You’re some value to me as long as there is no trouble, no investigation, no raid. The minute there is trouble, you’re of no value to me—alive.”
I stared at him. “Now you’ve made your big talk. Call the commissioner. Get him off my tail.”
“Is that all?”
“That’ll do for a start. But I’ll need more money.”
Luxtro selected an expensive cigar and pared off the tip of it with a small silver knife. “I think you better get out of here. I’m paying you all I can pay you. All I will pay you.”
“Are you telling me to get out?”
“Go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”
I stood up. “If I walk out, Luxtro, you won’t whistle me back. Not a fix with the commissioner, not the raise I’m asking for now. You’ll never be able to take what you’ll get from me.”
Luxtro fished in his desk. “Sometimes a man asks for it, Ballard. Sometimes he asks for it.” He opened an envelope, thumbed through it. He tossed it across the desk. “Don’t ask for it, Ballard. Not unless you’re sure you want it.”
I picked up the envelope, counted the bills inside. I grinned at him. “Sometimes I admire you, Luxtro. Sometimes I see how smart you are, and how you’ve sta
yed where you are so long.”
“Just remember, Ballard. I am smart. I’ve been where I am for a long time. I’ll be here a long time.”
I put the envelope in my inside coat pocket. “I hope so.” I started for the door. Luxtro’s voice stopped me.
“For the kind of money I’m paying, I think you should at least thank me.”
“I do. Oh, I do.”
“And I think you could say sir.”
I looked at him. “You better take what you can get,” I said, “and be satisfied with it.”
Chapter Four
Thirty minutes later, I parked my Oldsmobile coupe at the curb outside the Farwell apartments. I snapped off the radio, locked the car and crossed the walk.
The thick entrance door closed behind me, hissing like a sleepy cat. I entered the self-service elevator, punched the fourth-floor button and went smoothly upward. I grinned a little, thinking this was the story of Mike Ballard’s life. Smoothly upward... It’s easy to forget the hurts. You’re just damned if you’ll think about them, and you keep moving and you don’t think. You just keep going smoothly upward.
At the door of 438, I touched the buzzer. The door opened and Hilma smiled when she saw me.
“How do you do.”
“There’s nobody home,” she said and acted as though she was going to close the door. I put my hand against it. She stopped acting. She turned up her face. A pretty face, a little tired, a few lines about the eyes. But then Hilma was getting on; she was over thirty, and it hadn’t all been a picnic.
“You’ll be pleased to hear I can’t stay,” I said. I pressed my mouth over hers, feeling the pleasure deep in my stomach, the way she always got me.
She pulled away. “I’d have fainted if you could stay.”
“I’m working.”
“Sure. That takes care of this morning. What about yesterday?”
I looked at her. “I told you, Hilma, I’d be here when I could get here. What about yesterday?”
“Come on in,” she said. “Why should we stand out here in the hall and fight? We can fight in the living room. Or we can fight in the bedroom. Wherever we are, we’ll fight.”
I stepped into the living room. “My, but you’re in a snappy mood this morning.”
“Maybe I’m feeling neglected this morning. Maybe I’m feeling sorry for myself.”
“Neglected?” I looked around the apartment. It was not small; it was smartly furnished, with all the things Hilma had selected herself. It set me back a hundred a month.
“Woman does not live by bread alone.”
I laughed at her. “You’ve even got frosting, kid.”
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe I don’t want frosting. Maybe I want bread. Maybe, at heart, I’m fool enough to want to be married, settled down.”
I pulled her against me, and kissed her, parting her mouth. I moved my hands over her, feeling the softness and the fullness. For me, just touching her was excitement.
She backed away from me.
“You need a new hat?” I said. I fished in Luxtro’s envelope and handed her a hundred-dollar bill.
I pressed it down between her breasts. “Don’t do that.” Her voice was sharp.
“Now what?”
“It always makes me feel like a whore when you do that.”
“You’re just self-conscious. Nobody could tell a thing from across the room.”
I was laughing, but she wasn’t. Before I could even stop her, she’d slapped me across the face. Her eyes were tear-filled. She fought down between her breasts and found the money. She wadded it in her fist and pushed it into my breast pocket. “Take it back,” she said. “I don’t want it.”
“Better keep it, doll. May be the last you ever get from me.”
“Take it,” she said. Her voice was pleading. “I don’t want it, Mike. I don’t want it.”
“Sorry. Love me, love my money.”
“Stop laughing at me, Mike. I’m sorry I hit you, but I’d rather have you hit me back than laugh at me.”
I touched my cheek. “I’m not going to hit you at all.”
“I know it. I don’t matter that much, do I?”
I shrugged. “Been a long time since anybody mattered that much.”
“Oh, Mike.” She pressed her face against my chest. I let her cry. “Once we could have had so much. Once I— thought we could have had so much.”
I shrugged. “We all have to learn.”
“But you’ve changed so much, Mike. You really have. In the last two years. Just since I knew you. You’re not the same.”
“I’m the same. I’m the one who hasn’t changed, baby. You’ve changed. You wanted just one thing two years ago... now that’s about the only thing you don’t want.”
She stared up at me. “Mike, that isn’t true. Don’t say it, unless you’re trying to hurt me. Is that what you want, Mike? Do you want to hurt me?”
“Sure. That’s why I came over here. I said to myself, I’ll go over to see Hilma Kenyon. We’ll get together in her front room and have a slug fest.”
“Sometimes I think you do.”
“Well, I don’t.” I put my arms around her, turned her face up so she had to look at me. “You know why I come to see you, baby? Because there’s nowhere else I can be just Mike Ballard, where I can be happy. If I wanted to fight with anybody, I wouldn’t have to come over here to see you.”
She went away from me. She sat down on the couch. I looked at her and wanted to go to her. I didn’t. I walked over to the window and looked down at the park.
“Looks to me,” I said, “like you have it pretty good. You never lived in a place like this when Kenyon was alive.”
“No, Mike. I didn’t.”
My voice got harder. “And Penny? She went to a crumby public school, didn’t she? Pretty bad one, I remember. I went up there to get her the day her old man was killed.”
“I know all that, Mike.”
“Do you? Sometimes I think you forget.”
“No. I don’t forget. Not anything. Penny went to a public school, and it wasn’t a nice one. But when she came home, her daddy was there, and I could tell her he was her daddy.”
“Yeah. I saw his record. He was a real prize.”
“No, Mike. He was no prize. But he married me. He got killed trying to take care of me.”
My voice lashed at her. “And a week after he was buried, you were shacking up with the detective that came to investigate.”
“Oh, God, Mike!” She fell face-down on the couch. I heard her sobs, but went on standing by the window. At last she sat up. “It isn’t true, Mike. I—fell in love with you. I’d been so unhappy for so long. And then when Verne was killed, you came along and handled everything. You took over for me—I didn’t think I had the right to refuse you anything.”
“All right. And I’ve still done all right by you. You have this apartment. Penny has a private school.”
She nodded. She didn’t speak.
“Say it,” I told her. “I want Penny in that school because I hate kids and don’t want her underfoot.”
Her chin tilted. “You say it all, Mike. So well.”
“You want me to leave now?”
“I don’t want you to leave at all, Mike. Maybe I’ve said it poorly, but that’s not what I want at all.
She got up, came around the couch. I turned but didn’t take a step toward her.
Her smile was bitter. “Make me come all the way, don’t you, Mike?”
“You started this, sweetie.”
Her eyes filled with tears again. “Mike, what have I got?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “An apartment, money. Looks like you’ve got everything.”
“Mike. I haven’t anything. I’ve got nothing, Mike. You rented me this apartment. You don’t want me to come near yours. You get angry if I do. You keep me here apart from all the rest of your life.”
I shrugged. “I’ve everything I want, Hilma. Just the way I want it. Or I did have, until
this morning. Unless you want to mess it up.”
“I’d be a good wife, Mike.”
“I’ve no use for a good wife. You’re so damned anxious to get mixed up with me. Take what you have, and like it. The life I have away from here is pretty messy. Until this morning I came here to get away from it.”
“Are you getting tired of me, Mike?”
“Tired of having to argue when I get here. Tired of hearing you talk about getting married. I’d like to love you. But what do I get? Yak.”
Her voice was dead. “You can love me, Mike. You can, Mike. Any time you want to.”
“You make it sound so exciting.”
I picked up my hat from the table. She caught my arm. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll find a whore house somewhere.”
“Mike. Oh, God, please Mike. Leave me something.”
“Sure.” I straightened out the hundred-dollar bill, smoothed it on the table. This time she did not protest. “Maybe tonight, Hilma. Maybe you’ll feel better and have dinner ready?”
She bit her lip.
“All right. What is it, Hilma? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing at all. Why does anything have to be the matter?”
“I’ve been a cop for thirteen years, baby. One thing I can tell with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back, and that’s when somebody is lying to me.”
“I’m not lying to you, Mike.”
“No. You’re not saying anything. That’s a special markup brand of lying.
She sighed, putting her hand on my arm. “I didn’t know you’d be coming over tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t hear from you yesterday.” She shook her head. “So I thought maybe you’d be away today, too.”
“Did you?”
“I did, Mike. So, yesterday at church, Donald Gilmore asked me to—visit the art exhibit this afternoon and have supper with him.”
“Who is Donald Gilmore?”
“Just a man. I met him at church. He’s very nice.”
“Sure. So you didn’t see me yesterday, so you invited him to supper tonight.”
She swallowed. “That’s right, Mike. I’m sorry.”
“What time did you go to church?”
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