Benny Muscles In

by Peter Rabe

  “Mickey, what’s he saying, for Chrissakes?”

  “O.K., Kip. Benny? He says they’re looking around. I guess they’re looking for that yellow stain now.”

  “O.K., O.K., I know what they’re looking for.”

  It was two-fifteen and nothing was happening. Benny held the phone close to his ear and switched hands. His palms were sweating. The noise in the earpiece was a rhythmic crack and crunch. Benny thought he was going to jump out of his skin. “Mickey! Mick, will you stop chewing that goddamn gum?”

  Mickey stopped and started to whistle instead. There wasn’t any news from the radio man on the yacht, only that they were looking around.

  Benny got up and stretched. Through the window he saw the long garage in the back, all the stalls empty. They had taken all the cars except the Mercury at the end of the oval. Alverato’s Cadillac, Birdie’s Jaguar, the two Dodges. The convertible wasn’t there, either. They hadn’t needed the convertible, but it wasn’t there.

  “Mick, listen to me. Sit tight while I put the phone down for a minute. I got to put it down and check.”

  “Go ahead, Benny. I ain’t leaving.” Mick started to whistle again.

  Pat was nowhere. The man who worked in the kitchen helped look all over the house, and then Benny thought of calling the gate.

  “She came through here with that yellow convertible a while back,” the man said.

  Benny clicked down the wall phone and ran back to the desk. “Mick, anything new?”

  “Hi, Benny. Well, they just heaved again, Kip says. Maybe they seen something.”

  “Heaved? What in hell-”

  “Heaved the ship around, I guess.”

  “O.K. Hold it now, Mick. I gotta make another call.”

  He picked up the other phone and dialed. “Scotty? Tapkow. Listen close now. The kid’s gone. Pat. In the yellow convertible. Call the Bradys and get them started in town. She headed for town. Then get the guys at Alverato’s club, they’re just sitting there on their cans, and tell them to fan out over the city. Tell them to hit every parkway, Pendleton’s place on Sutton, and every viper joint. Get going and find that girl. I want her back here, get that?”

  When he picked up the other receiver he could hear Mickey saying, “-beeline for it right now.”

  “Mick, what, what-”

  “You wasn’t listening? Alverato and Birdie took the launch and are going out there. They found the spot. Great news, huh, Benny?”

  “Great, great. What now? What are they doing now?”

  “Hold on, Benny. Kip? What are they doing now?”

  Benny’s eyes kept jumping to the other phone, back and forth. He blinked. A sharp headache had started to spread over the side of his head.

  “Benny. They’re simply chugging along there, he says.”

  “Mick, can Kip see the spot? Ask him.”

  “Kip, can you see the spot?… Yeah? How’s it look?… Yeah? Benny? He can see it It’s yellow, he says. He says he can-”

  “Mick, shut up a minute. Fix it so I can hear Kip direct. Put the phone to the speaker or something. I’m going nuts listening to that goddamn gum chewing.”

  “I can’t fix it so you can talk to him. I can-”

  “Forget that part. I just want to hear him, you jerk!”

  Then came a steady humming, a gritty noise that growled behind Kip’s voice: “-into the wind now. Birdie’s got a stick with a hook. The dragnet’s in the stern. They’re going to try the hook first. Alverato must have cut the motor because-”

  The other phone rang.

  “Scotty here. Tapkow? I did like you said. They’re all out now, but nothing yet.”

  “Call back every fifteen minutes, Scotty.” He hung up, unable to wait any longer to pick up the other phone.

  “-stopped dipping it in. Alverato is in the back with the net I think-I don’t know, he’s turning the other way, pointing. They’re looking up. There must be-” Kip’s metallic voice was drowned in the strong static.

  Benny was frantic. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t talk to Mick, who was holding the phone to the radio speaker. But then Mick came through. He’d heard the static and the voice fading and he was talking to Kip. “Mickey to Kip, Mickey to Kip. Can’t read you, can’t read you.” He took up the phone. “Benny? I’m trying to raise him. There’s interference.”

  “Goddamnit, I know there’s interference! What’s interfering? Turn a knob or something.”

  “It’s not the set, Benny. Could be a plane, though I wouldn’t know why a plane-He’s coming through again, Benny. Here he is.”

  “-hands over their eyes,” Kip’s voice said. “Can’t tell from here what they’re doing. They must be-Wait!” Kip’s mechanical drone picked up speed and sharpened, sounding almost like a human voice. “By God, it’s a helicopter! The damn thing just hangs there. No, it’s starting to sag down to the launch. They-” The other phone rang again.

  “Scotty, talk fast. What-wrong car? So keep them looking. I don’t care how long it takes!”

  Benny was like a hunted man in a dream, trying to run and crashing from one pitfall into the next It was hard to make out Kip’s voice and Benny strained into the earpiece, his eyes on the other phone, glued there like the glass eyes of the dead pig.

  “-scrambling into the front. They’re both watching the thing drop from the helicopter. Looked small, puffing. Christ, a fat cloud in the stern now. Birdie is diving for it, he-yeah, he’s got the bomb, throwing it over the side. Burned his hand, though. Keeps shaking it and dropped his gun. Al must have ducked below. I only see Birdie now. He’s grabbing the stick and swinging at the heli-Christ, that thing is low! Here’s Al coming up with a Tommy gun, and Birdie’s hauling out with that stick again. They’re so close now-My God! He can’t get the stick around. Al’s falling, Al’s got the-The goddamn hook’s into Al and won’t come out! It looks-” Kip stopped. He spoke once more, saying, “Coast Guard launch,” and then the radio went dead.

  “Did you hear that, Benny? Hey, Benny! Cheeze, I’m gonna blow,” and then the phone went dead too.

  The wait was over. Benny never even thought of the other phone. He could only think of Pendleton then; Pendleton, who was dead, but not without one more double-cross. He had given the tip-off. He was dead and there was nothing to be done about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Before he went to the village he called Scotty once more, but he knew it wouldn’t mean a thing. It was nighttime and he drove to the village slowly. He bought the extra in the drugstore and drove back to Alverato’s place.

  “Dope Ring Smashed,” it said.

  Holding the paper down on the desk as if it were going to blow away, he read every word.

  “Acting upon an anonymous tip, the combined striking force of the Coast Guard and F.B.I. pulled one of the most spectacular raids…”

  He knew that part of it.

  “… resulting in the arrest of the right-hand man to a local underworld czar.”

  They got Birdie.

  “… virtual hand-to-hand combat for the possession of a watertight container of pure heroin. During the course of the battle the notorious Agrippino Alverato, kingpin of the local syndicate, met a grisly fate at the hands of a fearless Coast Guard commander who-”

  Big Al!

  “… pronounced dead from spinal injury.” And so that left no one.

  “Further important arrests are imminent.”

  Benny pushed himself away from the desk and stared at the far wall. There was a picture hanging on it, a picture of something he couldn’t make out He noticed that his hands were shaking again. He balled his fists, slowly at first, thumped them on the desk, both of them, harder, then hard and fast like drumsticks.

  It brought him around. It came over him like the cold sting of ice, the sudden change in pace and the determination. He went to the kitchen and drank black coffee. His face didn’t tell a thing now.

  “Dope Ring Smashed,” it had said in the paper. H
e thought about it then and saw that what was smashed was a man named Pendleton, a man named Alverato, and nothing else.

  They had the shipment, and that was all. One shipment gone and nobody left to know the story. Birdie knew part of the story, but Birdie never talked. Benny Tapkow knew the whole story; the in, the out, and all the small details. Including those that even Alverato hadn’t known about.

  So this was the real beginning, the Big Deal right in his lap. He sat down at the desk again.

  The first call was to O’Toole, Levinson, and Levinson. He told them about Birdie, about arranging bail and preparing for Birdie’s defense.

  Next he called a professional who lived in Yonkers and gave him the name and address of a purser. The professional was to pick up his advance from the office of Imports, Inc., and do a job with a purser.

  A phone call to Alverato’s Construction Enterprises, Inc., got him the telephone number of the accountant for the firm.

  “This is Benny Tapkow I’m sending a man from the O’Toole firm over to your place. Get your books from the safe and wait for the man in your car. I’m setting up a place for you so you guys can get to work on those books starting right now and all night. You heard about Alverato?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The next call was to Squinty Gold, who was head man for the pushers; then to Edna Convair, who handled the houses; a call to Lucky Black to tell him to shut down every game he had floating around town. There were a few others, all with the same kind of message: Pull in all operations and lie low. They said yes, sir, Mr. Tapkow, and some of them called him Benny.

  Two hours later he was through. He did just one more thing. He got an ax from a servant and knocked the button off a little safe behind a bookshelf. Benny took out what he found there and the folded list of Italian cities and put everything in other places of his own choosing.

  Then he ate in the kitchen, smoked two cigarettes, and called Scotty again. Still nothing on Pat. He went upstairs to bed.

  The extra lay in a wastebasket somewhere. “Dope Ring Smashed,” it had said.

  They all got another phone call from Benny at eight the next morning. At ten they were in the office of Imports, Inc., where Benny showed them into a room to the rear.

  He wasn’t the tallest in the bunch and he didn’t have a big voice, but they sat and listened because he never doubted that they would. Lucky Black was there, and Edna Convair, Squinty Gold, De Marco, and a man who had come in from Saratoga. One of the Levinsons had come too.

  “Where’s Hogan?” Benny asked.

  They shrugged, not knowing why Hogan hadn’t shown up.

  “Everything under control, like I said last night?” Benny looked from one to the other.

  They nodded.

  “It’s gonna cost a fortune,” Edna said. She recrossed her legs. They were the only things that hadn’t changed on her through the years.

  “It’s worth it.” Benny tapped on a newspaper that stuck out of his pocket. “Now they found some dead guys out in the country. Not more than five miles from the Beau Brummel. They’re trying to tie it up with the other thing, so for a while we lie low.”

  “Takes me more than a day,” Squinty Gold said. His pushers were all over the area. “Besides losing customers, maybe. Perhaps-”

  “Haul them in fast or you’ll lose more than customers, Gold. Whatever you got in storage, keep it there. When I tell you to push it again, the price will be double, and when that H is gone there’ll be a new supply ready. I’m arranging it now.”

  “Like the last time. Big Al arranged it the last time and look what happened.”

  “Big Al is dead,” Benny said. “And so is the guy who tipped the deal.”

  They looked at each other and understood.

  “Anybody we know?” Edna asked.

  “Pendleton.”

  They understood that too, because Benny was telling them and nobody had seen a thing about it in any of the papers.

  “What about the bail, Levinson?”

  “They haven’t set it yet, but judge Nichols-”

  “He’s getting the pressure now. I sent a man over this morning.”

  For a while longer he gave them instructions, then he left because he had planned a visit to Hogan.

  They stayed after he had gone and Squinty Gold said, “Well?”

  “Well what? He’s it.”

  “I’ll go along with that,” Lucky Black said. “He’s got the pipeline now and it doesn’t look like he makes mistakes.”

  They all thought of Hogan, who hadn’t shown up at the meeting.

  “And no more Pendleton,” Edna said.

  “I’m nervous,” De Marco said.

  The man who had come in from Saratoga cleared his throat and they all looked at him. “You ain’t the only one who’s nervous,” he said, but his own voice was steady. “It’s all the same to me. But they’re nervous out West.”

  “Out West?”

  “They figure all these goings on have left a hole in the syndicate. First Old Man Ager, then Big Al, then Pendleton. They’re nervous.” He crossed his arms.

  “But there’s Benny,” somebody said.

  “Who’s Benny? They never heard of no Benny.”

  “Perhaps we should tell him,” Levinson said. “I have a feeling-”

  “You wanna get killed?”

  Levinson shrugged. “Tapkow looks good to me,” he said, and then he leaned back, figuring he’d just listen some more.

  “Perhaps he looks too good.” Lucky Black looked from one to the other. “Perhaps out West they figure how come there’s suddenly a Benny Tapkow here and just a minute ago there was a big hole?”

  “I’m staying out of this,” said the man from Saratoga. “Just thought I’d mention it.” He lit a cigarette and made a noise when he blew out the match. “Just thought I’d mention it because they’re sending somebody over.”

  “They’re what? Who’re they sending?”

  “The syndicate’s sending them. Just two men from out West.”

  “So-is he in or out?”

  They didn’t know, one way or the other. And they didn’t feel like deciding, one way or the other.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When Benny had finished with business he had stayed in town till late, but he hadn’t done any better than Scotty. He drove back to Westchester, tired but unable to sleep.

  He’d done everything right, done it the way to make it pay off, and in the end there wasn’t a mistake he hadn’t corrected. Except Pat.

  He stood by the open window above the black park that had once belonged to Big Al Alverato. Benny looked down to the stone terrace reaching out into the lawn and he thought that some night he’d have to sit down there on the terrace and relax.

  The curtains billowed in slow curves but he didn’t notice. And he didn’t hear the door because she had never been in the habit of closing doors. “Lover.” She said it with that metallic ring.

  He turned slowly, half wondering if he had heard right, and then the stiffness went out of his face, his shoulders, and his body moved with a deep breath.

  “Pat. You’re back.”

  Pat looked fine. Nothing wrong with her. She was smiling while she plucked at her ear lobe once and only her eyes looked too alive for her face.

  “How are you, chauffeur?” she said. She walked around a chair, around and around, as if she had never seen a chair before. “How are you, chauffeur?”

  He had heard her the first time but that type of thing didn’t get to him any more. He wasn’t a chauffeur any more.

  “You look ten feet tall,” she said. “Like a freak.”

  He saw it was bad, so he went to her with hands out, trying to reach her. “Patty-”

  It surprised him when she didn’t step back, just waited. His arms went around her and he looked into her eyes. They were light and shiny. “It’s over, Patty. Now, Patty, now we start,” and he bent his head to her face.

  She stood still and waited. He was so
close now he couldn’t see her face.

  The kiss was like murder. His head jerked back and he saw now how she had pulled back her lips, and where he had tried to kiss her he saw the teeth.

  For a moment he didn’t talk. His arms dropped away from her.

  “Where’d you get that jolt?”

  “Had my head measured.” Her tongue went over her teeth a few times. “Us vipers stick together.”

  He ran his hands through his hair with sharp strokes. “Pat. Try to hear me. I know you’re high. I-”

  “High! So high you look like a runt!” His face had changed and she took a step back. “You want me to go, Benny?”

  He watched her. “Did you come back?”

  “Oh, Benny!” she called, and her arms were out. “Oh, Benny!”

  He took it the only way he could. He went to her. She sagged in his arms and her mouth wanted that kiss. He could feel it under him, felt it move, and they stayed close. Then he gave her time to breathe, watching her face smile at him. She has a thousand different smiles, he thought, a new smile.

  “You can let go now,” she said.

  “What did you say?”

  “Let go.” She was still smiling that way.

  “Pat, come here.”

  She moved back with an even step and then the smile said, “Tapkow, to me you are dead.”

  For a moment he thought he was going to kill her and his fingers curled involuntarily. She had seen it and started to crouch the way he had done. With a crazy switch in her voice she suddenly talked like a record set at the wrong speed. “Look, Benny Tapkow, look what I got.” She flailed her hands through the air, fingers clawed. “Hooks, Benny Tapkow, look at the hooks!”

  “Shut up!”

  Her hands kept clawing.

  “Shut up, you crazy bitch, shut up!”

  He whirled away from her and ran to the open window. His shoulders moved up and down, and he kept twisting his head as if there were a kink in his neck. And when she saw that she slid down along the wall and sat on the floor. Then she began to cry.

  She would have cried like that with or without the dope in her blood, and no dope was big enough to cover the misery she felt.