The Forty-Two

by Ed Kurtz

  A labored clomping sounded beyond the basement door, culminating in the arrival of an enormously obese man in his undershirt and boxer shorts. His thick black hair was oily and mussed, and he hadn’t shaved in a week or so. In one hand he clutched a cigarette, and there was a can of pop in the other. He turned his churlish glare first to Charley and then directed it at Ursula.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Ursula crossed her long legs and smiled.

  “Hi Nicky,” she purred. “It’s Mikey. Mikey Jovanović.”

  Nicky took a long drag from his cigarette and narrowed his eyes when the smoke streamed over his shaggy face.

  “Holy shit. You’re a pederchino.”

  Charley opened his mouth to ask but Ursula intercepted.

  “It means faggot,” she explained without taking her eyes off Nicky. She had not stopped smiling. Charley closed his mouth. “I see you’ve changed, too.”

  “Sure. I got fat, so what?”

  “So we both got tits since the last time we saw each other. Can we skip that now?”

  Nicky chortled, coughing wetly as he laughed.

  “This one used to follow me around like a kid brother,” he said to Charley. “I thought I was his hero. I was going to be big shit, lead my own gang and wear Brooks Brothers suits even on Saturdays.” He looked down as the state of himself and chuckled again. “But I haven’t put pants on in a week.”

  “You don’t got to be formal with me, Nicky,” Ursula said.

  “You still got your kurac?” he asked, poking though the air at Ursula’s crotch.

  “For now. I’m savin up.”

  “That right. Crazy goddamn world.”

  “Truer words, baby.”

  Nicky waddled over to the sink and dropped his cigarette into it. He opened the refrigerator and rooted around in it like a scavenging animal until backing out with a meat pastry in his hand.

  “Mama’s a witch but she makes the best burek in the world. What do you need, Mikey?”

  “Ursula now.”

  “All right, Ursula.”

  “Those guys you used to run with back in the day—still in touch with any of em?”

  “What, Petey and those characters?” Nicky was talking with a mouthful of burek. “Nah, no way. Hell, half of em’s left town, them’s that ain’t in Riker’s. It ain’t the same no more. Kind of a shame, I guess.”

  “Seemed awful quiet around here.”

  “Quiet, hell. It’s goddamn boring around here. All’s I got to do all day is sit in my basement and watch videos. I seen em all ten times already.”

  He stuffed the last bite of burek into his mouth and swallowed it immediately.

  “You ever hear of a guy called Branko Dragović?” Charley asked.

  Ursula groaned.

  “I was working up to that.”

  “Dragović,” Nicky said after he wiped his mouth on his bare arm. “Not such a nice man. What do you want with a guy like him?”

  “Him I don’t want,” Charley said. “But I’d sure like to meet some of his friends.”

  “No you wouldn’t. Those dudes are bad news, my friend. Not the sort of guys a little picka like you wants to mess around with.”

  “Well, they messed around with me first. I figured it was my turn now.”

  Nicky laughed. “They didn’t mess with you,” he scoffed. “People they mess with don’t come back around to bitch about it.”

  Charley grimaced. He looked skeptical.

  “What is this, some big time underground Serbian mafia or something?”

  Nicky made a gun with his index finger and thumb and fired it at Charley.

  “You got it, prijatelj.”

  Nicky Dorić gave them an address even though he begged them to leave it alone. Ursula thanked him for his advice and kissed him on the cheek when they left; this deeply amused Charley but Nicky locked up as if he were being electrocuted. Ursula floated down the stone steps after that as though she were riding a cloud. It was a dream deferred.

  Charley and Ursula did not heed Nicky’s admonition and in a matter of minutes they were plodding back down Fresh Pond Road in search of a hole in the wall bar called Drina’s. If Charley had asked, Ursula might have explained to him that the Drina was a major river in the Balkans and the namesake of an important Serbian novel. But Charley did not ask.

  Drina’s was a corner bar of the typical variety. It was housed on the first floor of a two-story structure, the front door to which faced the exact corner of the two intersecting streets before it. The only identifying feature was the bright blue neon sign that spelled out the joint’s name in the window facing the main drag. It was so inconspicuous that they almost walked right past it.

  As they doubled back to make their grand entrance, a drunk was lurching out of the place, slurring a song to himself as he pitched back and forth.

  “Otkato sam…valjan bio nisam…I umreću…popravit’ se neću…”

  The drunk did not make it very far down the unlit cross street before he dipped forward and violently vomited on the sidewalk.

  Charley and Ursula looked back. Then they went inside.

  Drina’s was dim and smoky inside, and the conversations of the entirely male constituency were little more than a muted murmur that waffled between English and Serbian. There were lamps with green shades dangling from the low slung ceiling and tin plates advertising beers Charley had never heard of on every wall—Jelen Pivo, Lav, Pančevačko ekstra. Charley asked for a glass of Lav at the bar because it seemed easiest to pronounce. The bartender, a glum Slav with a moustache to rival Andy’s, brought it to him with saturnine silence. He turned his attention to Ursula and quietly waited for her to buy a drink, too.

  “Pančevačko, molim vas,” she said.

  The barman cracked open a one and a half liter bottle of Pančevačko and slid it over to her. Charley was impressed.

  The beer was pretty good, a decent pilsner, and the longer time went on without anyone making a scene over the interlopers Charley felt they were, the more comfortable the bar got. Eventually they moseyed over to a table by the window and quietly nursed their drinks. Charley was hoping Ursula might pick something up from the Serbian murmurs that filled the room. She didn’t.

  Half an hour droned by, and Charley found himself keeping track of a game of checkers between two stocky men at a nearby table. The one with the horn-rimmed glasses and the jet-black comb-over had won three in a row. His partner, a wiry older man with a protruding forehead, grimaced and demanded another go. Charley inwardly rooted for the underdog.

  When they’d finished their beers and had been sitting a while longer, the bartender started to stare. Charley grasped the hint and ordered another round. Another thirty minutes ticked by. Buzzed and loaded patrons stumbled out the door, one by one. Eventually there was no one left except for the checkers players, the bartender, Charley and Ursula. It was the quietest time Charley had ever experienced inside of a bar.

  At a quarter of one the bartender started wiping down all the surfaces and putting glasses up. The players dumped all the pieces into a felt bag and folded up the board. The older man had not won a single game. Charley felt bad for him. Then, as the triumphant winner stood and wandered over to the coat rack for his fur-lined coat, the door swung open and let a blast of cold air inside. The guy went out and Charley shivered when the cold hit him. He looked around for the guilty party with an annoyed grimace etched in his face.

  It was two parties, as it turned out; two dark-faced men in long coats. One of them had his right arm in a sling, his coat draped over that shoulder. Sticking out of the end of the sling was a heavily bandaged nub. The wrapping was stained brown at the end. Charley gasped, prompting the one-handed man to look in his direction.

  “Ivo,” he said in accented English, keeping his dark eyes on Charley, “lock the door.”

  The wiry loser at checkers stood up and, without a word, tramped over to the front door and turned the deadbolt. Charley regretted havi
ng rooted for him.

  “Charley,” Ursula squeaked.

  The man who accompanied the one-handed man reached between her and Charley and seized the chain dangling from the neon light in the window. One quick yank and it was extinguished. Closed for business. Charley gulped.

  The one-handed man shrugged off his coat, which Ivo gingerly pulled off of him before gently hanging it on the coat rack. The former said, “Hvala.”

  He then walked slowly and purposefully to the bar and leaned up against it like a cowboy in some old John Ford picture.

  “Jelen,” he said. The bartender hurried to fulfill the one-handed man’s wish. Charley was starting to get the idea that this guy was supposed to be a big deal.

  When the man got his beer he took a lingering sip that he finished with a loud and satisfied breath.

  “Finish,” he said, gesturing with his glass at Charley and Ursula. “Finish your drinks. Then we talk, yes?”

  Ursula sheepishly drank but Charley remained still.

  “I’m not thirsty,” he said.

  “Fine,” said the one-handed man. “Then let us go into my office, yes?”

  Ivo and the other man immediately descended upon them. Ivo grabbed Ursula and the other guy heaved Charley up. Neither of them put up a fight as they were led across the bar and through an unmarked door the one-handed man had opened up for them. It was pitch black back there, but someone switched on a light that was a bare and dusty bulb hanging like a noose from the middle of the ceiling. Illuminated, Charley saw that they were in the joint’s storage room—boxes with beer and liquor brands printed on them were stacked to the ceiling, and there were big metal kegs squeezed in among them. A small black and white TV set with crooked rabbit ears and a smudged screen sat on an upturned crate. It was on, but the volume was turned all the way down. The odor of alcohol was as strong as a brewery and it mingled in the stagnant air with the strong cologne of the Serbs and the pungent mop water in a nearby bucket. Charley thought it smelled like a fraternity house, or at least how he imagined a frat house would probably smell.

  The man who came in with the one-handed guy left and shut the door behind him. Ivo and the man in charge remained. The former withdrew a revolver from his waistband, and the latter said, “Sit.”

  Charley gave the room a cursory once-over and then said, “There’s no chairs.”

  “On the floor,” the man said.

  Charley accommodated the request as the man withdrew a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket; Ursula delicately lowered herself onto one of the big metal kegs. The man successfully extracted one the cigarettes and got it between his thick lips, but for some reason he was having trouble getting his lighter to ignite. Ivo took it from him and in a second the Camel was burning. The man took a long, gratifying drag and expelled the smoke through his nostrils.

  “I am no southpaw,” he said, proudly enunciating the Americanism. “Even a task so simple as lighting a cigarette, this is difficult to do with my left hand. I will have to learn many things all over again.”

  Charley narrowed his eyes and said, “I didn’t do that to you.”

  “I never say you did, McCormick. Is gun dealer’s fault. Junk guns, cheap and very easy to get. Disposable. Good for hits. Not so good when they blow up in your hand though, eh?”

  The man let out a vinegary laugh.

  “Better your hand than my face,” Charley said bitterly.

  The laugh dwindled out. Ursula gazed at Charley and then at the man, then back again. She was clearly bewildered but too frightened to ask any questions. Charley glanced over at the television and realized it had been showing the Indian Head the whole time. No programming at that hour.

  “What I don’t very much like is coming to my bar and seeing that face, McCormick. This is surprise, and I don’t like surprise.”

  “Didn’t know it was a private club.”

  “Private club? Is no private club. Anybody welcome to Drina’s. Anybody except you.”

  “You ought to put a sign on the door to that effect, then. McCormick not allowed.”

  The man grinned broadly, revealing two rows of wildly uneven, yellow and brown teeth.

  “No, I don’t think I need to do this. There will be no McCormick to keep out next time, I think.”

  Ivo smiled and chuckled, a gravelly chuckle that stayed in his throat. Charley sneered at him, now pleased as hell that the son of a bitch had lost so badly at checkers. It was a small consolation but the best he could muster given the circumstances.

  “How about the girl?” Charley growled. “Did you kill her already?”

  “I have not killed anyone. It is you people who do killing. Branko Dragović, Charley McCormick—where is he now?”

  Ursula said, “Oh-oh.”

  “Fresh Kills,” Charley said.

  “That is not so funny,” the man said sullenly.

  “Actually, it is, but I didn’t mean it to be. It’s the landfill on Staten Island. Dig around long enough and you’ll find Dragović. It shouldn’t take more than fifty years, I don’t think.”

  The man roared, “You leave Branko in a dump?”

  “Sure,” Charley said. “Why not? You think a guy breaks into a man’s house and smashes his face in should be in Woodlawn?”

  “Ah,” the man said, wagging a knotted finger, “but smashing faces is not always to kill, yes?”

  “I suppose that’s just how you say hello in Serbia.”

  “It’s not,” Ursula cut in. “That’s just assholes who do that.”

  “Assholes,” the man repeated. He said it dreamily as though he was struggling to comprehend the meaning of the word. “But now McCormick’s friend is in hospital,” he continued, “while Marko’s friend is in fucking dump!”

  Marko’s face flushed purple with the angry blood that sped into it. Charley looked from him to Ivo, who appeared more eager than ever to get some use out of the little black revolver he was aiming at them. Then he licked his lips, staring directly at Ursula, and Charley realized that the gunman’s eagerness was directed elsewhere. Ursula also picked up on it. She smiled seductively at Ivo, batting her eyes and looking wistful.

  “You and your pal Branko came in firing, as I recall things,” Charley said matter-of-factly. “After the Molotov cocktail, of course.”

  “We flush you out.”

  “And then wipe us out, right?”

  “Is neither there nor here,” Marko said with a dismissive hand gesture. “If not I kill you then, then I kill you now. For Branko.”

  “Bullshit for Branko. It hasn’t got anything to do with Branko.”

  “No matter. Dead is dead, yes?”

  Ivo had taken several steps closer to Ursula. His gun was still pointed at her, but so was his erection. He was a randy one, Ivo, and his darting eyes revealed the ethical dilemma playing out in head—namely, would it be okay to fuck the girl before he had to execute them both? Ursula’s eyes and mouth were telling him yes.

  Marko said, “Ivo.” It was understood by everyone in the room to be a command.

  Ivo stepped forward again, edging toward her with the caution of a hunter, and Ursula began to slowly put distance between her knees. The gunman’s jaw dropped. Her chin sagged down to her collarbone so that she had to look up from under her dark blue eyelids like a naughty schoolgirl. It made Ivo salivate. The gun drooped a little as his eyes tried to penetrate the darkness under her skirt. Marko made a point of his substantial eyebrows and opened his mouth, about to chastise his hired gun for lollygagging about when he was supposed to be painting the beer boxes with the girl’s brains.

  Then Ursula yanked her legs apart as far as they would go, hiking her skirt up to her waist in the process. Ivo’s eyes bulged, first from desire and then out of shock that they were not the only things bulging. For, underneath the tight, lacey panties he’d half-expected to see there was the unmistakable outline of Ursula’s particularly male equipment.

  Ivo let out a surprised yelp. Ursula lifted her right kne
e straight forward and straightened the rest of the leg into a rapid front kick that struck Ivo’s gun hand and sent the revolver flying across the storage room. He let out a second, more anguished yelp.

  Marko screamed, “Sranje! Pick it up!”

  Ivo faltered, still reeling from the bombshell of Ursula’s surprise package, which gave her enough time to dive for the revolver herself. Marko’s purple face turned darker still, the deep heliotrope color of an overripe eggplant.

  “Sisadzijo!” he bellowed. His pounding blood pressure was pulsing toward the stump where his right hand used to be, staining the bandages a rich crimson.

  Charley remained on the floor, staring dumbly at the unfolding proceedings. Now Ursula held the gun, the only one in the room as far as she and Charley knew. Her hands shook as she pointed it at Marko, and Ivo and her face was a quivering mass of rage and fright, but as long as she was the one holding the iron she had the upper hand. No one was bound to disagree with that.

  “Now Marko spend eternity in the stinking garbage also, yes?”

  Ursula pulled the hammer back with her calloused thumb. It clicked so loud that the sound echoed in the storage room.

  “No,” Charley said.

  He held his hand up to Ursula, a sign for her to relent, but he did not take his eyes off of Marko.

  “You kidding, babe?” Ursula asked incredulously. “If I don’t plug this cocksucker now, he won’t stop until he gets us both. You know that, right?”

  “We’re not killing anybody, damnit.” He glowered at Marko and said, “Where is she? Where’s Eve?”

  “I know no Eve,” Marko said.

  “Once more. Where’s Eve?”

  Marko shook his head.

  Charley said, “Okay, Ursula. Have it your way. Kill em.”

  The color drained out of Marko’s face but he did not move a millimeter; he kept the same stony expression, like one of those statues on Easter Island. Charley backed away out of the line of fire and Ursula curled her lips up into a vicious snarl.

  “Fuck!” Ivo cried suddenly. “Don’t shoot! The girl, she is not here! I tell you where is girl, but don’t shoot!”