The Amboy Dukes

by Irving Shulman

  Betty sat erect and stroked Frank’s hair. “Don’t let them bother you,” she attempted to console him. “It’ll be all over soon. They’re bound to get the one who did it.”

  Frank’s grip on her arm tightened and relaxed immediately. He was glad it was dark so that she could not see the way his face twisted in agony as fright smashed him with its omnipresent fist. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, the cops are pretty good, and you never read in the papers about a murder not being solved.”

  “But they haven’t any clues,” Frank said.

  Betty rubbed his nose with hers. “How do you know?”

  Frank pushed her away roughly. “Stop it. Now you sound like that bastard Leonard. He’s always popping up wherever I go. The bastard’s driving me nuts!” Frank rolled over and lay with his face in his folded arms.

  “I’m sorry I brought it up, hon.” Betty spoke quietly. “Come on, you better take me home. Oh, Frank”—she embraced him as they stood up—“I like you more than anything.”

  “I like you too,” Frank replied absently, brushed the loose grass from her skirt, and lifted his jacket from the grass. He snapped the jacket twice, brushed the back casually, and put it on. “Let’s go.”

  Betty held his arm and walked so that their thighs brushed. “You’re sure some guy at loving.” Her laugh was shy yet bold. “What’s the matter?” He had stopped, rigid with panic.

  “That man ahead of us looks like one of the dicks,” he whispered apprehensively. “Let’s go back.”

  “No,” she insisted. “You’re seeing things. And even if he is, if you run away he’d think something’s wrong. Come on.” She dragged him along the path. “We’ll walk fast and pass him. Maybe it isn’t him.”

  Shaking, Frank permitted himself to be led. As they approached the man who was strolling ahead of them Frank saw it was neither one of the four detectives, and through the panic which still made his chest pound, he realized that he was seeing Gallagher, Leonard, Finch, and Wilner even when they were not present. He remembered the dream he had had in the middle of May, when the vividness of their presence had forced him awake and he had sat up in bed, shivering and trembling with terror. He had to snap out of it, for he knew his nerves were drawn, stretched to the point of snapping, and there were only twenty-nine days left. Twenty-nine days more of alertness, and then he could stretch his arms, yawn, lie in the sun on the beach, and be free.

  “See,” Betty said to him after they had passed the man, “it wasn’t one of them. Was it?”

  Frank offered her a cigarette from his pack. “No. Look, babe,” he said to her, “it’s late. Suppose I stick you in a cab and I’ll take the trolley home?”

  Before she could protest Frank whistled sharply at a passing cab, which stopped suddenly, ground gears as the driver shifted rapidly into reverse, and backed to the curb where they stood. Frank opened the door and Betty stepped inside the cab.

  “How much to Sterling and Nostrand?” Frank asked the driver.

  The driver looked disgusted. “About sixty cents.”

  Frank gave him a dollar. “Take this girl home. So long.” He leaned through the open window and clasped Betty’s hand. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Between five and six.”

  Betty leaned forward and her lips brushed his. “Good night. Don’t worry about anything.”

  Frank watched the cab swing into Flatbush Avenue and then entered the drugstore near the subway entrance. Why he wanted to know where Stan Alberg lived was something he could not explain. But in Stan Alberg he sensed a person who was willing and anxious to help him, and although the hope was a faint one, possibly Stan Alberg could suggest an escape from the secret that oppressed him. Frank felt no guilt, only a feeling of anger that he should have permitted Benny to get him into a jam that offered so few escape exits. In his mind there were many schemes: to throw the onus of suspicion on the few Negro boys in his official class; to send an anonymous letter to the police, telling them that Mr. Bannon was killed by a girl he had ruined; to somehow identify the dead teacher with a spy ring. And he had to reject every scheme because he could not fill in the necessary details to make the new angle appear logical and possible. His finger ran down the columns in the telephone directory and there it was, Stan Alberg’s address and telephone number. He lived on Crown Street, and Crown Street was nice. Impressive elevator apartment houses and substantial one-and two-family semidetached brick homes with porches, window boxes, Venetian blinds, and two-car garages. As he read the address the idea which had lain within him for weeks, dormant and stifled, now became alive and insistent. Frank wanted to see where Stan Alberg lived. If it were earlier he probably would have called him, but now he wanted to see the house.

  Crown Street between Albany and Troy. The apartment house stood tall and proud in its newness. Above the white Colonial front a large brass coach lamp shone on the house numbers. The panes of glass in the upper halves of the doors were colored and separated by lead strips. The white shutters stood out sharply against the bright blue trim of the apartment windows, and through the closed blinds Frank could see scattered patches of light.

  He opened the apartment-house door so that he could see the lobby, and then it was too late, for the doorman, who had been drowsing in a wing chair, stood up and approached him.

  “Looking for someone?” the doorman asked.

  “Mr. Alberg.” Frank wondered whether he was speaking distinctly.

  The doorman looked at the banjo clock hanging over the Queen Anne sofa. “You know it’s past twelve?”

  “He’ll see me.” Frank didn’t know what impelled him to say this. “What’s his apartment number?”

  The doorman pushed his visored cap back and scratched his forehead. “I’ll bet he’s asleep,” he said, “and I can’t let you in until I call up. Why don’t you come back tomorrow about seven? He or Mrs. Alberg are usually home then.”

  Frank hesitated and put his hand on the doorknob. Then he changed his mind. “No. Call up. He’s been expecting me around for a long time and he’ll be sore if you don’t call him. Go ahead. I’ll take the blame.”

  Frank waited while the doorman plugged the switchboard. For about half a minute they could see the red light on the board winking and then it went out.

  “Mr. Alberg”—the doorman’s voice was full of apology—“you’ll excuse me for waking you. There’s someone here to see you and I told him to come back tomorrow, but he insisted on seeing you tonight… What?… Just a moment, sir.” He turned to Frank. “What’s your name?”

  “Frank. Frank Goldfarb.”

  “Mr. Frank Goldfarb,” the doorman said. “All right, sir”—he nodded toward the mouthpiece of the telephone—“I’ll send him right up.”

  The doorman snapped the plug out of the socket and turned to Frank. “Apartment 509. Take the elevator over there.” He pointed. “Fifth floor—509.”

  “Thanks,” Frank called over his shoulder, “509.”

  Covertly, because he knew the doorman was still watching him, he walked to the elevator as if he were accustomed to apartment houses with doormen and calling on people after midnight. The walls of the corridor were papered with a green and gray wallpaper depicting a woodland scene, too bucolic for anything but wallpaper, and the green patterned broadloom carpet was thick and luxurious underfoot. Frank pressed the elevator button and could hear the whir of gears, and then the elevator was at the lobby floor, and the door swung back silently. The elevator walls were of pickled pine, and for a moment Frank wished he had his knife so that he could cut something obscene into the wood. He had been looking for an apartment two or three times a week, but only when he consented to take Alice with him did he look earnestly. The only vacancy he had found was a shabby apartment over stores on Church Avenue near Utica, and the landlord, a thin, tall man with eyes so deep in his head that they looked like holes in the snow, asked a rental which was exorbitant. “I’m waiting.” He shrugged his shoulders when Frank asked him if he did n
ot think he was asking too much for the apartment. “Somebody’ll be willing to pay.” Some people had doormen and carpets in the lobby, while he had the dismal and reeky hallway on Amboy Street.

  The elevator stopped with a slight jar, and Frank waited until the door slid back, then he pushed open the heavy safety door and stood for a moment deciding into which section of the corridor to turn.

  A door opened and Frank heard Stan call to him, “Over here, Frank.”

  Stan was wearing a robe over his pajamas and stood holding the door open. His hair was tousled and his eyes were still heavy with sleep.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Frank twisted his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry I’m disturbing you.”

  “’Sall right.” Stan shook his head and lit a lamp that stood on an end table in the parlor. “Sit down,” he went on. “Drop your hat anywhere and take off your jacket if you want to. I’ll be back in a minute. Going to wash my face so I won’t look so punchy.”

  Frank placed his hat on the sofa, hesitated, and removed his jacket.

  He squatted down to look at the titles of the books in the section of shelves nearest the sofa, but as he heard the bathroom door open he stood up guiltily and sat stiffly on the sofa.

  “You usually go visiting at this hour?” Stan took a cigarette from the box on the coffee table and offered one to Frank.

  Frank refused the cigarettes. “I don’t know what made me come here, Mr. Alberg.”

  “Call me Stan.”

  “Stan.”

  “How about some coffee with me? Gee”—Stan shook his head—“I guess I can’t take it any more.”

  “I’m making you a lot of bother.”

  “So what! If I said you weren’t you wouldn’t believe me and I wouldn’t be telling the truth. But that doesn’t tell me whether you want coffee or not.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Come into the kitchen while I put on the percolator.”

  Frank stood woodenly in the doorway and watched Stan turn the switch on the electric range and set the percolator over the hot wire coil.

  “That’s an electric range?” Frank asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “I never saw one before.”

  “They’re all right.” Stan guided him back to the living room. “Now what’s on your mind, as if I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Enough that tells me you wouldn’t be coming here after midnight if you didn’t feel you were in a jam.”

  Frank grasped his knees to keep them from trembling. “I didn’t do nothing.”

  Stan picked up the cigarette, looked at it, and ground it Into the tray. “Maybe,” he said laconically.

  “Everyone’s down on me.”

  “That’s not hard to understand.”

  “You’re not much help.”

  Stan wrinkled his forehead. “Help? Seems to me I offered you help more than once. What the hell do you expect me to do? Keep on offering it to you like free passes to the movies? You’re in a spot, Frank. The cops are smart. Remember, Benny, Crazy, and you were the only ones who were found weaponless.”

  Frank did not look at him. “I threw away the gun the next day like you told me.”

  “Before or after your teacher was killed?”

  Frank wearily rubbed his hands across his eyes. His voice was limp. “Before. Honest. Before.”

  “And Benny?”

  “I told him to throw away his gun.”

  “Did he?”

  “I think so.”

  Stan walked into the kitchen to look at the percolator. “Come in here,” he called to Frank. “Coffee’s almost ready, and we can talk better here. Anyway, Reba, my wife, is asleep, and I wouldn’t want her to hear what we’re talking about. She’s all right and can be trusted, but this doesn’t concern her.”

  “You’re right.”

  Stan placed two cups and saucers on the table and took a small china cream pitcher from the refrigerator. “You use sugar?” he asked Frank.

  “Not much.”

  Stan reached into one of the kitchen cabinets for the sugar bowl. “How about some crackers and jam? I think they’ll be all right.” He did not wait for Frank to reply and placed some crackers in a dish and took a jar of raspberry preserves from the refrigerator. “Here”—he slung a paper napkin at Frank—“sit down and we’ll eat and talk. You drink more than one cup of coffee?”

  Frank opened the napkin and placed it in his lap. It slipped and he tucked one end of it under his belt. “Sometimes.”

  “So do I.” Stan adjusted the switch so that the coffee bubbled slowly. “Now”—he seated himself at the table—“dig in.”

  Frank knew that his table manners were clumsy and he watched Stan pour the cream into his coffee and wipe the spout of the pitcher with his spoon. He imitated Stan’s motions and stirred his sugar slowly instead of in his usual wide-sweeping circles.

  “Here.” Stan placed some of the jam on Frank’s plate and added some crackers. “There’s more if you want it.”

  “Thanks. You’re a good guy, Mr. Alberg—Stan.”

  “I could be better if you gave me a chance.”

  Frank did not reply.

  “Come on”—Stan bit into a cracker—“cut the comedy. We’ve been sparring too damned long. You came up here for something.”

  “I don’t know why I came.”

  “Who killed Mr. Bannon?”

  Frank placed the cracker and jam back on his plate. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not telling the truth,” Stan insisted. “Look,” he said, “let’s be reasonable. I know that the detectives have been after you. I’ve seen them around the neighborhood. Two of them even came in to see me and they asked me about you and Benny.”

  Frank clutched the table. “What did they want to know?” His voice no longer belonged to him.

  “The usual things. What I thought of you two and did I think you shot him.”

  Frank saw Stan through a mist. “What did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t think so. Don’t worry.” Stan anticipated Frank’s question. “I didn’t tell them you carried a gun.”

  “I threw it away the next morning. Honest.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I don’t know when Benny did. But I know he threw his away too. You believe that?”

  “Sure. You got scared.”

  Frank’s cup rattled as he stood up suddenly. “Of what?”

  Stan stirred his coffee idly. “I don’t know. Something that brought you here after twelve o’clock at night.”

  “Maybe I better go.”

  “Sit down,” Stan ordered him. “We’re going to talk this out. Though you’re going to tell me there’s nothing to talk about. All right, I’m asking you again, why’d you come up here?”

  Frank was silent. Slowly he spread jam over a cracker and did not answer.

  “Come on,” Stan insisted, “you’re wasting time. Tell me what’s bothering you and I’ll try to help. Listen”—he tried another tack—“the cops picked up Feuerman and Socks Levy, the kids who belong to the Bristol Friends.”

  Frank shook his head. “I know them. The cops raided their club.”

  “I’ve had a talk with Julie Fuderman and Levy.” Stan poured more coffee into his cup. “They’re out on bail. Concealed weapons. And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “They’re not scared. They’re sore about the cops bothering them, but they’re not scared.”

  Frank looked at him. “And now I’m supposed to tell you that I’m scared?” he asked.

  The coffee was hot and Stan blew at the liquid. “I think you are,” he said. “What’re you scared of?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t yell.” Stan placed his cup on his plate. “Then why’d you come here?”

  “I—”

  “Say it.”

  Frank’s lips clamped together. It was so easy, so tempting, to tell Stan everything, and
he felt that Stan would help him. But there was Benny. There were the Dukes. No matter how sore Larry Tunafish was, he really had not meant what he had said about wanting Frank to tell the cops what he knew so that they would leave him alone. If he confessed, Frank thought, to save another guy from taking the rap, that was different. But the cops had no one. Gallagher was in the dark and fishing. What Frank had was a case of nerves, the jitters. Too much thinking about weeks and days and hours and minutes, when all he had to do was to stop thinking about time and take it easy.

  Now he had Betty, and she was wonderful. Better than any babe he had ever had before, and what was best, she loved him. She thought he was the greatest guy in the world, and she was good-looking, the kind of piece any one of the Dukes would give an arm for. Smooth, trim, really put together, and all his. And he had Fanny Kane, who thought it was wonderful that his name was in the papers. He hadn’t laid her yet, but neither had anyone else. So there wasn’t any rush, for he knew he could knock her off whenever he wanted to, and when he did he’d make sure Crazy would know it. It was easy. He would date every night, go to school in the morning and afternoon, then either look for an apartment or go to the Center or the movies, and it would be like coasting a car downhill—easy.

  “Well?” Stan said sharply.

  “Good jam.” Frank sniggered, and Stan suddenly wanted to slap him. “I’m glad I’m eating it and not in it.”

  “So that’s your attitude?”

  “No attitude. I’m visiting you because I wanted to see where you lived.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “Nobody’s asking you to.”

  Stan picked up a cracker and crumpled it in his hand. “You know”—his smile was knowing—“you don’t have to tell me anything, Frank. Remember the doorman downstairs?”

  “What about him?”

  “I know that Benny and you are being watched. You know it, too, and it’s easy to see that it’s getting you. Now suppose a cop or somebody was tailing you and they saw you come here after twelve tonight and they stop and talk to the doorman? He’ll tell them you insisted upon seeing me. And they’ll check and find out that I’m at the Center and they’ll start putting things together and they’ll surmise that you were scared and wanted to tell what you know or did—”