by McBain, Ed
It was amazing the way Brown loosened up once the stenographer was there to take down the information. He almost seemed proud of his shooting prowess. He told them how he’d gone to Luis for a fix, and how Luis had refused him because he didn’t have a fiver. He’d offered Luis two, but Luis had remained adamant, and finally Brown had threatened him with the zip gun. Luis had laughed in his face, and that was the last time Luis laughed at anything. The stenographer took all this down, and then Brown signed it in a scrawling hand and asked, “Can I have that bindle now?” and Palazzo had just laughed and left the room with the signed confession in his mitts. And that had been that.
Except for Johnny Lane.
“What about the other guy?” Trachetti asked Palazzo.
“What other guy?” Palazzo asked.
“The one slugged March and swiped the RMP. Him.”
“Screw him,” Palazzo said. “He’s clean now, ain’t he?”
“Yeah.” Trachetti paused. “So what happens to him now?”
“How the hell do I know? The word’ll get around, I suppose, sooner or later. When he knows the heat’s off, he’ll come out in the open again.”
Trachetti wiped a hand over his face. “What I mean, Leo, shouldn’t we wise the kid up? You know, he still thinks he’s got a murder rap hanging over his head.”
“So what?” Palazzo asked.
“Well, hell, he’s out there someplace thinking—”
“Who cares what the hell he’s thinking? He probably done something anyway, the way he ran.”
“Still …”
“You’re too damn softhearted. You think we’re working up in Larchmont or New Rochelle or someplace. Well, we ain’t. This is Harlem. This is where cops get their throats slit. You think any of these bastards is worrying about us? Well, they ain’t, I can tell you that. You want me to go out and look for this other guy, whatever the hell his name is? Tell him he’s clear, pat him on the head, kiss him on the cheek? He’d probably knife me if I got within ten feet of him.”
“I don’t think so,” Trachetti said. “Couldn’t we at least tell his family? Or the girl?”
“Ah-ha, so that’s it. You just want another look at his broad, eh, Dave? She was a piece, I got to admit that.”
“Aw, come on, Leo, don’t be stupid. That kid—”
“I don’t give a damn about that kid,” Palazzo said, almost shouting. “Let him find out the good news by himself. Serve him right for slugging March and swiping the car.”
“Suppose he does something else? He thinks he’s wanted for murder, Leo, don’t you understand?”
“He’ll live,” Palazzo said. “He’s healthy, ain’t he? He’s young. He’s sound of mind and body. From the way March tells me he ran, he must be a hardy specimen.”
“A murder rap …” Trachetti started.
“Murder rap, shmurder rap,” Palazzo cracked. “So long as you got your health.”
Six
The arm began bleeding in earnest again.
It started as a slow trickle of blood that oozed its way through the fresh bandage. But the trickle became a stream, and the stream soaked through the bandage and dripped onto Johnny’s wrist, and the drops ran into his cupped palm, hung on his fingertips, and then spattered onto the sidewalk in a crimson trail.
It got colder, too, and he missed his jacket, and he cursed himself for not having grabbed it when he’d left the girl’s room. With her screaming like that, though, it’s a wonder he’d managed to remember his head, even. Still, it was goddamn cold, too cold for November, too cold even for January.
He marveled at the way the blood flowed. He watched it with a curious detachment, and he wondered if he weren’t getting delirious. The blood rushed out of his arm with a peculiar urgency. It was almost as if the body were screaming, screaming a vivid red.
I have to stop the blood, he thought. If I don’t stop the blood, I’ll die.
The thought of dying had not occurred to him before. He had been concerned with only one thing before, and that was avoiding the police. He’d wanted to dress the arm, too, but that was a secondary consideration. He thought of dying now, and the thought did not particularly frighten him. He examined the thought with detachment, the same way he’d looked at his arm. He did not want to die, but somehow it didn’t seem important to him, one way or the other.
But I have to stop the bleeding, he told himself. I’m beginning to feel weak already, but maybe that’s because I’m hungry. When did I eat last? I’m cold, I wish I had a coat. I have to stop the blood. The police …
He suddenly got rattled. He seemed incapable of thinking clearly for a few moments. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and he found himself trembling, and he realized he was scared, scared stiff, and then he thought of dying again, and this time the thought frightened him. His teeth chattered, and he tried to think clearly, tried to get all the thoughts in order, tried to arrange them neatly. But there was only a kind of screaming inside his head, a lonesome grating plea to someone, anyone, anything to stop the blood and the running and the cold.
He alternately shook his head and nodded it. He stared around him, almost dazed, completely overwhelmed by the thoughts that bombarded his brain.
He bit down on his lip then, hard, feeling the pain, almost drawing fresh blood. He stared at a spot in the concrete, trembling, waiting for the tremor to leave his body, waiting for his head to clear.
How do you stop bleeding? he asked himself. Goddammit, how do you stop bleeding?
A tourniquet.
Yes, a tourniquet. You make a tourniquet. You use a rag and a stick and a hank of hair. You tighten it all around your arm, and you mutter mumbo-jumbo, and the bleeding stops magically.
How do you spell tourniquet? he wondered, his mind wandering.
You spell it with a rag and a stick and a hank of hair. I haven’t got a handkerchief any more, but I can tear my shirt. It’s an old shirt, anyway. I can tear it. I can tear it if I’ve got the strength to tear it. I can tear it down where it sticks into my pants, where nobody will see it. Then I need a stick, and the hank of hair, that was a joke. You understand, a joke. Something to laugh at. I don’t really need a hank of hair, I just need a stick.
He had a purpose now. He had to find a stick.
How many sticks are there in The Valley?
Millions. All kinds of sticks. A stick of marijuana. A matchstick, and a lipstick, but all I need is a stick to turn the rag with.
His eyes scoured the pavement and the gutter. He stopped at every garbage can he passed, and he thought, Man, where are all the sticks tonight?
He began to tremble again, and the panic followed the trembling.
God, he thought, just give me a little stick. I’ll forget the Caddy. I don’t want the Caddy. I can’t use a Caddy on a tourniquet. All I want is a stick. Is that too much? his mind screamed. Is that too much to ask? Just a goddamned stick, only a stick for my arm, can’t I have a stick, please, not even that, just that, please, please?
He found himself crying. He had not cried since he was thirteen and Molly found him with a girl in the apartment. He wasn’t doing anything with the girl, even, oh, maybe a little feel, she was only a kid, too. But Molly had popped in, and the girl—he couldn’t even remember her name—had tried to button up her blouse, and he could remember her long, thin fingers fumbling with the buttons now, and her small breasts quivering. And Molly had started screaming and chased the girl out, and then she’d beat him with a stick, and oh, Lord, he wished he had that stick now. He would kiss Molly’s hands and let her beat him all she wanted if he could only have that stick now. And as he thought of the stick, and of Molly, and of that girl long ago whose name he didn’t even remember, the tears came stronger, and he felt certain he was going to die now.
He almost passed the orange crate by. It was stacked alongside one of the garbage cans, and there was an oily paper bag in it, and some of the dripping from the bag had spilled over onto the bottom of the crate. He spotted t
he crate through blurred eyes, and he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and reached down for the box. The blood from his arm dripped in a steady tattoo on the thin wood, and he watched the way the wood absorbed the blood, the way the blood stained the wood and magically brought out its grain. He knew orange crates well. He knew how to take them apart expertly. You had to take an orange crate apart to get at the strong frame on either end of it. And you had to have those frames if you wanted to make rubber-band guns for shooting linoleum squares. He had almost blinded his best friend with a linoleum square snapped from a rubber-band gun a long time ago. The kid had moved shortly after that, up to the Bronx, but Johnny had never forgotten the time he almost blinded him.
He didn’t need the hard frame of the orange crate now. All he needed was one of the slender slats, and he broke that off quickly, and then ran with it, as if he’d lifted a piece of jewelry or a purse. He found a dim hallway, and he went to the back of the building and crouched behind the steps, pulling his shirt out of his pants. He caught the material between his teeth, tasting the fabric, starting the tear. He tore it all the way with his hands then, having to tug harder where the seam was joined.
He didn’t know quite where to put the tourniquet. He tried it just above the elbow, hoping to cut off the blood supply that way. He wrapped the cloth around his arm, and then he tangled it around the stick and started tightening it. He turned the stick like the handle of a vise, and he felt the pressure above his elbow, and he kept tightening, wondering if his arm would fall off when the blood stopped. He watched the stream of blood. He watched it with the careful scrutiny of a microbe hunter. It seemed to be letting up.
Yes, it was letting up. It wasn’t bleeding so badly now. He held the stick tightly in his left hand, not allowing it to loosen. When the blood stopped completely, he almost started crying again. Man, he thought, this is the longest crying jag I’ve ever been on. But he felt a sudden peace inside him when the blood stopped, and he sighed thankfully.
Come on, blood, he thought, clot.
He held the stick for a long while, waiting for the blood to clot. He had no conception of time any more. Time was for people who had to be home for supper, for people who had to meet other people, for people who had to get up for work in the morning. He had no need for time.
When he thought the blood had clotted, he released the stick, slowly, very slowly, almost expecting the flow of blood to start again. It did not start. He tied a makeshift bandage around the wound, tearing off another piece of his shirt. He broke the stick and put half of it in his back pocket, in case he needed another tourniquet. He felt better, a whole lot better.
He’d solved one of the problems; he’d stopped the blood. Now he needed something to eat. A place to rest. An overcoat. He sure as hell needed an overcoat. He wouldn’t bleed to death now, but he might very well freeze to death.
One thing at a time, he told himself. No more confusion, now. One thing at a time. Take a place to rest, something to eat, and an overcoat. Roll them all into one big ball, and what do you get? Help. He needed someone to help him. Molly? Cindy?
The cops had already questioned Cindy. Maybe she was the best bet. He’d have to try it, anyway.
He left the hallway and began scouting for a phone booth. It was funny how nobody looked at him. It was cold as a bastard, and he was walking around in his shirt sleeves, and nobody gave him a second glance. What a goddamn rotten world, he figured. Everybody so wrapped up in what they were doing, they didn’t give two hoots about somebody in his shirt sleeves when it was so cold out. Well, that was to his advantage. Let them be all wrapped up in what they were doing. If they took a second look at his shirt, they’d take a second look at his arm. He didn’t want that.
So how was he going to get into a phone booth without someone spotting that arm? Hell, why did everything have to be so difficult? A simple thing like making a goddamn phone call! You make a phone call by walking into a booth and dialing. You don’t go around working out a strategy. That’s plain stupid. Well, it may be stupid, boy, but you got to do it. Have you got a dime?
He fished into his pocket, pulling out the change there, the task made difficult because he kept his change in his right pocket, and he wasn’t using his right arm at the moment. He twisted his left arm until he got the change, and then he jiggled it on his palm and studied it. Four pennies. A quarter. A fifty-cent piece. A subway token. A nickel.
No dime.
He wasn’t surprised. The way things were going for him, he was lucky he had any change at all. But no dime, and that meant he’d have to make change, and that meant the risk of having the arm spotted.
Now wait a minute, don’t start panicking again. Man, you’re the most berserk-running cat in Harlem. Just take it easy. You think things out, and they’re all easier that way. Like who says you have to get change at the cigar counter or the drug counter or whatever counter wherever you stop to make the call? Is there a law says that? Why can’t you stop at one of the newsstands outside the subway? Why can’t you stop there, show the newsstand keeper your left side, hell, find one run by a blind man, even? Let’s start using that head, man, or we’re gonna wind up behind the eight ball.
He walked to the nearest subway station, his shoulders hunched against the cold. He tucked his right hand into his pocket. He walked quickly, and he felt the cold biting at his skin. His ears were particularly cold. His ears and his feet, and when your ears and feet are cold, you feel cold all over.
The newsstand on the west side of the avenue, squatting near the subway entrance there, was closed. He cursed silently and crossed the street, a smile mushrooming onto his face when he saw that the newsstand there was open. He walked to the stand quickly. He picked up a copy of the New York Post, plunked down the quarter, and waited for his change. He stood with his left side toward the stand, hiding his bloody right arm. The news dealer put down two dimes on a stack of Amsterdam Newses. Johnny said nothing. He picked up the dimes and walked away.
There, now, wasn’t that easy? The easiest, man, the very easiest. Now we find a phone booth.
A phone booth with particular advantages, though. A phone booth in a store that had two entrances, so he could slip in the back entrance without passing any cash registers or counters. Just slip in and hit the phone. Where was there a store like that? Lots of stores like that, but where exactly were they? It just took a little thinking, that’s all. He thought. He walked as he thought.
Suppose he marched in through the back entrance and all the booths were occupied. That would be dandy, all right. He’d stand around with his red sleeve, and as soon as somebody spotted the sleeve, good-by, Johnny Lane.
Well, that was a chance he’d have to take. He found a cigar store on the third corner he passed. There was an entrance on the avenue and another on the side street. He glanced at the circular blue and white Bell telephone plaque set in the base of the store. Well, there was a telephone inside, at any rate. He turned the corner and walked to the glass-paned doorway. He stopped outside the doorway, trying to see the phone booths. He could see the booths, but only their sides, and he couldn’t tell if they were empty or not. The back of the store was empty, though, so he’d have to make his play now if he was going to make it at all. Quickly he opened the door.
A bell over the door sounded, and he cursed these goddamn distrustful shopkeepers who put bells over every damn door. He shut the door quickly behind him, feeling the warmth of the shop, almost sighing heavily when he felt the warmth. He walked quickly to the phone booths, praying they were empty.
A thin man who looked like a bookie was in the first booth. He did not look up as Johnny passed him. He kept his mouth closed to the mouthpiece, and he talked excitedly.
A woman was in the second booth. From the stupid grin on her face, she was talking to a man.
There was one more booth. He walked to it rapidly, the fingers on his left hand crossed.
The booth was empty. He stepped into it without looking behind h
im, closed the door, lifted the receiver from the hook, and deposited a dime quickly. He was not used to dialing Cindy’s number with his left hand. He kept the receiver in his lap while he dialed, and then he put it to his ear hastily as the phone on the other end began ringing.
Come on, Cindy, he thought. Come on, baby, pick it up.
He counted the rings. He wondered what she was doing. He could almost see her phone where it rested on the stand in her apartment. He could see it as clearly as if he were there. He could almost see the instrument vibrating as it rang. And where was Cindy? On the other side of the room, at the stove or the icebox? She was walking across the apartment now, passing the bed, closer to the night table, reaching for it now, now her voice would come on the line.
The phone kept ringing. He fidgeted nervously in the booth.
Come on, baby, come on, he pleaded. Pick the goddamn thing up.
Was she taking a bath or something? Was that why she hadn’t answered yet? He kept counting the rings. He let the phone ring twenty-two times, and then he hung up. He was not so much annoyed as he was puzzled. Why the hell hadn’t she …
Time.
Time was back with him again. What time was it? He opened the door of the booth and stuck his head out, looking toward the front of the shop. An electric clock hung over the doorway, and he watched the sweep hand, and then focused his eyes on the hour and minute hands.
Nine-thirty-seven.
Well, sure. Well, no wonder. She was at the club already. She was probably getting ready for the first show now. He thought of her doing her dance, and then he had to force the thought out of his mind. She was at the club. If you’re at the club, you can’t answer the phone in your apartment.
Well, that let Cindy out. For the time being, anyway. But he still needed a coat, and he was hungry as hell. Just thinking of the coat made him feel cold again, and he wanted to stay in the warmth of the telephone booth forever. No, he couldn’t do that. He had to get out of there soon, and that meant bucking the winds outside again. It wouldn’t be so bad if he could put down a hot cup of java, but how could he walk into a restaurant with his arm looking the way it did?
