The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)
Page 146
Jules lifted his right shoulder fractionally, moved deliberately to the closet. He tipped a vest off a hanger and drew it on. Buttoning it with lean, square-tipped fingers, he opened his eyes wide and focused their round blue gaze on his brother.
“Catrini?” he mouthed slowly. “Catrini? No, I don’t believe I know anyone by that name.”
Andrew smiled like a politician about to kiss a baby.
“I think I’ll tell Captain Jimson I don’t mind if you are picked up for those murders,” he said, and added as an afterthought: “You louse.”
Jules’ lids drooped over his eyes again.
“Tell my dear friend Jimson,” he said, “to have O’Reilly do the picking up, will you, Andrew?”
The eyes of the two brothers locked like slithering rapiers. The elder’s tone was like May.
“Dear Jules! Don’t tell me you’re up to something?”
Jules laid the spread fingers of both hands on his chest, his eyebrows crawling up.
“I? My charming brother!” he exclaimed, shocked surprise vibrant in his words. “You can’t mean your younger brother?”
Andrew’s right hand, tense and straight as a knife, sliced across the air before him. He rasped a single monosyllabic obscenity and followed it with the word “you” and jerked open the door and slammed it shut behind him. Jules threw back his head and laughed with little sound. He shrugged into his coat, adjusting his black hat jauntily on his head, and turned towards his guitar. The door again swept open. Jules continued towards his guitar.
“Jules”—Andrew’s voice was incisive—“you’re probably as hard up for money as usual. I’ll pay you to quit this stuff.”
Jules lifted the guitar with both hands, then with one passed the red cord over his head, shoved his right arm through the loop. He turned slowly, eyes on his brother’s lean, hollow-cheeked face, and said nothing.
Andrew thrust a bony hand into an inner pocket of his coat and drew out a black leather wallet with gold corner pieces. He fingered out five yellow-backed bills with 1000 in each corner and spread them out like a poker hand and held them towards Jules. “Lay off this comic opera stuff, will you? You’re hunting trouble and I can’t afford to have the name mixed up in anything so near election.”
Jules eased the guitar under his right arm and up against his back, where he held it with a hand pressed against the end of the keyboard. The red cord was across his chest like an ambassador’s riband. He bowed, his mouth corners depressed.
“My dear brother, you ask too much. Always I have long’ to seeng een the streets. I make of eet my buseeness.”
“Horsefeathers!” said Andrew. He put the money carefully back into the black wallet and restored that to his pocket. “You began this street singing to queer me with the party. You’ve always hated me. When you first started I figured you’d get tired of it. But you are a persistent louse. It may be that I shall have to take steps.”
His face was wooden, but there were malevolent sparks in the depths of his eyes. Jules’ face did not lose its mocking smile, but his eyes went flat and hard. He strode forward three paces until he stood within two feet of the taller brother, looking up into the cadaverous mask. A pulse throbbed in his throat.
“The truth is, Andrew,” he said softly, “that I first sang in the streets for a lark. I was half tight and somebody made a bet. The wops were decent to me. They cheered when I sang. If it was sad, they wept. I like people like that, people who aren’t afraid to have emotions. You and your politicians, friends and hirelings, can’t figure that any man does a thing for the obvious reason. You always see intrigue.
“That’s the truth of the matter, but if my street singing annoys you, I’m glad. I won’t stop. Now get the hell out of my way.”
pall of white roses ornamented the weathered doorway of the tenement where Angela had lived. A baby of three stood and stared at it with grave eyes. As Jules walked slowly by he caught the faint sweetish odor of the flowers. Children scampered and cried. Tremaine stopped a half square away and stood on the curb with his back to Mulberry Street. His black hat sat at an angle. He touched his mustache with his thumbnail, considered a moment and struck a chord from his guitar that had curiously little resonance.
A fat man, his sleeves held up by red bands, sat on a chair on the walk. He heaved up and padded across to Jules.
“A man was here looking for you,” he said.
Tremaine struck another slow chord.
“He say you come to Joe’s place on Tenth Street he get you a job regular.”
Jules showed his white teeth under the black militant points of his mustache. He said nothing, began to sing softly, plucking out a twanging bass accompaniment. He stopped and put his hand flat on the strings.
“What did this man look like?” he asked. “He was short and broad, eh? His right shoulder”—Jules hunched his own forward and upward three inches—“it rides like this, eh?”
The fat man blinked and regarded Jules’ hunched shoulder and looked back to his round blue eyes.
“I give you the message,” he said.
He eased back into his chair. Jules’ head went back and he laughed almost soundlessly. The fat man sat and blinked at him. He looked up and down the street, then blinked again, put his hands on his knees, leaned far forward and levered himself to his feet. He picked up the chair and carried it into the tenement. Jules laughed again.
Militant chords leaped from the strident strings and he swung into the Soldiers’ Chorus. A man in a rust-brown suit and with broad-toed black shoes and a derby jammed forward over his eyes halted before Tremaine. The street singer finished his song.
“What would you like me to sing?” he asked, his fingers walking over the strings.
The man growled in his throat. He was young and blond and weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds. His blue eyes glowered from a florid face.
“My name’s O’Reilly,” he said.
Jules bowed gracefully.
“I have heard the name before,” he said, “but there seems to be some Freudian obstruction in my cerebration.”
The young man frowned.
“Don’t crack wise,” he warned, “or I’ll bang you over the head again.”
“Ah, now I recall!” Happiness shone on Jules’ face. “You are the gallant young policeman who last night apprehended me as I was calling on some recently demised friends. I am so glad to renew the acquaintance, Mr. O’Reilly.”
The cop’s scowl deepened. He grunted: “What was you telling the fat wop in the chair?”
Jules moved his right hand from left to right, palm upward, fingers spread, and shrugged his right shoulder.
“I tell him the day is lovely. I tell him it is too bad Angela and Antonio cannot see it. I tell him—” Jules shrugged delicately again, his hand completing the gesture. “I talk with him.”
“Then why’d he go inside?”
“He, perhaps, do not like the song I sing.”
“Huhn!”
O’Reilly stood with straddled legs, his head thrust forward. His hands swung at his sides, a slight rigidity in his arms.
“You bumped that girl because you couldn’t get gay with her, then put the heat on the brother when he walked in on you.”
Jules stopped smiling and his fingers stopped their soundless wandering over the strings.
“You fool!” he snapped. “I liked Angela. She was a nice kid, a clean hard-working little wop. The men who killed her were lice, and I’m going—”
“You’re going to do what?”
Jules looked at O’Reilly from under half-lowered lids. He said softly: “It took you two minutes to get from the lot across the street to the door of the tenement where Angela was shot. I wonder why that was, Mr. O’Reilly?”
The policeman advanced his right foot a half pace, his left hand clenched into a fist. His eyes were bright and small.
“I’ve a good mind to run you in,” he said, his words rasping.
“I wish you
would,” said Jules gently.
The florid color of the policeman’s face deepened.
“I know your name is Tremaine,” he said, “and I know you got off last night, but it won’t work today. The captain said—”
Jules raised polite eyebrows as the man broke off. So there was another score against Andrew to be settled. Jules pursed his lips, the amusement in his eyes shaded by anger.
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I wish you would run me in. There are a few other things I’d like to tell Captain Jimson, such as why it took you two minutes—”
“That’s enough of that!” O’Reilly was tense, his voice hoarse. “If you know what’s good for you, keep your mouth shut!”
Jules sighed deeply, with a theatrical lift and fall of his chest.
“I’m afraid, my dear O’Reilly, that it’s too late to do that. I told the dear captain—”
“You told him what?”
“My dear fellow, you are so precipitate! This continual interruption grows irksome.”
“You told him what?” O’Reilly’s eyes were flat and menacing.
Jules returned the man’s glare from under sleepy lids, his hands motionless on the guitar. The policeman’s gaze flickered finally.
“That is much, much better, Mr. O’Reilly,” said Jules softly. “As I was about to say, I told Jimson that I could identify the man who shot Angela and Antonio and that I would testify when they were arrested.”
“You’re lying,” O’Reilly said hoarsely. “Jimson didn’t tell me that!”
Jules shrugged, swung half about so that his left shoulder was towards the policeman, strolled up the street, plucking soft chords. O’Reilly’s heavy stride kept pace with him.
“You’re rough on a guy that’s trying to do you a favor,” he said, placatingly. “I came to tell you that Joe—he’s got a place up on Tenth Street—says he’s got a job for you.”
“My dear fellow!” Jules exclaimed. “That is charming of you!”
He swept a lean forefinger across the five strings but the catgut gave forth a tinny sound as if the resonance of the wood were damped.
“But just why am I so honored, and why has not my good brother’s suggestion that I be arrested not been carried out?”
O’Reilly walked stolidly along beside him.
“Jimson said you had an alibi. Said somebody saw you in the street at the same time they heard the shots. And the chief told me to tell you about the job.”
Jules pursed his lips so that the black mustache thrust forward. A frown drew his brows together.
“You’ll be glad to get the job, eh?” O’Reilly suggested.
“Perhaps,” Jules said. “I do not know. If you see this Joe tell him he can find me here.”
“He can find you here, eh?” O’Reilly was carefully casual.
Jules threw back his head; his mouth opened but only small laughing sounds emerged. He said: “Yes.”
O’Reilly said, “Okey,” and marched off.
alf an hour later, at the corner of Mulberry and Spring streets, Jules Tremaine was singing. For the moment the street was clear of festa crowds. Two children, the younger barely two with a meditative thumb thrust into his mouth, regarded him seriously. Something hard nudged into Jules’ back. His eyes half closed and he moved a half pace forward and continued to sing. The nudge was repeated. He ended his song, swept his whole hand across the five strings, then turned slowly.
The man behind him was about his own height, but much broader. His eyes were black buttons under the edge of a gray fedora. His right shoulder was at least three inches higher than the left.
“Joe sent me around to see you about taking that job,” he said.
His right hand was in his pocket. Apparently he had nudged Jules with whatever was in that pocket. Jules looked at it. He said: “But I do not think I want a job. I want to sing out of doors.”
The left corner of the man’s mouth lifted slightly, but he was not smiling.
“This job would be out of doors,” he said.
Jules shrugged. “I do not know this Joe.”
“Well, he knows you. Come on.”
Jules began a protest he did not finish. The man stared into his eyes. His right hand was in his pocket and he thrust it forward a half inch. He said: “Come on.”
Jules looked into the button eyes and at the man’s pocket. Very carefully he maneuvered the guitar under his arm and up on his back, held it in place with his right hand pressed against the end of the keyboard. He cleared his throat. He said: “All right, I’ll come.”
The man jerked his head to the right and Jules walked that way, across Mulberry Street, the man moving stiffly at his left side, his hand still in his pocket. They walked one square east, then two north and turned to the left. Near the corner a large closed car was parked. The sedan looked very heavy. There were two men in it. When Jules was opposite the car, the back door swung open.
“Get in,” said the man beside him.
Tremaine cast a furtive over-the-shoulder glance back down the street; then he looked the other way. A man in a rust-brown suit and a derby stood on the far corner. When Jules looked at him he walked slowly away, the heavy, studied tread of a policeman. Jules swallowed audibly.
“Get in,” the man said again.
Jules removed his hand from the keyboard of his guitar and it swung around under his right arm. He held it with both hands and thrust it ahead of him and put his foot on the running-board. He looked about again with a panic-stricken face. The man in the rust-brown suit had disappeared. There was no one else in sight. Tremaine saw that the glass of the car door was thick and had a slightly yellowish tint. Bullet-proof glass. The man with the twisted shoulder jostled him and thrust something hard into his back.
Slowly Jules climbed in. The two men already in the car said nothing. The driver had a dead-white face in which were dry, feverish eyes. The man in the back was bony. Bunches of muscle knotted on his thin jaws. Jules sank down into the deep upholstery of the rear seat beside him and carefully placed his guitar between his knees. The man with the twisted shoulder got in and clicked the door shut. The car lunged forward. Still no one spoke. Jules watched the dingy buildings slide past as they jounced the length of the block, crossed Mulberry and swung right on Lafayette and picked up speed. Jules caught a flash of a street sign at a corner. It read E. 10 St.
When they sped past Twelfth Street, Jules spoke timidly: “I thought Joe’s was on Tenth Street.”
The man with the twisted shoulder snorted a laugh. He said: “It is.”
The car swung around Union Square, beating a red light, and jockeyed through Broadway traffic.
“What’s Joe’s last name?” Jules asked.
The man’s button eyes looked at him with no expression. “It won’t do no harm to tell you. It’s Catrini.”
Jules screwed down in his seat. The car slewed to a stop on a red light, the brakes snubbing its nose down. The motor purred and a faint odor of exhaust gas crept into the tonneau.
“Couldn’t we have a little more air?” Jules asked.
The man on his right leaned forward and cranked the door window tight shut. The left corner of his mouth lifted slightly. He put his right hand in his coat pocket. When the car sprang forward again he took it out with a snub-nosed revolver in it.
“I’m afraid you can’t have any more air,” he said.
He rested the gun across his left forearm so that the muzzle gaped at Jules’ stomach, and he cringed away from it, raising his right hand so that the palm interposed between the revolver and his abdomen.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “It might go off!”
The man snorted another monosyllabic laugh. He said: “It might.”
raffic streaked past the windows and more buildings, flossier and expensive now. They swung east, then north, then swept up the ramp of Queensborough Bridge. The air sweetened, freshened by the water of the East River. It was filtering in from a ventilator in the car’s roof.
His left hand slid down the strings; his fingers inveigled themselves into the round sounding hole just below them. His lips trembled still. His sidelong glances at the gun were furtive and frightened but there was hardness at the back of his eyes. The car slid off the bridge, turned south, then east again. Jules saw that the continuous backward glide of buildings was interspersed now with trees. Traffic thinned. The car’s speed picked up. Tremaine hunched forward over the guitar, fondling it. He swayed forward a little as the car slackened speed, but he was tensely braced when it swung around a corner and began to jounce over a rough road with long, heaving dives.
“Please uncock that gun,” Jules quavered, glancing again at the black mouth of the snub-nosed revolver. “This bouncing might make it go off!”
The man with the twisted shoulder lounged back in the seat and said nothing. He allowed his eyes to slide about and looked at Jules out of their corners. Tremaine caught a flash of the chauffeur’s white face in the small rear vision mirror above the windshield. He was grinning. The man beside Jules laughed outright, the knots of muscles on his jaws rippling.
The car swerved again and shoved its long snout up a narrow lane among trees. In fifty feet it was completely out of sight of the main road. The machine stopped and slowly turned around. The car was long. It took a lot of maneuvering. Jules’ hands gripped the guitar until they ached. He could feel the bite of the strings across his fingers. When the car pointed back the way it had come, the driver, a sly grin on his white face, leaned back and opened the right rear door.
“What—what are you going to do?” Jules babbled. His legs were tense under him. He lifted the guitar slightly from the floor, his left hand sliding down to the sound opening. His lips trembled and his shoulders cringed.