Benny Muscles In

by Peter Rabe

  “Sorry to hear that,” Pat said. She was picking the polish off one fingernail.

  They sat without talking for a while and then a record player started in the next room. Somebody scraped a chair, couch springs squeaked briefly.

  “Why’d you come back?” the woman asked.

  Pat looked up, a sharp line between her eyes. “Just slumming,” she said.

  “You come here for a pop?”

  Pat laughed, but it was just a sound. “I’m through with that stuff. Look what happened to Harvey.”

  “Sure,” said the woman. “Sure.”

  The door to the next room opened and a man in shirt sleeves stuck his head in. “Abe wants a small one,” he said. Then he looked at Pat and nodded to her. “Long time no see,” he said, and disappeared again.

  He left the door open and a sweet reefer smell drifted into the kitchen. Then the woman went through the door and closed it. She was carrying a spoon, an eye dropper, and a little white capsule.

  Pat kept picking at her fingernail. When she got up abruptly she almost upset her empty cup, but she did not reach for it to keep it from falling. She went into the next room, stepped aside to let the woman pass back into the kitchen, and walked over to the table. The two guys sitting there were nodding their heads and tapping their fingers on the tabletop. The phonograph gave out a sharp rhythm. There were two other men in the room and a lot of stuffed furniture. A weak bulb in the ceiling gave the room the tall dimness of a railroad station.

  “Sit?” said the man who had looked through the door.

  “Sure. How are you, Red?” Pat sat on the arm of his chair and watched him pull the smoke from his reefer. He blew it carefully back into his cupped hands and sucked it right down again. Then he rested back.

  “Harvey ain’t here,” he said. He looked up at her and gave a dim smile.

  “I know,” Pat said.

  He slowly raised his arm, holding the thin cigarette, and when Pat took it he let his arm down, slowly again, and rested his hand on her thigh. Pat smoked the way he had done.

  “Who’s on the couch?” she asked.

  “Uptown trade,” Red said. “Don’t know him by name.”

  Pat shifted her weight and started to play with Red’s fingers that were lying on her thigh. “I’m jumpy tonight, Red.” They passed the cigarette between them. “You alone, Red?”

  They didn’t talk while one of the guys at the table changed records.

  “Wait a while,” Red said.

  Pat unbuttoned her jacket and shook it off her shoulders. When the jacket had fallen to the floor she took the reefer again. Red watched her. She looked good under the sweater.

  The man on the couch turned over and sat up. There was a brittle look in his eyes and he was smiling. A little spasm at the corners of his mouth kept turning the smile on and off. He got off the couch and walked through a door to the back. While the door was open they heard movement in the dark room. Then the door closed. When it opened again the man from the couch came out, then another man and a frail-looking girl with frightened eyes. She was holding a coat close around her neck and the man next to her was carrying some things under one arm. A nylon stocking was dangling down.

  “Still jumpy?” Red said. The three people had gone out through the kitchen. Pat looked at Red and made a movement with her lips. “I got the cure,” Red said, and they both got up and went into the next room.

  The woman in the kitchen was eating stew when the hall door opened. It made a cracking sound as it caught on the latch chain. The woman had started to get up, but now she sat down again.

  “Open this goddamn door,” a voice said, and a short gun nozzle appeared through the crack.

  The woman didn’t move. “Who is it?” she said.

  “It’s Fingers, beautiful.” The gun made a poke.

  “You sonofabitch,” said the woman, saying it as if she were alone. When she had the door open the man came in and put the gun in his pocket. His face was pale and he had hardly any lips.

  “Greetings,” he said, and smiled. “Is she here?”

  “Who?”

  “My master’s daughter.”

  The woman stepped aside and went back to her stew.

  Fingers didn’t find Pat in the first room, so he stepped into the next. They had turned the lights on and Pat was combing her hair.

  “Greetings,” Fingers said.

  Pat whirled around, but her face stayed even. She arched back and threw the small comb at the man.

  He ducked and said, “Your father wants you.”

  There was a pause and then Pat yelled, “No!”

  Fingers only smiled.

  “No!” she said again.

  Red got off the bed and came toward Fingers, who took his hands out of his pockets. When Red was close enough, Fingers swung at his face, and Red fell back against the bed. He stayed there, smiling in his dim way.

  Pat shrugged and let Fingers take her back to her father’s apartment. It was four in the morning, but Pendleton looked the way he always did. He sat straight in his chair in the library, hands placed on top of the desk.

  Pat leaned over the desk and looked him in the face. “Well? I’m back. I was through, anyway.”

  Pendleton stiffened, but either he didn’t know what she meant or he tried to ignore it. “Please, Pat, sit down. Please.” He smiled weakly.

  She sat on the edge of the desk, dangling one leg. Pendleton got up and started to pace. “Patricia, please understand me. When you are unhappy it makes me unhappy too. And when you left earlier tonight, our misunderstanding-”

  “Misunderstanding! My whole rotten life is a misunderstanding! Ever since I can remember-”

  “Patty, please! You know I must be both a father and a mother to you. I have always tried my best to give you all that other children have and more. I-”

  She laughed. “Children! Who’s the child around here? Who’s ever been a child around here?” Her voice got that high, metallic ring. “I’m over twenty-one, I get thrown out of parties, and I’ve got a father who sends his crooked underlings spying after me.” She jumped off the desk and stood, fists balled. “What is it you want from me? What is it you’re trying to do?” She stopped for breath.

  “My dearest,” Pendleton sounded pained. “Only my best-”

  “Your best?” It was almost a sob. “You call it your best to give me a name that’s like a stink to people who really count, a name that’s suspected behind every big and rotten thing that’s ever come this way?” She flung her arms in a dramatic gesture. “Oh, sure, among your cronies Pendleton probably means something big and holy, but to me it’s nothing but a mess, a muddle, and a lot of muck on my face.”

  “Patricia!”

  “Don’t Patricia me!” she shouted. “And then you even have the gall to send your creeps around to keep me pure and out of trouble. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say there are certain places your daughter is not to go, and certain people she isn’t to see. Bah! You’re a fine example. My daddy is such a fine-”

  “That’s enough, Patricia!”

  His tone stopped her for the moment, but it didn’t scare her. “How did you know where I was, Daddy?” She gave him a cold smile.

  “I didn’t I simply sent-”

  “Do you know where I was, Daddy?”

  “No, nor do I care. I suspected, considering your mood, that you ran out to consort with these jazz people you have been seen with. I instructed my man to make inquiries.”

  She laughed again, and reached for a cigarette in her pocket. “Your man wasn’t inquiring. He busted in on me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She lit the cigarette and dropped the match on the floor. “Don’t worry. I was dressed.” She blew smoke.

  “Patricia!” There was angry, old-maidish shock in Pendleton’s voice. “Where did he find you?”

  “A private club.”

  Pendleton drew himself up and walked behind the desk. He sat dow
n. “I am not interested in the details, Patricia, but didn’t you meet a man named Harvey in that-that crowd once?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Of course not.” Pendleton sounded now if he were talking on the telephone. “This Harvey, Patricia, is no longer a free man.”

  “Do tell.”

  “It may come as a shock to you, but I happen to know he was a dope addict.” Pendleton paused and Pat didn’t answer. “That is the kind of scum I want to protect you from!”

  She crushed out her cigarette. When her head came up and she looked at her father there was a small smile on her face. “You sell the stuff, don’t you?”

  Pendleton jerked up out of his chair and for a moment he seemed about to strike her. Pat held still. Her face never changed. “Don’t you?” she said.

  Then he turned away and he stood almost motionless, except for his breathing. When he turned to face Pat again his face was a hard mask. He rubbed his hands together slowly, producing a sound like that of scales.

  “As your father I forbid you to see certain things, say certain things, do certain things. If you wish, you can try to oppose me. It will do no good, Patricia, and will hurt my love for you. I even tell you what I would do. First, I would stop your allowance. Next-”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “I can always-”

  “I’m not finished. Next I would send you back to the sisters. That school has-”

  “You think I’d stay?”

  “I have asked you not to interrupt me. However, you tell me that you would not obey.” He came around to stand before her and his voice was ominous, so that she held still while he took her hands. “Patricia, do you remember where your mother died?” He lowered his head to hers. “In a sanatorium, Patricia.”

  The girl stared at her father, her light eyes large and anxious.

  “And if I cannot guide you, my own daughter-”

  He did not have to finish his threat, because Pat crumbled. She leaned across the desk, head down, and pounded her fist on the top with the insistence of an automaton. Her teeth were clenched and she held her breath.

  Then Pendleton put his hands on her shoulders and spoke with the gentleness he kept for his daughter. “I’m sorry, my dear. I’m sorry to frighten you. I only want your happiness, your well-being.”

  “I understand.” She sounded surprisingly controlled, and there was a weird matter-of-factness in her tone. “May I go now?”

  “My dear-”

  “Please. Let go. Can I have the car to drive back to school?”

  “You’ve had no sleep, Patricia.”

  “Exam week. I’ve got to get back.”

  “I’ll have someone drive you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Good night, my dear.”

  “Good night,” she said, and closed the door when she left.

  Chapter Five

  Benny knew the city well and for a while nobody found him. He laid low and didn’t leave the room he had taken except at night. He walked the streets, figuring on his moves and waiting for the time.

  The nights were getting warmer. He walked past the little shops with the black windows and the big warehouses near the river, and his steps sounded like the only steps in the world. Then the waiting became like a fever and he walked faster, until the feeling passed and he turned back to his room with the damp spot on the ceiling and the bed with the musty Army blanket.

  When he opened the door there was nothing but the black hole of the room. Then the door jumped out of his hand, slammed shut, and the black room was a crowded cage of fear and danger because the gun hit him in the spine. There was a breath on the side of his face, and when the bed creaked a voice said, “Keep still, Tapkow.”

  He did. He felt the sweatband of his hat grow tight and itchy, but he kept his hands down as if they were stones.

  “Turn around, Tapkow, and out the door.”

  The gun behind him nudged him and the creak on the bed got up. Two of them in the room.

  “Out the door, Tapkow.”

  He found the doorknob and yanked. They followed him closely down the stairs and into the street, where a beat-up Plymouth waited. One drove, the other sat next to Benny. After a while he noticed that he’d been wrong about the car. Beat-up old stock cars don’t shoot off on the pickup and their motors don’t purr like cats.

  All the time, from the room to the car, the guy next to him had kept a gun in his side. Benny sat still. He sat and concentrated on the chance, the always final chance, that this was not the end-that it wasn’t over yet.

  They drove around for a while and ended up by the river. There was a pier, a motor launch, and then they splashed through the black water with the city blinking in the distance.

  Benny didn’t see the yacht till they cut the motor and swung around. One of the goons whistled, somebody answered. They made fast and took him up the side. He almost fell when they led him through the low door of the cabin, and then, in the light, he saw that the room was just like any den, with leather chairs and a library table. They banged the door and Benny sat in a chair. Just like any big den, except that the windows were round. A warm room, but Benny felt cold.

  Then the door opened. Benny looked, stood up, and then he did a thing that happened only sometimes. He took off his hat.

  Alverato came in slowly, “Drink, Tapkow?”

  Benny started to tremble. He couldn’t control it any longer, couldn’t keep it coiled forever, the waiting, the hope for a chance. Now that it was happening, he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Big-Alverato-” he stammered.

  “Look, Tapkow. Not Big Alverato. It’s either Big Al or Mr. Alverato. Here’s you’re drink.”

  Benny took it.

  “Call me Al, Tapkow. Sit down.”

  “Yes, Mr.-Yes, Al.”

  Alverato watched how Benny tossed his glass. “You scared or something?”

  Benny put the glass down but didn’t answer right away. He’d had the shakes. He’d had a lot to lose besides his life, and now that part was over. Now he was going to start again where Pendleton had meant to stop him.

  “Hey, Tapkow, are you with me?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  And now all he had to do was sit and wait to see what Alverato wanted.

  “How long you been away from Pendleton, Tapkow?”

  “A week or so.”

  “You been pretty thick with that queer, right?”

  Benny didn’t like that. “I never saw him any more. I had my own territory.”

  “That’s why you were driving him around in that monkey suit, huh?”

  “That’s the night I left.” Benny felt himself get tense again.

  Alverato laughed. He gave out big, wet guffaws that made the little curls on his head jump like springs. Then he ignored Benny while he prepared himself a cigar. He chewed one end of it flat and soggy before he started to light up. Benny waited.

  “How’d you like to make a grand or so?”

  “That depends, Al.”

  “On what?”

  “On where it’ll get me.”

  Alverato thought that over and started again. “Look, I saw you the first time when you and that bookkeeping bastard was at my house. Right then, I figured you for a sharp kid and a right guy. Maybe I can use you.”

  Now Benny sat up.

  “So I ask you again: you been pretty thick with Pendleton?”

  “What do you mean, thick?”

  “I mean thick! What in hell’s the matter with you, Tapkow? You don’t know American or something?”

  Benny wasn’t sure just how to play it. If he knew the angle, what Alverato wanted, then he could play it right. But Alverato hadn’t said a thing.

  “You’re fishing, Alverato. You think you’ll fish around and put me through the hoops, and then maybe you’ll let me have a proposition. I’ve been around a while, Alverato.”

  “Shut up already!” Alverato’s face was suddenly thick with blood. He went for another dr
ink. He didn’t offer Benny one this time. “Let’s have some answers, Tapkow. You used to drive for Pendleton?”

  “Sure. But I was running my own territory.”

  “Jesus, Tapkow, don’t you ever shut up? The hell with your lousy territory. I want to know if you’ve driven for Pendleton!”

  “Yes.”

  “What else?”

  “I did jobs.”

  “What kind?”

  “All kinds. Pick up his pants from the cleaners. Bring a message to his firm, carry his goddamn ledgers around.” Benny sounded irritated. “And answered the goddamn telephone. A telephone girl-”

  “What kind of calls?”

  “Christ, all kinds of calls. What kind of calls you interested in, Alverato?”

  “Shut up. I’ll ask the questions.”

  Benny shut up. He didn’t want to go too far.

  “Let’s see what you know, Tapkow. Who was old Ager’s man in Frisco?”

  “Screwy Pinton.”

  “How did Ager get his junk into the country?”

  “Heroin?”

  “What else, damn it?”

  “Pendleton handled that.”

  “I asked how.”

  “Italy. From Italy.”

  “Tapkow, you don’t hear so good. You haven’t told me a thing I didn’t know.”

  So that was it. Alverato couldn’t play with Pendleton, so maybe one of the flunkies knew a little something. Just a clue, maybe, a million-dollar clue.

  “Well? Maybe you’re thinking?”

  The chance, Tapkow, the one-in-a-million chance!

  “There were a few phone calls that sounded big. There’s one that came through often. He’d send me out of the room after I took the call. Big stuff, by the way Pendleton acted. The contact was A.A. That’s all I can think of right now. A.A.”

  “Big stuff? You said big stuff?” Alverato was up and roaring. “You bet your lousy life that was big stuff. Me, Agrippino Alverato, get it? A.A.! And now get outa here, you broken-down punk. Get outa here before I tear your head off!”

  Benny sat paralyzed with fear. Not fear of the big man, like an ox butting the air. But felt himself turn limp with the sight of this thing running through his fingers. And it had been so close, so close…