The Negro, coming up, dealt McQuade a powerful blow in the kidneys. McQuade spun around and the dress rack went careening away, carrying its manipulator ahead of it. In front of the fireplace, he tripped on a low table and went down. The rack came down on top of him.
The girl, a skinny thing under her wild crown of black hair, grabbed McQuade’s waist and hung on grimly. McQuade chopped at the Negro’s head, and caught him on the ear with a swinging right that took him out of contention again. McQuade turned to meet Billy as he came at him swinging a poker. He went in underneath the poker and caught it as it came down. He twisted, yanking hard. The poker whirled away.
The dress-rack man had untangled himself, but he kept clear of McQuade until the Negro recovered and could come at him again. Then he darted in with a karate chop which McQuade caught on the side of his head. A swinging backhand blow sent Dress Rack reeling. A fat Tiffany glass lamp with a beaded shade fell to the floor.
The skinny girl finally succeeded in working one leg between McQuade’s. The Negro grabbed from one side while Billy leaped on him from the other, and they all four went down, in a flailing, churning knot. Dress Rack moved around the little group with the marble lamp base, waiting to get a shot at the big man’s head.
Michele continued to scream at these impossible Americans to act like civilized people. But suddenly the whole thing struck her as less awful than funny. She collapsed laughing into a tall chair. It was wild, high laughter, and after an instant it reached the struggling group on the floor. Dress Rack peered around in alarm, and lowered the lamp base. The Negro looked up, and McQuade hung a solid right high on his cheekbone.
That was the last blow struck by either side. No one could go on battling in the same room with that cascade of laughter. The skinny girl freed herself, smiling, and came to her feet. Her blouse was in tatters and one strap of her bra had torn loose, but the bra didn’t have much to keep under restraint. Billy, sitting back on his heels, began to grin. In a moment he was hooting as hysterically as Michele.
The Negro, dazed, was flickering in and out of consciousness, but his lips, too, began to move. Only Dress Rack still looked mad.
“Put it down, Ziggy,” Michele sputtered. “I told you. Did I not tell you? Do you remember? I told you it had to work. And the dress rack. You see what a weapon? What you can do with it?”
“I never said you couldn’t,” Dress Rack said stiffly.
McQuade came heavily to his feet. “What are we doing, playing games?” he said, massaging his knuckles.
Michele’s laughter was nearly under control. Catching Billy’s eyes as she started to speak, she was off again.
“Oh!” she gasped finally. “My poor ribs. Brownie, are you all right?”
The Negro waggled his jaw. “If someone will pass me the bottle of Scotch. Who is this gentleman?”
“His name is Frank. He is taking Tug’s place. And this is Brownie.” She pointed. “And Irene. And Szigetti, sometimes called Spaghetti. I spoke of a small disturbance we mean to create on Sixth Avenue.” She spread her hands. “Viola! This is it!”
McQuade touched the side of his face and looked at his hand. There was blood on it. Szigetti, smoothing his mustache with quick flicks of his thumbnail, studied McQuade closely.
“I’ve run into you somewhere,” he said.
“Have you?” McQuade said.
“In Florida or someplace?”
McQuade looked at him with more interest. “I’ve been in Florida.”
“Yeah,” Szigetti said, studying the bigger man specula-lively. He turned to Michele. “We were counting on taking Tug’s split and divvying it up. We were working on the new timing when you came in. My principle is, the fewer the better.”
There was no sign of merriment in her face now. He said quickly, “I’m not griping! I’m no complainer, anybody can tell you that. I thought we could see how it shaped up with just the four of us. And if you still thought you needed the extra man, I had somebody to suggest. A kid I can vouch for over the years, and you could get him for a fraction of what Tug was getting.”
“Did you approach him?” she said sharply.
“No, no, not without getting a go-ahead from you. But I happen to know he’s available.”
“You can forget it, Ziggy. Frank, that blood on your face, do something about it. We don’t want to call attention to you with a bandage.”
“It’s not my blood,” he said.
Brown had picked himself up and was pouring himself a slug of good Scotch. “You’re welcome to it, baby,” he said softly. “For now.”
“Now will everybody please stop this?” Michele said. “It was a stupid mix-up, and all my fault. We are going to be friends for thirty-six hours, because we can do this only if we work together. After that you may fight with knives or guns or anything you please.”
“Blade work?” Brown said blandly. “Not for me. I’m a nonviolent cat. First thing I’m going to do is buy a red Thunderbird and some new threads. Then I’ll accept bids from the chicks.”
“Where’s the bathroom?” McQuade said.
Michele said, “Show him, Billy.”
Billy took him out through a large dining room. The table was littered with aluminum trays, the remains of four TV dinners. He opened the door of a washroom off the kitchen.
“There’s a tub upstairs,” Billy said, “and it’s about three and a half feet long. You couldn’t get in without a shoehorn, Frank.”
“Yeah?”
The boy looked down diffidently, then up into McQuade’s eyes. “That was some fight,” he said, and added, “Paper towels is all there is.”
McQuade grunted. Inside the washroom, he closed and locked the door.
Instantly his manner changed. He listened. When he heard Billy’s retreating footsteps he turned on the hot-water faucet. The water was rusty. Leaving the water running, he raised the lower half of a narrow frosted window and looked out. Then he eased his big frame through the opening and dropped to the ground.
He moved cautiously around the house. The living-room windows were open. He dropped to his heels to listen to Szigetti’s overly emphatic voice.
“All I’m saying is I saw him somewhere. And he’s got the wrong smell. I just want to make sure you know for a fact he’s OK.”
“I do know that for a fact,” Michele said coldly. “He has the wrong smell because you want another one-fifth added to your price.”
“No! I was just checking up. If you say he’s OK, he’s OK. In this kind of situation, I like to trust the guy on the right of me as well as, the guy on my left, and the way this Frank McQuade strikes me, he strikes me as being maybe a little too independent.”
“He is independent,” she conceded, “but I have a lever to use on him. He will give us no trouble.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Szigetti said, too heartily. “One other thing. There can’t only be one guy in charge. Tug-he was a natural, we’re all his boys. Now I know the setup, the kids have confidence in me. I’m the logical man. I’m not bucking for anything, understand, but if everybody feels-”
McQuade’s lips shaped a savage smile. He slipped away without waiting to hear more.
He had already spotted the telephone wire. He dropped to his hands and found the lead-in box, just above the masonry of the foundation. He pried the box open with a small screwdriver, working by feel. He struck a light, snapping the lighter shut again almost at once. He did something inside the box, closed it carefully and backed away, paying out a thin copper wire. At intervals, he pulled it taut and tacked it against the underside of a clapboard.
He swung back into the washroom, bringing the wire with him. He took out his hearing-aid battery case and opened it. Where the batteries should have been there was a neat arrangement of printed circuits and transistors. He loosened a terminal and tied in the wire. After checking the button in his ear, he closed a gap in one of the printed circuits with the point of his screwdriver. He turned on both faucets in the wash basin and sloshed the water around with one hand. In a low voice, speaking directly into the battery case, he gave a Manhattan number.