Without looking at Rudy I said, “Tell Macy to get another boy. I made a clean break. I want it to stay clean.”
Rudy was silent.
“If he told you to bring me whether I wanted to come or not, forget that too,” I told him.
“He didn’t figure you’d come back because you love him so much,” Rudy said. “So he wanted me to remind you of something. About what a nice girl you’re engaged to.”
I turned, my jaw tight with rage. Rudy wasn’t gloating. He looked at me soberly. “He wouldn’t hurt your girl,” Rudy said. “He wouldn’t have somebody brought in to hurt her and leave her in an alley without her clothes like he’s done to others. He just said he’d take a letter you wrote a long time ago and wrap it up and send it to her so she could read it.” He was watching me closely. He must have seen what happened to my eyes, because he grunted, satisfied, and walked away, poking his bad teeth with the end of a match.
No, Macy wouldn’t hurt Elaine. Not in the old manner, breaking bones and faces. Once in a while this was the best way, the only way to make sure a warning was obeyed, to maintain control of the uncertain human element in a sprawling illicit operation. But through the years Macy had learned better and safer ways of controclass="underline" how to bring a man to his knees through the gentle pressure of his own mistakes; how to hit a man through others close to him so that it is more painful than any beating.
The letter would tell Elaine what I had never told her: about a wife named Jean, whose home for five years had been an institution in New York State until in a lucid moment some time ago she had slashed herself and bled to death. It would be the beginning of ruin. Maybe Elaine could take it. But if her mother and father found out... They weren’t sure of me, anyway. And if they should start looking into my past, I was through.
Rudy stood near the front window watching the cars go by in the street, jingling change in his pocket. I heard the telephone and picked up the receiver without thinking about it.
“Pete?” Elaine said cheerfully. “You break your leg or something?”
“I was just leaving,” I said thickly. “Be right over.”
“Nothing wrong, is there?”
“No. Of course not. See you in a little while.”
I put the receiver down. Rudy yawned. “We’ll have to get moving. Macy was expecting us today.”
“You bastard,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Pete,” he said, sounding as if he really meant it.
Chapter Three
Elaine answered the door when I rang the bell. She was wearing a pastry-pink semiformal dress and the edges of her short black hair sparkled. A welcoming smile faded when she saw me.
“Pete, you’re not dressed!”
I went on inside. “Anyone else home?”
She frowned as if she were beginning to get angry with me. “No. Mother and Dad left ten minutes ago. Why—”
I couldn’t look at her. “I’m going away for a few days, Elaine. I have to leave tonight.”
She didn’t get it right away. She stood silently looking at me as if I were out of my mind.
“What are you talking about, Pete?” Her voice was high.
It was getting worse by the second. I tried not to yell at her because of the hurt I was feeling. “I just said I have to go away. That’s all. I’ll be back in a few days.”
“Oh.” Her hands brushed at the crisp ruffles on her dress. “It’s kind of sudden, isn’t it? Where are you going that you have to leave in such a hurry?”
“To the south. It’s — business. I didn’t know about it until a few minutes ago.”
She put a hand to her cheek. Her mouth turned down at the corners. “Nice of you to come by and tell me about it.”
“Damn it, Elaine, don’t—”
She took two quick steps and put her arms around me. Her eyes were frightened. “Pete, what is it? You’re acting — I never saw you like this. Are you in some kind of trouble? Is that — Oh, Pete, what’s the matter?”
“Does anything have to be the matter? I’m just going to Castile for a few days.”
“Tell me why,” she whispered. “You can do that.”
I held her. “No. I — It’s not imp—”
She broke away from me, looked at me, her eyes full of rage and hurt. “You don’t really love me so much after all, do you?”
“There are some things it’s better for you not to—”
“What things? What are you talking about? This morning that car — now you suddenly have to leave town — ” Her voice broke. “All right, leave. Go ahead and leave, Pete. But don’t come back. Ever. Not until you think I’m important enough in your life to help you when you need help.”
I walked to the door. It wasn’t doing any good to stay there.
“I love you, Elaine,” I said quietly. “I’m not really in trouble. A long time ago I worked for a man. A big and important man. I guess you’d call him a gangster. I owe my life to him. Now I’m going to pay an installment on it. The last payment, I hope.”
I opened the door. She tried to stop me. “No, Pete! Whatever it is, don’t go!”
I kept walking, out to the car. She followed me, caught my arm. “Please, Pete. It’s all right, I’m not angry with you, just don’t go, stay with me, please!”
“I’ll come back,” I said.
She was crying now. “What are you going to do?”
“This man I worked for, his name is Macy Barr. Somebody’s trying to kill him. I’ve got to find out who. It’s the only chance we’ve got, Elaine. This time I’ll make sure the past stays dead. Believe me.”
I held her suddenly and kissed her, then got into the car quickly. She watched me silently, holding both arms across her stomach, hurting too much to speak. I saw her image in the mirror as I drove away, then the drive twisted and I couldn’t see her any more. Once I thought I heard her call me, but maybe it was just a sound I made myself.
Rudy and I drove south fast. I discouraged conversation. I was thinking of how Macy had always had his way, even though it seemed for a while that I might make it stick when I went to him that day and told him I was quitting.
He had looked up at me irritably when I said it, as if I were trying to be funny in a way he didn’t appreciate.
“You’re what?”
I told him again. “I’m leaving,” I said.
He looked at me with his eyes narrowing but spoke calmly. “Oh? Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m not sure. Upstate somewhere. Where I can lie in the sun and fish if I feel like.”
He was playing along with me now, not sure how serious I was. “Then what?”
“Get a job. Work with my hands. A construction job, maybe. Something useful. I’d like that.”
His mouth opened and closed. He couldn’t cope with this right away. Nobody had ever tried to talk to him like that. I should have been scared but I wasn’t. I was perfectly calm. Maybe that helped put it over. That and the fact that he knew me well and liked me.
“What’s the matter? Don’t I pay you enough?” He was looking for a reason he could understand, and so was defeated already.
“You pay me enough.”
He picked up a pencil and turned it over rapidly in his big fingers. His eyes were hard and chill, like ice on marble. “I’ll be damned,” he said, somewhat awed. “Five years, and then you turn up in here one morning and tell me you’re through.” His lips formed a stubborn, dangerous line. “You know more about me than any man alive. You don’t just quit. What’s the matter with you?”