Someone tried to stop me, but I brushed aside the restraining arms and double-timed down Surf Avenue, half-expecting to hear the ambulance come wailing down the street and maybe save Billy and maybe not.
I knew where I had to go but not what I had to do, but Karen was there unless I had my signals crossed. I’d been wrong about Karen, so wrong it made me gnash mental teeth as I zig-zagged up the street, flitting among the size-changing shadows under Surf Avenue’s lampposts. You take a gal like Karen with all that pride of hers and a hot-headed dodo like me and nobody gets anyplace unless someone’s ready to sit down, keep his big yap shut and listen. That someone was me and I hadn’t done it.
Now Karen was in trouble.
I’d storm the pits of hell and kick sand in Cerebrus’ eyes if it would help Karen, but would it? I needed reinforcements, and if Karen knew her apples, I thought I’d be able to get some. Yeah, if she knew her apples. Fruit. Name of King Kellum. He could use his paws and that was one thing, but the fact that he owned a car made him about as valuable to me as the Chinese Reds were to the North Koreans after Nam II’s battered legions were down to a couple of scraggly regiments.
So back to Tolliver’s I went, hating every minute that ticked by, but realizing I might be trading minutes now for hours later and maybe for a life. Karen’s.
I found Kellum stuffing a limp slab of pizza into his mouth at Vito’s counter. Vito wasn’t around.
“Hi, Mr. Frey.” he said.
“Hi, yourself. I need a favor, Kellum.”
He looked at me with his big, brutal face, the expression showing nothing. “What kind of favor?”.
“I don’t have time to go into detail. I need you because you’re strong and know how to fight. I also need you because I’ve got to get someplace in a hurry and we could use your car. I better say first that it could be dangerous.”
“You haven’t told me enough.”
“Look,” I said, “this whole stinking business is going to come tumbling down so hard it will hit everyone concerned. You’re no exception. You’ve had it. You’ve been engaging in activities the T-men don’t exactly consider kosher.”
Kellum stared and stared, dropping the remains of the pizza to the counter. “What are you talking about? There’s no rumble…”
“Wrong,” I lied. “The T-men have been notified.” I spoke in an urgent whisper. Well, the T-men would be notified as soon as I could pause for breath. “They’re going to strike soon. Your best chance is to play along with me and turn in the brains behind the bathtub brew.”
“You mean Mr. Soolpovar? He ain’t here.”
I shook my head. “Let’s get going,” I said. “Are you coming or aren’t you?”
Kellum retrieved his pizza and stuffed it into his mouth. “How do I know you ain’t kidding me? How do I know you’re not giving me a test or something?”
I cursed him and told him to suit himself. I remembered what Karen had told me and realized maybe I’d gone too far afield. I swung my right hand, open-palmed, at his face and left the clear imprint of four fingers from eye to jaw. Then I turned and walked out of there.
First there was nothing, then a few random, self-directed curse words. Then Kellum had fallen into step beside me and said, “My car’s across the street in the lot.”
In a couple of moments we were skirting the pay toilet where someone had taken a pot-shot at me. There behind it was the kid and his stack of comic books. I would have sworn he was reading the same one. Kellum led the way to a pre-war Buick convertible and ground the starter half a dozen times before it kicked over and I stopped cursing. “Where we goin’, Mr. Frey?” Kellum demanded. “Port Washington,” I said. “Know how to get there?” As it turned out, I had to give him instructions. The convertible began to make noisy headway against a surprisingly cool wind, but as fast as the breeze dried sweat from my face, fresh droplets popped out. I might be wrong. I might be nuts. If Port Washington wasn’t the answer I’d drop a dime into the nearest phone, call the T-men, and pray.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS AFTER TEN BY the time we reached the Sound. The night was moonless and shroud black, punctuated behind us by a pair of dim headlights which we lost as Kellum gunned his Buick up the hill toward Gregory Tolliver’s estate. As we reached the driveway I slipped the cylinder of Billy Drake’s .38 Special and made sure the one empty chamber hadn’t kicked back under the firing pin.
My brain was tied in little knots, tumbling back across the gulf of years which had done some healing but still left a deep scar of bitterness which had made me fight Karen every step of the way. I remembered a day, the first day I’d discovered Allison was like a bitch in heat. We were at the beach and swimming and having one of those grand old times which don’t mean much while you’re at them but which you remember with a desperate poignancy when you’re in Korea or someplace else where life is cheap and you can’t do the things you want. Well, we’d started talking about bathing suits. It was one of those years all the gals with appendix scars and a couple of spare tires of fat were worried about the Bikini. Funny part was, though, Allison steered the conversation to men’s suits. She didn’t like shorts, she liked trunks. She laughed and didn’t think it was fair gals should go around skin tight but not men. Gals liked to look, too, she said. Sure. Why not? Only the way Allison looked, the way she stared, the way her tongue darted out and licked vivid red lips as she watched the men parade by, sitting with her eyes almost on a level with those trunks she preferred to shorts was embarrassing. I told her, but she laughed and a little later a friend of mine sat down on the blanket with us and pretty soon Allison was pawing him and he was as hemoglobined as the next guy, but hell, I’d introduced her as my gal and he couldn’t figure it and started to squirm. So then I knew.
And now, after all those years, just like in the movies, our paths crossed again. Sure she could still stir me, but it was tempered with the knowledge of her affliction and how a man couldn’t live with her and it and keep his pride.
Great old Allison. The girl behind the man behind the gun. The girl behind the man behind the knife. The girl behind the man who drags people into steam rooms and suffocates them. It was a long way from Staten Island to Gregory Tolliver’s North Shore estate, but Allison wasn’t satisfied. Maybe, I thought as Kellum’s Buick triggered the electric eye which shut the gate and went up the winding driveway, maybe she was the same way about social climbing or money or power and all those things people want as she was about sex.
All that was grist for the T-man mill. Karen was something else again. I thought Karen was here and I’d fight to get her. But I almost got a kind of sadistic satisfaction thinking about how I was going to tell Allison off. She’d make promises and plead with me. She’s get down on those knees of hers and maybe grab hold of my legs and pant for me to please forgive her and at least let her go away and she wouldn’t cause any trouble again and I could do what I wanted with the still and all the other junk. And I’d laugh till she cried.
Gideon Frey, ex-G.I. Current occupation: sadist.
Somewhere, distantly, a dog howled. It was far enough away so you knew Fido wouldn’t be licking salt off your hand in a matter of seconds, but close enough so Fido could get there in a hurry if he had to. Well, the name was Shamus, not Fido, and if Shamus could understand those things, I had a hunch he’d get satisfaction from what was going to happen to his mistress. Definitely, I’d seen better friends than Shamus and Allison.