“Jeez,” muttered Roachy after the details had been given him. “Are we really gonna give Rock the big push?”
Pete smiled carefully, wondering if his lips were properly slitted. They just felt blubbery against his teeth.
“Say,” said Roachy. “Monty said he got something to tell you.”
Pete nodded absently.
“Ain’t you gonna see what he wants?” said Roachy, pointing to the pool room across the street.
They crossed the street, walked into the gloom of the pool room. A dance tune coming from the radio harshly toned the large room. The clicking of pool balls penetrating the low hum of conversation as effectively as the music blared away any civil tone.
“Got something to tell me?” Pete said loudly to the very old, very thin man behind the narrow cigar counter.
“Yeah,” said Monty. “A little guy was in here asking for you. He didn’t know your last name but he almost described you to a T. He said you got brown hair, described your built good too. What’d you do, Petey?”
“What did he want with me?” asked Pete softly.
“Something personal.” The old man smiled. “He wouldn’t say.”
“Was he tough looking?”
“You can’t go much by looks.” Monty chuckled, running his stiff fingers over his pigeon chest. He continued gently, “This guy was ’bout five eight, but he had a crisp way of talking. He kinda made you wanta say yes-sir or no-sir.”
“Copper,” slammed out Roachy.
“Get the hell outta here,” barked Monty. “You punks are too smart for your age nowadays. Get out.”
“What did you tell him, Monty?” Pete asked, almost catching Monty’s dangerous inflection of tone.
“Not a damn thing,” said Monty, pointing to the door. “Now get.”
Outside, they walked silently side by side, their arms heedlessly jostling each other as they moved quickly toward Greenbow Street.
They walked up the silent street. The huge factory buildings on either side vibrated slightly from the vast amount of machinery in operation within, but once accustomed to these deep, almost inaudible, rumblings they paid no attention to them.
“Jeez,” said Roachy, “this street always gives me the creeps. Just think! There’s hunnerds, maybe thousands, of guys working in those sweatshops and you don’t see any of ’em by the windows.”
Pete’s gaze darted upward; he forced his eyes away from the dirty windows. “Sure.” He laughed with a bitterness that he could never have emulated purposely. “That’s why us guys got to get our dough quick, maybe start up some kind of syndicate. I’ll die first before I go to work in shops like these.”
Roachy nodded. “There’s the trailer.”
They paused long enough to look up the narrow alley between two squat, average-sized factories toward the weedy, sloping, uneven, wide, empty space that comprised a hobo’s dream of home. After nightfall the many little wooden shelters were peopled by the careless hordes of tramp adventurers.
They walked the weedy, sloping ground into a basin-like level which reminded Pete of almost every cowboy picture he had ever seen. He liked walking in this empty lot. You couldn’t see the buildings from here, but you could look up and just see the sky, all blue with little white clouds that drifted like wreckage in technicolor movies.
They walked fifty feet to the edge of this plate-like plane indented between the sloping gravel heaps.
There, amid the knee-high, rank growth of weeds and shoulder-high mounds of dung-colored, sandy piles, stood the old trailer. Once it had been the pride of the Mulhooney freight lines. You could still make out the bold red of the Mulhooney trademark.
They went through the ajar doors of the rusty trailer and tried to bring into focus their friends’ shapes.
“Tony, Tommy,” whispered Pete.
“Wait’ll I light the candle, Pete,” Tony croaked. A match flare sent shuddering shadows up the evilly warped sides and ceiling of the trailer.
“We’re hot,” growled Pete. “Boys, we gotta stay outta circulation for a while.”
“They’ll remember you, Pete,” Tommy said. “You’re the guy that powdered Rock.”
Pete laughed. The shadows were comforting. Tall, bold, unflinching shadows that moved with your every motion. The impotent guardian angels of every man.
Pete swallowed carefully. “Tony?”
“Want a cig?” Tony said-shakily. “We got some now.”
“No.” Pete felt the same raw delight he’d felt when he’d first attempted to shave, the same sensation as the powerful after-shave lotion burning into his cheeks. “Tell me everything your mother said.”
“I told you,” said Tony. “He wasn’t Rock because she said he wasn’t big. My Ma told him I went to the country, that she didn’t know where. He said he had something personal to tell me.”
“That’s the same thing he told Monty,” Roachy said.
“Dammit,” whirred Pete, grabbing Roachy’s arm and spinning him against the side of the trailer.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” yelled Roachy.
“You mean they’re after you too?” cried Tony.
“Jeez,” said Tommy prayerfully.
“Okay.” Pete didn’t waste a glance in Roachy’s direction. “Did you tell your old lady that we were with you?
“What difference would it make?” screeched Tony. “Everybody saw us over at the dock.”
“Did you?” growled Pete.
“Yeah, I had to. I told her the truth.”
“Think,” said Pete, “what else did she say?”
“She said that he wouldn’t drink some beer with her.”
“He’s a copper,” Roachy said hollowly.
Pete’s voice lashed out viciously. “You said that before, Roachy. How do you know?”
“ ’Cause coppers don’t drink on duty.”
Tommy laughed. “Wucko, the street cop’s always in the tavern.”
“Yeah, but this was a plainclothes-man,” husked Roachy. “Jeez, are we in trouble.”
“Look.” Pete gripped Tony’s shoulders tightly. “You go home and tell your old lady that you’re really going outta town. Tell her you’ll try to get a job and make somethin’ outta yourself.”
“Gee.” The darkness hid Tony’s blush; the gee had been involuntary. “That’s swell, Pete. Will we hop a freight tonight?”
“Yeah, Tony, just go on home and get your clothes.”
“Gotta make it look good,” agreed Tony, and he was quickly through the half-shut steel doors.
They waited for his forced haste to diminish in the still heat of the afternoon.
“Are we really going to leave town?” asked Roachy.
“You stupid baba,” snapped Pete. “You had to spill the beans.”
“What did I say?”
“You told him about the guy askin’ for me at Monty’s.”
“Jeez, that don’t mean nothing.”
“Like hell it don’t.” Pete’s voice was even, his tone murderous; he had practiced it often enough before the mirror in his bedroom. He hoped there was more light in the hulk of the trailer. “Don’t you get it?” he continued. “Tony musta talked.”
“Then what are we gonna do?” shrilled Tommy.
“Remember that I said we’d have to give Rock the big push if it came to him or us?” said Pete.
The shadows converged.
“Well, it ain’t smart to push Rock,” growled Pete. “He’s got too many friends, and anyway we ain’t got any guns.”
“Then what?” said Roachy.
“Who’s the only one who can spill the names of us guys?” Pete said, eagerly picking up the dramatic cue.
Roachy said stiffly, “You mean Tony?”
“He’s the only guy,” said Pete. “That’s why I didn’t want him to know that Rock was getting close to me too.” He paused thoughtfully. “He’s going home now and telling his old lady that he’s leaving town. When he gets back here I’ll put the shiv into him before he knows what hit him. We can bury him out here tonight. If they find his body the cops’ll blame the hobos.”