“Yeh.” He felt vaguely embarrassed.
“He’s not like that. Really he’s not. He and Nick were very close...” She shrugged and looked out the window. “My name’s Terry.” She was twisting the rag between her fingers. Danny looked at her. It wasn’t a pretty face. Her mouth was too wide, and the chin came to a point, but Danny thought she looked young and appealing.
“I’m Danny Faber,” he said and smiled. “A friend of Nick’s. His mother asked me to come up and settle what was to be settled.” The dizziness became stronger and he lay down, propping his head on the arm.
She said, “I’m sorry. I should be doing something instead of making you talk. Would some food help?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep or something? I’ll see what I can scare up.”
He closed his eyes gratefully. She started to walk away.
“Terry, where do you live?” He kept his eyes closed.
“On that couch.” She sensed the next question. “Harry’s my husband.” She went to the kitchen.
After a while Danny slept.
A knock at the door startled him awake. He heard Terry cry, “Don’t, Harry,” but Harry came running out of the kitchen to the door.
“Maybe it’s Nick,” he said. He threw the lock and swung the door open. There were two men. The one in front was tall and fat with a thick neck and a ponderous way of moving. He steadily pushed Harry back into the room.
He looked back over his shoulder at the gaunt, pale one. “We’re in, John,” he said.
John glanced over to Danny. His pale green eyes were flecked with excitement.
Terry came running out of the kitchen. “Harry, come back here. Don’t...” Then she saw the men and stopped abruptly.
John said, “Hello. We’re back.”
“What do you want?” She was sullen, “I told you we don’t know anything about it.”
“I’ll bet Harry does, though.” He put a hand on the back of Harry’s neck. It looked like an affectionate gesture, but Harry screamed and tried to scramble away. John held him.
Terry yelled, “Leave him alone!” She clawed at John and he let go of Harry and swung at her with a closed fist. The blow glanced off her cheekbone and sent her sprawling.
John said, “Mike, keep her away from me.”
Mike helped her up and brought her over to the couch by Danny. She sat dazed. The skin under her eye and around her cheek was discoloring. Her hands were folded in her lap and she kept looking down at them. Danny touched her shoulder, and she shook off his hand angrily.
Harry screamed again. Terry flinched and started to get up, but Mike stood in front of her and pushed her back down. She moaned.
John said, “Where is it?”
Harry didn’t know. He hung limp under the grasp and sobbed. “Nick’ll fix you for this. Nick’ll do that!”
Mike laughed, “Character! Nick’s dead.”
Harry writhed from John’s grasp and started running toward Mike, but John tripped him. He slid on the floor and his head banged against the table leg. Terry stared at Danny, waiting. He felt trapped. He stood up suddenly and brushed past a surprised Mike. He saw Harry sprawled out on the floor crying, and it cut through Danny because he recognized its terror.
He was stopped by a gun in John’s hand, the terrible personal knowledge of the feel of the slug chewing his lung away. The skin around John’s eyes tightened in excitement.
“The money,” John said.
Danny shifted his weight to his left foot and the gun swung up to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
John kicked Harry in the side and said, “Get up. Get up!” but Harry lay sobbing.
Terry screamed, “Stop it! Stop!” and she looked at Danny in the middle of the room.
John ignored her screaming. “Come here!” Mike pulled her up by the wrists and dragged her, and she stood next to Danny looking at him... waiting. He could not look at her. Her husband was crawling around the floor.
John said, “Take them off.”
“Listen!” Danny said, “What’s that going to get you? She won’t have the money on her!”
Mike slapped him lightly on the back of the head and said, “Shut up!”
Terry slowly pulled her blouse out of her skirt.
It was quiet in the room. Even Harry had stopped crying. Just the whirring and ticking of the clocks.
It didn’t take long, and John said, “Tell me!” and when she didn’t answer he slapped her on the chest and she gave a cry of pain and was silent. Harry started laughing uncontrollably.
Danny stepped forward and said, “You can’t—” but John was on top of him. The gun barrel came down on the side of Danny’s head and his knees gave away, landing him on all fours.
Mike looked bored. “We’d better get back. We’ve been away too long already.” And John, his eyes returning to a focus of reality, answered, “Yeh.” He looked at them and said, “We have to have it. Remember. We have to have it.”
The door closed and the sound of it snapped Harry’s laughter. Danny stumbled against the table and pulled himself up band over hand. He leaned, head down.
Terry said, “You can move now. They’ve gone,” and there was contempt in her voice. She gathered her clothes in a heap and walked to the bedroom. He lay down on the couch, his head throbbing...
The clocks chimed the hours. Down below children were playing tag, and one was yelling, “Home free! Home free!” An automobile began blowing its horn. The clocks ticked.
There was a loud knock on the door. Danny sat up with a jerk. The knocker walked in.
A square man. Square in shoulder, square in hips and face. Deep lines creasing down from the corners of his mouth and eyes, a mustache penciled roughly in over his mouth. The eyes, from deep caves, stared at the blood on Danny’s face.
He said, “I know where they are.”
“Who are you?” said Danny.
“I’m Detective Buchanan, Zimmerman’s partner. Want to know where they are?” He watched Danny, knowing he could use him. Buchanan knew how to maneuver people in the game; shake them up and wait for the right answers to come up. He was a good cop.
He repeated, “I know where they are.”
“Where?”
“On the South Side.” The cop wrote on a piece of paper and put it on the table. “Here.”
He looked at Terry and Harry, then back at Danny. “They hurt you much?”
“Not so you can see it.” Terry had her fists down on the table by the slip of paper, supporting herself and laughing.
Buchanan left.
Danny slowly put on his jacket, opened his suitcase, methodically took the .45 out of its wrappings, clip in and shell jacked into the chamber. Not thinking, the waiting over, moving as he had to, Buchanan pulling him, an old woman’s face asking questions.
Danny in the middle.
Terry handed him the slip of paper and then reached over to straighten his tie with an angry flip. As he brought his hand up she turned away and stood there with her back to him and he left.
The night didn’t help the heat. The sweat trickled down Danny’s side and the shirt stuck to his back. His jacket covered the gun butt sticking out of his belt, the barrel pressing on his belly, making him walk stiffly.
A cab took him to the address on the South Side near the airport. Frame houses, once painted white, now gray with dirt, separated by strips of dirt and beer cans. Kids had knocked out the street light.
The cabbie said, “Want I should wait?” and Danny thought a minute and said, “No, never mind,” and the cab pulled away. Danny wished the moon would dig a hole in a cloud.
He stood across the street from the house and looked at it. It was no dirtier than the rest. It had a porch, with a broken step leading up to it. The house was dark on the ground floor, but there was a light in a second floor window and every once in a while a figure would pass. It was John.