When I finished the second the little guy who had been watching me so intently finally caught my eye and I knew what he meant. When I left I headed west, halted in the shadow of a doorway and waited. Five minutes later the little guy came by and when I said, “Here,” he ducked in beside me.
Chapter Five
“You’re Scanlon... Lieutenant Scanlon, right?” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Read off your dog tags, mister,” I told him.
Nervously, he poked his head out and peered down each direction before huddling back in the shadows, “Harry Wope. I got a flop upstairs over Moe Clausist’s hock shop. Work around some, but mostly it’s Social Security.”
“Done time?”
“Six weeks on a vag charge ten years ago.” He shrugged and added, “It was a bad year. Look, you won’t say nothin’ about...”
“Don’t sweat it, Harry. What do you want?”
“That fat slob Reese is after your can, Mr. Scanlon. He got the word in and...”
“I’ve heard it”
“Hell, I don’t mean downtown only like city hall. He’s lookin’ for somebody to hand you lumps. Trouble is, he can’t find nobody, but if he keeps lookin’ he sure will. He’ll blow five hundred to see you dragged out of an alley.”
“Where did you pick this one up?”
“Big ears. I was dumpin’ garbage for Hilo when he was on the phone inside. One of the windows is broke and I heard him.”
I said, “I’m not handing out favors, Harry. Why put me wise?”
Harry Wope leaned toward me, his wrinkled face turned up toward mine, his eyes squinting at me. “You don’t remember me, do you? Nope, guess you wouldn’t at that No reason to after all. Me and your father was in France together during the First World War. He saved my ass once. I used to come around when you was a kid. He only had four then when I seen you last. Knew your ma too.”
Then I remembered him. A funny guy who wore his uniform until there was nothing left of it, having Saturday breakfasts in our kitchen and eating like a wolf to make up for a week of missed meals. “Thanks, Harry. I’ll remember it”
“If I hear anything more, I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t stick your neck out,” I said.
I toured the area slowly, letting the familiar things reestablish themselves. On the side of Carmine’s grocery I ran my hand over the deeply carved initials Larry and I had put there with Doug Kitchen’s and René Mills’ underneath. A dozen layers of paint had not been enough to fill them in. At the school yard where Noisy Stuccio and Hymie Shapiro had sat in the cab of the rubbish truck and accidentally knocked it into gear the long gash still showed in the brick wall.
All dead now, I thought. We had all scrambled over rooftops together, saved empty deposit bottles for Saturday movies, reenacted those same pictures in the park, turning from cowboys and Indians into soldiers or cops and robbers, depending on what had played. Maybe the pattern had started then. Larry ate up the Indian roles. He even had a headdress and a tomahawk. At nine I was the cop. Noisy, Hymie and René went the George Raft route and fancied themselves hotshot mobsters. Doug Kitchen wanted to be a sailor, only they hardly ever had Navy movies unless they were musical comedies, and Doug felt like he had two left feet all the time.
And Marta... little Giggie... trailed us around throwing rocks at us because she was a girl and didn’t belong in the game. I grinned and felt the tiny scar at my hairline where she connected one time. She got a boot in the tail for that one and ran home bawling.
It was one-thirty when I turned the corner and walked toward the spot where Doug Kitchen had died. Down farther, across the street, a pair of drunks argued noisily about nothing; on the stoops here and there couples huddled in the darkness, taking advantage of the only time there was any privacy at all. A few loud voices bellowed from behind closed windows in the upper apartments, sounds that never seemed to change in volume or subject matter. On my side, coming toward me, a late-shift worker ambled along watching his feet until another person stepped out of the shadows, said something that made him hesitate a few seconds before he kept walking, while the other one went back into the shadows.
He passed me without anything more than a glance while I kept walking to where he had the contact, and when I reached there the girl stepped out of her spot beside the balustrade, handbag swinging, voice deliberately provocative, and said, “In a hurry, mister?”
“Nope.”
“I could be company if you want to go somewhere.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “How much?”
I sensed her smile, and saw the way she thrust her body out to accentuate her breasts and hips. “Ten’ll get you more than you have a right to expect.”
“Deal, kid,” I said. Then I took a cigarette out, stuck it between my lips and fired it up. When she saw my face her breath was sucked in so hard she nearly choked. “Hello, Paula,” I said.
Paula Lees’ face was a pale oval in the yellow light of the match. Her mouth started to quiver, and for a second I thought she was going to make a break for it so I reached out and took her arm. She shook her head and almost whispered, “Please...”
“You could take a fall, Paula. Soliciting... a vag rap. Maybe eighteen months in detention.”
She caught the implication of that one word... could. “What... do you want, Mr. Scanlon?”
“Where’s your place?”
Paula looked back over her shoulder. “Right here.”
“Let’s go inside then.”
The tiny flat was typical of all the others around it, existing within a myriad of smells both human and vegetable. The walls were scratched and dirty, the paper peeling, the plaster cracked, and no attempt at rejuvenation could dent the squalor of the place.
Her apartment consisted of two rooms and a bathroom someone had made out of a closet, a combination living room and kitchen with an adjoining bedroom. Paula didn’t get the picture straight. She headed for the bedroom immediately and started to undress. She had her blouse and bra off and the zipper down on her skirt when I said, “Put them back on, kid.”
She jerked her head around. “But...”
I didn’t let her finish. “I’m not taking a pay-off in trade.”
Fractured modesty suddenly overcame her then. She edged behind the door and when she came out again she was dressed, spots of red showing high on her cheekbones and her mouth drawn into a tight, angry line. “I’m not doing any special tricks, Mr. Scanlon. None of that fancy stuff...”
“Sit down and shut up.”
Paula spun around at my tone, licked her lips nervously and did as she was told. After a minute of staring at her shoes she looked up and said, “Well?”
“How many kids working this street, Paula?”
She thought about it, shrugged and said, “Just me. It ain’t too good here.”
“Why stay?”
Her eyes seemed to crawl to mine. “Because they won’t let me go nowhere else.” I didn’t say anything. I just sat there. She added, “When Bummy Lentz and Loefert came down I scratched Bummy up and told Loefert off. Now they don’t let me off this block, the bastards.”
“Still the same old routine, isn’t it? Hoods still pushing the hustler trade. Where does Loefert come in?”
Paula shook her head. “He didn’t do nothing but make a call to the right guy.”
“Al Reese?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.