He said gently, jovially, “Oh, now, just one last nightcap.” Then the whisper: “Keep your hands in sight. If you're not foolish you may live. Now walk!”
If he had pushed me, if his gun had left my side for a second, I might have made my play. But he was smart, waited for me to walk, then moved with me, like we were a couple of chums. There wasn't a person in sight on the dimly lit street as we headed toward Second Avenue. Then his left hand neatly slid inside my coat while his gun, feeling as big and round as a shotgun barrel, pressed into my kidney as he took my gun from the shoulder holster. He didn't try to pocket the gun, merely pushed it up his sleeve and kept walking with his arm around my shoulder.
I was still frightened but mostly I was burning with shame. For a cop to have his gun lifted is like wearing a coward's badge. I'd never live this down. I never thought I'd be a complete coward... but I was.
We kept walking slowly toward the lights of Second Avenue. I said, “You're crazy, Wren, if you think you can get away with this!” And my voice was as shrill as Ma's.
“If I don't you'll never hear about it in the cemetery. Use your head, Wintino. All I want is to have a quiet chat with you.”
I told myself that when we reached Second Avenue, or if anybody came along, I'd drop flat and go for his legs. He wouldn't dare pull anything in the light, with people around. But with my gun lost I might as well let him plug me.
We were three stores and a tenement from the avenue. The first store had a for bent sign in the window—it had been a ritzy gift shop till a few months ago. He suddenly steered me into the doorway, looked around quickly, then opened the door and his gun pushed me in.
Closing the door softly he told me, “Clasp the back of your neck with both hands, please,” and his gun slid up my side to my neck, like a snake. “Blink your eyes to get used to the darkness, then walk toward the back of the store. A false move, even if you should trip, and I'll be forced to kill you. Walk—slowly.”
I walked. I felt lost, beaten. He knew his business, no chance for me to kick backward. The pressure of the gun barrel lessened and then from the sound of his steps and the heat of his body, I knew he was walking an arm's length back of me.
Blinking my eyes I saw the store was empty except for an open arched doorway we were nearing. Wren said, “Walk straight through the center of the opening, turn slowly— when I tell you.”
We walked into what must have been a small stockroom. A little door to my right was ajar and outlined by dim light-not a light within the room but coming from outside.
He told me to turn and open the door. The room, the size of a phone booth, was the John with a tiny barred Window high up that caught some faint light from Second Avenue. There wasn't room for the two of us. Wren said, “Turn around and sit on the toilet—with your hands in sight. I didn't mean any comical touch but this is the best place I could find for an undisturbed talk. Man's confidence in locks is touching, even in a simple spring lock on a store door.”
I sat down as Wren leaned against the doorway, the light giving his glasses a weird smoky look. He was wearing pigskin gloves and the pistol in his hand had a bulky silencer—which was why it had felt big as a shotgun in my back. He said, “I'm sorry to pull a gun on you, and all this hocus-pocus. We may part as friends. I hope so, sincerely I hope that. Killing is a terrible thing, an idiotic gesture that—”
The tightness within me suddenly shot up to my mouth; I had to talk. “You're not going to kill me!” I said, my voice still high. “You're not that much of a fool. I reported my visit to your office, if I'm found dead you'll be number one on the suspect parade!” I sounded hysterical; was surprised I could still wisecrack.
“Don't raise your voice,” he said, holding my gun in his left hand as he pocketed his own, then switched my gun to his right hand. The sight of my own rod made me snap out of it.
No matter what happened I had to get my gun back. Wren said, “As for any report, I must doubt that. You are young and cocksure, out to make a name. Very commendable too. After you left, the one thing that remained in my mind was your saying you were working on your own time. I figure you for a glory hunter, a lone hand. Otherwise you would have visited me with your partner. As you see, unfortunately I have some small knowledge of police work.”
His voice was still weary and in the deadness of the empty store very clear. “Although I hold a gun on you, Wintino, this is not necessarily an unfriendly conversation. We shall—”
“Sure, you're doing me a big favor. I get knocked off in a store instead of in an alley like Owens got his!” My voice was back to normal.
He smiled, a very tired smile. “Your bravado has returned —fine. Only don't let it go to your head, you'll have need for some clear thinking. As for Owens—I didn't kill him. I wouldn't be here now except I suspected you realized the blunder I made in my office.”
“Yeah?” I said, trying to stall for time, to think.
He belched slightly,- there was a light odor of whisky. “Whether you are pretending innocence or not doesn't matter now. When you asked about the check, I'd thought all along that Wales had forged it, that's why I had to shoot him. A sad error, perhaps my undoing. I completely misjudged Wales. He was an honest and intelligent man.”
I felt as if I'd got a shot in the arm, even the heavy meal in my belly seemed to have digested. One word kept banging in my brain, clearing the cobwebs—forged. Wren had sued a bank for a forged check at the time when Wales' wife had run up a big hospital bill. I said, “You mean you thought it was Wales forging a second check?”
He blinked, or something happened behind those foggy glasses. “You are far smarter than I thought. So you know about that. Although Wales didn't forge the check—exactly. I'm going to tell you certain things not because I want to but because I sincerely don't wish to kill you.”
“You touch me—Bird!”
Another belch, the hairs of his mustache flying in the breeze. “Don't be stupid-brave, Wintino. That's all I ask of you. Listen to me and think, think like a man not like a kid. In the office I said something about live and let live. Perhaps you didn't pay any attention to it. Concentrate on it now, Wintino: live and let live. Keep running it over in your mind. It's a remarkable philosophy, the basic rule of our world. Self-preservation is said to be the first law of life, but we really protect ourselves by following the live-and-let-live rule. I'm not preaching to you, or talking about something abstract. I've found from bitter experience that all that stops our world from being more of a jungle than it is...”
I wasn't listening. Wales had been so right: keep digging. I had never bothered to check Wren's signature on the Parker check. Well, to hell with that now. The bathroom was small and he was in the doorway, less than three feet away. He'd be watching my right hand: by leaning forward I might be able to hook his fat belly with my left. The light was dim, if I fell forward to my right I might belt him fast enough to fall out of the line of fire.
“... So, if I can explain, you'll be able to understand what this is all about. I'm sorry you're so young, an older man would see the logic. Wales did. And Solly Kahn. I'm not a thug or—”
“Some logic! Wales is dead!”
“A rash mistake on my part, as I said. Perhaps that's why I'm talking to you—I don't want to make another mistake. You see, I don't know where one draws the line between criminal and noncriminal, or if there is such a line; when pressed everyone will turn to 'crime.' I'm going far afield, Wintino. The point is I graduated from college at the start of the depression. You work and sweat for an education and it all turns out to be a large zero, a—”