And this way he would get his stake. This way he would have that suit and those shirts and shoes, and a place to live and a foot in the door of every bar on 59th Street.
So why not?
“Well, whore.”
The word didn’t anger him. He wasn’t at all angry when he hit her, but he couldn’t have done a better job if he’d been madder than hell.
He drove his fist into the pit of her stomach. She doubled up in pain, not making a sound, and he hit her again. The second punch was an uppercut to the jaw, not too hard because he didn’t want to knock her teeth out. Her teeth clicked together metallically and she was lifted six inches by the blow. Then she slumped to the floor and lay there in a heap. He checked her. She was unconscious, and she’d stay that way for a while.
He wasted no time at all. First he went through her purse in a hurry. He took sixty dollars in fives and tens from her wallet and found another dollar-eighty in silver plus three singles in a cloth change-purse. There were also six pennies in the change-purse but he left them there for her. He remembered the way he had thrown the nickel and eight pennies into the gutter that evening and grinned at the memory.
There was no more money in the living room bureau, but he struck paydirt in the bedroom. The top drawer of her dresser contained another hundred dollars in twenties plus a small diamond solitaire engagement ring and a flat gold wristwatch with a black suede band. He got another less expensive watch from her wrist. He tried to take her wedding ring, more for the hell of it than because it was worth anything, but gave up when he saw that it fit too tightly. He could have cut her finger off, he thought, grinning, but that would be a little too much. What the hell — she’d been lots of fun in the rack.
He went through the apartment and took anything that was small and that could be converted easily into cash. He found a table lighter, a gold charm bracelet, a man’s alligator billfold. It must have belonged to old Dave, he decided. He could use it to keep his own dough in.
He put the money in his new wallet and stuffed it into his back pocket. He hesitated at the door for a moment, then dipped into his pocket and came out with the dollar and eighty cents in silver. What the hell, he thought. So she can get to work tomorrow.
He looked at her. She was breathing normally, sound asleep and dead to the world. He jingled the coins in his hand, then tossed them underhand at her. A nickel glanced off the side of her face but she did not move.
“Live it up,” he said to her. “And thanks. You’ve been swell.”
Chapter Three
He hotfooted it over to Central Park West and crossed the street to get a cab heading uptown. The air was cooled now and he buttoned the leather jacket. A cab drew up and he hailed it. It pulled to the curb and he opened the door and slid into the back seat. “96th and Broadway,” he said.
The cab started up and Johnny studied the driver. He was a small round-shouldered man with sad eyes and a weak mouth. Johnny guessed that the crumb would have given ten years off his life for a piece of Mrs. David Nugent. And he’d just had the broad for nothing. Hell, he’d come out miles ahead.
He took out the billfold, admired the leather, and counted the money. It came to one hundred sixty-three dollars. That was the cash alone, he reminded himself. The watches and the ring would bring more, plus the table lighter and the charm bracelet. Say an absolute minimum of a hundred clear for the stuff — and Beans could do better than that, he was sure of it. That made better than two and a half yards, which wasn’t bad for a quick night’s work.
It wasn’t just the money, he thought. It was what he could do with it. He had the looks and the talent to make it in the Pretty Boy circuit. He’d needed the working capital and now he had that. There wouldn’t be any more scrounging around on Broadway for a quick broad who’d pay for dinner and cough up another five when he twisted her arm. He could be choosy now. He could take his time and come on strong for a heavy score.
He was no dope. There were things he had to learn. You couldn’t move where the big money was unless you knew how to act. You had to have manners and polish. You had to talk like a gentleman and act like one.
But those were things he could learn. You couldn’t learn looks and you couldn’t learn sex appeal. But if you had them to start with, plus a little gray matter upstairs, then you had it made. That guy Bernie — he hadn’t been born with any spoon in his mouth. He was just a Rivington Street punk who played it smooth and got lucky. If he could do it, so could Johnny Wells.
Look out, world — here comes Johnny!
The cab dropped him at 96th and Broadway. The meter read seventy cents; Johnny gave the cabby a buck and told him to keep the change. What the hell, he thought — he could afford the thirty cents.
He hurried up the flight of stairs to the pool hall, hoping the guys were still there. He saw Ricky at a table on the far side busy proving that a fool and his money are quickly parted, especially over a table of eight-ball. The mark had a Joe College look about him and Johnny guessed that he was hot stuff at the pool table in the Columbia student lounge. But that didn’t mean he could give any competition to a shark like Ricky.
He didn’t say hello to Ricky, since that wouldn’t have been too tactful while Ricky was fleecing the mark. It might tip things. Instead he nodded, and Rick flicked his head toward the back of the room. Johnny nodded in reply and headed for the back. Beans and Long Sam were playing rotation. Long Sam was working on the four ball. He had a one-cushion shot to play and he was lining it up carefully.
Beans gave him a nod. “We missed you,” he said. “Pull up a cue and sit down. This game won’t last long.”
“I got to talk to you.”
“To us or to me?”
“Just you. Nothing personal, Sam. It’s in Beans’s line of work is all.”
Long Sam nodded. Johnny and Beans headed for the men’s room. The pool room was a clean place; you didn’t flash hot merchandise there and expect the management to love you. The two of them went into one of the booths in the john and locked the door.
“You got something to fence?”
“You read me right. Not just something. A couple things.”
“Like what?”
Johnny took one watch and the charm bracelet out of his pocket. “Like this,” he said. He reached in again and came up with the table lighter. “And like this.” He tried another pocket and hauled out the other watch and the engagement ring. “And this.”
Beans whistled “You scored heavy.”
“That’s about it.”
“Where’d you get ’em?”
“Off a broad.”
“Nice.”
“Can you sell ’em?”
“Oh, no problem,” Beans said. “This is the kind of stuff Moe likes for me to bring in. It’s easy to turn over.”
“What’s it worth?”
Beans shook his head. “Hard to say.” he said. “What it’s worth and what it’ll bring is two different things. Moe’s an honest guy. I work with him regular and he pays fair because he knows me. But it’s still tough to say. These watches could be worth ten bucks or two hundred and I couldn’t tell you the difference.”
“This one says seventeen jewels.”
“Don’t mean a thing, Johnny. You know what those jewels are?”
“Diamonds, aren’t they?”
“Industrial diamonds.” Beans said “Worth eleven cents a piece. It can have twenty-one jewels and still be junk. It depends on the movement and the casing. And what you can get from Moe depends on how easy an item it is for him. One time I brought him a necklace he told me straight out was worth maybe four hundred retail. And he told me he couldn’t give me more than thirty bucks for it. Something like that is tough to re-sell. He has to ship it to a guy across the country so it won’t be identified by insurance guys.”