People moved closer, craning with horror to see the sight of a man battered to pulp.
Darky’s bloody body stirred. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. Now he could just make out the figure of Younger.
“Look at him. Look at him now!” Younger continued.
Mobilizing some reserve of courage from deep in his soul, Darky began to rise to his feet.
Younger, himself near to exhaustion, still stood half turned away, haranguing the crowd. “Now we know whose boss. Mister Darky won’t do any more standing over in this town...”
“Look out, Jimmy!” one of Younger’s supporters called — but too late.
Darky had reached his feet and, catapulting himself off the tree trunk, he sank his left fist low into Younger’s groin. Younger doubled up in pain and Darky brought a right upper cut to the jaw, then a left, then another right.
Younger slumped down. The whites of his eyes were showing before he hit the ground. His head crashed onto the edge of the metal road. He lay stiff, unconscious.
Darky swayed above him for a moment then collapsed across his opponent’s feet. With a tremendous effort of will, Darky rose on hands and knees then stood up uncertainly. He turned and staggered through the awestruck spectators. Reaching the gutter he groped for his shoes. Ernie Lyle rushed across, found the shoes and handed them to Darky. Darky sat on the edge of the footpath and put on his shoes.
Younger still lay inert, two of his cronies were trying to bring him round.
Without waiting to lace his shoes, Darky stood up. He placed a bloody left arm around Ernie Lyle’s shoulders and they hobbled away.
At the point where the glow of the street light faded into the black night, Darky turned to the crowd. His left hand was still round his friend. He made a savage grimace driving his tongue against a tooth loosened by Younger’s punches. The tooth fell from its socket.
The silent crowd watched open-mouthed, transfixed.
Presently, Darky spat the tooth from his mouth with a splutter of blood. He tapped his chest with his right fore-finger. From somewhere in the battered flesh of his face, his voice came: “Listen! Some of these young fellas are goin’ ter learn it the hard way — but I’m as good as ever I was!”
To Kill a Cop
by D. M. Downing
The old cop had said, “Nobody can stay just half-hood, Johnny. There always comes a time when he’s got to go all the way... or else.” Johnny fingered the stiletto in his pocket and he knew that the time had come.
Johnny Manse stepped out of the bright October daylight into the musty dimness of the Silken Peacock. Crossing the room to his usual table in the corner, he heard the muted rumble of the juke-box and felt the familiar hush of the underworld hangout pour over him. He smiled grimly to himself. Harry’s fancy name for the bar had been a hopeless attempt to give it class. It was still a dive.
Johnny sat down and scanned the room. A lush or two and a couple of small-time chiselers. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock in the morning. No self-respecting crook would even be up at this hour, much less out. But Johnny had been covering the streets of the 96th Precinct for two hours, stopping here and there, waiting for Harry to open up.
A guy in the confidence game has to keep in touch, he told himself. But the real reason for his early-morning prowl — the killing — he kept pushing below the conscious surface of his mind.
Harry brought his drink, the fat face grinning its usual happy welcome. “You ever see daylight before, Johnny?” he kidded, wiping his hands on his aproned stomach.
“Listen to the guy with the neon tan, would you?” Johnny grinned back at the bartender’s pasty face.
Harry Donato and Johnny Manse had been friends since they were kids on Lacy Street. And though Harry had not followed the rest of the gang into the rackets, Johnny knew that behind the amiable fat was the same tight-lipped Harry who held answers to questions a whole generation of cops were still asking. If anybody knew anything about this deal it would be Harry.
“What’s new, Harry?” Johnny asked, wondering if he really wanted to know.
“Not much.” Harry was mopping the table with a towel. “Same old grind.”
Johnny made his tone as casual as the way he picked up his glass. “I hear Jim Cole is out of stir.”
“Yeah,” but Harry’s smile had faded, “he was in last night with Morelli and Burke.”
Johnny kept the pace slow and tossed Harry the old joke they’d kept going since the early days. “How’re you fixed for police protection, Harry?” A cop was about as welcome in Harry’s joint as a case of measles, but Johnny wasn’t laughing this time. The joke needed a different answer.
The bartender was folding his soggy towel into a meticulous square, and Johnny knew Harry had that answer.
“There’s some who think we got too many cops in this precinct.” Harry’s dark eyes swept up to meet Johnny’s so briefly a less skilled man would have missed their portent.
Then, as quickly as it had disappeared, the smile was back. “I’ll bring you another drink.” And the bartender hurried away with the empty glass.
So the little lush he’d run into last night had somehow got hold of the real dope, and — if Johnny could guess at all — the punk was probably keeping the bottom of the West River company right now.
A shudder went through him and he shifted in his chair to bring out a small knife from the pocket of his topcoat. Cole was back after ten years in stir. He’s gonna get the bull that put him away, the drunk had garbled. And Harry had backed it — too many cops in this precinct. It was Mahoney all right. His testimony had been the clencher that nailed a ten-year murder rap on Cole.
So, okay! He’d got a tip and he’d been curious. Now he knew. Johnny flicked the button on the tiny stiletto and watched the silver flash of the steel blade. How many cops had he seen picked off in his thirty years without losing any sleep over it? He took a candle from it’s holder on the table and began to carve on it.
But as he watched the wax chips fall he thought of Mahoney again. Somehow he couldn’t make this deal set right. A cop was a cop and Johnny steered clear of all of them. Hell, Cole’s right. There are too many of them. There’ll always be too many.
It was just that Pop Mahoney had never been a cop to him the same way the others were. Say that out loud, con man, he warned himself quickly, and you’ll be fish-food too.
Johnny thought back to the old days of the neighborhood here, when Mahoney was a beat-cop over on Lacy Street. There had even been times when Pop was more like Johnny’s old man might have been — if he’d ever had one. Johnny laughed, Damned if he wasn’t almost a member of the gang in those days. The way he helped them with this and that, fronted for them when they got in trouble. Always trying to make something out of them besides hoods.
And every darned one of them was a hood today, except Harry. Johnny ticked them off in his mind: Nick Morelli, dope syndicate; Charlie Burke, protection racket; Jim Cole, professional killer. And Johnny Manse, top man in the con game, they called him. The others in the gang were either working for one of the Big Three or were on Johnny’s payroll.
Where the devil is Harry with that drink!
Above the pile of chips, Johnny smiled to himself as he remembered that Pop was almost pleased with Harry. He recalled one of the cop’s grave speeches to his friend: