“What is it?” Kling asked.
“Bert . . .”
“Tell me, Cindy.”
“I didn’t come here to . . .”
He knew already, there was no need for her to elaborate. He knew, and the noises of the room were suddenly too loud, the room itself too hot.
“Bert, I’m going to marry him,” she said.
“I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” he said. “No, Cindy, please.”
“Bert, what you and I had together was very good . . .”
“I know that, honey.”
“And I just couldn’t end it the way . . . the way we were ending it. I had to see you again, and tell you how much you’d meant to me. I had to be sure you knew that.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Bert?”
“Yes, Cindy. Okay,” he said. He smiled and touched her hand reassuringly. “Okay,” he said again.
They spent a half hour together, drinking only the single round, and then they went out into the cold, and they shook hands briefly, and Cindy said, “Good-bye, Bert,” and he said, “Good-bye, Cindy,” and they walked off in opposite directions.
Peter Brice lived on the third floor of a brownstone on the city’s South Side. Kling reached the building at a little past six-thirty, went upstairs, listened outside the door for several moments, drew his service revolver, and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, waited, holstered his revolver, and was starting down the hall when a door at the opposite end opened. A blond-headed kid of about eight looked into the hallway and said, “Oh.”
“Hello,” Kling said, and started down the steps.
“I thought it might be Santa Claus,” the kid said.
“Little early,” Kling said over his shoulder.
“What time does he come?” the kid asked.
“After midnight.”
“When’s that?” the kid shouted after him.
“Later,” Kling shouted back, and went down to the ground floor. He found the super’s door alongside the stairwell, near where the garbage cans were stacked for the night. He knocked on the door and waited. A black man wearing a red flannel robe opened the door and peered into the dim hallway.
“Who is it?” he said, squinting up into Kling’s face.
“Police officer,” Kling said. “I’m looking for a man named Peter Brice. Know where I can find him?”
“Third-floor front,” the super said. “Don’t do no shootin’ in the building.”
“He’s not home,” Kling said. “Got any idea where he might be?”
“He hangs out on the corner sometimes.”
“What corner?”
“Barbecue joint on the corner. Brice’s brother works there.”
“Up the street here?”
“Yeah,” the super said. “What’d he do?”
“Routine investigation,” Kling answered. “Thanks a lot.”
The streets were dark. Last-minute shoppers, afternoon party-goers, clerks and shopgirls, workingmen and housewives, all of whom had been rushing toward tomorrow since the day after Thanksgiving, now moved homeward to embrace it, put the final fillip on the tree, drink a bit of nog, spend the last quiet hours in peaceful contemplation before the onslaught of relatives and friends in the morning, the attendant frenzied business of gifting and getting. A sense of serenity was in the air. This is what Christmas is all about, Kling thought, this peaceful time of quiet footfalls, and suddenly wondered why the day before Christmas had somehow become more meaningful to him than Christmas Day itself.
Skewered, browning chickens turned slowly on spits, their savory aroma filling the shop as Kling opened the door and stepped inside. A burly man in a white chef’s apron and hat was behind the counter preparing to skewer four more plump white birds. He glanced up as Kling came in. Another man was at the cigarette machine, his back to the door. He was even bigger than the one behind the counter, with wide shoulders and a thick bull’s neck. He turned from the machine as Kling closed the door, and the recognition between them was simultaneous. Kling knew at once that this was the man who’d beaten him senseless last Monday night, and the man knew that Kling had been his victim. A grin cracked across his face. “Well, well,” he said, “look who’s here, Al.”
“Are you Peter Brice?” Kling asked.
“Why, yes, so I am,” Brice said, and took a step toward Kling, his fists already clenched.
Kling had no intention of getting into a brawl with a man as big as Brice. His shoulder still ached (Meyer’s copper bracelet wasn’t worth a damn) and he had a broken rib and a broken heart besides (which can also hurt). The third button of his overcoat was still unbuttoned. He reached into the coat with his right hand, seized the butt of his revolver, drew it swiftly and effortlessly, and pointed it directly at Brice’s gut.
“Police officer,” he said. “I want to ask you some questions about . . .”
The greasy skewer struck his gun hand like a sword, whipping down fiercely across the knuckles. He whirled toward the counter as the skewer came down again, striking him hard across the wrist, knocking the gun to the floor. In that instant Brice threw the full weight of his shoulder and arm into a punch that caught Kling close to his Adam’s apple. Three things flashed through his mind in the next three seconds. First, he realized that if Brice’s punch had landed an inch to the right, he would now be dead. Which meant that Brice had no compunctions about sending him home in a basket. Next he realized, too late, that Brice had asked the man behind the counter to “look who’s here, Al.” And then he realized, also too late, that the super had said, “Brice’s brother works there.” His right wrist aching, the three brilliant flashes sputtering out by the time the fourth desperate second ticked by, he backed toward the door and prepared to defend himself with his one good hand, that one being the left and not too terribly good at all. Five seconds gone since Al had hit him on the hand (probably breaking something, the son of a bitch) and Pete had hit him in the throat. Al was now lifting the counter top and coming out front to assist his brother, the idea probably having occurred to both of them that, whereas it was not bad sport to kick around a jerk who was chasing after Frank Richmond’s girl, it was bad news to discover that the jerk was a cop, and worse news to let him out of here alive.
The chances of getting out of here alive seemed exceedingly slim to Detective Bert Kling. Seven seconds gone now, ticking by with amazing swiftness as they closed in on him. This was a neighborhood where people got stomped into the sidewalk every day of the week and nary a soul ever paused to tip his hat or mutter a “how-de-do” to the bleeding victim. Pete and Al could with immunity take Kling apart in the next seven seconds, put him on one of their chicken skewers, hang him on the spit, turn him and baste him in his own juices, and sell him later for sixty-nine cents a pound. Unless he could think of something clever.
He could not seem to think of a single clever thing.
Except maybe you shouldn’t leave your undefended gun hand within striking distance of a brother with a greased skewer.
His gun was on the floor in the corner now, too far to reach.
(Eight seconds.)
The skewers were behind the counter, impossible to grab.
(Nine seconds.)
Pete was directly ahead of him, maneuvering for a punch that would knock Kling’s head into the gutter outside. Al was closing in on the right, fists bunched.
(With a mighty leap, Detective Bert Kling sprang out of the pit.)
He wished he could spring out of the goddamn pit. He braced himself, feinted toward Pete, and then whirled suddenly to the right, where Al was moving in fast, and hit him with his left, hard and low, inches below the belt. Pete swung, and Kling dodged the blow, and then swiftly stepped behind the doubled-over Al, bringing his bunched fist down across the back of his neck in a rabbit punch that sent him sprawling flat across his own sawdust-covered floor.