There was one big double bed in the room with all three of them in it. The bedclothing was in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed. The girl was in the middle, sprawled on her back, her dirty blond hair spread over a pillow. Mustache lay on her right with his face buried in the crook of her neck and his arm draped across her just below her large breasts. Johnny was curled up on the other side of the girl with his feet alongside her face and his head resting upon her thigh.
I looked at the three of them and felt my stomach go tight. I pictured the three of them, two cheap punks and their girl, spending every night finding new ways for three people to turn each other on. The room was filled with the overpowering odor of stale sex and pot.
“Pigs,” Angie said. “A bunch of pigs that stink.”
The girl shifted slightly in her sleep. Her red mouth was puffy from sleep and sex. Her waist was thick and in repose her flesh looked soft and flabby. She had prominent veins in her legs and a dark bluish bruise high on one thigh.
Tony had a gun in his hand. I wondered how he could use it in a rooming house full of people. Then I looked at Angie and saw the long sharp knife.
Angie was very good with the knife. He took Johnny first, slipping the thin blade into his back between the ribs and into the heart. Johnny died without opening his eyes, without moving his head from the girl’s thigh. When Angie withdrew the knife there was hardly any blood at all.
He got Mustache the same way but when the blade sank home Mustache went just a little tense and his face moved against the girl’s throat.
Just enough to wake her.
She yawned and stretched. Her puffed lips curled in a sensual smile. She yawned again and rolled over onto her side toward Johnny. Her thighs fastened around his head and her mouth sought him in greedy hunger.
Then she opened her eyes.
And saw us.
She said, “Angie? Tony? I don’t—”
“You had to wake up,” Angie said. “You dumb horny pig of a broad, you slut, you never get enough, you had to wake up ready for more. You couldn’t sleep just a minute more, no. You had to wake up.”
When she saw the knife her eyes went wide in terror and her mouth opened for a scream. She never got it out. Angie clapped a hand over her mouth and drew the knife across her throat, slashing it all the way open. The blood bubbled out of her like water from a broken sewer main. When it stopped he took his hand from her mouth and wiped blood and prints from the knife with one of the bedsheets. His face was a blend of green and gray. He stuck the knife between the girl’s legs and left it there.
“That stupid pig,” he kept saying. “That stupid, stupid pig.”
We got out at Tony’s house, sent Angie home and switched to Tony’s car. We sat in the front seat and smoked cigarettes. I tried to guess how long I had been without sleep. A long time and it felt longer. Too many people had died.
And one was left.
“The tough one,” Tony said. “The big one, Nat. The others were practice, something that had to happen. Lou Baron is different. If we don’t get him and get him right, then the rest was a mistake. This is the big one.”
I asked him if we could stop for coffee. Lou couldn’t know anything yet, not this early, not from Scarpino, not from Johnny and Mustache, not from Philly. Tony found a diner and we sat at the counter. A waitress who looked as tired as I felt served us very hot coffee in heavy china mugs. It was bitter but I didn’t complain.
“There’s somebody that lives with Lou, You know who?”
“Porky.”
“That’s the one,” he said. “So he’s on the list too. Porky looks slow but isn’t, Nat. Lou makes him look like a servant. Porky’s more than that. He can play with a knife or a gun or those big hands he’s got. He was on a chain gang in Georgia, got in a fight with another con and broke the other guy’s back over his knee. He has a gun on all the time.”
I finished my coffee and motioned for more. By the time she brought me a fresh cup Tony was ready for a refill. The coffee helped a lot. The tiredness had made me numb and slowed me down. The coffee was taking the edge of fatigue away.
“I’m not afraid of a gunshot,” Tony said. “His house is pretty quiet. A gun goes off in there, nobody hears it. In that neighborhood they don’t run for the cops anyway.”
“Anybody else live there? Aside from Baron and Porky?”
“Just the two of them.”
“Then I’ll go alone.”
He stared at me. “You nuts?”
“I’m serious. He’s expecting me. I’m back from a job in Philly and I had something to tell him. There was more there than he told me about, remember? He gave me a wrong make on the job. So maybe there was some kind of a snag and I have to tell him about it.”
Tony was interested.
I said, “It makes sense, Tony. If he sees you it’s a battle because he must know you’re thinking about a move. If I come, all alone...”
“Yeah.”
“You like it?”
“I like it, Nat. You got nerve, you know?”
I let that one go by. “All alone,” I said. “You can take me back to the Stennett. I’ll pick up my car and go it alone. He’ll see nothing but me in my car coming to report to him.”
“It’s pretty, Nat. I like it.”
“Hell,” I said. “I think I’ll call Baron. Then we’ll see how he feels about it.”
13
I called Lou Baron from a diner. The phone was on the wall in the rear and I leaned against the wall while I dialed his number. It rang for a while. Then Baron answered it.
“Nat, Lou.”
“You in town?”
“I just got in.”
“Something go wrong?” Baron asked.
I made myself hesitate. “It’s hard to say,” I said finally. “A long story. Can I come over?”
“Now?”
“If it’s okay.”
“Sure,” he said. “Come on over, Nat. I’ll be waiting for you.”
The last line bothered me a little. I put the receiver on the hook and got a new cigarette going. My lungs were smoke-stale and my eyes weren’t focusing just right. I went back to the counter to swallow more coffee. Then Tony dropped me off at the Stennett and I picked up my car.
I left the top up on the Lincoln. I drove slowly, my hands easy on the wheel, the gun tucked comfortably under the waistband of my trousers. I was the angel of death with chrome wings and no halo. I was hell in a short-brimmed hat.
Sunlight kept getting in my eyes. I found Baron’s house and parked my car in front of it. I looked at my watch but I didn’t even notice the time. Just looking at the watch was enough. A present, To Nat from Lou Baron.
Ah, the hell with it. Baron wasn’t my brother. We didn’t go to school together. Two months ago I didn’t even know he was alive. The watch was payment for a competent job of professional beating, not a token of love and friendship. He was a hood and I was a hood and you can’t make high drama out of one hood blowing the head off of another hood. Shakespeare managed it but that was another story. And Brutus wasn’t exactly a hood anyway. More a misguided nut.
So the hell with it.
Porky answered the door. “Crowley,” I said. “I think he’s expecting me.”
Porky didn’t say anything. He never did — maybe he didn’t know how to talk. I looked at him more closely than usual and noticed the way his jacket bulged a little in front on the left side. Tony was right. Porky still packed a gun.
We made the usual promenade together — through the hallway to the living room. Baron was sitting in his chair. He was wearing a bathrobe this time around, a rich maroon affair. He had deerskin slippers on his feet and a cup of coffee in one hand.