Walt yawned again. “Take my word for it, if they do plan to kill Tommy, it won't be tonight. I'm going home in a few minutes. Should you see or hear from Tommy, have him call me there.”
Reaching his apartment, Walt washed up, changed to a sweat shirt and slippers, then fell asleep watching cowboys racing across the TV screen. He was awakened by Ruth kissing him. Pulling her down onto his lap, they necked and fooled around. Walt wisecracked, “We're sure a testimonial to whoever made this chair, the entire three hundred and sixty pounds of us.”
They were too lazy to eat out and both helped with the supper. Walt liked to cook Chinese dishes. As they were doing the dishes Ruth asked, “What do you want to do tonight? I'm kind of bushed, the very best type of tiredness, and wouldn't argue a bit against going right to bed.”
“I'm in favor of that deal. Or if you still want to take in a show...?”
“I made a feeble attempt to get tickets to one or two things. Frankly, the only show I'm interested in is the one we put on early this morning.”
“That's my girl talking,” Walt said, peeling off his sweat shirt, then his watch. It was four minutes after seven as he checked it with the electric wall clock. He said, “Tommy Cork left a message, almost an order, to meet him at some bar tonight at eight. The Voice, Alvin Hammer, practically accused me of being a phony cop, remiss in my duty, and all the rest of it, when I told him I couldn't make it. He sounded like having a real home life is a crime—for a cop.”
“Any idea what the old man wants?” Ruth asked. “Lord, why do I keep thinking of Tommy as 'old'? Perhaps Tommy really has something important to tell you.”
Walt went over and kissed her. “What's more important than taking you to bed?”
“Nothing. But we'll have many beds and many nights, not to mention we can go to bed after you see Tommy. You said last night somebody may be trying to murder him. Really?”
“I'm not sure. Al Hammer got the murder idea going. Things look fishy, some new manager insured him for a pile of money. The very fact any manager would be interested in a has-been like Tommy is suspicious.”
“Then perhaps you should see what he wants?”
“Hey, now yon sound like Alvin. Honey, if Tommy had anything hot, he'd come here.”
Ruth hugged him, covered Walt's big face with hot little wet kisses. “You're so big and strong and Tommy is such a battered little guy. I feel sorry for him. And for May. Compared to them you and I have so much, while they want very little from life, yet seem to have this terrible time getting anything.”
“You're like one of those displays turning in a show window, Ruth. I...”
“What? A display?” she asked, between kisses.
“I see a new side to you every minute. Honey, when did you get on the sentimental kick? I've always thought of you as the cool dame, everything arranged just so in her mind.”
“Call me a dame again, Walt.”
Pulling her head from his face, Walt kissed her hard on the lips, mumbled, “Don't you see, I'd like to help them, if I can. As a policeman I certainly want to help if he's in danger. But don't buy your own soft sell on them. They 'want very little from life....' Sure, so May bucks the numbers mob. While you're breaking your heart over poor Tommy, if he hadn't been so greedy, or dumb, he would have made his pile in the ring, and probably got rooked out of it by sharp businessmen. But he let himself be rushed and suckered into a Robinson match.”
“No, he did that deliberately, because he needed fast money for a TB operation for May. She got into this numbers mess only to raise a lousy one hundred and fifty dollars —enough to buy an apartment. My God, the way she talked about that one room apartment and the one hundred and fifty dollars—like they were a million bucks and a swank duplex. Walt, the trouble with us, with people in general, is we only think of heroes as “big” people doing “big” deeds. I'm going to try to get this idea into my book, make it the theme—that there are such people as little heroes, and they're as important to the rest of us as the 'regular' heroes. Tommy and May, in their own way, are courageous people with great dignity. I admire them.”
“Then I take it you want me to see him tonight?”
“Yes, if you think you should.”
“What a slick answer. Shall I go?”
“Up to you, Walt.”
Giving her a final kiss, Walt pushed her off his lap and started to dress, putting on a clean shirt, checking his gun in the hip holster. Getting into his overcoat he said, “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
“Walt, you're not angry at me?”
“Come on, of course not. Guess I'd feel uneasy if I didn't see him. You think he really took that licking from Robinson for May?”
“That's what she told me. Said Tommy knew he wasn't ready, but there was the dead baby and her lungs, and they needed some quick thousands.”
“I thought he was just another dumb musclehead who let himself be fast-talked by a greedy manager. Okay, I'll be back in an hour or so.”
Outside, Walt shivered with the night rawness. It was twenty after seven and he decided to walk part of the way, let the cold push some of the tiredness out of his mind. He thought about what Ruth had said about the little heroes. “Still,” he said to himself, “a punk sticking up a housewife, snatching a purse, lifting a car—when you get down to it most of them do it for rent and eating money. Are they heroes? But... there's a difference. Tommy didn't hurt anybody but himself. He didn't take somebody else's money, or shoot or pistol-whip anyone. He took the beating himself. Yeah, guess he is a hero, if a dumb one, he could have taken a dive in the first round. Way I remember it, he stood up to Robinson for five or six rounds, until body punches sapped his strength. What a way to make a payday. No matter what the need, would I have the guts to have gone the distance with Louis, or Patterson?”
At seven-thirty Walt stopped for a cup of coffee, to warm up, then decided he had walked enough and took a bus cross-town to the market area. He stood outside the West Street bar for a moment, holding his overcoat collar around his ears. He couldn't recall if Tommy's message had said to wait outside or in the bar. It was a minute after eight and West Street full of a cold wind from the river. Walt stepped inside as he opened the door he knew by the tense stillness something was wrong.
Several men were standing rigidly at the bar, paralyzed with fear. A couple were sitting at a table, horror engraved on the woman's meaty face. Tommy Cork stood in the center of the place, facing Big Burt, while at one end of the bar Alvin Hammer and the bartender presented a perfect tableau of pale horror. Alvin was trying to talk, his mouth working, but for once in his life his voice failed him.
Tommy's hands were loose at his sides, but there was a kind of electric stance to his legs—ready to move. Big Burt, face still discolored and puffed, dirty tape covering the stitches over one eye, held a nasty looking switchblade in his right hand. He held the knife up a bit high, the better to start slicing, and the hard bright blade was the only thing glittering in the dreary bar. Burt was saying, the voice as mean as the knife, ”... and I'm going to cut you up for crab bait!”