Lye answered his ring in a sleepy voice. “Yeah?”
“This is Nick,” Amato said good-humoredly. “I tried you earlier but you wasn’t in.”
“We took in a show and then hit a few spots,” Lye said. “Was it something important?”
“So-so. I want to see you now. I’m downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” Lye’s voice shook slightly. “You mean in the lobby?”
“I guess that’s the name for it. Can I come up?”
“Why—” There was silence on the line.
Asking permission, Amato thought. Explaining to her, while he covered the receiver with his hand. I’ll get rid of him fast, baby. You keep out of sight. I’ll tell him you’ve got a headache.
“Sure, Nick, come on up. Six A.”
“Thanks.”
Lye met him at the door wearing a gaudy silk dressing gown over a white-on-white shirt and black trousers. He looked as if he had thrown his clothes on in a hurry; the robe was unbelted and a few strands of glossy black hair were plastered against his pale forehead.
“Well, come in, Nick,” he said, trying to learn something from his face.
“Sorry to bother you this time of night,” Amato said gently. “But I got a job for you.”
“Yeah? Who is it?”
Amato didn’t answer him. He was staring about the room, a pleased little smile on his lips. It wasn’t as grand as he’d thought it would be and for some reason this made him feel better. He noted the record player and bar, the brilliant drapes and bright meaningless pictures, and continued to smile and nod with diffident approval.
“Very cute,” he said. “Where’s the girl friend? Headache?”
“No, she’s just getting fixed up. Were you serious about a job?”
Amato stared at him. “Get out of that clown suit and into your clothes,” he said. “There’s a job. You want me to do all the work while you lay around here and play footsie?”
Lye rubbed his thin hands together and they made a sound like dry paper rustling in the silence. “Stop riding me,” he said, the words coming out in painful jerks. “If you ain’t satisfied with me maybe you should get somebody else.”
“Sure,” Amato said slowly. “And then I’ll send you back to catch up on your prayers. Back where you get in a full quota of Hail Marys every night.”
A door opened behind him and he turned awkwardly and removed his hat. Kay Johnson smiled at him as she came into the room, her manner that of a flustered wife meeting her husband’s boss under less than perfect circumstances.
“This is a wonderful surprise, Mr. Amato,” she said. Smiling into his little brown eyes she knew with her sense of audience that she wouldn’t fool him for an instant. Words and smiles would be useless against Nick Amato. She recognized his seeming diffidence for what it was, a front for a cynical and contemptuous estimate of people. And she realized also that her own act wasn’t a very good one. All of her guile couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes. The fear had been part of her so long that she had stopped trying to manage or conceal it.
“This is a nice place, Miss Johnson,” Amato said. “If I’d known it was this nice I’d have stopped by sooner. If Joe asked me, that is.”
“We’ve planned to have you up a half-dozen times,” she said. “Now, wouldn’t you both like a drink? Or coffee perhaps?”
“Take care of Nick,” Lye said. “I’ll get dressed.”
“Are you going out?” She was out of character now; there was no pretty surprise in her manner, and her voice was dull with fear.
Lye walked rapidly into the bedroom and Amato said, “I’m sorry to break up the party, Miss Johnson.”
“I suppose it’s important,” she said, staring at the bedroom door.
“In our business we work around the clock.” Watching her, he wondered if she really loved Joe Lye. It didn’t figure. She probably was after his cash. That was why she put up with his cheapness, his twisted ruined face. And Lye was getting a bargain, Amato thought, as a strangely complex desire for her began to grow in him. Part of it was physical but there was something else, too. She was class. He had never had a woman like this, and he wondered why. Was it a guilty hangover from his stem childhood training, or was there some lack in him he hadn’t recognized or admitted?
He saw with sharp irritation that she wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She paced restlessly, a tense expression around her eyes, and when he turned he saw the gleam of her slim white ankles and the soft press of her thighs against the silken robe. Did he want her because she was blonde and elegant? Because his people were peasants who would have bowed and tugged the peaks of their caps at a woman like this?
“I saw you in the movies once,” he said. “That was quite a while back.”
“I’m sure it was,” she said.
“You played a college girl who didn’t wear any make-up,” he said, enjoying her strained smile.
“Yes, that was ‘Ladies of the Chorus,’ ” she said.
“You should know. The guy you liked couldn’t see you for dust, so you got a job in a cabaret. Then when you were all dolled up he fell in love with you without knowing you were the girl he knew in college.”
She laughed and picked up a cigarette from the table. “I’m afraid it sounds just as idiotic now as it did then.”
“The guy had a good reason to fall for you,” Amato said, watching her. “You were clean and damned good-looking. What else does a man want?”
She saw that he wasn’t going to light her cigarette so she did it herself and dropped the match into an ashtray. “I think you’re drawing me out now,” she said. “You want to hear me say something silly and female.”
The door opened then and Lye walked into the room pulling up the knot in his tie. He glanced at Kay and said, “I left the radio on. How about going in and turning it off?”
“Of course,” she said quickly.
When she had entered the bedroom Lye rubbed his hands along the sides of his trousers. He looked as if his nerves were stretched to the breaking point. “Okay, what is it?” he said.
“The kid,” Amato said quietly.
“You’re kidding!” Lye said, and his lips began to strain in spasmodic little jerks.
“I didn’t come here to make jokes,” Amato said. “He talked. He’ll talk again.” His voice was suddenly as sharp as a knife blade. “He’s home now. In his bedroom. Anna goes to six o’clock Mass. You got to make it look a suicide.”
“Nick, this is rough. Can’t you figure out something else?”
“You don’t like it?”
“No,” Lye said.
Amato felt his anger swelling like a cancerous growth inside him. Nobody could take orders any more. That’s why there was trouble on the docks. “Maybe you want to go back to jail?” he said in a low, trembling voice.
Lye turned away from him abruptly. The dream flooded his mind at Amato’s words, everything in red, the guards, the altar, and in the middle of it his own soft, helpless body, waiting for the impersonal horror of the straps. “I... I just said we might figure out something else,” he said.
“We don’t figure things, I figure them,” Amato said.
“Sure, sure,” Lye said, speaking with difficulty against the constricting pressure around his chest. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Kay returned to the room then, and one hand went to her throat as she saw the tight, unnatural smile on Lye’s lips. “What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.
“Nothing,” he said, turning away from her. “Come on, Nick, let’s go.” Amato smiled at him. “You go on, Joe. I’ll take up that drink offer if it’s still open.”
“You’re staying here?” Lye said dully.
“If it’s all right with Miss Johnson,” Amato said.