Night Squad (17 page)

      From the jukebox the blues singer was bewailing the moon and the stars and all the flowers of spring for having gone away. Nellie said to the jukebox, “Don't tell me about it. I got my own grief.”
      “What grief?” Corey queried.
      The big woman looked at him. Her hand came up. It seemed she was going to hit him in the face just because he happened to be there. But then her hand moved slowly and hesitantly, and finally her fingers came to rest on the dent in his forehead above his left eye. In the touch of her fingers there was something very tender.
     
And what's all this?
His liquor-drenched brain groped for an answer. Then through the alcoholic haze he saw the yearning in Nellie's eyes.
      So Carp was right , he said to himself, remembering last night when Carp had stated flatly, “She's hot for the man.”
      That's why she threw the brick when we were only nine years old. That's why in all these years the only words you got from her were cuss words and the only looks were mean looks. Last night when she broke your wagon down in front of all these Hangout people, her big hand tight on your arm, her thick fingers digging in to hurt you, to bruise you; it was just her way of saying, cantcha see, Corey? Cantcha see how it is? How it's always been?
      But now Nellie's hand was away from his face, aiming at the shot glass on the bar. She lifted it, gulped the rye and said, “All right, I'll tell you what the grief is. I been told he's cheatin' on me.”
      “Who's cheatin'?”
      “Rafer.”
      “You been going with Rafer?”
      “You didn't know?”
      “Nobody tells me nothin',” Corey said.
      “How can they tell you? They never get close enough.”
      “Look, I live in this neighborhood.”
      “No you don't, Bradford. You live all alone on a cliff somewhere. Or maybe at the edge of a cliff.”
      “Well anyway, what's this with Rafer?”
      “I gotta have somebody, don't I?”
      “Let's have another drink,” Corey said.
      “This one I'll buy.”
      “No you won't,” Corey said determinedly. Then he realized he was getting very drunk, evil drunk.
Gotta have somebody
, he gritted without sound.
They all gotta have somebody.
He turned and looked toward the far side of the taproom, focusing on the table near the door leading to the back room. There was no one at the table. Then he saw Lillian coming toward the table with a glass in one hand and a quart of beer in the other. He said to Nellie, “Order them drinks, I'll be back in a minute.”
      He made his way across the room, bumping into standing drinkers, shoving and getting shoved, finally arriving at the table where Lillian was pouring the beer. She looked up and saw him. Some beer spilled over the edge of the glass.
      He said, “Look, I don't have no goddam dimes. So here's a quarter, and you owe me fifteen cents.”
      She stared at the coin on the table. “What's this for?”
      “The phone call. The call you made to Night Squad.”
      She didn't look up. She didn't say anything.
      Corey said, “Now listen, you. Listen good. Don't do me no more favors. I don't want no favors from you. I don't want nothing. You hear me?”
      “I hear you.” She sipped some beer. “I'm wondering what you're all worked up about.”
      “Don't gimme that,” with his gin-glazed eyes seeing two blurred Lillians and then three blurred Lillians. “You know whatcha did,” his gin-cracked voice was just above a whisper. “Looked out the kitchen window and saw me running from that alley. Saw them chasing me. Saw they had guns. Then later you heard the shooting. Next thing, you're scooting for a phone booth and putting in a call.”
      “So?”
      “Whaddya mean, so? I wanna know why.”
      “Why I put in the call?” She shrugged. “You needed help.”
      “From you?”
      “From anyone.” She shrugged again. “Someone hadda call in. If that phone call wasn't made, you probably wouldn't be here now.”
      “You ran out in all that rain—”
      “And spent a dime,” she said. “So you owed me a dime and you gimme this quarter and I owe you fifteen cents.” She opened a purse, put the quarter in and took out three nickels. “There's your fifteen cents.”
      He looked at the three nickels on the table. He reached for the coins and missed them. His hand hit the beer glass and knocked it over. Beer streamed over the edge of the table and dripped into Lillian's lap. Corey made another try for the three nickels. He missed again and his hand went sliding through the beer on the table as he lost his footing. His weight came against the side of the table, causing it to tilt. The bottle fell off, hit the floor and broke.
      “Now look what I done,” Corey said dismally. “Just look at what I done here.”
      Lillian had pushed back her chair and was on her feet, her fingers flicking futilely at her wet skirt.
      “Gotta make it up to you,” Corey said, reaching for his wallet. But his hand couldn't find the rear pocket of his trousers and he moved around in a gin-distorted circle. “Gotta pay for the beer,” he mumbled. “Gotta pay for the skirt, to get it cleaned.” He went around in another circle, still trying for the wallet. “Gotta settle all debts and meet all obligations.” He tugged fretfully at his trousers that didn't seem to have a rear pocket. Then he found it, started to take out the wallet, but in that moment his legs got tangled and he fell to the floor. Sitting there, he saw Lillian headed toward the side door. “Hey you,” he called to her. “Hey you—”
      She didn't turn to look; she just kept moving toward the door. Then the door was open and she walked out.
      Corey sat there for a while, wondering if this was really a taproom floor. It seemed more like a slanting boat deck, the boat bouncing around in rough water. Corey tried to get up, couldn't make it, tried again and kept trying. Finally he was on his feet and staggered toward the bar. He saw Nellie reaching for a double rye, and called to her, “Hey wait—we're drinkin' together.”
      She waited while Corey lurched closer to the bar. She pointed to the double gin she'd ordered for him. In a solemn and slightly ceremonious way they lifted the glasses, clinked them together. Then instead of drinking, they stood holding the glasses.
      Nellie said, “So what's the toast? Who do we drink to?”
      “The precinct,” Corey suggested. “The tried and true of the Thirty-seventh.”
      “Why drink to them?”
      “They preserve law and order. They protect the citizens.”
      “From what?”
      “From bingo games, that's what. Them wicked bingo games.”
      Nellie thought it over for a moment. She said, “Tell you what. Let's drink to Sally Sullivan.”
      “And who the hell is Sally Sullivan?”
      “The captain's wife. The wife of the captain of the Thirty-seventh Precinct. And she's also vice president of the Women's Committee.”
      “Committee for what?”
      “To wipe out filth. Prevent immoral influences. They've had her on one of them local TV programs, the city give her an award. And she goes around to them lunches, makes speeches. Gets her picture on the woman's page damn near every Sunday. Now I'll tell you something else, if you care to hear it.”
      “By all means,” Corey said politely, patiently. But he wished she'd hurry up with it so they could drink the toast. He gazed thirstily at the gin in the shot glass.
      Nellie said, “This Sally Sullivan, she's the one that Rafer's been seein'.”
      “The captain's wife? With Rafer?”
      “Whenever she gets the chance. I won't tell you what they do. I mean, what she does. It would make you sick in your stomach.”
      “Who tipped you?”
      “Rafer himself. So you know I got it on good authority.”
      “But Rafer's your man. Why would he tell you a thing like that?”
      “He was high,” Nellie said. “He was forty thousand feet up. On that mixture he drinks. Calls it California Clouds. Mixes it himself. A bottle of some cola drink, six aspirin tablets, two tablespoons of snuff. Puts it all together in a bowl and sips it from the spoon. In no time at all he's up there. California Clouds.”
      “Let's drink to that,” Corey said. “Them clouds. And your man Rafer. Your cloud man Rafer.”
      They drank. Nellie called for refills. The bartender poured. Nellie reached for her glass, but a smaller hand was there first and by the time she looked around, the drink snatcher was halfway across the room snatching at another drink. Corey turned and saw Carp gliding past a table with his left hand getting rid of Nellie's empty glass while his right picked up someone's whiskey. Corey sighed and reached for his gin.
      Then he and Nellie leaned against each other. His knees gave way and he started to go down. She held him up for a moment. Then they both leaned against the bar.
      Nellie said, “Just answer me one thing. Do I hafta put up with it?”
      “Absolutely not,” he said, and wondered what she was talking about.
      Her thick hand came down on the edge of the bar. “I'm gonna have a clear understanding with Mister Cloudman Rafer. He's just gonna hafta mend his ways, that's all. Wantsa climb up in them clouds, let him do it in a closet or someplace. Not sittin' there on the goddam bed where I'm tryin' to get some sleep.”
      “Absolutely,” Corey mumbled.
      “Sittin' there on the bed, dippin' that spoon and sippin' all that cloud soup. It hits him and he gets to talkin' all that talk. Just ain't no way to shut him up, and some nights it goes on all night long. Only thing I'll say for him, at least he never repeats himself. Except when he tells me the fairy tale—”
      “What fairy tale?”
      “Well, there's this palace he's gonna buy. A real palace, with everything in it only the best. With triple-size bathtubs so's we can take baths together. And all kindsa colognes and talcum powders on the shelves. With sterling-silver toilet seats—”
      “Say what?”
      “I'm just tellin' it like Rafer tells it. This fairy tale. What sorta worries me, it's like he actually believes it. Keeps sayin' he's gonna buy that palace, and when I ask him where he's gonna get the money, he starts to giggle like a loon. Says he won't hafta work to get it. Says all he needs to do is make one fast grab because it's all in one package.”
      Corey shut his eyes tightly. A streak of bright light stabbed his liquor-soggy brain. He heard himself saying, “It takes a lotta dimes to buy a palace.”
      “This ain't dimes, the way he tells it. This is paper money and it comes to a million five.”
      The streak of light stabbed deeper. He said, “Lemme hear that again.”
      “A million five.” And then, through a hiccup, “He says it's hidden somewhere.” She hiccuped again. “Just a fairy tale. It's gotta be a fairy tale.”
      “Sure,” Corey said.
      “Because—a million five, that's fairy tale money. And besides, a million five, you just don't go and hide it somewhere. You put it in the bank.”
      “Sure. Absolutely.”
      “But the way Rafer tells it, when he's up in them clouds, he says he promised Grogan that he'd never open his mouth. Because it's only the two of them who know where all that money is. And then he's bawlin' like a baby, sayin' how it hurts him in his heart because after all he's been with Grogan all these years. And he's in Grogan's corner all the way, but Jesus Christ it's a million five and where it is now it ain't doin' nobody no good. And bawlin' with real tears, sippin' more of that mixture from the bowl and then wavin' the spoon over his head like he's winding himself up. Like some mechanical toy, or like a talkin' doll that can cry and say Mama. And that's what he was sayin'. He was sayin' Mama it's a million five and it ain't doin' nothin' for nobody. It sure ain't doin' nothin' for the Chinaman—”
      “The who?”
      “The Chinaman. And don't ask me what Chinaman. Remember, it's just a fairy tale—” She hiccuped again. Then she let out a louder hiccup, followed with a grunt as the alcohol jolted her. Nellie finally closed her eyes, her knees giving way. She was going to the floor. Corey grabbed her, dragging her away from the bar. He managed to get her into a chair. She put her head on the table and fell asleep.
      Corey Bradford leaned heavily against the table and wondered if he could make it to the street. He started toward the door, bumped into a seated drinker, went to the floor and got up, weaving, then swaying as he kept trying for the door.
You're really soused
, he told himself.
You're just about ready to fall out.
      Someone opened the door for him and he staggered through, trying to straighten up, telling himself he mustn't fade out.
But that's what's gonna happen?
he asked the gin-hound who just couldn't straighten up, who'd had one too many double shots and nothing in his belly to soak it up.
Because you didn't have no supper
, he chided the goofy-eyed boozer.
All you had today was a goddam cinnamon bun and coffee. But what's that she said about the Chinaman?
      Well, we'll get to that later. That is, if we get the chance. If we live long enough. But according to percentages, it looks to be strictly up the creek and, jim, I mean a one-way excursion. There's some hunters out to bag you and the condition you're in now, you can't move fast. You can hardly move at all. You're just an easy piece of cake for Kingsley and company.
      Maybe what you oughta do is go back to the Hangout and put your head on a table and just drift off. At least you'd be safe at the Hangout. Until closing time, anyway. But that's just stalling the issue, and there ain't no dividends in that. The thing to do, or hope to do, is get back to your room and lock the door and get in bed with the gun.
      So if you can just make it to your room, using these alleys—
      He was lurching through an alley, holding onto fence posts for support. His hands slipped off the fence posts and he fell down. He got up very slowly, took a few steps and went down again.
Come on, get up, don't pass out.
And then, just in the moment before he passed out, he heard the footsteps coming.
       

11

      His head was on a pillow. He opened his eyes and saw blackness. Sitting up in the bed, he reached instinctively for the gun, but there was no gun. He made a move to get out of the bed, but his limbs couldn't function.
They got me tied with ropes, or something
, he thought.
      But it wasn't that. It was the alcohol.
You got one of them real special hangovers
, he told himself, really feeling it as it hammered his skull. He fell back on the pillow and let out a groan. Then he floated out again.
      Later when he opened his eyes, the room was still dark. He sat up slowly, wondering where he was and what they planned to do with him. He couldn't understand why they'd brought him here instead of just getting rid of him. For a while he sat there, trying to reason it out. Of course it didn't make sense that they'd neglected to put ropes on him and tie him to the bed. Or maybe they took it for granted he was helpless without the gun.
But that's taking a hell of a lot for granted
, he said to himself.
      The hangover had lessened somewhat, although his head still ached and his belly burned. He got out of the bed, trying to peer through the darkness, hoping to see the outline of a table lamp or floor lamp. Something flicked against his face. At first he thought it was some winged insect just trying to be cute. It tagged him again and he took a swipe at it. Instead of insect it was string, dangling from the ceiling. He pulled the string and the room was lit.
      It was a very small room and first he saw the single window, wide open. There was no rug on the loose-boarded floor and whoever had papered the walls, the job was fouled up something awful. Most of the paper was hanging loose. There was very little furniture in the room, just the bed, an unvarnished, homemade bookcase crammed with books, and a sagging armchair with its upholstery torn and the stuffing coming out. In the armchair a man was sound asleep. Corey blinked several times, shook his head slowly in bafflement. Then he moved toward the sleeper, shook the sleeper's shoulder and said, “Wake up. Come on, Carp.”
      The little man opened his eyes. He smiled placidly at Corey Bradford. “Good morning,” he said.
      “Piss on that,” Corey said. “Where's my gun?”
      “I have it.” Carp sat up straighter in the armchair. Then he yawned and rubbed his eyes and yawned again. He got up from the armchair, stretched his arms, then reached under the chair pillow and took out the .38.
      “What's the play?” Corey asked.
      “Merely a precaution,” the little man said. He handed the gun to Corey. “To put it mildly, you were rather intoxicated. It sometimes leads to the D.T.'s. In a state of delirium you might have used the weapon and caused considerable damage.”
      Corey tucked the gun under his belt. “How'd you get me here? You carried me?”
      “Not exactly,” the little man said. “In the alley I managed to lift you onto your feet. It was rather awkward. You kept trying to pull away as I dragged you along, and at times we both fell down. As you know, I imbibe rather freely myself; and I found it somewhat difficult to navigate. This alcohol, it's a tricky fuel. Sometimes it has you traveling backwards.”
      Corey was quiet for a few moments. Then, “How'd you know I was in the alley?”
      “I followed you from the saloon.”
      “How come?”
      “Well, you were totally inebriated, and I thought it best to keep you under surveillance. I mean, it appeared you were ready to collapse and I wanted to render assistance.”
      “It's appreciated,” Corey said. He started toward the door. Then stopped and looked at the open window that showed the darkness outside.
      “If I were you, I'd wait a while,” Carp said.
      “Wait for what?”
      “Until it gets light. The streets are much safer when the sun comes up.”
      Corey looked at the little man. “Whaddya mean, safer? You hinting at something?”
      “Merely noting a fact,” Carp said. In his palm there was an old-fashioned pocket watch and he glanced at it and murmured, “Seventeen minutes past three. It's mealtime now for the creatures of the night, the eager claws that lurk in the shadows. I refer in particular to a certain venomous crew that craves to dine on you and you alone. And therefore I recommend utmost discretion—”
      “Excuse me,” Corey cut in quietly. He squinted at the little man. “What's all this noise from the trees? You flying around on some new kind of charge? You imagining things?”
      “Not hardly,” the little man said. “In the saloon this evening I heard some talk about a gun fight in the swamplands, in the vicinity of Sixth and Ingersoll.”
      “So?”
      “So I recalled the errand I performed for you this afternoon. That is, I obtained the address you wanted, and I assume you went to that address. The address was six-seventeen Ingersoll.”
      Corey grinned wryly.
      The little man glanced again at the old-fashioned pocket watch. “In less than two hours we'll have daylight. If you'll wait until then—”
      “No,” Corey said. He moved toward the door.
      “As your friend, I urge you to wait,” Carp said. “I'll make some coffee.”
      “Coffee.” Corey lowered his hand from the doorknob. “I could use some coffee.”
      “I'll have it ready right away,” Carp said, and got busy with a tiny one-burner coal-oil stove that he pulled out from a corner of the room. On the floor near the bed was a glass jug half-filled with water. He poured some into a pot and set it on the stove. From behind the bookcase he gathered a couple of cups, saucers and spoons, a small sugar bowl and a jar of instant coffee. There was no label on the jar. Carp held it up for display and said, “It's my own blend. I use a hammer to mash the beans, borrowed here and there from various Turks and Syrians and so forth. Of course the preparation requires considerable time and effort. The hammer is an awkward implement and I'm thinking quite seriously of putting it aside and procuring a mortar and pestle. But on the other hand—”
      “Excuse me,” Corey interrupted. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, going through his pockets. “I'm outta cigarettes. You got any around?”
      “A plentiful supply,” Carp said, and went to the bookcase, reached in behind it, his hand coming out with a cardboard box containing some folders of cigarette paper and a paper bag bulging with tobacco. Carp's nimble fingers went to work.
      Corey asked, “Where you get the tobacco?”
      “From contributors.” Carp's way of saying that he went around collecting stubs.
      With fantastic speed and precision, the little man made two cigarettes. On the stove the water was boiling and he completed the preparation of the coffee. They sipped the coffee and smoked the cigarettes, and for several minutes there was no talk.
      Finally Carp said, “There's something I've been wanting to tell you. That is, I feel it's your privilege to be informed—”
      “Informed about what?”
      “Me,” the little man said.
      Corey looked at him. There was a wistful expression on Carp's face, the slightest trace of a plaintive smile.
      Carp said, “It's in regard to our agreement, our pledge of mutual trust and confidence. Which means that nothing should be held back, nothing at all. It also means that what's spoken in this room will stay in this room. Is that clearly understood?”
      Corey nodded.
      The little man sipped some coffee, took a slow pull at his cigarette, let the smoke out and said, “My name is not really Carp.”
      There was silence for a while. Then the little man said, “It's essentially a matter of name reduction. That is, shortening my name to comply with certain adjustments that were necessary in order for me to exist outside a padded cell.”
      “Excuse me,” Corey said. “You're talkin' way over my head.”
      “All right, we'll try it this way—” And then the little man was speaking just like any Swampdweller and Hangout lounger, saying, “The deal on Carp is that it used to be Henry C. Carpenter with a wife and four children and a hefty chunk of real estate out on the Main Line. From blue chips alone the income was somewhere around thirty thousand a year, inherited from the old man. He also left me the paper box factory that goes way back. It's been run by the family since the Battle of Yorktown, or thereabouts. So of course when I was born it was strictly velvet, right from the jump. All I hadda do was drift along with the tide. That is, you're a Carpenter. It's private school in Switzerland, and then it's Dartmouth, and then the eighteen months of traveling around the world. The boat tickets all first class, and the hotels only the best. And after that, in line with family tradition, they make me a member of that club downtown where in order to get in, you gotta have a pedigree. And of course that was all right with me. In them days everything that happened was all right with me. Especially what came later—the four little Carpenters and their mother.”
      For a long moment Carp was quiet. He gazed at the wall, seemed to be seeing something far beyond the wall, beyond the second floor front and the cobble-stoned street below and all the streets and alleys of the Swamp, very far away from all that.
      He said, “Only thing I can tell you about her, it was one of those unbelievable situations. Or call it a complete switch from the way these things usually pan out, because when you marry the girl that your family selects and it's more like a business merger than anything else, there ain't much likelihood that you'll get what you want in terms of companionship, and I don't mean only in the bedroom. But lemme tell you—the nine years I lived with that woman were nine years of absolute delight. That woman was what you see when you look at one of them pictures by Raphael. I tell you, she was something exceptional in this world. So one summer, and this goes back twenty-three years, she's got the children in the car, all four children. And they're driving to the seashore. They're on this road along the edge of an embankment high above a river—”
      Carp closed his eyes for a moment. His face was placid as he went on. “There was only one witness. A farmer. And he said it was a hit-and-run situation. He couldn't describe the truck, except that it was big and it was moving very fast. So they never got the truck driver. But here's what the farmer saw—the truck came up behind the car, sideswiped the car and sent it crashing down the embankment into the river, into forty feet of water.”
      “All five of them,” he said. “Down there in forty feet of water, and the car a chunk of twisted metal. A few days later the car was brought up and I saw what was in the car. They didn't want me to look; but I insisted on looking, and then they hadda give me a sedative with a needle.”
      Corey winced.
      The little man said, “They wrote it off as an accident. But you know, I've always wondered about that. Of course, it could have been an accident, I mean there's no way to prove it wasn't. And also, at that time I was more or less out of my head and couldn't offer an opinion. Yet later, years later I'd sometimes get to thinking about it. I'd try not to think about it, telling myself it was no use, because I'd never know for sure whether or not it was an accident.”
      Corey grimaced puzzledly.
      “So I didn't know then and I don't know now and I'll never know,” Carp emphasized the uncertainty. “But this much I can tell you—if it wasn't an accident, it was a professional knock-off job.”
      “But why?”
      “Some circumstances,” Carp said. “My wife was a volunteer social worker. And not like you see them on the society page, sitting around at the luncheon table and smiling for the photographer. My wife was really a worker. She gave it all she had and then some. But calling her a worker is only part of it. Because mostly she was a soldier. She was a soldier for the poor and underprivileged, yelling her head off in City Hall, demanding action from the health inspectors and building inspectors and especially from the inspectors in the fire department. Telling them to go and see for themselves, to take a good close look at the neighborhood. And—”
      “Hold it,” Corey cut in. “What neighborhood?”
      “This neighborhood,” Carp said. “This neighborhood here. The Swamp.”
      The puzzled look gradually faded from Corey's face. His eyes narrowed as he looked off to the side. He murmured, “Someone shoulda told her—ain't no way to clean up the Swamp. Anyplace but the Swamp.” And then, looking at the little man, he asked, “Wasn't she warned?”
      “Just once. And it wasn't really a warning. It was more likely a friendly suggestion.”
      “Grogan?”
      Carp nodded very slowly. He gazed past the wall, as though seeing the Swamp of twenty-three years ago when Walter Grogan had wiped out all competition and had the neighborhood in his pocket, controlling rent, the prices for plumbing improvements, for fire extinguishers which most tenants couldn't buy because they didn't have the money, controlling the interest rate on loans. And almost everyone borrowed at some time or other, inasmuch as money that would have been on hand to pay the grocer, the druggist and the doctor, was spent instead at the Hangout bar. All this was reflected in Carp's eyes as he nodded slowly.
      He said, “It was all very friendly. She told me about it. She said that Grogan invited her to lunch and she refused and Grogan stood there and told her that he admired her for the work she was doing, but it wasn't really needed in this neighborhood. The people in this neighborhood didn't want any changes. And then he told her that many people resented her coming around knocking on doors, and he hoped she wouldn't get hurt. So what it all came to, he was telling her in a nice way that if she knew what was good for her, she'd stay away from the Swamp. But she kept coming back.”
      “And a few weeks later she was in the grave. And the children were in the grave. It was more than I could take. I kept trying to do away with myself, and finally I flipped all the way, and they put me in the booby hatch. 'Incurable,' they said.”
      “How long were you in?”
      “Nineteen years.”
      Corey let out a low whistle. “How'd you get out?”
      “Walked out. Walked across the lawn and climbed the gate and just kept walking, telling myself that with certain changes effected I could possibly go back to the world and live in it. But not as Henry C. Carpenter. It was simply the process of saying good-bye to Henry C. Carpenter and saying hello to Carp.”