The counterman decided that the hamburger was cooked enough to kill the taste. He surrounded it with a stale roll, slapped it onto a chipped saucer, slid it down the counter to the snap-brim set. He came over to me and leaned on the counter. His face didn’t change expression when he saw the bulge the .38 made in my jacket. He looked at me, deadpan, and waited.
“Black coffee,” I said.
“No trouble. Not in here.”
He talked without moving his lips. It’s a trick they teach you in Dannemora and other institutions of higher learning. I asked him if I looked like a troublemaker. He shrugged.
“I just want coffee,” I said.
The counterman nodded. He gave me the coffee and I handed him a dime for it. He walked away to trade a story or two with the old hooker. I waited for the coffee to cool. The snap-brim triplets were looking me over.
The coffee tasted like lukewarm dishwater that some fool had rinsed a coffee cup in. I left it alone. The counterman came back, leaned over me like the Tower of Pisa.
“You want anything else besides coffee?”
“A plain doughnut.”
He gave me one. “That all?”
“Maybe not.”
“What else?”
I sat for a moment or two trying to look like a hood trying to think. My eyes were as wary as I could make them.
“I’m looking for a guy,” I said. “I was told I could find him here.”
“Who is he?”
“A guy named Klugsman,” I said. “Miltie Klugsman. You know him?”
Not a flicker of expression. Just a nod.
“You know where I can find him?”
“He ain’t around much. What do you want with him?”
“It’s private.”
“Yeah?”
I pretended to do some more thinking. “I hear he buys things. I got a thing or two for sale.”
“Like what?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said.
“You might get a better price from somebody else,” the counterman said. “Depending on what you got to sell. Miltie, now he can be cheap. You got something for sale, you want all you can get.”
“I was given orders to see Miltie,” I said. The hell with it—let him think I was only a hired hand. I didn’t care that much about the prestige value of the bit.
“Miltie,” he said. “Miltie Klugsman.”
“Yeah.”
“You hang on a minute,” he said. “I think that guy there wants more coffee. You just hang on.”
He filled a cup with coffee and took it over to the young punks. The one he gave it to had his hat halfway over his eyes. The counterman said something unintelligible without moving his lips. The kid answered.
The counterman came back. He asked me my name. I told him it didn’t matter. He asked me who I worked for and I said that didn’t matter either.
“I’ll tell it to Klugsman,” I said.
“He could be hard to find.”
“So maybe I came to the wrong place.” I started to slide off the stool, got one foot on the floor before his hand settled on my shoulder. I stood up and turned to face him again.
“Don’t be in a hurry,” he said.
“I got things to do.”
“Miltie used to come in a lot. He ain’t been around much. I was talking to a guy”—he nodded toward the triplets—“over there.”
“I figured.”
“One of ’em hangs with Miltie now and then. He says maybe he can help. If you want.”
“Sure.”
“Danny,” he said, “c’mere.”
Danny c’mered. He was almost my height but his posture concealed the fact neatly. His fingers were yellow from too many cigarettes and not enough soap. His suit must have been fairly expensive and his shoes had a high shine on them, but nothing he wore could take the slob look away from him. It came shining through.
“You want Miltie,” he said.
“That’s the idea.”
“He’s a little hot right now,” Danny said. “He’s holed up a few blocks from here. I could show you.”
We left the diner. Danny lit a cigarette in the doorway. He didn’t offer me one. We turned right and walked to the corner, turned right again and left Livonia for a side street. The block was darker, more residential than commercial. We walked the length of the block in silence and took another right turn.
“You ever meet Miltie?”
“No,” I said.
“You from New York?”
“The Bronx. Throg’s Neck.”
“Long way from home,” he said.
I didn’t answer him. We kept walking. At the corner we made another right turn.
“This is a hell of a way to go,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“We just go around the block,” I said. “There must be a shorter way to do it.”
“This is easier.”
“Yeah?”
“It gives ’em time,” he said.
It took a minute. Time? Time to make a phone call, time to take the short route and come around the block to meet us. I went for my gun. I was too slow. Danny was on my left, a foot or so behind me. His gun dug into my rib cage and the muzzle felt colder than death.
“Easy,” he said.
My hand was three or four inches from the .38. It stopped in midair and stayed there.
“Take out the piece,” he said. “Do it slow. Very slow. Don’t point it at me. I’d just as soon shoot you now and find out later who the hell you are.”
I took out the gun and I did it slowly. There was a warehouse across the street, dark and silent. On our side was a row of brownstones filled with people who didn’t report gunshots to the police. I let the gun point at the ground.
“Drop it.”
I dropped it. It bounced once on the pavement and lay still.
“Kick it.”
“Where?”
“Just kick it.”
I kicked it. The .38 skidded twenty feet, bounced into the gutter. His gun was still on my ribs and he kept poking me as a reminder.
“Now we wait,” he said. “It shouldn’t be long.”
IT WASN’T LONG AT ALL. They came down the block from Livonia, walking fast but not quite running. They had their hands in their pockets and their hats down over their foreheads. They were in uniform. I stood there with Danny’s gun in my ribs and waited for them.
“He’s a cop,” one of them said.
Danny dug at me. “A cop?”
“A private cop. His name is London and he’s sticking his nose into things he shouldn’t. They tried to buy him off but he wouldn’t be bought.”
“It’s good we checked.”
“Well,” the punk said. “They said anybody comes nosing for Miltie, we should call. So I called.”
I looked at my gun. It was three miles away from me in the gutter. I wanted it in my hand.
“What’s the word, man?”
“The word is we got a contract.”
“At what price?”
“Three yards apiece,” the punk said. He was thinner than Danny, maybe a year or two older. His face was pockmarked and his eyes bulged when he stared, as though he needed glasses but he was afraid they wouldn’t fit the hard-guy image.
“Cheap,” Danny said.
“Hell, it’s an easy hit. We just take him and dump him. Nothing to it, Danny.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s three quick bills. And it sets us up, man. It makes us look good and it gives us an in.”
They would need all the ins they could get. Danny was sloppy, strictly an amateur. You don’t stand next to a person when you’re holding a gun on him. You get as far away as you can. The gun’s advantage increases with distance. The closer you are, the less of an edge you’ve got.
“We take him for a ride,” Danny was saying. “Take him the same place they gave it to Miltie. Ride him around Canarsie, hit him in the head, then drive back.”
“Sure, Danny.”
> “We use his car,” he went on. “Which is your car, buster?”
“The Chevy.”
“The red convertible?”
“That’s the one.”
“Gimme the keys.”
He was much too close. He should have backed off four or five steps, more if he was a good enough shot. He was making my play too easy for me.
“The keys.”
The other two were in front of us. They both had their hands in their pockets. They were heeled, but one had his jacket buttoned and the other looked slow and stupid.
“The keys!”
I let him nudge me with the gun. I felt the muzzle poke into me, then relax.
I dropped. I fell down and I fell toward him, and I snapped his arm behind his back and took the gun right out of his hand. One punk was trying to reach through his jacket button to his own gun. I gave the trigger a squeeze and the bullet hit him in the throat. He took two steps, clapped both hands to his neck, fell over, and died.
The other one—the slow-looking one—wasn’t so slow after all. He drew in a hurry and he shot in a hurry, but he didn’t stop to remember that I was using Danny as a shield. He had time to get off two shots. One went wide. The other caught Danny in the chest. The punk was getting ready for a third shot when I snapped off a pair that caught him in the center of the chest. Danny’s gun was a .45. The holes it made were big enough to step in.
I dropped Danny just as he was starting to bleed on me. He was still alive but didn’t figure to last more than a few seconds. He blacked out immediately.
I wiped my prints off his .45 and tossed it next to him on the pavement. I ran over to the curb, scooped my .38 out of the gutter, and wedged it into my shoulder rig. That made it easy for the cops. Three punks had a fight and killed each other, and to hell with all of them. Nobody would shed tears for them. They weren’t worth it.
The gunshots were still echoing in the empty streets. I looked at three corpses for a second or two, then ran like hell. I kept going for two blocks, turned a corner, slowed down. I was digging a pipe out of a pocket when the sirens started up.
I filled the pipe, lit it. I walked down the street smoking and taking long breaths and telling my nerves they could unwind now.
But my nerves didn’t believe it…I couldn’t blame them.
Brooklyn was cool, quiet, and dark, with only the police siren cutting through the night. I got back on Livonia, skirted the diner, got into the Chevy.
Behind the wheel, I dumped out my pipe, put it away. Then I drove along, trying to remember the directions to Ashford Street. I got lost once, but I found the place—Klugsman’s address.
The building was like all the others. He must have been small-time, I thought. Otherwise he would have found a better place to live. I walked into the front hallway. A kid, twelve or thirteen, was sprawled on the stairs with a Pepsi in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He watched me lean on Klugsman’s bell.
“The bell don’t work,” he said. “You looking for Mrs. Klugsman?”
I hadn’t known there was one, but I was looking for her now. I told the kid so.
“Upstairs,” he said. “Just walk right up. Third floor, apartment three-C.”
I thanked the kid, he shrugged, and I went up two flights of rickety stairs. The building smelled of age and stale beer. I stood in front of the door marked 3-C. The apartment was not empty. Gut-bucket jazz boomed through the door, records playing too loudly on a lo-fi player. I knocked on the door. Nothing happened. I knocked again.
“C’mon in, whoever in hell it is!”
The voice was loud. I turned the knob and went into the apartment where Miltie Klugsman had once lived. It was a railroad flat, three or four rooms tied together by grim little hallways. The furniture was old and the walls needed paint. The place had the general feel of a cheap apartment which someone had tried to hold together until, recently, that someone had stopped caring.
The someone was sitting on a worn-out couch. She could have been beautiful once. She may have been attractive, still; it was hard to tell. There was a pint of blended rye in her hand. The pint was about three-quarters gone and she was about three-quarters drunk. She was a thirty-five-year-old brunette with lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
She was wearing a faded yellow housedress that was missing a button or two in front and had floppy slippers on her feet. She waved a hand at me and took another long drink that killed most of the pint of rye.
“Hiya,” she called. “Who in hell are you?”
I closed the door, walked over, sat on the couch.
“My name’s Shirley. Who’re you?”
“Ed,” I said.
“You lookin’ for Miltie? He doesn’t live here anymore. You know the song? ‘Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’?” Her eyes rolled. “Miltie doesn’t live here anymore,” she said sadly. “Miltie’s dead, Ed. That rhymes. Dead, Ed.”
I walked over to the record player and turned off something raucous. I went back to the couch. She offered me a drink of the blend. I didn’t want any.
“Poor Miltie,” she said. “I loved him, you believe it? Oh, Miltie wasn’t much. Me and Miltie, just a couple of nothings.”
“Shirley—”
“That’s me,” she said. Her face clouded, and for a moment I thought she was going to start crying. She surprised me by laughing instead. She tossed her head back and her body shook with laughter. She couldn’t stop. I reached over and slapped her, not too hard, and she sat up and rubbed the side of her face and nodded her head vigorously.
“Shirley, Miltie was murdered,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”
She looked at me and nodded. The tears were starting now. I wanted to go away and leave her alone. I couldn’t.
“Murdered, Shirley. He had some…evidence that some man wanted. Do you know where it is?”
She shook her head.
“He must have talked about it, Shirley. He must have told you something. Think.”
She looked away, then back at me, cupped her chin with one hand, closed her eyes, opened them. “Nope,” she said. “He never told me a thing. Not Miltie.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh.” She reached for the bottle again. I took it away from her. She came at me, sprawled across me, fingers scrabbling for the bottle. I gave it to her and she killed it. She held it at arm’s length, reading the label slowly and deliberately. Then she heaved it across the room. It bounced off the record player, took another wild bounce, and shattered.
“Poor Miltie,” she said.
“Shirley—”
“Jussa minute,” she said. “What’s your name again? Ed? I’m gonna tell you something. Ed, I’ll tell you about Miltie Klugsman. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Miltie was just a little guy,” she said. “Like me, see? Before I met him I used to work the clubs, you know, do a little stripping, get the customers to buy me drinks. I was never a hooker, Ed. You believe me?”
“I believe you.”
She nodded elaborately. “Well,” she said. “Lots of guys, you say you were a stripper, they figure you were a whore. Not me. Some girls, maybe. Not me.”
She was standing now, swaying a little but staying on her feet. She picked a pack of cigarettes from a table, shook one loose, and put it in her mouth. I scratched a match for her and she leaned forward to take the light. Her dress fell away from her body. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I looked away and she laughed hysterically.
“See something you shouldn’t, Ed?” I didn’t say anything. “Oh,” she said, continuing her story. “So I met Miltie at the club. He was a good guy, you know? Decent. Oh, he did some time. You live like this, this kind of life, you don’t care if a man did time. What’s the past, Ed? Huh? It’s the present, and what kind of guy a guy is, and all. Right?”
“Sure.”
“He wanted to marry me. Nobody else, they always wanted, oh, you know what they wanted. He wanted to marry me. So what the hell.
Right, Ed?”
“Sure.”
“He was just a little guy. Nobody important. But we stuck with each other and we made it. We stuck together, we ate steady, we lived okay. This place is a mess now. When it’s fixed up it looks better.”
She pranced around the room like a hostess showing off her antiques. Something struck her funny and she started laughing again, reeling around the room and laughing hysterically. Her voice caught on a snag and the laughter changed abruptly to tears. She cried as she laughed, putting all of herself into it. I got up to catch her and she sagged against me, limp as a dishrag. I held on to her for a few seconds. Then she got hold of herself and pulled away from me.
“Poor, poor poor Miltie,” she said. “I was afraid, I knew he was getting in over his head. Listen, I was just a lousy dime-store stripper, you know? I knew enough not to try to play the big-time circuit. I stuck to my own league. You know what I mean?”
“Sure, Shirley.”
“But Miltie didn’t know this. He wanted to do something big. I was afraid, I knew he was getting mixed up, getting in over his head. He was all tangled up in something too big for him. He was a good guy but he wasn’t a big guy. I knew something like this was going to happen. I knew it.”
The cigarette burned her fingers. She dropped it and squashed it beneath one of the floppy slippers. She kicked off the slippers, first one and then the other. Her toenails were painted scarlet and the paint was chipped here and there.
“He was going to get out. He was going to stick to his own league. And then—”
She didn’t break. She came close, but she didn’t. The last of the liquor was taking hold of her now and she was staggering. She stepped into the center of the room, walked to the record player, put on something slow and jazzy. I stayed where I was. “I’m still good-looking,” she said. “Aren’t I?”
I told her she was.
“Not a kid anymore,” she said. “But I’ll get by.”
The music was strip-club jazz. She took a few preliminary steps to it, tossing her hips at me in an almost comical bump-and-grind, and grinned.
Then, slowly, she went into her act. We weren’t in a strip joint and she wasn’t wearing a ball gown. She was wearing a faded yellow housedress that buttoned down the front, and she undid it a button at a time. Her fingers were clumsy with blended rye but she got the dress open and shrugged it away. It fell to the floor bunched around her long legs. She took a step and kicked the dress away.