Tony’s dry gulping rattled in at that moment. He muttered a half-formed oath, slid his eyes open a fraction and stared sidewise at the man. The man arched his eyebrows as he looked down at the boy with interest. He held his head at an odd angle, looking down over the slope of his own shoulder.
The man scissored two fingers into his shirt pocket and withdrew another filter cigarette. He removed the butt of the first cigarette from his thinned lips and lit the second one with its glowing tip. He dragged deeply, to start the fresh cigarette properly. Then he said, “Up. I want to talk.”
The boys looked at each other across the grass. A mixture of wariness and terror minded in their glances. The two muggers struggled erect slowly. Tony tried to get to his feet, the intention to run like hell obvious in his movements. The man clamped a thick hand on the boy’s shoulder, bumped him down hard. Tony scrunched his face up in pain, and bit his lip. “What d’you want with us? You a cop?”
The man didn’t need to shake his head, but he did. It was obvious he was no harness boy. Pepper and Tony could see that immediately: even so there was a small victory in getting the stranger to declare his position. But he was no cop; he was dressed too well. He had too many expensive accessories, like the lighter, and the gold watch that peeked out from under a French cuff.
“No cop. I just want to talk.” the man added, still puffing deeply but thoughtfully on the fresh cigarette.
Pepper scrutinized the man. He looked as though his face was made of glass. The features were so sharply defined, framed by the light of the lamp posts, the boy was certain he’d slice a finger were he to run it over the man’s chin or cheekbone.
“Talk about what?” Pepper asked cautiously.
“You aren’t in much of a position to argue, are you?” the man said slowly, almost tauntingly. He had an infuriating smugness about him. He lipped the cigarette in a corner of his gash mouth, and smiled with all the knowledge it took to put Pepper and Tony away in the Home for five years.
“What’re your names?” the man asked, watching them carefully, almost narrowly.
“Jim,” said Tony.
“Arnie,” said Pepper.
They spoke almost at once, the words leaping out simultaneously.
The man’s hand lashed across, first in one direction, then backhand in the other. The boys clutched their heads as throbbing aches started once more. “Why the hell’d ya do that?” Pepper cried.
“Lie once more, and I’ll make damned certain the next park bull that crosses here takes you rummy little creeps with him. Do you understand me?”
They nodded sullenly.
“Now,” he said, gently again. “Let’s have your names. I mean, your names!” He placed a no-mistaking emphasis on the phrase.
They gave him their proper names, all the while staring sullenly at the ground.
“Look, mister,” Pepper said in a juvenile tone, “if you want to toss us to a cop, why the hell don’t you do it. Get it over with!”
“I don’t want to toss you to any cop,” the man said. “I dig you boys. I think you got real initiative; real guts and spunk. I like you!”
The boys looked briefly at one another, then back at the man. Confusion mirrored itself in their faces.
The man laughed shortly. His voice was only faintly tinged with sarcasm. He smiled, and ruffled Tony’s curly hair in a movement that made the boy start nervously. It had been a fatherly movement.
“You a fag?” Tony asked, but stopped short as a look of anger spread across the man’s face. The stranger made a hesitant motion of violence toward him. “Sorry, sorry…never can tell.”
“No, I’m not gay.” He took a deep breath, changing the subject, with obvious distaste for the previous track of thought. “My name may be familiar to you. Topper Kalish?
“Know it?” He waited, watching their faces almost expectantly.
The muggers looked at one another, then back to him, in astonishment. “You say Kalish?” Tony asked, amazed. The man nodded, smiling.
“Jeezoo, you’re the biggest!” Pepper blurted with awe.
“You held up the Sun Savings and Loan…”
“They still want you for cooling that guy and his doll…what was his name…that guy…?” Pepper mumbled.
The man supplied a name. “Marty Jukovsky?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the guy. The big boy in the numbers racket downtown!” Pepper stared back at the man with open-mouthed admiration. “They got that hood that paid you to knock Jukovsky off. y’know,” Pepper informed the shadowy bulk that was Topper Kalish.
“He told ’em you got twenty-five grand to do the job! Gee, you’re the biggest!”
“That’s the trouble,” Kalish sucked on a tooth. “That’s why I’m walking around down here. I can’t find a good place to stash the dough till I can come get it. I’m hot, now. I have to cool off where the cops can’t find me.
“Then you two tried to roll me. That was the real finishing touch!” He started to laugh, rocking back and forth, still hugging his knees.
“Crineoutloud, Mr. Kalish,” Tony said, embarrassed, “we’re awful sorry we jumped ya. If we’d of known who you was, we’d of never…”
“Forget it.” Kalish waved the apology away. “I think it’s one of the luckiest things ever happened to me.”
“But…”
“I said forget it. I like you two. You fit into a thought I been having the last few days, while I’ve been looking for a place to hide out.” He paused and removed his hat. Setting it beside him on the grass, he rubbed the back of his neck as though he were overcome with weariness.
“What’s that? What you been thinking?” Tony asked anxiously.
Pepper nudged the curly-haired boy in the ribs. “Why don’t you stop flappin’ your lips. Let him tell us if he wants to. This ain’t some poolroom flunky—this is Mr. Kalish! So shut up for a change!” His face had darkened with anger, but the shadows of the evening hid the change in expression.
“No, that’s okay,” Kalish said magnanimously, “I want to tell you kids because I think you might be the answer.
“You see, I’m pretty hot, and there ain’t nobody that will work with me. They’re all scared. I been thinking the last couple days, why not bring a couple boys up from the ground. You know, train them—make them my apprentices. I could teach a couple boys a helluva lot about this business.” He stopped again, looking at them meaningfully.
As he had spoken, their faces had come alive with excitement.
“Interested?” Kalish asked.
“Interested! Interested?” Pepper blurted. “Are you kiddin’? You bet your life we are! Hey, that would really be somethin’! To work with Topper Kalish! Geezoo!”
“You kids haven’t got no ties—no folks that’ll start lookin’ for ya if you were to go away—have you?” Kalish inquired.
Pepper snorted a half-laugh. “Me? Nothin’ but a rummy old man that’ll be dead before winter anyhow. I’m free.”
They looked at Tony.
“Well…” he began, slowly, “…I dunno. My old lady don’t worry about me a helluva lot, but she might…if I was to go away…”
Pepper nudged him again. “You can do it, Tony. Your old lady’s too busy tryin’ to get your sister a husband.” He added in an undertone, “When she ain’t gettin’ layed by the milkman or the buyer from the Woolworth’s.”
“Listen! You just watch your goddam mouth, you lousy…! He cut himself short, and lunged across at Pepper. The other boy countered quickly and slapped Tony hard across the mouth.
They were about to go at it when the man dragged them apart with a half-snarl. “Can it! Or I got to look for two other kids. I don’t want no fighting between you. Understand?”
They nodded, sullenly. Tony’s face came up with a fierce expression on it. “I don’t give a dam what he says!” He jerked a thumb in Pepper’s direction. “But my old lady ain’t been doing nothin’ but tryin’ to get the cops to put me away anyhow.
??
?No, I ain’t got nothin’ to worry about if I leave.” He glared at Pepper momentarily, then looked down at his hands.
“Okay, then.” Kalish smiled. “Here’s the idea…”
They sat and talked for another hour, till the park cop came around to tell them the park was being emptied. Kalish turned his face toward the Hudson, quickly, till the cop passed into the dusk, to the next group of people.
“The parks always empty out after ten,” Pepper said. “It keeps the muggers away.” He grinned wolfishly.
“Come on,” Kalish said, “let’s find a place for me to hide out. I want to talk some more to you boys. I feel like you’re my own kids already. I’m sure we can hit it off.”
“Where away?” Pepper asked.
“I know a joint up on a Hundred-and-Fourteenth where they don’t give a damn who you are, long’s you got the dough for a room. You can do any goddam thing you want in there if you don’t burn the joint down,” Tony said quickly.
Kalish nodded. “That sounds like the joint. Let’s roll.”
They got up, brushing dirt and grass from their pants. Kalish walked off, up the slope, the two admiring boys a step behind him, excitement in their eyes.
It was a short walk to Kalish’s car.
The next two months with Topper Kalish were an education for Tony and Pepper.
Kalish had at one time been the chief triggerman for the Combine. He had been turned out a few years back because his face and gun were too well known. That he had not been killed was a testimony to the perfection of his past services.
Kalish had gone out on his own, and the trigger business was bigger than ever. He had even branched out on his own into armed robbery and small-job heists.
He was a craftsman, and did a job right. Except for the method he used. It was too rough for most of the New York gangs. No one wanted Topper Kalish working with them. He was a brutal man, receiving an almost fantastic pleasure from inflicting pain on anyone he robbed or killed.
The boys had been with Topper two months, before he scheduled them to come with him on a really big job. They had lived in the furnished room on 114th Street, and gone out with him only once or twice.
They had seen Kalish in action only once, and tonight was going to be a big night!
They remembered the first time they’d seen Topper work.
He had needed some quick cash. The money from the Jukovsky slaying was too hot—too many big bills. He needed quick money. He had taken a bar over the ropes to the tune of eight hundred bucks.
“Bars ain’t the easiest joints to lift,” Pepper had said warily. They were in Kalish’s car, parked two doors down from George and Lenny’s Bar & Grill.
“Watch me,” Kalish had replied, shoving the .32 into his waistband.
He had gotten out of the car, and walked into the bar, the boys following behind. They had taken a table close to the front door, while Topper had walked to the bar.
The bartender, a heavy and bald man with protruding ears, had smiled up, and Topper had asked him, “Are you George or Lenny?”
“I’m Freddy—I only work here.” The big man had begun to turn away, just as Topper had whipped out the gun, covered by his other hand, and said, low so no one but the barkeep could hear: “Well, George, Lenny or Freddy—I don’t give a damn which—walk real slow over to that register and take out every last bill. Bring it back here real quick, or I might decide to smear your face across that backbar mirror with this.” He had jiggled the gun, and the boys had smiled as they saw the big man’s face slide to deathly white.
But he didn’t flicker an eyelid. He had turned and walked to the cash register. He had punched the “No Sale” button and as the drawer banged open, had reached in.
Kalish had leaped onto the barstool, and one-armed over the counter, firing as he vaulted. The bullet had caught the bartender under the right eye and—as Topper had warned—plastered the back of the man’s head across the mirror wetly. The body had sagged out of sight as Topper had scooped up the money in the till and leaped back across the bar.
So quickly had Topper moved, that people sitting right in front of the bartender as his pulpy body had dropped in the duckboards, had not realized what was happening. By the time they were yelling and dropping onto the floor, the women were screaming, the drinks and stools were overturned, Topper had been halfway to the front door, the boys already in the car and revving the motor.
They had been around the corner and disappeared before the front door of the bar had erupted people, screaming, “Cop! Cop! Call the cops! Robbery! Murder!”
It had been eight hundred bucks. That fast.
The boys had been impressed by the sureness and authority in Topper’s movements.
That was why tonight was big to them. Tonight they were going to help Topper Kalish on his big job. They had listened to what he had said, and now they were more than ready.
Topper had given each of them a gun, a smooth and loaded .32, and they were prepared to study—if not assist—the way Topper Kalish earned his living.
Topper’s inconspicious grey Ford cruised crosstown on 110th, traveling well within the speed limit. “You boys remember everything I told you?”
“We learn fast, Topper,” Pepper said.
“Where we hitting tonight?” Tony asked, matter-of-factly.
“A candy store,” Topper answered, his even, white grin spreading. He massaged the steering wheel.
Tony, in the back seat, let out a startled, “What?” His voice registered amazement. “A candy store?”
“That’s right,” Topper answered, cutting off a cab at the light. The motor idled, and Topper looked back quickly at the confused Tony. “A candy store. Haven’t you ever been in a candy store?”
The light turned, and Topper accelerated rapidly. “Sure, sure. We been in a candy store, Topper,” Tony said, still bewildered, “but why you want to hold up a…?”
“The front is a candy store,” Topper cut him off. “The rear is a floating crap game that doesn’t float a helluva lot A Mrs. Chaplin and her old man run the place up front and get a cut off the game in the back. I used to sit in and make a few bucks there; tonight I’m gonna make more than a few.
“I got word there’s a big set-to running this evening. A couple of big boys from out of town with wads.” He made a circle with thumb and forefinger, waggled it beside his head. “A sure thing.
“What do we do?” Pepper asked quietly.
“You just sit in the car, and keep the motor hot Any cops come on the picture, you cool them off proper. That’s what you got rods for. Okay?”
“Okay, Topper.”
Pepper said softly, “We’ll take care of everything.”
They could see into the shop clearly. The evening was a summery lightness, and the wide door and window of the candy store afforded them a straight view. They could, in fact, almost hear what was being said. It wasn’t a very busy block, this time of the evening.
Topper walked in, and bought a pack of cigarettes. Then he leaned across the counter, talking to the old woman, who nodded and bobbed her head in answer to his questions. Topper jerked a thumb toward the door set into the back wall of the candy shop, and the woman shook her head with vehemence.
“Ain’t he the greatest!” Pepper admired him from the car.
“Yeah. He’s really something,” Tony agreed with pride.
Topper made hand movements the boys were certain meant he wanted into the back room. But the old woman was firm. She was a wrinkled thing, almost prune like, with stringy, dirty white hair falling down to her shoulders. She shook the wrinkled head on the wrinkled neck. Not and called out, loud enough so the boys could hear, Sigmund! Sigmund! Come here, qvick!”
The back door opened, and an old man, equally as wrinkled as the old woman, nut-brown and hunched over, limped out.
Abruptly, before the old man could shut the door, Topper had his gun out. He gripped it by the barrel and charged the old man.
The old man fell b
ack, the door slamming shut, a look of terror on his face, as Topper smashed into him. They heard Topper give a short, sharp laugh as he smashed the gun’s butt across the old man’s face. The man screamed, and Topper hit him again, harder. The old man’s face seemed to fly apart under the viciousness of Topper’s blows.
They could hear Topper chuckling as though he were enjoying himself. The old man collapsed across a rack of paperback novels and fell to the floor, dragging the rack with him. Topper raised one foot.
The old woman screamed again and again. Shrilly.
She seemed unable to drag her eyes off the beaten mess on the floor. Her eyes were wide, and she dug her blunt fingers into the loose folds of her face, the terror streaming across her features.
“Ain’t he something!” Tony said, with ill-concealed good humor.
“Really someth…” The words were sliced off suddenly. He looked down the block. A cop was running from the corner, drawn by the old woman’s screams.
“Cop,” Tony said, quietly opening the door on his side.
“Yeah…cop,” Pepper whispered, getting out.
They walked away from the car quickly, to the opposite curb, stepping swiftly into the shadows of a doorway.
They still watched Topper in the store, and the running cop, coming on fast.
“Looks like the cop’ll take him, doesn’t it?” Pepper said.
“Suppose so.”
“We were supposed to take care of cops, you know,” Pepper said seriously.
“Think we should?” Tony said, making no move from the doorway.
“Ain’t that Topper something!” replied Pepper, ignoring Tony’s question.
The woman was crying hysterically, trying to climb out from behind the counter, over a soft drink cooler. Calmly, and with deliberation, Topper took aim and put three shots into her. The first two were calculated to cripple her, which they did; they caught her in the hip, as she struggled to the top of the cooler. Brittle old bones shattered, and with a scream she fell across, tumbling onto the floor. The third shot was a clean one into the face.
Topper turned toward the back door, which was coming open. Men in shirtsleeves appeared in the doorway, and Topper dumped two more bullets in their direction, sending one man slipping through, clutching his shoulder.