Murder Me for Nickels Page 8

  “What trouble?”

  “Beatings. That kind of thing.”

  “Benotti showed?”

  “Nobody showed, which is why the fight, Mister Lippit said.”

  I said okay and hung up. I had told this to Lippit, how the natives were restless, but horsing around in the swimming pool had been more important, so now Sahib Lippit had to look into the unrest himself. I got dressed fast to see how he was doing.

  It looked much the same in the bar at Alder and Liberty. The cat was on the jukebox. Actually, that’s as far as it went with the similarity.

  None of the apes was trying to play cards. They were standing around. There wasn’t even one drinker at the bar and all the barstools were turned over. A lot of the bottles in back of the bar had rolled over and broken their little necks. The bartender had a mouse under one eye but nobody paid any attention to him.

  The big one stood at the jukebox, like before, and Lippit stood in the same place where I had been standing for the earlier argument. This argument though, was different. “Yes, sir,” said the big one to Lippit.

  “And I don’t give one damn,” Lippit was yelling, “what you think is a good reason to blow your stack.”

  “Yessir, Mister Lippit. Only this one here,” and he looked at the bartender, “says not to hang around any more and to get out. And that’s not what Folsom explained to us.”

  “He explain to you what you got hired for? And don’t yessir me again.”

  “He did, sir.”

  “You’re to beat up the opposition, not the customers!”

  “Folsom was here and I explained to him how things were going. About this one here saying we should get out.”

  “So he said to break up the joint?”

  “He said, keep him in line. Didn’t he say keep him in line?” and the big one looked at his pack mates.

  They all said, yessir, he said keep him in line.

  “You mean to tell me, you son of a bitch,” Lippit was yelling, “you just did your duty?”

  “Yessir.”

  “You had too goddamn much fun to be doing your duty!”

  “I don’t like you to be calling me no son of a bitch, Mister Lippit,” said the big one.

  He wasn’t using the same tone of voice he had been using with me. So it wasn’t that. But Lippit has a completely different boiling point than mine, and even an alien chemistry in the brain. Everything he did made sure sense to him, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.

  “When I’m done,” he roared, “I want everybody to get out of here quiet as a mouse!”

  “Yessir.”

  “And I want you mice to take that mouse here with you, when I’m done!”

  He then proceeded to get done.

  The ape was bigger but Lippit was better. He swung at the other one’s head but didn’t bother to connect. He did make a connection with the solar plexus. The ape said, “Whoof.”

  But the whoof seemed to be the only damage because the big one hauled out immediately and got into a crouch. Maybe he had been a boxer some time ago. He took that kind of stance. Except his swing spoiled it. The swing opened him up again and Lippit didn’t seem to care whether or not he got hit. He walked in there and flicked at an eye. This put him too close for any real damage.

  The swing curled up around the back of his head, and the only problem for Lippit was to get his distance again.

  This was a problem because the ape held on.

  Hit the ribs? Muscle. Hit the kidneys? Muscle. Hit the head? Break your knuckles.

  Lippit solved this by ducking his head. He ducked it right into the big one’s nose. But before the other one thought of letting go, Lippit had to do this thing several times. It went wham, wham, wham, and then squish.

  The big one let go just enough for another type grip-maybe he had also been a groaner at some time-but that was enough for Lippit. Lippit liked distance for his style. He got his distance by slamming his hands on the ears of the other one. Open hands. They make a tremendous racket inside the head, and if it does not break the eardrum, it at least feels like it.

  To the ape it suddenly felt as if there was a great space inside his head after all, hollow maybe, but a space with room for the racket to roll around.

  While this went on inside, Lippit commenced work on the outside.

  He kept worrying the other one’s eye. He himself caught a rocker high on the arm-I thought for a while he’d go lame there for the rest of the fight-and he caught a very solid jolt square in the chest. This winded him.

  But he didn’t need much wind for the jabs he was placing. I had seen Lippit fight once before, but he didn’t place a thing on that occasion, only plowed each time. That was how he preferred it. This time he didn’t plow, he just jabbed. The ape’s eye closed and his nose bled and the way he didn’t worry about his guard any more, his face must have been getting anesthetized. He still had plenty of wind but he couldn’t see so well. He hit the top of Lippit’s head, the side of his shoulder and his forearm a few times. He threw several roundhouses, but they just whistled.

  There were three of those. Each time Lippit let it go by, and answered with one of his jabs. The way he kept worrying the big one, he interfered with his breathing. Each time the ape tried to take a big breath, Lippit jabbed him.

  This happened three times. At the end of the third time the big one was rasping for breath, blind with blood and his strangled rage, and careless.

  He stumbled back and Lippit finished him. He just plowed into his head, then close under the other’s basket, on the head again, and then on the tip of the chin.

  The last made a crash when it connected; it made a crash when the ape fell.

  He was a great mess and spread out on the floor.

  “All right,” said Lippit He was plenty winded but still plenty loud. “Like I said. You mice, you take this mouse, and you scoot outa here, willynilly.”

  They did and Lippit leaned on the bar. He was breathing hard.

  “It was that last lap in the pool,” I said to him.

  “Shut up, will you?” he spat on the floor. “Gimme a drink,” he said to the bartender.

  “Yessir.”

  “Don’t you start that now!”

  Then he flipped down that drink and right away had another.

  “Lousy mess,” he said. “And it wasn’t even Benotti.”

  “Yessir,” I said.

  Lippit almost choked but then he just spat on the floor again.

  “Got to keep order,” he said. “Can’t have some animal taking over.”

  Then he had a big glass of water.

  “I better find Folsom,” I said.

  Lippit slammed down the glass, wiped his mouth, hitched his pants around.

  “You take the section north of Liberty, and I’ll look south.”

  “What’ll I do with him, if I find him?”

  “Tell him I want to see him. Tell him what just happened here to his zoo. And if he’s got any back talk in mind, just use your own judgment.”

  “May I use your example?”

  “Don’t overreach yourself, Jack.”

  “I’ll take it easy. What with the walking I did, back and forth alongside that pool…”

  “Don’t drop any third socks,” he said. I left.

  While I was looking for Folsom I found something else. Two bars were closed and three ice cream places. The machines make a lot of coin in the ice cream places. They were all closed because of the rumble in the neighborhood. Lippit would be wild about this piece of information. Or maybe he knew about it already. South of Liberty isn’t much different from north of Liberty.

  I’m a conservative driver. That is, I like to drive fast but I rarely do where there’s law around. So it was a shock when I got stopped by a cruiser which rolled up next to me after a perfectly legal turn. Pull over, stop, look out of the window, surprised and eager. That’s the formula. Next, weary cop, hitching pants, pulling pencil, face cool and legal.

  I did my
part but the cop didn’t do his. First of all, he wasn’t a patrolman. He was a captain. Secondly, he didn’t hitch pants, look weary, act legal, or any of that He looked annoyed.

  “You’re St. Louis, aren’t you?”

  I nodded and got out my driver’s license.

  “Never mind that. Mazullo here says you’re St. Louis.”

  He nodded at the patrolman who sat in the car.

  “I know him from around the neighborhood,” I said.

  “He says you should know.”

  “Know what, Captain?”

  “What goes on! What goes on here, for chrissakes?”

  I looked around, as if confused, which was the wrong thing to do. He wanted to know what the rumble was and I wasn’t being intelligent about it.

  “What’s this jukebox crap around here, St. Louis? And don’t act more stupid than you are.”

  “The reason I’m here,” I said, “is to find out. Really.”

  He thought that was reasonable. He pecked away a little while longer with this question and that-he knew Benotti’s name, Lippit’s, a little about the competition-and then he became reasonable, too.

  “This is nothing official, just a straight piece of cooperation. Either you or that Lippit,” he said, “come down to the station. Come down today, anytime before five, and we’ll talk like normal people. Main station.”

  I said, “Yes, Captain,” and let him drive away first.

  Lippit was going to be wild about this one. Now the cops were interested, before anything had even happened. Once the pay-off play came, they would be watching from the grandstand. The Lippit Plan, the One-Two Plan, was going one-two all the time, but with a sound like a limp.

  I found Folsom about ten minutes later. At first, making the rounds, I found nothing. Then I found a small crowd in front of a candy store. We had a jukebox in there because in back of the candy store were a few chairs and tables where the kids would sit and have pop or sodas.

  I walked into the candy store, which was long and narrow so that I did not get the whole scene all at once. It turned out very ugly. I saw the cop first, with his back turned to me, and angry He was the same captain who had stopped me a short while ago. Then there was Folsom with his scary leather jacket and with a look on his face as if he knew only innocence. His three goons stood behind him. Behind the candy counter was the young man who owned the store, and he was holding a baby on his arm. He had one hand on the baby’s back and gave it a small stroke every so often. He kept his face blank as he looked at the captain.

  “And if it weren’t for that baby there,” the captain was shouting, “I’d haul you in right this second and explain later!”

  “Yessir,” said the young man.

  He stroked the baby’s back and I could see that he wished the captain would go. But the captain was not through being angry. He may well have been angry with himself for shouting like this, angry about cruising the neighborhood and learning nothing, because his loudness now was that much out of proportion.

  “When you call us in for help, we expect to come in for help, not a runaround!”

  “Yessir,” said the proprietor.

  “You don’t call the police and, when they show up, you grin like an idiot and tell them it was all a mistake!”

  “Yessir.”

  “But it was,” said Folsom. “Just the way we explained it. We come in to buy candy, the guy doesn’t show…”

  “I was diapering,” said the young man with the baby.

  “… so Gus goes behind the counter to pick out what we want. You know. Just pick it out and leave the change.”

  “That’s right,” said the young man with the baby. “And when I came into the store and saw that man there, this side of the counter, I saw that and just lost my head. Really. I’m sorry.”

  The captain just breathed, because every time he wanted to say something he changed his mind and swallowed it. Everybody looked so innocent and everything felt so wrong.

  “You just have to say the word,” he said quietly, “and I haul them in.”

  “No, sir,” said the young man. “I’m sorry.”

  The captain turned and saw me. He stopped, looked surprised, and then mean.

  “You come in here for some candy, too?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “That’s one of your machines, isn’t it?”

  “It might be. I’d have to look it up on the roster. I don’t…”

  “And you don’t happen to know those three animals there and their keeper.”

  “No, Captain.”

  He nodded and bit his lip. He was feeling like hell in his uniform. Right that moment, I was sure, he would have liked to have been just a plain, irresponsible civilian.

  “Did I say five o’clock, St. Louis?”

  “That you did, Captain.”

  “Make that three o’clock, St Louis. And at one minute past I write out a warrant, get me?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He left. When he left, the knot of kids in front of the store left too.

  It was quiet in the store, but not peaceful. The three men with Folsom didn’t say anything. They were waiting to be told. Folsom hitched his jacket around, as if it was too tight in the shoulders. He wasn’t quite sure about what I might be thinking. The young man with the baby thought I was a bastard. And the baby looked at me.

  I myself was in very keen shape. No sleep, no Benotti, our own apes out of hand. Not to mention the cops. I looked at all the pretty candy and wondered how I could ever have liked the stuff.

  “Haha,” went Folsom.

  It was strictly a stage laugh, but it fit. We were all lying.

  “Saved yourself a lot of grief there,” he said to the young man.

  The young man looked at me and it showed how disgusted he was.

  “And now to what we were talking about,” said Folsom.

  “What was it?” I asked the young man.

  He started rocking the baby up and down and wouldn’t answer.

  “He,” said Folsom, “is one of the creeps around here what’s worried about us and Benotti. So I was trying to clarify him. Explain, is what I mean, whom to worry about.”

  “You mean you.”

  “Sure. Us.”

  “I want out,” said the young man. “I don’t need that jukebox so much I’m going to get caught in the middle of something, something between one greedy gang and another.”

  For a moment he had gotten his spunk back, but then, with all of us standing there, he stopped himself and got sullen again.

  “I didn’t used to think that way, about you, Mister St. Louis. You know that.”

  Old Home Week, and how we used to feel about each other. I felt edgy and nervous and wished the baby would look someplace else. Folsom laughed his laugh again. Then he stopped and said, “You gonna take that, St. Louis?”

  “No.”

  As far as Folsom was concerned, this cleared the air. He grinned at me, he grinned at his men. Then he leaned his arms on the counter and watched the one he had called Gus walk behind the counter. Gus went there quite slowly, punched a button on the cash register. The drawer jumped open and Gus took out a quarter. He went back around and put the quarter into the jukebox. He punched three songs.

  “Now,” said Folsom. “I’m going to ask you once more, feller.”

  “Wait just a minute.” I nodded at Folsom and waited till he came up close. I put my hand on his shoulder and got my head close to his, so that we talked secrets the way they do at the football game.

  “The cop,” I said. “He the first one you ran into?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  He liked the whispering. It made him feel like we were two heads of state.

  “He’s the second one I’ve seen. They were cruising near Baker Avenue too.”

  “Bastards.” He said it as if he were thinking about it.

  “What do you think we should do?” I asked him.

  “Do?” Then he caught himself. After
all, this was the role like in a big dream. “We stay right where we are!”

  “Naturally.”

  “Or else jerks like this one,” and he looked toward the counter, “are gonna lose all respect. What I’ve been doing all morning, as long as nothing showed from Benotti, what I’ve been doing is going around, place to place…”

  “And made them show respect.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Fine, Folsom. But I wouldn’t want the cops interfering with that.”

  “You’re damn right we don’t want…”

  “Only thing is, with all these goons of yours all over the neighborhood, they’re going to keep hanging around. Like that captain.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

  “And for the job you’re doing, Folsom, like the thing here, for that you don’t need the cops hanging around and you certainly don’t need an army of goons. Just you walking in like this, that’s all what’s needed. That’s what I think.”

  “Huh?”

  “You put some respect into these jerks, Folsom, not because you got the goons, but because it’s you walking in, right?”

  He took a slow breath, turned his head slowly to look at the young man with the baby. Then Folsom let out his breath, slowly again, as if he were spreading a large cloud of disdain. He turned back to me and mumbled close to my ear.

  “I guess you’re right. Damn right.”

  “So what do you think we should do?”

  “Huh?”

  “About the cops getting baited in here, and maybe queering your work.”

  “Yeah. Send ‘em home. Send all those idle goons home, is what I say.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder and nodded. It was a nod of respect and a nod which conveyed acceptance of wisdom.

  “I’ll phone,” he said.

  “No. You’ve got to send a man. Much more important that way. Much more the right style.”

  “Gus!” he said and turned around. “Put that candy back in there.”

  Gus put the candy back into the jar. He put it into the wrong jar, mixing the red ones with the yellow ones.

  “Come here,” said Folsom.

  Gus came over and I said, “May I tell him?”

  “Go ahead,” said Folsom.

  “Gus,” I said, “go over to Morry’s place where the guys are waiting and tell them to blow.”