I
MOE GLEB flicked a fried egg on to his plate, added two thick rashers of ham, dropped the hissing fry-pan into the sink and carried the plate to the table.
He was a thickset, undersized youth with a mop of sandy-coloured hair. His small, heart-shaped face was as white as fresh mutton fat; his small, deep-set eyes, his pinched thin mouth were hard and vicious. He looked what he was: a young hoodlum fighting with no holds barred to get into the money, as dangerous and as savage as a treed wild cat.
He sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of coffee, and began to eat ravenously.
From the window, Peter Weiner watched him.
“For cryin’ out loud!” Moe snarled, looking up suddenly. “Wadjer starin’ at? Ain’t yuh seen a guy eat before?”
“I was admiring your appetite,” Pete said quietly. “You’ve eaten twelve eggs and two pounds of ham since nine o’clock last night.”
“So wad? I gotta do somethin’ while we wait, ain’t I? Why the hell don’t yuh eat?”
Pete shrugged.
“I guess I’m not hungry. How much longer do you think we’ve got to wait like this?”
Moe eyed him; a sudden shrewd expression crossed his face.
This guy was queer, he was thinking. Not that he could blame him. If he had that port wine stain spread over his puss like Pete had, he’d be queer himself.
“Until that bum Louis sez we can go.” He shovelled ham into his mouth, chewed for a moment, reached for his coffee and took a long drink. “Wad gets up my bugle is why the hell yuh should be the guy to hit the frill. Why pick on yuh? Wad’s the matter wid me? I’ve hit scores of guys. Yuh ain’t hit any yet, have yuh?”
Pete shook his head.
“I’ve got to start some time.” He leaned forward and picked up Frances Coleman’s photograph and stared at it. “I wish it hadn’t to be her.”
“Jay-sus!” Moe said, grinning. “That’s right. I could do plenty to her without hittin’ her. Plenty!”
Pete stared at the photograph. The girl’s face had a queer effect on him. It wasn’t that she was so pretty; she was pretty, but not more than the average girl you saw around Pacific City. There was something in her eyes that moved him: an eager, joyous expression of someone who found life the most exciting adventure.
Moe watched him. He took in the neat grey flannel suit, the brown brogue shoes and the white shirt and neat blue and red stripe tie. The guy, Moe thought a little enviously, looked like a freshman from some swank college: he talked like one, too.
He couldn’t have been much older than Moe himself; around twenty-two or three. If it hadn’t been for the birth-mark, he would have been good-looking enough to get on the movies, Moe decided, but that stain would have put paid to the best-looking movie actor in the world: bad enough to haunt a house with. Moe told himself.
“Did Seigel say why we had to do this job, Moe?” Pete asked abruptly.
“I didn’t ask him. Yuh only ask that bum a question once, and then yuh go an’ buy yuhself a new set of teeth.” Moe poured himself more coffee. “It’s a job, see? Ain’t nothin’ to worry about. Yuh know how to do it, don’t yer?”
“Yes, I know,” Pete said, and a frozen, hard expression came over his face. As he stood in the light from the window, his eyes staring down into the street, Moe felt an uneasy twinge run through him. This guy could be tough, he told himself. Sort of crazy in the head. When he looked like that Moe didn’t like being in the same room with him.
Just then the telephone bell began to ring.
“I’ll get it,” Moe said, and dived out of the room to the pay booth in the passage.
Pete again looked at the photograph. He imagined how she would regard him when she saw him. That lively look of excitement and interest would drain out of her eyes and would be replaced by the flinching, slightly disgusted look all girls gave him when they came upon him, and he felt a cold hard knotting inside him; a sick rage that made the blood beat against his temples. This time he wouldn’t pretend not to notice the look; he wouldn’t have to force a smile and try to overcome the first impression she would have of him; not that he had ever succeeded in overcoming any first impression; they had never given him the chance.
As if he were some freak, some revolting object of pity, they would hurriedly look away, make some excuse — anything so long as they didn’t have to stay facing him, and she would do that, and when she did, he would kill her.
Moe charged back into the room.
“Come on! Let’s go! We’ve exactly half an hour to get there, do the job and get away, and the goddamn joint’s the other side of the town.”
Pete picked up a bundle of magazines, checked to make sure the three-inch, razor-sharp ice-pick was in its sheath under his coat, and followed Moe at a run down the dirty rickety stairs and out to the ancient Packard parked at the kerb.
Although it looked old, the Packard’s engine was almost as good as new under Moe’s skilful handling, and the car shot away from the kerb with a burst of speed that always surprised Pete.
“Here’s what we do,” Moe said, talking out of the side of his mouth. “I stay wid the heep and keep the engine running. Yuh ring the bell. If she comes to the door, give her the spiel about the magazines, and get her to invite yuh in. If someone else comes to the door, ask for her: Miss Coleman, see? Get her alone. Make out yer coy or something, see? Then give it to her. Hit her hard, and she won’t squeal. Then beat it. Use yer rod if yuh have to. Get back in the heep. We beat it to Wilcox an’ 14th Street and ditch the heep. Dutch’ll pick us up and take us to the club. We take a speed-boat to Reid Key an’ an airplane to Cuba.”
“Okay,” Pete said irritably. “I know all that by heart.”
“Yeah, so do I, but it don’t hurt to run over it again. The worse spot’ll be getting to the club. If we get there, it’s a cinch. Cuba! Gee! Yuh ever been to Cuba? I seen pictures of the dump. Terrific! And the women… !” He pursed his thin mouth and gave a shrill whistle. “Brother! Just wait until I get among those brown-skinned honies!”
Pete didn’t say anything. He was scarcely listening. He was thinking that he was at last approaching the climax of his life. For months now he had thought about this moment: the moment when he would take a life; when he would inflict on someone something worse than had been inflicted on him, and he felt the cold knot tighten inside him.
“This is it,” Moe said after five minutes’ driving. “Lennox Avenue. She’s staying with some frill called Bunty Boyd. I dunno wad yuh do about her. Hit her too if yuh have to.” He slowed down to a crawl and drove the car past a long row of four-storey houses. “There it is, across the way.” He swung the car across the road and pulled up. That’s the one; three houses up. I’ll wait here. I’ll have the heep movin’ towards yuh as yuh come out.”
Pete picked up his bundle of magazines, opened the car door and got out. He had a sick feeling inside him, and his hands felt like ice.
“Yuh okay?” Moe asked, staring at him through the car window. “This is important, Pete.”
“I’m okay,” Pete said. He looked at his wrist-watch. The time was two minutes past half-past ten. He had twenty-one minutes to do the job and get clear.
He walked quickly towards the house, emptying his mind of thought. It would be all right, he told himself, when he saw the look in her eyes. This sick feeling would go away then, and he would enjoy doing what he had come to do.
As he walked up the path that ran between two small lawns, he saw the curtain of one of the ground-floor windows move. He mounted the steps leading to the front door. There were four name-plates and four bells by the side of the door. As he read the name-plates and found Bunty Boyd’s apartment was on the second floor, he felt he was being watched, and he looked round sharply in time to see the curtain of the ground-floor window drop hurriedly into place and the dim shadow of a man move away.
Pete rang the second-floor apartment bell, opened the front door and walked across the small hall and climbed the stairs. As he reached the second floor he heard a radio playing swing music. He crossed the landing as the front door of the apartment jerked open.
He felt his mouth suddenly turn dry and his heart skip a beat, then he found himself looking at a blonde-haired girl, wearing a white beach frock, whose young, animated face had a chocolate-box prettiness. She came forward, smiling, but the moment she caught sight of his face she came to an abrupt standstill, and her eyes opened wide and her smile went away.
The look he had come to expect jumped into her eyes, and he knew then it would be all right. He felt a rising viciousness inside him that left him a little breathless.
He forced himself to smile and said in his quiet, gentle voice, Is Miss Coleman in, please?”
“Have — have you come to see Frankie?” the girl asked. “Oh! Then you — you must be Burt Stevens. She won’t be a minute. Will you wait just a moment?” She spun around on her heels and ran back into the apartment before he could speak.
He stood waiting, his hand inside his coat, his fingers around the plastic handle of the ice-pick. If she came out on to the landing, he could do it at once. It would be easier and safer than doing it inside where the other girl might not leave them alone. A cold anger and an overpowering desire to inflict pain and fear gripped him.
Through the half-open door he heard Bunty say in a dramatic whisper, “But he’s awful! You can’t go with him, Frankie! You simply can’t!”
He waited, his heart pounding, blood beating against his temples. Then the door opened, and she came out on to the sunlit landing.
She might have stepped out of her photograph, except she was smaller than he had imagined. She had a beautiful little figure that not even the severe pale blue linen dress could conceal. Her dark silky hair rested on her shoulders. Her smile was bright and sincere, and there was that look in her eyes that had had such an effect on him when he had seen her picture for the first time.
Her fresh young beauty paralyzed him, and he waited for her smile to fade and for disgust to come into her eyes, and his fingers tightened on the ice-pick.
But the smile didn’t fade; pleasure lit up her face as if she were really happy to see him. He stood there, staring at her, waiting for the change, and not believing it wouldn’t come.
“You must be Burt,” she said, coming to him and holding out her hand. “Terry said you were going to take his place. It’s sweet of you to have come at the last moment. I should have been sunk if you hadn’t come. I’ve been looking forward to this for days.”
His hand came out from inside his coat, leaving the ice-pick in its sheath. He felt her cool fingers slide into his hand and he looked down at her, watching her, waiting for the change, and then suddenly realizing with a sense of shock that it wasn’t coming.