At the edge of the alleyway facing Vernon Street, a gray cat waited for a large rat to emerge from its hiding place. The rat had scurried through a gap in the wall of the wooden shack, and the cat was inspecting all the narrow gaps and wondering how the rat had managed to squeeze itself in. In the sticky darkness of a July midnight the cat waited there for more than a half hour. As it walked away, it left its paw prints in the dried blood of a girl who had died here in the alley some seven months ago.
Some moments passed and it was quiet in the alley. Then there was a sound of a man’s footsteps coming slowly along Vernon Street. And presently the man entered the alley and stood motionless in the moonlight. He was looking down at the dried bloodstains.
The man’s name was William Kerrigan and he was the brother of the girl who had died here in the alley. He never liked to visit this place and it was more on the order of a habit he wished he could break. Lately he’d been coming here night after night. He wondered what made him do it. At times he had the feeling it was vaguely connected with guilt, as though in some indirect way he’d failed to prevent her death. But in more rational moments he knew that his sister had died simply because she wanted to die. The bloodstains were caused by a rusty blade that she’d used on her own throat.
At the time it had happened, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital ward. He was a stevedore, and on the docks a large crate had slipped off its mooring and hit him hard, breaking both his legs. During his third week in the hospital he was told of his sister’s suicide.
It was definitely a case of suicide but the circumstances were rather unusual and the authorities decided on a post-mortem examination. They discovered she’d been raped, and the assault had deprived her of virginity. They concluded that she couldn’t bear the shock, the shame, and in a fit of despair decided to take her own life.
There were no clues to indicate who had assaulted her. It was the kind of neighborhood where the number of suspects would be limitless. A few were hauled in, questioned, and released. And that was as far as it went.
Seven months ago, Kerrigan was thinking. He stood there looking down at the bloodstains. Attempts had been made to wash them away, and summer rains had thinned them a lot, but the dried red blotches were now a part of the alley paving, stains that couldn’t be erased. The moonlight poured on them and made them glisten.
Kerrigan lowered his head. He shut his eyes tightly. His mood was a mixture of sorrow and futile anger. He wondered if the anger would ever find its target. His eyes opened again and he saw the red stains and it was like seeing a permanent question mark.
He sighed heavily. He was a large man, with the accent more on width than on height. He had it mostly in the shoulders, and it amounted to a powerful build composed of hard muscle, two hundred pounds of it, standing five feet ten. His hair was black and thick and combed straight, and he had blue eyes and a nose that had been broken twice but was still in line with the rest of his face. On the left side of his forehead, slanting down toward his cheek, there was a deep jagged scar from an encounter on the docks when someone had used brass knuckles. On the other side, near the corner of his mouth, there was another ridge of healed flesh, from someone’s knife. The scars were not at all unique, just a couple of badges that signified he lived on Vernon Street and worked on the docks. Just a stevedore, thirty-five years old, standing here in the dark alley and thinking of a dead girl named Catherine.
He was saying to himself, She had the real quality, straight as they come, and it adds up to a goddamn pity, but you gotta give her credit for what she was, she was born and raised on this street of bums and gin hounds, winos and hopheads, and yet with all that filth around her, she managed to stay clean, through all the twenty-three years of her life.
He sighed and shook his head slowly and started out of the alley. Just then someone called his name and he turned and saw the torn and colorless polo shirt, the slacks that couldn’t be patched any more. He saw the sunken-cheeked cadaver, the living waste of time and effort that added up to the face and body of his younger brother.
He said, “Hello, Frank.”
“I been lookin’ for you.”
“For what?” But he already knew. One look at Frank’s face and he could tell. He could always tell.
Frank shrugged. “Cash.”
He was anxious to get rid of Frank. He said, “How much you need?”
“Fifty dollars.”
Kerrigan smiled wryly. “Make it fifty cents.”
Frank shrugged again. “All right. That oughta do it.” He accepted the silver coin, hefted it in his palm, then slipped it into his trouser pocket. He was twenty-nine. Most of his hair was white. His daily diet consisted largely of five-cent chocolate bars and slot-machine peanuts and as much alcohol as he could pour down his throat. He was fairly gifted at cards and dice and cue sticks, although he’d failed miserably as a purse-snatcher. They hadn’t sent him up for it, they’d merely hauled him into a back room at the station house and beat the daylights out of him, and after that he’d stayed away from petty theft. But he was nevertheless proud of his criminal record and he liked to talk about the big operations he’d handle someday, the important deals and transactions he’d manipulate and the territories he’d cover. A long time ago Kerrigan had given up hope that Frank would ever be anything but a booze hound and a corner bum.
“Got a spare weed?” Frank asked.
Kerrigan took out a pack of cigarettes. He gave one to Frank, put one in his own mouth, and struck a match.
He noticed that Frank was gazing past him, the watery eyes aiming down through the darkness of the alley. Frank’s expression was thoughtful, then probing, and finally Frank murmured, “You come here often?”
“Now and then.”
Frank’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I’m not sure. I wish I knew.”
Frank was quiet for some moments, then he said, “She was a good kid.”
Kerrigan nodded.
“One hell of a good kid,” Frank said. He took a long drag at the cigarette. He let the smoke come out, and then he added, “Too good for this world.”
Kerrigan’s smile was gentle. “You know it too?”
They were looking at each other. Frank’s face was expressionless. Then his lips twitched and he blinked several times. It seemed he was about to say something. He clamped his mouth tightly to hold it back. The cords of his throat moved spasmodically as he swallowed the unspoken words.
Kerrigan frowned slightly. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“You look nervous.”
“I’m always nervous,” Frank said.
“Loosen up,” Kerrigan suggested. “Nobody’s chasing you.”
Frank jerked the cigarette up to his mouth and took a quick draw and bit off some shreds of tobacco and spat them out. He looked off to one side. “Why should anybody chase me?”
“No reason at all,” Kerrigan said easily. But inside he felt himself stiffening a little. “That is, unless you’ve done something.”
Frank took a deep breath. He seemed to be staring at nothing. His lips scarcely moved as he said, “Like what?”
“Don’t ask me. I don’t keep tabs on you.”
“You sure you don’t?”
“Why should I? You’re old enough to look out for yourself.”
“I’m glad you know that,” Frank said. He straightened his shoulders, trying to look cold and hard. But his lips were twitching, and he went on blinking. He took another conclusive drag at the cigarette and said, “See you later.”
Kerrigan watched him as he walked away, crossing the cobbled surface of Vernon Street and heading toward the taproom on the corner of Third and Vernon. The name of the place was Dugan’s Den and it was the only dive in the neighborhood that sold legitimate liquor. All the other joints were in the back rooms of wooden shacks or in the cellars of tenements. Most of the alcohol sold along Vernon Street was homemade and the authorities had long ago given up trying to catch all the bootleggers. Every once in a while there’d be a raid, but it didn’t mean anything. They never kept them locked up for long. Just long enough to let them know that payoffs had to be made on time. So a few days later they’d be back in business at the same old stand.
He stood there at the edge of the alleyway and watched the scarecrow figure of his brother moving toward the murky windows of Dugan’s Den. When the fifty cents was used up, Frank would hang around Dugan’s and beg for drinks, or maybe he’d steal some loose change off the bar and make tracks for the nearest establishment where twenty cents would bring him a water glass filled with rotgut. But there was no point in worrying about Frank.
There was no point in even thinking about Frank. It was a damn shame about Frank, but then, it was a damn shame about a lot of people.
Approaching voices interrupted his thoughts. He looked up and saw the two men. He recognized Mooney, the sign painter. The other man was a construction laborer named Nick Andros. They came up smiling and saying hello, and he nodded amiably. They were men of his own age and he’d known them all his life.
“What’s doing?” Nick greeted him.
“Nothing special.”
“Looking for action?” Nick asked. He was short and very fat and had a beak of a nose. Totally bald, his polished skull shone in the glow from the street lamps and moonlight.
Kerrigan shook his head. “Just came out to get some air.”
“What air?” Mooney grumbled. “Thermometer says ninety-four. We might as well be in a blast furnace.”
“There’s a breeze coming from the river,” Kerrigan said.
“I’m glad you feel it,” Mooney said. “For supper I had a plate of ice. Just plain ice.”
“That only makes it worse,” Kerrigan said. “Try a lukewarm bath.”
“I’ll hafta try something,” Mooney said. “I can’t stand this goddamn weather.” He was a tall, solidly built man with sloping shoulders and a thick neck. His hair was carrot-colored and he had a lot of it and always kept it combed neatly, parted in the middle and slicked down. His skin was very pale, almost like the skin of an infant. Although he was thirty-six, there were no lines on his face, and his gray-green eyes were clear and bright, so that the only sign of his years was in his voice. He looked more or less like an overgrown boy. Actually he was a widely-traveled man who’d studied painting in Italy on a fellowship and had been hailed as an important discovery in the art circles of Europe. He’d come back to America to find that his water colors were acclaimed by the critics but ignored by the patrons. So he’d changed his style in an effort to make sales, and the critics roasted him and then forgot about him. Then everybody forgot about him. He returned to Vernon Street and started painting signs in order to eat. Sometimes when he was drunk he’d talk about his art career, and if he was terribly drunk he’d shout that he was planning another exhibition in the near future. But no matter how drunk he was, he never said nasty things about the critics and the collectors. He never said anything about them one way or another. His primary grudge was against the weather. He was always complaining about the weather.
Nick was laughing. “You shoulda seen him eating the ice. He has a big block of ice on a plate and he’s biting it like it’s meat or something. He musta et up about ten pounds of ice.”
“That’s bad for you,” Kerrigan told Mooney. “You’ll ruin your stomach, doing that.”
“My stomach can take anything,” Mooney said. “Anything at all. If I can chew it, I can eat it. Last week in Dugan’s I won three dollars on a bet.”
“Doing what?” Kerrigan asked.
“Eating wood.”
Nick nodded. “He actually did it. I was there and I saw him bite the edge off a table and chew it up. Then he swallowed it, the whole mouthful, and he collected three dollars off the slummer.”
“Slummer?”
“The playboy,” Nick said.
“What playboy?”
“The playboy from uptown,” Nick said. “Haven’t you seen him?”
Kerrigan shook his head.
“Sure,” Nick said. “You musta seen him. He always comes to Dugan’s.”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I hardly ever go in there, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, anyway, he’s one of them playboys who likes to go slumming. One night about a year ago he walked into Dugan’s and now he’s one of the regulars. Comes in two, three times a week and drinks himself into a coma. But some nights he only has a few and then he goes out looking for kicks.” Nick shook his head solemnly. “A queer proposition if I ever saw one. I’ve watched him, the way he looks at a woman. Like he ain’t satisfied, no matter how much he gets.”
“Maybe he ain’t getting anything,” Mooney commented.
“Maybe,” Nick conceded. “But on the other hand, I think he knows how to operate. I got that impression when I offered to get him fixed up. It was something he said when he turned me down.”
Kerrigan looked at Nick. “What did he say?”
“He claimed it does nothing for him when he has to pay for it. Paying for it takes away the excitement.”
“Maybe he has something there,” Mooney said.
“He makes a lot of sense, the way he explains himself,” Nick went on. “I asked him if he was married and he said no, he’d tried it a couple times and it always bored him. I guess it’s a kind of ulcer in the head that gives him loony ideas.”
“You think he’s really sick that way?” Kerrigan murmured.
“Well, I’m not an expert in that line.”
“The hell you’re not,” Mooney said.
Nick looked at Mooney. Then he turned again to Kerrigan and said, “I guess most of us are sick with it, one way or another. There ain’t a man alive who don’t have a problem now and then.”
“Not me,” Mooney said. “I don’t have any problem.”
“You got a big problem,” Nick told Mooney.
“How come? I got no worries. There’s nothing on my mind at all.”
“That’s your problem,” Nick said.
Kerrigan was gazing past them. He said, “I wonder why he comes to Vernon Street.”
“Hard to figure,” Nick said. “Lotta ways of looking at it. Maybe in his own league he don’t rate very high, so he rides down here where he don’t hafta look up to anybody.”
“Or maybe he just don’t like himself,” Mooney remarked.
“That’s an angle,” Nick agreed. Then he frowned thoughtfully. “What it amounts to, I guess, he’s probably safer down here.”
“Safer?” Kerrigan said.
“What I mean is, he knows he can pull certain stunts on Vernon that he couldn’t get away with uptown.”
“What kind of stunts?” Kerrigan asked quietly.
“Whatever he has in mind.” Nick shrugged. “Who knows what he’s gonna dream up? It’s a cinch there’s something wrong with him, otherwise he wouldn’t need this Vernon Street routine.”
Kerrigan turned his head slightly and looked into the darkness of the alley behind him.
Then he looked past the heads of Nick and Mooney and focused on Dugan’s Den.
He said, “I could use a cold drink.”
“I’m dry myself,” Nick said.
“Me, I’m dying from thirst,” Mooney moaned.
Kerrigan smiled dimly. “I got some loose change. It oughta buy us a few beers.”
The three of them started walking toward Dugan’s Den. As they crossed the street, Kerrigan turned his head again for a backward glance at the dark alley.