Night Squad (18 page)

      There was a stretch of silence.
      Then the little man said, “You understand, I can't point the finger at Grogan. It's a matter of insufficient evidence; so in my own private courtroom, I've thrown the case out of court.”
      “But you know he hired that truck driver?”
      “Yes, I'm quite sure he did,” Carp said. “But there's nothing I can do about that. What I mean is, there's nothing I care to do.”
      “Then why'd you come to the Swamp?”
      Carp smiled serenely. “To observe,” he said. “To observe Walter Grogan from day to day, getting older, the teeth of Time nibbling away at him. There's some satisfaction in that, at least. Will you have more coffee?”
      “No thanks,” Corey said. “I gotta be shoving.”
      “But it's still dark outside,” the little man said. He pointed to the window. “Look out there, see how dark it is.”
      “I'm not worried,” Corey said. And then to himself,
not much.
      He smiled at the little man, quickly opened the door and walked out of the second-floor front. He went down the hall and down the stairs, heading for the front door that led out to Marion Street. He stopped short and thought for a moment, telling himself that Marion Street was possibly a trap, and at any rate it was a risk, too much of a risk.
      You never know , he cautioned himself. Because that Kingsley outfit, they coulda been moochin' around and puttin' out some casual questions to the local citizens, especially the street-corner loafers who got nothing better to do than broadcast current events. So maybe that Kingsley outfit is all set and ready to pounce. Maybe someone mouthed it to them, saying that you were seen with Carp, that you and Carp were last seen headed for Marion Street, where Carp's got a second-floor front. What I think you better do is cancel out Marion and make it to the alley.
      He went down the hall and knocked on the door of the first-floor front. He knocked several times and finally the door opened. A woman stood there. She was tall and bony and most of her hair was white. She looked in her early sixties. There was some dried blood under her nose and she had a black eye. She muttered, “Whatcha want?”
      Corey had the wallet out and he showed her the badge.
      “Stick it,” the woman said. She started to close the door, but he held it open. The woman said, “Now look, I didn't send for no police. Christ's sake, I don't know why it is, you lizards always come walkin' in when you ain't needed.”
      “Come on, move aside.” He stepped forward, but she blocked the doorway.
      She said, “I'm tellin' you, I don't need no police in here. I'm not gonna press charges, that's why. If I press charges, then he'll press charges. And you oughta see what I done to him.”
      “This don't concern you and him,” Corey said. “It's just that I wanna get to the alley. We're lookin' for someone.”
      He pushed past her and went through a dimly lit room where a very small, slim, youthful Filipino was sitting up in bed, his face crisscrossed with shiny ribbons of clotted blood where fingernails had clawed. His mouth was out of line, as though his jaw was dislocated. His left eye was closed and puffed out and plum colored. He said something very fast in Spanish and continued chattering as Corey walked into the kitchen. In the kitchen Corey headed for the back door, opened it and crossed the backyard to the fence gate. He opened the fence gate very slowly, leaned his head out and scanned the alley.
      It looks all right , he told himself. Except I wish there were some lampposts. It's awfully dark in this alley.
      In the alley, he walked slowly, his arms loosely swinging at his sides, his right arm swinging in a smaller arc, ready to go for the gun. He was listening for the slightest sound other than his own footsteps. There was no other sound, and he kept moving along. He emerged from the alley where it intersected with Addison Avenue.
      On Addison the streetlamps showed some dogs partying and a boozed-up drifter stretched out, facedown on a doorstep. A slight breeze was coming in from the river and there were no doorstep sitters.
They're all in bed now
, he thought. The breeze gave them a chance to get some sleep, which makes it nice and quiet.
It's really very nice, this quiet, it's very good for the nerves.
      You really nervous? Now come on, don't tell me you're nervous. You ain't the nervous type. If you were downright jittery, you'd be heading east for the river and thinking in terms of the piers, the docked freighters, one of them ready to sail in a few or so hours. You'd be thinking that's a sure enough way to preserve this meat; just put it aboard that freighter and get it hauled across the ocean, to someplace where there ain't no Kingsley and company.
      Say, you know, that's an angle. You wanna consider that? You wanna stroll east to the river and have a look at them piers, them freighters? You actually wanna take a boat ride?
      And you say you ain't nervous, he derided the slow-moving target who sensed that eyes were watching, that every step he took going west on Addison brought him closer to calamity.
      Come off it , he told himself. Get your mind on something else. On broads, for instance. Any broad. Now take Nellie—
      Or take the riddle she handed you, when she was soused and told all about Rafer's fairy tale, the fairy tale that reads there's a million-five and it ain't doin' nothin' for the Chinaman.
      And the riddle is—what Chinaman?
      Behind him a horn honked softly. He turned and saw a car coming to a stop on the other side of Addison. It was an Oldsmobile, and through the glow of the street lamps and the glare of the headlights he could see who it was behind the windshield, he could see the platinum-blonde hair.
      It appeared she was alone in the car. She beckoned to him and he walked slowly across Addison, moving in a diagonal, going toward the car. He wondered if she was really alone, and considered the possibility that someone was crouched below the window level in the rear of the car.
      Lita opened the car door. In the instant before he climbed in, he checked the floor below the rear seat. It was empty. Then he sat beside her, closing the door and said to himself,
whatever's gonna happen, let it happen. Just go along with it.
      He looked at her. She was wearing a pale green, low-cut blouse and a flimsy skirt, striped green and yellow. Under that she wore nothing. She was facing the windshield; at first she seemed motionless, but then he noticed her hand moving, slowly raising the skirt up her thigh.
      He leaned back in the seat and then, conversationally said, “How come you're out this time of night?”
      “Driving around,” she said. “Driving all around the neighborhood. Trying to find that Chink.”
      “Chink?”
      “That little slant-eyed sneak.”
      “The girl? The house maid?”
      “She sneaked out again.”
      “So?”
      “So I won't put up with it,” Lita said quietly. “I can't be bothered.”
      “Cut that.”
      She looked at him. “What did you say?”
      “I said cut that. You ain't bothered about that.”
      Lita shifted in the seat, sitting sideways and facing him. Some moments passed and she didn't say anything.
      Corey said, “You didn't come out to look for the girl. You been looking for me.”
      “Really?”
      He nodded slowly.
      She started to say something, tightened her mouth to hold it back, then said weakly, pleadingly, “Can't you sit closer to me?”
      “Sure,” he said. He moved across the seat. She took hold of his hand and put it on her naked thigh. She moaned and pressed herself against him. “I couldn't sleep,” she said. “I just had to find you.”
      Then her hands gripped the sides of his face and she said, “I want it.”
      “Here?”
      She shut her eyes tightly. She started to nod, then shook her head and said, “No, not here on Addison. All these streetlamps—”
      “Then drive. We'll find a place.”
      “And park?”
      “Some little street where there ain't no lights.”
      “No,” she said. “Not in the car.”
      “Where else?”
      “Can we go to your room?” And then, before he could answer, “No, we can't do that.”
      “Why not?”
      “If we're seen together—”
      “You're right,” he said. “We can't take that chance.”
      “Then where can we go?”
      “Let me think—”
      “Please think of something,” she said. She moaned and tugged at his arm. “I can't wait.”
      “Don't get frantic. It ain't like you gotta go to the bathroom.”
      “You're awful. That's a messy thing to say.”
      “Well, it's a messy situation,” he said. “Tell you what. We could drive outta town. Find a motel—”
      “That takes time. And maybe they're all filled up.”
      “But maybe not. Let's give it a try.”
      “No,” she said. “It's a long drive. And then we'd just be driving around looking for a vacancy. And I can't wait.”
      “So whaddya want me to do?”
      “Take me somewhere. We've got to go somewhere. We just can't stay here. It's unbearable, just sitting here, and—” she broke it off and sat up straight, as though a sudden thought had come to her.
      “Well?” he murmured.
      “There's a house not far from here. It's one of Grogan's properties. The people moved out a few days ago. I mean, they were thrown out; they couldn't pay the rent. And Grogan wouldn't let them take the furniture. So there's a bed, and—”
      “You got the key?”
      “No. But let's try anyway. Sometimes they leave the door unlocked.”
      “All right,” Corey said. “Let's go.”
      As the Oldsmobile pulled away from the curb, Corey Bradford thought, it's a gamble, and you're a goddam fool to take this kind of risk, but then on the other hand it's a calculated risk and there's fifteen thousand dollars riding on these dice. You see what I mean? Yes, I see what you mean.
      The Oldsmobile made a U-turn and went east on Addison. A block away from the river the car turned left, going up a narrow street. Then it turned right onto a narrower street. There were no lights. A little more than halfway down the block she stopped the car. As they got out of the car, he expected that she'd pull some caper like pretending to accidentally honk the horn, but she didn't do that, and he wondered what the signal would be.
      It's gonna hafta be some kind of signal , he thought. To let them know we're here. So they can get ready.
      Lita pointed to the house. It was across the street. Then her hand clasped his arm and they walked across, went up three sagging wooden steps to the splintered unpainted door with a notice tacked on it:
No trespassing.
Lita put her hand on the doorknob and tried the door. It was locked. She kept trying it and the doorknob rattled loudly.
      He stood behind her, smiling thinly.
      The doorknob rattled very loudly.
      He said, “Give it up. It's locked.”
      “Try the window,” Lita said. She pointed to the grimy window adjacent to the doorway.
      Corey went toward the window, stepped on one of the loose boards about eighteen inches above the pavement level and got a hold on the lower section of the window. He worked on it and it gave way. Then the window was open and she said, “Get hold of me. Lift me up.” He got down onto the pavement and boosted her onto the loose board. She climbed through the open window. He followed. He lowered himself off the windowsill, onto the floor. It was very dark in the room and he couldn't see her; he couldn't see anything in the darkness. Then someone grabbed his legs and someone else got him around the middle in a very tight hold that shackled his arms. While they held him that way, someone's hands checked him for weapons, found the gun and took it. Now he began to see blurred faces through the darkness, but he didn't try to make them out.
You'll see them soon enough
, he thought.
      His legs were released, but the hold that locked his arms was tightened and a man's voice, close to his ear said, “All right, let's walk.”
      Then the weight of the man pushed against him and they moved slowly going through the darkness. They went from the room into a hallway. Ahead of Corey some blurred shapes were ascending a narrow staircase. The voice close to Corey's ear said, “Now we're gonna go up them stairs. And you won't try no stunts, will you?”
      “Of course not,” Corey said.
      “That's fine,” the voice said. “Because one time I was takin' someone up to the second floor and he tried to throw us both down the steps. He ended up with a broken neck.”
      “He was just plain stupid,” Corey said.
      “He sure was,” the voice said.
      They went up the stairs and the man increased the pressure of his hold. Corey found it difficult to breathe; the thick arms wrapped around his middle were like bands of metal crushing his ribs. He said to the man, “You ever move pianos?”
      “Not lately,” the voice said.
      “How much do you weigh?”
      “Two-thirty. And it's all rock, sonny.”
      “That's a sure bet,” Corey muttered. He grunted as the man applied more pressure. And then, with his eyes tightly shut, “Ease it, will you? You're breakin' me in half.”
      “I wouldn't do that,” the man said. He slackened the pressure a little. “You're a high-priced item, sonny. This tag reads handle with care.”
      They came to the top of the stairway. The man retained his hold on Corey as they moved along the second-floor hallway toward the back room where light showed through a crack in the door. Someone opened it and stood in the doorway. In the light flowing through from the bedroom, Corey recognized the man.
      Corey said, “Hello, Creighton.”
      “I told you before,” the colored man said, “my name ain't Creighton.”
      “You're kidding,” Corey said.
      “No,” the colored man said. He was taking all this very seriously. He had a gun in his hand, and he raised it a little so that it pointed at Corey's abdomen. He said to the man who weighed two-thirty, “All right, let go of him.”
      The big man released his hold on Corey. The colored man gestured with the gun, and Corey walked into the bedroom. It was brightly lit, the glow coming from an unshaded, hundred-watt bulb dangling on a cord attached to the ceiling. There was a single window in the room and the shade was pulled down. The floor was very dusty, littered with cigarette butts and beer bottle caps. A row of empty quart bottles lined the wall near the door. Set close to another wall there was a cot, a brassiere and panties on the cot; and on a shelf above the cot were some jars of face cream and deodorant, a large bottle of cologne and an expensive-looking bottle of perfume. In the middle of the room there were a few uncushioned chairs. In the far corner, Lita was smoking a cigarette and talking in low tones with Delbert Kingsley.