The Kind One (31 page)

Schnitter and Loy Hanley were like Mutt and Jeff sitting together. Schnitter’s little two-toned shoes barely reached the floor, while Hanley’s long, cowboy-booted legs were stuck out straight in front of him.

Hanley started handrolling a Bull Durham cigarette.

“So how’s life been treating you, son?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Got no complaints.”

“How’s Violet?”

He gave a disgusted snort. “That crazy bitch. I kicked her out on her fat ass. And I do mean kicked.”

Schnitter gestured vaguely out the window. “Is this your first visit to the Pink Rat?”

“Yes sir.”

“It was a wonderful place, before they closed it down. A Presbyterian minister named Gustave Briegleb led a campaign against it. He called it a ‘den of iniquity.’ A place that had been given over to ‘the world, the flesh, and the devil.’ All true, of course. That’s why it was so wonderful. But now Loy and I are making plans to re-open it. Restore it to its former glory.”

“Yeah,” said Hanley, “the Pink Rat’ll be giving the Peacock Club a run for its fucking money.”

“But I thought you guys weren’t getting along,” I said.

Schnitter raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well—that’s what I heard up at the lake.”

“Hell, Max and me are like dadgum blood brothers,” said Hanley. “Ain’t that right, Max?”

Hanley slapped Schnitter’s knee; Schnitter winced a little through his smile.

“That’s true, Loy. We had our differences, but they’re in the past. Just like my friendship with Bud Seitz is in the past.”

“Mr. Schnitter, what happened with that girl at your birthday party—I hope you don’t think it was some kind of practical joke or something. It was an accident. I know Bud felt really bad about it.”

“Loyalty’s a virtue, Danny. Up to a point.” Then he said, very slowly: “And then self-preservation begins to set in.”

I took another gulp of whiskey. Hanley lit his cigarette with a kitchen match that he struck off the bottom of his boot. Looked at me through the smoke with his hard, gunmetal gray eyes as he waved the match out.

“We’re offering you a job.”

“Doing what?”

“Helping us get rid of your boss.”

“But in a strictly legit kinda way,” said Otay. “Like they done in Chicago with Capone.”

“That’s how the mayor wants it,” said Schnitter. “He’s been getting a lot of heat from the Reverend Briegleb and some of the papers to ‘clean up the city.’ And so Seitz becomes our sacrificial lamb. It was an easy choice to make. Repeal changed everything, Danny. The competition for new business is ferocious. But Seitz is stuck in the past. In the old ways of doing things.”

With its windows closed, the car was already smotheringly hot, and now it was filling up with Hanley’s smoke. I could barely breathe, but the others seemed like creatures that loved the smoke and the heat. I resolved that I would say or do anything that would contribute to me getting out of the parking lot of the Pink Rat alive.

“I see what you mean. But what do you need me for? You already got Louie Vachaboski.”

Schnitter frowned. “Not anymore.”

“Louie’s skedaddled,” said Hanley.

“To Old Mexico,” said Otay.

“Which means,” said Schnitter, “we have to start over. With a new case.”

“What do you know about Bud’s wife?” said Otay.

“Nothing. I never even met her.”

“But you know Bud had her knocked off, right?”

“I don’t really know anything about it.”

“Everybody knows Bud wanted a divorce and she wouldn’t give it to him. So don’t it stand to reason that he knocked her off?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident. Or suicide.”

Schnitter tugged pensively at the lobe of one of his pointy elfin ears.

“I’ve never quite understood the relationship between you and Bud. You show up out of nowhere, and suddenly you’re his best friend. But it’s none of my business. I have secrets too. We all have secrets. We’re just hoping you can find out the truth about his wife. After all, if she was murdered, her killer should be brought to justice. Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?”

I nodded. I started to take a drink of scotch, but my glass was already empty. Otay obligingly refilled it.

“Look,” he said, “we’re setting things up all sweet and pretty for you. Everybody knows you got the hot nuts for his girlfriend. Everybody but him, anyways. Help us put him away and you’ll have her all to yourself.”

“Of course, we’ll also pay you well,” said Schnitter.

“So what do you say, boy?” said Hanley. “You on board?”

“Sure. Sure I’m on board.”

Schnitter cocked his head a little to the side and gave me a quizzical look.

“Why am I not convinced you’re sincere?”

“I don’t know why. I’m very sincere.”

“Used to know this feller named Herbert Stittmatter from up around San Joaquin,” said Hanley. “I thought he might be stealing from me, but he swore up and down he wasn’t doing no such of a thing. So I buttered up the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun and shoved it up his ass. Told him I was pulling the trigger if he didn’t convince me he was sincere.”

“What happened?” I said.

Hanley shrugged. “Son of a bitch didn’t convince me.”

“Danny?” said Schnitter. “Finish your drink.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” he said gently.

The glass was nearly full. I swallowed it all down. It burned my gullet. I coughed and shuddered.

Now Schnitter said to Otay: “Danny has a nice face. Leave it alone.”

   THE LIMOUSINE PULLED out of the parking lot, leaving me alone with Otay, Teddy, and Vic. My head was spinning with the whiskey. It was very dark. The crickets sounded about twice as loud as when we arrived.

Otay walked over to the edge of the weedy lot and unzipped his pants. In a moment we heard the patter of pee, and Otay making noises like:
“Arrrg! Oohhh! Ooook!”

“What’s the matter with him?” said Vic.

“He’s got the clap,” said Teddy. “Said he got it from that movie star he’s been screwing.”

“Poor bastard,” said Vic, and they both snickered.

Otay zipped up, and came back. In the starlight I could see a sheen of sweat on his ugly-handsome face. “Let’s go,” he said weakly.

We walked to the back door of the Pink Rat. There was a padlock. Teddy had a key. “What are you gonna do?” I said.

Nobody answered. Teddy lifted the padlock out of the hasp. Then he opened the door, and Vic shoved me into a foul-smelling darkness.

Somebody turned on a light. I was in what used to be the kitchen. It was empty now, except for a few panicky roaches running for cover and a dried-up pile of human shit in the corner near the mummified corpse of a mouse in a trap. Swinging doors on the other side of the room led into the public part of the Pink Rat.

I heard the door shutting behind me, and I turned around and saw the three of them standing together and looking at me. Otay took out a pair of handcuffs from under his jacket. I took a few faltering backward steps. Otay said: “Grab him, boys.”

I turned and broke for the swinging doors, but Teddy and Vic caught up with me easily and, each taking an arm, they dragged me back.

“Poor old Limpy,” laughed Teddy. “He just can’t run worth a shit.”

Otay cuffed my hands behind my back; then he took a pair of soft brown gloves out of his pocket and began to tug them on.

“Jack,” I said, talking fast, “I don’t know why you’re doing this. It’s not necessary. I meant it when I said I’d go along with you guys. Bud’s a bad guy. He needs to be put away. And you’re right, I want his girlfriend. You nailed it, Jack. I’ll be sitting pretty—”

Otay’s fist whumped into my stomach. My shoulders hunched and my knees sagged and my eyes scrunched shut and out of my mouth came an explosive moan. He might as well have been Kid McCoy in his prime and myself his canvas punching bag as he alternated lefts and rights into my stomach and ribs and sternum. Once he hit me smack on my heart and darkness flashed in my eyes and I was like a tiny barrel tumbling over some vast black waterfall. When I came back to my senses and the Pink Rat, Teddy and Vic were still holding me up, and Otay was standing in front of me, red-faced and sweating, catching his breath, one gloved hand rubbing the knuckles of his other.

“Stop it,” I said. “Please.”

“Turn him around,” he said to Vic and Teddy.

Now he went to work on my back. Rabbit-punched me until I blacked out.

When I came to, I was sitting on the filthy floor in a little puddle of my pee. My back was against a cabinet and my legs were splayed out in front of me. The three of them were looking down at me. Otay was peeling his gloves off like a weary surgeon who’d finished an operation.

“This isn’t nothing personal, Danny. Far as I can tell, you’re a nice enough kid, and I hadn’t got nothing against you. This is just so’s you’ll know what’ll happen if you ever fuck with us. ’Cept it’ll be about a hundred times worse. And you won’t live through it.”

“Anything you want,” I gasped. “I’ll do anything.”

“Your turn,” Otay said to Teddy.

I’d thought it was over.

“Wait,” I said.

But Otay walked away. Teddy grinned down at me.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait.”

Teddy pulled out of his pocket a pair of wire pliers.

“Wait!”

   “DRINK THIS.”

It was a murky brown liquid steaming in a teacup.

“What’s in it?” I said.

“A drop of dragon’s blood,” said Dulwich. “A pinch of dirt from the Lone Sod. A sprinkling of dust from the dark side of the moon.”

I took a sip. It tasted lousy. I coughed, which hurt my ribs. I winced.

Dulwich frowned down at me.

“Perhaps we should take you to the hospital, and have your ribs X-rayed. Make certain there aren’t any fractures.”

“I hate hospitals. I wanna stay here.”

I was in Dulwich’s bed, wearing a pair of his pajamas. I’d stumbled to his door after Teddy and Vic had brought me back. He’d already cleaned me up and bandaged my toes and wrapped my ribs, all without asking a single question.

I choked down some more of the vile stuff in the cup.

“No kidding. What is this?”

“A tea I got from an herb doctor in Chinatown. It will help you sleep.”

It did, though I didn’t realize it till I found myself waking up. The bedside lamp was still on. I heard the rustle of a turning page. Dulwich had pulled up a chair beside the bed. He was reading a book called
The Well at the World’s End.

He didn’t notice I had awaked. He seemed a fatherly, reassuring presence. It felt safe to go back to sleep.

It wasn’t, though. I found myself being tortured back at the Pink Rat. But everything looked different, there was a big picture window with tatters of fog floating past it, and my torturers were different too. Tommy and Goodlooking Tommy were holding me down, and Ching-wei, the Chinaman who worked at the Peacock Club, was wielding the pliers. He seemed to want me to confess to something, but since he was questioning me in Chinese, I didn’t know how to reply.

At a table in the corner, Darla was playing cards with Vera Vermillion.

“You got any elevens?” said Darla.

Vera was naked, and her skin was turning blue.

“No way, honey. Go fish.”

Neither paid any attention to my screaming.

“Wake up, Danny. Everything is all right.”

I opened my eyes. Dulwich was bending over me.

“They can’t hurt you now.”

My, Dulwich’s, pajamas were soaked in sweat, and my mouth was bone-dry. “I’m thirsty,” I croaked.

He was back a moment later with a glass of water. With one hand he supported the back of my head, and with the other he held the glass to my lips.

I drank my fill; then I started getting drowsy again. As my eyelids drooped, I saw Dulwich looking down at me.

“Poor boy,” he murmured, then he bent and kissed my forehead. “Dear boy.

“Sleep.”

   Over breakfast in bed the next morning—scrambled eggs, buttered toast, raspberry jam, and orange juice—I told Dulwich everything.

“I always wondered how I would stand up to torture,” Dulwich said as he munched on his toast. “Fortunately, I was never in a position to find out.”

“I was pathetic. I cried. I yelled. I begged.”

“But Danny, you’re not giving yourself enough credit. You already had the information about Mr. Seitz and his late wife that they wanted you to obtain. And yet you withheld it from them. The question, of course, is: why? Why did you protect him?”

“Well—he
is
my father. And he’s always been nice to me. Even though everybody says he’s a monster.”

Dulwich wiped a glistening smear of jam off his thick lips with his napkin.

“I suppose,” he said, “if you were to rake over the ashes of what remains of Seitz’s soul, and you were to find a few glowing embers of decency left, probably those embers would have to do with you.”

After breakfast, Dulwich put his cat in a wire cage, then left in his ancient, barely running Franklin convertible for the dog and cat hospital. It turned out it
had
been Tinker that had been involved in the fight the other night; she’d suffered a nasty scratch behind her ear, and Dulwich was concerned it was getting infected.

He left me with the morning paper. The first story my eyes fell on began: “Out of work for months, W. E. Main, 50, engineer, ended his life yesterday in a rooming house at 142 West Jefferson Street by sending a bullet through his heart.” I sighed, and tossed the paper down. Thought about W. E. Main for a while. It seemed like a curtain of crumminess was descending on the whole world.

I got out of bed, and tottered to the bathroom. I was appalled to see what looked like strawberry Kool-Aid streaming into the toilet. I finished up and flushed; then I heard somebody knocking at the front door.

It was Sophie.

“I just ran into Mr. Dulwich, and he said you were here. Can I come in?”

“Maybe now’s not the best time.”

“Please? There’s something I have to tell you.”