The Mugger (2 page)

The shoulder didn’t hurt at all now.

It was funny. You figure you get shot in the shoulder, it’s going to hurt for a long, long time. But it didn’t. Not at all.

As a matter of fact, if Bert Kling had had his way, he’d be back on the job, and the job was working as a patrolman out of the 87th Precinct. But Captain Frick was the boss of the uniformed cops at the house, and Captain Frick had said, “Now, you take another week, Bert. I don’t care whether the hospital let you go or not. You take another week.”

And so Bert Kling was taking another week, and not enjoying it very much. “Another week” had started with Monday, and this was Tuesday, and it seemed like a nice brisk autumn day outside, and Kling had always liked autumn, but he was bored silly with it now.

The hospital duty hadn’t been bad in the beginning. The other cops had come up to see him, and even some of the detectives had
dropped around, and he’d been something of a precinct celebrity, getting shot up like that. But after a while, he had ceased to be a novelty, and the visits had been less frequent, and he had leaned back against the fat hospital mattress and begun his adjustment to the boredom of convalescence.

His favorite indoor sport had become the crossing off of days on the calendar. He had also ogled the nurses, but the joy of such diversion had evaporated when he had realized his activities—so long as he was a patient, at any rate—could never rise higher than the spectator level. So he had crossed off the days, one by one, and he had looked forward to returning to the job, yearned for it with almost ferocious intensity.

And then Frick had said, “Take another week, Bert.”

He’d wanted to say, “Now, look, Captain, I don’t need any more rest. I’m as strong as an ox. Believe me, I can handle
two
beats.”

But knowing Frick, and knowing he was a thickheaded old jerk, Kling had kept his peace. He was still keeping his peace. He was very tired of keeping his peace. It was almost better getting shot.

Now, that was a curious attitude, he realized, wanting to get back to the job that had been responsible for the bullet in his right shoulder. Not that he’d been shot doing his job, actually. He’d been shot off duty, coming out of a bar, and he wouldn’t have been shot if he hadn’t been mistaken for someone else.

The shot had been intended for a reporter named Savage, a reporter who’d done some snooping around, a reporter who’d asked too many leading questions of a teenage gang member who’d later summoned all his pals and colleagues to the task of taking care of Savage.

It happened to be Kling’s misfortune that he’d been coming out of the same bar in which Savage had earlier interrogated the
kid. It was also his misfortune that he was blond, because Savage, inconsiderately, was blond, too. The kids had jumped Kling, anxious to mete out justice, and Kling had pulled his service revolver from his back pocket.

And that’s how heroes are made.

Kling shrugged.

Even when he shrugged, the shoulder didn’t hurt. So why should he be sitting here in a stupid furnished room when he could be out walking a beat?

He rose and walked to the window, looking down toward the street. The girls were having trouble keeping their skirts tucked against the strong wind. Kling watched.

He liked girls. He liked all girls. Walking his beat, he would watch the girls. He always felt pleased when he did. He was twenty-four years old and a veteran of the Korean fracas, and he could remember the women he’d seen there, but never once connected those women with the pleasure he felt in watching the girls in America.

He had seen women crouched in the mud, their cheeks gaunt, their eyes glowing with the reflected light of napalm infernos, wide with terror at the swishing roar of the jet bombers. He had seen underfed bodies hung with baggy quilted garments. He had seen women nursing babies, breasts exposed. The breasts should have been ripe and full with nourishment. They had been, instead, puckered and dried—withered fruits clinging to starved vines.

He had seen young women and old women clawing in the rubble for food, and he could still remember the muted, begging faces and the hollow eyes.

And now he watched the girls. He watched the strong legs, and the firm breasts, and the well-rounded buttocks, and he felt good. Maybe he was crazy, but there was something exhilarating
about strong white teeth and sun-tanned faces and sun-bleached hair. Somehow, they made
him
feel strong, too, and never once did he make any connection with what he had seen in Korea.

The knock on the door startled him. He whirled from the window and called, “Who is it?”

“Me,” the voice answered. “Peter.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Peter. Peter Bell.”

Who’s Peter Bell?
he wondered. He shrugged and went to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and took his .38 from where it lay alongside a box holding his tie clasps. With the gun dangling at his side, he walked to the door and opened it a crack. A man can get shot only once before he realizes you don’t open doors too wide, even when the man outside has already given his name.

“Bert?” a voice said. “This is Peter Bell. Open the door.”

“I don’t think I know you,” Kling said cautiously, peering into the darkened hallway, half expecting a volley of shots to splinter the door’s wood.

“You don’t know me? Hey, kid, this is Peter. Hey, don’t you remember me? When we were kids? Up in Riverhead? This is me. Peter Bell.”

Kling opened the door a little wider. The man standing in the hallway was no older than twenty-seven. He was tall and muscularly built. He wore a brown leather jacket and yachting cap. In the dimness, Kling could not make out his features clearly, but there was something familiar in the face, and he began to feel a little foolish holding a gun. He swung the door open.

“Come in,” he said.

Peter Bell walked into the room. He saw the gun almost instantly, and his eyes went wide. “Hey!” he said. “Hey, Bert, what’s the matter?”

Holding the gun loosely, finally recognizing the man who stood before him in the center of the room, Kling felt immensely ridiculous. He smiled sheepishly. “I was cleaning it,” he said.

“You recognize me now?” Bell asked, and Kling had the distinct impression that his lie had not been accepted.

“Yes,” he said. “How are you, Peter?”

“Oh, so-so, can’t kick.” He extended his hand, and Kling took it, studying his face more carefully in the light of the room. Bell would have been a good-looking man were it not for the prominence and structure of his nose. In fact, if there was any one part of the face Kling did not recognize, it was the massive, craggy structure that protruded incongruously between sensitive brown eyes. Peter Bell, he remembered now, had been an extremely handsome youth, and he imagined the nose had been one of those things that, during adolescence, simply grow on you. The last time he’d seen Bell had been fifteen years ago, when Bell had moved to another section of Riverhead. The nose, then, had been acquired sometime during that span of years. He realized abruptly that he was staring at the protuberance, and his discomfort increased when Bell said, “Some schnoz, huh? Eek, what a beak! Is it a nose or a hose?”

Kling chose that point in the conversation to return his revolver to the open dresser drawer.

“I guess you’re wondering what I want,” Bell said.

Kling was, in truth, wondering just that. He turned from the dresser and said, “Well, no. Old friends often…” He stopped, unable to complete the lie. He did not consider Peter Bell a friend. He had not laid eyes on him for fifteen years, and even when they’d been boys together, they’d never been particularly close.

“I read in the papers where you got shot,” Bell said. “I’m a big reader. I buy six newspapers every day. How do you like that? Bet
you didn’t even know there was six papers in this city. I read them all, cover to cover. Never miss anything.”

Kling smiled, not knowing what to say.

“Yes, sir,” Bell went on, “and it certainly came as a shock to me and Molly when we read you got shot. I ran into your mother on Forrest Avenue a little while after that. She said her and your dad were very upset about it, but that’s to be expected.”

“Well, it was only a shoulder wound,” Kling said.

“Only a scratch, huh?” Bell said, grinning. “Well, I got to hand it to you, kid.”

“You said Forrest Avenue. Have you moved back to the old neighborhood?”

“Huh? Oh, no, no. I’m a hackie now. Got my own cab—medallion and everything. I usually operate in Isola, but I had a Riverhead call, and that’s how I happened to be on Forrest Avenue, and that’s how I happened to spot your mom. Yeah, sure.”

Kling looked at Bell again, realizing the “yachting cap” was simply his working headgear.

“I read in the papers where the hero cop got discharged from the hospital,” Bell said. “Gave your address and everything. You don’t live with the folks no more, huh?”

“No,” Kling said. “When I got back from Korea—”

“I missed that one,” Bell said. “Punctured eardrum—how’s that for a laugh? I think the real reason they rejected me was because of the schnoz.” He touched his nose. “So the papers said where your commanding officer ordered you to take another week’s rest.” Bell smiled. His teeth were very white and very even. There was an enviable cleft in his chin.
It’s too bad about the nose,
Kling thought. “How does it feel being a celebrity? Next thing you know, you’ll be on that television show, answering questions about Shakespeare.”

“Well…” Kling said weakly. He was beginning to wish that Peter Bell would go away. He had not asked for the intrusion, and he was finding it tiresome.

“Yep,” Bell said, “I certainly got to hand it to you, kid,” and then a heavy silence fell over the room.

Kling bore the silence as long as he was able. “Would you like a drink…or anything?” he asked.

“Never touch it,” Bell said.

The silence returned.

Bell touched his nose again. “The reason I’m here…” he said at last.

“Yes?” Kling prompted.

“Tell you the truth, I’m a little embarrassed, but Molly figured…” Bell stopped. “I’m married now, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. Molly. Wonderful woman. Got two kids, another on the way.”

“That’s nice,” Kling said, his feeling of awkwardness increasing.

“Well, I might as well get right down to it, huh? Molly’s got a sister, nice kid. Her name is Jeannie. She’s seventeen. She’s been living with us ever since Molly’s mom died—two years now, it must be. Yeah.” Bell stopped.

“I see,” Kling said, wondering what Bell’s marital life had to do with him.

“The kid’s pretty. Look, I might as well level with you, she’s a knockout. Matter of fact, she looks just the way Molly looked when she was that age, and Molly’s no slouch—even now, pregnant and all.”

“I don’t understand, Peter.”

“Well, the kid’s been running around.”

“Running around?”

“Well, that’s what Molly thinks, anyway.” Bell seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “You know, she doesn’t see her dating any of the local kids or anything, and she knows the kid goes out, so she’s afraid she’s in with the wrong crowd, do you know what I mean? It wouldn’t be so bad if Jeannie wasn’t such a pretty kid, but she is. I mean, look, Bert, I’ll level with you. She’s my sister-in-law and all that, but she’s got it all over a lot of older dames you see around. Believe me, she’s a knockout.”

“Okay,” Kling said.

“So Jeannie won’t tell us anything. We talk to her until we’re blue in the face, and we don’t get a peep out of her. Molly got the idea of getting a private detective to follow her, see where she goes, that kind of thing. Bert, on the money I make, I can’t afford a private dick. Besides, I don’t really think the kid is doing anything wrong.”

“You want
me
to follow her?” Kling asked, suddenly getting the picture.

“No, no, nothing like that. God, would I come ask a favor like that after fifteen years? No, Bert, no.”

“What then?”

“I want you to talk to her. That way, Molly’ll be happy. Look, Bert, when a woman is carrying, she gets goofy ideas. Pickles and ice cream, you know? Okay, so this is the same thing. She’s got this nutty idea that Jeannie is a juvenile delinquent or something.”

“Me
talk to her?” Kling was flabbergasted. “I don’t even know her. What good would it do for me to—”

“You’re a cop. Molly respects law and order. If I bring a cop around, she’ll be happy.”

“Hell, I’m practically still a rookie.”

“Sure, but that don’t matter. Molly’ll see the uniform and be happy. Besides, you really might help Jeannie. Who knows? I mean, if she
is
involved with some young toughs.”

“No, I couldn’t, Peter. I’m sorry, but—”

“You got a whole week ahead of you,” Bell said, “nothing to do. Look, Bert, I read the papers. Would I ask you to give up any spare time if I knew you were pounding a beat during the day? Bert, give me credit.”

“That’s not it, Peter. I wouldn’t know what to say to the girl. I just…I don’t think so.”

“Please, Bert. As a personal favor to me. For old time’s sake. What do you say?”