I shook my head. "I can"t make it," I said. "How"s tomorrow?"
"Tonight," he said. "It has to be tonight."
I thought for a minute. I didn"t relish the idea of two jobs in one night. It just doubled the chances of getting caught. But I could use the money, and I knew I couldn"t stall him. "All right," I said. "I"m not sure on the time, but I"ll make it tonight."
He didn"t waste any time. He stood up and left. The heads in the bar followed him until he reached the door, then returned to their gla.s.ses of port. I returned to the Spanish poetry.
I read for about an hour, threw another dime on the table, and left. I walked up to my room, placed the money in a strongbox, and put two hundred dollars into my wallet. I"d need two guns tonight, one for each job. I hoped that Sam had them on hand.
Then I glanced at the address and flushed the slip of paper and the envelope down the hall toilet. I walked downstairs, and I got all the way to Sam"s hockshop before it hit me.
I bought one gun. I bought a Luger with a silencer, and loaded it. It cost one hundred dollars across the counter, with no record of sale.
Sam was a good businessman himself. I could be sure that the gun would never be traced to me, and that was important. I made it back to my room and ate dinner.
Dinner was the usual-three fried eggs and two cups of black coffee. I live on eggs and coffee. It"s cheap and nourishing, and I like it. I suppose I could afford caviar if I wanted it, but I"d rather let the money acc.u.mulate in the strongbox.
You see, a real businessman never worries about the money. He doesn"t care about spending it, and he doesn"t count up the pennies. The money"s just the chips in the poker pot, just something to keep score with. A real businessman is interested in running a straight business, and he gets his kicks out of the business itself. A real businessman is along the lines of an artist. And I am a businessman. I do a clean job. It"s the way I like to live.
I finished the meal and washed up the dishes. I didn"t feel much like reading, so I sat around thinking. I had come a long way from the days when I used to steal food and swindle hockshops for a couple of bucks at a time. I was established in business, and the compet.i.tion was nothing to speak of. I could raise my prices sky-high, and I"d still have more work than I could handle. There"s a remarkable shortage of free-lance gunmen in town.
I sat around till 8:30 and then caught the subway to Times Square. I transferred to the Broadway IRT train there, and got off at 96th Street. It was a short walk to Riverside Drive.
The elevator was a self-service one, which cut down the chances of an identification. I rode to the top floor and rang the bell.
He answered it with a smile on his face. I walked in, and noticed that the television was on good and loud. He hadn"t realized that I used a silencer.
I closed the door, took the gun from my pocket, and shot him. The bullet caught him in the side of the head and he didn"t have time to be surprised. He fell like an ox.
She jumped up and came to me. She was wearing a skirt and sweater this time, and I could see every bit of that body. She was the kind of woman I could fall in love with, if I believed in love. But in my business I can"t afford to.
I leveled the gun again and squeezed the trigger. Her eyes opened in horror before the bullet hit her, but she didn"t have time to scream. I shot her in the head, and she died immediately.
It was a shame I had to kill her. But I had made an agreement, and I stick to my word even if my client is a corpse. Business is business.
NOR IRON BARS A CAGE.
THE FIRST ALTHEAN SAID, "Well, the tower is completed." "Well, the tower is completed."
The second Althean smiled. "Good. It is all ready for the prisoner, then?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure he"ll be quite comfortable? He won"t languish and die in such a state?"
"No," said the first Althean. "He"ll be all right. It"s taken a long time to build the tower, and I"ve had ample opportunity to study the creature. We"ve made his habitat as ideal for him as possible."
"I suppose so." The second Althean shuddered slightly. "I don"t know," he said. "I suppose it"s nothing more than projection on my part, but the mere thought of a prison... prison..." He broke off and shuddered again.
"I know," said the other, sympathetically. "It"s something none of us have ever had to conceive of before. The whole notion of locking up a fellow being is an abominable one, I"ll admit. But for that matter, consider the creature itself!"
"It wouldn"t do for him to be loose."
"Wouldn"t do! Why, it would be quite impossible. He actually murders. He killed three of our fellow beings before we were able to subdue him."
The second Althean shuddered more violently than before, and it appeared for a moment as though he was about to become physically ill. "But why why? What type of being is he, for goodness" sake? Where does he come from? What"s he doing here?"
"Ah," said the first, "now you"ve hit upon it. You see, there"s no way of knowing any of those answers. One morning he was discovered by a party of ten. They attempted to speak to him, and what do you think his rejoinder was?"
"He struck out at them, the way I heard it."
"Precisely! Utterly unprovoked a.s.sault, with three of their number dead as a result. The first case of murder on record here in thirty generations. Incredible!"
"And since then..."
"He"s been a prisoner. No communication, no new insights, nothing. He eats whatever we feed him-he sleeps when the darkness comes and wakes when it goes. We have learned nothing about him, but I can tell you this for a fact. He is dangerous."
"Yes," said the second Althean.
"Very dangerous. He must be kept locked up. Of course, we wish him no harm-so we"ve made his prison as secure as possible, while keeping it as comfortable as possible. I daresay we"ve done a good job."
"Look," said the second, "perhaps I"m squeamish. I don"t know. But are you sure he can never escape?"
"Positive."
"How can you be sure?"
The first Althean sighed. "The tower is one hundred thirty feet high. A drop from that distance is obviously fatal. Right?"
"Right."
"The prisoner"s quarters are at the top of the tower, and the top is wider than the base-that is, the sides slope in. And the sides are very, very smooth-so climbing down is quite impossible."
"Couldn"t he come down the same way he"ll go up? It only stands to reason."
"Again, quite impossible. He"ll be placed in his quarters by means of a pneumatic tube, and the same tube will be used to send him his food. The entire tower is so designed that it can be entered via the tube, and can only be left by leaping from the top. The food that he doesn"t eat, as well as any articles which he tires of, may be thrown over the side."
The second Althean hesitated. "It seems seems safe." safe."
"It should. It is is safe." safe."
"I suppose so. I suppose it"s safe, and I suppose it"s not cruel, but somehow...Well, when will the prisoner be placed in the tower? Is it all ready for his occupancy?"
"It"s ready, all right. And, as a matter of fact, we"re taking him there in just a few minutes. Would you care to come along?"
"It might be interesting at that."
"Then come along."
The two walked in silence to the first Althean"s motor car and drove in silence to the tower. The tower was, indeed, a striking structure, both in terms of size and of design. They stepped out of the motor car and waited, and a large motor truck drew up shortly, pulling to a stop at the base of the tower. Three Althean guards stepped out of the truck, followed by the prisoner. His limbs were securely shackled.
"See?" demanded the first Althean. "He"ll be placed in the tube like that, and he"ll discover the key to his shackles in his quarters."
"Clever."
"We"ve worked it out carefully," the first explained. "I don"t mean to sound boastful, but we"ve figured out all the angles."
The prisoner was placed in the tube, the aperture of which was located at the very base of the tower. Once inside, it was closed securely and bolted shut. The three Althean guards hesitated for several moments until a red light at the base indicated that the prisoner had entered his quarters. Then they returned to the motor truck and drove off down the road.
"We could go now," said the first. "I"d like to wait and see if he"ll throw down the shackles, though. If you don"t mind."
"Not at all. I"m rather interested now, you know. It"s not something you see every day."
They waited. After several minutes, a pair of shackles plummeted through the air and dropped to the ground about twenty yards from the two Altheans.
"Ah," said the first. "He"s found the key."
Moments later, the second pair of shackles followed the first, and the key followed soon thereafter. Then the prisoner walked to the edge of the tower and leaned over the railing gazing down at them.
"Awesome," said the second Althean. "I"m glad he can"t escape."
The prisoner regarded them thoughtfully for several seconds. Then he mounted the railing, flapped his wings, and soared off into the sky.
ONE NIGHT OF DEATH.
IT WAS JUST SEVEN O"CLOCK. I heard the bells ring at the little church two blocks down Mercer Street, and the bells set me on edge. I heard the bells ring at the little church two blocks down Mercer Street, and the bells set me on edge.
Seven o"clock.
In five hours they would kill my father.
They would take him from his cell and walk slowly to a little room at the end of the corridor. It would be a long walk, but it would end with him inside the little room, alone, with the door closed after him. Then he would sit or stand or wait.
At precisely twelve o"clock, they"d open the gas vents. The cyanide gas would rush into the chamber. Maybe he"d cough; I didn"t know. But whether he did or not, the gas would enter his lungs when he breathed. Oh, he"d try to hold his breath as long as he could. My dad"s a fighter, you see, but there are some things you can"t fight.
The gas would kill him. Then they would draw the gas back into the tanks to save it for the next one, and they"d take my father"s body out of the room. It would be buried somewhere.
I couldn"t stay in the house another minute. I couldn"t sit watching my mother try to dull the pain with gla.s.s after gla.s.s of cheap muscatel, couldn"t listen to her crying softly. I wanted to cry, too-but I didn"t know how anymore.
I slipped on my jacket and left the house, closing the door softly. It was cool outside. The air was crisp and fresh, with a breeze blowing and the fallen leaves skittering along the pavement.
It could have been a beautiful night, but it wasn"t.
My father was a murderer, and tonight they were going to kill him.
Murderer. The picture that word makes isn"t right at all. Because my dad"s not a cruel or a vicious man or a money-hungry man. He was a cutter in a dress shop, not too long ago, and he saved his money so that he could go into business for himself in the Seventh Avenue rat-race. The picture that word makes isn"t right at all. Because my dad"s not a cruel or a vicious man or a money-hungry man. He was a cutter in a dress shop, not too long ago, and he saved his money so that he could go into business for himself in the Seventh Avenue rat-race.
It was no place for him, a mild, easy-going guy. The law of the Avenue is kill or be killed, screw the compet.i.tion before they screw you. But Dad didn"t want to hand anyone a raw deal. He just wanted to make pretty dresses and sell them. And Seventh Avenue isn"t like that, not at all.
He managed to stomach it. It kept us eating good and he managed to make the kind of dresses he wanted. A man can learn to adjust to almost anything, he told me once. A man does what he has to do.
Dad"s partner was a man named Bookspan, and he handled the business end while Dad took care of production. Bookspan was a crook, and the one thing Dad couldn"t adjust to was a crooked partner, a partner who was cheating him.
When Dad found out, he killed him.
Not impulsively, with the anger hot and fresh in him, because he"s not an impulsive sort of man. He bided his time and waited, until he and Bookspan took a business trip to Los Angeles. He picked up a pistol in a hockshop in L.A. and blew out Bookspan"s brains.
And they caught him, of course. The poor guy, he didn"t even try to get away. It was an open-and-shut case, premeditated and all. He was tried in L.A. where the murder took place, and he was sentenced to death at San Quentin.
I walked around aimlessly, just thinking about it. Here I was in New York, and my father was going to die on the other side of the continent. In less than five hours.
Then, of course, I realized that it would be eight hours. There"s a time difference of three hours between New York and California. He had eight hours to live, and I had eight hours before it was time to mourn him.
How do you wait for a person to die? What do you do, when you know the very minute of death? Do you go to a movie? Watch television, maybe? Read a magazine?
I hadn"t even noticed where I was, and I looked up to discover that I"d drifted clear over to Saint Mark"s Place. It was natural enough. I used to spend most of my time on that little street, just east of Third Avenue and north of Cooper Square. I used to spend my time with Betty, who used to be my girl.
Before the murder.
Murders change things, you see. They turn things upside down, and suddenly Betty wasn"t my girl anymore. Suddenly, she wasn"t speaking to me any longer. I was a murderer"s son.
Dan Bookspan wasn"t a murderer"s son, though. He was the same rotten, smooth-talking, crooked kind of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as his old man, but his old man was dead now. So Dan Bookspan had my girl.
I got the h.e.l.l away from Saint Mark"s Place. I walked south to an old joint on the corner of Great Jones Street and the Bowery. I sat down on a stool in the back and ordered rye and soda. I sat down there with b.u.ms stinking and babbling on either side of me, in a Bowery bar where no one cared that I was just seventeen and too young to drink, and I poured the rye in.
The time pa.s.sed, thank G.o.d. The television was going but I didn"t look at it, and there were a few brawls but I didn"t watch or partic.i.p.ate. I just wanted to get loaded and watch the hours go by until it was three in the morning and my father was dead.
I didn"t get drunk. I drank slowly, for one thing. More important, I had too much of a fire going inside of me to get tight. I burned the alcohol up before it could get to me, I guess.
By midnight I couldn"t stand it any longer. I wanted to be with someone, and being alone was impossible. I couldn"t go home, for I knew how important it was to Mom that she be by herself. She had a lot of crying and drinking to do, and I didn"t want to get in her way.
There was no one I wanted to see. No one but Betty.
It would have been so good to be with her then, to have her in my arms, holding me close and telling me that everything was going to be all right. What the h.e.l.l, I thought. I walked over to the phone booth and gave her a ring.
The phone rang ten times without an answer. If I"d had anything better to do, I"d have given up. But I didn"t so I stayed in the booth listening to the phone ring. And after ten rings, she answered it.
She couldn"t have been sleeping, for there was a tension in her voice that showed she"d been busy. Her voice was tight and husky.
"Betty," I said "Betty, I want to come over."
There was a pause. "You can"t."
"Look, I won"t bother you. It"s...it"s a bad night, Betty. I need someone, you know? Let me come over."