Mourn the Hangman (12 page)

HE TURNED around in the alley. Turned slowly, the way the man said. There was only one way to do a thing when a man with a gun ordered it. Follow instructions to the letter. You lived longer that way. That is if you cared about living any more. Only Blake didn’t care about living. It was just that he had to. There wasn’t any choice. Not now. Not since Sammy Anderson had told him who was meeting Stella in the Palm Club bar. This wasn’t living. It was just staying alive until he could get his fingers about that man’s throat.

Whatever the reason, he obeyed the command. He turned slowly all the way around.

His eyes bugged. He stared! The man behind that gun was Bruce Bricker. Bricker the sneak. The dirty rat. The partner who had sold him out for ten grand. Bruce Bricker who had tried to set Blake up so that Arrenhower’s goons could kill him the way they’d killed Roberts ahead of him.

The funny thing was that Blake had never expected to see Bricker again. He never thought Bricker would have the guts to show his face. And maybe he wouldn’t have, even now, except for the gun in his hand.

“What you want, Bricker?” he said.

“I got a job for you, Blake.”

“A job. Real friendly, huh? Then why the gun?”

“I didn’t think you’d be glad to see me.”

“You knew damned well I wouldn’t be. I don’t care what your job is, Bricker, I’m not interested. Get out of my way.”

Bricker hefted the automatic. “I’m not asking you, Blake. I’m telling you. I got a job. You’re in on it. It’s going to pay me ten grand.”

“Another ten grand?”

“One more ten grand. Only this time I’m cutting you in, Steve. I’m giving you half of it.”

“When a son-of-a-bitch wants to give you half of something, Bricker, you can bet you’re getting half of hell.”

“I told you, Steve. I’m not asking. I’m telling you. I don’t have to give you half of what I’m getting. I just want to. I’ve made some mistakes. I’m just making it up to you.”

“The words are all right,” Blake said. “But they don’t sound right coming out of your mouth, Bricker.” He frowned. “How did you find me?”

“You’re not the only detective in the world, old son. I used to be pretty good myself.”

“You were never good, Bruce. I just want you to keep that straight. Part of detection is sneaking. That part of it fitted you. Not any of the rest of it.”

“Suppose we start down the alley,” Bricker said. “My car is parked down there at the corner.”

They walked a few paces in silence. The silence of the alley. The silence of the night. The way Blake hated this man he’d worked with for four years. He glanced over his shoulder. He wondered if Sammy was still watching at that window up there. He wondered if Sammy had seen what happened.

They walked into the glow of the street light. The glow increased, became brighter as they moved to the littered mouth of the alley.

“I’m putting the gun in my pocket, Steve,” Bricker said. “In case somebody is watching. But don’t get any ideas. It’s still fixed on you.”

“Look, Bricker, I don’t like being afraid of you. I don’t like you thinking I’m afraid of you. I know you’d pull that trigger. You’d rig it up to look like you had to. You’d smile and you’d whine and stand over my dead body and beat the rap. So I’m afraid. I’m afraid of you, Bricker. Does that make you feel better?”

“Just do as I say. I want you alive. I’m not interested in shooting you, unless I have to.”

Steve Blake’s mouth pulled wide in a wolfish grin.

“Don’t you want to hear why I’m afraid, Bruce? Don’t you want to hear the best part?”

“No.”

“Because you’re a sneak. I’m afraid of you because you’re a sneak. Not because you’re a man. If you tried to act like a man, I’d take that little gun away from you and beat your teeth out with it. But you’re not a man. You’re a sneak. A man with a gun is one thing. But a sneak with a gun is a hell of another thing.”

Bricker nodded toward the dark sedan parked at the curb. It was a new model car. It looked as if it hadn’t been out of the showroom a week. Bright. Shining. New. You could buy things like this if you were willing to sell out your friends. Sometimes you could buy them with money from honest labor. But not so many. Not so quickly. And Blake knew that Bruce Bricker preferred the quick way every time.

“Just stand there,” Bricker told Steve. Bricker went warily around the front of the car, his hand on the gun in his pocket lifted high, his harried eyes never leaving Steve’s face.

Bricker slid into the car, under the wheel. The gun was in his hand now. Glinting in the street light. “Get in,” he said.

Blake opened the door, got in and slammed it after him.

Bricker tried to smile. “I’ve got to drive, Blake. So don’t try anything. This gun is ready. Like I told you. I don’t want to use it. I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“I know. That’s what scares the hell out of me.”

“Stop hating me, Steve. I’m trying to make it up. I know I made a mistake.”

“No. Your old lady did. She should have drowned you before you learned to bark.”

“You’ll thank me for this, Steve. I’m giving you a chance to make five grand.”

He had shifted gears and the car moved out into the deserted streets. He drove intently, one hand on the wheel, the other holding the automatic in his lap. Steve glanced over. He could see that the safety was shoved off. There was a bullet primed in that chamber, he thought. With a name on it. Steve Blake’s name.

His voice grated in the silent, smooth running car.

“Look, Bricker. Stop with the sermon about what you’re doing for me. What in the hell do you think I want with five grand? Money. Christ, that’s for people who’ve got something to spend it on. I haven’t got anything to spend money on. I’m dead. I’ve been dead since Stella was killed. Stop offering me money. If you want to do something for me, take me to the man that killed Stella. Help me get my hands on him.”

“I wish I could, Steve. I wish to God I could.”

They went up Second Avenue and passed the Seaboard Station. Steve glanced out the window. The place was dark, closed. He thought of the Saturday afternoon he’d come back home. A hundred years ago? A thousand? He couldn’t say. It had been raining. That much he remembered. He had been happy. He had been a guy on the way to the girl he loved.

What was he now? A corpse-maker. A dead man walking around. A man without reason to live. An executioner fixing a noose for a killer’s neck.

“Where the hell are you going?” he growled. Bricker had driven the car across Ninth Street and had turned down a narrow alley that led deep into Negro town.

“It’s down here,” Bricker said. His voice was hollow. “This is where the job is.”

“Christ. You’ve sunk pretty low, haven’t you, Bricker?”

“They’re hiding down here.”

“Who’s hiding down here?”

“Both of them. Terravasi. Dickerson.”

“You’re crazy. You’re lying.”

“I’m not crazy. I’m not lying. That’s our job, Steve. Ten grand. And they’ve got it. I know. I saw it.”

“Listen to me. Ross Connell was in the Regal Hotel. He told me that Dickerson and Terravasi had asked for police protection out of town. And he told me that they got it. I’ve seen cleaner citizens than Ross Connell. But I’d a hell of a lot rather believe him than you, Bricker.”

Bricker didn’t answer. Blake looked at him. The military brush hair. The sweated face. The dishonest eyes. God, who could ever trust Bricker? Maybe Prue Quincy, who had what he wanted. Maybe somebody who didn’t know him.

Bricker cut the engine and let the car roll to a stop before the rear of a battered brick building. The night was black down here. There were no street lights to crack it open. It was the black night. The close, hot black night. Unbroken.

“Get out ahead of me,” Bricker said. “And stand still. Just don’t make any noise, Steve. There’s no use making this tougher than it has to be.”

Blake got out. He stood in the hot, thick night. The evil smelling night. Bricker slid out of the car behind him and inched the car door closed so that there was not a sound.

There were wooden stairs leading up the rear of the brick building. Bricker nodded toward them with his closecropped head.

Blake started up the steps. They protested, squeaking every time he moved. He could hear Bricker just behind him. The sound of Bricker’s breathing. The squeaking of the steps.

A door opened above them. A Negro stood in the light, looking down at them. He was wearing trousers buttoned at his navel and no belt, no shirt and no shoes.

“Lawdy, boss,” he said to Bricker. “Am I glad to see you. Them gem’mums is getting’ mighty sick and mighty nervous in there.”

“Okay, Sam,” Bricker said. “We’re here now. We’ll take over.”

“Yassuh.” He looked at the gun in Bricker’s hand. He turned then and his dark eyes went over Steve Blake’s face.

“My Lawd, Mistuh Steve. What sort of business is this? What sort of bad business is this? You need any help?”

Blake just grinned at him. Bricker said sharply, “Never mind, Sam. You’re getting paid just to keep your mouth shut. So you better start earning your money right now.”

Sam’s mouth pulled together. “Yassuh,” he said. But his eyes remained on Steve’s face, remained worried. “It don’t seem right,” he said. “A fine man like you, Mistuh Steve. A man what’s already got all the grief in the world on his shoulders.”

“I told you to shut up!” Bricker blazed. “Steve Blake will make five grand out of this. What the hell else is there?”

“A man with Mr. Steve’s troubles, money won’t help him. It ain’t money he needs. It’s a man like you leavin’ him alone that he needs, so’s he can get to the work that’s left to him. Avengin’ the death of his woman.”

Steve stopped just inside the door. He looked at the big man. “It’s all right, Sam,” he said. “You understand. People like you understand. Thanks.”

“My God!” Bricker ejaculated. “What’s there to understand? Five grand is five grand. I’m doing you a favor.”

Steve looked at him. He said nothing. He walked into the room where Terravasi and Dickerson awaited him.

He had to look twice at Dickerson to know him. Dickerson had been arrogant, immaculately dressed. Now he looked like the back alleys of hell. His clothes hung, sweated and rumpled. He hadn’t shaved in two days. His hair was wild on his head and his eyes were harried.

Terravasi was sitting at a bare table. He had stood up under it better than his boss. Or else he looked so much like a tramp anyway that the hell he’d been through since the fire on Gale Island didn’t alter him outwardly.

Terravasi was drinking steadily. His eyes were hot and hazy.

Dickerson mumbled, “Thank God, Blake. We had about given up. We thought you’d never get here.”

“I’m here,” Steve said. “What do you want with me? I’m the guy that was no more good to you. I’m the guy you weren’t going to take a chance with the police on. I’m the guy you gave an hour to get out of the world.”

Dickerson ran his trembling hand through his graying hair. “My God, Steve, forgive me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know then.”

“No. You were on top of the world. You didn’t know.”

“Don’t hate me, Steve. I — ”

“I don’t hate you. I just don’t give a damn.”

Dickerson prowled the room. “You’ve got to give a damn!” he said. “You’re the only man in this town who can help me. I thought Bricker could. But he can’t. He says you’re the only one.”

Blake looked at him without compassion. “What do you want?” he said.

“I want to get out of this town!” The way Dickerson croaked it, it was a wail, a plea for help. A drowning man’s hopeless cry the third time down.

“I thought you were out once.”

Dickerson stared at him. “Out once? How? When? Arrenhower’s company men are watching this town. Terravasi and I couldn’t even walk down Central Avenue and hope to stay alive!”

“I thought you told me Arrenhower wouldn’t stoop to a thing like that.”

“Steve, for God’s sake. The man who talked to you that way Sunday morning is dead. He’s gone. The things he believed and the arrogance he felt are all gone. I’m a helpless old man, Blake. I never knew how helpless until I began to try to find some way to get out of this town alive.”

“What about your family? I might help them.”

“Help them! My God, man. It’s me who needs help! They let my family go. They went out on the Silver Meteor. They’re all right. They’re out of Florida by now. But they’re after me. And they’re after Terravasi. Thick shouldered goons with guns at their hips. Hired by a man who knows no law except his own. Arrenhower laughs at the government when they try to tell him what to do. His company police are after me. I can’t stand it. I’ve got to get away. And Bricker says you’re the only man who can help me.”

Blake shook his head. “Ross Connell told me that you and Terravasi had put the finger on me as the man who had set fire to your house. You said I was trying to kill you.”

Tears welled in Dickerson’s eyes. He looked as though he were going to fall on his knees before Blake.

“I was trying to fool Arrenhower. Don’t you see? I still thought that if Arrenhower believed I wasn’t after him, he might call off his wolves! It didn’t work! God forgive me, I said the only thing I could think to save my hide.”

“Yoah hide?” Sam said from the corner of the room. “What about the hide of Mistuh Steve? Put on by little men like you. Little men who come whining after him in the night when they get into trouble. You didn’t mind adding to a man’s woes when his heart was already breakin’. And now you beg him for help. God help me, I hope I never sink so low.”

Dickerson stared at the big man. His teeth chattered and tears brimmed over his eyes. “I don’t ask forgiveness. I only ask for help. It’s not for me, Blake. What becomes of my family if I die?”

“My Lawd,” Sam said. “Prob’ly they throws a party and has real pork chops, do that happen.”

Dickerson was visibly shaking now. “I asked for police protection, Steve. Out of town. They gave it to me. You know where they took us? Out Fourth Street, to Gandy Bridge, to the Gulf City city limits! And there they left us — right at Arrenhower’s front door!

“Terravasi and I ran through the mangroves to a fishing camp. They had a public telephone. I called Bricker. He came out and got us.” His lips curled. “But he said he wouldn’t have come if he had known that Arrenhower had sent his men over here to pick us up!”