The Feud (19 page)

Rev was suddenly more apprehensive than he had been in a long time. But that of course was just what They wanted, to debilitate their prey by moral means so that when they finally jumped him he would long since have been conquered by his own corruption. It was necessary that he keep his nerve, even though unarmed. He realized that the search for Junior might be useless if they had abducted the boy by car. But there was also a distinct possibility that instead they had lured him into a darkened back yard or vacant lot, disarmed him by some trickery probably involving indecent pictures—carnality might be Junior’s Achilles heel—and beaten, stabbed, or shot him to death. Reverton would be saddled with the unpleasant job of informing the mother. “I’m sorry, Frieda, but this goes to show how we can’t let down our guard even to eat a little supper.”

The neighborhood seemed more quiet than it should have been: this was suspicious in itself. Rev carried a big flashlight he had come upon beside the back door and borrowed from Frieda, but did not turn it on, owing to the regular series of streetlamps along the route. He had gone several blocks north, to the last residential street, beyond which, after a little cluster of garage buildings having to do with car repair, the fields began, and having seen only a black-and-white cat, which ignored him, and a mongrel dog, which wagged its tail and would have followed him had he not pantomimed picking up a rock—Rev had nothing against a good pooch, but this was not the time—he had turned back when he heard the sound of a car door slamming. This issued from the auto body-shop buildings across the way, and yet the establishment was dark and obviously closed for business. What a perfect place to have taken Junior, whose battered, lifeless body but for this chance would not have been found until the next day.

Rev rapidly but silently approached the buildings. When he got to a point from which to survey the inner parking area, he saw the darkened car. He ran to it, turned the big flashlight onto the back seat, and forgetting he was not otherwise armed, put the evildoers under arrest.

Bernice and Ernie somehow got themselves disentangled and climbed out of the back seat. The flashlight kept going from one to the other, and before Bernice could get her eyes adjusted and see who was holding it, the glare would return to blind her. Also she had to pull up and/or adjust certain items of clothing. But she got this done before Ernie succeeded in doing the same for himself, and in spite of the lousy situation she was in, she almost snickered when the light left her at one point to show him with his pants at his ankles and his droopy BVD bottoms showing.

Their captor spoke no understandable words after his first furious statement, but was mumbling and muttering in a nasty way, so Bernice saw no possibility, at least at this time, of proposing to him the kind of deal which Ernie had described as being characteristic of Hornbeck’s police chief, that is, helping himself to some of the fun.

But once he got his pants back on, Ernie surprised her by speaking up boldly. “Listen here, Officer,” said he. “I don’t criticize you for doing what you see as your duty, but the facts in the case is I have a perfect right to come here, as my otto is being repaired by the DeWeese brothers—you can check onnat—and I also happen to be a public servant myself, in my case a fireman, and all I ask is professional courtesy…”

But this reasonable comment only seemed to put the other man in a worse mood. “You shet your stinking mouth, you scum,” he said. “You think you can come up here where innocent women and children are living and corpu-late like unto animals of the field, make a spectacle of yourself, hold up to mockery all the principles of God-fearing men, roll in slime and throw it in our face? I’d like to see you both kestrated.”

He flashed his light on Bernice. “I mean you too, Missy. You are a slopbucket, for my money.”

Bernice was stung by this. She said, “Lookit here, you ain’t got no call to talk so nasty just because you wear a badge. What we was doing might not of been one hunderd percent on the upanup, but at least it’s natural, and what I always say is, the human race can’t get along without it, and it don’t hurt anybody, and—”

“I tole you to shetcha filthy mouth!” he yelled, or really screamed, and a hand came out of the darkness and slapped her hard across the nose.

“Ow!” she howled, covering her face, and then immediately opening up to shout, “You lousy son of a bitch!”

And again Ernie surprised her. He said, “By God, you don’t do that to any girl uh mine!” He waded in with both fists. The flashlight fell to the ground and went out. The cop, who turned out to be a littler fellow than she had thought, bent over in search of the light, and Bernice kicked him as hard as she could in the seat of the pants, and he went sprawling for a moment. But he quickly regained his feet.

“I’m gonna blow your guts out,” he said, and he went into the kind of crouch you see in the movies when somebody’s going for a pistol, and he clawed at his hip, but he didn’t come up with a weapon. She could see him better now. Not only was he awfully little for a cop, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform. It dawned on her that he might be one of those lovers’ lane bandits you heard about sometimes, who preyed on people who had no place to go to do it but the back seat of a car, which from her point of view was even lousier than just plain highway robbery. And now she felt a wetness on her mouth, and she put her fingers there and discovered that her nose was bleeding from the slap.

She told Ernie, “This little rat ain’t no cop! He’s a dirty crook. Let’s gettim!”

Ernie punched him hard in the side of the head, and he stupidly straightened up some, and Ernie then hit him so hard in the belly that his spine must have been curved by the blow, and while he was bent over from that, Bemice kicked him in the mouth with the full force of her right leg, and she was wearing a spike heel that probably wouldn’t help his teeth much. Then Ernie knocked him down.

Bernice was still mad about her bloody nose, which was ruining her only good dress, and she looked around for some kind of weapon, but couldn’t see much in the dark. She tripped on something: it was the big flashlight. She picked it up and raised it high over her head, with the intent to bring it down as hard as she could and crush his skull if possible, but Ernie stopped her.

“He’s out.” Ernie was breathing hard. “We don’t wanna kill him.”

“I sure do,” said Bernice, with some labored panting of her own. “He’s got it coming if a man ever did, the onry little skunk.”

“Come on,” Ernie said, gently but with strength taking the flashlight from her. He dropped it on the ground next to the unconscious man.

Bernice would at least have stomped the rotten little bastard between the legs if Ernie had not led her to the car. She felt her face. It seemed as if the nose had stopped bleeding, but what a mess. It was just as well that the bulb in the ceiling light had long since been burned out and never replaced.

Ernie did not put on the headlights until he had quietly backed out from between the buildings and got rolling on the street. But when he saw her in the glow of the dashboard, he pulled to the curb.

“For God’s sake, honey, you been hurt?”

Bernice was touched. She hadn’t realized that Ernie was so nice a fellow. He got out a handkerchief that was clean enough, and he tenderly cleaned off her chin, and where the blood had dried he wet the cloth with his tongue and gently rubbed and dabbed. And finally he pulled his head back and took a general look.

“Wellsir, I guess that’s the best we can do right now. But I’ll get you home soon’s I can.” He pulled away from the curb.

Bernice felt better even than she had before the fight. She said, “You’re a pretty swell guy, Ernie. I’m fit as a fiddle.” She didn’t add, “and ready for love,” the rest of the line in the song, but figured he would get the idea.

“You’re gonna be all right,” he said, smiling not sexily but like a doctor. “We had a first-aid course at the Department. It looks like just a bloody nose to me and not broken. But I’d be glad to runya up to the hospital.”

“I’m O.K.,” said she, sliding across the seat to be near him and leaning her head against his shoulder. “It’s still early. You know any other private places? That was kinda nice, back there, until we got so rudely interrupted.”

“Gee, Bernice,” said Ernie. “I never suspected you was such a good scout about everything.” He put his hand on her thigh.

Bernice realized she was getting mighty fond of him. She said, “Leave it to Millville to have a nut like that wandering around the back streets. Don’t tell me he was a real cop.”

“Naw,” Ernie said with a certain self-importance. “The tip-off came when he didn’t extend any courtesy when I identified myself as a fireman. We was all over here from the Hornbeck Department just the other night when that hardware burned down. Heck, I was risking my life in his town. He would have acknowledged that if he had been a real officer. He might of been a new night watchman for the DeWeese brothers, but I tole him my car was right inside there—”

Bernice slid her hand up the inside of Ernie’s upper arm and curled her fingers around his biceps, which he immediately tensed. “Forget about that monkey,” she said. “We gave him more than he was looking for. We make a pretty good team, you know.”

“By gosh, we do, don’t we?” said Ernie, his hand growing warm on her thigh.

The bartender, whose name was Billy Schmitt, put away his blackjack and came around the other side of the bar and picked up the pistol Junior had dropped. He examined it, shrugged, and put it down in front of the nearest customer.

“How do you like that?” said he.

The man shook his head in disgust. “Little snotnose. He coulda scared us out of a year’s growth.”

Billy picked Junior off the floor and propped him on an empty stool. “Hey, Marie,” he said to the plump woman who had distracted Junior by rubbing against him, “gimme that club soda uh yours.”

She brought it over from where she had been sitting. Billy poured it, along with the ice cubes, onto Junior’s head. The boy woke up slowly and looked at him through slanted eyes. His voice had a croaking sound. He said, “It was … just uh … joke, I swear.”

“Sure, kid,” said Billy, holding Junior’s sweater front with one fist, which was almost as big as Junior’s head. Billy weighed 248 pounds. “But what if I used the sawed-off twelve-gauge I keep back there, instead of the blackjack? You would of been hamburger meat, woontcha? Your guts would of been plastered all over them booths, ain’t that right? That would of been a real funny joke, woont it? But you woont of been laughing, wouldja?”

“Huh-uh.”

Billy put his hand to his ear. “Whadjoo say? Speak up.”

“Naw.”

Billy shook Junior with his big hand. “I’m hard of hearing, boy. You gotta sound off.”

“No.”

Billy patted Junior’s cheeks roughly. He said, “You got a great sensa yumor. How long you think you could get away with pointing a starter’s pistol at people?”

Junior frowned.

Billy said, “I guess you was aware that a gun like that only shoots blanks?”

Junior kept frowning.

“But,” Billy whispered close to his ear, “if I was to stuff the barrel with rock salt and then put it up your asshole and pull the trigger, you woont be happy, I can tell you. That’s what they call a Dutch enema, ever hear uh that?”

Junior shook his head.

Marie had gone back of the bar to get herself a refill of club soda. She grinned across at Junior.

She said, “Take it easy onna kid, Billy. We was all young oncet.”

Billy shoved Junior away and poked a big finger at him. “You’re gonna eat the next gun you point at me.”

When Harvey Yelton arrived he put handcuffs on Junior.

Harvey said, “Who’s coming, Billy or Marie?”

“I will,” Marie said. “Billy’s got to stay and pour.”

Billy shouted, “Don’t keep my old lady too long, Harvey. She’s got work to do.”

“He’s a real slave driver,” Marie told Harvey with a chuckle.

Contrary to what his enemies believed, Reverton had not been knocked out. He had instead been shrewdly playing possum, having soon realized that, unarmed and outnumbered, he would have no chance against these ruthless adversaries in hand-to-hand combat. Obviously both of them, including the woman, had been well trained in how to disable an opponent with as few precise, deadly blows as possible. Rev was not humiliated: there was nothing disgraceful about receiving damage from such a brawny female as that one. And the so-called fireman was a gangster pure and simple. They were a pair of real hoodlums, come out from the city. To take them on single-handedly had been the work of a brave man.

When the car had driven away, Rev slowly sat up and spat his upper dental plate into his hand. One or more of the blows he took to the mouth had done something harmful to it. He was inclined to think that the principal cause of the damage was the spiked heel of the female’s shoe. It was hard to see in the dark, but he could feel that some of the front teeth were missing. Groping about, he came upon the flashlight and switched it on, but it too had apparently been hurt in the fight and stayed dark, so he couldn’t look among the ashes in the driveway for his missing choppers.

Getting to his feet was not easy. He had taken a lot of punishment from that goon squad. A lesser man might have cashed in his chips, but Reverton after a life of raw deals was a pretty tough cookie. What bothered him more than the physical pain, which could easily be found in any part of his body, was that the right knee of his trousers was badly torn. At least once he had plunged knees-first onto those sharp ashes. This was his only suit; in fact, these were his only pants. It was clear that his adversaries were diabolically clever professionals who knew exactly how to hurt a man in the worst way. What kind of respect could he inspire with a big hole in the knee of his trouserleg? It also occurred to him for the first time that it might well have been these people who had used Junior to get his pistol away. For example, why had Junior never tried to borrow it before? Why on just this night, when being armed would have made the difference between victory and defeat? Had Rev used the gun to back up his threat, that harlot would never have doubted his authenticity as a law-enforcement officer: it was at precisely that point that the tide turned against him.