Created, the Destroyer

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

«They all want you, Mr. Morroco,» Norman would say. This always insured a five the next time. Morroco would laugh. «You know it too, kid.»

Then Norman would lead Morroco up to either Norma or Carol's room. He would return downstairs knowing what the girls would be doing.

The first thing was to get Morroco aroused. That could take twenty or thirty minutes. His potency was all in his mind. Then, with great effort, the girl could end it. Her groaning would be real. Only it wasn't excitement, it was exertion.

Then came the lavish praise, telling Morroco what a wonderful man he was. This, the Missus explained, was what he paid for. And that's how they made fifty dollars a night from Vito Morroco.

He was in the rackets, the girls said. But he wasn't a torpedo. No money in it. All he did was deliver money from one place to another and keep his mouth shut. He was a bag man. And he never lost a penny and he never said a word about his business.

He worked for Alphonso Degenerato who had the Bronx rackets. Sometimes he would carry, so the girls said, one hundred thousand dollars.

Norman would run the errands for the house and keep his eyes open. He watched people. He watched Morroco. He saw the admiral from Washington who paid a girl to dance around him nude and sprinkle powder over him.

He saw the minister who asked to be whipped. He saw the men who needed two women and those who couldn't perform with a dozen. He saw the lonely and the frightened.

And he ran his errands. Pick up a case of hooch here, a woman there; deliver both. Make sure Daisy had her powder. Never call Mr. Johnson by name. Mr. Feldstein appreciated a little bow upon greeting.

The Missus took a liking to him. «Men are run by their balls, their bellies and their fears,» she would tell Norman. «First, they're afraid. Then, they're hungry. When both those feelings are gone, they go for what I give them.»

Norman listened. But she was wrong. He learned that quickly.

Men are run by their egos; stronger than life, than food, than sex, is pride. A man is without this pride only when it is beaten from him. Left alone, human beings are servants of their pride before their bodies. All else flowed from pride.

He saw it in Johnson, in Feldstein and in Morroco. He saw it in the shiny buttons of the admiral. Men were weak and they were prideful and they lied to themselves. And that was their weakness. It was the Missus' weakness, too. He proved it.

Norman Felton was seventeen and had been at the Missus' for three years when she asked: «Have you had any women?»

«Yeah.»

«Which one of the girls?»

«None of them. I get mine outside.»

«Why?»

«Your girls are dirty. Like swimming in a sewer.»

The Missus laughed. She rolled back her head and shrieked a harsh laugh that sent her weakly leaning against one of the lamps in the kitchen where they were talking.

But when she saw, Norman was not embarrassed or cowed, she stopped laughing and began to yell. «Get the hell out of here. Get out of here, you rat scum. I picked you up out of the gutter, you rat scum. Get out of here.»

The cook backed away toward her stove. One of the girls ran into the kitchen and stopped in horror. The Missus, for the first time anyone could remember, was crying.

And chuckling softly before her was Norman, the errand boy.

So he had won, but he had no job, no education and little money. What had he won?

Norman Felton walked out into the rain-chilled afternoon with forty-five dollars in his pocket and a plan. A man had to survive. If he could not, he would die. One life lost. His life was as valuable as the next. More so. It was his.

So Vito Morroco, who had never lost a delivery in his life, a good man with a gun and with the muscle, that night coming out of the Missus' place, met the former errand boy.

He met him in a passageway leading from the side exit to the street. Nobody could see who entered or left.

Norman Felton stood in the passageway. «Gee, Mr. Morroco,» he said. «I'm glad I seen you. I'm desperate.»

«I heard you been canned, kid,» Morroco said. The word «desperate» put him on the balls of his feet. Norman suddenly realized how big Vito was. The hand never left the pocket. The cold brown eyes seemed to cut through Norman's will. The scar-creased lip moved into a sneer.

«What do you want, kid? A fin?»

The air in the chill passageway seemed choking stale. Norman felt the metal strip in his own pocket. It was so damned small. He noticed Vito's eyes move toward his pocket. It was now or never.

«No, Mr. Morroco. I need more.»

«Oh,» Morroco said. There was a bulge in his pocket, too.

«Yeah. I got a plan how we can both make a fortune.»

«We, kid? We? Why you?»

«It's like this. I seen a lot of guys come into the Missus' place. But never none like you, Mr. Morroco. I mean, I know maybe a hundred broads who want it real bad but there ain't a guy, a real guy who can give it to 'em. And I heard the broads in the Missus' say they'd be willing to pay you if you didn't pay them.»

Vito suddenly smiled. His cold brown eyes warmed. His hand started to ease from his pocket.

«Yeah, Mr. Morroco,» Norman said. «The Missus only lets the girls who have been doing good work have you. That's why I used to have to take you to special ones each time. The ones who deserve you.»

«Yeah?» Vito seemed unable to believe it.

«Yeah, and I was figuring, if I could like set you up with women and get maybe twenty per cent.»

Vito was chuckling. The scar made a comical crisscross across his lip. The gold-capped teeth shone under the pale light of the corridor. His hand was out of bis pocket, near his forehead, tipping back his hat.

«No crap,» Vito said. «You're a smart kid and I like you but I got other…» Vito Morroco, thirty-seven, chief bagman for the syndicate, never finished the sentence. He couldn't. A sharp metal blade was in his throat.

The blood flowed and Vito gagged, rolling over the corridor floor, smearing red splotches on the gray concrete. Norman feverishly tried to get to the wallet, look for a money belt, rifle the pockets. Vito rolled and kicked. Dying, he was almost too much for young Norman Felton.

With a jump, Norman landed both feet on Vito's reddened chest as it rolled topside again. A spurting gush of air and blood came out of Morroco's mouth and he was helpless.

Norman had gotten three thousand dollars for that first killing.

That had been the last time he took his money from the victim. More times than he could count, he had been paid by someone else.

And with the money, he bought the clothes and the house and the manners of respectability. He married a respectable woman, with good breeding, and after five years of marriage that produced a daughter, he found that breeding was only clothes deep. When Mrs. Felton was nude, she was just like any other slut going to bed with another man.

And Felton killed without payment. Without a cent. And that had been the first time.

Felton stepped back from the railing and inhaled the fresh Hudson air again. Today, he had killed once more without profit, this time to stay alive.

Where the hell were these men coming from? In the last year, he had been forced to dispose of one snooper in the regular way upon contract, but today the man had gotten so close, so damned effectively close, that only with a lucky break were Felton and two henchmen able to fling him over the railing down to the street right smack into a police investigation.

Felton's breathing came hard. He no longer noticed the purity of the air. Blue veins bulged in his forehead and he clenched his fists.

Someone was after him and it was no amateur. They had claimed one of his best men.

«No amateur,» he mumbled and then his thoughts were interrupted when Jimmy, the butler-bodyguard, came out on the terrace with a scotch and water.

«Tony Bonelli's inside.»

«By himself, Jimmy?»

«Yeah, boss, by himself. I think he's scared.»

Felton glanced down at the light amber liquid in his glass. «Viaselli send him?»

«Right. Mr. Big himself.»

«Are you thinking what I'm thinking, boss?»

«I don't know,» Felton said. «I don't know.» He turned and walked into the den, carrying half a glass of his drink.

A thin, greasy-haired man with hollow cheeks sat on the edge of a chair near the desk. He wore a blue pinstriped suit, a yellowish tie. He twisted a handkerchief in his hands. He perspired profusely despite the air conditioning.

Felton walked to the chair and stood over Tony, who was almost writhing in his seat.

«What's up, what's up?» Tony said quickly. «Mr. Big sent me over here. He said you wanted to talk about something.»

«Not to you, Tony. To him,» Felton said and slowly poured the rest of his drink over Tony's black shiny hair.

As Tony tried to mop his head with the handkerchief, Felton slapped him hard, once, across the face.

«Now, let's talk,» Felton said, and motioned Jimmy to place a chair beneath him.