Killer's Wedge

CHAPTER 11

It was remarkable, Hawes thought, how simply it had worked. If everything in life worked as easily as the first part of his plan had, everyone in the world would have his own private pink cloud upon which to float around. But the very ease with which Virginia had taken off her coat and parted with the pistol gave him his first twinge of doubt. He was not a superstitious man, but he regarded simplicity of action with some skepticism. Wa~ the success of the first part an ill omen for the second part. Anxiously he began to review the plan in his mind.

The gun was now where he wanted it, in the pocket of a coat hanging on the rack near the bulletin board. Between the coat rack and the bulletin board, on the short stretch of wall inside the slatted railing, was the ugh switch which controlled the overhead globes. It was Hawe~ idea to amble over to the bulletin board, busy himself wiV taking down some notes from the Wanted circulars an~ then-when and if the opportunity presented itself-sna out the lights and reach for Byrnes' pistol in the coat. He would not use the pistol immediately because he did not want a long-distance shooting duel, not with that bottle a nitro on the desk in front of Virginia. He would hold the pistol until it was safe to fire it without the attend an possibility of a greater explosion.

He did not see how the plan could fail.

The switc controlled every light in the room. One flick, and the light would go out.

It would take him no more than three seconds to snatch the gun, hide it, and flick on the light again.

Would Virginia Dodge fire at the nitro in those three seconds?

He did not believe so.

In the first place, even if she did fire, the room would be in total darkness and she probably wouldn't be able to hit the bottle.

Well, that's a hell of a gamble to be taking, he told himself. She doesn't even have to fire at it, you know. All she has to do is sweep it off the desk with her arm, and there goes eternity.

But he was banking on something else, a person's normal reaction to a suddenly darkened room. Wouldn't Virginia, in the confusion of the moment, assume there'd been a power failure or something? Wouldn't she hold her fire, hold the sweeping motion of her arm at least long enough to be certain one way or the other? And by that time, the lights would be on again and Hawes could invent some excuse about having turned them off by accident.

It had better be a damn good excuse, he told himself.

Or did it really have to be a good one? If, when the lights went on again, everything was apparently as it had been before the darkness, wouldn't she accept any alibi? Or would she remember the gun in the coat pocket? Well, if she did, they'd have it out then and there, nitro or no nitro. And at least they'd be evenly matched, a pistol for a pistol.

Again, he went over the steps in his mind. Get to the bulletin board, busy myself there, flick out the lights, grab the gun .

Now wait a minute.

There was an alternate switch at the far end of the corridor, just at the head of the metal steps. This switch, too, controlled the lights in the corridor and the squad-room so that it wasn't necessary to walk the entire length of the hall in complete darkness when coming onto the Second floor of the building. But Hawes wondered if he had to do anything to that second switch in order to ensure darkness in the squad room when he made his play. He did not think so. Each switch, he hoped, worked independently of the other, both capable of either turning on or extinguishing all the lights. In any case, it had better work that way. Virginia Dodge had already used her gun once, and she showed no signs of reticence about pulling the trigger again.

Well, he thought, let's get it over with.

He started across the room.

"Hey."

He stopped Angelica Gomez had laid a hand on his arm.

"You got a cigarillo?" she asked.

"Sure," Hawes said He took out his pack and shook one free.

Angelica accepted it, hung it on her full lower lip, and waited Hawes struck a match and lighted the cigarette.

"Much as gracias," she said.

"You got good manners. Tha's import an

"Yeah," Hawes said, and he started away from the girl, and again she caught his sleeve.

"You know something?"

"What?"

"I hate thees city. You know why?"

"No. Why?"

"No manners. Tha's the troo."

"Well, things are rough all over," Hawes said impatiently.

He started away again, and Angelica said, "Wha's your hurry?" and this time Virginia Dodge turned from the desk and looked at Hawes suspiciously.

"No hurry," he said to Angelica. He could feel Virginia's eyes on his back. Like two relentless drills, they bored at his spinal column.

"So sit down," Angelica said.

"Talk to me. Nobody thees city ever have time to talk. Iss diff'ren' on the islan'. On the islan', ever' body got time for every ting

Hawes hesitated. Virginia Dodge was still watching him. Trying to appear unhurried, he pulled up a chair and sat. Casually, perhaps too casually, he shook another cigarette from the package and lighted it.

His hand, he noticed, was shaking. He pretended to ignore Virginia completely, pretended to be interested only in the lively company of

~ngelica Gomez. But as he drew on his cigarette, he was wondering How long will it be before she remembers she's left a gun in that coat?

"Where you get that white in your hair?"

Angelica asked.

His hand wandered unconsciously to the white smear above his left temple.

"I was knifed once," he said.

"It grew back this way."

"Where you got knifed?"

"It's a long story."

"I got dine."

I haven't, he thought, and then he realized that Virginia was still watching him, and he wondered if she knew he was up to something, and he felt nervousness settle in his stomach like a heavy black brew. He wanted to let out his breath in a giant sigh, wanted to shout something, wanted to pound his fist against the wall. Instead, he forced himself to continue talking in a normal conversational voice, thinking about the pistol all the while, thinking about it so hard he could almost feel his fingers curling around the checked walnut stock.

"I was investigating a burglary," he said.

"The woman was pretty hysterical when I got there. I guess she was still in shock. She was terrified when I started to leave. I heard her begin screaming as I was going down the stairwell, the high hysterical screams. I was going to send a patrolman up as soon as I reached the street, but I never got that far. This guy came rushing at me with a knife in his hand."

"This was the burglar?"

"No. No, that's funny part of it. He was the super of the building. He'd heard her screams, and came running upstairs because he thought it was the burglar returning. The hallway was dark and when he saw me he jumped me. And he cut me. I didn't know he was the super, either. I got mad as hell, and I just kept hitting him until he went hip. But he'd already put the gash in my head."

"So what happened?"

"So they shaved the hair off to get at the cut.

And when it grew back, it was white. End of story."

"Did the super go to jail?"

"No. He honestly thought I was the burglar."

There was a pause.

"Will I go to jail?"

"Yes. Probably."

There was another pause. He wondered if he should leave now, but Virginia was still watching him. Angelic~ Gomez sat with her hands folded in her lap. There waj sadness on her face, mingled with a hardness that made her seem older than she actually was.

In a thrust at further conversation, Hawes said, "Wha brought you to the mainland?"

Without hesitation, she answered, Pan American Air lines."

"No, no, I meant ..

"Oh. You meant …" and she burst out laughing, an~ suddenly there was no hardness to her face.

She threw back her head, and the bleached blond hair seemed, for a moment, as natural as her laughter. She was carefrei for an instant, all thought of spontaneous mayhem and violent gang retaliation washed from her mind. Her face relaxed, leaving only the natural beauty which was her birthright and which the city could never rob from her The laughter trailed off. The relaxation dropped from he~ face like a gossamer veil drifting to the dust. There was only the hardness again, covering the beauty with the glitter of shellac.

"I come here because I am hungry," she said.

"Ve poor in Puerto Rico." She pronounced the name of t island with Spanish grandeur, rhyming "Puer" with "prayer," discarding the harsh "Porto" of the native m amp; lander. And, never having been to the island, Haw listened to her pronunciation of the words and visualiz it immediately as a place of rare beauty.

Angelica shrugged.

"I get letters from my cousin Come the city, come the city. So I come.

Very easy. The plane fare is loan you, there are people who loan y dinero. Later on, you pay them back. With in'ress. So I come. I get here January. Very cold here, I don' ex thees. I knew would be winter here, but not so cold I don't expec'."

"Where'd you go, Angelica?"

"I go first what they call a hot bed place.

You know what thees minns?"

d "No. What?"

"It sounds dirtee, but hot bed is not thees.

Hot bed is where people come to sleep in shifts, comprende? Like e they renn the apartment to three diff'ren' people. You come sleep, you leave. Nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. Then nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. One apartment, three renns. Very smart, much dinero in this. For the landlord. Not for the sleeper." She smiled grimly. Hawes smiled with her.

"So," Angelica said, "I stay there awhile 'til all my money is gone, an' then I go live with my cousins for a while. An' then I figure I am become-how you say-~ burn. Burn. When is too much for someone to carry?"

"Burden," Hawes supplied.

"Si. Burd'n. So I find a man an' go live with him."

"Who?"

"Oh, jus' a man. Pretty good man, no police trouble. But I don' live with him now because he beat me once, an' thees I don' like. So I leave. An' sometimes I sleep around now, but only when I need bad the money." She paused.

"I tell you something."

"What?"

"In Puerto Rico," and again the "Puer" was a prayer, "I am pretty girl. Here, too, I am also pretty-but I am also cheap. You know? I am look at here, an' men think, "I sleep with her." In Puerto Rico, there is respect. Very diff'ren'" "How do you mean?"

"In Puerto Rico, a girl walks don the stritt, men look an' watch, it is a pretty thing to see. I minn, iss all right a girl could wiggle a little, is nice to see, appreciated. An' also a little comical. I minn, good-natured. Here … no. here, always there is the thinking.

"Cheap. Slut.

Puta." I hate thees city."

"Well, you ..

"Iss not my fault I don' speak such good English. I learn Spanish. I know real Spanish, very high Spanish, very good school Spanish. But Spanish iss no good here. You speak Spanish here, you are a foreigner. But thees is my country, too, no?

I am American also, no? Puerto Rico is American, noes ver dad But Spanish no good. Spanish here minns puta. I hate thees city."

"Angelica ..

"You know something? I warm to go back the islan'. I warm to go back there an' never leave. Because I tell you. There I am poor, but there I am me. Angelica Gomez. Me.

An' there is nobody else the whole worl' who iss also Angelica Gomez. Only me.

An' here, I am not me, I am only dirtee Spanish Puerto Rican spic!"

"To some people," Hawes said.

Angelica shook her head.

"I am in big trouble now, no?" she said.

"Yes. You're in very big trouble."

"Si. So what happens to me now? I go to prison, hahi Maybe worse if thees Kassim dies, hah? An' why do I cul him? You want to know why I cut him? I do it becausc he forgets one thing.

He forgets what everybody else it thees city forgets. He forgets that I am me, Angelic~ Gomez, an' that what is me is private an' nobody car touch unless I say touch. Me.

Private." She paused.

"Why they cann let a person be private? Goddamn, why they cann leave you alone?"

She seemed suddenly on the verge of tears. He reache~ out to touch her hand, and she shook her head instantly and violently.

He pulled back his fingers.

"I am sorree," she said.

"I will not cry.

One learns fas in thees city that it does no good to cry, no good at all." She shook her head.

"I am sorree. Leave me alone. Pa favor. Leave me alone. Please. Please."

He rose. Virginia Dodge had turned her attention bad to the desk. She sat quite silently, staring at the bottle in front of her.

Casually, Hawes walked to the bulletin board near the light switch. Casually, he took a pad from his back pocket and began writing into it.

The boys had got an early start.

It was only 6:25, but the boys had been at it since 3:30 when their last class-a boring lecture in Anthropology-had let out. This was Friday afternoon and after a hard week of listening to lectures and scribbling down notes, the boys owed it to themselves to throw down a few college-manly drinks.

They had started with beer at the fraternity house across the street from the college. But some stupid frosh pledge had stocked the refrigerator the week before and then forgotten to replenish the dwindling supplies. There were only two dozen cans of beer on ice, and that was barely enough to get the boys under way. And so they'd been forced to leave the intimacy of their private diggings in search of liquid refreshment elsewhere.

They had left the frat house, wearing the uniforms which identified them as true scholars. The uniforms consisted of trousers belted in the back and pleat less in the front and cuff less at the bottom. White button down shirts topped the trousers. Silk-rep ties curled beneath the collars of the shirts, knotted in the front, fell in slender splendor to the simple punctuation of gold clasps.

Dark sports jackets, vented in the rear, with unpadded shoulders, three buttons and sleeves and lapels pressed to roll, man, roll, completed the costume. The boys were hatless and coat less They all wore crew cuts

By the time they reached the third bar, they were hopelessly crocked.

"One day," Sammy Horn said, "I am going to walk into that rotten Anthropology course and rip off Miss Amaglio's blouse.

Then I'm gonna deliver a lecture on the mating habits of the Homo sapiens."

"Who in the world," Bucky Reynolds said, "would ever want to rip off Miss Amaglio's blouse?"

"Me, that's who," Sammy said.

"And deliver a lecture on the mating ..

"All the time, he's got sex on the brain," Jim McQuade said.

"Zing, zing, zing, sex, sex, sex."

"Right!" Sammy said emphatically.

"Damn right."

"Miss Amaglio," Bucky said, pronouncing the name with great care but nonetheless having a little difficulty with it, "strikes me as being a dried-up old septic tank, and I am surprised-to tell you the truth, Samuel, I am profoundly surprised that you are harboring dark thoughts of planking her. I am truthfully and profoundly surprised by your lecherous thoughts. Yes."

"Screw you," Sammy said.

"All the time sex on the brain," Jim said.

"I will tell you something," Sammy said, his blue eyes very serious behind his black rimmed bop spectacles.

"Still water runs deep. That is the God's honest truth, I swear to God."

"Miss Amaglio," Bucky said, still having trouble with the name, "is not still water, she is stagnant water. And I am greatly astounded-astonished, I say-to discover that you, Samuel Horn, could even entertain notions of .

"I am," Sanuny admitted.

"That's indecent," Bucky said, ducking his blond crewcut head, and then shaking it mournfully, and then sighing.

"Obscene."

He sighed again.

"But, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind a little piece of that myself, you know? She has a very foreign sexy-type look, that wench, even though she is about four thousand years old."

"She isn't a day over thirty," Sammy said.

"I am willing to bet my Phi Beta Kappa key on that."

"You haven't got a Phi Beta Kappa key."

"I know, but I will have one someday, and every red-blooded American boy knows that a Phi Beta Kappa key is truly the key to the pearly gates. And I'm willing to bet it. And I'll even give away the secret of the secret hand, shake if Miss Amaglio is a day over thirty."

"She's Italian," Jim said from out of nowhere. When Jim got drunk, his face simply fell apart. It seemed to hang without support from somewhere in outer space~ His eyes swam socket less His lips moved without muscular volition.

"She is indeed," Bucky said.

"Her first name is Serafina."

"How do you know?"

"It's stamped on my program card.

Serafina Amaglio. Beautiful."

"But what a deadly bore, Jesus," Jim said.

"She has a very healthy bosom," Sammy observed.

"Very. Healthy," Bucky agreed.

"Spanish girls have healthy bosoms," Jim said from left field.

"Also."

"Here's to Serafina Amaglio," Bucky said, lifting his glass.

"And to Spanish girls," Jim said.

"Also."

"And to healthy bosoms."

"And strong legs."

"And clean teeth."

"And Pepsodent toothpaste." They all drank.

"I know where there are Spanish girls," Sammy Horn said.

"Where?"

"Uptown."

"Where uptown?"

"A street called Mason Avenue. You know it?"

'""Jo."

"It's uptown There are Spanish girls with healthy bosoms and strong legs and clean teeth on that street." Sammy nodded.

"Gentlemen," he said, "it is time we made a decision. What time is it, Bucky old pot?"

"It is 6:25," Bucky said, glancing at his watch.

"And three-quarters. When you hear the tone, it will be 6:26." He paused.

"Bong!" he said.

"It's getting late, men," Sammy said.

"It's later than we think, men. For cris sakes men, We may be dead someday!

Then what? Away we go, men, to bleed on foreign soil."

"Christ!" Bucky said, awed.

"So … do we wait for Miss Amaglio to take off her blouse, which I am reasonably certain she will never do, despite the healthiness of her remarkable bosom? Or shall we slither off uptown to this wonderful street called Mason Avenue, there to explore foreign soil without the attendant dangers of total warfare? What do you think, men?"

The men were silent, thinking.

"Consider well, men," Sammy said. He paused.

"This may be our finest hour."

The men considered well.

"Let's go get laid," Bucky said.

Standing at the bulletin board near the light switch, Hawes wrote into his pad aimlessly, waiting for the precise moment of attack. Ideally that moment should be when Virginia Dodge was at the other end of the room. Unfortunately, she showed no signs of moving from the desk behind which she sat in deadly earnestness, staring at the bottle of colorless fluid.

Well then, Hawes thought, the hell with the ideal. Let's just hope she turns her back for a minute, just to give me enough time to snap off the lights.

That's all I need. Just a moment while she turns away, and then the lights go off, and I reach for the gun, left-hand pocket of the coat, mustn't grab for the right-hand pocket by mistake, Jesus, suppose one of the boys thinks there's been a power failure, suppose somebody strikes a match or turns on one of those damn battery powered emergency lights, is there one in the squad room sure, under the kneehole of the junk desk, oh Jesus, don't anybody get any bright ideas, please, pun unintentional, don't anybody throw any light on the subject, pun intentional, don't foul me up by being heroes.

Just let the lights go out, and sit tight, and let me get my mitts' on that pistol. Just three seconds. Stick my hand in the pocket, close it around the butt, pull it out, and shove the gun into the side pocket of my pants. That's all I need.

Now if she'd only turn her head.

I'm six inches from the light switch. All she has to do is turn her head, and I make my move.

Come on, Virginia darling, turn that deadly little ski of yours.

Virginia darling did not move a muscle.

Virginia seemed hypnotized by the bottle of nitro.

Suppose she whacks it off the desk the minute the lights go out?

No, she won't do that.

Suppose she does?

If she does, I'll get a demerit, and never get to make Detective 1st Grade.

Come on, you bitch, turn your head. Turn it!

There must be a God, Hawes thought. He watched in fascination as Virginia Dodge slowly but surely turned to look across the room toward the grilled windows.

Hawes moved instantly. His hand darted for the light panel, shoved downwards on the protruding plastic switch.

There was blackness, instant blackness which filled the room like a negative explosion.

"What the hell ?" Virginia started, and then her voice went dead, and there was only silence in the room.

The coat, Hawes thought.

Fast!

He felt the coarse material under his fingers, slid his hands down the side of the garment, felt the heavy bulk of the weapon in the pocket, and then thrust his hand into the slit, reaching for the gun.

And then suddenly, blindingly, unimaginably-the lights went on.