The Darkest Hour

12

From the Thirty-First Retnick walked to the Tenth Avenue and picked up a cruising cab. What he had to do was simple and clear; find Red Evans and drag him to New York. How he would do this was neither simple nor clear, but he wasn’t worrying about it. What worried him now was Davey Cardinal, and the thought of that hoodlum’s interest in his wife. Retnick’s concern was illogical, but he couldn’t shake it. Why should he care what happened to her? The logical answer was that he didn’t, but the logical answer wasn’t accurate. He did care what happened to her and he didn’t understand why. The driver looked around at him inquiringly, and Retnick gave him an address in the East Eighties, a half block from where he had lived with Marcia. Lighting a cigarette he tried to analyze his feelings on the ride uptown through the dark city. But he got nowhere. It was tied up with Amato, he decided at last. If Amato thought of hitting at him through Marcia, then that put her on his side, even though the involvement was needless and pointless. That must be it, he thought...

He paid off the driver and walked along the dark sidewalk, on the opposite side of the street from her apartment.

This was a neighborhood he knew well, although he had lived there only a few months. But in that time he had memorized the street; it was clearer in his mind than the streets of the lower East Side where he had been born and raised.

Retnick stopped in the shadow of a tree and looked up at his wife’s apartment. One light shed a faint golden glow through the curtains. She wouldn’t be home yet, he knew. For a moment or so he stood completely motionless, staring at the windows of the apartment. It was difficult to realize that he had once lived there, and more difficult still to imagine what sort of man he had been then. The image of himself at peace, living normally and casually, was too strange and incongruous to believe in. He knew in an objective way he had once been happy, that he had laughed easily, that there had been friends in his life, and the warmth and sustenance of love, but when he tried to examine these memories they became distorted and blurred, twisting out of shape under the corrosive action of his anger.

But there were moments when he could think of Marcia apart from himself, without bitterness, without any feeling at all, as if she were some beautiful lifeless object he had known in a strange dream. It proved something to him that he could think of her at times without any sense of pain or loss. But what it proved he was never quite sure.

He always thought of her in motion; smiling or talking, looking up quickly to laugh at something in the paper, attacking the housework in brief shorts and sandals, her legs slim and brown and quick, and fussing in the kitchen over dinner, making enough for six people because she was proud of his appetite. Her world was gay. And she had thought him too serious. “Don’t worry so much,” she used to say, laughing at him. But it wasn’t worry that made him thoughtful, it was caution. Caution was in his background; it was part of the lower East Side, part of working your way through school, part of being a cop. He wasn’t afraid of life, but he had been taught to respect it. She could be careless and casual because she had never been hurt. This was a touching thing about her, the conviction that life was sunny and gay, that anyone you met could be your friend. He never quite understood this unreasoned optimism; it amused and puzzled him at the same time. But his attempt to fit her into any of the categories he knew had always failed; she was too direct in some ways, too subtle in others, and when he tried to hold her fast she went through his fingers like quicksilver.

He could think of her this way, dispassionately and calmly. It was the thought of her with someone else that brought up the cold lifeless anger, made his memories of her unendurable.

To his left the gleaming yellow light of a cab turned into the block. Retnick moved closer to the trunk of the tree as the cab slowed down and stopped a few doors from Marcia’s apartment. A man climbed out, paid off the driver, and the cab started up again, picking up speed as it went by Retnick. The silence settled heavily as the noise of the motor faded away in the night. For a few seconds the street was quiet, and then Retnick heard the flat ring of the man’s heels on the sidewalk. He came out of the darkness directly across from Retnick, and stopped to look casually at the doorway of Marcia’s apartment. Then he strolled on, hands deep in his overcoat pockets, his hat brim pulled down low over his swarthy features. Retnick recognized him as he passed through the cone of light falling from the street lamp. Davey Cardinal, Amato’s enforcer. Not a mad dog like Joe Lye, but a dangerous show-off, a man in love with his role as tough guy. Perfect for the job of terrorizing a girl.

Cardinal stopped two doors beyond Marcia’s building, and glanced casually up and down the sidewalk. Then he stepped quickly into the shadows near the curb and merged with the darkness.

Retnick checked the gun he had taken from Joe Lye, made sure the safety was off and that there was a round in the chamber. Then he crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk toward Cardinal, alert for any sudden movement in the shadows. When he saw the pale shine of his face, and the blur of his body beside a car, he stopped and said, “Hello, Davey.”

Cardinal came out of the shadows slowly, a stocky man with a tight little grin on his dark features. He crossed a stretch of lawn to the sidewalk and looked up into Retnick’s face. “You keep funny hours, Steve,” he said.

“I thought you’d stopped siphoning gas out of parked cars,” Retnick said. “I thought you’d turned into a big shot.”

“I was obeying nature, that’s all,” Cardinal said. Still smiling, he touched Retnick’s chest lightly with the back of his hand. “But what I do ain’t any of your business. And where and how I do it falls in the same class. Nothing about me concerns you, big boy. Keep that in mind. Keep that in mind while you turn your big tail and clear out of here.”

“My wife lives just two doors from here,” Retnick said gently. “She’ll be coming home in a few minutes. Did you know that?”

Cardinal raised his eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll run into her.”

“No you won’t,” Retnick said, still speaking gently. Then he took the lapels of the little man’s coat in one hand, and when Cardinal’s arm dropped swiftly, Retnick drove the muzzle of his gun into his stomach with cruel force. A cry of pain broke past Cardinal’s lips, and his hands came up from his pockets and tugged impotently at Retnick’s wrist.

“Steve!” he cried out softly, as Retnick shoved him roughly against a tree. “You hurt me inside.”

“Listen to me,” Retnick said, staring into the pain and fear in his eyes. Their faces were inches apart and he could see the sweat on Cardinal’s lip and forehead, the pinched lines of terror at the corners of his mouth.

“Steve—”

“Listen, I said. You beat it now. If anything happens to her, I’ll come after you first. Understand that? I won’t ask who did it, remember. I’ll get you.”

“Steve, I swear you got me wrong.”

Retnick stared at him for another second or two in silence.

Cardinal wet his lips. “Don’t kill me,” he whispered. “God, don’t kill me, Steve.”

“I want to kill you,” Retnick said. “I’d like an excuse. Remember that. Now get out of here.”

Cardinal straightened his tie and without meeting Retnick’s eyes slipped away from the tree and started up the sidewalk, walking like a man who is controlling a desperate impulse to break into a run.

Retnick watched the short dark figure until it disappeared in the shadows of the next block. He didn’t think Cardinal would be back; the little hoodlum knew he wanted to kill him. Retnick drew a deep breath. It was stamped on him like a brand then, this need to hurt and destroy. Cardinal had seen it clearly.

A car door slammed behind him and Retnick turned quickly, irritated at himself for having failed to notice the sound of the motor. His wife said good night to the cab driver and started for the entrance of her building, pulling the collar of her coat up against the cold wind. Retnick stood perfectly still in the shadows, hoping she wouldn’t see him. But she hesitated at the sidewalk and then turned uncertainly, seeming to sense his presence in the darkness.

“Steve?” she said softly. “Is that you, Steve?”

Retnick walked toward her, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, and the cab driver, who had waited, said, “Everything okay, Miss Kelly?”

“Yes, Johnny, it’s all right,” she said, glancing at him with a quick little smile.

“Just checking,” he said. “Good night now.”

Retnick looked down at his wife and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. They were silent then in the cold darkness until the sound of the cab’s motor had droned away in the next block.

Then she said, “The bartender told me you were at the club last night. Why didn’t you wait?”

“I wanted a drink,” he said. “Nothing else.”

She shrugged lightly; her gray eyes were puzzled and hurt, but she managed a little smile. “That’s direct enough,” she said. “And do you want a drink now? I have one upstairs.”

“Never mind.” It was hard to look at her, to see the tentative, hesitant appeal in her face. She had changed more than he had realized. Not physically; her skin and eyes, the clean grace of her forehead, these would never change. She would always be beautiful but she would never again be unafraid. The careless, unreasoned belief that everything would turn out for the best — that was gone.

“Why were you waiting here?” she said.

“It’s too involved to go into,” he said. “Look, could you manage to get out of town for a week or two?”

“It’s curious you should mention it. I’m planning to leave. Did you know that?”

He felt suddenly confused and angry. “How the hell would I know it? Where are you going?”

“Chicago. It’s a better job, my agent thinks.”

“You do what he says, eh? Just like that?” he said, snapping his fingers.

“Not quite. He’s wanted me to leave for two years, but I thought there was something to wait for in New York.”

“You’ll be better off in Chicago.”

“Why do you want me to leave?”

“I told you it’s an involved business,” he said. “I’m not making friends these days, and some of them might think of causing you trouble. It’s a long shot, but it’s there.”

She was frowning slightly, watching him with thoughtful eyes. “And you’d care if something happened to me?”

There was no guile in her question; she seemed honestly puzzled by him now.

“I couldn’t care less,” he said, and his voice was bitter with anger at himself, at the stupidity of his answer. Why was he here if he didn’t care? That’s what she’d ask him next, trapping and hounding him with her eyes. “I don’t want you dragged into this. I don’t want you on my side, even by accident.”

“Steve, Steve,” she said, breathing the words softly. “Stop doing this thing to yourself.” She caught his arm impulsively as he tried to turn away from her. “Look at me, Steve. Please! I want to talk to you, I want to tell you what happened — how it happened while you were away.” She shook her head quickly, staring helplessly into his eyes. “It was so unimportant, Steve, so tragically unimportant. That’s what I want to make you understand. It had nothing to do with my loving you. Can’t you believe that?”

“I might,” Retnick said, “if I were a complete fool. I suppose you told him I was unimportant — tragically unimportant in your nice phrase.”

She took a step backward and withdrew her hand slowly from his arm. Then she said, “It’s a waste of time to go on hurting me, Steve. If you knew me at all you’d realize you’ve hurt me enough.” Her lips were trembling but her eyes were suddenly as cold as his own. “Maybe you think I should be stoned in the public square by the righteous daughters of the community? Or be beaten and branded and hung up by my thumbs? Is there any limit to what you think I deserve? How much should I pay for my mistake? I’ve been lonely and afraid for years. Isn’t that payment of a kind? Isn’t that enough? I’m in love with a man who can look at me as if I’m something loathsome. Isn’t that some kind of payment? Well, to me it is. As far as I’m concerned the account is in balance. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. From now on I’ll judge myself by my rules, yes, and by Father Bristow’s. His rules are based on love, and yours are based on hate.” She drew a deep, unsteady breath. “That’s a long speech, but it’s the last you’ll hear from me.”

“Wait a minute,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head quickly, speaking the one word with difficulty. Turning, she hurried toward the entrance of her apartment. He saw the gleam of her slim legs as she began to run, and he knew from the way she held her shoulders that she was weeping.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he shouted, but the door was already closing swiftly against his words.

Why had it happened to him? he thought, rubbing both hands over his face. He realized his mind was spinning senselessly, demanding answers to impossible questions. There was no reason to any of it; his life had been smashed casually and carelessly, destroyed in a whimsical collision with another’s will. The only way to give it sense was to destroy whoever ordained these fateful collisions. An uncomfortable chill went through his body at the thought, and he shook himself quickly and began walking. He knew then that part of his hatred had shifted from Amato to someone infinitely more powerful. What worried him was that his anger was directed at someone he no longer believed in. It was this that made the shadows of the night, and the shadows in his mind, so strange and menacing.