The Darkest Hour

15

It was an hour before dawn when Nick Amato walked into the brightly lighted hallway of the Thirty-First precinct. With him was an attorney named Coyne and a stockily built man who wore a tweed overcoat and a checked cap pulled down over his left ear. This man had several names which were familiar to the police, but he was called Kerry along the waterfront, in recognition of his tweeds and brogue and his incessant, lively chatter about stake racing in Ireland. He had been born on Pell Street in lower Manhattan and had seldom been more than fifty miles away from the place of his birth.

Amato stopped at the information counter and smiled apologetically at the gray-haired lieutenant on duty. A casual observer might have guessed that his awkward little smile was a kind of peasant’s armor against the awe-inspiring figure of the officer on duty. But the lieutenant was no casual observer; he knew all about Amato’s smile. Leaning forward he said earnestly, “To speak plain, Nick, I thought it was a damn shame to arrest your boy.”

“Sure,” Amato said, rubbing a finger along his nose. “It scared the old woman half to death. Great police work. Let’s have him now. The lawyer he’s got the papers.”

“A damn shame,” the lieutenant said again as he accepted the writ from the attorney. Raising his voice he yelled: “Turnkey! Bring Mario Amato out here.”

When Mario appeared he was smiling with a new strength and confidence. The eight hours in jail hadn’t marked him physically; he didn’t even look in need of sleep. What sustained him was the realization that he had handled himself damn well. He knew that. Joe Lye, Kerry, they couldn’t have done better. For a while he had been so scared that he was damn near sick right in the lieutenant’s office. Neville, that was his name, had all the facts, and seemed to regard Mario’s confirmation of them as an irrelevant detail. A shrewd tough man! Mario would remember the contempt in his eyes for a long time. But it was over now, and he hadn’t given them a thing.

“How come the delay?” he said to his uncle, very pleased to be able to joke about it. “These places ain’t rest homes exactly.”

“Things take time,” Amato said. “The lieutenant’s got your watch and wallet. Sign out and let’s go.”

Mario took his wallet from the lieutenant and put it in his pocket without counting the money. This struck him as a nice touch, a patronizing way of letting the cops know he thought they were too dumb to be thieves.

Amato smiled at him but the lights in his eyes were like the points of daggers. I was good to him, he thought. Cars, clothes, money, dames. Anna’s little man, pink-cheeked, wavy-haired, with hands that had never known a day’s work. My nephew, he was thinking, who would be watching goats on a rocky farm in Calabria if it wasn’t for me. I made him a big shot. Just because he hangs his hat in my house and can tell people I’m his uncle he’s a big shot. And he’d squealed. At the first hint of pressure he’d crumbled like a piece of stale cake.

Amato kept his little smile in place with a conscious physical effort. He had received Connors’ call an hour ago, and since then his anger had been growing dangerously. Connors wasn’t sure what the kid had spilled, but he said Neville was happy about it. So this wasn’t over yet. They’d pick him up again and again, knowing he was soft and frightened, and eventually they’d get the whole story. If they didn’t have it already...

Amato rubbed his damp forehead. Take it nice and quiet, he thought. But that was like telling a man with a ticking bomb under his bed to close his eyes and go to sleep. Amato’s anger was streaked with a lugubrious self-pity; he felt surrounded by fools and ingrates. Hammy, who’d got himself killed in a stupid move against Retnick; and Joe Lye! Where in hell was Joe Lye? Amato had tried to find him after he’d got Connors’ call, but with no luck. So he had been forced to use Kerry, who had a bad habit of boozing and talking too much.

“Let’s go,” he said to his nephew, and walked outside, making no attempt to conceal his disgust. Kerry joined him on the sidewalk. “Should I be on my way?” he asked briskly.

“Yeah, get going,” Amato said, without looking at him. “Don’t mess this up. Evans says she’s the one who fingered him. All he wants is to pay her off.” Amato shook his head and frowned into the darkness. “You guys got to have dames. And you got to tell ’em everything. Brag about every job you pull. Then the cops get hold of them and you act surprised because they squeal. It’s the way all you dopes get in trouble.”

Kerry smiled faintly. “Sure and that will never change, Nick. I’ll see you later.” As Mario came out of the station Kerry turned and walked up the block, his leather heels ringing in the silence. He was whistling an Irish air and the melody was clear and sad in the cold, windy night.

Amato glanced at his nephew. “Was it rough?” he said.

“Hell, I could do it standing on my head,” Mario said, grinning.

“You go home now. I want you to wait for me in your bedroom. You understand?”

“Look, Nick, I’m all right. I ain’t even tired.”

“Listen to me,” Amato said. “As a favor, okay?”

Amato’s attitude confused Mario. “Sure,” he said.

“Go home. Wait for me in your bedroom. I’ll see you in an hour. We’ll have a talk about tonight.”

“All right, Nick.”

The attorney stood beside Amato and the two men watched Mario walk away toward the avenue. In spite of his uncle’s disconcerting manner there was a new confidence in the lift of his head.

Coyne, the attorney, said, “What was this all about, Nick?”

Amato shrugged. “Cops killing time, I guess.”

“I suppose. Can I drop you somewhere?”

“No, I got my car.”

“Well, good night then.”

Without answering him Amato turned and walked down the block to his car. He needed Lye now, and he thought he knew where to find him...

Kay Johnson lived in a tall and imposingly respectable apartment house on the East Side. The street was quiet and empty and Amato found a parking place without difficulty. He knocked on the door of the building and peered through the wide glass frames for a sign of life in the lobby. This was great, he thought, savoring the sensuous rush of anger that ran through him. Nick Amato standing in the cold, waiting on Joe Lye’s pleasure.

At the far end of the lobby elevator doors opened and a uniformed attendant hurried toward him fumbling with a ring of keys. The man peered through the glass at Amato, frowned indecisively, and then opened the door an inch.

“Kay Johnson,” Amato said. “What’s her apartment?”

“Six A, sir. But you’ll have to phone from the lobby. Most of the tenants insist...”

“Okay, okay, we’ll phone her,” Amato said. “We disturb something, we disturb something. Is that character with the funny Up up there?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.” The man led him to a carpeted alcove off the lobby, and nodded to a phone on a desk. His manner was cold and reproving.

I’ll show them what crude is, Amato thought bitterly. East Side snobs and Joe Lye playing the gent with Martinis and steaks. No place for Nick Amato. He was just good enough to pick up the checks...

Lye answered his ring in a sleepy voice. “Yeah?”

“This is Nick,” Amato said good-humoredly. “I tried you earlier but you wasn’t in.”

“We took in a show and then hit a few spots,” Lye said. “Was it something important?”

“So-so. I want to see you now. I’m downstairs.”

“Downstairs?” Lye’s voice shook slightly. “You mean in the lobby?”

“I guess that’s the name for it. Can I come up?”

“Why—” There was silence on the line.

Asking permission, Amato thought. Explaining to her, while he covered the receiver with his hand. I’ll get rid of him fast, baby. You keep out of sight. I’ll tell him you’ve got a headache.

“Sure, Nick, come on up. Six A.”

“Thanks.”

Lye met him at the door wearing a gaudy silk dressing gown over a white-on-white shirt and black trousers. He looked as if he had thrown his clothes on in a hurry; the robe was unbelted and a few strands of glossy black hair were plastered against his pale forehead.

“Well, come in, Nick,” he said, trying to learn something from his face.

“Sorry to bother you this time of night,” Amato said gently. “But I got a job for you.”

“Yeah? Who is it?”

Amato didn’t answer him. He was staring about the room, a pleased little smile on his lips. It wasn’t as grand as he’d thought it would be and for some reason this made him feel better. He noted the record player and bar, the brilliant drapes and bright meaningless pictures, and continued to smile and nod with diffident approval.

“Very cute,” he said. “Where’s the girl friend? Headache?”

“No, she’s just getting fixed up. Were you serious about a job?”

Amato stared at him. “Get out of that clown suit and into your clothes,” he said. “There’s a job. You want me to do all the work while you lay around here and play footsie?”

Lye rubbed his thin hands together and they made a sound like dry paper rustling in the silence. “Stop riding me,” he said, the words coming out in painful jerks. “If you ain’t satisfied with me maybe you should get somebody else.”

“Sure,” Amato said slowly. “And then I’ll send you back to catch up on your prayers. Back where you get in a full quota of Hail Marys every night.”

A door opened behind him and he turned awkwardly and removed his hat. Kay Johnson smiled at him as she came into the room, her manner that of a flustered wife meeting her husband’s boss under less than perfect circumstances.

“This is a wonderful surprise, Mr. Amato,” she said. Smiling into his little brown eyes she knew with her sense of audience that she wouldn’t fool him for an instant. Words and smiles would be useless against Nick Amato. She recognized his seeming diffidence for what it was, a front for a cynical and contemptuous estimate of people. And she realized also that her own act wasn’t a very good one. All of her guile couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes. The fear had been part of her so long that she had stopped trying to manage or conceal it.

“This is a nice place, Miss Johnson,” Amato said. “If I’d known it was this nice I’d have stopped by sooner. If Joe asked me, that is.”

“We’ve planned to have you up a half-dozen times,” she said. “Now, wouldn’t you both like a drink? Or coffee perhaps?”

“Take care of Nick,” Lye said. “I’ll get dressed.”

“Are you going out?” She was out of character now; there was no pretty surprise in her manner, and her voice was dull with fear.

Lye walked rapidly into the bedroom and Amato said, “I’m sorry to break up the party, Miss Johnson.”

“I suppose it’s important,” she said, staring at the bedroom door.

“In our business we work around the clock.” Watching her, he wondered if she really loved Joe Lye. It didn’t figure. She probably was after his cash. That was why she put up with his cheapness, his twisted ruined face. And Lye was getting a bargain, Amato thought, as a strangely complex desire for her began to grow in him. Part of it was physical but there was something else, too. She was class. He had never had a woman like this, and he wondered why. Was it a guilty hangover from his stem childhood training, or was there some lack in him he hadn’t recognized or admitted?

He saw with sharp irritation that she wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She paced restlessly, a tense expression around her eyes, and when he turned he saw the gleam of her slim white ankles and the soft press of her thighs against the silken robe. Did he want her because she was blonde and elegant? Because his people were peasants who would have bowed and tugged the peaks of their caps at a woman like this?

“I saw you in the movies once,” he said. “That was quite a while back.”

“I’m sure it was,” she said.

“You played a college girl who didn’t wear any make-up,” he said, enjoying her strained smile.

“Yes, that was ‘Ladies of the Chorus,’ ” she said.

“You should know. The guy you liked couldn’t see you for dust, so you got a job in a cabaret. Then when you were all dolled up he fell in love with you without knowing you were the girl he knew in college.”

She laughed and picked up a cigarette from the table. “I’m afraid it sounds just as idiotic now as it did then.”

“The guy had a good reason to fall for you,” Amato said, watching her. “You were clean and damned good-looking. What else does a man want?”

She saw that he wasn’t going to light her cigarette so she did it herself and dropped the match into an ashtray. “I think you’re drawing me out now,” she said. “You want to hear me say something silly and female.”

The door opened then and Lye walked into the room pulling up the knot in his tie. He glanced at Kay and said, “I left the radio on. How about going in and turning it off?”

“Of course,” she said quickly.

When she had entered the bedroom Lye rubbed his hands along the sides of his trousers. He looked as if his nerves were stretched to the breaking point. “Okay, what is it?” he said.

“The kid,” Amato said quietly.

“You’re kidding!” Lye said, and his lips began to strain in spasmodic little jerks.

“I didn’t come here to make jokes,” Amato said. “He talked. He’ll talk again.” His voice was suddenly as sharp as a knife blade. “He’s home now. In his bedroom. Anna goes to six o’clock Mass. You got to make it look a suicide.”

“Nick, this is rough. Can’t you figure out something else?”

“You don’t like it?”

“No,” Lye said.

Amato felt his anger swelling like a cancerous growth inside him. Nobody could take orders any more. That’s why there was trouble on the docks. “Maybe you want to go back to jail?” he said in a low, trembling voice.

Lye turned away from him abruptly. The dream flooded his mind at Amato’s words, everything in red, the guards, the altar, and in the middle of it his own soft, helpless body, waiting for the impersonal horror of the straps. “I... I just said we might figure out something else,” he said.

“We don’t figure things, I figure them,” Amato said.

“Sure, sure,” Lye said, speaking with difficulty against the constricting pressure around his chest. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Kay returned to the room then, and one hand went to her throat as she saw the tight, unnatural smile on Lye’s lips. “What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.

“Nothing,” he said, turning away from her. “Come on, Nick, let’s go.” Amato smiled at him. “You go on, Joe. I’ll take up that drink offer if it’s still open.”

“You’re staying here?” Lye said dully.

“If it’s all right with Miss Johnson,” Amato said.

“Of course it is,” she said.

“I’ll check with you later,” Lye said, looking at Amato. He hesitated, obviously reluctant to leave.

“It’s late, Joe,” Amato said gently.

Lye picked up his black overcoat from a chair, nodded jerkily at them and walked out the door. Amato was silent, smiling faintly, as he heard the faint whine of the descending elevator.

“What would you like to drink?” she asked him.

“Never mind.” He dismissed the offer with a wave of his hand. “It’s morning. No time to be drinking.”

“I’m glad you stayed,” she said. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time now.”

He looked at her in surprise. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

She smiled nervously and lit another cigarette. “Joe would be furious with me for this,” she said. “I may be wrong—” She drew a deep breath and tried to meet his eyes directly. “Why do you nag him about the time he spent in jail? Don’t you realize how it upsets him?”

“It bothers him, eh?” Amato said slowly.

“You must realize that it does,” she said. “I know it’s a joke, a form of masculine humor that I don’t understand perhaps, but it upsets him terribly. I’m sure you don’t mean it seriously, but that needling about the death cell and his prayers, it’s on his mind day and night.”

“It’s no joke,” Amato said smiling. “I’m looking for information. What was he praying for? That’s all I want to know.”

“If you won’t be serious there’s no point discussing it.”

“Oh, I’m serious,” Amato said. He smiled at her but his eyes were narrowed and cold. “Maybe you can tell me what he’s praying to? You know him pretty well. How comes he prays when he’s ready to die? To what does he pray? To who?” He swept an arm around the room, flushing with a sudden anger. “You think those are funny questions? Well, I’ll tell you. You like dough, eh? You give me some sensible answers to them questions and I’ll load you down with more dough than you ever seen in one lump before. If there’s a God, then the prayers make sense. Ain’t that right? But if there isn’t a God, what’s the use of praying?” Amato turned away from her and shook his head irritably. For a moment he was silent, staring at the floor. “It’s no time to be talking about it,” he said.

“We never settle arguments about religion and politics, do we?”

“I wasn’t talking about religion. I was talking about God.”

She knew he was serious but his fears struck her as irrelevant and slightly comical; there were so many things to fear in life that she hadn’t found time to fear God.

“How come you got mixed up with Joe?” he asked her bluntly.

“That isn’t a very graceful way to put it, Mr. Amato.”

“You need him, I guess. How long would you last without his dough?”

“With excellent managing, about three months.”

He grinned at her. “And then what? Back to the movies?”

“Naturally,” she said. “Or television or the theater. It would be simply a matter of picking or choosing.” Her voice broke and she turned away from him quickly. “My agent still sends me Christmas cards,” she said. “Isn’t that an encouraging sign?”

“I could do more for you than Joe,” he said. “You’re no kid. You need things solid and secure. Joe Lye is one of six hundred guys who do what I tell him. He’s nothing.” As her expression remained unchanged he made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Well, how about it?” She managed a smile and said, “I think it’s dear of you to flatter me this way.” This was safe ground. She had been maneuvering with middle-aged men for twenty years, and she could handle them with ease. It was a simple problem, unrelated to her fear of hunger and age, her terror of Joe Lye’s nightmares and the small black gun he carried in his pocket. “I’ll make you that drink now,” she said.

“I want a yes or no,” he said stubbornly.

“Very well,” she said. “Before anything else I want to be your friend. Do you understand what I mean?” This was a tested armor, she knew, short, ambiguous questions put very earnestly and thoughtfully.

“Forget the drink,” Amato said dryly. He knew she was telling him no, tactfully but finally, choosing Lye ahead of him. And she didn’t have to strain to make the decision, he thought with bitter humor. His proposition had struck her as foolish. He was a fat little peasant in her eyes, one of the anonymous people who tugged at their caps when she passed them by. When everything was quiet again, he thought, when the trouble with Retnick was over, then he’d think about fixing her and Lye. He said good-by without looking at her and left the room.