The Deep

Chapter Four

The cop on the beat had been old when I first knew him. Below the sweatband of his cap the gray was an insigna that meant more than approaching retirement. It meant a guy tough enough to stay around that long, one who knew all the ropes and all the rules, good or bad. In a way there was a determined finality in his stride, always that singular purpose of going ahead, never back. The hand that had swung a night stick for thirty years had lost none of its rhythm. The baton moved like a live thing on the end of the thong, its purpose immediate and deadly, a symbol no one could mistake.

He stopped in front of me and said, “I heard you came back, Deep.”

“You know the grapevine, Mr. Sullivan. Travels fast.”

“I also heard there’s been trouble already.”

“Not really.”

His finger came up and traced a heart-shaped design a little to the left of center on my chest. “That’s a vulnerable spot. Just a few grams of lead there and you’re done, boy.”

“You’re talking like the old days, Mr. Sullivan.”

“You’re making like the old days, Deep.” The wrinkles around his eyes seemed to freeze up. “Until now it’s been quiet. Nobody’s been shot up.”

“Except Bennett.”

“He wasn’t worth much. Not more shooting. Nothing’s worth that much.”

“You’ve grown pretty philosophical since you whaled the crap out of me with a pair of handcuffs twenty-five years ago.”

He nodded, remembering. “It didn’t do much good, did it?”

“Some, Mr. Sullivan, some. I know the damage a guy can do swinging a set of cuffs. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t be too sure.” His eyes went tight again. “You’re in a big bind now, kid. Real big. You can start making the most of your days. There won’t be many more.”

I gave him a short laugh and looked at the hand that danced the night stick. His face went red and drawn and he said, “Still the wise guy. How many have you shot up, Deep?”

“Five,” I said. “Five and two probables.”

“Don’t make trouble on my beat.”

I shoved my hands down in my pockets and shrugged, “I’ll try to oblige, old-timer. But if it happens, be careful. I have a sort of peculiar affection for you.”

When I walked away I could feel all the little eyes that had watched follow me and knew the ears that had heard would pass things on. Maybe it had been a long time since trouble had touched the neighborhood, but those days were long gone now.

In twenty-five years the only thing that had changed in Brogan’s market was the merchandise. The sidewalk was piled high with crated vegetables, obscuring the windows, and inside Brogan was still his same busy self in a tomato-stained apron and straw kady.

Beside the store front a narrow door led into a stairwell leading to the upper four floors, an almost opaque ascent where the bannister was a necessary guide. The second floor bell had a metal plaque stamped Lee but I didn’t bother to push it. The way the stairs squealed and grated in those old tenements nobody came or went unannounced.

The second floor landing had two doors, but only the back one had a light behind it. I stepped over the cardboard cartons leading to it, skirted the row of bottles and gave the door a rap. There was movement inside, but no one answered. I hit it again and heard heels tap on the floor. A barrel bolt grated and the door swung open.

Some things you can’t get ready for. You can’t get ready to meet a crazy beautiful dame in a cold-water flat. Not one almost as big as you are who’s made all firm and round so you can feel the warmth that comes from her like perfume. You never can get ready for eyes that seem to taste you rather than see you, or black hair so alive the roll of it is a sensuous thing that makes you aware of buried compulsions.

I said, “Hi, sugar,” and looked back at her.

There was an uptilting to her brows, a professional wariness. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for Tally Lee.”

She shook her head lightly, making her hair swirl. “I’m sorry, but she can’t see anyone. No one at all.”

“Why not?”

“Tally has been sick. Now if you don’t mind...”

I shoved the door open and walked in. “I mind,” I said. When I closed it I walked toward the front into the bedroom where the single night light turned a pale yellow glow on everything and looked at Tally lying there on an old four-poster, her hair a harsh pink around an almost bloodless face. There was a deadness about her, the covers barely moving as she breathed.

I said, “What happened?”

“Sleeping pills.”

“Why?”

“Something scared her.”

“She all right now?”

“For now, maybe.” She sucked her breath in hard. “So get out, man.”

“When I’m ready.” I kept looking down at Tally.

“Now, man,” she said. “Otherwise you can get hurt.”

From behind she could see me shake my head. “I can’t get hurt,” I told her.

“Don’t fool yourself, man. Maybe you don’t know who I am.”

I waited a long moment before I said, “I know who, kid.”

Either she didn’t hear me or didn’t care. “Lenny Sobel is my... friend. He doesn’t like guys like you. I can tell him.”

I turned around and tilted her head up with a finger under her chin. “Then tell him from me he’s a slob. Tell him I have a chubby little slug I’d like to blow up his tail and if he gets in my way I’d be really happy to show him how it works. Anytime. Anywhere.”

She batted my hand away with her eyes spitting at me. “Who’ll I say is calling, man? Who wants to get killed that fast?”

I grinned and watched those full lips pull away from a lovely row of teeth in an almost animal snarl. “Can’t you remember good?” I asked her. “I pulled a rape artist off your back once and creamed a pair of the Bello mob who tried to shag you in a cab. I took a hell of a shellacking from a five-and-ten manager who thought I lifted his junk when it was you. Remember now?”

She tried to press back into the curtains, her breath caught in her throat. She was all eyes, looking at me carefully, trying hard to ease the rigidity that was on her like a sudden freeze.

“Deep...”

“Yeah. Your memory doesn’t go back very far, Irish. Hardly at all.”

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “Deep...”

“You can still say it nice, kitten.”

It came back to her in small pieces; the street, the gang, the kid stuff in school. The roof where we leaned against a warm chimney and two children walked through the virginity of love with a first kiss.

Then she remembered it all, and other things too, until it showed in the hardness of her face. “You were better off out of mind, Deep.”

“That seems to be the general opinion all over.” I grinned, let my eyes search her completely, then: “You’re a good-looking dame, Irish, though that isn’t much of a change. You always were.”

“I know.”

“You should. It’s pretty obvious.” I knew when I had quit smiling. I said, “You got it working for you too, haven’t you? Lenny is up there these days.”

Her hand was a streak aiming for my face but it wasn’t fast enough. I caught it, threw it down and held her tight against me. “Don’t try that again, kid. Nobody touches me without getting bounced and I’d hate for it to be you. Don’t figure that punk Lenny and me to be in the same class and if you want to put yourself on his level then be damn nice to me. Damn nice, understand? I’ll belt you cockeyed as fast as look at you if you ever get funny with me again.”

There was a breathless quality in her when she said, “You’re off it, Deep. You’re dead and buried already.”

I nodded. “So I’ve heard, only I won’t be the first there, and therein lies the rub.”

Her eyes arched up at me.

“Everybody hates to get killed,” I said. “Nobody quite wants to be hero enough to go first.”

I let her go and she drew back, rubbing her wrist. “You stink, Deep.” She said it quietly, disgust plain in her voice.

“What happened to Tally?”

“I don’t know. She called me earlier and was slightly hysterical. I figured she was drinking and told her to go to bed. When I came by she was in a chair, out like a light with half a bottle of shoo-fly gone.”

“You called a doctor?”

“Naturally. He was here all morning.”

“Nothing serious?”

“Not physically.”

“Why did she call you, Irish? You’re an uptown broad. You haven’t smelled this neighborhood since you were twelve. You’re as out of place here as a hat on a horse.”

“You stink, Deep.”

“Now you’re talking neighborhood again. Talk uptown and answer me, damn it.”

She pulled back, a frown across her face. “All right, I’m uptown. But I had one friend in my life.”

“Not Tally.”

“No, not Tally. Her sister.” She saw me studying her and shook her head. “You don’t remember her. Girls didn’t mean that much to you then. She was my age and we were in the same class. You know what happened to her?”

Tally had told me that herself. I said, “Yeah, Bennett got her hosed up. She flipped.”

Muscles and cords made tight lines in her neck. “Off a roof she flipped. She killed herself.” Her smile was deadly and hard. “That was your friend who did that.”

“So?”

“So you stink, Deep.”

I slapped her across the mouth with the back of my fingers and watched the red seep into her face. “Stay at ease, kitten. With me, stay at ease.”

It was almost as if I hadn’t touched her. “You’re tough, aren’t you?”

“Real.”

“Mind if I stick around and see you get killed?”

“Not a bit.”

“I’m going to enjoy it.”

“I’ll try to put on a good show.”

“Of that I’m sure. And I’ll help you. I’ll try to get you killed just as hard as I can.”

Her arms reached up and went around my neck and that warmth I had felt at the door wrapped around me like an oven and her mouth was a tantalizing, wet kiss of death, a quick fiery thing that was hello and goodbye in one.

When she drew away she glanced down at the bed. “Why’d you come?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said.

“Try me.”

I took a check out of my pocket with Tally’s name on it and showed it to her. “A grand.”

“Hardly worth her sister’s life.”

“You stupid dame, it isn’t compensation. It’s payment for information.”

“What makes you think she’d give it to you?”

When I glanced at her she almost backed away. “Because she’s like you,” I said. “She wants to see me killed too. She’d give me anything I wanted to get me killed.”

“Not anything.”

“But you would,” I said. “You’d give me anything.”

“That’s right. Just so I could be sure it would get you killed.” Her breath was coming too fast and there was a hot depth in her eyes.

I wrote a short note, clipped it to the check and put it on the empty pillow beside Tally. When I looked up I said, “I’ll see if I can’t arrange it that way. Come on.”

Downstairs I found a neighbor who, for twenty bucks, would stay with Tally, and a doctor who, for another twenty, would look in on her at intervals. A quick call to Augie got me a guy who would stake out the house and make sure everything went okay.

When I came out of the phone booth Irish was waiting, nicely tucked into a mink that did nothing to disguise the contempt she felt when she had to look at me.

But that was okay too. It’s more fun catching a mouse than playing with one and she was some mouse.

I steered her outside, waved a cab over and nudged her in. I told the driver the name of a club and leaned back. Irish looked across the seat at me, the contempt clouded by curiosity. “Why all the business with Tally?”

“Because anybody who hates so hard is bound to have something I can use,” I said.

“Use for what?”

“To find Bennett’s killer.”

“A very noble crusade.”

“And you want me to get killed.”

“More than that, remember? I want to be there to see it happen.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get sick?”

“Maybe, but it will be worth it.”

“Why?”

“Because I hate too. I hate just as hard as Tally. I hate whatever turns little kids into filthy, immoral things who can turn on their own kind for something like money or power. I hate the political lusts and greed that drive decent people to the wall so one person can be big. I hate that so hard I could spit and that’s why I hate you.”

“And yet you’re Lenny Sobel’s... friend?” There was contempt in my voice now.

“It’s a point you probably couldn’t understand,” she said, “but I’ll tell you anyway.” The corners of her eyes drew up in nearly oriental points. “By being his... friend, I can exert enough influence to make it easier on... some people.”

“And maybe rougher on others?”

“Maybe.”

“Have you ever forgotten the night on the roof by the chimney?”

“No.”

I grinned to myself.

“But that doesn’t stop my wanting to be there when you get killed. I’ll give anything to see it happen.”

“Anything?”

She nodded earnestly. “Anything.”