The Deep

Chapter Five

When they tore the guts out of Fifty-second Street, one of the bistros was overpaid for expediency’s sake, changed its name from The Kickoff to The Signature, and with a small move north and the perversity that belongs only to New York, became an overnight bang and by now a two-year success story.

It had good food, smooth music, premium beer and whisky and top prices, and you still needed reservations even for lunch unless you were big enough to bandy Lenny Sobel’s name around and make it stick.

When we got out of the taxi, Irish Helen’s face was beautifully quizzical, not so much at me as at herself, not knowing whether to stick it or run out.

I overtipped the driver a buck for luck, took her arm and started toward the door.

She said, “You know where you’re going, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I nodded. “Your boy’s place. Maybe you’ll sound off and he’ll be hot for my head.”

“Smart guy. You’re real smart, Deep.”

“I’ve been told already.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes were real cold. “You should be scared stiff, man. You should be shaking in your shoes.”

I stopped with my hand on the ornamented handle of the door. “You ever see me scared, sugar?”

“Maybe not in the old days.”

“You won’t see me now either.”

“So you’re a big one,” she said flatly.

For a couple seconds I just looked at her, then nodded. “Everybody’s asked me that lately. I told them, so I’ll tell you too. Yeah, I’m a big one. They never saw anyone big like I am.”

The frown creased her eyes again. “How did you know this was Lenny’s place?”

I grinned at her. “I’m a big one, remember?” I opened the door and eased her through.

The headwaiter was an impeccable Slav imported in ’49 from Paris by the Galveston and lately lured to The Signature by the big buck. His name was Stashu, he wore two hero pips in his lapel for underground activity in the last war and a nod of recognition from him could put you on the smart list in anybody’s book.

Others were standing in the lobby, a few accepting cocktails on the house from a pretty waitress. Some of the junior exec types waited their time at the bar, preferring the side lines of the main room to the ignominy of just waiting.

I handed my hat and raincoat to the kid in the checkroom and turned back to Irish Helen. She was tall and cool, feeling everyone’s eyes on her and playing it just right. She was waiting to see what happened next and waiting to laugh when it didn’t. I walked to the plush chain where Stashu was quietly talking to a waiter. He looked up, smiled and nodded, lowered the plush chain and led Helen and me to a table and discreetly removed the reserved sign that had somebody else’s name on it.

He took our orders personally, smiled again and left. Helen looked up at me, something like a shadow across her face. “That went too nice, Deep.”

“Of course.”

“You’ve never been here before.” It was a flat statement.

I just looked at her and waited.

“How’d you work it?” she asked.

“Headwaiters are paid to know people. Everybody.”

The shadow left her face and now I could see the tight lines of indecision that touched her. “He’ll tell Lenny,” she said.

“He’d better.”

The drinks came then, timed flawlessly to make lunch the thing that it should be. Twice Stashu stopped by, inquired with his flavored English if everything was all right, and left happily when assured that it was. At two-thirty the lunch music faded into cocktail hour numbers, the room partially emptied and Lenny Sobel made his appearance.

He was fatter now. Still greasy looking, but able to wear five-hundred-buck suits and a ten-grand ring with an air of authority.

Lenny Sobel never walked fast. It might have been that he couldn’t. It might have been that he didn’t want to. He neither walked nor strolled. It was sort of a step that he took. He made it hard for the two who walked behind him. They had to either stop a moment then catch up or quarter the area at a slow pace merely to stay abreast.

He reached the table, smiled a fat smile first at Helen, then smiled a fat smile at me.

I said, “Hello, pig,” and if it weren’t for Lenny’s fast hand wave I would have been shot right there and the two boys back of me on somebody else’s kill list.

But I knew the slob would wave them off fast and my grin told everybody I knew it. I said, “Make them come around in front, Lenny.”

His smile was still there. It was a friendly smile, bunching the fat under his eyes into humorous lines. He brought them around in front and they stood there docilely, just waiting. If Lenny said kill... they’d kill. Right now he said to stand. So they stood.

One was a TV western type, tiny-hipped and over-broad at the shoulders where his jacket was cut to carry a rod. The other was as average as a person can get. I nodded to them both and in order said, “Harold... Al. Good to see you.”

Only Al, the average one, flicked. I said. “Your buddy’s a Q and Dannemora grad, Al. Lousy partner.”

Lenny Sobel’s hand touched my shoulder. “You know my associates?”

“Sure. Great guys. Al’s the smart one, though, and you got to watch him. Not a rap to his name and looking to go places.”

The hood looked at me steadily, nothing showing in his face this time.

Sobel asked, “That right, Al?”

“I work for you, Mr. Sobel. You know what I can do.”

Lenny’s smile broadened. “You ever meet this man, Al?”

“Not yet, Mr. Sobel. I think I’m going to like it if you want me to introduce myself.”

The fat wreathed itself into a laugh around Lenny’s mouth. “Deep?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “For fun why not pull the cork and let me shoot all three of you. First you, Lenny, then these two schmarts in order. It should be fun. Go ahead, pull the cork.”

Helen’s voice was a hoarse, “No... Deep!”

The two hoods came in a step.

I said, “Tell them for me, Lenny.”

They looked at him and watched his fat smile fall apart. Lenny said, “Let it drop.”

Al started, “If you want, Mr. Sobel...”

“Let it drop, Al,” he repeated softly. “You and Harold wait for me outside. I’ll be along.”

He waved again and they left, then pulled a chair out slowly and sat down. “You shouldn’t be too care-free with those boys, Deep.”

“They different?”

“They’re different.”

“I’ll find out soon for sure and tell you, Lenny.”

“You seem to know them pretty well already.”

“I get around good. Anybody to know, I know. You know?”

His smile was getting tired now and he glanced over at Helen. “I see we’ve recaptured old times.”

Her eyes picked up a strained look. “Lenny...”

“Perfectly all right, my dear. When a man is impetuous as is our old friend Deep, one can easily get caught up in his backwash.”

It sounded funny coming from him. I said, “Picking up class, Lenny?” I grinned when he stared at me. “It’s better’n the old days now. Then you were just a hood playing angles. Now you got class. Polish.”

“You’re looking for trouble, Deep.”

“I’m expecting to get it, Lenny.”

“You will. You came back for trouble, didn’t you?”

I leaned back easily in the chair and from any place in the room you would think it was just a nice friendly conversation. I said, “I didn’t have to come back for trouble, buddy. I had plenty of it where I was and I sat on top of it and squashed it without any sweat at all. Not any.” I tasted my drink again, swirled it in the glass and put it down. “You know why I came back, Lenny.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m taking over.”

“You think?” His smile had angry tics at the comers.

“I already have,” I told him.

He started to come out of the chair, his pudgy fingers tight around the arms, squeezing into the wood. The cords of his neck rippled under the fat and only the thin edge of his teeth showed between his lips when he spoke. “You little punk. You street-corner bum. You lousy little cellar rat...”

Real softly I said, “Remember when I shot you in the behind, Lenny?” Something in his eyes said that he did. Very well. “There were people looking then and I didn’t give a hoot.” I stopped and grinned again. “There’re people here and I still don’t give a hoot.”

He seemed frozen in that half-standing position until I pointed for him to sit down. He let his breath out, sat down and his composure came back slowly. He almost seemed ashamed of having thrown his bit.

When he was ready he said, “You didn’t come here just to eat, Deep.”

“That’s right. It’s more of a visit. I’m seeing all the boys, the big ones, the little ones, all the laddies with the dirty, sticky fingers. I’m letting them know what they got coming and they better get in line. I came here to tell you that I have your operation pretty pat in my head and if you have any ideas about coming aboard you’d better figure on doing it with your hat in your hand.”

He shook his head in wonder at what I had said, his eyes searching my face to find a chink in my attitude. “You’ve thought this thing out?”

“Not especially. Not until Bennett got killed.”

“You amaze me, Deep.”

“I shouldn’t.”

He bobbed his head earnestly. “But you do. Here the organization is bigger than it ever was. It reaches into every phase of politics and commerce and has fingers to reach out overseas if it wants to. It has millions to buy and sell what it wants and you’re taking it over, just like that.”

“Just like that,” I agreed.

Lenny folded his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “Tell me, Deep, what makes you think you can do it?”

“Because I’ve been thinking.”

“Like what?”

“How another punk like Bennett was able to do it.”

He tried but he couldn’t control the sudden gasp. The lines worked in his neck again and made a lie out of his soft smile. “Your... erstwhile partner was an organizer.”

“Sure.”

“He was tough. He shot his way in. He was lucky, too. He intimidated the right people exactly at the right time. He had a brutish nature about him that made killing a pleasure, and a childish lack of responsibility that made him a terrible sort of person.”

“I’m embarrassed. You’re analyzing hoodlumism to which I’ve devoted my career.”

“Don’t laugh about it, Deep.”

“I’m not, feller. I’m just curious about the other reason.”

His face darkened. “What other reason?”

“The one you haven’t told me about yet.”

I stood up, waved to Stashu and handed him a bill to more than cover things. “Let’s go, Irish. Our pudgy little friend here will now carry the news to all the biggies who haven’t already heard.”

Very deliberately I looked down into Lenny’s porcine face. “Tell them straight, chum. I’m in. I’m on top. If I yell jump they ask how high and if I say spit they ask how much. Anybody goes after my skin gets gunned down fast and if there’s any doubt about who makes the try I’ll rack up a couple of big fish just for samples. Meantime I’m finding out who bumped Bennett. It’s not going to be a hard job and it won’t even be a long one. But it sure will be fun when I find him. Or her. I’d kind of like it to be you, Lenny. I haven’t shot you for a long time, have I?”

The collar was too tight around his neck now, cutting in so deeply his face was suffused with red. “I won’t even have to touch you, Deep. The chair’ll get you. The first time you put the heat to somebody, even if it’s a Bowery bum, you’ll get fried. You’re marked, Deep. You got that smell of frying around you right now.”

“You lost your class talk, Lenny. Let’s not fall back into character at this late date.”

“Get out,” he hissed.

“Coming, Irish?”

Without looking at her Lenny said, “She can stay if she likes.”

“Uh-uh,” I told him. “She doesn’t dare. I might get killed without her watching and she’d never forgive herself. Come on, Irish.”

“It would be better if you stayed,” Lenny told her.

She shook her head, her eyes cold and serious. “I’m sorry, Lenny. He’s right. I want to be there when it happens.” She picked up her purse and shrugged her magnificent shoulders into her coat, then stepped ahead of me to the aisle.

Behind us Lenny laughed with genuine humor, a soft, furry kind of laugh.

Outside the rain had started again and the taxis cruising past all had the flag down. I took Helen’s arm and edged along the buildings out of the wet and started walking toward Sixth Avenue. We crossed over, headed south until we reached Martin’s and went in out of the drizzle.

There wasn’t anybody in the place except the bartender, a thin, graying man with Broadway-wise eyes who nodded hello, brought out two coffees on order and withdrew to the end of the bar to watch TV.

I spread my change on the bar, picked out the dimes and told Helen to hold tight. Her answer was the same cool stare of disgust, with her face mirroring the anticipation she knew would be realized.

My three calls took as many minutes and when I went back to the bar I finished my coffee. When I put the cup down she said, “Where away now, big man?”

I said, “Did you ever make bread?”

Her eyes caught mine in the back bar mirror. “A long time ago.”

“Remember how yeast worked?”

Only her eyes were visible over her cup and they seemed to take on an upward slant. She nodded without speaking, finished her coffee and called to the bartender for a refill.

The guy who came in had little mouse eyes and a limp mustachio. The peak cap was a throwaway and a little too big and his pants and coat were alley stained and smelled sourly of sweat and garbage.

I said, “Hello, Pedro,” then waved to the bar stool next to me. “You want a drink?”

“No. No drink.”

“Money?”

“No. I want nothing from you, I just come here. What you want?”

“Sit here.”

“I don’t sit.”

I reached out, lifted him by the arm and sat him on the bar stool. “You sit,” I said. When I looked at Helen the lushness had left her mouth and she was hating me again. I grinned at her. “He’s the kind of people you like, Irish? He’s the kind you use your influence to protect?”

“Keep going, Deep. You’re doing great.”

“Thanks, baby. I’ll keep on trying. I want you to be overjoyed when I get killed. Our friend Pedro here is an important man in the scheme of things. That right, Pedro?”

“I don’t know how you talk.” He held his hands bunched into fists close to his belly.

“What are you doing to him, Deep?”

I shrugged noncommittally. “Nothing. It’s just that Pedro is going to tell me a story. You know the one, Pedro?”

He shook his head nervously.

“So I’ll clue you, Pedro. I want to hear about how you found Bennett when he was killed.”

Helen’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. Pedro’s hand began to twitch so hard he had to hold it with the other. He shot a quick glance toward the door and when I shook my head his eyes rolled piteously and he seemed to shrink down inside his clothes.

“I...”

“Go on, Pedro.”

“I don’t know this thing you are saying. I don’t know...”

“Okay, man. Then we stop playing. Suppose I put it this way. Feel in your left-hand pocket.”

Instinctively his hand dropped to his side, felt the contents of his coat and in that one second he got the picture and tried to jerk away. I grabbed his arms, made him hold the edge of the bar and watched him while he shook.

Helen said, “What happened to him?”

I grinned nastily so Pedro could see it. “Nothing special. I just put our buddy in the path of law and order. He’s a junkie, so I dropped a few days’ poppilng in his pocket with the gimmicks and if he gets picked up he goes cold turkey downtown. In five minutes a cop’ll walk in here and off this laddie goes. Unless he talks, of course. In that case he can even keep what’s in his pocket.”

The distaste of it made Helen slide away from me. “There are names for people like you,” she said.

I nodded. “So I hear. Now let’s listen to a speech. You got maybe four minutes left, Pedro. You can have it any way you want it.”

“You no tell?”

“I don’t have to tell, friend”

“This one... Bennett. I did not keel him. He was already there. You understand?”

I nodded again.

“He was already very dead. This you know? I did not keel him. He had one very big hole here...” he tapped his throat where the neck joined the body. “I take his watch. It was not a very good watch. For it I got one dollar. I take his wallet. He has twenty dollars. In his pocket he has ten dollars. That is all I take. I sell the watch. That is all. I run away. I do not think anybody knows this.”

“Where’s his wallet?”

“I throw it someplace.”

“Like where.”

“I think I know.”

“You get it, Pedro. You find it and bring it to where you live and keep it there until I come by. You understand this?”

His head bobbed again. “Si. I understand. You know...” he hesitated.

“I know where you live,” I said.

He started to say something else, stopped and slid off the stool. His departure was noiseless, like a shadow leaving. When the door closed Helen looked into her cup, the puzzle plain on her face. “Bennett was found dead in his room,” she said.

“That wasn’t the first time he was found dead.”

“How did you know?”

It was the same question Pedro almost asked.

“Only one person in the world could get close enough to Bennett to shoot him in his own house,” I said.

“Who?”

“Me, sugar. He always had a pathological fear of relaxing his eternal vigilance in his own place and getting creamed on his Persian rug. It was one of his little foibles.”

“You called it real smart, Deep.” Her tongue ran lightly over her lower lip. “You had an inside track?”

“No... just a reputation. The watch had an engraving on the back and he sold it to a Scorp who knew what it meant.”

Her hand stopped me. “What?”

I said, “I boosted that watch from a department store in ’32 and engraved the back To Ben from Deep. It was a cheap job, but he always liked it. The Scorpions are a punk club on the other side of Amsterdam Avenue, but they knew what those words meant. The kids are on it all the way. Junkies have a bad habit of blowing off at the mouth when they’re flying and he let the bit leak out. Like I said, it reached me fast.”

“How did you hear of it?”

My eyes started to squint up. “The ties that bind,” I said. “Even the punks have their heroes. Bennett was one. I was a dark horse, but still running.”

“But never the police. They didn’t know about this,” she said sarcastically.

I looked at her disgustedly, “You’re forgetting your early upbringing, kiddo. You weren’t hothouse raised. That block was your block as well as it was mine and you had your fingers in a few pockets for pennies. Don’t make me recite times and places. Those punk kids wouldn’t give the cops the right time and you know it. To their own personal heroes they’d run off, maybe, but not to cops.”

“Who was your hero?”

“Dillinger,” I said.

“It figures,” she said seriously.

The bartender came down and emptied the Silex in our cups. He fingered the change out of the pile and went back to the other end, those funny wise eyes of his a little too all-knowing.

Ten minutes later the big guy came in. There was a stiffness in his walk and the way he held his hands. To keep them busy he opened his raincoat and shoved them in his pants pocket. The steel glint from the twisters and handcuffs at his belt showed briefly, spelling out what he was if you couldn’t already tell from his face. He didn’t look at her when he said, “Beat it, lady.”

Without a word she got up and went down the length of the bar to the ladies’ room.

I said, “You got it?”

His fingers flipped two folded sheets from his jacket pocket, handed them to me, then snapped together impatiently.

“Easy, buster. Relax.” I opened the sheets, took my time about scanning them, deliberating over each word, then when I was finished reached in my coat and slipped a C note from the roll. I handed it to him long-wise and his fingers ate it up, but not fast enough for Helen to miss the business before she sat down again.

She held her breath until he had gone, then let it out with a tiny hiss and cut me to pieces with those eyes again. She said, “Pay-off,” very softly and all the hate for the putrid system of things was in her voice.

My voice had an edge on it too. “Sure, kitten, but that’s the way things get done. You want to know something, you force it or buy it. I can do a little of each, but one way or another I get what I want.”

“Always?”

“All the time, Irish, and don’t damn well forget it.”

“What was it this time?” The comers of her eyes had that Asian look again.

“Very little. Just an official police report on Bennett’s death.” I slid off the stool, stood up and buckled my coat. The bartender eyed the change I left on the bar, nodded his thanks and I took Helen’s arm and led her outside.

While we stood in the doorway waiting for a cab I could feel her watch me, feeling for words. She said, “Deep... where did you come from?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re part of this mess and rotten clear through. You know all the angles, all the answers. Filth and nastiness are too familiar with you. You walk down the street and every eye that sees you knows you’re not like other people. You’re big and mean and lousy and have death written all over you. I wonder who you are and where you came from.”

“Yeah?”

A sneer touched her mouth, spoiling its lushness. “I heard about Bennett’s will too. You had to arrive within two weeks. His death made national headlines so you would have heard about it right away. Still, it took you four days to get here. Where is four days away from here, Deep?”

I waved a cab down instead of answering her. When I closed the door I told her to check on Tally and stay there until I called her. Just as the cab started to pull away I had one second to see her eyes go crazy wide and snapped my head to one side so that my shoulder took the full impact of the sap that would have torn my head open.

My whole right arm was totally paralyzed, but I didn’t need it at all. He had the sap up for another shot when I kicked him into a sprawling mass.

Down the street Helen’s face was a white oval in the back window of the cab, so I waved at her, stepped on Al’s working hand so the fingers snapped and walked across the corner to an empty cab waiting for the light to change.

Behind me a woman let a scream wail out and started yelling for the police.