The Leather Duke

Chapter Eight

They crossed Sedgwick and the houses became even more dilapidated. Paint had not been used in the neighborhood, it seemed, since the turn of the century.

Johnny walked carelessly, like a man out for an evening stroll, but beside him Sam walked on the balls of his feet, tense and uneasy. He glanced apprehensively at open doorways.

They reached Milton Street and Johnny said, “Oak and Milton, the Death Corner.”

Sam shuddered. “Cut it out, Johnny!”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Kind of warm. A glass of beer wouldn’t go bad.”

“I’m not thirsty,” said Sam.

“Well, I am. And here’s a place — Tavern and Poolroom. Come on.”

Sam groaned audibly but followed Johnny into the place, which turned out to be a long narrow room with a bar at the front and four pool tables in the rear.

They stepped up to the bar, which was quite well patronized.

“A short beer,” Johnny said to the olive-complexioned bartender.

“Me, too,” said Sam.

The bartender drew the beer, leveled off the foam and set the glasses before Sam and Johnny.

Johnny took a sip of the beer. “Carmella been around?” he asked casually.

“That’s twenty cents,” the bartender snapped.

Johnny put two dimes on the bar. “I asked if Carmella had been around tonight?”

“Carmella who?”

“Carmella Vitali.”

The bartender pointed to a frame on the back bar mirror. “There’s my license for the bar,” he said. He pointed to the wall behind Johnny. “And there’s the one for the pool tables. There are no rooms in back and if anybody’s betting on the games, they’re doing it on their own. I just rent ’em the tables.”

Johnny returned the man’s truculent look with interest. “The hell with your pool tables and your gambling. I merely asked you if a guy named Carmella Vitali’s been around. I’m not a cop, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“So you ain’t a cop, but I never saw you before and you come in asking for Carmella Somebody. I got a uncle named Carmella, but he can’t be the guy you’re looking for on account of he’s been dead for twelve years and, anyway, he lived in Pittsburgh. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh and he died from gallopin’ pneumonia.”

Johnny gulped down the last of his beer and slammed the glass on the bar. “T’hell with you!” He signaled to Sam, who finished his beer and hurried after Johnny.

“What makes people so suspicious of everybody?” Johnny snarled as they resumed their walking down Oak Street.

“I dunno,” said Sam, “but if somebody came around asking me about you, I’d figure they were after you for something.”

“That’s because somebody usually is after me, but all these people can’t have somebody after them.”

“Why not? Ain’t somebody usually after somebody for somethin’?”

Before Johnny could reply to that sage remark, a man stepped out of a doorway.

“Hey!” he cried, “what’re you fellows doin’ around here?”

It was Joe Genara, the swarthy man who had helped Sam Cragg pile up the barrels that morning at the Towner leather plant.

“Hiyah, Joe,” Sam responded. “We’re just takin’ a walk.”

“You live around here?”

“No,” said Johnny, “but since we’ve taken a job in the neighborhood, we thought we’d look around and get acquainted.”

“With this neighborhood?” Joe wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Phooey! Ain’t nothin’ around here worth seeing.”

“Maybe not, but the people are interesting.”

“You kidding?”

Johnny shrugged. “You’ve lived here all your life, you can’t see that your people are colorful... Carmella lives around here, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, sure,” agreed Joe, then looked sharply at Johnny. “Carmella?”

“The lad the cops picked up for questioning about Al Piper.”

Joe looked steadily at Johnny. “What’re you driving at?”

“Nothing, only I’d like to meet Carmella.”

“Why?”

“I got his job today. If he hadn’t quit, I’d still be pounding the streets looking for work. I guess I owe Carmella a drink or two.”

“I don’t think he’s in the mood to appreciate it, the way the cops gave him the one-two-three today.”

“Maybe he needs cheering up.”

Joe looked thoughtfully at Johnny, then glanced at Sam and a wicked grin spread over his features. “This might be fun, at that. I’ll probably hate myself tomorrow, but — come on!”

He stepped to the curb and started across the street. Johnny and Sam followed. Joe led the way to a tavern and poolroom that was almost a twin of the one they had been in a few minutes ago.

Joe passed the bar and proceeded down the line of pool tables. He stopped at the fourth and nodded to the last table.

“Go ahead, sports.”

Carmella Vitali was just bending over the table. “Seven ball in the side pocket,” he announced to an audience of four or five young men, all of whom had pool cues and stood around the table.

“Ten cents says you’re crazy,” one of the men exclaimed.

“Bet,” said Carmella laconically.

He took careful aim and hit the cue ball with his cue. It struck the seven ball at the far rail and banked it neatly into the side pocket. The player who had made his bet banged his cue on the floor.

“Lucky shot!” He tossed a dime to the green covered table and Carmella pocketed it. He looked around the table, found the eight ball almost concealed behind the eleven ball.

“Dime you can’t make it,” said Johnny.

Carmella looked around, spied Johnny and scowled. “Private game.”

“That’s all right,” said Johnny. “I’m not playing, but just the same I got a dime says you can’t make that shot.”

“I said this was a private game,” Carmella repeated sharply.

“Sure, but you just took a bet on an easy shot; this one’s harder. I got a dime says you can’t make it.”

Carmella’s mouth twisted in anger, then his eyes took in the balls on the table. “Wise guy,” he sneered. “I got a buck says you can’t make that shot.”

Johnny stepped forward, stooped and examined the balls closely. The eight ball could be hit all right, but if it was hit clean it would strike the twelve ball a few inches to the left. Of course, if it caromed off that ball just right, it would ricochet into the fifteen ball, which was blocking the corner pocket. No — not quite. The exact caroming from the fifteen ball could send the eight ball into the pocket. The shot was possible, but highly improbable.

Johnny straightened. “I think I’ll just take that bet. Let me have your cue.”

Carmella handed Johnny the cue, reached to the ball rack behind him and took down a piece of chalk. “All right, wise guy, make your shot.”

Sam stepped up beside Johnny. “Ixnay, Johnny, you on’y got sixty cents.”

“I know,” Johnny said out of the corner of his mouth. “But you’ve got eighty. Besides...”

He bent over the table, aimed carefully and hit the cue ball with his cue. The cue ball jumped sideways and Johnny recoiled in horror.

Then he lunged for the chalk that he had set down upon the edge of the table. Carmella was already reaching for it, but Johnny beat him to it. One glance told him.

“You’ve got soap in this chalk!” Johnny cried.

Carmella snickered. “Any soap in that chalk, you put it there yourself. You talked yourself into something and you figured that was an out. Only it ain’t. A buck, mister.”

“Put the cue ball back where it was and I’ll try the shot again,” Johnny snapped. “I didn’t put that soap in the chalk, and you know it.”

“Calling me a liar?” Carmella demanded truculently.

Johnny looked at the semicircle of Carmella’s friends. Their threatening looks told him that they were ready and willing to back up Carmella. But the dollar meant the difference between beds that night or sleeping in the railroad depots.

Johnny said: “I can make that shot.”

“You didn’t,” snarled Carmella. “Now give me that buck or so help me...”

Sam Cragg drew a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Or what?” he asked.

“Who asked you to put in your two cents?”

“Nobody asked me,” retorted Sam. “I’m puttin’ in on my own. You outweigh Johnny thirty pounds. But I’m your size. You want to make something, pick on me.”

“Belt him one, Carmella,” suddenly urged one of Carmella’s friends. “They’re a couple of pool hustlers.”

“Yeah,” agreed Carmella. “I seen ’em somewhere. Can’t remember where, but they been around...”

“You saw us at the Towner factory this morning,” Johnny said. “As a matter of fact I got your job, after you were fired.”

“Who was fired? I—” Carmella’s eyes suddenly narrowed and he whirled and caught a pool cue from a rack. As he was turning back, Sam sprang forward. He whisked the pool cue from the Italian’s hand, smashed it down against the table, snapping it in two.

“So you want to play rough,” Sam cried. “All right, try this for size.”

He hit Carmella on the side of the head with his open hand. The blow traveled only a foot or so, but it sent Carmella sprawling four feet, so that he collided with the first of his friends who was charging around the table to get at Sam and Johnny.

The blow was like a match set to a short fuse on a giant firecracker. Carmella’s friends roared and came swarming forward. Two on one side, one around the other side of the table and a fourth over the table itself.

Pool cues flashed. Johnny took one pool cue in his raised forearm and cried out in pain. A second cue, poked at his eye, missed by an inch and cut open the skin over his cheekbone. Johnny jerked that cue away from the wielder and without bothering to reverse, drove the heavy, leaded butt into the man’s stomach, doubling him over and leaving him gasping in pain.

By that time Sam was engaged with his quota. He followed through on Carmella, grabbed him about the midriff and raising him clear slammed him into another man. Both went down to the floor. Sam hurdled them, caught another man in the crook of his arm and hugged him to his side. The victim belabored Sam with his fists and Sam hit him in the face, once. The man went limp, but Sam held him under his armpit. He turned, dragging the man with him to face Carmella and his ally getting up from the floor.

Sam whisked the unconscious man from under his arm, raised him to the height of his head and hurled him down on Carmella and his friend. The three men landed in a heap and did not get up.

Sam turned to go to Johnny’s aid, found him exchanging blows. Johnny was doing fine, but Sam looked at the horde of men swarming to the rear of the room, from the other tables.

“Time to go, Johnny!” he cried. He ducked under Johnny’s flailing arm, caught hold of his friend’s antagonist and cuffing him with one hand scooped him up with the other. He raised him a good eighteen inches over his head, hurled him clear across a pool table in the general direction of the advancing crowd. The man took two or three others to the floor with him.

That was all there was to it. Johnny and Sam walked out of the poolroom without anyone else trying to molest them. And no one followed them out, not even Joe Genara.

On the sidewalk, they hurried to Milton, turned north and ran a block to Hobbie Street. There they scooted west and after a few minutes came out on Crosby street. They walked quickly down Crosby and just as they reached Larrabee a streetcar came along. They boarded it.

The car had only a few passengers and Johnny and Sam had no trouble finding a seat. Johnny drew out a handkerchief and dabbed at the blood on his cheek.

“Kind of warm for a minute,” he admitted.

“Oh, it wasn’t bad,” said Sam. “Best workout I’ve had for quite a spell.” He grinned. “Little Italy isn’t so tough.”

“It was a waste of time, though — and money. Now we’ve got to find a place to sleep — for a dollar and twenty cents.”

They got off the streetcar on Madison and began walking westward. Johnny studied the signs along the way. There were plenty of “hotels,” advertising rooms at a dollar and 75 cents. At Canal the prices began to come down and soon they saw signs advertising rooms as low as 35 cents, but Johnny was not satisfied with the appearances of the places.

“Flea bags,” he said.

“As long as they’ve got beds, I don’t care,” Sam said. “If we’re going to get up at dawn to go to work I want to hit the hay.”

They reached Halsted Street and turned south and in the second block found a freshly painted sign, reading: “Private rooms, 30 cents.”

“The sign’s clean, anyway,” said Johnny. “Let’s bunk.”

They entered a dimly lighted corridor and the smell of disinfectant struck their nostrils. A flight of stairs led to the second floor and a small cubicle, containing a chair, a small bench and a grilled window in the wall. A frowzy old man was behind the grilled window.

“Got a couple of nice rooms?” Johnny asked. “For thirty cents?”

“Thirty apiece,” was the reply. “Only one person to a room.”

“That’s us, kid.” Johnny slipped thirty cents under the grill and Sam followed the example.

The man slipped an open book under the wicket. “Gotta register.”

Johnny signed the names, Glen Taylor and Henry Wallace, and returned the book. The clerk looked at the names. “Again?” He yawned. “Okay. Rooms seven and eight, next floor.”

“The sign said private rooms — where are the keys?” Johnny exclaimed.

“At the price we can’t afford to lose keys. There’s a bolt on the inside of every room. You can lock yourself in. But we ain’t responsible for valuables.”

“If we had valuables we wouldn’t be staying here,” Johnny retorted.

They climbed the stairs to the third floor and reached a narrow corridor, lighted by a single unshaded electric light bulb. On each side was a row of doors, some open, some closed. Johnny stepped to a door bearing the number seven.

Inside was an iron bedstead containing a mattress, an uncovered pillow and a ragged cotton pad. The room was one inch longer than the bed and two feet wider. It contained no other furnishings. The top of the cubicle was covered with chicken wire.

“Well,” said Johnny, “it isn’t the Palmer House, but I guess it’s home, for tonight, anyway.”

“Jeez,” said Sam morosely, “we eat dinner with a zillionaire at the Lakeside Athletic Club and then we bed down at a dump like this.”

Johnny exhaled wearily. “Who knows? Maybe tomorrow night we’ll sleep out at Towner’s home. A good night to you, Sam.”

He stepped into Room 7, groped for the light switch and found there was none. Johnny swore under his breath, slammed the door shut and shot the shaky bolt. Then he threw himself upon the bed without even taking off his shoes.

He was asleep in five minutes.