The Moon in the Gutter

15

Despite his anxiety for a showdown with Bella, he purposely delayed going home. For one thing, he wanted to be very calm when he faced her. Also, and more important, he wanted the discussion to be strictly private. On Wharf Street he entered a diner, ordered a heavy meal, took a few bites and pushed the plate aside. He sat there ordering countless cups of coffee and filling the ash tray with cigarette stubs. Then later he walked along Wharf through the storm, found a thirty-cent movie house, and bought a ticket.

When he came out of the movie it was past midnight. The storm had slackened and now the rainfall was a steady, dull drone. He didn’t mind walking in the rain and his stride was somewhat casual as he walked north on Wharf Street. But later, on Vernon, the anxiety hit him again and he hurried his pace.

Entering the house, he quickly checked all the rooms. Frank was nowhere around, Tom and Lola were asleep, and Bella’s room was empty. He went into the unlit parlor, took a chair near the window, and sat there in the dark waiting for Bella to come home.

Some nights Bella came home very late. Maybe tonight she wouldn’t be coming home at all. Maybe she was on a bus or a train, telling herself she’d evened the score and it was a wise move now to get out of town. But while the thought drifted through his mind, he saw Bella walking across Vernon Street and approaching the house. She moved somewhat unsteadily. She wasn’t really drunk, but it was obvious she’d been drinking.

He stood away from the window. The door opened and Bella came in and plumped herself on the sofa. In the darkness of the parlor she didn’t see him, but enough light came through the window so that he could watch what she was doing. Her handbag was open and she was taking out a pack of cigarettes. She put one in her mouth and then she searched for a match.

Kerrigan spoke very softly. “Hello, Bella.”

She let out a startled cry.

“It’s only me,” he said. He flicked the wall switch, and the ceiling bulbs were lit.

Bella sat stiffly, holding her breath as she stared at him. It seemed that her eyes were coming out of her face.

Kerrigan moved toward her. He had a match book in his hand. He struck a match and applied the flame to her cigarette, but she didn’t inhale. He kept the flame there and finally she took a spasmodic drag, her body shaking as the smoke came out of her mouth.

He blew out the match, dropped it into a tray. Then very slowly, as though he were performing a carefully rehearsed ceremony, he reached into his trousers pocket and took out the folded money, the two fives and the ten. He unfolded the bills and smoothed them between his fingers. Then he extended them slowly and held them in front of her bulging eyes.

She was trying to look at something else, trying to stare at the carpet, a chair, the wall, anything at all, just so she wouldn’t be seeing the money. But although her head moved, her eyes were fastened on the money.

“Here,” he said, offering her the money. “It’s yours.”

He waited for her to take the bills. She kept her hands down, her fingers gripping the edge of the sofa. Her throat contracted as though she were trying to swallow something very thick and heavy in her throat.

Then suddenly her shoulders sagged. She lowered her head. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Oh, my God.”

Kerrigan placed the bills in the opened handbag. He said, “Don’t take it so hard. You haven’t lost anything. After all, you got your money back.”

She looked at him. “Why don’t you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Knock my teeth out. Break my neck.”

He shook his head. He said, “I think you’re hurt enough already.”

She dragged at the cigarette. Then she leaned back heavily against the sofa pillow, gazing past him and saying dully, “How’d you get the money?”

He shrugged. “I asked for it.”

She went on gazing past him. “I should have known they’d louse things up.” For a long moment she was quiet. And then, as though she were very tired, she closed her eyes. “All right, tell me what happened.”

“Nothing much. But they made a nice try. They came damn near earning their pay.”

She looked at his hands. His knuckles were skinned, and she nodded slowly and said, “It musta been a nice little party.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly, “it was a lot of fun.”

“They get banged up much?”

“Enough to make it a sad ending,” he said. “One of them is out of business for at least a month. The other one is out for keeps.”

She took another drag at the cigarette. She didn’t say anything.

He said, “Next time you hire a wrecking crew, don’t pay them in advance.”

The smoke drifted very slowly from her lips. Her eyes followed the uncurling tendrils as she said, “It wasn’t me who paid them. And it wasn’t my idea to hire them.”

He seized her shoulders. “What was the setup?”

Her lips were locked tightly. She started to shake her head.

“Cut that out,” he said. “You’ve started to tell me and you’re gonna finish.”

“I can’t.”

“But you will.” His grip on her shoulders was like a set of metal clamps. “I had a feeling it wasn’t your idea to begin with. It figures there was an agent in charge of this deal. It figures from every angle. There’s someone in this neighborhood who knows I’m looking for him. He knows what’s gonna happen when I find out who he is and get my hands on him. You check what I’m talkin’ about?”

Bella blinked several times. Her mouth opened but no sound came through.

“I’m talkin’ about my sister,” he said. “She killed herself because she was jumped and ruined and driven crazy. Whoever he is, he knows I’ll keep looking until I find him. So it stands to reason he don’t want me around. You check it now?”

She stopped squirming. She stared at him.

He said, “The man is nervous. He’s scared. What he’d like most is to see me in a wooden box. But he’d probably settle for less, like a twenty-dollar deal to cripple me. To put me out of action so he’d be safe for a while. And that’s where you come in.”

She shut her eyes tightly.

He kept the tight hold on her shoulders. “The way it lines up,” he said, “you were used for sucker bait. The man knew you had it in for me. He appointed himself as a friendly adviser. Tells you there’s a way to even the score, and before you know what you’re doing, you give him the twenty dollars. Ain’t that how it happened?”

She nodded dazedly.

Kerrigan went on, “He hands the money to the hooligans. He tells them you’re the customer. That keeps his name out of it, just in case there’s a slip-up. Anyway, that’s what he thought. But you know his name and I’m waiting for you to open your mouth.”

“No.” She choked on it. “Don’t make me tell.”

“Come on,” he gritted. His hands put more pressure on her shoulders.

She winced. His fingers burned into her flesh and there were pain and fear in her eyes. Yet it wasn’t at all like physical pain. And it seemed the fear was more for him than for herself.

Then all at once there was nothing in her eyes. Her voice was toneless as she said, “It was Frank.”

Then it was quiet in the parlor. But he had a feeling the room was moving. It was like a chamber on wheels going away from everything, falling off the edge of the world.

He took his hands away from her shoulders. He turned away from her, and heard himself saying, “As if I didn’t know.”

Bella had her head lowered. Her hands covered her face.

“Well,” he said, “it adds up. The twenty dollars was the one thing he needed. He never has a nickel in his pockets.”

She spoke in a broken whisper. “I should have guessed what was in his mind. But I couldn’t think straight. I was half crazy. Or maybe crazy all the way. I just wanted to see you get hurt.”

“He knew that,” Kerrigan said. “He knew it wouldn’t be no trouble to sell you a bill of goods.”

She was quiet for some moments. And then, in a lower whisper, “I came near spending more than the twenty.”

“Did he ask for more?”

“He wanted me to spend a hundred.”

He turned and looked at her. “Why didn’t you?”

Bella stared at the carpet. “I didn’t have it.”

“Did he tell you what a hundred would buy?”

“He said it would put you in a grave.”

Kerrigan breathed in slowly. He thought, This is worse than a grave, worse than hell.

Then gradually his mouth hardened. His arms were stiff at his sides. “All right,” he said. “Where is he?”

She raised her head. She looked at him and saw something in his eyes that made her go cold.

“You don’t hafta tell me,” he said. “I’ll find him.”

He moved toward the door. His hand was on the doorknob when Bella leaped from the sofa, ran to him, and grabbed his arms.

“No,” she gasped. “No, don’t.”

“Let go.”

“Please don’t,” she begged. “Stay here for a while. Think it over.”

He tried to pull away from her. “I said let go.”

She was using all her strength to drag him away from the door. “I won’t letcha,” she said. “You’ll only do something you’ll be sorry for.”

Her grip was like iron. Now she had her arms wrapped around his middle and he could hardly breathe. “Goddamn you,” he wheezed. “You gonna let go?”

“No,” she said. “You gotta listen.”

“I’ve listened enough. I’ve heard all I need to know.”

“You know what’ll happen if you go out that door?”

Instead of answering, he gave her a vicious jab with his elbow. It caught her in the side and she groaned. But she wouldn’t release her hold on him. He jabbed her again as she went on dragging him backward. She grunted and held him more tightly. It was as though she wanted him to keep jabbing her, to take it out on her.

“If you don’t let go,” he hissed, “you’re gonna get hurt.”

“Go ahead and hurt me. You got both arms free.”

“You’re askin’ for grief.”

Her breath came in grinding sobs. “I’m askin’ you to listen, that’s all. Just listen to me. I want you to go in your room and pack your things. And then I’ll walk you to the streetcar. You’ll take that ride uptown. And you’ll stay there. With her.”

His arms fell limply at his sides.

Bella relaxed her hold just a little. “Will you do it?”

He was looking at the door. He didn’t say anything.

“Please do it,” Bella said. “Go to her and live with her and never come back here. Don’t even use the phone. Or write. Just forget about all this. Forget you ever lived in this house.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Sure it’s easy. You said so yourself. Just a matter of spending the carfare.” Her voice was torn with a sob. “Fifteen cents.”

“That’s cheap enough,” he said. “Maybe it’s too cheap. I think it costs more than that to break off all connections.”

Then slowly, gently, he took hold of her wrists, he unfastened her arms from around his middle. She didn’t look at him as she stepped away, giving him an unimpeded path to the door. But as she heard the sound of the doorknob turning, she made one last try to hold him back, calling on the only power that could stop him now, moaning, “Dear God, don’t let him do it.”

But the door was already open. Bella sank to her knees, weeping without sound. Through the window she saw him as he stepped down off the doorstep. His face was like something carved from rock, a profile of hardened whiteness, very white against the darkness of the street. Then he was crossing Vernon and she saw the route he was taking. He moved along a diagonal path aiming at a foggy yellow glow in the distance, the window of Dugan’s Den.