Masters of Noir: Volume Four Page 4

  Maybe I'll bleed to death and get out of this. Easy dough, Strane's kind, you can't take it along. Wouldn't it be nice to die, just to die?

  A new noise cut over the P.K.'s growl. It was Nosy. “Got a guy passed out, sir. He's breaking my arm."

  "Fine,” the P.K. said, “fine. So talk, and get outta the daisy chain."

  "How can I talk ?” Nosy asked. “My arm's breaking."

  "Let it break,” the P.K. said. “Talk with your mouth."

  "Go to hell,” said Nosy.

  Through the fog of his pain, he heard the P.K.'s feet tramping towards him. Grit on the boiler room floor ground under those big feet, and they did it on a note high enough to cut piercingly through Macalay's head and add one more pain to a system that was nearly all pain now.

  The P.K. had kicked Nosy up against the boiler.

  Nosy screamed, and jerked back, and Hanning on the other side screamed, and then Hanning's scream turned into words. “Macalay,” he yelled. “Macalay an’ Jock was the last two in the boiler with him. They did it, Jock and Macalay."

  "All right,” the Principal Keeper said. “Open the chain, boys. Take Hanning and Fitz and Nosy to the hospital. Lay the other two out on the floor here and throw a bucket of water on ‘em."

  Macalay felt hands on him, but he couldn't be sure what they were doing. But he did feel cooler, and there was some sensation left in his back, because he could feel the filth of the floor biting into his skin.

  "G'wan,” the P.K. said. “Throw some water on ‘em."

  Another voice said: “Sir, those burns'll blister if you hit them with cold water."

  "So? Let ‘em blister."

  "I thought the Principal Keeper wanted them for trial. Any jury'd let them off if they get blistered."

  "Who's going to try them?” The Principal Keeper was laughing now. “There wasn't any fingerprints on that shiv except Russ'; we'd never get a conviction. But if these crumbs had told me about Russ when it happened, the papers never would have printed that I'd let a guy escape. I want to teach these bums that they better keep clean with me. Throw some water on ‘em and put ‘em in the Hole. They gotta learn."

  Macalay, for all his pain, laughed inside when he heard he was going to the Hole again. It was cool in the Hole, and this was summer. He could take it; he'd taken it before....

  And once he'd been sorry for himself, just because he was in a detention cell in the city. Sorry for himself because he was lonely. That was why he had been so glad when Inspector Strane showed up.

  Inspector Strane, William Martin Strane, was something in the Department; a man four years beyond the retirement age, the city council had had to pass a special law exempting him from retirement. Theoretically, Inspector Strane couldn't live forever; but the city, and the city's police, had no idea of what they would do when and if he died.

  He didn't look like dying as he sat down on Macalay's bunk and stared at him from ice-colored eyes. He didn't seem to have much time to waste on words. “Macalay, you had no business being on duty that night."

  Macalay knew the Inspector, from hearsay and personal knowledge. You didn't kid around with him. He said: “No, sir."

  Strane said: “I want to brief you on your physical condition. Seems you're not aware of it. Your right arm's gone out four times in the last two months. You dislocated it wrestling at the Y, and the civilian doctor you went to hasn't been able to fix it."

  "No, sir. No, he hasn't."

  "You got a physical exam coming up next month. You wouldn't be able to pass it, even if you had the chance to take it.” The Inspector reached his leg out and squashed a cockroach under the sole of his high-laced kangaroo shoe.

  Macalay said nothing.

  "Hmph.” Even the Inspector's grunt had an old-fashioned quality about it. “Some day you'll have to learn a trade. Clerk in an office or something."

  Macalay shifted from one foot to the other. He didn't dare sit down until the Inspector asked him to.

  "Listen, Macalay,” the Inspector said. “Those jewels in your shoe weren't worth a million, but they were still worth a hell of a lot. Even if they were glass, you'd still be on a spot. You know that."

  All Macalay said was: “Yes, sir."

  "The Jewelers Association has posted a hundred thousand dollars reward for that gang, arrest and conviction. It's their sixth job."

  He stopped, and Macalay waited. The Inspector pulled a narrow cigar out of his pocket and lit it. He half-closed his ice-cube eyes against the smoke. For a man with a reputation for bluntness, he was being surprisingly circuitous.

  "That's a lot of money,” Macalay said, to break the silence, wondering when Strane would get to the point.

  "Yeah. Jewelers pay a lot of insurance. A gang like this raises the premium—y'know? These bums have heisted several million bucks’ worth."

  "You'd think they'd retire,” Macalay said.

  Inspector Strane stared at him, as though trying to figure out if this cop in a cell was trying to be funny. Finally, he concluded Macalay wasn't. He said: “Bums never got enough money. Their friends blackmail ‘em; their dames cost money; the fences rook them. I never knew one to die rich."

  Macalay had no observations to make on bums and their money problems.

  Inspector Strane let the silence build; then he nodded, as though pleased with the young man. “Okay,” he said. “You got the picture. Signify anything to you?"

  Macalay shook his head slightly.

  "You've not got too much to choose from,” Inspector Strane said. “So. Why not take on this case? The Jewelers’ Association's been talking to me. They want a man."

  "Me?” Macalay laughed a non-funny laugh. “I'm sure as hell not going to be around.

  Inspector Strane crossed his legs and the bunk creaked. He took the thin cigar from his mouth. “Why'd you take those diamonds? No crap now, Macalay."

  "Like you said, Inspector: the doc told me I'd never pass another physical. They were right there for me to take. I'd just come to after being slugged and there they were. If I hadn't passed out trying to get to Gresham, I'd have got away with those stones."

  Strane came as close to smiling as he ever got. “We want the bums who have been getting away with too damn much."

  Macalay said: “And don't forget Gresham."

  "You'd like to square things for him, wouldn't you?"

  A silence hung between them. Strane wasn't getting to his point. Macalay figured he'd help him.

  "You said something about a hundred thousand reward. That dough interests me."

  "All right,” Strane said, and then laid it on the line. He had given it to him like an itemized account. His offer and the alternatives, numbering them one to three, for definiteness as well as clarity: In return for information, Macalay would be sprung, his sentence whatever it might be, nullified. That plus the reward. If he failed, tough—Strane had no bargaining tools; he served his time. In either case, he ran the risk of a shiv in his gut by a con. There was only one thing worse, to a con's way of thinking, than a cop ... and that was a double-crossing cop.

  "Why go into the pen to crack this case?” Macalay wanted to know.

  "We got no leads on the outside, that's why.” Strane sounded annoyed. “Well?"

  "A guy can live forever on a hundred grand. Live real well. His shoulder'll never bother him."

  "You sound like I'm giving you a guarantee.” Inspector Strane shook his head dolefully. “Bums don't talk, remember that.” It was his standard word for crooks. “Especially to cops."

  "They talk to other bums,” Macalay said.

  "Hmph.” The Inspector's grunt belittled Macalay's confidence. “And there's another thing to remember. We go on working on this case on the outside. We crack it before you, the deal's over. You understand?"

  "I still like the sound of that big lump of dough."

  Inspector Strane nodded. “I just hope you're tough enough. Once you start on this, you know, there's no out?” He spotted another cockroach; his
foot went for it and got it. “Write when you've got something to tell me. My first two names, William Martin. On second thought, make it Miss Billie Martin. Tell her you miss her. The box number is 1151, here at the Central Post Office. The bum you're to get close to is a loft-man by the name of Russell. He's the brother of that safecracker who died right alongside of Gresham. That's about it."

  4.

  Macalay was four weeks in the Hole this time. But even in there, he could sense that his position in the prison had changed. The first time he'd gone to the Hole for not squealing, he hadn't known whether a prisoner or a screw brought his food; this time when he was in for not squealing under the toughest circumstances, he was sure it was a con.

  Because in his very first tray there was a salve of burn ointment. And on the second tray there was a candle and a dozen matches.

  After that there was a little something on nearly every tray; a few slices of bacon, a buttered roll, an orange even. Sometimes there was nothing, and that undoubtedly meant that a guard was looking over the trays. But that didn't happen very often, so probably the P.K. had gone back to sitting in his office, and the Warden was still working on his book and the Deputy Warden was still making speeches, and the screws were still doping off in the shade.

  It was funny, now. Even in the Hole Macalay felt in touch with the whole prison, perhaps as a man giving a transfusion to a patient on the operating table feels in touch with the operation; it is passing through his veins and arteries. He never heard a word from Jock or anyone else, but he could feel himself in touch with Jock, in some other Hole.

  Macalay was really part of the prison now, and the Hole wasn't so bad. And best of all there was Hanning, Russ’ sidekick. Hanning who probably knew what Russ knew.

  His burns healed, and the broken skin on his wrist healed, though his wrist bones ached for quite a while, and there were permanent scars there and on his knees and on one shoulder that must have gone against the boiler when he didn't know it.

  Instead of fighting the Hole this time, he looked on it as a rest from chipping boilers or scrubbing greasy pans in the kitchen. Maybe it would have been better in the infirmary, but it was all right.

  And so he got a little better all the time. He began exercising, doing knee-bends and push-ups. He told himself he was doing this to keep his health; then, when that self-lie stopped fooling him, he said he was doing it because you didn't dare go out in the yard weak.

  And then he stripped away all self-pretense. He faced himself: Hanning squealed on Jock and me; Jock and me have to get him. And we will. So I got to be strong.

  The next meal he kept his spoon out, hoping it wouldn't get the trusty who'd been feeding him into trouble. He hid the spoon by putting it behind some loose mortar in the wall, and waited two full meals. When there was a cold chunk of stew meat—good lamb shank with marrow in it—on his tray, he knew the same trusty was still on duty, and had covered up about the spoon, some way.

  So he took the spoon out of hiding and began sharpening it on the rough concrete floor.

  You can kill a man with a spoon. The way you do it is, you sharpen the bowl down to an arrowhead; then you bend the handle like a finger ring, only you leave an inch and a half at the back to lie flat along your palm.

  Slip that on, and one punch will do the job.

  Now his time was pretty full. He had his exercise; he had his sharpening; he had his thoughts. He thought of the hundred thousand. He thought he would get the dope for Strane from Hanning and then kill Hanning.

  After awhile he got out. His cellmate this time was a fresh fish, just out of the quarantine block, guy named Leon something or other. Just a punk. Looked like he didn't even have to shave every day. A punk with light fuzz on his chin.

  As soon as Macalay was shoved into his cell, this Leon volunteered his name and said: “I'm doing two to ten for grand larceny, automobile. How about you?"

  "I'm a chicken thief,” Macalay said. “I took three hundred to five hundred for habitual chicken theft."

  Leon looked at him. “Aw,” he said. “I'm sorry. I'm always doin’ something wrong. Isn't it right to ask the guys what they're in for?"

  "No, fish. It ain't right. You can accumulate a mouthful of floating teeth asking questions. It isn't ethical."

  "I didn't know,” Leon said, gloomily. “I never do anything right. Like the car I took. It was already hot, and on the police radio, was why the guy had left it there with the keys in it ... I thought the law was it wasn't stealing if the keys were in it, but that ain't the law."

  "Thanks for the advice,” Macalay said. “I knew the P.K. had it in for me, but I didn't know he'd go this far, putting you in my cell."

  "Who's the P.K.?” The kid had thick black hair and pink cheeks, and his eyes shone. He'd last about two hours in the yard.

  "The P.K. is a kind of chewing gum they give us,” Macalay said. He stripped off his shirt and went over to the washstand. He knew the kid's eyes must be coming out on his cheekbones when he saw the still-fresh scars, but he didn't hear any questions.

  Fresh water played across his face, he rubbed it in well, rubbing the Hole out, getting clean again. He started to shave, and then, not suddenly, but rolling hard at him, as a steam-roller goes at a pile of rubble, some sort of sanity returned.

  I was going to kill Hanning, he thought. Kill Hanning, take a chance on the big rap, on throwing away everything that maybe can get me out of here.

  He shaved slower, pausing every now and then. To live like a con, and yet not to become one. That, he told himself, was what he had to fight against—that was the big danger. To keep my eye on the outside, on the free world, on a hundred thousand bucks, to remember that stir is only a small part of the world. To think of it as prison, not stir, the men prisoners, not cons, the officers guards and not screws; to live penned up, but think free.

  He turned, reached for his shirt, and said: “Leon, the P.K. is the Principal Keeper. He runs this place. He's the man to fear."

  A smile broke across Leon's face. His eyes got shiny. He said: “Thanks, mister."

  "The name's Macalay. Just Mac.” Macalay returned the smile, wondering fleetingly if he could in some way use this young squirt to get to Hanning. “There goes the supper bell. We line up here, I'll show you how, and do a snake dance to the mess hall ... Keep your lip buttoned up, there are swagger-stick screws all along the way."

  It was still hot weather, but there was just the smell of fall coming in the air. It was good to be walking along to the mess hall, out in the sun and the cool air.

  Good just to drift along with the other cons, but it was time for Macalay to think. He had accomplished only one thing so far: he had established himself as a real con. Hardly anybody would remember now that he'd once been a cop; two sessions of the Hole had taken care of that.

  And now—suddenly, not like the steam-roller, but like a bulldozer hitting something hard, and pushing it, all at once into something new, he understood why there had been no outside trial, no investigation of Russ’ murder.

  The P.K. That snake brain, sitting in his twin offices, one blood-proof, and one carpeted, planning. It would be easy for the P.K. to see to it that the state cops would find no evidence to take into court, and an officer won't push a case that he's going to lose.

  Macalay knew that. Every cop knows that. It's bad for your record.

  And why? So the P.K. could keep his own record clear. So he could have a real reason to use the torture that was as necessary to him as grass to a cow, water to a fish.

  Macalay, back from the Hole, back from the depths of his convict-thinking, summed it up. I'm in stir, but good, not a con holds my police background against me. I've got that, and it's one thing I figured right from the start I had to get.

  And I've got one other thing: I know how to handle the P.K., and the P.K. is the prison. The whole prison. But my neck is still in a noose. I got to act like I'm expected to act. The cons will expect me to get Hanning for squealing. I've got to m
ake that play, and cross the next bridge when and if.

  Macalay laughed inside, thinking of Strane smashing cockroaches, Strane, who should be retired, sitting on his old ass telling him he'd have to be tough. But Macalay's face never moved a muscle. The screws didn't like it if you laughed in the march-along.

  He marched into the mess hall, eyes in front of him, hands at his sides as per regulations; but he had learned to see a lot without looking. He saw Hanning two files over, and Hanning saw him. Hanning's look said, “Come on, you sonofabitch, I'm ready.” He saw Jock one file on the other side of him, and Jock didn't look like he'd ever get his strength back. The P.K. had broken Jock; the P.K. could break anyone in time. Including Macalay.

  Leon was on one side of him, and that was no good to him at all. But the man on the other side of him was an old stir-bum, Lefty something-or-other. As they bowed their heads and stood behind the benches, he gathered his breath; and as the chaplain started the grace, he told Lefty: “Hanning's my meat and nobody else's. Pass it."

  The Chaplain finished and they sat down and the bowls were placed on their tables: hot dogs, vinegary sauerkraut, boiled potatoes and watery spinach. Macalay speared hot dogs and potatoes and took his bread and Leon's to make sandwiches; it takes twenty years to learn to eat prison sauerkraut. As the new head of Jock's Jockies, he probably should have taken Leon's sausages, too, but he couldn't do it.

  He knew the word was passing down the long tables. It was a thing that the rifle-screws on the balcony, and the swagger-stick screws walking up and down between the benches couldn't stop; it happened at every meal that somebody passed the word. But never a lip moved, and not a wave of sound went anywhere but where it was aimed.

  We've suspended the laws of physics, Macalay thought. We can make a tunnel out of air, and shoot sound through it! We ought to be studied by some of the eggheads at the colleges.