Chapter 5
After leaving Barbara's apartment, the two men drove south. The tall man was at the wheel. The short man sat beside him and kept doubling his fists.
"I'd like to get my mitts on that cocky Williams guy one of these days."
"Maybe you'll get the chance."
"What's the dope on this new thing?"
"We pick a guy up."
"Any guy?"
"Any of four guys. I've got the names."
The tall man drove the black, unmarked official car southward through the city and pulled up in front of the Corner Tavern on Archer Street. There, they found Gooch and Sammy sitting on a Sanitary District box at the curb waiting for Lew and Frenchy to show up.
The tall man got out of the car and approached the box. The short man came around the car and came in from the other direction. When they stopped moving they were covering the box at both ends. No one was going to get up and run.
"Either of you guys Samuel Perry?"
It had been so long since Sammy had heard his full name that he blinked helplessly and looked at Gooch.
"Talk up."
"That's me," Sammy said. "Okay come with us."
Sammy got up from the box. He was crouched--ready to escape.
"Police," the tall man said. Not bothered by-having to produce a writ this time, he had the full use of his hands. Sammy spun away in panic, but the short man anticipated him and was there when he turned. He pushed Sammy back into the arms of the tall man who pushed him into the seat of the car they'd driven up in. The short man got in under the wheel. Stricken, Sammy looked back through the window as the car pulled away.
Gooch stared after it, frozen. His pimples and boils fairly vibrated from terror. The cops had picked Sammy up. What the hell did that mean? He looked around wildly. He was alone, and he didn't know what to do. Where were Lew and Frenchy? Why couldn't the creeps be around when they were needed. What could he do?
There was only one thing, of course, and he set off to do it.
Find Frenchy and Lew. Tell them what had happened. Maybe together they could work something...
It was a quick silent trip to where they were taking Sammy, and he rode with terror the whole distance. Why were they doing this to him? Why didn't they go after the big hoods and crooks and leave little guys alone?
And now he was in the basement of the 37th Precinct Police Station at the lower end of Lincoln Street. There had been a couple of days of comparatively cool weather, but now the heat had come back and there was no air conditioning or ventilation of any kind in the room. It was like a furnace.
The room was all cement; rough cement walls and ceiling and a cement floor. There was a table, a chair, and a light in the room. The two men took their coats off and laid them on the table and that made three things lying there; the two jackets and a nice comfortable length of rubber hose.
The short man pushed Sammy into the chair. "What'd you say your name was, buster?"
"S-Sammy."
"You know better than that."
The tall man adjusted the light that was on a stand beside the table. It was very strong. It made Sammy's face look like a sheet of white, sweaty paste.
Sammy threw an arm up over his eyes. The short man knocked it away and jerked Sammy's face into the light, using his hair as a handle."
"What'd you say your name was, buster?"
"Samuel Perry sir."
"Never mind the sarcasm."
"All we want from you, Sammy, is a quick clean confession. How you and some other punks crawled in a window at the Park Hotel and raped a girl. We know all about it. We just want to hear you tell it."
"I didn't rape nobody!"
"Oh, you mean she held still for it?"
"No no. I didn't climb in no window I ain't that kind of a guy."
The tall man had taken over, holding Sammy's face into the light. The shorter man immediately stepped to the table and came back with the hose. He was behind Sammy behind the chair. He raised the hose and brought it down expertly on the back of Sammy's neck. At that moment, the taller man let go of Sammy's hair and stepped aside and Sammy rocketed forward. He let out a choked scream as he sprawled on the cement in front of the chair.
The two men stood there looking down at Sammy. They had changed. They were not the same neatly dressed, coldly polite officers who had rung Barbara's bell. The change had been gradual from what they'd been then to what they were now. They hadn't looked quite as well dressed, not quite as politely, impersonally cold.
When they arrived at Archer Street, the change was more apparent. There, they'd looked mussed and shabby; arrogant rather than polite; sneering in place of impersonal.
And now, having arrived in the bare, cement, basement room, the change was complete. Their hair was mussed and their shirts were dripping wet. The heat in the oven-like room had driven sweat out through even their trousers.
But the big change was in their faces; their twisted faces; their half-glazed, staring eyes.
They were now two men who could beat another man to death and enjoy it.
The short man looked at his hose with appreciation. There was almost a look of love in his eyes as he looked at the hose.
"No marks," the taller man cautioned as he pulled a hand across his face to blot up the sweat. "No marks."
Sammy came up on his knees, cowering. "Leave me alone, you guys!"
They looked at him. "The taller one said, "You and some other punks raped that broad, didn't you?"
"I didn't rape nobody!"
The tall man swooped. He got Sammy by the collar of his shirt and jerked him erect. Or at least he tried to. He didn't quite make it because the shirt ripped and Sammy went back to his hands and knees.
The man dived again and hooked his fist into Sammy's belt at the center of his back. Her jerked and the belt snapped, too, but Sammy dropped back into the chair as the belt buckle and buttons from his pants bounced across the cement.
Sammy raised his arms, cowering and whimpering. The tall man slapped them down and twisted Sammy's head up again.
"You crawled in that window and raped the hell out of that broad, didn't you?"
"No no," Sammy screamed.
The hose again slashed across the back of his neck. Again he was sent lunging forward on his face. "No no not me!"
"You, you lousy little punk!"
Rage and indignation blazed in the tall man's face. At least that was what it might have passed for to the unpracticed eye. A psychiatrist, however, might have interpreted it differently.
The short man sucked air in through his bared teeth as he came forward.
The tall man reached down and took Sammy by the now-loose seat of his pants. He lifted him, and Sammy made quick, helpless motions like a person learning to swim out of water. Then the man jerked the cloth he held in his hand, and Sammy fell forward out of his trousers. The effect was like that of a man dumping refuse out of a torn paper bag. The man kept jerking as Sammy sprawled on the floor. Sammy kicked in helpless desperation, and the trousers came away, leaving him in his torn shirt and sweat-soaked shorts.
The short man laughed, his eyes on the shorts, "Looks like our friend had a hell of a big accident."
"He'll have a hell of a bigger one. He'll damn soon get worse if he keeps on lying."
Sammy was crying now. Sobs came from his throat as he lay with his mouth against the dirty cement.
The tall man reached down and lifted him by the back of his shorts. They stretched, but the elastic was tough and it held. He lifted until Sammy hung as though over a clothes line. "Honest, you guys-" he babbled out the words as tears and sweat choked him. "Honest, you guys, I didn't rape nobody."
The tall man looked at the short man and aped
Sammy's high-pitched voice. "He didn't rape nobody."
The short man shook his head in mock sorrow. "Boy, we made us a big mistake. He didn't crawl through no window. He wouldn't rape a broad. He's too nice a kid."
"Please, mister "
Sammy came to his hands and knees again, his shorts dropping away. Sniffling, he pawed backward reaching for them, but ineffectually, and the short man moved forward.
His eyes aglow, he stepped over Sammy, stood astride him backwards and raised the rubber hose. He brought it down hard, exactly in the center of Sammy's buttocks. Its supple length bent and curled under, like a thick, black snake.
Sammy stiffened. His eyes bulged as his mouth flew open, and a squall of agony came out. He lunged forward, crawling across the floor in panic from between the short man's braced legs.
Once clear of him, Sammy rolled over on his back and pawed at himself like a brutalized animal.
The tall man was breathing heavily. He looked at Sammy and then at the hose that dangled in the short's man's hand.
"You're pretty accurate with that thing."
The short man spoke softly. "You ain't seen nothing yet."
Sammy, the first sharp rip of agony having worn off, seemed suddenly aware of his vulnerability. He scrambled to his feet.
The short man watched him like a cat looking at a trapped mouse. He turned his eyes to grin at the tall man.
"You ain't seen nothing yet."
He turned and moved, fast and smoothly for a man of his chunky build, and was close to Sammy, The hose lashed out in a short, vicious arc across Sammy's face.
Sammy screamed. Blood spurted from his nose.
"Wait a minute," the taller man said.
The shorter one smiled reassuring. "Don't worry. Nothing broke. It won't even swell. It bleeds a while and then you wash away the blood and there's nothing."
Sammy, his eyes glazed with terror, pawed at his face. He brought his hands away, bloody, and dropped to his knees.
"Please, you guys please-"
"Shut up!" The short man snarled out the warning as though he was afraid Sammy would confess, and he didn't want that. Not yet."
"On your feet."
Sammy clambered erect, and the shorter man swung the hose again. This time, lower down.
Again there was Sammy's squall of agony and terror as he clawed at his back, arced his body grotesquely, and staggered drunkenly away from his tormentor.
The man didn't follow. He grinned at his companion who was staring, fascinated.
"Do that hard enough, you pop a guy's kidney. You can bust a kidney and not leave a mark."
"But-"
"Don't worry! I know just how hard to hit. I didn't bust anything." He grinned. "I worked a chain gang once. I never told you that, did I?"
The taller man licked his lips. "No, you never told me that."
"Those cons you got to treat rough. This is nothing--nothing at all. I had a couple die on me." Again, the evil grin. "That was when I was learning."
"Okay, kid " the taller man said.
The short man held up a restraining hand. "Hold k. Not yet. He's a tough little monkey. Has to be softened up. You won't get nothing out of him for a while."
"Sure sure I'll tell "
The short man smashed the words back into Sammy's teeth with a blow across the mouth. The blow was light, however; just hard enough to partially numb Sammy lips.
The one that followed was different. It was aimed several inches lower, the hose hitting Sammy's prominent larynx and wrapping itself around his neck.
Sammy's mouth flew open. It worked soundlessly as his eyes bulged in pure terror. He pawed at his mouth and his throat. His tongue lolled from his mouth as he sought to breath and couldn't.
The taller man stepped forward in alarm. "He'll die on us. He'll choke on his own "
"No he won't. I tell you I know what I'm doing. I just numbed him a little. He'll come around.
They stood there watching as Sammy gagged and clutched his throat.
"Looks like a fish, doesn't he?" the shorter man said. "Like a gasping fish out of water."
Sammy's head was going up and down; he nodded frantically as though trying to reassure them.
"He wants to talk," the taller man said.
"Sure he does sure he does. But we gave him his chance. Now he'll talk when we say he can." He spoke in a tense, unnatural voice.
Sammy began to cough. The coughs grew more positive and wracked his body, bending him forward as he put his hands over his bloody mouth.
The stiff, fixed grin on the shorter man's face did not change as he went to the table and opened a drawer on one side. He took out a black stick about two feet long. It looked like a police club. He winked at his companion.
Sammy, busy with his own suffering, didn't see the shorter man move in behind him. The man extended the stick just as a paroxysm of coughing bent Sammy far forward.
His shriek was instantaneous. He straightened with an agonized snap of his body. He remained that way, stiff from ankles to shoulders, while his legs strove to go forward.
His shrieks dribbled off into agonized grunts as the shorter man poked him skillfully with the electrified stick. Sammy moved forward laboriously, one stiff step after another, like a paraplegic learning to walk all over again.
"That's enough," the taller man said in a choked voice. But there was a certain authority in the tone, and the shorter man reluctantly stopped following Sammy across the floor.
"Get 'em in a corner with this damn tickler," he said, "and you can really have some fun. Once in a tank-town jail I worked in, there was a drunken broad that started sounding off an we "
The taller man didn't want to hear it. His eyes had cleared a little as he watched Sammy in his new agony.
"He's had enough. Wash him up and get some clothes on him."
The shorter man scowled. "Wait a minute. Who the hell made you boss?"
It was what the taller man wanted. He was disgusted with himself for what he'd participated in; had allowed to happen. He badly needed a chance to vindicate himself.
"I said wash the blood off."
He took a step forward, and the shorter man saw what, was in his eyes. His scowl faded, and the corner of his mouth jerked slightly.
"Don't get sore. We're a team. We work together."
"I said clean him up."
"Sure sure "
There was a washroom across a narrow cement corridor, and the shorter man took Sammy in there while his companion watched. Sammy whined and cowered but, fifteen minutes later, he was upstairs in a different room. He wore clean, gray prison-issue pants and shirt, and he was not bleeding nor was there a mark on him. Only his eyes showed the effects of what had taken place. They were still red from crying. This, however, would pass as emotional release, remorse for his crime.
This room was different. It was clean, and the walls were painted, the table was better.
The two officers had changed also. They were again two neatly dressed, quietly impersonal public servants who could be trusted with the people's business.
The shorter one pushed a form across the table to Sammy. "Sign that there at the bottom."
"What is it?"
"Nothing important, son," the man said pleasantly. "It just says that we treated you all right. That this confession you're going to give us is of your own free will that nobody beat you up or anything."
"Oh," Sammy said vaguely. "Yeah yeah the confession ... "
Sammy signed and the shorter man folded the release neatly. "Now, let's get to it. Vince Kane sent you up there to rape that girl, didn't he?"
"Who's Vince Kane."
"Now look, son "
"Oh oh, sure. Vince Kane sent us up."
"How many of you?"
"There was four of us." Sammy was eager to please, now. He didn't want to go down into the basement again. "This here Vince Kane he "
"Take it easy, take it easy. Now, we're going over it very carefully so you'll remember. We're going to see to it that you remember exactly who Vince Kane is and how you met him and what he said to you."
"Sure sure," Sammy said. "I want to remember every damn thing. Who is Vince Kane...? "
Later, lying on the bunk in the cell they gave him, Sammy put his head in his arms and cried. The rats! The crummy snakes! They'd worked hkn over, but by God he'd been tough. They hadn't beat anything out of him. They used a hose and their fists and their feet, but he'd stood there against the wall and laughed at them. Finally, they'd given up.
That was how it had been.
He doubled his fists.
That was exactly how it had been.
He beat his fists against the bunk.
It had been exactly that way.
After a while, he stopped crying and went to sleep.
Vince Kane got the news from a Morning Telegram reporter who phoned.
". . .A Samuel Perry, twenty-five, a small-time neighborhood punk. There were three others."
Vince Kane's expression of anger was brief and to the point. "Hell!" he snapped.
"Take it easy, Vince. The worst is yet to come."
"Give it to me straight, Louie."
Vince Kane had known Louie Barns for a long time. Louie, a veteran police reporter, liked nice things and places, the kind of favors an important guy like Vince could extend. Vince, in turn, found a pipeline, to the inside extremely valuable. He liked important news first, and Louie was the man who could give it to him.
So the friendship was warm and solid.
"They got a confession from the punk."
"What's so rough about that?"
"They wrote it. It says you hired the four punks to rape your broad in order to make Avery look bad. Shame on you, Vince."
Kane wasted no more time in useless cursing. He chewed thoughtfully on his unlit cigar. "They've given it out?"
"Five minutes ago."
"Then the police will be over here to get me."
"The charge will be criminal conspiracy."
"What about the other three?"
"I gave you a boost on that. I got word of the pickup when it was made and tried to reach you. No could do, so I located Barney Williams and briefed him. He may have them stashed away by now."
"Thanks, Louie. When will the story break?"
"It'll be on the newscasts in an hour. They'd like to add that you've been taken into custody."
"I've got to get out of sight a while. If you see Barney, tell him to call me."
Louie didn't ask where. Barney would of course know that. He said, "Good luck, Vince." Then he hung up and began writing the story that would probably damn his friend Vince Kane in the eyes of the public. But what the hell. That was life. You played it straight and waited to see what would happen.
With events moving so fast, their chronology became a little blurred. Thus it was that while Sammy was in the midst of his basement-room torture, two gray clad men got out of a car near the Corner Tavern on Archer Street. They were so much like the two who had picked Sammy up that a witness might have testified they were the same men.
But they were not. They were two different men working a different boss. They approached Gooch, Frenchy and Lew, who at that moment were in confused conference at the curb, and spoke with the authority of policemen, which they were not.
"Okay-into the car."
The three unfortunates wouldn't have been there if they'd had any place else to go, or if they'd had sense enough to seek their own self-preservation by hiding out. But they weren't that smart. They were confused, frightened, and out of their depth.
So the two gray-clad men had little trouble. No resistance. They herded their quarry into the car without being asked to even show a badge.
The three huddled in silence expecting to be taken to the 37th Precinct Police Station. That was the closest temple of the law.
But the car swerved away before it got there, traveled far uptown, and they were herded into a shabby apartment in a shabby building on a shabbier street far from the corner of Archer and Lincoln. Shabby, but still far better than the Archer tenements.
"What'd you bring us here for?" Frenchy demanded, the first of the three to develop enough courage to make the inquiry.
One of the two men the one with gun in his hand grunted. "Never mind. Just shaddup and sit down and be quiet."
They sat down. The man who stayed pulled a chair to the far side of the room and sat down facing them. He lit a cigarette.
Lew gulped noisily. "Look, mister "
"Shaddup."
That was the end of all conversation.
Then, somewhat later in the sequence about the time Sammy drifted off to sleep Carter Gantry, a well-known uptown lawyer, presented himself to the desk sergeant at the 37th Precinct Police Station. He was strictly uptown, meticulously dressed and made the desk sergeant think of Ivy League, although he wasn't quite sure what Ivy League really consisted of. Regardless, Gantry was supercilious, contemptuous, and thoroughly unlikable.
"I have here," he said, "a writ. It has a Latin name you probably wouldn't understand, and it directs you to deliver something to me."
Carter Gantry tossed the writ on the desk. The sergeant picked it up, scowling. "Deliver you what, shyster."
Gantry overlooked the insult. "The body of one Samuel Perry, preferably conscious and as little damaged as possible."
The desk sergeant stared sourly at the writ. "What do you do? Sit out on the curb with a suitcase full of these things?"
The lawyer looked distastefully around the bleak, fetid room. "Please, sergeant. It's a hot day. This place smells. I want to get back into decent surroundings. So let's dispense with the pleasantries and get to the business at hand."
The desk sergeant, an Irishman named Hannigan, would have enjoyed reaching out and taking Gantry's thin throat in his fist and squeezing it for a while. But pleasures of this sort were not afforded ordinary public servants, so he picked up the phone, grunted into it a couple of times, and said, "Deliver Samuel Perry to the desk."
As he hung up, Gantry had a comment. "Hmmm. No number. A very important prisoner obviously.
"Stow it," Hannigan growled.
When his package was delivered, Gantry still wasn't satisfied. "That shirt. It appears to be your own special issue."
"What do you care? He's got his own pants."
Gantry looked at Sammy as though he were a dummy in a clothing store window. "But he didn't come in here with that shirt on. I suppose he tripped on the stairs and his own shirt was ripped to shreds while he was getting to his feet."
"You don't see any marks on him, do you?"
"I wouldn't expect to find any."
"There's this, too," Hannigan said. "Another one of them writs-like. This one says nobody touched him, and he admits it. It says all we did was shake his hand and make him welcome, and he appreciates our hospitality."
"Interesting."
"We've also got another one that says he goes around raping girls when he isn't busy doing other things."
"Hannigan. You're wasting your talent. You should be writing copy for comedians."
"All you comedians write your own copy," Hannigan said, and turned sourly back to his work ...
Outside in the street, Carter Gantry looked dubiously at the property he had just freed from goal. "How badly did they treat you, son?"
It was indicative of something that even men of his own age had been known to call Sammy, son. Sammy had wondered about it at times but he'd never translated it into anything he could cope with, so he'd grown to accept it.
"Okay," he mumbled, "Okay."
"That means, of course, that they didn't kill you." Gantry continued with his dubious inspection. "If I give you an address and find you a cab, do you think you could deliver yourself there?"
"Where do you want me to go?"
A nice, docile little clown, Gantry thought. He'd make somebody a fine witness. Probably the district attorney.
"Here is the address, here is a five dollar bill, and yonder is a cab. And remember, if you do not go to this place, your friends will have you back inside the station house in less than a twinkling. The place I'm sending you to is a haven. It is sanctuary. It is a snug port in a big storm." He paused. "Have you got the least idea what I'm talking about?"
"You want me to go to this place."
"That's the general idea. Peace, and bless you..."
And so it was that the gray-clad man in the shabby uptown apartment answered the doorbell to find Sammy standing in the hall.
"What do you want."
"A guy told me to come here."
"Okay. Don't stand there. Haul yourself inside." Sammy hauled himself inside, to be lined up with his three friends.
"Hell!" he blurted, on sight of them. "Shaddup," the man in gray said. And silence again reigned...
A short time later, Barney Williams called a certain private number and was greeted with an angry question. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Taking care of things."
"I'd say you've been goofing them up," Kane accused. "The cops have got one of those clowns, the others are probably way down their rat holes by now, and I'm hiding out to stay clear of jail."
"I don't think you ought to hide out, Vince. Why not go in and get it over with? Gantry's waiting to spring you."
"Don't tell me what to do. Tell me what the hell you've been doing."
"One, I picked up the three clowns and I've got them covered in the Maple Street place. Two, I sent Gantry in to haul the fourth clown out, and he's on Maple Street with the others. And three, why don't you do down to the precinct and give yourself up so Gantry can spring you and get to his usual late-afternoon cocktail party?"
There was a long pause while Kane reevaluated and Barney Williams chewed a toothpick. And when Kane spoke it was neither to apologize for ripping at
Barney or to compliment him on his activities.
"I guess the thing to do," he said, "is to go down to the precinct and get it over with."
"Good idea."
"Gantry's waiting?"
"He's waiting."
"We're in a hell of a mess."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"You sound damned optimistic."
"No, but I'm not necessarily pessimistic. It's just that the jobs you laid out for me take on a different aspect."
"How so?"
"First, you can't afford the luxury of roughing up those four jokers. Not for a while at least. Egan's got a confession from one of them saying you were behind the rape. Your motive: Trying to make Egan look bad. So you're going to need the other three on our side."
"Sounds reasonable."
"Second, the vice roundup takes on added importance."
"It won't help the immediate present."
"It will if I get some witnesses. Ringler's squeezed you into a nutcracker. Your only out is to get him into a nutcracker of your own and see who can squeeze quickest and hardest."
"That's fairly good thinking, I guess," Vince said dubiously. "I've decided to go down and give myself up."
"You'll be out in an hour." Barney didn't voice the question in his mind He said, "In the meantime, I'll get to work on the other thing."
"Okay. I don't care how you do it. Just get results."
"Sure, Vince," Barney murmured...
After Vince hung up, Barney dialed another number and said, "Hello Barbara. How is it? You aren't too bored, are you?"
"I'm all right, Barney. How are you? I've been worried."
"Ease your mind. I'm fine. I've got a few things to do. Then I thought I might drop over for a cup of coffee if it isn't too late."
"It won't be too late no matter what time it is. Please come."
"That sounds like a genuine invitation."
"It is."
"Okay. But in the meantime don't get nervous. There won't be any snap-brim characters knocking on the door."
"I won't open it regardless."
"That's my girl. I'll be seeing you."
"I'll be waiting. And Barney "
"Yes?"
"Be careful. Please."
"I will."
He felt good leaving the booth. It was the first time in his memory that anybody had cared whether he took care of himself or not ...