Chapter 14
Brick's first reaction when he awoke was an overwhelming urge to laugh. It seemed beyond the realm of sanity that he should be lying on the dirt floor of what appeared to be a watchman's shack, a couple of gang kids squatting on his shoulders and his trousers and undershorts pulled down below his knees.
It resembled a cartoon, the tired old saw about the worker who sets off for his job minus the lower half of his clothes. Only when a tall blonde kid in a Cobra jacket stepped into Brick's line of vision, a switch cruel and steel-winking in his supple fingers, did Brick's urge to laugh vanish.
The blonde kid glanced down at Brick with contempt. Brick started to speak, found his lips stiffened, cracked. A scaly substance had hardened on his cheeks. Dried blood. His own.
He remembered now the falling, the stumbling, under the onslaught of kicks and blows and pitched rocks. Again he was overcome with the feeling that this was a figment of sleep. He'd wake up in a few moments.
Then he recalled the mob armed with cleavers and chains, led by Sergeant Kreeg. He saw a pitiful figure leaning weakly against the shack's wall, half-lit by the rays of a couple of battery lanterns resting on a rickety table.
The girl's disheveled clothes, matted hair, terrorized face shocked Brick to sense. "Rita-?"
He whispered the name uncertainly. Her eyes were round, vacant.
"Rita, don't you recognize me?"
Abruptly the blond kid raised his foot and stamped on Brick's ankle. Brick writhed, cursed, tried to double his fist to strike back. The kids squatting on his shoulders pinioned his wrists in the dirt.
Whitey stared at him with revenge-glazed eyes.
"When I speak to you, Fontaine, you pay attention. Look at me, not the broad."
"Are you Noonan?"
"Who do you think I am, a social worker maybe?" Whitey stroked the keen edge of the switch on his jeans.
"Yeah, I'm Whitey Noonan. And I been looking high and low for you, Christer. You were next after I fixed Rita. How did you like Rita, by the way? I hope you enjoyed her a lot because she's the last you'll ever get." He surveyed Brick with contempt. "You're quite a stud. We'll see how much of a stud you are when I finish with this knife."
All at once Brick understood what Whitey intended to do.
But he was beyond fear now, concerned only that Rita recognize him. Somehow he had to plumb the depths of those mad eyes, make her realize before it became too late for both of them that somebody cared about her.
Ignoring Whitey's defiant gaze he whispered again: "Rita, listen-"
Her head lifted, vacantly. She stared, brushing a lock of once-lustrous dark hair from her forehead.
"I came to help you, Rita," he said quickly, before Whitey could react. Then he raised his voice: "Rita-look at me!"
Hesitant recognition crept into her eyes. "Oh, God-Fontaine?"
She took a tentative step, sobbing suddenly with relief. Whitey intercepted her, smashed her mouth with his fist, knocked her sprawling against the side of the shack. But she'd recognized Brick, that was all that mattered.
Across the shadowy distance and the criss-crossed beams of the electric lanterns, her white face, although frightened, shone with a strange brightness emotion. The silver track of a tear ran down her cheek.
Brick raised his head.
"Noonan, let her go."
"Not on your life,"
"Kill me, but let her go!"
"Don't, Fontaine, oh, don't. I'm not worth the trouble."
Whitey spun around and pointed with the knife. "Keep quiet."
"There isn't much time, Noonan," Brick warned. Whitey's brow knit, puzzled. "Time? Crap, we got all night."
"That's where you're wrong. Do you know Kreeg, from the precinct?"
"Sure. What's that got to do with anything?"
"He's on his way here. With thirty armed men. Not police. Kreeg's own crowd, Shopkeepers from Hamilton Street. Olivetti and Monoghan and the rest. They headed for the north end of the dump but it can't be long before they'll get here. They're ready for blood, Noonan. Yours. Your gang can't fight them all. There are too many. Goddam it-!"
Brick struggled violently against the kids holding him.
"Get your apes off me and listen! Kreeg won't show you an ounce of mercy-"
Viper stepped into the light, eyes round and rolling. "Whitey, maybe we-" 'Wo advice!"
Whitey backhanded Viper viciously. "I run things, remember?"
"But Jeez, Whitey! That Kreeg's a loony. You know what a wild man-"
Whitey rammed the switch halfway to its hilt in Viper's arm.
The boy looked down in disbelief. Through the tear in his jacket blood seeped suddenly, sticky-black in the electric lantern's glare. Viper's lips writhed in defiance:
"The hell with you, Whitey! I ain't going to have Kreeg tear me apart just because-"
"But he's lying!" Whitey cried, dropping on Brick, seizing the point of Brick's chin between his fingers.
He stabbed Brick's cheek lightly with the switch, his eyes huge as he struggled against his own terror:
"Tell the bunch! Tell them you're a rotten mother-frying liar!"
"Keep your voice down!" Brick said. You'll bring them running straight here."
"But not before I cut you down to size!" Whitey screamed.
He lashed out with the knife.Only Brick's powerful surge of effort, a wrench of his whole lower body, prevented the blade from slicing half his groin away. The kids on his shoulders grunted. One rolled off with a curse. Brick threw his left hip over to take the cut of the knife. The blade sliced in and out again, sending hot blood down his leg.
Whitey was impotent with anger, scrabbling in the dirt, taking aim for the next slash that would emasculate Brick. Up flashed Whitey's arm. The switch hovered high, steely-sharp-At that instant Viper grabbed Whitey's wrist, levered it backward, screamed:
"Listen, Whitey! I hear voices out there!"
Petrified, Whitey began to whimper. He looked from face to face, searching among the assembled members of the Cobras for one spark of courage, one hint of the will to resist.
None showed.
Bleeding, Viper sprawled over the table and began to cry.
Brick heard sounds too, a growling of angry voices. They must have spotted the gleam of the battery lanterns through the cracked slats of the shack.
The one kid still sitting on Brick's shoulder stood up and put his palms over his face. On the faded blue fabric of his jeans a black, wet stain began to widen.
"What do we do? "What do we do?"
Whitey's face was a mask of sweat, his bravado replaced by cornered animal terror.
"The lights! Douse 'em for Christ's sake!"
Whitey stumbled to the rickety table and switched off the battery lanterns. Brick staggered up, unhindered by the Cobras who were too terrified to move.
Out in the dumps the savage rumble grew louder. One voice, Kreeg's, rose above the others: "Spread out, spread out all of you! They're inside that shack. Kill 'em when they come out. Don't give 'em a chance to beg. Remember how they turned the street into a jungle."
Brick jerked up his trousers, lashed the belt tight with one savage motion, unmindful of the warm gush of blood down his left leg. He heard men stumbling over tin cans and litter outside, growling like beasts. Above this came Kreeg's shrill shout:
"Don't give the fryers a chance! Kill 'em-kill 'em!"
Whitey cried gutlessly out of the dark:
"Don't let them take me, Fontaine. Go out and stop 'em! They'll murder us."
Stumbling, Brick crashed across the shack and kicked open the door. Through the lighter rectangle of the opening he saw a cordon of men closed around the front of the shack, their figures black and menacing in the faint light from the bridge.
Olivetti strained forward to see. Brick recognized him. And the cleaver he held.
"Send them back, Kreeg!" Brick called, stepping through the door, supporting himself on the jamb so his left leg wouldn't buckle. "The kids will give up-"
A blocky figure disengaged itself from the rest, lurched forward with a cry of anger:
"Give up? You bet they'll give up-their Goddam blood, that's what they'll give up. I don't know how you got here, 'Fontaine, and I don't give a crap. I want them kids."
His face was sick but demented. His hand trembled as he raised the .38, blue-hard and deadly. He pointed the gun at Brick's chest.
"Move, Fontaine."
Wagging his head from side to side, Brick stood fast. "I won't let you return butchery for butchery, Kreeg."
"Move!" screamed Kreeg. "Move or I'll blow your guts out."
"Then do it, Kreeg. You'll have to shoot me to get them."
"Hey, Kreeg," mumbled a voice in the crowd, perhaps Monoghan, Brick couldn't be sure. "The kids deserve what's comin' to them, sure. But I won't be a party to murderin' him."
"He's with them!" Kreeg protested. "How stupid can you people be? He's trying to protect them! They're vermin. They gotta be destroyed like vermin. Don't let him con you with that pious crap. They take blood, give 'em blood back. They raped the Ambrosio girl, didn't they? Burned down Peabody or I miss my guess. Fontaine's in with them, he's on their side."
"Go back," Brick said, knowing that only a tense hairline separated sense from a brutal massacre.
He wondered whether he could stay on his feet long enough to talk them down. In the shack behind him, Brick heard sounds, frightened wordless syllables from the Cobras. Trying to stand upright, Brick took a step forward. "Damn you, stand back and they'll give up without-"
"I had enough!" Kreeg screamed.
His trigger finger went white.
"No, not him!"
The voice was wild, desperate. A weight struck Brick's spine, hands pushing, shoving. He fell forward off balance just as the maniacal Kreeg pumped out his first shot.
A shattering roar-an orange stab of brilliance in the night. Brick landed on his face in a foul mound of garbage as Kreeg's revolver blasted again, then a third time.
Twisting over, Brick saw Rita.
Rita who had shoved Brick in desperation.
Rita who swayed in the shack's entrance, a shocked, disbelieving look on her beautiful young face.
Both her hands were pressed tight to her belly. Sticky black stuff leaked between them.
Suddenly she was knocked down by Whitey Noonan. With a terrified yell he ran for the river bank. Kreeg pivoted as Rita sank to the earth. Kreeg's next shot blew a wide hole in the middle of Whitey Noonan's back.
The running figure jerked, instinctively fleeing from the death that smashed its flesh from behind. Whitey clawed his way to the top of a refuse heap. Kreeg fired twice more.
Whitey spun around, half his head blown away. He dropped into the river.
On the ground in front of the shack, Rita Danilov moaned.
Knowing a mad rage greater than any emotion that had ever swept him, Brick turned on Kreeg.
The men of the vigilance committee shrank back. Olivetti let go of his weapon and ran off to be sick. Kreeg grinned at Brick. He pointed the muzzle of the .38 at Brick's face.
He jerked the trigger.
A flat series of clicks.
Kreeg flung the .38 away, turned to run. Hardly feeling the wound spill blood down his leg, Brick went after him, caught him around the neck, spun him and smashed his right knee full force into Kreeg's groin.
Kreeg doubled, spitting. Brick brought his fist under Kreeg's jaw and broke it with one punch.
Spread-eagled, Kreeg saw Brick loom over him. Suddenly gripped with cowardice, Kreeg shielded his face with his forearms as Brick crouched across his middle and battered the arms aside with vicious blows.
Kreeg's suet face lay exposed, slick with fright and sweat. Brick smashed it with his right fist, then his left. Blood squirted from Kreeg's nose. Two of his front teeth fell out. Gummy cartillage oozed red from his nostril.
Brick couldn't stop himself. He couldn't hold back the force of his hands as they tore and lacerated, smashed and destroyed, battered Kreeg's features to oblivion. Brick screamed as he hit, screamed in rage, wordlessly, mindlessly.
Hands plucked at his shoulders. Men implored him to stop before he killed Kreeg. Still Brick smashed and hammered, wanting only to destroy the brutal slab of meat on the ground, render it lifeless.
Again he struck, again.
Kreeg twitched with every blow. His face was curtained by blood, a red wet mask.
The voices kept imploring Brick, pleading, making little sense. Then a few words did penetrate: "Fontaine-the girl's almost dead! She wants you-"
Brick's ashen face lifted, puzzled a brief moment.
"The girl? Who-?"
Panic caught him. He stumbled away from Kreeg's near-lifeless body and walked with an uncertain step toward the shack.
His left leg buckled. He fell to his knees.
A yard away, Rita lay on her back, breasts rising and falling fitfully, head turned to the side, cheeks chalky. The front of her sweater was black-sticky with the life leaking out of her.
Brick began to crawl. He had to reach her.
God give him strength to reach her before she died in the filth of this hideous place. He forced words out, addressed to the shadow shapes of the frightened men: "Somebody go to the precinct. Get Wadsewski."
A running man vanished in the dark. Rita tried to move her hand toward Brick. She lacked the strength. The fingers twisted, imploring. Brick's head hung down, dizzy and full of pain.
He dragged his left leg as he crawled. It was a laden weight he was too weak to move. But he had to move it.
He was driven by the pitiful sound of the girl's gasping breath, her wide, death-startled eyes, her terror at feeling what must be an utterly incomprehensible chill steal over her.
Another foot, God, Brick prayed, as he hadn't prayed in many a year.
Another foot, dragging his bleeding body.
Then another.
Only one more foot to go. Her eyes were luminous, childishly afraid because she was a young girl again, a young girl dying, not a sex-crazed creature who couldn't control the diseased impulses of her body.
Brick smelled his own blood, recking-hot. He didn't care whether he lived any longer than the time it took him to hitch his injured body the last few inches.
Supporting himself on hands and knees, unwilling to show weakness even though his body was in torment, he leaned over Rita. Her out-flung hand touched the inside of his braced wrist. With effort she spoke:
"Fontaine, I'm awful scared."
It had been many years since Brick Fontaine had cried. He was crying now:
"Child, child, why did you let him kill you when he should have killed me?"
"Fontaine-you're worth-a lot to-"
"Don't say that!" Brick panted. "After what I did-"
"I never loved-any man before," Rita whispered to him, her words faltering, the breath of her lips chill on his jaw as he leaned near her. "Don't-feel bad-over what happened. I know-I'm just a kid. But at the settlement-for once-it was nice. Not dirty. Not something-like a machine-"
"Help is what you needed," Brick sobbed. "If I'd tried harder-"
A feeble touch of her fingers stopped his words.
"No, Fontaine. Beyond-help. Long-before. But being-gentle-"
Her eyes lighted briefly with a holy wonderment. A fit of coughing wracked her.
"For once-I loved a man-a decent-"
"Rest, Rita," Brick breathed, knowing one more moment of strength from his hurting body so that he could comfort her:
"Rest. We'll get help. A doctor-"
Her laugh was a sad little rattle:
"Doctor-no help. Not even-a long time ago. But
-I wish I'd been-older. I could have loved-so-" She tried to rise up, moaning with the hurt. Brick touched her cheek. Tears dropped from his face onto hers.
Rita's fingers closed around his hand, convulsing: "Fontaine-I love ... Oh! It's cold, awful cold and-" A whistle of breath, very faint, and she was dead. Brick held her face between his hands, trying to beg life back into her body with a wordless prayer. Far away a siren shrilled, rising closer, bringing the help that was no help at all.
Brick slid forward across Rita's cold body and knew nothing more.