Jay Carroll - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

Hranek pushed Nina aside and went after him. He was only two steps behind when Julius got to the elevator doors and slammed them open.

The elevator wasn’t there.

Julius could not halt the momentum of his huge body in time. He tried to grasp the doors as he fell.

There were two screams — Julius’ and Nina’s.

Hranek dived, sliding on the floor toward the opening, and his fingers caught the gabardine of Julius’ trousers. The cloth burned his fingertips as it ripped. He made a last grab and his fingers clamped on Julius’ foot.

Hranek held on, with all the strength that was in him. The shock, as Julius cartwheeled and hung head downward, almost tore his arm from its joint. His arm had never known such pressure. Julius’ two hundred and forty pounds thrashed and flailed, pulling Hranek into the opening until his shoulder wedged against the door jamb. He tried to tighten the grip of his fingers, but he could not, and he felt the leather slipping.

He tried for just an ounce more of grip but Julius’ foot slipped from the boot, and he screamed all the way down, four stories down, the scream reverberating in the elevator shaft. The shaft vibrated with the final, crashing impact, and the scream was cut off as if a swift door had closed below.

Slowly Hranek withdrew his arm. He looked at the black polished boot, which was still in his hand, and then he looked at Nina, who knelt beside him, her eyes wide and round.

He did not speak for a long moment. “It was the boot,” he said finally. “He_ slipped.”

“I know,” said Nina softly. She paused. “Racine was following me here. He must’ve pressed the button for the elevator.” She paused again. “I’m glad it happened, in a way.”

“But he was your husband.”

She shook her head. “I divorced him after what he did to you. He knew I loved you — that’s why he stomped you. If you had only read my letters...” She bent forward, and her lips brushed his forehead. “I waited for you, Sam.”

“But my face,” he said. “You can’t—”

“Yes, I can,” she said. “Your face will be no problem for the right doctor, don’t you realise that, Sam?”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said.

He looked down at the boot, with its sharp heel.

Johnny wasn’t afraid of death, because he knew he was already dead. What troubled him most was that he had been given a chance to live and muffed it.

* * * *

Johnny Martin pulled the door of his room shut and went over to the mirror. He stood there awhile, his forehead wrinkled, studying the outlines of his face. It was an old mirror, and the glass was flawed, so that it distorted his features. It made his skin look sallow. But he could get the idea all right.

He smiled, and then he remembered what he had called his old man down at the filling station, and what his old man had said. He guessed his old man was right. He was no damn good. But it didn’t show in the face looking back at him from the lousy mirror.

He examined each feature carefully — the clear brown eyes under straight black lashes — the square jaw with the hint of a cleft — the firm lines of his cheekbones — the full, serious mouth. Well, maybe there was something not quite right 86 about the mouth. But nobody would notice it. There were a lot worse-looking guys out in Hollywood, who got paid big money because of the way women went for them. To hell with his old man! He’d get along.

He pushed back a lock of black hair that had fallen out of place, then went over to the wooden chest of drawers and rummaged around, until he found his lastex bathing trunks. He stripped of the greasy pants and shirt he wore for work at the filling station and tossed them on the bed. He noticed again how badly the paint had chipped from the bed frame. His old man said he ought to paint it. But he wasn’t going to be around long enough to make it worth while.

The small room was hot and smelled of cabbage from the boiled dinner his mother was cooking. Johnny glanced out the window, across the alley, at the baked brick walls of the tenements, noting the drawn curtain in Liz Nolan’s window. Then he wiped a hand over his chest, enjoying the smooth firmness of his flesh under the sweat.

No damn good inside , he thought again. And then, fiercely, What the hell did they expect? No one gave him a chance any other way. If he was going to get anywhere, it wouldn’t be by knocking himself out at the filling station. He’d have to go make out himself. In his own way — like Rusty.

You had to admire Rusty. He knew what he wanted, and he went out and got it. It didn’t matter how. Maybe, like Rusty said, Johnny had a streak of chicken in him.

Johnny Martin grimaced. He had his trunks on, now, and he straightened up, catching a glimpse of the muscles sliding smoothly under his brown skin in the mirror. He drew on a pair of faded levis and a T-shirt. He smoothed his hair again and caught up a towel.

As he went through the kitchen his mother called out to him from the stove.

He answered sharply. “Don’t expect me.” The smell of cabbage was stronger.

“You aren’t going back to the station?”

“You’re right, Ma. I’m not going to the station.”

“Your paw needs you. He isn’t so young any more, and it’s awful hot.”

He hesitated, irritation crowding in on him. “Pa can handle it. Anyway, he likes the smell of gas.”

He watched his mother pick up a chunk of meat on a long fork. Steam billowed from the pot.

“I don’t know what’s come over you, Johnny,” she said, her tone listless under a defeat she couldn’t cope with. “You didn’t used to be this way.”

“Stow it,” he told her. “Or else find something new to say.”

He turned away, hearing the lid clatter as his mother replaced it on the pot. He went out the back door quick, so she wouldn’t have a chance to nag him any more.

He walked up Cambridge Street, feeling the sun beat up at him from the pavements, trying to figure out why the tightness in his guts didn’t go away. At Bowdoin Square, he went down into the subway, finding the damp coolness pleasant, after the heat of the sun. He lit a cigarette, dropped it and crushed it out under the toe of his shoe when the train came rattling in.

While the train rushed through the tunnel, he found he could think better. He would have to get away. Working for his old man at the gas station — his mother’s continual nagging — they were getting him too nerved up. He could team up with Rusty for a while. Rusty knew the angles — how to make dough fast and easy. It would mean being nicer to Liz, who hung around with Rusty and the gang. He didn’t care much for her. She was too damned easy.

The tightening of his eardrums told him they had left Atlantic Avenue and were passing under the harbour. He wished, for a moment, that the water above them would crack the tunnel walls and come swirling in around him. Then he wouldn’t have to decide these things — because there was risk tied in with teaming up with Rusty, and he was too old for reform school, now.

It hadn’t been too bad, those six months, but now, if anything went wrong, it would mean a real rap, at the Old Charles Street jail, maybe. But Rusty was careful — like last night. There was that Cadillac, and it looked like an easy set-up, but Rusty decided there might be trouble, so they had gone back to drinking beer.

Coming out of the tunnel after Maverick, the sun was bright and blinding. Johnny stopped trying to think. He didn’t want to look ahead — or to remember. The train flashed by the airport, the beaches, Orient Heights. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.