Джонатан Крейг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 12, December, 1953

The man in the cap chuckled again. “Ain’t nothin’ to get excited about, copper. Just Mack Szykora havin’ a row with his missus. Happens all the time. Every week he knocks her around a little. Don’t mean no harm.”

Tom Rivas’ fists bunched and he got a little white around the mouth, feeling the urge to knock the man in the cap down for his callousness.

The bartender said, “Don’t know who called you, copper. It wasn’t nothin’.”

Jake stood there a minute longer, then he went outside. “Let’s go,” he muttered. He opened the car door.

But Tom Rivas remained on the sidewalk. He gazed across the street at the cheap frame house with the shades drawn. While he stood there, he heard a faint cry.

“Hey,” Jake called after him, “where you goin’?”

Tom didn’t answer. He went right up to the house, walking through the weeds and rubble in the front yard. He could hear it quite plainly now. A man’s deep, rumbled curses. The smack of a hand against bare flesh. Then her gasp. “No, Mack. Please... for God’s sake. Don’t—”

Tom leaped up on the porch and went for the door. His lips were drawn back and a hot, red haze came down over his eyes.

The door was not locked. The knob spun in his hand. He jerked it open and charged into the place, stumbling over furniture in the dark hallway. Over to the left, a slit of light was showing under the bedroom door. Tom headed that way and wrenched the door open.

The man and the woman in the room froze with surprise when he burst in. For a split second the scene was transfixed. Nobody moved. The young policeman glanced at the girl who was huddled against a wall.

She was a pretty, young thing, not over twenty. Almost all her clothes had been ripped off. Her thick black hair had piled loosely around her naked shoulders and her puffed, tear-stained face. Her long, slim legs were coated with sheer nylon. She had lost one shoe. Her flesh was very white and smooth except where big Mack Szykora’s fingers had left ugly, purple bruises.

Like most of the girls in Hunkytown. she was a bit on the pale, thin side. But her huge black eyes and dark hair contrasted beautifully with her white skin.

Tom couldn’t get his eyes off her. He was a bachelor and not exactly dumb about women, but this one had an indefinable something that hit him like a strong electrical charge on a wet day. It was the first time he’d ever wanted a woman at first sight.

Her husband was a giant. Like all the iron workers in Hunkytown, he was well over six feet tall and carried at least two hundred and thirty pounds of solid beef. Heat from molten metal and blast furnaces had tinged his battered features a permanent dull brick red. Now he stood in the center of the room, blinking dazedly at Rivas.

The girl recovered first. She moved away from the wall to the bed where she snatched up a sheet to cover her nakedness. Her husband’s brain moved slower. “Whata hell’re you doin’ here, copper?” he grunted, shaking his head.

With an effort, Rivas stopped looking at the girl. “Come on,” he said. “You’re going with me.”

The ceiling light, a naked fifty-watt bulb on the end of a drop cord, hung directly over the big man’s head, shining on a bald spot and casting the jagged lines of his face in harsh shadows.

His big paws began flexing. A low rumble, like a freight going down a grade, issued from his throat. “Why, you rotten copper,” he whispered. Then he came at Rivas with his giant arms outstretched, a gorilla reaching to crush every bone in the policeman’s chest with one hug.

The raw hate washed up into Rivas’ mouth with a sour, rotten taste out of his stomach. He was glad Szykora wanted to argue about it. He took a blackjack out of his pocket and waited until the husky iron worker’s arms came around him and the man’s coarse face was pushed up to his with a gush of sour beer stench. Then, Rivas brought the blackjack down across Szykora’s face. He could have simplified all this by drawing his pistol and frightening Szykora into submission. But he preferred to do it this way. He preferred to swing the blackjack again and again, whipping the big ape down to his knees, whipping his face into a bloody froth, while everything dissolved into a red haze. The frightened girl merged with his memory of his old lady the night she was killed and he took out on Szykora the hatred that had lived with him for twenty years.

Rivas was making animal sounds in his throat as his arm came down again and again and the sweat soaked through his uniform and stood out in big, sticky drops on his face. He would probably have beaten Szykora to death on the spot if Jake Smith hadn’t come in and dragged him off the man.

The next day they brought Szykora into court. There wasn’t much they could do to him. The girl was there, but when she was brought before the court, she refused to testify against her husband. Nobody in Szykora’s neighborhood would file a complaint. They were all afraid of the big man. Finally, Szykora was given a couple of days for drunken behavior and resisting arrest.

After the brief trial, Tom Rivas saw the girl out in the corridor. She was standing in a corner, lighting a cigarette. There was a long purple bruise on one cheek bone, poorly disguised with heavy pancake make up. She was wearing a sheer blouse, gray skirt, high heel pumps. A cheap patent leather purse was hugged under her left arm. Her clothes across her bosom, hips and thighs were tight, and Tom thought about how she had looked last night and a warm flush came up his throat.

He walked over to her. “You should have told the truth in there,” he said gently. “You didn’t have to be afraid of him. We would have put him away where he wouldn’t hurt you any more.”

She glanced quickly up. Her eyes were numb and a little frightened. She looked at him the way any of them from Hunkytown would look at a policeman, with a mingling of fear and hatred. Damn it, Tom thought, even when you were trying to help them, they were afraid of you.

He took a card out of his pocket with his home telephone number on it. “If he tries to hurt you again, call the station, or call me. I’ll come down even if I’m not on duty.”

She gazed at the card for a long moment with wide eyes, as if not entirely comprehending. Then, as if she had been ordered to do so, she took the card and put it in her purse. She started to turn and leave, but he caught her arm.

“What’s your name?” he asked, with an undercurrent of desperation in his voice.

She stood there with her eyes lowered. Finally, she whispered, “Cherry.” Then she walked away.

After Szykora was released, Tom had Jake Smith drive through that neighborhood several times a night so he could check on the house.

“I don’t know,” Smith swore. “She’s nothing but a little twist. Not particularly pretty. I don’t see why you’re knocking yourself out over her. So her old man beats her up sometimes — so what? It happens to dozens of them every night. They like it.”

“I just don’t like a man that’ll do that to a woman,” Rivas said, rubbing his right fist into his left palm. “If he does it again, I’ll kill him.”

Smith shot him a disturbed glance. They’d been working together for several months. Smith had taken him under a wing because he was a rookie and he felt responsible for him. “Look, kid,” he advised, “that blue suit you got on don’t make you God. It don’t even give you permission to bust into another man’s house without a warrant. You’re liable to get in trouble, doing what you did to Szykora the other night. Take it easy, will you?”

Tom Rivas started going down to her neighborhood when he was off duty. He’d sit in the saloon by the hour, hoping to get a look at her. Sometimes he’d see her walking by, then he’d go out and make her stop and talk with him. She was always afraid, when he did this. She’d keep looking around, like a nervous animal. But he’d make her talk to him, anyway. He was going crazy, wanting her and worrying about her.