Michael Collins - Act of Fear

‘Tell me about the other guy,’ I said.

‘Beat it,’ Magda Olsen said.

‘Did Jo-Jo see that cop mugged?’

‘Get lost, mister!’ Magda said.

If I had had Swede alone, I think I could have made some progress. As it was, I was ready to go on with the dance. I did not have the chance. Two men entered from some other room, and the music stopped. They were boys, not men, but they were big boys. They looked enough like Swede to tell me that I was looking at two of Jo-Jo’s brothers. There was a girl behind them. The girl was pretty. The boys were not.

‘Take off,’ one of the blond boys said.

‘My mother said get lost,’ the second giant said.

I had the pistol in my belt. I did not even show it this time. The two boys looked about as dumb as Swede, and they did not have his forty-odd years of learning that caution pays. They had not had all the long, hard years to develop doubts. They would not hesitate. I turned without a word and went.

I left them all there in that gaudy sewer of a living room, standing in a line like a firing squad. The boys and Swede were all broad grins. My back going away without a fight made them feel big and strong. The women were not grinning. The ruined face of the mother was as stony as ever above that expensive black dress. As I reached the door I glanced back and saw the old woman already talking hard to Swede.

Then I saw the girl. She had to be Jo-Jo’s sister. I saw her eyes watching me. I had the sudden impression that she was the only one of them who was not completely happy to see my back.

In the hot summer nights of New York 4 a.m. is the bad time. The bars and clubs close at 4 a.m., and then there is no more escape from the heat and no more escape from the troubles that follow a solitary man. Four o’clock in the morning is that final moment of truth — the time when there is nowhere else to go but home. If a man has a home.

For me, though, 4 a.m. is one of the good times. When the bars and clubs close Marty has time for me. I often find myself waiting with the last sad drunks for four o’clock. They wait with fear, and I wait with anticipation. It gives me an edge. It makes me feel smug. We are all human. I have somewhere to go, and the wait until 4 a.m. is long. I had a lot of time to consider what I had learned. I did not even feel much like drinking, but the Riviera Tavern was air-conditioned. So I drank slow beers while I waited and considered.

I knew no more than when Petey had come to my office about where Jo-Jo was or why. But it did look like Jo-Jo was really missing and not just on vacation. The Olsens were not surprised at the thought that I was not the only one looking for Jo-Jo. The only apparent reason for Jo-Jo to be wanted was that he knew something about Stettin and that he was afraid for his life. Would a man who had only mugged a cop and left him alive then risk the chair by killing a witness? Would the mugger turn assault into murder? You’re damned right he would. It’s one thing to commit a crime without murder when you expect to get away with it and another thing to face a sure prison term if you leave a witness alive.

Yet I did not like the answer that Jo-Jo had witnessed the mugging of Stettin.

It was not enough. In Chelsea the best kid in the world has it from the cradle that a man does not fink to the police, does not get involved, does not see what he should not see. (Not just in Chelsea these days, either. Nobody gets involved, nobody sees, everybody turns and walks away.) How different could Jo-Jo be? If he were so different that he rejected the entire code of Chelsea, then the simple act was to go to the police. He had not gone to the police, and he had vanished, and there had to be more than the witnessing of a mugging. But what? What was so very special and dangerous about Stettin’s mugging? If that was the problem at all.

Four o’clock came at last, and we were all sent out into the night. My fellow last-ditch drinkers shuffled off slowly to reluctant destinations or to no destination at all. To some alley or doorway where they could hide until the bars opened again.

I walked briskly, I felt smug, I was sober, and Marty should be home by now. And I continued to think about the Olsens. They were worried. But not about Jo-Jo. I was certain of that. They were worried about themselves. As if they were in some kind of collective trouble. I did not think it was police trouble. They were angry-worried, not scared-worried. They were like people on eggshells. They acted as if they did not want to breathe if breathing would expose them. Why?

I was coming up with a lot of questions and few answers. What was there about their missing son that worried the Olsens so much? Concern, yes, that I would expect. But the Olsens did not seem concerned about Jo-Jo; they seemed concerned about themselves. They seemed worried about anyone looking for Jo-Jo — for what it would do to them, not to Jo-Jo. And then I could have it all wrong. Maybe they were just protecting Jo-Jo.

I felt uneasy. The night was hot, and as I walked I did not feel good. Questions without answers make me uneasy. Key questions that I can’t get a grip on, that keep slipping away, make me as uneasy as hell. It is like looking into a dark abyss and wondering what monsters might be lurking down there. Monsters that might be waiting for me. Nobody likes the unknown.

‘You look terrible,’ Marty said at the door. ‘Come on in.’

Martine Adair. That is her name on the off-Broadway theatre programmes and on the semi-nude come-on posters outside the tourist club on Third Street. It is not her real name. Her real name doesn’t matter. She changed her name for a new identity, and I tell stories about how I lost my arm because I don’t like the real story. Marty is twenty-seven. Young but no kid. She has not been a kid since she was sixteen. She’s a good actress and an adequate girl-show dancer. Her work is more important to her than anything else in the world. The acting, not the girl-show. She studies hard. She has a reason to work. She acts because she must act, for its own sake. And she is good. Someday other people may even know that.

‘Irish?’ she asked.

‘Beer. It’s hot enough to boil whiskey.’

‘Not in here it isn’t. In here it’s cool. Respect my air-conditioning; it cost plenty.’

She brought my beer from the kitchen. Her pyjama top came down to the bottom of her white panties. Marty wears only white underwear. She says she gets sick of coloured skivvies in her money work. She never wants to see a spangle or a fringe anywhere in her apartment.

‘With the beer I’ll be cool inside and out,’ I said.

Her apartment is a big, rambling affair. A typical Village apartment: old, inadequate, comfortable, and expensive. The furniture was added one piece at a time because she wanted each piece for itself. Antiques are her major hobby. She refinishes them herself. (That is one of the moments I will remember no matter what happens to me in the end: Marty in a white shirt smeared by wood stain, her face dirty, her hands the colour of old leather, her small body encased in torn dungarees, her hair in her eyes, the eyes bright as she works over an old table she loves.)

She is a small girl, and the hair in her eyes is red just now. It has been other colours in our three years. She has big eyes and a small face that could be the face of a boy. Her mouth is her gimmick — the mouth of a sad little boy on her woman’s body, and the combination makes the drunks drool. Her manner is brisk. She strides when she walks. Her walk is almost a run. She does everything fast and eager. She is very alive, and she looks too young for me. She is not too young, but she will probably ruin me.

‘Bring me up to date,’ she said. ‘Who hit you?’