Эд Макбейн - Learning to Kill - Stories

“This is good stuff.”

“I ain’t interested, Danny.”

“Open up, you jerk,” I told him. “You want the Law to know we’re holding?”

“Danny, I...”

“Open up!” I began pounding on the door and I knew that’d get him out of bed, if that’s where he was, because his folks are a quiet type who don’t like trouble with the neighbors.

In a few seconds, Aiello opened the door.

I smiled at him and said, “Hello, A.”

We all went inside. “Your people home?”

“They went visiting.”

“Oh, visiting, huh? Very nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Like you was doing with Louise this afternoon, huh?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Aiello said.

“When you spotted Harry.”

“Yeah.”

“And then what’d you do?”

“I told you.”

“You went into Louise’s apartment, that right?”

“Yes, I...” Aiello paused, as if he was trying to remember what he’d told me before. “No, I didn’t go in. I went down in the street to look for you.”

“You like this gang, A?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Aiello said.

“Then why you lying to me?”

“I ain’t lying.”

“You know you wasn’t looking for me.”

“I was.”

“Look, tell me the truth. I’m a fair guy. What do I care if you done something you shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t do nothing I shouldn’t have,” Aiello said.

“Well, you did do something then, huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, A, what’d you do?”

“Nothing.”

“I mean, after you left Louise?”

“I went to look for you.”

“And before you found me?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you blow the whistle on Harry?”

“Hell no!”

“You did, didn’t you? Look, he’s dead, what do I care what you done or didn’t do? I ain’t the Law.”

“I didn’t turn him in.”

“Come on, A.”

“He deserved what he got. But I didn’t turn him in.”

“He deserved it, huh?”

“Yeah. He was rotten. Anybody rotten like Harry...”

“Shut up!”

“...should have the whistle...”

“Shut up, I said!” I slapped him across the mouth. “Did you?”

He dummied up.

“Answer me!”

“No.”

I slapped him again. “Answer me!”

“No.”

“You did, you punk! You called the cops on Harry, and now he’s dead, and you ain’t fit to lick his boots!”

“He was a killer!” Aiello yelled. “That’s why I called them. He was no good. No damn good. He was a stink in the neigh...”

But I wasn’t listening no more.

We fixed Mr. Aiello, all right.

Just the way Harry would have liked it.

When I was twelve, and the family moved to the Bronx, my commute to school was a short one because we lived on 217th Street between Barnes and Bronxwood avenues, right across the street from Olinville Junior High School. Later, I would walk the ten blocks every weekday morning to Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road. But when I won a scholarship to the Art Students League and was later accepted as an art student at Cooper Union, subways and elevated trains from the Bronx to Manhattan became a routine part of my life. It was inevitable, I suppose, that a native New Yorker would one day write a story set in a subway car. This one was published in Manhunt in September of 1953. It carried the Hunt Collins byline.

She was shoved into the subway car at Grand Central. It was July, and the passengers reeked of sweat and after-office beers. She wore a loose silk dress, buttoned high on the throat, and she wished for a moment that she had worn something lower cut. The overhead fans in the cars were going but the air hung over the packed passengers like a damp clinging blanket.

She was packed in tightly, with a stout woman standing next to her on her right, a tall thin man on her left, and a pair of broad shoulders in front of her. The fat woman was wearing cheap perfume, and the aroma assailed her nostrils, caused her senses to revolt. The thin man on her left held a thinly folded copy of the New York Times. He sported a black mustache under his curving nose. The nose was buried in the newspaper, and she glanced at the paper and then took her eyes away from the headlines.

There was a slight movement behind her. She leaned forward. The broad shoulders in front of her shoved back indignantly. Whoever was behind her moved again, and she felt a knee pressing into the backs of her own knees.

She moved again, away from the pressure of the knee, and then she tried to look over her shoulder, turning slightly to her left. Her elbow brushed the Times, and the thin man lifted the paper gingerly, shook it as if it were crawling with ants, and then went back to his reading.

The knee was suddenly removed.

She thought, No, I didn’t mean you should...

She was suddenly aware of something warm touching the back of her leg. She almost leaped forward because the touch had surprised her with its abruptness. Her silk dress was thin, and she wore no girdle. She felt the warmth spread until it formed the firm outline of fingers touching her flesh.

A tremor of excitement traveled the length of her body, spreading from the warmth on her leg. She moved again, and the stout woman on her right shot her an angry glance, but the hand was taken from her leg.

The excitement in her ebbed.

She stood stock-still, wondering when it would start again. She almost didn’t breathe.

It seemed as if there would be no more. She moved her leg impatiently, but the excitement that had flared within her was dead, and now she felt only the oppressive heat of the train. The car jogged along, and she cursed her foolishness in trying the subway to begin with. She thought of the thousands of girls who rode home every night and then the heat overwhelmed her again, and she was sorry for herself once more.

The train rounded a curve, and she lost her balance. She lurched backward, felt the smooth, gentle hands close on her, then release her instantly as she righted herself.

The train pulled into 86th Street, and the door slid open. She was pushed onto the platform, and shoved past the man and woman who had been standing behind her in the train. The man was short and squat, and he wore a battered panama. His hands were thin, with long fingers that clung innocently to the lapels of his suit. She looked at the tall girl, and the girl’s eyes met hers sympathetically. She smiled quickly, darting her eyes away, and the girl smiled. The embarking passengers rushed by her, and suddenly everyone on the platform was scrambling to get into the car again. She stepped in quickly, moving deliberately in front of the tall girl, and away from the man. He pushed into the car behind her, and she felt the girl shoved rudely against her, too. She heard the door close behind them, and she sucked in a deep breath as the heat descended again.

She knew what was going to happen, and she waited expectantly. The excitement was mounting in her again, and she found herself wishing desperately for the warmth. When it came she almost sighed aloud. The hands were gentle, as before, as she knew they had to be. They touched her, and then held tight. She shivered and the hands moved slowly, deliberately. For a moment there was sudden doubt in her mind, and then she put the doubt aside and thought only of the moving hands, the deliberate pressure of the hands.

They became more insistent, strangely so, strongly so. A perplexed frown creased her brow, and the doubt returned, and she was almost tempted to turn and look. But that was absurd... that was...