William Kennedy - Legs

He kicked Charlie in the belly as soon as they got out of the car. Charlie doubled up but charged Murray head down, two hundred and forty pounds of wild bull. Murray sidestepped and kicked Charlie in the leg. Charlie crashed into a wall and bounced off it like a rubber rhino. Murray the shrimp gave a high kick and caught Charlie under the chin, and as Charlie wobbled, Murray kicked him in the kneecap and he went down. Murray kicked him in the groin, creased his face, crunched his nose with the side of his shoe. He danced around Charlie, kicking elbows, ribs, shins, calves, and thighs, kicking ass and back and then kicking Charlie's face lightly, left foot, right foot, lightly but still a kick, drawing blood, rolling the head from side to side like a leaky soccer ball.

Fogarty left the garage and went inside the house. He poured himself a double whiskey and stood looking at a fly on the front screen door. Jack and Kiki came down the stairs, Jack carrying Kiki's suitcase.

"Can I see you, Jack?" he said and they went out on the porch, and Fogarty said, "I don't need that stuff going on back there. That cocksucker's not going to leave any face on the man. "

"All right. The Goose and Oxie can handle it alone."

"The Goose is a fucking maniac. He oughta be in a cage."

"The Goose knows what he's doing. He won't hurt him too bad."

"He's gonna kill him. You said you didn't want to kill him."

"The Goose won't kill him. He's done this before."

"He's a sick son of a bitch."

"Listen, don't get your balls out of joint. Drive us to town. Have a drink in the village while we have dinner. Change your mood."

So Fogarty drove them in, and Jack checked Kiki in at the Saulpaugh to get her away from the farm. He moved her around like a checker. Fogarty drove Jack back to his own house at midnight and went to sleep himself on the porch sofa where he was awakened at two in the morning by the private buzzer, the one under the second porch step. Jack was at the door almost as soon as Fogarty got himself off the soda. Jack was wide awake, in his red silk pajamas and red silk robe. It was Oxie at the door.

"Northrup's shot," Oxie said.

"Who shot him?"

"Murray."

"What the hell for?"

"He had to. He acted up."

"'Where are they?"

"In Northrup's car, in the driveway."

"You half-witted cocksucker, you brought him here?"

"We didn't want to leave him no place."

"Get him over to the farm. I'll meet you there in ten minutes."

Fogarty pulled up behind the Northrup car which Oxie had parked in shadows on the farm's entrance road.

"He looks dead," Jack said when he looked at Charlie's crumpled frame in the back seat. The seat was full of blood near his head.

"He ain't peeped," Murray said. "I think he's a cold fishy."

Jack picked up Charlie's hand, felt it, dropped it.

"What happened?"

"I was past Newburgh when he got the rope off," Murray said.

"Who tied him up?"

"Me," said Murray.

"He got free and swung a tire iron and hit me in the neck," Murray said. "Almost broke my neck."

"I was followin' in our car and I saw him swerve, almost go in a ditch," Oxie said.

"Where'd he get a tire iron?"

"It musta been down behind the seat," Murray said. "It wasn't on the floor when we put him in."

Jack kept nodding, then threw up his hands in a small gesture.

"You had to shoot him?"

"It was only one shot, a fluke. What am I supposed to do about a guy with a tire iron?"

"You're a fucking maniac. You know what this could cost me? Front pages. Not to mention a fucking war." He hit the roof of the car with his fist.

"What do we do with him?" Oxie asked.

"Get some weights, we'll put him in the river," said Murray.

"Goddamn this," Jack said. He kicked Northrup's fender. Then he said, "No, the river he could float up. Take him in the woods and bury him. No, wait, they could still find the son of a bitch. I want no evidence on this. Burn him."

"Burn him?" Fogarty said.

"Use the fire out at the still. You can make it as big as you want, nobody pays attention." And then he said to Fogarty, "If he's dead, he's dead, right? A lump of mud."

"What about Jesse and his kids?"

"Go see them. Tell them to stay away from the still tonight."

"You can't burn a man's body in that pit out there," Fogarty said. "It's big but not that big. "

"I'll take care of that," Murray said. "I'll trim off the edges."

"Christ Almighty."

"Try not to burn down the woods," Jack said. "When you're done, let me know. And you won't be done till there's nothing left, even if it takes two days. And then you clean out the pit and sift the ashes and smash the teeth and the bones that don't burn, especially the teeth. And scatter the pieces and the dust someplace else."

"Gotcha," said Murray. It was his kind of night.

"Speed, you better give 'em a hand," Jack said. "Drive and stand guard. He don't have to touch anything," Jack told Murray.

"What does he ever touch?" Murray said.

Fogarty's stomach was burbling as he drove Northrup's car inside the barn. Murray said he needed a lot of newspapers, and so Fogarty went into the house and got some and told Jesse to stay clear of the still until he was told he could go back. Fogarty walked slowly back to the barn, feeling like he might puke. When he saw what Murray had already done to Charlie with the hatchet, it shot out of him like a geyser.

"Tough guy," Murray said.

"Marcus," Kiki said from the other end of the phone, and it was the first time she called me that, "I'm so damn lonely."

"Where's your friend?"

"I thought you might know. "

"I haven't seen him since the night I took you to dinner."

"I've seen him twice since then. Twice in seventeen days. He's up in the country with her all the time. Christ, what does he see in that fat old cow? What's the matter with me? I wash my armpits."

"He's all business these days. He'll turn up."

"I'm getting bedsores waiting. What he don't know is I'm not waiting anymore. I'm going into a new show. I just couldn't cut it anymore, sitting, waiting. Maybe he sees me dancing again he'll think twice about playing titball with his fat-assed wife. I bet when she takes off her brassiere they bounce off her toes. "

Kiki was tight, another road to power.

"What's the show and when does it open? I wouldn't miss that. "

"Smiles is the name of it, and I do one routine by myself, a tap number. It's swell, Marcus, but I'd rather make love."

"Sure. Had any more visits from Jimmy Biondo?"

"Nobody visits me. Why don't you come down to the city and see me? Just to talk, now. Don't let the little lady give you the wrong impression. "

"Maybe I will," I said, "next time I'm down there on business."

I had no pressing business in New York, but I made it a point to go, and I presume it was for the same reason I'd helped old Jesse frame a new identity for himself and then got him a job in Boston-because I was now addicted to entering the world of Jack Diamond as fully as possible. I was unable not to stick around and see how it all turned out. And yes, I know, even as a spectator, I was condoning the worst sort of behavior. Absolute worst. I know, I know. I called Jack when I decided to go down, for I had no wish to put myself in the middle of the big romance.

"Great," he said. "Take her to a movie. I'll be down Friday and we'll all go out."

"You know I still have some of your belongings."

"Hang onto them."

"I'd rather not."

"Only for a little while more. "

"A very little while."

"What's the problem'? They taking up too much room?"

"Only in my head."

"Clean out your head. Go see Marion."

So I did and we went to dinner and talked and talked, and then I took her to see Garbo in Flesh and the Devil in a place that hadn't yet converted to talkies. Kiki was a Garbo fanatic and looked on herself as a femme fatale even though she was nothing of the sort. The main thing she had in common with Garbo was beauty. There is a photo of Garbo at fifteen that has something of Kiki about it, but after that the ladies were not playing the same game. "The spiritually erotic rules over the sensually erotic in her life," an astrologist once said of Garbo, which was a pretty fair critical summary of her movie self at least.