Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“He hardly paints any more,” Sally said. “He just sits around the house and looks at his old pictures.”

“Mr. Lueger,” Charley said. “Our pal, Mr. Lueger.”

“He carries a picture of Hitler,” Sally said. “In his watch. He showed me. He says he’s lonely.”

“How big is he?” Stryker asked nervously.

“He’s a large, strong man,” Sally said.

“I think you ought to have an instrument of some kind, Charley,” Stryker said dryly. “Really, I do.”

Charley laughed. He extended his two hands, palms up, the broken fingers curled a little, broad and muscular. “I want to do this with my own hands,” he said. “I want to take care of Mr. Lueger with my bare fists. I want it to be a very personal affair.”

“There is no telling what …” Stryker said.

“Don’t worry, Stryker,” Charley said. “Don’t worry one bit.”

At twelve that night Sally and Lueger walked down Eighth Avenue from the Fourteenth Street subway station. Lueger. held Sally’s arm as they walked, his fingers moving gently up and down, occasionally grasping tightly the loose cloth of her coat and the firm flesh of her arm just above the elbow.

“Oh,” Sally said. “Don’t. That hurts.”

Lueger laughed. “It does not hurt much,” he said. He pinched her playfully. “You don’t mind if it hurt, nevertheless,” he said. His English was very complicated, with a thick accent.

“I mind,” Sally said. “Honest, I mind.”

“I like you,” he said, walking very close to her. “You are a good girl. You are made excellent. I am happy to accompany you home. You are sure you live alone?”

“I’m sure,” Sally said. “Don’t worry. I would like a drink.”

“Aaah,” Lueger said. “Waste time.”

“I’ll pay for it,” Sally said. She had learned a lot about him in one evening. “My own money. Drinks for you and me.”

“If you say so,” Lueger said, steering her into a bar. “One drink, because we have something to do tonight.” He pinched her hard and laughed, looking obliquely into her eyes with a kind of technical suggestiveness he used on the two ladies a voyage on the Bremen .

Under the Ninth Avenue L on Twelfth Street, Charley and Dr. Stryker leaned against an elevated post, in deep shadow.

“I … I …” Stryker said. Then he had to swallow to wet his throat so that the words would come out. “I wonder if they’re coming,” he said finally in a flat, high whisper.

“They’ll come,” Charley said, keeping his eyes on the little triangular park up Twelfth Street where it joins Eighth Avenue. “That Sally has guts. That Sally loves my dumb brother like he was the President of the United States. As if he was a combination of Lenin and Michelangelo. And he had to go and get his eye batted out.”

“He’s a very fine man,” Stryker said. “Your brother Ernest. A man with true ideals. I am very sorry to see what has happened to his character since … Is that them?”

“No,” Charley said. “It’s two girls from the YWCA on the corner.”

“He used to be a very merry man,” Stryker said, swallowing rapidly. “Always laughing. Always sure of what he was saying. Before he was married we used to go out together all the time and all the time the girls, my girl and his girl, no matter who they were, would give all their attention to him. All the time. I didn’t mind. I love your brother Ernest as if he was my young brother. I could cry when I see him sitting now, covering his eye and his teeth, not saying anything, just listening to what other people have to say.”

“Yeah,” Charley said. “Yeah. Why don’t you keep quiet, Stryker?”

“Excuse me,” Stryker said, talking fast and dry. “I don’t like to bother you. But I must talk. Otherwise, if I just stand here keeping still, I will suddenly start running and I’ll run right up to Forty-second Street. I can’t keep quiet at the moment, excuse me.”

“Go ahead and talk, Stryker,” Charley said gently, patting him on the shoulder. “Shoot your mouth right off, all you want.”

“I am only doing this because I think it will help Ernest,” Stryker said, leaning hard against the post, in the shadow, to keep his knees straight. “I have a theory. My theory is that when Ernest finds out what happens to this Lueger, he will pick up. It will be a kind of springboard to him. It is my private notion of the psychology of the situation. We should have brought an instrument with us, though. A club, a knife, brass knuckles.” Stryker put his hands in his pockets, holding them tight against the cloth to keep them from trembling. “It will be very bad if we mess this up. Won’t it be very bad, Charley? Say, Charley …”

“Sssh,” said Charley.

Stryker looked up the street. “That’s them. That’s Sally, that’s her coat. That’s the bastard. The lousy German bastard.”

“Sssh, Stryker. Sssh.”

“I feel very cold, Charley. Do you feel cold? It’s a warm night but I …”

“For Christ’s sake, shut up!”

“We’ll fix him,” Stryker whispered. “Yes, Charley, I’ll shut up, sure, I’ll shut up, depend on me, Charley …”

Sally and Lueger walked slowly down Twelfth Street. Lueger had his arm around Sally’s waist and their hips rubbed as they walked.

“That was a very fine film tonight,” Lueger was saying. “I enjoy Deanna Durbin. Very young, fresh, sweet. Like you.” He grinned at Sally in the dark and held tighter to her waist. “A small young maid. You are just the kind I like.” He tried to kiss her. Sally turned her head away.

“Listen, Mr. Lueger,” she said, not because she liked him, but because he was a human being and thoughtless and unsuspecting and because her heart was softer than she had thought. “Listen, I think you’d better leave me here.”

“I do not understand English,” Lueger said, enjoying this last coyness.

“Thank you very much for a pleasant evening,” Sally said desperately, stopping in her tracks. “Thank you for taking me home. You can’t come up. I was lying to you. I don’t live alone …”

Lueger laughed. “Little frightened girl. That’s nice. I love you for it.”

“My brother,” Sally said. “I swear to God I live with my brother.”

Lueger grabbed her and kissed her, hard, bruising her lips against her teeth, his hands pressing harshly into the flesh of her back. She sobbed into his mouth with the pain, helpless. He released her. He was laughing.

“Come,” he said, holding her close. “I am anxious to meet your brother. Little liar.”

“All right,” she said, watching Charley and Stryker move out from the L shadow. “All right. Let’s not wait. Let’s walk fast. Very fast. Let’s not waste time.”

Lueger laughed happily. “That’s it. That’s the way a girl should talk.”

They walked swiftly toward the elevated ramp, Lueger laughing, his hand on her hip in certainty and possession.

“Pardon me,” Stryker said. “Could you direct me to Sheridan Square?”

“Well,” said Sally, stopping, “it’s …”

Charley swung and Sally started running as soon as she heard the wooden little noise a fist makes on a man’s face. Charley held Lueger up with one hand and chopped the lolling head with the other. He carried Lueger back into the shadows against a high iron railing. He hung Lueger by his overcoat against one of the iron points, so he could use both hands on him. Stryker watched for a moment, then turned and looked toward Eighth Avenue.

Charley worked very methodically, getting his two hundred pounds behind short, accurate, smashing blows that made Lueger’s head jump and loll and roll against the iron pikes. Charley hit him in the nose three times, squarely, using his fist the way a carpenter uses a hammer. Each time Charley heard the sound of bone breaking, cartilage tearing. When he got through with the nose, Charley went after the mouth, hooking along the side of the jaws with both hands, until teeth fell out and the jaw hung open, smashed, loose with the queer looseness of flesh that is no longer moored to solid bone. Charley started crying, the tears running down into his mouth, the sobs shaking him as he swung his fists. Even then Stryker didn’t turn around. He just put his hands to his ears and looked steadfastly at Eighth Avenue.