Ed Lacy - The Big Fix

“You're like one of those displays turning in a show window, Ruth. I...”

“What? A display?” she asked, between kisses.

“I see a new side to you every minute. Honey, when did you get on the sentimental kick? I've always thought of you as the cool dame, everything arranged just so in her mind.”

“Call me a dame again, Walt.”

Pulling her head from his face, Walt kissed her hard on the lips, mumbled, “Don't you see, I'd like to help them, if I can. As a policeman I certainly want to help if he's in danger. But don't buy your own soft sell on them. They 'want very little from life....' Sure, so May bucks the numbers mob. While you're breaking your heart over poor Tommy, if he hadn't been so greedy, or dumb, he would have made his pile in the ring, and probably got rooked out of it by sharp businessmen. But he let himself be rushed and suckered into a Robinson match.”

“No, he did that deliberately, because he needed fast money for a TB operation for May. She got into this numbers mess only to raise a lousy one hundred and fifty dollars —enough to buy an apartment. My God, the way she talked about that one room apartment and the one hundred and fifty dollars—like they were a million bucks and a swank duplex. Walt, the trouble with us, with people in general, is we only think of heroes as “big” people doing “big” deeds. I'm going to try to get this idea into my book, make it the theme—that there are such people as little heroes, and they're as important to the rest of us as the 'regular' heroes. Tommy and May, in their own way, are courageous people with great dignity. I admire them.”

“Then I take it you want me to see him tonight?”

“Yes, if you think you should.”

“What a slick answer. Shall I go?”

“Up to you, Walt.”

Giving her a final kiss, Walt pushed her off his lap and started to dress, putting on a clean shirt, checking his gun in the hip holster. Getting into his overcoat he said, “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“Walt, you're not angry at me?”

“Come on, of course not. Guess I'd feel uneasy if I didn't see him. You think he really took that licking from Robinson for May?”

“That's what she told me. Said Tommy knew he wasn't ready, but there was the dead baby and her lungs, and they needed some quick thousands.”

“I thought he was just another dumb musclehead who let himself be fast-talked by a greedy manager. Okay, I'll be back in an hour or so.”

Outside, Walt shivered with the night rawness. It was twenty after seven and he decided to walk part of the way, let the cold push some of the tiredness out of his mind. He thought about what Ruth had said about the little heroes. “Still,” he said to himself, “a punk sticking up a housewife, snatching a purse, lifting a car—when you get down to it most of them do it for rent and eating money. Are they heroes? But... there's a difference. Tommy didn't hurt anybody but himself. He didn't take somebody else's money, or shoot or pistol-whip anyone. He took the beating himself. Yeah, guess he is a hero, if a dumb one, he could have taken a dive in the first round. Way I remember it, he stood up to Robinson for five or six rounds, until body punches sapped his strength. What a way to make a payday. No matter what the need, would I have the guts to have gone the distance with Louis, or Patterson?”

At seven-thirty Walt stopped for a cup of coffee, to warm up, then decided he had walked enough and took a bus cross-town to the market area. He stood outside the West Street bar for a moment, holding his overcoat collar around his ears. He couldn't recall if Tommy's message had said to wait outside or in the bar. It was a minute after eight and West Street full of a cold wind from the river. Walt stepped inside as he opened the door he knew by the tense stillness something was wrong.

Several men were standing rigidly at the bar, paralyzed with fear. A couple were sitting at a table, horror engraved on the woman's meaty face. Tommy Cork stood in the center of the place, facing Big Burt, while at one end of the bar Alvin Hammer and the bartender presented a perfect tableau of pale horror. Alvin was trying to talk, his mouth working, but for once in his life his voice failed him.

Tommy's hands were loose at his sides, but there was a kind of electric stance to his legs—ready to move. Big Burt, face still discolored and puffed, dirty tape covering the stitches over one eye, held a nasty looking switchblade in his right hand. He held the knife up a bit high, the better to start slicing, and the hard bright blade was the only thing glittering in the dreary bar. Burt was saying, the voice as mean as the knife, ”... and I'm going to cut you up for crab bait!”

“You know where you can shove that sticker,” Tommy said, his voice sounding casual because all his attention was on Burt's eyes and feet. He was waiting for Burt to come a few steps nearer. A knife man has to work in close, and Tommy would start swinging then.

Being a good cop, while his eyes took in all this, Walt's hands hadn't been idle; automatically they had loosened his gun in its holster, opened his coat. Stepping forward, Walt said, “Police officer! Drop that knife!”

He was a few steps behind Big Burt when Burt turned like a cat, slashed out at Walt, then spun around to face Tommy. The second the knife sliced the air, Walt fired. He fired twice, so fast, it was all one sound. Burt had actually turned and was facing Tommy's fist, knife hand still raised. Suddenly the big man staggered, then fell sideways, crashing to the floor. Dead.

Walt pinned his badge on his coat as Alvin came forward, gushing and booming, “Thank God you arrived! I saw it all. This... this... brute pulled a knife on Tommy without the slightest provocation! He must have been simply mad!”

Walt stood with his big lips parted, feeling many things. He was numb with the thought that he had killed a human being—could feel the coffee rising in his throat. He was frightened, and then a fierce anger made the coffee settle in his belly.

The beaten face of the dead man frightened Walt, for he realized this must be the numbers punk. There would be all sorts of repercussions downtown. There would be screaming headlines, scandal, and the brass would need a scapegoat. With a sickening feeling he knew who that would be. They might even accuse him of shooting Big Burt as a favor to Tommy.

The anger came when he saw the smile of relief on Tommy's tight face, suspected the little pug had set him up to shoot the big goon.

A radio car came to a stop outside, the siren even silencing Hammer's booming voice. In a matter of seconds the bar seemed full of police and the jabbering of the customers. Then, somehow, Alvin Hammer's deep voice dominated things once more as he said, “I'm a television announcer and a witness to the entire affair. If Detective Steiner hadn't happened by—an act of God—this crazed thug would have knifed Mr. Cork. This is Irish Tommy Cork, the fighter.”

Words bounced all about Walt's head and he was like a spectator in all the rush as patrolmen, detectives—including a Homicide lieutenant—and then an ambulance doctor, took over the bar. Alvin's voice was still on top of the situation, was every place, including phoning his studio to rush a mobile unit over.

All Walt could think of, was what he'd tell the brass; he had to have a hell of a foolproof story the first time out. Then his fear began to dull as he also realized having Alvin around was a form of protection. This thing couldn't be hushed up. Anything they did to him would be publicized. Walt found himself next to Tommy who whispered, “I'm sorry, Walt, but I had to get this louse off May....”

“Sure, you had to slug him too!”

“No, that was last night. I was trying to square things. You see I fixed it up with the guy who'd played the number. Then I wanted to tell Big Burt things were okay and he called May... names. Anyway, I couldn't let him get away with beating up my wife. Would you, if it had been Ruth?”