Ed Lacy - Room To Swing

Pulling back the covers I saw the back of Thomas' head bashed in. He was face down, blood all over his head and shoulders, blood still wet. It was even splattered on the cheap-pink painted wall behind the bed.

I stood there like a dummy, still holding the cover with my fingertips, knowing I had to think damn fast, and afraid of what I was thinking. I didn't have to be a detective to know what all this meant.

Maybe I stood there a few seconds, even a few minutes. There were footsteps on the stairs, at the outside door. In the back of my mind, the only part that was thinking clearly, I expected them. I dropped the blanket as the door flew open—a thick-faced white cop stood there. He wasn't expecting a body but when he saw the bloody bed his gun flew out of his heavy blue overcoat pocket like his hand was on springs. His deep voice said, “Keep your hands in sight, up, you black sonofabitch! Got you dead to rights.” Maybe it was my imagination but I thought he sounded almost happy—thinking of promotion.

What I'd known since I first got Ollie's call came into sharp focus: I'd been had, been set up for this from the go. Now my mind was clear and racing—the cops would learn about the fight in the coffeepot when they checked at the school, the beat cop in Brooklyn would remember me, so would the fat cop who wanted to give me a ticket at supper-time. And the winos seeing me enter the house a few minutes ago. I'd been had but tight.

I held my hands up, shoulder high. The cop was alone, probably the beat cop. Exactly at midnight. The timing was so simple, a phone call to the precinct at five to midnight saying there was trouble in room 3, apartment 2F, and the post cop catching me.

He was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn't bother making words. It boiled down to a white cop and black me, and he had the “difference” in his hand. I'd look silly trying to explain... all I could do was stand very still.

In that split second something my old man used to say rushed through my mind. “A Negro's life is dirt cheap because he hasn't any rights a white man must respect. That's the law, the Dred Scott Decision, son. Always remember that.”

I was remembering; any move on my part and I'd be dead.

“Why don't you robbing bastards stay up in Harlem where you belong instead of coming down here to rob and mug people?” His voice was shrill, his white face working with rage as he stepped toward me.

Within striking distance, he raised his gun to whip my head. The second the gun was out of line with my face, with reflex action, my left shot out and grabbed his gun hand by the wrist. My right knee thudded into his groin and my right hand clubbed him on the side of the jaw.

He didn't have a chance to fire at the ceiling; he crumpled in a heap on the floor, moaning, his heavy mouth open wide, fighting for air. I stepped over him, closed the door, walked down the stairs as fast and quietly as I could.

5

THE STREET was empty.

I tried to hold my shaking legs from running as I walked toward Seventh Avenue. A store-window clock said it was nine minutes past midnight. I walked up a block, stopped a cab, told him to take me to Grand Central Station.

It was neat—I'd been framed like a picture. Wasn't only the murder troubling me. In the eyes of the police I'd committed a greater crime than murder—I'd slugged a cop. They'd beat me crazy in the station house before I was even arraigned on the murder rap. It was all so pat, not even a tiny loophole. I didn't have the faintest smell of an alibi. Judging by the wetness of the blood, Thomas had been killed ten or fifteen minutes before I got there. It had all been set, to the smallest detail. I was finished. I was dead. With the cop-slugging over my head, I was worse than dead.

The hell of it was I knew the killer, but that didn't help me. Of course it had to be Kay. Everything added: picking a coloured detective, knowing I'd stand out; the hush-hush bunk, paying me out of “petty cash”—I couldn't even prove I was working for her. But what did Kay have against Thomas? Or was the whole TV pitch a lie?

As I paid the cabbie at Grand Central I put on an act, saying I hoped I could still catch the New Haven train. The police would be checking all cabs soon.

I walked through the station, then down Lexington to Kay's house. I was real mixed up. Somehow I couldn't picture Kay killing him like that, not bashing his head with the pliers. I could see her using a gun but not getting close enough to bust his head. That didn't figure, but everything else added to Kay. I was taking a big chance seeing her. I could be walking into a room full of cops: she'd certainly be expecting me, have a trap ready. But I could hardly be in a tighter squeeze than I was now and I had to see her, confront her. It was my only hope: these perfect-crime jokers sometimes plan too carefully, trip themselves.

I stood on the corner, didn't see a soul around her house. I walked down the block fast, ducked into her doorway. I couldn't risk ringing a bell to open the door. It was an old door. Holding the knob with one hand I leaned back and hit the door just under the lock with a hip block. It jumped open with a dull sound that was magnified by the stillness. I waited; the ground-floor apartment doors didn't open. I stepped in. The lock wasn't too badly sprung—I managed to close the door. I rode the midget elevator to Kay's apartment, rang the bell.

There wasn't a sound. I rang again, long and loud. There was the padding sound of slippered feet approaching the door; Barbara asked, “Who is it?”

“Touie.”

“Who? Oh.... It's late,” she said, opening the door.

I pushed by her, closed the door. She was wearing a kind of thin red ski pajamas and she looked tired, maybe a little drunk. I walked and pushed her into the nearest chair, told her, “Sit still for a second.” I ran through the apartment, keeping the doors open to see if she went for the phone.

Bobby was alone.

When I returned to the living room she was fumbling at lighting a cigarette, her hand shaking badly. “What's all this about?”

“Where's Kay?” I asked standing over her.

“I wish I knew. No, I wish I didn't know.”

I grabbed her thin shoulders, shook her. “Don't play it cute. Where is she?”

Bobby pulled herself together, tried to push my hands away as she asked, “By what right do you place your hands on me?”

Under other circumstances it would have been for laughs. I shook her again. “Damnit, sober up. I'm in a jam. Where's Kay?”

“I took sleeping pills some time ago; my head isn't very clear. Really, I don't know where Kay is. What's your trouble, Toussaint? Oh, that beautiful name. I wish I had a name like—”

“A man's been murdered and the police are looking for me. Does that get through to you? Murder! Kay framed me, set me up for this rap.”

Bobby's eyes seemed to brighten, become almost normal. “Kay? Oh my no. Kay can be silly and mean, but never vicious. Really, a murder?”

“Yes, goddamnit, really!”

“Who?” Her eyes went wide and she tried to stand as she said, “Not Kay!” and her voice rose to a scream.

I pushed her back into the chair. “Cut it out, and wake up. The guy Kay hired me to watch, he's been killed. How much do you know about this TV stuff?”

“All of it. Sorry I nearly ruined everything last night. Kay bawled me out as if—”

“Bobby, listen to me, I don't have time for small talk. I don't have time for anything. Where's Kay?”

“With a so-called man.”

“Who? Her husband?”

She gave me a long look, then threw her head back and laughed hysterically. I shook her hard and she said, “She's with that pansy writer Steve. I'm her husband.” She added this last with quiet dignity in her voice. Her eyes were proud as she stared up at me and said soberly, “Yes, I'm what is known as the Butch in our setup. Now what's all this nonsense about Kay framing you?”