His mouth tasted like the Russian Army had marched through in their bare feet. He lay on his side away from Angela. Bad breath in the morning was not very romantic. And Angela was talking to him now, in that deep, throaty voice that was never anything less than romantic. He thought of her full, wide, pouting lips, the lips that always reminded him of Sophia Loren. Sullen lips, with so much promise in them.
"Mmmmm. Where are you going today?" those lips were now asking him. Husky voice. That too reminded him of Sophia Loren. Or used to, anyway.
He lay there, his back to her, and something urged him to play the 'macho' bit.
"Listen, baby, do you have to make me tell you it's none of your goddamn business?"
She swung out of bed, pulling her night-gown down as she did so.
"You bastard," she said without emotion. "Did anyone ever call you a nasty little bastard, Sal?"
"I never pay any attention to what anyone calls me," Sal said.
"That's a lie," she said with a short laugh. "That's a lie if I ever heard one. I never saw a guy who liked himself so much."
"Look, baby," he said, not looking at her. "Why make everything tough? Why start a fight the first thing in the morning?"
"I'm not starting a fight," she said, putting her long feet into a pair of ragged slippers. "I just asked you where you are going, and you told me it was none of my goddamn business. Don't you think where you go is some of my business?"
"No," he said. "I don't."
"I take a lot from you," she said. "I. don't know why I do it."
"I never asked you to take anything," he said.
She sighed. "You want some coffee?"
"Yeah."
"I'll make it."
She went out into the little kitchen and put on the coffee. She didn't bother to put on her bathrobe, and Sal Naples' eyes followed her as she went. She was a little too heavy in the legs, but she was all right. She was big and well-padded, and he liked that, and in a way that was funny because he was a little guy himself.
He strapped on the shoulder holster with the .38 Smith & Wesson he had bought from Pete. It was almost new when he got it and Pete had sold it for twenty dollars. Too hot, maybe. He had a .32 automatic, a German Mauser, which he'd had ever since he was a kid, and he dropped this into the pocket of the blue jacket.
He went into the kitchen and the coffee was coming up in the percolator.
Angela looked at him, and a melting look came into her eyes. She never knew why he did that to her but he always did, even when he was at his meanest. She put her arms around him, and he disentangled himself. He had had enough of her; he didn't want to be touched. Not by Angela anyhow. Maybe by Carola. If Angela were Carola ... But she wasn't.
"How about the coffee?"
"It's nearly ready," she said. After a moment she poured it out, with lots of milk for herself and none for him. He put in four spoonfuls of sugar. He used lots of sugar in his coffee. For energy; he burned up an awful lot of energy.
He drank his. coffee standing up and Angela sat at the little white kitchen table. She looked him over carefully, and he could see that she was looking him over.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Why do you have to stare at me?"
She dropped her eyes quickly, and then said: "I didn't know I was staring, Sal. I'm sorry,"
"I don't like being stared at."
"I know you don't. I didn't know I was doing it."
"Well, don't do it," Sal told her gruffly, but then softened when he saw the hurt look in her eyes.
"I just want to please you," the misguided woman said, not looking at him.
"Aw, I'm sorry, babe. I'm kinda hard on you, I guess." Sal pulled her up to him and kissed her roughly on the mouth.
"Oh, Sal ... " Angela breathed as she felt the beginning of an erection swelling through Sal's tightly fitted trousers.
"Oh, Angie, there you go again getting me all hot and hard," Sal said, flicking his tongue between her lips.
"Can we fuck, Sal, can we? I know you gotta get going, but please, Sal let's do it, okay?" Angela asked him anxiously. She felt her cunt moistening and even though there was a rather large part of her that hated Sal, the. self-destructive parts of her almost constantly craved him.
"I'd think your cunt would be pretty tired of my prick after last night!" Sal teased her, grabbing her around the crotch.
"Aw, you gotta be kidding," Angela answered him. I don't never get tired of fucking you, Sal."
Sal took her roughly by the hand and led her over to the living room. Sal took off his pants, so as not to ruin the creases. Sometimes he felt that the lovemaking that went on between him and Angela was a little on the mechanical side. But then again, there were times like these that he felt that the two of them were passionate animals, drawn together by some mysterious but very basic force.
"Are you hungry, Sal?" Angela teased, looking up at him with her provocative eyes.
"Yeah. I ain't had no real breakfast," Sal laughed, lifting her wrinkled nightgown. He sucked savagely on her full breasts and flicked his tongue energetically over the nipples.
Sal jumped up suddenly and stripped off the rest of his clothes with the exception of his socks. His stiffening cock wagged heavily as he walked back over to Angela, whose nightgown was pushed crazily up around her neck.
"You do love me, don't you, Sal?" Angela inquired, as Sal took his place on top of her body. He couldn't help grinding around a little, rubbing his cock into her pubic hair and teasing it dangerously close to the opening of her pussy hole.
"Yeah, baby, oh yeah ... " Sal answered, not really hearing her question.
Angela groped for Sal's cock, seeking some sort of reassurance. Her whole identity as a woman and a human being seemed to revolve around her rather twisted sexual relationship with Sal at those times when she felt she had nothing else to hang on to.
Sal rammed his finger into Angela's snatch, feeling pressured suddenly to get their little tete-a-tete over with.
"Oh ... Can't you go a little slower, honey?" Angela implored.
But her so-called lover did not heed her wishes. His one goal was to stimulate her sufficiently so that he could satisfy, himself. If he got her good and wet and she got off, that was all well and good. If she didn't get her moment in heaven or didn't have such a great time on the way there, then that was just too bad.
Angela lay back and tried to enjoy what Sal was doing to her. She felt his thick, stubby fuck finger penetrate her vagina over and over again. He used the rest of his fingers to pull on her labia and tickle her clit. Concentrating on the sensations, she managed to forget about the fact that during this. particular encounter Sal was not with her, but a million miles away. It wasn't as if they were sharing something, they were just feeling something that was winding its way out of their sexual organs.
Sal lowered his mouth to Angela's breasts and sucked hard on the dusky nipples. She reached out to rub his cock, and he moved his body in closer so she could reach it. It was surprisingly big and hard when she touched it, but she continued to rub it up and down with her hand. Sal pressed, the tip of his cock to Angela's cervix, now oozing with love lubricant in spite of her previous feelings of separation from Sal.
"Can I stick it into Your cunt now, baby?" Sal asked her desperately. He usually liked to prolong their lovemaking, but today he had so much on his mind that the blood was pounding through his veins and he could almost feel the semen building up in his balls.
"Let me put my prick into your pussy. ..." Sal sighed as he furiously licked Angela's ear.
"I do want you Sal. ..." Angela breathed out, pulling his mouth to hers. They tongued each other excitedly and then Sal positioned his body over hers so that his cock could slip right into her cunt. Angela opened her legs and Sal pushed at her labia and quickly inserted his penis into her vagina. Sal came almost instantly, shooting a hot load of jizm into Angela's surprised and unsatisfied cunt.
While Angela remained on the couch more than a little depressed, Sal dressed quickly and got his things together.
"Don't forget to hide all my stuff," he said.
"I won't," Angela answered weakly.
He gave her a piercing look filled with menace on his way out and drove his old jalopy to the corner opposite from Pop Yenizia's place. That was part of his plan.
CHAPTER TWO
The Erie was a joint just across the line; it was run by Pop Venizia and it was a kind of a hangout for the young men from around Belleville and North Newark. The young men with nothing much on their minds went there; some of them had money to spend and where the money came from was nobody's business, and some of them had no money at all, but they hung around anyway. Sal Naples, had plenty of money always, or most always, and he spent it freely enough, and seldom on himself. That is, not at Pop Venizia's, because Pop Venizia's was a saloon, and Sal drank very, very rarely. He knew that liquor slowed him down and he didn't want any slowing down; he wanted to live fast and be all there, every second in the minute, every minute in the hour.
It was just after opening time and Pop Venizia was behind the bar himself, polishing glasses. He was a big man with a flushed face and jovial eyes, eyes which did not hide their inner craftiness from Sal, for few things of that kind were hidden from Sal because he was very observant, very watchful.
"Hello, Pop," he said.
"Hello, Sal," said Pop. His voice was thick; he was getting to be an old man. He didn't bother to ask Sal what he wanted, because he knew that Sal never wanted anything to drink, especially at this hour of the day.
"Any of the kids around?" Sal asked.
"Kids? What kids you mean, Sal?"
"Well, Pete Koscki or PeeWee Schoenfield."
"I ain't seen Shoney for days," said Pop. "Pete Koscki was here last night, but I ain't seen nobody this morning. You're the first one in."
"If any of them shows up," said Sal, "tell 'em I'm over at the diner for breakfast."
Pop Venizia looked at him, and the malice came out from behind the fake geniality in his eyes.
"Don't she feed you? Don't that girl feed you your breakfast, Sal?"
"Go fuck yourself," Sal said. He went out into the amber April sunlight, ducked around a Number 13 bus and crossed to the opposite corner, underneath the Erie tracks. From the corner, looking down the cross street, he could see the dull gleam of the Passaic River, where, in spite of its filth, he had gone swimming on many a hot summer Jersey day.
He had his ham and eggs in the diner, and sat back, almost ready for the best cigarette of the day -- the one right after breakfast -- when Pete Koscki came in. He was a big guy, big-boned like a farmer, with a hanging lower lip, and he looked twice as big standing beside Sal. But a guy like that didn't do anything to Sal's morale -- except put it higher. Sal knew that, although Pete was long on beef he was short on brains, and Sal had made up his mind long ago which of the two was really the bigger man.
Pete Koscki sat down on the stool next to Sal. He had the prison habit of talking out of the corner of his mouth, although as a matter of fact he had never served time. in anything more remarkable than the State Reformatory.
"You all set, Sal?" he said out of the corner of the mouth.
"I'm always all set. How about you?"
"Everything's o.k.," said Pete. "I saw Shoney a while back and he talked to Joey Kipper last night. Everything will work out all right."
"You damn right it will work out all right," said Sal. "I got it all figured out and when I figure out anything it's going to work out all right."
He saw that Wally Winters was watching and straining his big floppy ears to hear and he shut up. "They got a good movie at the Branch Brook," he said. "You seen it?" He pitched his voice high enough so that he was sure Wally Winters would hear it.
"No, I ain't," said Pete Koscki. "What's it called?"
"Fort Destiny, " said Sal. "Kind of a western."
"No. I ain't seen it," said Pete.
Sal paid Wally Winters for the breakfast and left seventy-five cents under the plate. He never tipped like a show-off, but he tipped more than most people. Money came easy to him.
They went out of the diner and strolled along to where the Erie Railroad tracks passed overhead. Then they stopped, standing on the curb. John Sweeney, who had been on a beat in North Newark for a good many more years than Sal had lived, passed them but he didn't even look at them. Sal smiled inwardly. "The dumb oaf," he thought. When you stopped to think of it you didn't really have to be very bright to be brighter than all the cops put together. Except maybe Detective Sergeant Larkey. He had run afoul of Bert Larkey once, and he figured that Larkey was possibly almost as smart as he was. But not quite.
When Sweeney had gone far down toward the Public Service garage, Sal began talking.
"Now, look," he said. "If I don't see Shoney before we pull this off, I want you to tell him: there better be no mistakes."
Pete Koscki's big jaw hung down and he looked at Sal.
"I'll tell him," he said. "I'll tell him just like you said."
"Tell yourself, too," said Sal. "And after it's all over, we scatter. Be sure of that. Scatter. I don't want none of us to be seen together afterwards. I don't want none of us to be seen period."
"I get it."
"Now there's another thing," Sal said. "I told you before and I told Shoney before but I want to tell you again. I got my own get-away figured out, and I got yours, too. I want to be sure you know what you're supposed to do."
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. What do you do afterwards?"
"I duck down the east side of the plant, out the other street, then I start walking along the River Road like nothing ever happened."
"That's right. And you're such a dumb-looking bastard you'll get away with it, too. What do you do next?"
"Hop the first bus and get into downtown Newark."
"That's right. If you do that right you'll be the hell and gone long before the cops start prowling around the neighborhood. What's Shoney going to do?"
"Jeez, I don't know. I ain't Shoney."
"You got to know what everybody's doing. Everybody's got to know what everybody else's doing. Well, I told you once, and I'll tell you again. Shoney's going to do just like you do, only the other direction. And he's going to hop a bus on Broadway, and while you're riding a bus into Newark he's going to be riding a bus out to Nutley."
"Yeah, I get it," said Pete.
"All right. I'm glad you get it. Now, after we make the getaway, what are we going to do tonight? Do you remember that?"
Pete Koscki thought a minute, with his heavy lower lip hanging down, and then he said: "We're going to meet tonight in that burned-out house on Broadway. That what you mean?"
"That's what I mean," said Sal. "That's a safe spot. We'll never get caught there. Either of you guys' houses -- they're out. But you guys go in from the alley, the back way, the way I told you. If we go in the front we'll be spotted. You got that?"
"Yeah, I got that. In the back way, after dark."
"The ones that get there first, just keep quiet and wait. And if anyone of us gets hurt -- the other three will meet anyway. You got that?"
"I got it."
"The other three or the other two or whatever there is left."
"You think somebody's going to get hurt?"
"No, I don't," said Sal. "But you got to figure on everything. That's the trouble with you dumb bastards, you don't figure on anything."
There was no change in Pete's expression; maybe he had been called a dumb bastard so many times that that was what he got to thinking he was. It was all what you thought you were that counted, anyhow. That was something that Sal knew.
"All right," said Sal. "I'll meet you two guys just like we said at ten o'clock."
"Yeah. I get it."
They broke apart, and Sal drifted across the street in the amber sunshine. There was plenty of time, and he wanted to think. He walked north to the bridge across the Second River, and then turned into the little patch of park. Farther up there were cherry trees, with the faintest blooms, and above them was the house with the rickety outside stairs and the rickety landing, and that was where Angela was. Sal turned abruptly the other way.
There was lots of time and he wanted to think. He had all the details worked out, but he wanted to think them over again, checking and rechecking them. Someone had told him once that genius was an infinite capacity for hard work, and he could see the sense of that. You had to have the flash, the spark, the fire, but you had to have the other things too.
He had walked a long way when he found himself in Verona Street, passing Our Lady of Sorrows. Father Callaghan was getting out of his car in the driveway beside the parish house.
"Well, well, well, and a sight for sore eyes you are, Sal. And what have you been doing lately? I don't remember that I ever heard you got started in a trade or anything like that."
"Oh sure," Sal said. "I got started, all right. I took up plumbing, but I'm still an apprentice."
"Plumbing, hey? Just like your old man. Well, that's fine, and it's a good honest trade, too, Sal. To tell you the truth, Sal, I always thought that being a priest was a little like being a plumber. A plumber fixes the drainpipes in people's houses, and a priest fixes them in people's souls."
"I guess you're right," Sal said.
Father Callaghan, who was still holding Sal's hand and pumping it up and down intermittently, gave him a slap on the back and said: "Now why don't you go inside the church for a couple of minutes and say a prayer for me?"
"All right, Father," said Sal.
Father Callaghan went off toward the parish house and Sal mounted the low broad steps of the church.
Inside there was a pleasant gloom and a musty smell of old carpets, which he could remember as long as he could remember anything at all. He figured he would stay just long enough for Father Callaghan to have become busy in the parish house, but after a moment he found himself on his knees, and the old prayers came back to his lips. "Hail Mary, full of Grace ... Please, God, make it all right," he said under his breath. And then, stealing a look around to be sure that no one had come in behind him, he slowly drew the .38 caliber revolver out of the shoulder holster and held it between his hands on the altar rail. The metal made a dull gleam under the red sanctuary light.
"Please, God," he said, "bless this. Please God, make it all right. Make everything all right."
He put the .38 back in the holster, and, looking around once more, did the same thing with the little .32 Mauser. Then he put it back in the pocket of his blue jacket and began whispering the 'Our Father' and then the 'Hail Mary.'
"Please God," he said, "make everything all right."
He got up, knelt before the high altar, and went out the front door into Verona Street, stopping only an instant to cross himself at the holy water fount.
In Verona Street, there was an unpleasant mugginess coming into the atmosphere. He saw that the clock on the service station at the corner said a quarter to ten.
He began walking with an air of unconcern eastward, in the direction of the Passaic River. He caught a glimpse of it at the bottom of the hill, in the dull sunshine.
CHAPTER THREE
At ten minutes to ten he was standing beside the tree opposite the Shalimar Tent and Awning Company. It was a kind of a funny place for a holdup, he thought, but he really didn't know why it was so funny at that. They did a big business, all over the country, and they had a weekly payroll of ten thousand bucks or so. After all, what the hell was the difference what kind of a company it was, so long as there was ten thousand dollars in it? That was all that mattered, really. The ten G's ...
But even as he stood there, before it had happened, he was thinking about the next one; the next one was going to be a bigger one. A bank maybe. Or maybe even something like that Brink's deal. That was a couple of million, wasn't it? Well, it was a guy with no more on the ball than he -- maybe even less -- who engineered that one. Anything they could do he could do better.
A little gleam came into his eyes, and he thought of Carola, her full lips bursting with scorn. Well, all Carola needed was buying, and he was going to have enough to buy her ten times over. ...
He let his eyes roam around. Up to the corner of Verona and back. No sign of Sweeney. Well, Sweeney was such a dumb bastard he wouldn't know what to do anyhow. Sweeney wouldn't even know what had happened until it was all over. Still, he was glad he had been smart enough to do something about Sweeney. By now Sweeney ought to be sneaking a quick one in the back of Pop Venizia's place. And he wouldn't know that, although it was Squarehead Johanson who tempted him, the five bucks that Squarehead used to buy the drinks came from him, Sal. Well, Squarehead owed him a lot of favors, and here was a way he could pay some back and no questions asked or answered by anyone. That was a neat little bit of detail work, and Sal was proud of how he had taken care of it; how he had taken care of Sweeney by way of Squarehead Johanson. His eyes were darting everywhere, and it was almost ten o'clock. Pete Koscki was down at the far end of the plant, where he was supposed to be. That was all right. Only Pete was looking down at the Passaic River, like the dumb bastard he was, instead of watching the front of the plant. Then Shoney showed up. He was carrying a lunch pail and was walking west, toward the plant entrance, on Verona. Sal smiled to himself. The lunch pail idea was his and he thought it was a good touch. Nobody but a real bright guy would have thought of the lunch pail. Nobody would ever question him -- not that there was going to be any time for that anyhow. He wondered if Pete and Shoney had remembered the Halloween masks.
Shoney began slowing up, so that he wouldn't be caught in the position of actually waiting on the steps. That might foul things up, if somebody questioned him. Well, nobody would question him; why should they? The payroll was delivered this way every Wednesday in the year and nothing ever happened; there wasn't anybody to do any questioning. There weren't any guards at the awning works, and the only guard would be the special cop who would ride up with the girl cashier and walk into the front office with her.
It was that guard he had to look out for. He didn't want anybody getting hurt.
Now he saw that Pete Koscki had turned a little so that he could see what was going on. That was a little better. Shoney had stopped at the west corner of the plant, fishing in his pockets for something. He pulled out a cigarette, tried to light it, but it took him four matches before he could get it going. What was Shoney, scared or stalling? Sal thought he wasn't smart enough to stall; he was probably nervous.
His eyes went to the clock on the service station. It was two minutes past ten. Damn, why didn't they get here? He began to feel a cold sweat in the palms of his hands. Was he scared himself? What could he be scared of? He knew what he was doing. This was like shooting ducks in a bathtub. Anybody could do it, if he planned it this way. But where in hell was that car with the girl cashier and the cash?
He saw Pete Koscki change his position, noting that Pete had become tense. Tense for him, that was. The big dumb son of a farmer bastard. And then he saw the company's car swing into Verona, just like it did every Wednesday, with the girl cashier driving, and the special cop sitting beside her, with his cap tilted over his eyes. Shaw, the cop's name was. George Shaw. Not that it mattered any, but Sal had found out what the guy's name was. It was one of the details he had figured he ought to check. He also found out that Shaw was a drunk, who often went out on these things half-loaded or with a hangover, which was all to the good, but nothing you could count on.
He saw the company's car pull to the curb and stop; he also saw that the special cop had taken no note of Shoney, at one end of the plant, or Pete, at the other. The girl cashier was reaching into the back of the car for the satchel that the company used to carry its payroll.
Sal whistled. It was not a loud whistle, but it was low and clear, and he saw Pete and Shoney putting their masks over their eyes. Shoney dropped his lunch pail in the process. But in the meantime Sal had his own mask on and his .38 revolver in his fist. He was running across the cobblestones and he saw that the special cop had seen what was coming and was trying to get his gun.
But Sal was at the side of the car before the cop got it and when the cop saw the barrel of the .38 poking through the window he didn't try any longer.
The girl was screaming. Sal gave her a push in the face but she screamed all the harder. Sal hit her in the jaw with his left fist as hard as he could and she slumped. She didn't scream anymore, and the satchel was lying in her lap. Sal grabbed it.
"Now look, copper," he said with a razor edge in his voice. "There's three of us so don't try nothing. Just sit still and nobody is going to get hurt." He grabbed the cop's gun and, hesitating for a moment as to what to do with it, threw it as far down the street as he could. He had no place to put it and he didn't want a cop's gun on him. But mainly, he wanted it out of the way. The cop's jaw was tight and his eyes were bloodshot. He just sat there, and Sal began backing away with the satchel in his hand. As he got nearly across the street, Pete Koscki, the dumb bastard, suddenly broke and ran after him. The cop, wider awake and with more guts than Sal had figured him for, went out the back door of the sedan as though he had been shot out of a catapult, tackled Pete, and they went down together on the cobble-stones. Sal was over the curb, at the side of the tree, watching, and in a second the cop was up and he had Pete's gun. Pete, too, staggered to his feet and began running blindly and then, spotting Sal, headed for him.
The cop opened fire with Pete's gun. He had got back to the car and was using it for cover, firing across the. hood.
"Get out of here!" said Sal. "What in God's name did you run across the street for?"
"I -- " Pete's explanation was lost in the barking of the two pistols, the coppers and Sal's. Sal got behind the tree and what happened to Pete Koscki he didn't know. Pete Koscki just disappeared. But the cop was still shooting and Sal fired back. He heard a bullet nick the tree beside him, and he saw one of his own shatter the glass in the sedan. That was way off the mark, and he could see that the whole crazy business, Pete breaking and running, the copper grabbing the gun, had upset his aim.
He leaned against the tree, sighting carefully, squeezing the trigger. He thought he had the sights right on the cop's ear, and then he saw Shoney making a break for it, heading west, ducking in and out of passageways, like he was supposed to do. His eyes came back to the sights and the pistol went off. But nothing happened to the cop. Instead the front door of the car opened and the girl cashier fell out head-first on to the cobblestones. He could see blood gushing, and he knew he hadn't done that with his fist.
"God," he said.
Then he turned and ran. He ran between two old houses standing on the opposite side of the street from the awning factory and up one side of the Erie Railroad embankment and down the other, and when he got onto the next street he began walking as slowly as he could. But the cop would be after him in a minute. He dropped the mask, kept walking up the street to where his old jalopy was parked. He dumped the satchel into the back, got in himself, started the car and took off. He was heading north toward Belleville when he saw in the rear vision mirror the cop, without his cap but with Pete's pistol in hand, run out into East Sylvan Avenue.
He kept on driving; he was sure the cop had never had time to spot the car, or even to realize that he was in it. And now he was glad that, when he got this old jalopy, he had had the presence of mind to use a phony name and address. If, by any chance, the cops should take it into their heads to start looking for him, they wouldn't have any license number to go on. Anthony DiCarlo of Summer Avenue would mean nothing to them. He had got a driver's license with the same name. Well, that was one of the long-range things he did; he was proud he had been smart enough not to get into a spot where they could nail him with a license number. ...
He turned east on the Belleville Turnpike and began driving toward New York City. He cut his speed down and tried to look nonchalant. The open highway, he figured, was the safest bet for the moment. Then he would swing back, and go where he had planned to go. He had figured that out, too; where to go.
The smartest thing to do was keep on the move, and yet not really take it on the lam. If he were just driving around like any dope, nobody would notice him. Later he would show up at Pop Venizia's long enough so nobody could actually say he had vanished, and then he would get out on the road again. Take it easy, don't panic, that was the mainspring of the plan. Be nonchalant.
He thought of driving right into New York and losing himself there for a while, but then he thought about the toll gate at the Lincoln Tunnel. That was a man-trap. He didn't want to be checked by any toll gate cops. Anyway, he didn't want to upset his plan -- he was too smart to be thrown by kid impulses. So, halfway across the marshes, he turned the jalopy around and headed back.
* * *
Sal stood at the bar for a minute, and then ordered another double scotch.
"Say," said Steve, "that's a lot of scotch for you."
"Don't let it bother you," said Sal. "Are you worried about how much scotch I drink?"
"Oh, no," said Steve, shutting up like a clam.
Sal took the double scotch at a gulp, and this time he didn't take any water after it. It felt warm in his stomach; he felt better.
He turned to go, and he could feel Steve's sharp eyes on him, and he could see the bad look come up in Pop's jovial eyes, too. What the hell, did they know anything? How could they know anything? All they knew was that he had had some double scotches.
"Rape them all but six," he said to himself. "All but six."
He went out the door, feeling the eyes upon him.
At the newsstand underneath the Erie tracks he bought an evening paper and went back and got his jalopy out of the old stable yard behind Pop Venizia's. He laid the paper on the seat beside him and took off up the road that went through the park, beside the river. He could see the blooms on the cherry trees; he could see them with his eyes but not with his mind. His mind was a mess.
He got farther up in the park, opposite the isolation hospital, and parked his car. He had to read that story in the paper and he read it. The girl's name was Rosa del Valle. Kind of a ginny name, like his own, he guessed. She was described as red-haired. That gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach; his mother had been red-haired. But he saw at once that this was no road to let his mind travel, and he shut his jaw tight and let 'his eyes become slits. He read on. They called it a twenty thousand dollar pay-roll robbery. Well, the dope he had was that it was ten thousand, but he hadn't looked. He hoped the paper was right on that point but he doubted it. He would count it later, after dark, not now.
The paper said there were three holdup men, wearing masks. The police had no clues, but they were picking up everybody and his brother. No clues. That could be merely what the cops told the reporters. Sometimes the cops did that. Sometimes when they really knew who did it they told the reporters there were no clues, so that who did it wouldn't get frantic and take off. However, it was reassuring.
The paper described the gun battle, and told how Special Officer George Shaw went running between the houses and over the Erie embankment, trying to catch one of the three men. But he disappeared, said the story; there was no mention of an old jalopy heading north toward Belleville. So far so good. But that, too, could be a fake. A copper's trick.
He started the jalopy and drove around the park for a while, killing time. It was darker than mere dusk now, and he turned on the headlights and drove along the park road running beside the Second River. Right about then, he began to think about getting laid. What better way to celebrate his success than with a little pussy?
He knew that he couldn't go over to Angela's place, because the fuzz might be hanging around. A few moments later, be found himself pulling up to Patricia's apartment. There was a good chance that she'd be up for a little hugging and munching and sucking and licking and ...
"Oh, hiya, Sal," she said, preparing to lock her door. "I was just going down to the disco. Ah, you wanna go, maybe? Huh?"
Sal just grinned. "Why don't we just disco at your place for a while? Wouldn't you like that?"
Patricia smiled back at him and they went back into her apartment. "I know this dress makes me absolutely irresistable," she kidded.
Sal reached boldly into her revealing halter dress and squeezed her warm tits hard.
"Yeow!" Patricia wailed. "Go gentle into that good night!" Patricia protested.
They made their way into the dark bedroom and Patricia started to flick on the light switch.
"Don't touch that dial!" Sal put out his hand to stop her. "I want to do it in the dark."
"Sounds good to me," Patricia said surrendering her lips to Sal's excited tongue. They pressed their mouths together, probing and sucking into the deep recesses. Sal brushed Patricia's face with his fingers. She grabbed hold of his hand and pushed some of the fingers into her mouth, running her lips and tongue along them as if she were sucking his cock.
"OOOOOO, baby ... I bet you do real nice work!" Sal told her, feeling his prick start to harden.
"As if you didn't know," Patricia chided him.
They let their hands roam freely, feeling each other out like a couple of high school kids. Sal loved the soft full curves of Patricia's hips and breasts and she enjoyed the lean hardness of Sal's body.
"I've missed that sweet little pussy of yours," Sal told her.
"Don't give me that! I bet your cock's had more snatch than it's known what to do with." Patricia said squeezing Sal's hard-muscled thighs.
"That don't mean it hasn't missed you!" Sal said, savagely licking her ears.
"Ooooo ... " Patricia cooed as she clutched at Sal's cock. "I'm kind of in the mood for a cock flavored ice cream cone."
"Help yourself, my dear," Sal told her, unzipping his pants and further exposing his bulging dick.
Patricia knelt there in the dark and slipped Sal's pants off his hips and down to his ankles. She reached into his silk shorts and readily located his swollen tool.
"Feel free to dig right in," Sal said, a shudder passing through his body in anticipation.
Patricia pressed her tongue into his hairy balls and flicked it quickly back and forth between the two of them. Then, she licked both of her hands and placed them on his meaty shaft. Sal thought he might lose his wad any second, but he forced himself to think about Newark. It seemed to work. He bent over to massage and caress Patricia's neck and shoulders while she went down on him and he could feel the beads of perspiration popping out on his furrowed brow.
"Suck that motherfucker!" Sal breathed out as Patricia's sucked his bulky rod deep into her throat, massaging his balls with her busy fingers. She pressed her face into his pubic bush and inhaled his rich, musky man scent. She let her tongue play along the length of his penile shaft and then rubbed the base of it with her hands.
As Sal fought to keep his jizm from exploding, he was suddenly filled with a desire to roll naked against Patricia's shapely body. He pulled her reluctant mouth from his rock hard penis and gently slipped off her halter dress. She stood there, facing him in her flimsy lace panties and Sal noticed the growing wet spot in the crotch. The two lovers sunk down into the thick, plush carpeting and Sal moved his face up to Patricia's moistened panties. He lapped at the soggy crotch and she writhed in delight.
"Ooooooo ... baby ..." Patricia moaned.
Sal pulled her panties down with his teeth, holding on to them savagely as he sought to reveal her glistening cunt. He could smell and almost taste it, just by biting into her underwear.
"Please ... puu ... put your tongue ... " Patricia sighed and squirmed seductively.
When Sal had removed her soggy panties, he lunged at the surprised woman's clit with an animal-like ferocity. He nibbled and sucked that oily love button, till Patricia thought she would either go mad or explode. Then, Sal let his tongue tickle her cervix, flicking it in and out and biting her labia to keep her guessing.
"Oh my God ... SAL ... FUCK ME! Patricia screamed, going wild.
She pushed Sal gently over onto his back and climbed quickly on top of him.
"Hey, babe, are you sure you want to do it this way?" Sal asked, since he was used to the rather conventional but effective missionary position.
"YES!" Patricia wailed, positioning her vagina close to his crotch so that she could guide his penis inside her. Sal felt her vaginal walls envelope his dick and the sensation of warmth was exquisite. Patricia moved up and down on his dick, grinding her clitoris into him for added stimulation. Sal placed his hands firmly on her hips and they established a slow, steady rhythm that increased in speed and intensity as their arousal reached its peak.
Patricia was like a bucking bronco on top of Sal, riding him harder and harder and trying to retain some sort of control.
"Mmmmmmm ... ARGH!" she screamed as her orgasm approached.
"Yeah, baby ... fuck me ... Fuck ... ME!" Sal wailed, suddenly letting go of an enormous load of hot cum.
Patricia was not deterred by her partner's climax and she continued to work her soggy snatch up and down on his diminished dick and to grind her aching clitoris into his pelvis.
"I ... think ... I'm going to co ... AH!" Patricia wailed as she went over the edge. The orgasm ripped through her body until she finally collapsed, exhausted onto Sal.
Having accomplished his task though, Sal's mind shot back to the stolen money. He dressed quickly and kissed Patricia goodbye, offering a vague explanation for his sudden departure.
CHAPTER FOUR
He drove down Broadway to where the old burned-out house was, near the Teachers' College. He looked out, saw the house dark and deserted, and then he drove around the block and parked on the side street. He wasn't worried about having the jalopy spotted. Nobody would be looking for that license plate. But what he had to take a chance on was the satchel. That was dangerous and he knew it. Supposing there was a police trap, and he walked into it with that satchel full of dough.
He didn't like to leave the money in the jalopy, but he did. He thought he had better go and be sure how the land lay. He walked up the back alley, until he was behind the old house, listened for a minute, and then went up on the back porch. There was a sign there, posted by the police department or the fire department, he didn't know which. It said Keep Out -- Danger. He knocked very lightly on the door.
The door opened a crack and Pete looked out.
"Is it you, Sal?"
"Yes."
"Come in quiet. There was a bunch of kids playing around outside for a while. We was scared they'd come in."
"They gone now?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Come in quiet."
"Is Shoney here?"
"Yeah. Come in quiet."
"I just wanted to see if the coast was clear. I left the satchel in the car around the corner."
"The coast is clear. Everything's okay. Go get the satchel."
Sal went back to his car and fetched the satchel. Pete let him in the door and led him into an inside room. It had been a dining room, and there was still a dining table in it, scorched down one side. There were only two windows and they both opened against the brick wall of a building next door. Nobody could see directly inside. Shoney was half-sitting on the table; he had a flash-light beside him, and its beam lay across the room so there was enough light to see but not enough to be seen anywhere outside. Sal looked around the gloom.
"Where's Joey?"
"He ain't here," said Pete.
"I can see that. Why ain't he here? Where is he?"
"I seen him on. the street this afternoon. He said he wanted out."
"Wanted out? What do you mean? It's too late to want out."
"He wanted out of the cut. He don't want none of the dough."
"Why not?"
"I dunno," said Pete.
"I know, all right," said Shoney.
"Well, why? Why didn't he want his cut?"
"He got cold feet," said Shoney. "After he heard you killed the girl he got cold feet."
"I didn't kill the girl," said Sal.
"What?" asked Shoney. "What do you mean by that?"
Sal bit his lip and shrugged a shoulder. He didn't know exactly what he meant by that.
"We all killed her," he said. "It was all of us."
"Come on," said Shoney. "Now, Sal, come on."
"It was fate," said Sal. "Fate. God. Something. She was going to get killed and she got killed. It was her time and she got it. It was just an accident that it was me. Might have been a bus, or a train. Or somebody else. Besides that, it was Pete's fault in the .first place. He ran across the street and loused everything up."
Pete Koscki was standing with his lower lip hanging down not comprehending anything much, but Shoney stared at Sal.
"So that's the way you get yourself out of it," he said after a while. "I never heard such a goddamn argument in all my life. Listen, Sal. You was the only one of the three of us that even fired a shot."
"That doesn't make any difference," said Sal, his lips tightening, the lines of his face tightening, the razor edge in his voice. "We were all in it."
"Shoney's right," said Pete. "Nobody else even fired a shot."
"All right," said Sal. He sensed that the time had come for a showdown, and he was glad to have it, he welcomed it; he was the strongest and the smartest and now was the time to get that understood. "The hell with it. I killed her. I worked out the whole deal in the first place. I stand to take the biggest rap. If they catch me, I'll burn at Trenton. I'm the big risker, the big loser if it goes sour, and so Joey doesn't want his cut, so I'll take Joey's cut. If I'm the main guy I'll take the main cut."
"So you're going to take the main cut, are you?" Shoney's voice was rising.
"Say, you guys," said Pete, "cut it down. People will hear you clear out on the street. Talk in whispers."
Shoney repeated what he had said in a whisper. The whisper was as sharp as a January wind on the North Jersey marsh lands. "So you're going to take the main cut, are you?"
"I got the. biggest risk," said Sal. "I wouldn't have done it except Joey cut himself out, and now that he did I think I'm entitled to it. I've got a right to it."
"You've got a right to it," Shoney repeated in his bitter whisper. "We was going to split even shares. There were four of us on the split, and now there's three. So if you take Joey's cut you're actually getting half, not a third."
"So what?" Sal stared at Shoney, and then he turned and stared at Pete.
"It ain't right, that's all," said Shoney. "How much dough is there? The papers said twenty thousand dollars."
"The papers were wrong. There's about sixteen thousand dollars. Joey said there was ten, the papers said there was twenty, but there's really sixteen."
The bitter whisper of the wind on the cold Jersey marshes came back into Shoney's voice.
"You wouldn't have taken a four-thousand-dollar cut before the regular cut, would you have?" Shoney asked.
Sal looked at him a minute, measuring him, and then let him have it with the flat of his hand, full across the face. There was a smack of flesh upon flesh that echoed all around the room, and Shoney reeled against the charred table. The side of his face was livid, and his right fist was clenched, the forearm drawn back and cocked. But Sal was too quick; he already had his .38 in his hand and Shoney, steadying himself against the table, just stared into it. The showdown had come and Sal knew that the balance lay not in quickness or smartness but in guts and force. He was ready; his hand was the stronger; there was no answer to a .38.
"I've taken all the shit I'm going to take from you, Shoney," he said. "I planned this show and I put it on the road. And my word goes."
There was a long silence.
Then Pete said: "Don't start nothing now, Shoney. He's right anyhow. You and me never could have figured this out, and, like he says, he's got the biggest rap. Let him take the cut any way he wants."
"Besides all that," Sal said, "as long as I got one murder rap around my neck I can't see how it would be much worse having another one."
"All right," Shoney said at last, still staring at the barrel of the .38, "cut it any goddamn way you want."
Sal put the .38 back in the shoulder holster and opened the satchel. He took out the stacks of bills in their brown paper wrappers, and the coins in the leather bag.
"I'll count it out," he said. "You check it, Shoney."
Sal laid the flashlight so the beam fell across the table. Then he counted the money out into four piles of a little less than four thousand dollars each. He pulled two of the piles toward him. "That's Joey's and this is mine," he said. "I'll keep Joey's in case he changed his mind. Check?" He stared at Shoney, watching for a move, watching for anything, but the fight was gone out of Shoney. Sal made a mental note of that; looking at the barrel of a .38 was too much for Shoney. In a real tough spot -- like maybe the next job would be -- Shoney might not have what it takes. It looked like Shoney would have to go. "Check?" Sal repeated it, bitterly and contemptuously.
"Check," said Shoney.
"That okay, Pete?"
"That's okay," Pete said.
"Okay," said Sal. He picked up his stack of bills and stuffed them into his pockets. "I advise you guys," he said, "not to flash this all at once. That's just what the coppers will be watching for. Guys like us, flashing a lot of money."
"It ain't much money," said Shoney, sullenly.
"It's enough. It's too much to flash. You take it easy with that dough."
"Sure," Pete said. "We'll take it easy."
"And remember another thing. The next one is going to be better. No chicken feed like sixteen thousand bucks. The next one we'll get enough so we can really go places. We can retire. We can take it on the lam, out of the state, out of the country." He said that, because he wanted them on his side, he wanted them loyal, but already, in his mind, he had counted them out. They weren't good enough, either one of them. "You remember Brink's?"
"Sure do."
"Yeah.. One, two, three million, something like that: And don't think we won't need a deal like that."
"What do you mean, need it?" Shoney asked.
Sal fixed him with a severe look. "We are too hot. On account of that babe getting bumped off, accidentally like she did, we are too hot. We need a big one so we can pull stakes."
They all fell silent, and then Sal said: "Well, I'm going to blow. I want this satchel and the .38 at the bottom of the river. Don't you guys get picked up with any hardware on you, either. Watch your step. I'll see you."
He drove his jalopy to the Belleville Turn-pike but turned off on the River Road and parked. He walked out on the bridge, looked carefully every way and then pitched the satchel, and the gun and holster. He could not see it go, but he heard it splash. He still had the .32 Mauser.
Since he didn't want to carry all that money around, Sal decided to pay a visit to Angela. When he arrived at her apartment, she was sitting at the kitchen table dressed in a rose-colored bathrobe. She appeared to have nothing on underneath it, her full breasts partially exposed at the loose-fitting top of it. Her full lips were sullen and there was a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses in front of her.
"What are you doing?" he asked. "Getting plastered?"
She said thickly, "Not getting. Have got. Have got plastered."
"What's got you on edge, babe? Waiting around for me to get back here and fuck you?"
Her voice came, muffled and filled with self-pity, whiskey and other ingredients. "Don't you think I get tired sitting here all alone, wondering where you are, wondering what in hell you're doing? Don't you think I get worried?"
"There's nothing to worry about," Sal said gruffly. "What we both could use is a nice hot bath and a little lovin'."
"You think sex solves everything, don't you?" Angela said angrily. But her cunt started . to moisten, in spite of her ambivalent feelings towards Sal at that moment.
"I got some stuff to do downstairs, so how about you run us a hot bath with bubblebath and all the trimmings and I'll be right up."
Angela dragged herself to the bathroom and started to prepare their bath. Sal certainly was a tough one, but unfortunately, he was all she had.
Sal quickly stashed his loot in a disconnected flue pipe in the basement and replaced the dust he'd removed in the process. Then he hurried upstairs to see how Angela was doing with their bath.
"Hey, kiddo," he sneaked up behind her and kissed her on the back of the neck.
Angela squirmed at his touch, feeling ticklish and aroused at the same time.
"It's going just fine, Sal, honey," Angela said, turning around to face him. Sal took her in his arms and her loose-fitting robe came undone completely. Sal brushed it off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. He kissed her full on the mouth and Angela pressed her crotch into him.
"Mmmmm ... that's real good, babe," Sal said softly as they came out of the kiss.
"I try my best," Angela told him, only half-kidding.
Sal pressed his flaccid penis against Angela's body in a grinding motion. He had so much on his mind, that he was a little worried that he wouldn't be able to get his cock up. Angela started to undress him, slowly and carefully, Sal standing there motionless, enjoying the attention. First, she unbuttoned his shirt, unfastening each button with almost excruciating care. Sal bent down to tongue her as she started to unzip his pants. They moved their tongues into each other's mouth, probing and sucking as Angela undressed him. When he was completely naked, he took her by the hips and jerked his body back and forth against hers, pretending to fuck her.
"Oh Sal, you're such a kidder!" Angela laughed.
They slipped into the hot, steamy tub, scented with fragrant powders and oils. Angela's wet tits, bobbed provocatively in the bubble-filled water, and Sal was filled with a sudden urge to suck on them.
"Come here, honey tits!" Sal said, pulling her to him, as the bath water sloshed over a little onto the floor.
"Oh Sal, you play so rough!" Angela giggled as Sal grabbed hold of one of her tits and practically swallowed it. He sucked hard on the warm flesh mound and when he let go of the suction force, he swirled his tongue around and around on the dusky, upturned nipple.
"Oooooo ... " Angela sighed, relishing the sensation in the warmth of the bath water.
"You've sure got a terrific pair," Sal slurped, starting in on the other tit. He felt his prick jerk a little, and for a moment at least, he thought that he'd be able to concentrate on some good, old-fashioned sex for a while.
Angela reached for a large bar of bath soap and began to do a thorough soap job on Sal's body. She paid careful attention to his hardening cock and hairy balls. She rubbed the bar firmly against his long shaft and felt it swell under her touch.
"I think he likes that!" Angela teased.
"Huh? Wha?" Sal asked, having been distracted.
"Peter," Angela said.
"Peter who?" Sal asked, starting to get annoyed.
"Peter the penis!" Angela said, laughing at his ridiculousness.
"Yeah, yeah, babe. I see what ya mean!" Sal said, forcing a laugh.
"Look, Sal, just relax a little, okay? Like you always tell me to do, okay Sal, honey, okay?"
"Sure, babe, sure. Just relax, right." Sal just couldn't seem to keep his mind off his worries, but he'd have to try a little harder or Angela would start asking more questions. And that was one thing he didn't want to deal with.
Angela was getting a little suspicious. Maybe this time, Sal had done something terrible. Sal caught that look in her eye and shot a rather hateful and menacing one back, so Angela decided to stay out of his mess and just fuck the guy. If he wanted to get himself killed, let him.
Angela lowered her mouth to Sal's semi-erect dick and planted a small kiss on the head of it, before lunging at the shaft with her tongue. She licked it rapidly, moving her mouth up and down, up and down.
"Oh Angie ... that feels real nice," Sal said.
Angela groped for his balls under the bath water and when she found them, she moved them around in her fingers, feeling their strange rough/soft texture and lump consistency. As she stroked and massaged his balls, she continued to tongue his cock. Periodically, when she got to the top of it, she would flick her tongue around the head of it or suck as hard as she could on that sensitive piece of skin, before traveling back down his meaty shaft.
Sal lay back., in the water lazily, letting Angela work her mouth on his precious prick. She wasn't the best cock sucker he'd ever been with, but she had sincerity and enthusiasm. Yeah, that was it, sincerity and enthusiasm. Those were the qualities that he appreciated about Angela most. She sucked hard on his prick head and Sal felt the pressure building in his balls. Sincerity and enthusiasm and that great pair of tits of hers!
"Sal ... am I doing you okay?" Angela looked up between his legs.
Sal felt a little contemptuous of her for a moment. "Whadya stop for? Sure, you're doing great. Just great. Best head I ever got," Sal lied weakly.
Angela, filled with fresh enthusiasm, attacked Sal's rod with even greater energy. She awkwardly positioned her body so that her head was in a better position to give him maximum coverage in her mouth. She teased his prick, taking in an inch or so of it, then releasing it, slowly. She increased her rhythm gradually, taking in more and more of his delighted cock each time, until she was deep-throating him.
"Oh my God!" Sal wailed, trying to keep his wad in place.
Angela finally swallowed most of his meat, taking the thick shaft in up to Sal's balls. Once his penis was down her throat, she did the best she could to flick her tongue around on it.
"Oh ... baby you're going to make me come!" Sal screamed, feeling the intensity grow in his blood engorged tool.
But Angela continued to suck his cock relentlessly. She became drunk with the power she had over him for a few minutes, when she was deciding for once, if and when she'd allow him to come.
Sal, who usually held up pretty well under pressure, felt his reserves of control draining rapidly. He hadn't necessarily intended to shoot his wad down Angie's throat, or at least he wanted to be the one to announce it if that was the way things were going to go. But hell, he couldn't even think straight or see straight for that matter!
"Argh ... omigod! I'm going to come!" Sal screamed finally, unable to hold his load any longer. Angela enjoyed watching him while he climaxed and felt the tension in his body. Sal felt like he was falling over the edge of a giant cliff and that he had no control over how long he fell or where he would land.
"Ooooooo ... mmmmmmm ... " he sighed as his exploding penis sent shot after shot of hot sperm flying down Angela's throat. She kept swallowing the semen as it flew out of his prick, and because of the way his dick was positioned in her throat, she barely tasted the spermy fluid or gagged on it like she usually did.
Sal came back down to earth very slowly. The sensuous bath water had intensified his experience along with his need to escape his problems.
"That was incredible, Angela," Sal sighed, opening his eyes again and reaching out to her. The bath water had cooled some and there was a great deal of it on the floor.
Sal planted an obligatory kiss on Angela's mouth, which was a little sore from all that sucking she had been doing.
"You want I should go down on you now?" Sal asked, suddenly realizing that his partner might need a little more to get her rocks off.
They soaped each other gently and with warm familiarity and then showered together to rinse off their bodies. Sal's played-out prick welcomed the respite, since the night was young. There was always the chance that even if he and Angela didn't fool around, that some other pussy would want a few inches of it.
When they had dried off completely, Sal followed Angela into the dark bedroom. She stretched her clean, soft body out on the bed and Sal climbed on top of her. "I bet you are tired, aren't ya, Sal?" Angela asked, with almost motherly concern in her voice.
"Nah. I'm okay," Sal answered, always playing the inexhaustible stud. Even though she chucked around a few extra pounds, Sal liked the soft, warm feeling of Angela's full figure against his own small frame. Maybe that meant he really wanted to fuck his mother, Sal told himself, laughing wryly inside. He let his tongue explore Angela's warm body with new interest. He rammed his, tongue into one of her ears and then pressed his wet mouth to the nape of her neck.
"Mmmm, that feels nice, Sal honey," Angela sighed appreciatively.
He moved his tongue down to her full breasts, licking and nibbling at them as if for the first time. Angela cooed delightedly and Sal felt his proud pecker start to jerk with excitement once again.
"Are you going to eat me out, Sal?" Angela asked, sounding a bit drowsy.
"Sure, babe. Whatever you want," Sal told her, running his tongue down from her tits to her round belly. He pressed his face into her pubic bush and enjoyed the damp, rough texture of it against his face. He pushed his nose into her clitoris, inhaling her distinctive scent and then set to work on her clitoris. But, Sal noticed suddenly that Angela wasn't responding the way she usually did when he worked on her clit. He looked up at her from between her legs and realized that somehow she had managed to fall asleep. He half-smiled and covered her up, her round white belly moving up and down with her deep heavy breathing.
"C'est la vie," Sal told himself, recalling a well-worn phrase from high school French class. He put on his trousers and shirt, went to the kitchen and put on his blue jacket and hat. He took the .32 Mauser out of the jacket pocket, looked at it, pulled out the clip, saw that it was loaded, slid it back with a click and set the safety catch. Then, he put it back and pulled his hat brim down, letting his eyes go like slits. He felt smooth and cool. He stood and listened and he could hear Angela beginning to snore.
He went out on the rickety stairway and started down. The April night was soft and moist with the vapors from the North Jersey marshes. Sal did not look back at the house when he left.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sal drove away in his jalopy, past the cherry trees whose blossoms gleamed white like snowflakes in the fringe of his headlights, past the brook that was called the Second River. He had stashed most of the money, but he still had enough. He was entitled to a little splash, and a splash he was going to have. This wasn't the big time yet, but it was a taste. It was the shape of things to come.
He drove down. a side street toward the river road and parked, throwing the ignition keys into a vacant lot just for the hell of it, and then he walked back to Broadway, got a Number 13 bus and went down into central Newark. He got off at the Four Corners and took another bus to Penn Station.
When he got there he went to a locker and got out the suitcase he had stashed there the day before. It was full of new clothes, all new clothes, and different from the kind he had been wearing. He grabbed 'a taxi and went to the Conestoga Hotel. It was one of the three or four best hotels in town, and he figured that was smart, too. Nobody would be looking for him in a first-class hotel.
A bellboy carried the suitcase to the desk, and the room clerk looked up inquiringly.
"Bennett," Sal said. "Mr. Bennett."
The clerk fiddled around with his registration cards and then said: "Oh, certainly. You phoned yesterday. Your room is all ready, Mr. Bennett. Three-Thirteen. Just sign here, please. Take the gentleman up, boy."
Sal didn't like those numbers, in bronze, on the door. Three-Thirteen. Three One Three. 313. Well, what the hell, what was a number? He tipped the boy and slammed the door. He checked the spring lock and it was locked. He opened the suitcase and got out the new suit he had bought the day before. He put it on and studied the effect in the mirror. Nothing flashy about this. He looked like a salesman for a big company, and that was what he wanted to look like. On the register he had signed "James Bennett, Chicago, Illinois," and in the space where it said "Firm represented" he had written "U.S. Steel." Well, if the cops ever checked that registration, there wouldn't be a thing to tip him off. It was a good touch. He gave himself a tight-lipped grin.
He shoved the .32 Mauser into the coat pocket, took all the price tags off, and went down into the lobby, flinging the key on the desk. He took a taxi back to Penn Station. Now he was going to find that girl, and there was enough money in his inside coat pocket to start breaking her down. If that wasn't enough, there was more, and even more. There wasn't any end to the money, in the game he was playing.
The name was Carola. It was plain Carola Jones when he first knew her, but now she was on the road up and she called herself Carola Dawn. Now she was in a night club. He read about her in the papers. The place was called the Rococo Room and it was in the upper fifties just off Seventh Avenue. Not too hot a spot, but expensive enough.
When Sal was seated next to the stage, after paying off a snotty waiter, he let his mind wander to very physical thoughts about Carola. Although they had never fooled around, Sal had several ideas of what he wanted the two of them to do together. Wouldn't it be great to make it with her, hot and heavy like right in her dressing room!
Sal pictured them back stage after she finished her show that night. She'd be really worked up, the way all those performers get after giving it their all for a show. Sal would be waiting back there for her with a bottle of chilled champagne. Carola would be surprised, but very pleasantly so. ...
"What are you doing here?" Carola asked, bursting into her dressing room.
"I've got a surprise for you," Sal told her lasciviously.
"Is that it in your pants?" Carola asked, looking directly at his bulging crotch.
"You bet your sweet pussy!" Sal said, laughing out loud.
"Help me slip into something more comfortable," Carola said, motioning for Sal to unzip her form-fitting sequined gown. Sal came over to oblige her, inhaling the rich scent of her expensive perfume. As his fingers came in contact with her soft flesh, he felt his cock jump a little in his pants. He pressed his mouth to her naked back and rubbed his face in her soft skin.
"Go easy, baby," Carola told him, pulling .away from him to slip out of her dress and hang it in the closet. Sal kept his eyes on her every second, taking in her lovely form, clad only in lacy underthings.
"Like what you see Mr. Hotstuff?" Carola asked him, covering her body with a rosy-pink satin robe.
"It's all right," Sal told her coolly, trying not to betray hid rising excitement.
"I'd love a drink. Want to open this up?" Carola asked him fetchingly.
"Sure, doll," Sal said, popping the cork on the expensive champagne.
"I really need to cool my engine down," Carola said. "That show was really something."
"Don't get too cooled down, babe," Sal said suggestively. He came up behind Carola and put his arms around her. He felt her warm to his touch, so he lowered his mouth to the nape of her neck. He kissed her lovingly and then rammed his tongue into her ear.
"Ooooo ... " Carola moaned. "That feels real nice."
Sal turned her around to face him and then he pulled her mouth to his. He let his tongue penetrate her roughly and then continued to suck and probe as deeply as he could. Carola responded to him with her entire body. Sal could feel the heat and moisture being generated from her crotch.
"Oh Sal ... "Carola breathed out as the kiss ended. Her hands wandered down to caress his penis through his pants. Sal was just a bit embarrassed by his hardness, since he wanted to seem rather aloof to Carola.
"You are so hard, Sal," Carola said as she caressed his swollen shaft. She boldly unzipped his fly and removed his revved-up rod.
"Be gentle with me," Sal laughed, enjoying her tender touch on his privates.
"Hey! That's my line," Carola teased him.
She appreciated a rod like Sal's. It was big and meaty and extremely responsive to her touch. She let go of it for a moment and lifted a glass of champagne. She took a sip of the bubbly liquid and then offered Sal a taste of it. Suddenly she came up with an idea for a sexy, new, swizzle stick. She picked up Sal's erect prick and dipped it into the champagne.
"Yeow!" Sal screamed, expressing the sentiments of his surprised prick.
"Just thought I'd give you a little extra stimulation," Carola kidded him. She lifted his cock out of the champagne and licked it clean.
"That's more like it," Sal told her.
Carola took his dick in her hands and started to massage it gently. She stroked his balls, then lovingly ran her hand up and down his meaty shaft. She established a slow but intense rhythm, which she increased very carefully. Sal's cock was quite responsive and he decided to himself if that's what she felt like doing with him, he certainly wouldn't deny her of her pleasure. Carola rubbed it and rubbed it, till Sal, aroused out of his mind, released his hot, spermy wad, shooting it all over Carola's robe.
Sal was knocked out-of his reverie suddenly by Carola's singing. After her performance, she turned to go off stage. Sal noticed that she stopped for a moment and looked at him with infinite poise. Her chin stuck out, as she looked at him with undeniable disdain and something else in her eyes, and then the look changed. She recognized him. What was in her eyes now? Amusement? Scorn? Some kind of a mixture, and Sal didn't add it up but whatever it was he didn't like it, and the rage began to boil up within him again.
"Pint-size!" she said. "Why it's Pint-size!" The low voice was higher now, it wasn't moaning low, but still there was in it the echo of distant tolling bells. ...
"Hello," Sal said. "If you weren't high-hat you would sit down for a minute."
"I'm not high-hat," she said. She sat down at the table, bringing herself down gently as though she were infinitely precious, enormously fragile. It was the dress that made her do that, the dress designed for the concert stage, the long train, the bits stuck on here and there, the spangles.
The leader of the orchestra glanced down at them, the blue spotlight was gone, and the orchestra began playing. The jaded dolls came to life, forgot Carola who had given them a momentary jolt through the brain centers, through the bluish-gray mass of their brains where the instincts for life and passion lay. The jaded dolls began their lackadaisical dance once again on the postage stamp waxed square of the floor. The music was jumpy and they all moved like marionettes at the ends of strings. ...
"Why do you keep coming here?" she "It's a free country," said Sal.
She looked him over and, although he was seated, with most of him from the chest down hidden by the table, yet the way she looked him over was as though she had looked him over from head to foot. Her full underlip drooped, and the touch of scorn came back to it. There was amusement, too. Sal felt the savage twist in his belly, the hot surge of desire.
"The last time you came here," she said, "I asked you not to come."
"It's a free country," he repeated. Then he said: "This is a public place. I pay my way."
She looked at him curiously.
"I haven't got anything against you personally," she said.
"That's nice," he said. "What the hell made you say that?"
"I thought maybe you got the idea I didn't like you or something."
"That's the idea I got, all right."
"No, that isn't it," she said. "I just can't have guys stalling around here waiting for me, that's all. It's not good for my business." She got up.
"Sit down a minute," he said. "What the hell's the rush?"
She sat down again. "I have to go out and get a little rest and freshen up for the next turn."
"All right. You can talk to me for at least another minute without hurting your reputation or spoiling your rest, can't you?"
"Yes," she said. "About that long."
The headwaiter appeared at the side of the table. Sal looked up at him, waiting for some kind of a nasty crack.
"Everything all right?" the headwaiter asked. Then he added, as an afterthought, "Sir?"
"Everything's okay," said Sal. A piece of a small grin came to the corners of his mouth; that sixty bucks had finally penetrated the guy's thick skull.
A glimmer of interest came into Carola's eyes.
"What did you do to him?" she asked. "He must like you."
"I paid him to like me," Sal said shortly.
"Oh," she said.
He saw that she was studying him closely, but she revealed nothing, her eyes showed nothing. She made another motion as though to pick up the train of her skirt and rise.
"Don't be in a rush," he said. "Are you afraid to talk to me?"
"No," she said. "I'm not afraid to talk to you. What would give you that idea?"
"I thought you were in a hell of a rush to go."
"I told you. I have to take a break and, besides that, the manager doesn't like me to sit at tables."
"What the hell do you care what the manager likes?"
"I have to eat. It's a living."
He spoke low and angrily. "You don't have to care. You don't have to give a damn. You're good enough so you can tell all the managers to go to. hell. All the managers everywhere. Aren't you?"
"No, that isn't so. I'm not that good."
But her eyes opened wide, the wide look looked at him hungrily, and he suddenly knew that he had found a way inside this. girl -- a way that was even better than money -- and he marked it down where it would stay marked down, in his mind. The old ego. Well, he understood that; he had his share. Everyone was the same when you shook them down at last. All you had to do was tell them how good they were and you had them. They all came crawling for the little words of praise, the little crumbs of sentences that showed them they were as precious as they thought they were. Everyone, everywhere, wanted to hear those things. Except him. He didn't need anyone to tell him. He knew; he told himself; that was enough. Nobody could tell himself any better than he could tell himself.
But Carola ... She was giving him that look, and he knew that he had found the way inside her.
"I have to go now," she said, and this time she got up, pulled her train straight behind her and left the room. He thought she would be back, and, later, she was. He had pushed the right button, the button that made her work. It was like pulling the strings of a marionette.
The waiter came with the sizzling steak on a platter, the french fried potatoes.
"Vegetables?" Sal asked. "Aren't there any vegetables?"
The waiter looked surprised. "Vegetables," he said. "Them's extra. You want vegetables?"
"No," Sal said. "Rape the vegetables."
"You want I send the wine waiter?"
Sal looked at his drink. It was nearly finished.
"Yes," he said. "Send him. I want champagne."
The wine waiter came.
"Champagne," Sal said.
The wine waiter reeled off a list of champagne names.
"The best," said Sal. "I want the best."
He began eating the steak and fried potatoes and in a little while the wine waiter came back with the champagne in a bucket. He pulled the cork with a flourish and a pop and poured the champagne into Sal's glass.
Sal raised the glass and said: "Here's how."
The wine waiter gave him a stolid look and departed. Sal took a big gulp of the champagne and put down the glass. He didn't like the taste of it a hell of a lot, but champagne was what he wanted. The steak was rare and juicy with blood. Sal liked that all right.
When Carola came out again, she was wearing a low-cut dress with a flaring skirt, like a ballet skirt. The blue spotlight followed her to the stage, and all the marionettes sat still at their tables to hear her sing. She sang all the old songs they liked and some new ones, too; and the flowing liquor had made its effect and the marionettes clapped and whistled and cheered. Sal watched her, saw the hungry look in her eyes, saw her drinking it in. She bowed deep and came down the stage. She looked at Sal and stopped, and the hungry look was still in her eyes.
"How did I do?"
"You did fine, baby. There isn't anybody as good as you."
The drooping underlip curled upward a little, as though she were tasting something good, something luscious, sweet.
"Thank you," she said. She said it humbly and proudly at the same time, and the hungry look was still there, but there was another look, too; she looked at Sal almost as though she liked him.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'm not supposed to."
He looked at her blond hair, combed back straight and shiny across her forehead, and then falling in little ringlets around her neck and her ears and her forehead. She had a complexion to go with it, too; peaches and cream, it was called, that complexion. He looked at her body, undressing her in his mind to see how she was made. She was made small, delicately, and yet compact. There was a quiver, a vitality, to her body, and although she was delicate she was not weak, not fragile. She was all there, everything was all there. She had none of Angela's flabbiness, none of Angela's opulence, overblownness, she was built tight and firm everywhere. She was built, all right. Built like a brick outhouse.
"Sit down," he said again.
She sat down. "For a minute," she said. "That's my last show. I'm going home."
Sal looked at his watch. It was only a quarter to two.
"Lots of time to do things yet," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"I've got a car as long as a block and plenty of money. Why don't we go someplace? How about the Crown Club?" It was the most expensive place in New York he had ever heard of. He wondered why he had made that crack about the car as long as a block. Well, what the hell. ...
She looked at him keenly, and there was another look in her eyes now. It also was a kind of hunger, but a different kind. He understood it better than the other.
"Where did you get the car and all the money?" she said.
Sal shrugged his shoulders. "I've got it," he said.
"But where from? You didn't used to have any money."
"My dad was a plumber," Sal said. "You remember that?"
"Yes, sort of. I sort of remember."
"Well, I got into the plumbing business, too. Only I became a contractor. None of that hard work, like my dad used to do. Materials are high, hard to get, but I know how to get them and I'm cleaning up. Before I'm finished I'll have a hell of a lot more money."
"Is that true? Did you really do that?"
"Of course it's true. Of course I did. Sal Naples is no dope. You didn't think I was going to turn out to be just a plumber, did you?"
"I never thought about it at all, Sal," she said. He noticed that she had used his name for the first time.
"Well, that's the way it happened. Tonight -- tonight I'm celebrating a big contract. Twenty thousand dollars I made out of it. Big apartment in Belleville."
She looked at him with a look that he understood, the hungry look that had nothing to do with the hunger for praise, success, or whatever that other look was.
"I'm rolling in dough," he said. "I want somebody to help me spend it."
He watched her keenly. Then she said, with a brittle little laugh: "I wouldn't mind helping you spend it."
"Well, what in hell are we waiting for? Get on your pants and saddle up."
The language didn't shock her. He hadn't expected it would. He wouldn't expect a lot worse language than that to shock her. Not her, for all her delicacy, all her polite ways, all her playing high-hat and hard to get. She had a belly like the rest of them, more so even than most of them; the hunger in her eyes told him that.
"We might get into trouble," she said.
"How? What trouble?"
"I've got a boyfriend. You didn't think I wouldn't have a boyfriend, did you?" She said it defensively, as though he had suggested a deadly insult. Damn, she wanted everything. Praise, she wanted praise; she wanted money or the things money could buy, and she had to have a boyfriend, too; she had to have a boyfriend so she could tell herself that she was all there as a female.
"Fuck your boyfriend," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" The ladylike manner asserted itself and he said to himself: The bitch. The goddamned bitch. The more ladylike they are the worse bitches they are.
He twirled the stem of the champagne glass in his hand. "I said, fuck your boyfriend," he said.
"But he's my agent. Bob Gatsby."
"What the hell's an agent?"
"You know, he takes care of my business for me."
"And you take care of his business for him?"
She gave him a blank stare.
Sal poured a little of the flat champagne into his glass, tossed it off and made a face.
"Well, rape your boyfriend," he said. "I can go to the Crown Club alone. Or pick up some other doll, I guess."
He pushed back his chair and she put out her hand as though to restrain him.
"Let me think," she said.
"All right. Think." A little gleam came into his eye. He knew what she was thinking about; she was thinking how she could ditch the other guy.
Then suddenly she turned on him a look filled with friendliness. These babes! They could put on any kind of an act they wanted to, at a moment's notice. He knew he had the whip hand and so he stared at her with hostility.
"Well? You finished thinking?"
"Yes," she said. "I wouldn't mind going to the Crown Club with you, Sal."
"That's nice," he said.
"Just give me time to change."
"Take all the time you want, baby. What about Buster?"
"Bob? You mean Bob?"
"Yeh. What about Bob?"
"He won't be back. He had to go to a late audition in Rockefeller Center."
"Is that good?"
"Well, he's an agent for a lot of people besides me, you see."
He was going to say something but he didn't say it. What he said was: "I'll meet you outside in half an hour. At the curb. I got to get my car out of the garage. Okay?"
"Okay," she said. She went along the edge of the postage stamp dance floor, with her head and chin up, trim as a sailing ship, her firm body etched sharply beneath the flaring ballet skirt and the low-cut bodice, and in his mind's eye he saw through the skirt, saw the firm round hips and the firm young round breasts. The great lady, the great artist. That was the act, he saw it, but he remembered what Shoney used to say, wagging his swarthy head while he said it: "All women are whores at the bottom, Sal, no matter how the hell they act or what they put on for a front. In the end, they're all whores,. and the blondes are the most whorish of them all. ..."
Sal watched her go through the door and he thought of what Shoney had said and he believed it.
He called the waiter, paid his check, left a tip and got out. The orchestra had come back once again and the marionettes, juiced up with alcohol, were bobbing around the tiny waxed floor. He got his coat and gave the sulky girl a dollar bill and she slapped it down on the counter with disgust.
"Go fuck yourself, sister," he said. He turned and went out the main door before she could raise a row. He ducked the doorman who wanted to call a taxi and began walking along the street. What the hell had he made that crack about the car for? Well, he knew why; he wanted to see how Carola would respond to it, and he found out; she responded just the way he figured she would. But the trouble was, he didn't have the car.
He walked toward Seventh Avenue, and glanced at his watch. He had said he would meet Carola in half an hour. He still had twenty-five minutes left. The air was fresh and cool from off the Hudson or wherever it came from, and he felt good, walking on air. The champagne hadn't made him drunk; just made him feel like walking on air.
He crossed Seventh Avenue, walking toward the river, and trying to think what he would tell her to explain away the car he said he'd have and didn't have. Then he stopped stock still. There was a dark parking lot between the buildings; it was closed for the day but there were still three cars there. One was a. big, black, shiny Cadillac. He stood there for a minute and then he crossed himself. This was God; God did this. The big Cad had been put there for him. There weren't any two-ways about it. He had told her about a Cad when there wasn't any Cad, and here was a Cad, waiting for him, just asking to be taken.
He crossed himself again; he had the sense of being overwhelmed by a mysterious and inscrutable fate.
Sal went into the parking lot, looked back once, looked inside the car. There was a copy of the Racing Form on the seat; nothing else. He felt for the ignition keys, they weren't there. The guy who left the Cad in a spot like that was pretty stupid but he wasn't all that stupid. He took the ignition keys. Whoever it was, he was probably plastered in a bar or nightclub somewhere around there. Sal thought of the dancing marionettes. Maybe he was one of them.
Well, the hell with the ignition key. He lifted the hood, crossed the wires, got in behind the wheel. The engine made a little moaning sound and began to purr, like something in a dream. Sal headed out into Seventh Avenue and drove up to the gaudy marquee of the Rococo Club. Carola was waiting against the doorway, with a mink stole around her shoulders. Sal made a mental note of that; those things cost money. Plenty.
"Come on, sister," he said. "Let's go."
He drove across town to the Crown Club and parked in a side street. He couldn't turn the motor off, naturally; he didn't have the keys. He saw that she was watching him, but he wasn't sure that she noticed there were no ignition keys. Some babes didn't know the front end of a car from the back, and maybe this was one of them. He hoped so. Not that it mattered a hell of a lot; he could always think up some explanation if she wanted one. And she didn't seem to want one.
"Can't seem to get the motor turned off," he said. He got out, lifted the hood, fixed the wires and the motor went dead. "That's got it," he said. "Come on, let's go."
Carola hesitated a moment, remaining in the car.
"Sal, why don't we just sit in the car and talk for a while?"
Sal reached through the window and touched her chin with his hand. "Feeling like a little intimate conversation, babe?"
"Sure. Aren't you?" Carola smiled up at him.
Sal chuckled to himself as he got back into the car. He could tell that Carola had love on her mind and he was happy to oblige her. He slid over close to her on the seat and Carola, somewhat unsure of herself, tensed visibly.
"Relax, babe. Let's just enjoy being with each other," Sal told her, trying to be reassuring.
"I know, Sal. It's just that I'm uh, feeling a bit chilly," Carola said, not comfortable admitting to him that the thought of being physically intimate with him was something that she'd have to deal with very slowly.
"I guess I'll have to warm you up," Sal said taking her in his arms and holding her close.
Carola felt safe in his arms. She knew that Sal was your basic animal, but for some reason she felt secure. Maybe it was because she knew somewhere inside her that Sal loved her and only wanted to please her. She didn't think that he would ever do anything to harm her and as crazy as it all seemed, she trusted him.
"I feel good in your arms," she confessed to him softly. Sal hugged her tightly and felt Carola press her body into his.
Sal moved his mouth towards Carola's and the two kissed deeply and passionately. Carola opened her mouth to him, loving the feel of his tongue probing into her. She kissed him back, too, sucking on his tongue and exploring the depths of his mouth.
"Where did you ever learn to kiss like that?" Sal asked her breathlessly, feeling as carried away and unsure of himself as Carola did.
"I just let my body respond," Carola told him frankly, kissing him on the mouth once again. As they kissed, Sal let his hands wander to Carola's firm breasts. He squeezed them gently and searched out the nipples through her silky blouse. He pressed his mouth to her chest and sucked at the nipples through her clothing.
"Mmmmmm ... " Carola sighed. She reached out to touch Sal's face. It was smooth and rough at the same time. She pressed her face against it and their lips found each other again.
"Oh baby, if you had any idea how I felt about you," Sal said, breathing into Carola's ear. He rammed his tongue into it and felt Carola squirm excitedly in response ,to him. He deftly unbuttoned her silk blouse and Carola slipped it off her shoulders. Her ample breasts overflowed from her bra and Sal felt his heart race at the sight of them. He released them quickly from their fabric prison and set to work on them with his mouth. He lapped at them like a baby, then swirled his tongue around each areola in a circular motion.
"You certainly know how to treat a lady," Carola said, lying back and enjoying the attention her tits were receiving. Sal used his hands to caress them gently and then applied his fingers to the nipples, stimulating them as he would a clitoris. The rosy nipples started to harden and Sal lowered his mouth to them and sucked hard.
"My tongue is good for lots of things!" Sal told her provocatively, working her breasts relentlessly.
Carola felt her cunt start to lubricate, readying itself for the potential penis. She stroked Sal's arms and shoulders as he busied himself at her breasts.
"Take off your clothes, Sal," Carola urged him. She helped him remove his jacket, his shirt and t-shirt, so that they were both bare-chested. Carola pressed her face into Sal's hairy chest and swirled her tongue around his breasts as he had done to her.
"Nice ... Oooooo real nice Carola," Sal said appreciatively. He realized that his breasts and nipples were just as sensitive as a woman's and he really enjoyed having them stimulated. He ran his fingers through Carola's thick, soft hair and felt his prick perk up inside his pants.
"I feel like a kid, Sal, fooling around in a car like this," Carola told him with a giggle.
"Yeah well, I can't remember feeling this good in high school," Sal told her frankly. They held each other close for a moment and each could feel the other breathing and their hearts racing. Sal moved his hand slowly up Carola's thigh. It was lean and firm and he let his fingers do the walking right up to her lace-covered cunt. As they tongued each other again with nervous passion, Sal let his middle finger brush the center of Carola's crotch. He was pleased to discover that it was wet to the touch; her love juice machine was working overtime.
"Please don't touch me there," Carola said, pulling away suddenly. She fumbled with her bra and. blouse and finally got them back on again. Sal stared at her in amazement.
"What are you doing? I thought you wanted to fool around a little?" he asked, hurt and angry.
"I thought I did, but I don't feel like it now," Carola told him honestly. Sal lunged for her, not thinking clearly and Carola, who happened to have her purse in her hand, bopped him hard on the head.
"God damn it to hell!" Sal said fuming. He ran outside to start up the car again and recklessly drove Carola home. He dropped her off and as he drove away, Sal saw a man with squarish shoulders, a stockily built man get out of a taxi. Sal watched as he walked up the brownstone steps, let himself into Carola's front door with a key and shut the door behind him.
As Sal sped away, he attracted the attention of the police. But the Cadillac leapt from seventy to ninety miles an hour and the lights from the police car dropped out of sight. Sal skidded down a freeway ramp to get out of the way and ended up smacking right into a pillar. He bounded out of the car and ducked into the nearby produce markets, which were at that time of the morning in full swing. Then, when the coast seemed clear, Sal caught a tube train at the Hudson Terminal and made his way back to his hotel in Newark.
Once in the hotel, Sal walked quickly to the bar. He'd had a rough night and he just wanted to forget. Carola had left him more frustrated than ever and all that he wanted to do now was choke down a little booze and get his rocks off.
Sitting down at the bar, Sal was joined a few moments later by an extremely sexy young woman, practically wearing her pussy on her sleeve. Sal sensed right away that she was a prostitute, but that didn't bother him. Snatch was snatch, he thought and now that I've got the money to pay for it, I might as well get some. Besides, he told himself, it was easier this way. No games to play, no nothing. Just open your wallet and drop your pants. It was almost too simple.
After a few drinks and some rather provocative conversation, Sal and his new friend, Mona, decided to go up to his room to get to know each other a little better. They happened to be alone in the elevator, and Sal checked Mona out; his eyes moving up and down her shapely body, imagining how she would look naked and stretched out for him in his bed.
He moved over to her and bluntly caressed her vulva outside her clinging dress.
"Ooooo!" Mona squealed. "You're really hot for it, aren't you sport?"
Sal was pleasantly surprised to discover that the young woman had no underpants on. He hiked up her dress quickly and copped a cheap feel before they got out of the elevator.
Once in his room, they undressed each other hastily, especially since Mona didn't have all that much to take off. They faced each other, completely naked, and Sal smiled appreciatively at her young, shapely body. She looked almost innocent to Sal, but he realized that she must know more and must have had more tricks than he and all his friends had had put together.
Mona grinned at him and lasciviously licked her lips. She came over to Sal and took his cock between her hands. Rolling it back and forth gently, she appraised the size of it and admired the way it had already started to swell.
"Ummm hmmm, it's nice and big," she said. "Real big."
"Aw come on, honey," Sal said, wanting to believe her. "I bet you say that to all your customers."
"But maybe all my customers have big ones," Mona said slyly.
Sal let Mona lead him over to the bed. He felt tired suddenly from all he had been through, but this was no time to take a nap.
Mona positioned herself between Sal's legs and started to lap hungrily at Sal's balls. She let her mouth slip down to his thighs, licking and biting them and building up the anticipation of when she would put her pretty mouth on his prick proper.
"I'm gonna suck you off real good, honey!" Mona promised provocatively. She worked her way back up his thighs and planted wet kisses on Sal's hairy balls. His cock wagged anxiously, and Mona took the semi-flaccid member in her mouth.
"Ooooo, baby ... Suck that thing!" Sal told her.
Mona moved his meat around in her mouth, flicking her tongue deftly around the head and shaft of his penis. She took him quickly back into her throat, stroking his balls with her hands and fingertips. After sucking on his thick tool for a while, Mona released it from her mouth for a moment to work it over with her hands. She wet them with her tongue and used one hand to jerk him off and the other to concentrate on the stimulation of the head.
"Mmmmmmm ... mmmmmm ... " Sal moaned contentedly.
Mona forced his cock back into her mouth with a ferocious suction action. Sal felt like she was going to swallow his rod whole. But, when she started to move it in and out of her mouth again, Sal realized that his prick was still in one piece and attached to his body.
"Oh God ... you're going to make me come!" Sal wailed.
"That's the general idea," Mona said, stopping the sucking action for a moment.
"But I don't want to come in your mouth. OOOOO! I want to fuck you!" Sal screamed.
"SSssure! It's your dollar," Mona laughed as she eased his cock out of her mouth. "But you can't just ram your rod into me. You gotta get me ready first. Make me kinda wet and all that."
"What do you think I am, some kinda stupid jerk?" Sal asked her indignantly. "Jeeze, baby, give me a little credit."
"Sure, hon. I'll give you credit," Mona told him, smiling at his sensitivity.
Sal stretched the young woman out on her back and proceeded to explore the upper portion of her body with his tongue. Their lips finally met and Sal plunged his tongue as deeply as he could into her mouth. He nibbled at her neck and shoulders and then smacked his mouth at her champagne cup tits.
Mona was responsive to Sal. She knew that he was indeed, kind of a dumb schmo, but his special brand of street sense made him sexy.
As Sal lowered his mouth to her belly, he inhaled the familiar scent of her moistened cunt. He buried his face in her pubic hair and pushed his mouth awkwardly into her vulva. Searching out her love button, he licked at it hard with his tongue, while he inserted his thick fuck finger between her labia and into her vagina.
"Ooooo ... that feels good!" Mona moaned. "I'm just about ready for you, sport," she told him, a little anxious to get this trick over with. It had been a busy day and a very long night and she really wanted to get some sleep. It did feel good to be with this guy, but she was much to tired and distracted to really get into it. But, all of her acting lessons had really paid off. She thought of herself as the Sarah Bernhardt of the street.
Sal's cock stuck up straight, indicating that he was good and ready to get down. He positioned himself so that his prick was in the immediate vicinity of Mona's snatch and then he entered her slowly. It felt good to be inside finally and Sal pumped his prick into her pussy hard., Mona moved her hips to complement his thrusting action and she put her legs on his shoulders so that Sal could penetrate her vagina even deeper. Mona was highly aroused at this point, in spite of her distractedness and to her excitement, she felt herself approaching her climax. She came suddenly, her body spasming wildly and when she was finished, Sal who had been watching her with delight, shot his hot load deep into her honeypot. When their passions were spent, they collapsed into each other's arms and fell asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
A telephone bell was ringing and it woke him up. A bar of sunlight fell across the room and Sal blinked, staring at it, staring at the room. The telephone bell kept on ringing. Then he discovered that it was on a stand next to his bed. He picked it up, answered it.
"Mr. Bennett?" It was a clipped female voice. "It's twelve o'clock noon."
"Thanks," he said and put the telephone back. He looked around the room and remembered where he was. He didn't feel so hot; he had a headache; he guessed champagne wasn't his dish. He must have left a call at the desk, but he couldn't recall doing so, or why, at first. Then he did remember. He left the call because at the time it seemed a good idea; Mr. Bennett of U.S. Steel would certainly leave a call. ...
He raised up his head again from the pillow, and the pain was terrific. No more champagne for him. He hated the idea of getting up and going out for breakfast, but then he remembered that this was the kind of hotel where you could have it sent up.
He had it sent up.
Ham and eggs and two pots of coffee made him feel better. Then he shaved, had a shower, got dressed. He had a couple of things he wanted to do, but there was no hurry about them; and at least one of them would be best done after dark. He put his cigarettes on the arm of an upholstered maple chair and pulled it up beside the window, where he could watch the traffic in Broad Street, three floors below.
Today was today, but yesterday kept coming back to him. The high-winding intoxication was gone; he was no longer walking on air; the reaction had set in. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, thinking over yesterday. All in all, it wasn't too good. He thought he was smart but in a lot of ways he was as dumb as they came. He examined himself and his actions with cold bitterness, bitterness tinged with remorse -- not remorse for anything he had done, but remorse for the dumb plays he'd made.
"Sal," he told himself, "sometimes you don't make a hell of a lot of sense."
There was that business with Carola, for instance. Why the hell did he have to slug her? It was the worst possible thing he could have done. But she goaded him. Her hot body pressed against him, hard and soft at the same time' ,,and then the belt in the face with the handbag. He didn't have anything against women, and yet he was always doing something like that to them. They goaded him, and when a woman goaded him he went off his rocker.
His mother, for instance. A little woman, hard-working, with lines of anxiety at her eyes and mouth, trying to make him go the. way she thought he ought to go, being exasperated because he was going some other way. He had slugged her, too. Physically, a couple of times. And always, day after day, in some other way. When she tried to tell him what to do he went off his rocker. What the hell, he couldn't help it. If these dames wouldn't leave him alone, if they insisted on infuriating him, what the hell could they expect? What they got was just a reflex of mind and muscle.
He thought about the girl cashier. He remembered how the door sprang open, all of its own accord, and he remembered how she tumbled out head first, spurting blood. He put his hand across his eyes, because he didn't like the look of that memory. But it came back again, and along with it came another thought, murky and formless in the depths of his mind. Did he, Sal Naples, shoot her on purpose? Did some screwball twist way down deep in him, in the back of his mind, in his gut or heart or wherever these screwball twists came from, make his arm aim the pistol at the girl when he meant to aim it at the cop?
No, it was one of the risks of the game, he told himself, he hadn't counted on it, hadn't wanted it to happen, but it had happened, and he could see now that a thing like that was in the cards. If you were going to play this game you had to figure on somebody getting hurt, somebody getting killed. It was a fact you had to accept. All right. He accepted it. The hell with it.
But there were some really stupid things he'd done; he had been too excited. He thought he was being cool, but he had been excited. He saw that now. The worst bone-head stunt of all was that Cad. A stolen Cad in New York City was the next thing to riding around in the pokey wagon. It was only blind luck he hadn't been picked up even before he got Carola home. It wasn't much better than blind luck that he got away.
He thought about how the Cad's wheel went spinning down West Street in the direction of the Lackawanna ferry, the screaming crash. when the Cad hit the pillar ... It was nothing but luck he hadn't run into more cops when he ducked back along Barclay Street past the telephone building.
Well, that was real kid stuff. He was drunk -- drunk in a funny kind of wayrnot altogether scotch and soda and champagne. Drunk on excitement, drunk an the feel of the .32 Mauser in his pocket, drunk with success, drunk with the feel of Carola's body, pressed hard and soft at the same time, against him. But it was kid stuff. That was what you could expect from Shoney or Pete Koscki or some of those other North Newark punks. It wasn't the way he wanted to be.
There was a sharp knock at the door.
Sal, who had been in his shirtsleeves, grabbed his jacket off the end of the bed and slipped into it. His .32 Mauser was in the jacket pocket. He put his hand around the stock and unlatched the door, opening it a crack. It was one of the maids.
"Don't you want your room done?" she asked.
He took his hand off the stock of the .32 and tried to look and act like Mr. Bennett of U.S. Steel.
"I'm going out in a few minutes," he said. "Are you in a hurry?"
"No, sir, I ain't. But I go off duty at four."
"I'll be out long before that."
"All right, sir. Here's your paper." He opened the door a little wider and she handed him the paper. He shut the door, heard the spring latch snap into position, heard the maid moving off down the hallway, opening another room with her passkey.
Sal sat down in the maple chair and looked at the paper. The big black type of the main headline said: "Three Killer Bandits Hunted." He looked through the story, but there wasn't much more in it than the one he had read in the evening paper the night before. It had the same picture of the girl, Rosa del Valle, on the front page. Underneath it was a story about her and her family. She had been an honor student in school, lived with her father and mother at a number on Mount Hope Street in North Newark. He read it all through twice, then he cut it out with a penknife, folded it up and put it in his pocket. The rest of the paper he stuffed into the wastebasket.
Sal sat down in the maple chair again. He looked at his watch and it was two o'clock. There was a dirty haze rising in the blue sky in the direction of New York.
There were three things he would do better next time. He puffed on his cigarette and ticked them off with his small delicate forefinger. One: Don't get tied up with any dumb bastards like Pete or any jittery ones like Shoney. Pick smarter guys for the team. Two: Don't pick any more spots in North Newark. Get farther away. Three: Make the getaway smarter. Get away faster, slicker and farther.
The end of the cigarette burned his finger, and he made an impatient gesture, stabbing it into the ashtray on the edge of the maple chair.
"Son of a bitch!" he exclaimed.
He got up, got his topcoat out of the closet, put it on and started to go out of the door. Then he stopped. He took the napkin from the Crown Club out of his pocket and, sitting on the bed with the telephone in his hand, called the number.
Carola's voice sounded sleepy.
"This is Sal."
"Oh," she said, and then, after a pause: "Yes?"
"I want to apologize," he said. "I'm sorry about last night. Very sorry."
He waited. There was a long pause. Then she said: "It wasn't your fault, Sal. I lost my head first." There was more then sleepiness in her voice, there was a sort of warm languor.
"Are you mad at me?"
The pause again. "No, Sal. I was for a while but I got over it. It was my fault in the first place."
Sal didn't know exactly what to say. He had hardly expected this.
Then he said: "I'd like to come and see you again and make it up to you."
"All right." He didn't know what her voice held. Possibly indifference.
"When? Tonight?"
"No. Not tonight. Tomorrow night. Pick me up at the club at midnight and take me for a ride. Could you do that?"
"Sure," he said. "Sure." He tried to keep his voice cool, cool and smooth, tried to keep the eagerness back. He wondered how he was going to explain away the Cadillac that he wouldn't have. "Sure," he said again.
"All right. See you then. How's the plumbing business?"
"The what. Oh, fine, fine."
"That's good," she said. "Bye now." She hung up and he sat for a moment with the phone in his hand. Then he put it back in the cradle. What the hell! There was something dizzy about that dame, like all dames. What did she mean by that crack about the plumbing business? Didn't believe him? Had she got him figured out, guessed what kind of a business he was really in? And if so, didn't she care? A swift thought crossed his mind: maybe she was a police plant. No, that was impossible; even if they had figured him in they wouldn't have figured her in. There was nothing that hooked up.
He thought about the warm lazy tone in her voice. Maybe she was like Angela; maybe a sock in the jaw made her feel good. Could that be it?
He picked up his key, went down the elevator, paid another day's room, and went out into the street. The murky gray that had risen from the east now covered the whole sky. The afternoon sunlight, slanting across Broad Street through the hazy sky, was the color of lead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He walked north on Broad Street toward the Four Corners. Before he got to Branford Place he stopped in front of a jewelry store. Aronson's. He could see there was little junk in the window, but not the amount of cheap junk that most of the jewelry stores along there had. He went from one window to the other. At the second window there was a special display; a gold necklace with a single diamond at the end of it. He didn't know a hell of a lot about diamonds, but he could see this was good stuff. Even accounting for the special lighting, it still looked good. There was no price showing. That also told him it was good stuff. He thought how it would look around Carola's neck, what she would say if she saw it there. What way would she say "thank you?" The way he wanted her to? He thought he knew a way into that store, up the fire escape of the drugstore next door and down a sky-light, and that was a way you could go without tripping the goddamn ADT alarm. He knew a guy who got in and out of there that way one time. But of course, all the good stuff would be in a safe. ...
Well, what the hell, that wasn't his racket. He wasn't a sneak thief or a burglar. Leave that to the kids and the stumblebums. If he ever took it into his head to want that rock he would walk in and buy it. Or else ...
He moved back to the door, looking inside, noting the layout, noting how the counters were arranged, how many clerks, everything. There was only one customer inside; this was a high-class place, it never got the kids looking for costume jewelry, fake sapphires, coral beads, all that junk. He saw one of the clerks watching him. Well, rape him, too.
He kept on walking, and at Broad and Market he got on a Number 13 bus. He got off at Mill Street, right on the city line, and walked up through the park. It was getting dusk. When he got within a hundred yards of the house with the rickety stairs he stopped. Stop, look and listen. That was the word. Everything looked all right. An old lady was taking her washing off a line strung from her house to a tree. Two kids about seven to eight years old were having a fight in the middle of the street. The cars looked like the cars that were always parked along there. He began walking slowly up the hill. He stopped again. Stop, look, listen; that was the word. ...
He climbed the rickety stairs and stood on the porch for a minute. No sound inside, no voices, no nothing. He opened the kitchen door slowly, went in. Angela was not in the kitchen. She was in the living room, with ,a bottle on the coffee table and a glass half-full in her hand. She was about as drunk as she usually was at this time of day. She looked at him stupidly.
"What's cooking, kiddo?" he said.
"The flatfeet were back again today. I didn't tell them anything. There were two cops from Belleville and a plainclothes guy from Newark. Sergeant Larkey. Said he knowed you a long time."
Sal took the glass out of her hand and put his arm around her. He felt for her breasts underneath her soiled robe.
"That's right," Sal said. "So what did these guys do?"
"They shook the place down from top to bottom. Even the basement, although I told them the basement wasn't ours."
Sal squeezed one of her dusky nipples between his fingers. "What did they find?"
"Your trunk. They brought some of the stuff up and asked me if it belonged to you."
Sal let his hand wander down to Angela's. pantied crotch.
"I told them I never saw that stuff before," Angela told him, starting to get a little anxious.
Sal pulled her mouth to his and rammed his tongue between her lips.
"Did I do all right?" Angela asked breathlessly as they came out of the kiss.
"You did fine, Angie. Just fine." Sal got up and went down to the basement. He could see that the police had rummaged through his things. He picked up a paint-stained screwdriver and took the piece of plasterboard down. The money was still there on the bottom concrete foundation. He counted out enough money to live in style for a while, but then thought better of the idea. He took out his wallet and stored everything that might look suspicious in the secret hiding place -- the driver's license with the name Anthony DiCarlo on it, the clipping from the newspaper, everything that might look funny to the police. The only thing he left in the wallet besides a fifty dollar bill, was a card proclaiming him a member of the North Newark Social and Bowling Club. He thought intently for a moment and then placed the .32 Mauser, the loaded clip and half a dozen cartridges in the hiding place as well. He carefully replaced the wallboard and went casually upstairs, hoping for a little action with Angela.
Sal found her sprawled out on the sofa, her robe hanging loose on her body. Parts of both breasts were exposed, including her panties, which were sheer, the way Sal liked them. Sal sat down next to her and Angela struggled to get up and put her head on his chest.
"You know Angie, you really shouldn't drink so much," Sal told her, feeling protective.
"What else have I got to do," Angela said, feeling extremely drunk and depressed.
"Make love to me, that's what," Sal said, kissing her full on her alcohol-flavored mouth. He reached into her robe and since it was so loosely tied, it fell open easily. Sal massaged Angela's large breasts and pinched her upturned nipples, hoping to get her in the mood for love.
Angela responded to Sal's caresses and groped around clumsily, reaching for his cock. He took hold of her hand and placed it on his easily excited dick and Angela moved her hand up and down against it through his pants.
"That's nice, babe," Sal said, lowering his mouth to her tits. He sucked on them hard and Angela winced a little.
"Go easy, Sal," Angela said, although she enjoyed his roughness sometimes. Sal kissed her on the mouth again, and as they tongued each other, he let his fingertips brush against her moistening crotch. He reached inside her damp panties and gently pushed his fuck finger into her vagina.
"Oh Sal ... " Angela moaned. "I do want you. I want you so bad. ... " Her voice trailed off as she became distracted by Sal's finger-fucking action. He left his finger in her panties and continued to push it in and out of her snatch He could feel her getting wet, which made his cock jump and swell with excitement.'
"I want you too, babe," Sal said. He realized that he didn't understand his feelings for Angie exactly, but right at this moment he did want to make love to her. He wanted to fuck her hard and fast and make them both explode, but first he wanted to eat out her pussy. Only of course, if that's what she wanted him to do. Sal quickly removed his clothes and folded them neatly over the chair. Angela's robe was open and Sal helped her slip out of it completely. She tossed it on the chair on top of his clothes and he busied himself teasing her cunt through her wet panties. He found what he thought was her clitoris and rubbed it hard with his fingers. Then he felt for her pussy hole and moved his middle finger against it.
"Ooooooo ... " Angela moaned and Sal slipped her panties off her hips, down her legs and over her ankles.
"Are you going to go down on me, Sal?" Angela asked breathlessly.
"Would you like me to go down on you?" Sal teased her, positioning his tongue over her glistening cunt.
"Oh yes, yes!" Angela wailed as Sal jammed his tongue into her vagina.
Sal felt his prick growing impossibly hard between his legs. He told himself to hold on for a while, so he could get Angela good and hot, but it wasn't easy for him. He was ready to plunge his rod right into her honeypot that very minute and fuck the hell out of her, but he made himself wait awhile. He liked the smell of her cunt and he inhaled big breaths of it as he ravaged her clitoris. He sucked on her distended labia and let his tongue tickle her cervix. He knew that he was driving her wild and it gave him pleasure to do that to her. Finally, he pushed his tongue up as far as he could into Angela's pussy and she screamed with delight. He sucked hard and swirled his tongue around inside of her and periodically took a swipe at her clitoris.
"Oh my God! Sal!" Angela screamed. "You're going to ... I'm gonna COME!" Angela shouted as an enormous orgasm ripped through her body and shook her spasmodically.
Sal didn't let up, though, continuing to suck on her to give her as much pleasure as possible. Angela let out her breath finally and fell back against the side of the couch.
"Oh, that was incredible!" she told Sal appreciatively. He held her for a moment and she stroked his rock hard prick. The first few drops of pre-cum juice glistened at the head of his penis and it wasn't long before Angela was ready to get down to some heavy stuff again.
She pressed her mouth to Sal's and they kissed each other long and deep. Angela could taste her own salty cunt and she was anxious now to have Sal's thick, hard prick plunged deep inside of her. She pushed Sal down on his back and started to grind her vulva into his body. He liked it when she was aggressive and took charge of things. Angela ran her' tongue across his breasts, swirling it round the nipples. Then, she moved it down his belly and briefly flicked it across the head of his penis.
"Are you ready for me now?" Angela asked him with a quiet intensity in her voice. Sal thought he might shoot his hot load all over the ceiling, but he managed to control himself.
"Yeah. Sure, Angie."
Angela positioned her body over Sal's so that her vagina was over his penis. She guided him into her slowly and carefully and they both moaned with pleasure when he was inside her. Sal lay there, very still and Angela worked her pussy up and down on his cock in an intoxicating rhythm. Sal felt the pressure building in his sperm-filled balls and he knew that at this point he wasn't going to last too long. Angela rotated her hips on top of him and squeezed his cock with the muscles inside her vagina. The last squeeze was a little too much for Sal and he blew his wad of semen, deep into Angela's pussy.
When they'd finished, Sal dressed quickly and abruptly said goodbye with an almost obligatory kiss. As he made his way out the kitchen door and onto the rickety landing, he could hear Angela calling him back and asking him to please stay with her for just a little while longer. His mind was already a million miles away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He went down the stairs lightly. It was pitch dark now and a street light down a half a block away made the only blob of light anywhere except in the windows of the houses. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped, looked up and down. Everything looked all right. He began walking down in the direction of the park road.
Someone came up behind him. A soft voice spoke.
"Been making yourself kind of scarce lately, haven't you, Sal?"
Sal stopped, spun on his heel, peered into the man's face. It was Larkey. Detective Sergeant Larkey of Newark.
"Hello, Larkey," said Sal, making his voice smooth, making himself feel cool and smooth. "Kind of out of your territory, aren't you?"
Sergeant Larkey smiled faintly.
"You think so?"
"This is Belleville," Sal said, feeling cool and smooth. "You're supposed to be in Newark."
"I go a lot of places where I'm not supposed to go Sal. So what?"
"Nothing what. It was just a remark."
"I wish you'd come down with me, Sal," said Sergeant Larkey. "There are some things I'd like to go over with you." His voice was soft, confidential, friendly.
"You can talk over any goddamn thing you want right here," Sal said.
"All right. But it would be better if we went down to headquarters." He put his hand on Sal's arm. Sal took it off again. "Don't be stubborn, Sal," Larkey said.
"What are you trying to do, make a pinch? You can't arrest me here. This is Belleville."
He saw Larkey's faint smile.
"I'm not arresting you, Sal. I just want to talk to you."
"Well, the hell with it."
"All right, Sal, do it the hard way." Larkey stepped to the curb and raised his arm. A Belleville police car rolled up out of the shadows and stopped. There were two uniformed cops in it.
"Okay, Bert," one of them said. "What do we do?"
"He wants to do it the hard way," Sergeant Larkey said softly and wearily. "You'll have to throw him in the Belleville can. He thinks it isn't legal for me to do it."
"Well, what do ya know," one of the cops said, "A hoosegow lawyer, already." He started to get out of the car. "Okay, Mac. We'll throw you in any kind of a jail you like. You want one with hot and cold running blondes?"
Sal looked at the two Belleville cops, and then he looked at Larkey. Larkey was chewing on the end of a matchstick and looking tired and bored. Larkey was the best bet of the three.
"I don't mind going with you, Larkey," Sal said. "I got nothing to hide."
"That's good. That's fine. You don't mind if these boys frisk you, do you? Just to be legal, we better let the Belleville cops do it.
The cop was out of the car now and went over Sal with swift practiced hands. He examined the wallet and looked at the Newark Social Club card. He handed it back and he seemed a little surprised that he had found nothing. Sal was glad he'd had the sense to anticipate something like this. And none too soon, either.
"O.K., Bert," the cop said. "He's clean as a whistle."
"Good," Larkey said. "Now how about driving us down to the city line? I don't want any shyster throwing this up in my face three months from now when we get this kid in court."
"What do you think you are going to get me in court for?" Sal asked.
"Nothing," said Larkey softly. "Nothing whatever."
At the city line they transferred from the Belleville car to Larkey's car. There was another guy in plain clothes at the wheel. Larkey put Sal in the back seat and climbed in beside him. The car took off, moving swiftly through North Newark, threading in and out of the traffic.
"What's it all about?" Sal asked.
But Sergeant Larkey only yawned and looked out the window.
At headquarters they went in swiftly and unobtrusively. Sal held his head up and stared at everyone, although nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention. He was between Larkey and the other guy; Larkey was ahead, Sal in between, the other guy last. They were doing it just like a real pinch. Well, it wasn't a real pinch; they didn't have a goddamn thing on him. They got to the door marked Detective Bureau and opened the door and they went in, but not before Sal saw who was down at the end of the corridor, sitting on a plain bench, while a uniformed cop, with his shirt unbuttoned and hanging sloppily open, was badgering them. He made a quick sign with his finger to his lips, and Shoney nodded very slowly. The uniformed cop swung around to look, just as Sal went inside the door.
"Sit down, Sal," said Larkey. "Make . yourself comfortable. We're going to have a talk. Maybe it might be a very, very long talk. Depends on what you tell me."
Sal sat down in one of the hard armchairs at the end of a battered table. Larkey sat down at the opposite end of the table, pushed his hat to the back of his head and threw out a package of Camels. Sal stared at him, pulled his own hat down a little farther over his eyes and pulled out his own Camels. He lighted one of his and Larkey lighted one of his own. The other plainclothes guy stood by the door.
"I known this kid a long time," Larkey said. "You just leave me talk to him alone for a while."
"Okay by me," said the other plain-clothes guy. He put a stub of a cigar in his mouth and went out the door, slamming it.
"You know him?" said Larkey. "Name's Houlihan. Been on the force a long time. Just got out of uniform a while ago. Used to have a beat in Clinton Hill. Made him a detective sergeant and put him on the pick-pocket detail for a while."
Larkey's tone and manner was easy, friendly, and loquacious in a tired way. Sal watched him carefully, measuring him, measuring him physically and measuring the man inside, the way he always measured people.
"Now he's on the bandit squad, I guess," said Sal.
Larkey smiled in a tired way and said: "You don't have to believe everything you read in the papers, Sal," he said.
"I don't believe anything period," Sal said.
Larkey shifted his position and pushed his hat a little further back on his head.
"You were always a pretty smart kid, the way I figured you," he said. "Too smart to get yourself into trouble."
Sal weighed this and then said: "I was never in any trouble."
Lakey smiled a kind of a tired smile. "Well," he said, "we had you in here a couple of times. Breaking and entering once, mugging the next time."
"I was just a kid," Sal said. "And you didn't have a damn thing on me. You said so yourself."
Sergeant Larkey was looking at him dreamily, blowing smoke at the ceiling.
"We got something on you this time, Sal," he said.
"Like what?"
Sergeant Larkey got up, walked to the window, opened it a little, and pitched his cigarette into the areaway below. Then he shut the window and sat down in his chair again.
"I knew your dad when he was alive,"
Larkey said. "A good hard-working honest man. I knew your mother, too, Sal. There was never a better woman born."
Sal put out his cigarette and lighted another. He stared at Larkey. He didn't believe what he had said, but he didn't say anything.
"They tried to bring you up right, Sal. I know that."
"All right. They tried to bring me up right. So what?"
Sergeant Larkey leaned forward. "Don't you think you owe something to them?"
"What if I do? How could I pay it? They're dead!"
"I know that," Larkey said softly. Then he lapsed into silence. He picked up a copy of True Detective magazine that was lying on the table, thumbed through it, then laid it down. Then suddenly he got up, walked halfway across the room, put his hand on Sal's shoulder and gazed down at him earnestly.
"Tell you what," he said. "You give me a break and I'll give you a break. I can help you a lot. You can help me a lot, too. Why do everything the hard way?"
"What are you talking about?" Sal asked. He took Sergeant Larkey's hand off his shoulder, but Sergeant Larkey stood there gazing down at him.
"You know what I'm talking about," Larkey said.
"I haven't got the goddamndest idea," said Sal.
"Didn't you see a couple of guys you know outside in the corridor?"
"You mean PeeWee Schoenfeld and Pete Koscki."
"Yeh."
"I saw them. So what?"
"They've been talking. Plenty. Both of them."
Sal let his eyes. go like slits, feeling cool and 'smooth, looking at Sergeant Larkey between the slits.
"That's a goddamn lie," he said after a while, "that's a goddamn lie and you know it."
"That's the God's truth," Larkey said softly. "They put the finger on you."
"The hell they did. What for?"
"That business at the awning company, Sal."
"What business at what awning company?"
Sergeant Larkey took a turn around the room and came right back where he was in the first place. "Now, for God's sake, Sal, you aren't that dumb."
"I'm not dumb," Sal said with a razor edge on his voice.
"All right, then. Don't try to tell me you didn't know about the stickup on Verona Avenue. The one where the girl was knocked off."
The picture of the car door springing open, the girl tumbling out head first streaming blood, crossed Sal's mind. He put the picture away, quickly, and locked it up.
"Oh, that," he said. "Sure I knew about that. I read it in the papers like everybody else."
"Your pals said you know more about it than reading it in the papers."
"Well, they're full of shit. That's all I know about it."
"Your pal Koscki told us how he dropped the gun the special cop picked up, and how you went over the Erie embankment."
Sal thought that over for a split second. Then he said: "Bull." He made his eyes like slits, and let his hands rest, relaxed, in his lap. He knew Larkey was watching his hands as well as his face, and he wasn't going to show anything with his hands or his face or anything. He repeated the one word, "Bull." But he thought it over swiftly. That was the way it happened, and had Pete Koscki, the big dumb son of a farmer bastard, really spilled it? He might have, at that. But so what? He could brass it out, some way. Pete Koscki's word against his. What the hell! But he wasn't by any means certain that Koscki had spilled, even if he was a big dumb bastard. Sal was wise to this copper's trick. They kept you in separate rooms, they questioned you separately, and they didn't get a damn thing out of you. So then they suddenly told you the other guy had spilled, and if they could make it look good enough, then you spilled, really spilled, told the whole damn story to make it look worse for the other guy, figuring he had already spilled. Then they went back to the other guy and this time the other guy really spilled, too, and that was that.
Well, he wasn't so stupid. He wasn't going to fall for Larkey's soft-sounding talk, and, as dumb as Shoney and Pete were, he didn't think they'd fall for it, either.
"You think it's bull, do you?"
"Sure, if they said it, it's bull. But I think it's only you that said it, and it's still bull."
Larkey blew a long bar of cigarette smoke toward the window. The bar broke up into spirals, became diffused, became a part of the general smoky atmosphere.
"You wouldn't say that if you saw their signed statements."
"They made signed statements?" Sal let his eyes go like slits, his jaw relaxed, his fingers limp in his lap. Then he said: "Why don't you show me the statements?"
Sergeant Larkey's tired ghost of a smile came back to his face. "Not yet, Sal. I want to see how it all checks out."
"Bull," Sal said again.
Larkey got up again, began pacing back and forth. His weariness seemed to have left him, and he began speaking sharply and rapidly.
"Now look, Sal. I'm not going to play around with you all night. I've got the whole story from those guys. If you come clean I'll get you off easy. If you don't -- well, nobody's going to help you when you get into court. You know what the penalty for murder is in New Jersey."
Larkey stared at Sal, and Sal kept quiet; the hands in his lap were limp and quiet.
"I don't know anything about any murder," Sal said.
Suddenly Larkey took a long stride across the room, shook a finger in Sal's face. His voice trembled with emotion.
"Sal! What would your mother say if she saw you here? What would your mother say about you sitting here and lying to me? What would she say, Sal? She would say, Sal, tell the truth; Sal, come clean; Sal, make up for every bad thing you've ever done. Wouldn't she, Sal? Wouldn't she?"
Sergeant Larkey's voice was trembling, and the finger in front of Sal's face was trembling. He had everything but a sob in his voice.
Sal sat still, watching his own hands, limp on his lap. Theft a tight smile began to play around his lips. He had seen all that done before, too; he was on to all of these god-damn copper's tricks.
"Bull," he said.
Sergeant Larkey exhaled a sharp breath, walked to the window, and looked out into Court Street. Then he turned around.
"I'm sorry, Sal," he said, "I'm through. There's going to be a couple of other men questioning you; they won't know you from Adam, and they won't be much interested in what happens to you. They won't care whether you get the hot seat or not."
Sal braced himself against his chair. "Fuck you, Larkey," he said. "And fuck the two other guys, too."
Sergeant Larkey gave him a long reproachful weary look, went to the door, made a sign and let two other men in. They also were in plain clothes; one of them was short and stocky, and the other was long and rangy.
They stood at the door and Larkey spoke to them in quick, low tones. "Get what you can out of him," he said, "but none of that movie third-degree stuff. You both had suspensions for that before, and if it happens again you'll get kicked off the force. I don't want it and the department doesn't want it. Understand?"
Neither one of the other guys said anything. Then Larkey spoke again. "You can get what you want out of him with ordinary questioning. Use your heads for a change. Okay?"
One of the guys said "Okay" as though he hadn't heard what Larkey was talking about.
Sergeant Larkey looked at Sal and indicated the short one. "This is Sergeant Bostock." He pointed to the other one, and said: "Sergeant Grimes."
"Mutt and Jeff?" said Sal.
"No goddamn wise remarks out of you, smart guy," said Sergeant Bostock. Larkey shut the door after him.
CHAPTER NINE
Sal had heard about both Bostock and Grimes before. Cops did not have to be bastards and a lot of them weren't, but these two both had bad records, and it was only a question of time before they got kicked off the force. Not that all this was likely to help him any now. They began by refusing to get him a drink of water when he asked for it. Then they laughed at him when he said he hadn't had anything to eat since noon. But that was mild compared to what they did later.
Bostock said, "You kids, think you can get away with anything."
Sal did not reply.
Then Sergeant Grimes put in his nickel's worth: "We been taking care of guys like you for a long time. We can take care of dozens of you."
"All right," said Sal. "Take care of me." He braced himself slightly against the chair. Bostock strutted around the table and shook his fist under Sal's nose.
"Just tell us one thing, kid. What the hell were you doing about ten o'clock yesterday morning?"
"I wasn't doing anything."
"You weren't doing anything! You had to be doing something! Where were you?"
"I don't exactly remember."
"You don't exactly remember. You want me to help you to remember?" Suddenly Bostock opened his hand and slapped Sal across the face, as hard as he could hit. Sal, chair and all, went back slightly, then the chair came down on the floor. Sal's hands came up, fists clenched, on the recoil, a reflex, but he dropped them quickly in his lap again. He looked at his hands. They were still limp in his lap.
A thin whisper came from his lips; he didn't even realize he was saying anything. "Fuck you, too," Sal said.
"I'll learn you, not to curse me, you little bastard," said Bostock. He opened his other hand and let Sal have it on the other side of his face. Sal and the whole chair nearly went over sideways. Then the chair rocked back into position and Sal sat quiet, his hands quiet, his face quiet, his lips drawn tight.
Bostock walked to one end of the room and back. He looked at Grimes. "He thinks he's a tough kid," Bostock said. Grimes did not move, but he said, "Yeah." Sal could see that a little of Bostock's excitement and tension had been transmitted to Grimes. Grimes didn't show it much, but he showed it some, by the angry light that began to come up in his eyes, by the hard smirk that began to play around Grimes's mouth. Grimes worked himself up more slowly than Bostock, but at the end, he might be even worse.
Then Grimes said: "Why in hell don't you answer the questions? You save yourself a lot of trouble. Us too. You don't think we like this, do you?"
"You goddamn right I think you like it," Sal said.
Bostock slapped him again, first on one side, then on the other. "You keep your mouth shut," he said.
"Cut it out," said Grimes. He had hold of Bostock's arm. "Take it easier. Last time you did this you damn near got kicked off the force."
Bostock went to the window and stared moodily into the basement areaway. "It's the only way to handle these wise kids," he muttered.
Sergeant Grimes sat down opposite Sal. "He gets a little rough sometimes," Grimes said. "Why don't you tell us where you were at ten o'clock yesterday morning? Ought to be easy enough. Why make such a goddamn row over such a thing as that?"
"I didn't make any row," Sal said. "He made the row. All I said was I didn't remember."
"Well, try to remember. Make up something, I don't give a damn. Where do you think you might have been around that time?"
Sal watched him through slits of eyes, letting his hands rest limp in his lap, trying to feel cool and smooth.
Then he said: "Around ten o'clock?"
"Yeah. Where were you?"
"I was either inside the church on Verona Avenue or I was talking to Father Callaghan outside. I don't know which."
Bostock spun around from the window, stared at Sal. Then he took off his hat and threw it violently on the floor.
"God Almighty!" Bostock said.
Then nobody said anything for a while, but at last Grimes said: "What church? What's the name of the church?"
"Our Lady of Sorrows."
Grimes took a stub of a pencil and scribbled on a piece of scratch paper. Then he said: "You said you might have been talking to a priest? What's his name?"
"Father Callghan," said Sal.
"Father Callaghan." Grimes scribbled it down and put the stub of a pencil down, too.
"What were you doing at the church? You don't look much like a church-going boy to me."
"What the hell's the difference what I look like to you?"
Sal saw the anger rise in Grimes's eyes, and the fists double up, but then Grimes relaxed.
"Now look, kid. Why make it so hard? You just answer the questions and there won't be no trouble."
"I'm not going to answer any goddamn more questions," Sal said. "I answered enough already."
He saw that this had inflamed Sergeant Grimes. Now Sergeant Grimes looked like Bostock. He got up, stood over Sal, and Sal could hear Grimes's breath coming out in short bursts, angrily.
"I tried to give you a chance, you little son of a bitch," Grimes said. "But you won't let me. Now you're going to talk and like it."
That was when Sal asked for the water. "Just give me a drink of water," he said.
"You can 'Ave the drink of water when you start answering questions."
"Okay, Buster," said Sal.
Sergeant Grimes towered over him, and there was the sound of an animal in his throat when he spoke. Bostock came back from the window and he stood on the other side.
"Now tell the truth," Grimes said. "Your pals told the truth and they put the finger on you. They said it was you who shot the girl. Maybe they were wrong."
"Rape them," said Sal. "And rape you, too."
Bostock slapped him across the side of the face. Sal let his eyes go like slits and clamped his jaw shut. His mouth was a thin line.
"All right," Grimes said. "You planned the whole thing. Then you shot the girl, because you were rattled or something, and your aim was lousy. You're a lousy shot,
kid."
"I'm not a lousy shot," Sal said. "I. can outshoot you guys any day in the week."
Grimes laughed savagely. "Oh, is that so? So you admit you're a gunman? You admit that, anyhow?"
Sal kept his mouth shut.
"You admit you're a gunman. Well, that's something. Now, why don't you come clean with the rest of it? You pulled the holdup and you shot the girl, didn't you?"
"Rape you, too," Sal said, just loud enough to be heard. Grimes swung from the bottom and his fist connected with Sal's chin. There was a sharp crack and Sal, chair and all, went over backward. They picked him and the chair up and put it all together again just as before.
"Now," said Grimes. "You did it, didn't you?"
"I didn't do anything," Sal said. A trickle of blood came out of his mouth with his words. He started to wipe it off, and Bostock struck his hand away.
"You did it. You shot the girl. Didn't you?"
"I want some water," Sal said.
"We'll give you all the water you want. Later on. We'll give you enough water to last you forever."
"I can't talk unless I get water," Sal said.
"You talk and you'll get the water. Why in hell don't you admit it? You shot the girl, didn't you?"
"No."
One of them slapped him. He didn't know which one. He didn't care. And this went on for hours, not, just seeming hours, but real hours. Hours that were like whole days, whole months. He saw the clock on the wall, through bleary eyes. It was nine o'clock, it was ten o'clock, it was midnight, it was one, it was two. No water. No food. He wanted to put his head on the table and go to sleep. They wouldn't let him. They brought in a bright light and rigged it up so that it shone in his eyes. When they thought he was going to sleep they slapped him until he sat up straight in his chair, his thin fingers hanging on to the arms of the chair, his body aching, his head and throat on fire.
"You did it, didn't you? For God's sake, why don't you admit it and get it over with? You're going to admit it before we're through with you, why not now?"
"I didn't do it," Sal said. There was a ringing in his ears and his voice sounded like somebody else's voice.
Sal's eyes finally focused on the clock again. It was nearly five. The blinds had been pulled down at the windows, but there was a gray light showing along the edges.
"You did it, didn't you?" Bostock said.
"I want some water, you dirty little son of a bitch," Sal said.
"Come on," Bostock said. He lifted Sal up out of the chair and with Grimes helping him they carried Sal downstairs into the basement. They went past the pistol range and into an unoccupied corner.
"Stand against that wall," Bostock said. Sal stood against a cement wall. He tried to keep his knees from sagging.
"It was water you wanted, wasn't it?" Bostock said.
"Yes. Water."
"All right. You'll get water."
Bostock moved away to the other end of the basement and Sal made out a brassy gleam in his hands. At first he thought it was a pistol, but then he saw what it was. It was the nozzle of a firehose.
"Okay," said Bostock. "All set." He heard Grimes say something a long way away and then it hit him. It hit him right in the middle of the belly, in the solar plexus, and it was like being hit by a railroad train. Sal went down in a heap, cracking his head on the cement floor. The water splashed in torrents all around him. He tried to scramble to his feet again, and the full force of the stream got him again. He went down. He tried it again, but the third time he just lay there.
They turned off the water and came and picked him up.
"You wanted water," Bostock said. "You want some more?"
"No."
"You going to talk?"
"Sure. I'll talk."
They took him upstairs and sat him down in the chair again. They both stood over him.
"All right," said Bostock. "Talk. How did it happen? Start at the beginning."
"Beginning of what?"
Bostock slapped him. "You want some more water?"
"No."
"You said you were going to talk. Now talk. You did it, didn't you? You planned the holdup, you staged it, you killed the girl. You did it. Didn't you?"
"Rape you, too," said Sal.
Bostock clenched his fists and his face seemed to swell up, red and splotchy, twice its size. Then Bostock backed away, took off his hat and slammed it down on the floor.
"God Almighty," said Bostock. He picked up his hat, tightened up his pistol belt and went out. The door slammed so hard behind him it shook the windows. In a couple of minutes he came back with a short stocky man whom Sal knew to be Hogan. Hogan was the night chief of detectives. Hogan stood with his hands in his hip pockets and looked at Sal and then he looked at Bostock. Hogan was boiling mad, and in a moment Sal saw that it was Bostock who was the object of his anger.
"I told you a million times to cut out this rough stuff," Hogan aid. "You guys seen too many movies or something. You don't have to slap these kids around, and nobody on the force tries it except you two."
"How you going to get anything out of them?" said Grimes.
"Use your heads, not your fists. I told you before, the next time this happened you're going to get kicked off the force. I'm going to put in a report on this and I'll see to it that you get a departmental trial."
Bostock glared at him. "Where's Larkey?" he asked.
"Home in bed," said Hogan. "He isn't due in until ten."
"Well, I'm going home to bed, too," said Bostock. "And you can tell Larkey if he wants something out of this little bastard he can get it out himself. Come on, Grimes, let's blow out of here. Go ahead and get us on departmental charges, Hogan. The hell with it." They both went out the door, slamming it again. Hogan stood there for a minute or so with his hands in his hip pockets, gazing down on Sal.
"Stop looking at me," said Sal in a whisper. "You don't have to look at me, do you?"
Hogan put his hand gently on Sal's shoulder. "I feel sorry for you, kid." He was silent for a while, and then he said: "You can go if you want."
Sal stared at him. He didn't quite get it at first. Then a grim trace of a smile came to his lips.
"They didn't get anything on me. I knew goddamn well they wouldn't."
Hogan kept looking at him, and then he said: "We've got plenty on you, kid. And don't forget it. The only thing that saved you this time was Father Callaghan."
"Father Callaghan?"
"We checked him on what you said. He said he was talking to you from ten to ten thirty yesterday morning."
This information seeped slowly into Sal's mind. He saw that possibly Father Callaghan was a little mixed up on the time.
Then he said: "That's right, too."
Hogan kept looking at him, with just the merest skepticism on his face. He said: "Those guys pushed you around. Grimes and Bostock, I mean. They weren't supposed to do that. They've been in trouble about it before and I didn't think they'd do it again. I meant it when I said I'd get them a departmental trial."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And I guess you don't believe it, Sal, but it's a fact, most cops are on the level. Every police department has a guy or two like that around and generally they get what's coming to them sooner or later." He paused for a moment. Then he said: "Do you mind if I say something else?"
Sal's lip curled. "You guys done all the talking so far. You might as well keep right on.,,
"All I'm going to say is this, kid. The life you're leading is going to catch up with you someday. I've seen kids like you come and go for thirty years, and I'm telling you. You can't win."
"Okay," said Sal.
"If you want any help there are people around here could help you. There are more people want to help you than there are want to push you around. I can tell you that."
"Rape them, too."
Hogan kept looking at him, seemed about to say something, but all he said was: "All right. We're through with you. Get out."
Sal went out the door marked Detective Bureau and through a side door into Court Street. The first thing he saw was a pile of copies of the paper. The big bannerline said: "Three Killer Suspects Grilled."
Sal walked into Broad Street. The morning traffic was already humming. A pale sunlight struggled through the haze from the east, over the top of City Hall, but there was a breath of April wind like the kiss of a beautiful woman.
CHAPTER TEN
For a place like the Hotel Conestoga, it was still early in the morning. Sal went to the desk and asked for his key. He noticed the clerk looking him over, and noticed the sly smirk that came over the clerk's face. Sal glanced down at his clothes; they were still wet from the firehose. He figured he didn't look so hot otherwise, he might have a bruise or two on his face.
The clerk gave him the key and said in a guarded low tone: "Rough party, Mr. Bennett?"
"Yeh. Rough party."
The clerk's eyes danced with a kind of vicarious pleasure.
Sal went to his room, took off the wet suit, took a hot shower, shaved and then looked himself over. There was a mark under one jaw and another one on the side of his face. Otherwise, not too bad, except for the bleary eyes. No shiners, anyhow. Maybe they were smart enough ndt to leave him shiners. No, they weren't that smart. Bostock was clear out of his head a couple of times, a shiner wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference to him. Well, he hadn't got one anyhow.
He had a bottle of whiskey in the bathroom. He had a couple of slugs of it, and then he sent for breakfast. When he had finished he was feeling pretty good. A lot of bounce, he had. Anybody else would have been half dead after all that, but not him. There was a long mirror on the closet door, and he began dancing around in his shorts, shadow-boxing. The muscles rippled smoothly under his skin. He finished with a lightning left hook. Then he hung the Do Not Disturb sign outside the door, and lay down on the bed.
When he woke up, it was midafternoon. He packed away the damp suit, put on a second one he had in his suitcase, and checked out. He got a taxi and went to Penn Station', put his suitcase in a coin locker again. Then he took a taxi to Broad Street and got a Number 13 bus. He was short of money -- short for any kind of circumstances, and impossibly short if he intended to make the nightclubs as he had two nights before.
He got off the Number 13 bus and walked up through the park, and climbed the rickety stairs once again. He let himself into the apartment and looked around. He figured Angela would be in the bar and it looked as though he was right. It was past three in the afternoon; by now she would be well on her way to being plastered. He stood around and listened for a while. There was no sound downstairs and he hadn't expected any; the couple in the lower apartment both worked and they were never there in the day-time and seldom at night, either.
Sal went down to the basement, opened up the plasterboard, and took out all his stuff. He slipped the Mauser into his pocket, then opened the trunk, fished around and found a manila envelope. He put most of the cash in that, but some -- enough for the time being -- into his wallet.
It was after five when he got to the Four Corners in Newark, and the evening rush was beginning to die down. Sal got off the bus and walked south, across Branford Place and halfway down the next block. He paused in front of Aronson's Jewelry Store. The diamond pendant necklace was still in the window, and he looked at it idly, but at the same time he was studying the inside of the store. There were two clerks, a man and a girl. The girl was waiting on a woman, and the man seemed to be putting some of the stock away. The store closed at six o'clock. Sal sauntered back to the other window. The lady customer took her parcel and her change, came out, and vanished into the Broad Street crowd.
Well, why not? What the hell? He didn't have the Cadillac. He had to have something. Sal went inside, approached the man who was putting the stock away.
"I'd like to look at a nice necklace for my girl," Sal said. He felt cool and smooth. He was capable of anything.
The man turned around. "Yes, sir? What did you have in mind?"
"There's one in the window. ... In that case -- " Sal pointed it out and the man got it from the window, laid it on the glass counter. Sal was standing, half leaning on the counter, with his back to the door. The man started to go behind the counter, in his usual place.
"Stay out from behind that counter," Sal snapped, "and you, too, sister. Stay away from those alarms. Come out in a hurry if you don't want to get hurt."
Sal had the Mauser in his hand. The man looked up, saw the gun, appraised the situation, and his face went white. He came right away from the counter. So did the girl, knocking half a dozen boxes on the floor as she did so.
"If you trip one of those goddamn alarms," Sal said, "they may get me but I'll get you first. You got that straight?" The man nodded, slowly, and the girl just looked at him with wide stunned eyes.
"Okay," Sal said. He picked up the diamond necklace, slipped it, box and all, into his pocket. He was watching the two, but at the same time he saw that underneath his elbow, in the glass case, there was a display of men's diamond rings. He reached around with his free hand, opened the sliding panel, picked one out. It was a real rock, it looked at you like the headlight of an express train. He tried it on his ring finger, it was too big. He slipped it on the middle finger. It fit all right. Well, who in hell cared what finger it was on? That rock would tell Carola everything she wanted to know. ...
"Okay," he said. "Stay right where you are. Don't make a move for ten minutes or I'll come back someday and blow your heads off. Got it?"
Sal backed toward the door and when he got there he slipped the pistol quickly into his pocket and went out. On the way out he almost knocked over a fat man.
"So sorry," said the fat man.
"Rape you, too, buster," said Sal.
He got into the pedestrian crowd on Broad Street quickly, walked swiftly the half-block to Branford Place, turned left. Unless they had really believed that bull about coming back and blowing their heads off they would be out watching which way he went. They would also have the alarm in.. They would figure he went west on Branford Place. Instead, he crossed the street to the taxi stand there, got into a cab.
"Penn Station," he said. "Make it fast. I got to catch a train."
At Penn Station he got his suitcase, went up the stairs and hopped onto a Hudson Tube train just as it pulled out. He saw two railroad bulls on the platform, but they were just chewing the rag. If there was an alarm, he guessed they hadn't got it yet. When he got to New York he took an Eighth Avenue subway uptown and got out at Times Square. He went to a hotel on West Forty-fifth Street called the Metropole. It was big, busy and moth-eaten with an air of faded splendor. It was patronized extensively by officers and crews of transatlantic ships. Behind the room clerk's desk there was a blackboard, and on it was written:
Crew of S.S. Auvergne:
Meet at 4 A.M. in lobby.
Captain Foray.
Sal figured that, of all the hotels in New York City, it was in this one that he would be about the least likely to attract attention.
He signed the register as Robert Simson, Muscatine, Iowa. No use using the James Bennett business again, there was too good a chance he might be traced from the Conestoga in Newark. Well, what the hell, maybe there wasn't any chance at all, but he wanted to play it safe.
He went to his room, washed up, took the manila envelope, got out enough money to last him for a little while, stuffed the rest of it back into the envelope and went down to the desk again. He put the envelope on the desk and wrote his name on it.
"I want you to keep some valuables in your safe," he told the clerk.
"What kind of valuables?"
"Cash."
"We'd rather not do it. Why don't you put it in the bank?"
"There aren't any banks open this time of night. Don't you know that?"
"Step this way, please."
He took him into the night manager's office, and the night manager helped him count out the money. There was seven thousand and eight dollars. The rest he had spent or had in his pocket. The night manager sealed it all up, put it in a safe, then. gave Sal a receipt.
"Please put it in a bank tomorrow," the night manager said. "We don't mind keeping it for you, but it would be better if you put it in a bank."
"Okay," said Sal.
He went out, found a fancy men's clothing store on Fifth Avenue that was still open, bought a suit, insisted on the necessary alterations being made right there on the spot, bought half a dozen expensive shirts, two new pairs of shoes, eight ties, a tie clasp set with small imitation rubies, and packed the whole lot off, having paid for it by cash, leaving the clerks and the store's tailor staring after him, startled and pleased; that is, as pleased as anybody on Fifth Avenue ever gets.
He went back to the hotel, took a shower and got into the new stuff. He gazed at the flashing diamond on his left middle finger. Too bad it didn't fit the ring finger, but it didn't matter a hell of a lot at that. It looked like big money, and, if he had figured Carola right, that was all she asked.
He took the diamond pendant necklace out of his other suit, examined it, put it back in the box, dropped it into his pocket along-side the Mauser. He made a mental note; he would have to get another gun. A .32 wasn't worth a damn. It was all right for scaring people with, but otherwise it was just what it was always called: a suicide special. If you really wanted to stop a man a .32 wasn't worth a damn. It was hardly more dangerous than no gun at all. It would go right through him and unless you hit him in a vital spot he would keep on coming. Keep on coming, or going, whichever the case might be. Nothing under a .38 was worth a damn. He knew that. Everybody knew that. Well, he could manage another one; if he couldn't do it any other way he could get Squarehead Johanson to get him one. Squarehead knew how to get hold of a thing like that without getting caught at it.
Sal looked himself over once more. He looked like a million dollars, and a million dollars was just exactly what he wanted to look like.
* * *
At the Rococo Room, the tired marionettes -- could they be the same ones? -- were all sitting at their tables, and Carola was just finishing a new song.
He stood waiting for the headwaiter to seat him and while he waited he saw that Carola saw him. He let the headwaiter seat him beside a pillar. Carola finished the song, sang another, and then she was finished. She threaded her way among the tables and stood beside him. The lower lip had its faintly scornful curl but there was a small and guarded smile in her eyes, too.
"Hello, Sal," she said. "Glad to see you." She said it sulkily, as though she were making herself say it, like a little girl under a threat to say something nice at a party. But the small guarded smile remained in her eyes.
"Hello," Sal said.
"I have to change. You can wait for me here if you want to?"
She went off among the tables. She was wearing a sheathlike white gown; it showed the tight firmness of her body, the tight firm breasts, the tight firm hips.
Sal ordered a double scotch, at a cost of five dollars.
Carola came out, dressed in street clothes, a tight-fitting dress, extremely high heels. She was carrying the same bag that she had hit him in the face with.
"All right," she said, "let's go."
At the curb he called for a taxi. He saw the quick look of glittering suspicion in her eyes.
"Where's that car long as a block?" she asked.
"Had to get it fixed," Sal said. "The ignition was shot. You remember?"
She got into the taxi and he followed her. She was silent, staring at the back of the taxi driver's neck.
"Where shall we go?" Sal said.
"I wanted to go for a ride," she said with an edge of petulance. "But not in a taxi."
"Do you want to go to the Crown Club?"
"No," she said.
Sal was hit with a sudden flash of inspiration. There was a new disco that he'd heard about on the upper east side of Manhattan. There were lots of swinging people there and rooms that you could go off to with them if the two of you desired.. He had heard that this was their slow night, so they probably wouldn't have much trouble getting in. The only problem was whether or not Carola would go for the whole idea. Oh well, they could always just dance there and if she was up for a little partying, all the better!
"Take us to Eighty-ninth and Third, please. The Bowl of Cherries Disco," Sal told the taxi driver.
Carola looked at him, a little surprised at. his quick thinking and decisiveness. Sal squeezed her arm and Carola felt a warm tingle emanating from her crotch.
"Do you feel like a little dancing?" Sal asked her slyly.
"Sure. I could go for that," Carola looked directly at Sal and smiled. His crotch felt pretty warm also and he hoped that he didn't have a bulging erection to expose his feelings at that particular moment.
When they arrived at the club, the doorman looked them over very carefully. While Carola was standing off to one side, Sal slipped him some bills and then motioned for Carola to go in with him. The couple was confronted by a very effective sound system blasting the latest disco records. There were several attractive couples on the dance floor, which was elegantly furnished in gold, white and silver.
"Let's sit down for a few minutes. What would you like to drink?" Sal asked Carola politely, as they were ushered to a small table.
"How about a creme de cassis?" Carola looked to the waiter.
"I'll have a Bourbon on the rocks," Sal said.
When the waiter left, Sal slid in as close as he could to Carola and put his arm around her.
"This is a terrific place," Carola told him, looking him directly in the eyes.
Sal felt as if his cock were jumping three feet in the air. He couldn't remember being turned on in quite this way before -- he was with a beautiful woman that he was in love with and there was an incredible potential for some pretty far-out sex in this place.
A slow song came on and Sal led Carola out onto the dance floor. They held each other tightly and were oblivious to all of the other couples on the dance floor.
Carola felt a meaty bulge against her leg at one point and realized that it was Sal's erect penis. She could feel her cunt growing moist as well and she wondered if she and Sal would make love to each other that night. Distracted by his cock, Carola took a look around at the other dancers. She noticed that periodically men and women and various combinations of the two would go off through one of several doors directly in front of the dance floor. She wondered about it, but was enjoying having her body pressed against Sal's.
When they were back at their table, sipping their drinks, Carola did ask him where all those people were going when they went through all those little doors.
Sal thought very carefully before answering her. He decided to tell her exactly what went on though, because she was bound to find out sooner or later.
"Carola, people go into little rooms and make love to each other and to other nice people that they meet here." He waited for the proverbial shit to hit the fan, but Carola just looked at him a little puzzled for a moment before answering.
"Sounds like a terrific idea!" she told him, with great enthusiasm. "Are we going to get into any stuff like that?"
"Uh, yeah. Sure, babe. Whatever you'd like."
Carola drank her creme de cassis down quickly, as if she needed it to help her get her nerve up. She sat quietly at the table with Sal for a few minutes, while he held her and slowly moved his hand against her breasts and up her thigh. He could feel her heart beating very rapidly and her skin was warm to his touch, Carola turned to look at him directly and their lips were pulled together in a deep and passionate tongue kiss. Carola felt the liquor going to her head and she knew she was now ready for anything. A striking young blond woman came over to their table and asked Carola to dance. Carola looked at Sal, who smiled and nodded, willing to go along with anything.
"My name is Blanche," the woman told her as they stepped onto the dance floor.
"Carola," Carola told her, gyrating her body to Diana Ross's latest disco record.
The two women made a stunning couple and the sexual electricity between them sent sparks flying right and left.
Actually, although Carola had never told anyone, she had made love to a few women in her day. But, usually the incidents were isolated and it was nothing she thought about consciously repeating. Carola felt particularly turned on by Blanche. She noticed the nice way her breasts pressed against the sequined border of her silver dress, which attractively accented her shapely hips. Blanche was extremely aware of Carola's roving eye and their mutual attraction to each other was making her hot pussy ooze with love lubricant.
As they danced, the two women observed a group of two men and a woman emerge from one of the small rooms. Blanche looked Carola directly in the eye and motioned with her head and eyes to the recently vacated room. Carola smiled and nodded and Blanche took her by the hand and led her through the door. Carola turned and waved at Sal, who was happily taking in the whole scene and enjoying another Bourbon.
"Have you ever been to the Bowl of Cherries before?" Blanche asked Carola, locking the door behind them.
"First time," Carola told her, checking out the small room that they had come into. It was dimly lit with soft blue light bulbs and there appeared to be blue satin paper on the walls. Blue cushions were thrown comfortably against the walls and in various places on the thick, blue, plush carpet. Carola felt relaxed in the peaceful atmosphere and was enjoying Blanche's warmth and directness.
The two women pulled some cushions together and sat down facing each other to chat for a while. Carola told her about her singing career and Sal and she learned that Blanche owned a boutique in Greenwich Village and was going back to school for an MBA.
"I know you will be a success at whatever you try to do," Carola told her, feeling tremendous energy flashing from Blanche.
"I feel that you are very special, also," Blanche said, reaching out her hand to Carola. Carola hesitated for a moment, but then fought back her inhibitions and took the other woman's hand. It was soft and smooth, and she let Blanche pull them closer together. For what seemed like several minutes, they touched each other gently, exploring each other's body in a comforting and non-threatening way. They moved their hands across faces, necks, arms and shoulders and ran their fingers through each other's thick, soft hair. Carola found her hands on Blanche's full breasts and when she massaged them, she felt as if she were touching her own tits. She looked down suddenly and realized that even though she was experiencing a great deal of spiritual vibrations, Blanche was actually touching her breasts the way Carola was touching Blanche's.
They undressed each other slowly and sensually and as each piece of clothing dropped to the floor, Carola felt a tingle shooting from her clitoris to every nerve ending in her body. When the two women were completely naked, Blanche took Carola in her arms and they held each other warmly, letting their hands roam freely over expanses of soft, naked flesh. It seemed like an eternity to Carola before their lips met. But when they did, it was one of the sweetest kisses that she had ever experienced.
"I want to eat out your sweet snatch," Blanche whispered hoarsely into Carola's ear after she had rammed her tongue into it. Their mouths were pulled back together, tongues probing and sucking in response to the sexual static flying through the air between them.
"Yes, oh YES!" Carola wailed, as Blanche laid her down on her back and sucked and nibbled her large tits. Blanche unleashed her tongue on her partner's body, flicking it from her breasts to her belly and up to the nape of her neck.
"You are so beautiful," Blanche said softly, burying her face in Carola's pubic bush. She ran her hands around Carola's softly curving hips and Carola reached out to touch her face. Blanche pressed her face into Carola's vulva and inhaled its rich scent before she ravaged her clitoris with her hot and talented tongue.
"Oooooo ... that feels ... so gooooood," Carola moaned as her body jerked from side to side in excitement.
"I want to make it really good for you," Blanche said. She traced her finger around Carola's vagina, tugging on the labia and teasing her cervix. Carola's cunt seemed to glisten with moisture, especially in the soft blue lights.
Blanche finally inserted her wriggling tongue into Carola's cunt, flicking and sucking as fast as she could. She kept her hands busy at the same time, squeezing Carola's ass cheeks and rubbing her hardnippled breasts. Periodically, she would pull her tongue out of Carola's vagina to whip it back and forth across Carola's clit.
Carola's sensitive body could not withstand such stimulation for too long a time and much to Blanche's surprise, Carola exploded into orgasm with a great deal of screaming and moaning.
"Oooooooo ... BLANCHE!" Carola wailed as she drifted slowly back down to earth. The two women held each other and kissed warmly, Carola tasting her own cunt in Blanche's mouth.
When she opened her eyes, she noticed to her amazement that Sal was standing over them, completely naked, watching their every move with a smile on his face and his huge, hard dick sticking straight up. Blanche was a little surprised, too, but she was always prepared to go with the flow. She motioned for Sal to join them on the carpet and Sal did not need a written invitation.
"How did you get in here?" Blanche asked not unpleasantly.
"Money talks," Sal said, sitting between the two women. "I slipped the waiter a couple of bucks."
"No matter," Blanche said shrugging. "You must be Sal, right?"
"Pleased to meet you ... uh ... " Sal stammered, realizing that he didn't know the young woman's name.
"Blanche," she told him warmly.
Sal pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth and Blanche laughed, amused and turned on by their sudden familiarity.
"If you'll excuse me, Sal, Carola and I still have some unfinished business. Of course, you can feel free to join in," Blanche told him with a sly wink.
Carola smiled at Sal, flicked her tongue between his lips, squeezed his rock hard prick and moved over to Blanche. The two women embraced each other like old friends and began to tongue each other passionately, letting their mouths move off periodically to nibble at ear lobes or suck on tits. And while the two women busied themselves with each other, Sal busied himself with Carola's cunt and clitoris. She stetched herself out on top of Blanche, and as the two women tongued, Carola was grinding her vulva into Blanche's body, dry humping like a man and a woman. Sal tickled Carola''s clitoris from behind, feeling her pubic bush with his free fingers. Then, he inserted his middle finger into her vagina from behind. Carola moved her mouth down on Blanche's body so that she could eat her out and Sal adjusted his position so that he could continue to finger fuck Carola, entering her cunt the back way.
"Oooooo ... "Carola squealed, ready to blow a gasket from the overload of sense stimulation that she was receiving.
"Mmmmm ... " Blanche moaned, loving every move that Carola's tongue was making.
Carola was a quick learner and pretty inventive a lover, as well. She pulled on Blanche's labia with her teeth and used her mouth like a giant vacuum cleaner to suck out Blanche's vagina.
Blanche motioned for Sal to come closer to her, and Sal followed her direction. She pulled his penis to her mouth and began to go down on him, much to Sal's delight. He also had to keep a close watch on his circuits to keep them from blowing. And it wasn't easy! Blanche seemed to inhale his penile shaft and it seemed to disappear down her throat. She moved it back and forth, in and out, trying to massage his balls, too. Along with the in and out motions, Blanche flicked her tongue at the meat in a counterpuntal motion.
"Jesus!" Sal wailed, using every muscle in his body to prevent himself from coming too soon. When his position was stable, he reached for Carola's vulva again. He reinserted his finger in her snatch and started the imitation fucking action again. Carola struggled to concentrate on Blanche's pussy, but it wasn't easy. She was beginning to feel an overwhelming need to be fucked and Sal's was the only penis at hand. But, Carola was also drawn to Blanche's cunt like a fly to butter. She buried her face in it and applied her mouth and tongue to it unrelentlessly.
"Oh ... my ... GOD! I'm COMING!" Blanche shrieked as her body jerked and spasmed orgasmically. Sal's penis, temporarily unattended to, enjoyed the show just the same.
Even though Blanche had experienced her orgasm, Carola continued to caress her lovingly. She felt herself drawn to the woman and they had communicated a great deal between them.
"Mmmmm ... " Blanche sighed ecstatically, loving Carola's tender caresses on her sensitized body.
Sal moved over to Carola and caressed her from behind. Her cunt was extremely wet and juicy and she squirmed excitedly at his touch.
"Oh Sal, fuck me. Fuck, me, Sal," Carola whispered to him. He tongued her ear and squeezed her breasts, reaching around her back. Drops of pre-cum fluid sparkled at the head of his cock and he wanted to screw so badly that his body almost ached. So, while Carola busied herself-with Blanche's breasts, Sal opened Carola's ass theeks and carefully inserted his penis into her vagina from behind.
Sal kneaded her firm ass cheeks as he pushed his cock into her cunt, slowly at first, but then progressively faster. Carola had an extremely tight pussy and this particular position seemed to provide maximum stimulation. He reached around her back and roughly massaged her tits, pinching the nipples with his strong and passion-inflamed fingers.
Carola, finding it harder and harder to concentrate on Blanche, rested her head on the young woman's belly. But Blanche, fascinated by the whole scene, slid out from under Carola and pushed her up on her knees. Then, while Sal continued to pump his meat into Carola's pussy hole, Blanche used her hands and mouth to stimulate Carola's breasts and clitoris, running her tongue up and down her chest and belly and fingering the oily love button, which was struggling to handle all of the stimulation. She couldn't fight the climax for very long, though.
"I'm COMING!" Carola shrieked as a giant orgasmic wave swept over her body. Sal continued to pump his heavy tool into her and he was not able to hold his load in too much longer after that.
"Oh God ... " Sal's voice trailed off as his penis blacked out his brain. His hips bucked wildly as his meaty rod pumped out its jizmy load into Carola's cunt. He felt like he was falling from a precipice and all he could do was continue to pump until his penis directed him to stop. When he had spent his wad, the three lovers lay there together exhausted, drifting into sleep in the mystical blue room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next day he checked out of the Hotel Metropole and moved in. Carola didn't put the idea in so many words -- she never put any kind of an idea in so many words -- but it was her idea as much as it was his, just the same. He thought of putting the cash in a bank under the name he had given at the hotel, Robert Simson of Muscatine, Iowa, but that was too dangerous. There was always the chance there was a record of the serial numbers, although he had examined the bills carefully and they were not consecutive. He finally bought a small strongbox, kept it locked and his suitcase always locked, and never let Carola know that he kept any money there. What she didn't know didn't hurt her.
The second day he bought her a mink cape, although he couldn't see why the hell anybody should want fur in April but she wanted it all right, although she said she couldn't accept it. It made a hell of a hole in the money he had stashed, but there was always more where that money came from, and, with the necklace and the fur cape, he had Carola just about where he wanted her. She still tried to put on the great-lady act with him, and put up a show of sharing all expenses equally in the apartment, but it was only a show.
So this was the little babe who always gave him the brush-off. He would think about it, when he was talking to her, or when he had her in bed, and it gave him a good little feeling. It was an achievement, to have overcome her, subdued her, and it didn't matter a damn to him how he had done it. She was his, he was the boss, and she had better not forget it. And she didn't forget it, either, for all that bull about sharing everything equally, and all that bull about how she loved him. He guessed every woman in a spot like this had to cover it up with that bull about love; but it wasn't love that he wanted and it was not love that she gave him.
He had to keep up a front of his own, too. He didn't want her getting suspicious. Not at this point, anyway. He still had that gag about the plumbing businss to keep up. So he generally left in the mornings and came back in the evenings, picked her up at the Rococo Room or sometimes waited for her in the apartment. Where he generally went was to the races or the movies or just bummed around. One day at noon he bumped into her on Sixth Avenue and she gave him that quick suspicious glitter in her eyes.
"Did you move the plumbing business to Times Square?" she asked.
"Not so you could notice it," he said. "Maybe there isn't any plumbing business."
"Don't be silly," he said.
He took her to lunch and they didn't mention it anymore. But he wondered if she knew anything. Yet how in hell could she know anything? She might have bumped into the Mauser in his coat pocket some time or another, but even that wouldn't tell her anything for sure. All kinds of people packed guns now and then. Bankers, even. Maybe even successful master plumbers. But she didn't say anything like that again, and as for him, well, he was on his guard. He was always on his guard, at all times, from every quarter.
He was spending a lot of money. On himself. On Carola. On just putting up the front he wanted to put up. She kept asking him about the Cad, and finally he bought one, second hand. He told her he'd had to trade the other one, but he paid cash for it. He didn't want any hot cars in his hands, just now. Better to pay for it, but it made a hell of a hole in the money he had left.
April became May and May became June and then July. The hot New York weather settled down and it was really summer. It was sultry, restless weather and Sal felt sultry, and restless, too. He got nervous and irritable, and he didn't like himself too much these days. Carola noticed it, too.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked. "You're jumpy."
"I'm always jumpy," he said. "I was born jumpy."
"Not like you've been lately," she said.
"I don't know. Maybe it's the weather."
"Maybe it's something else," she said. They were having coffee in the apartment, about four in the morning, as usual, with all the windows open although there was no air stirring and it didn't make a damn bit of difference whether they were open or not.
"All right," he said. "Maybe it's something else."
They went to bed, but he was still jumpy. He got up after she was asleep, prowled around the apartment, smoking cigarette after cigarette, drinking more coffee, going to the window and looking down into Sixty-eighth Street which, at this time of the morning, didn't have much to look at anyhow.
Carola was one of the reasons he was jumpy. Maybe the main reason. What in hell was it? There was something more he wanted. What the hell was it? He didn't know. There was something more he wanted of her, but he didn't know what it could be. He already had everything there was. He had done the primal thing to her that he knew, and yet somewhere there was something else he wanted to do to her. Some other primal thing.
He ground out his cigarette, threw the stub into the wastebasket, and walked softly to the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at Carola. She moved slightly in her sleep, the lower lip twitching, an arm flung suddenly outward so that it hit him in the face. It was not hard enough to hurt, but it stung, surprised, angered him. Suddenly he was on his knees on the bed, his fingers pressed against her throat.
"Sal! Sal! Stop!" Her eyes were open, wide, frightened. He let the fingers relax, sat on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, his head in his hands. She sat up.
"What's the matter with you, Sal?"
His breath was short and he could hear the razor edge in his own voice. "I don't know," he said. "I was having a night-mare."
She felt her throat, "That hurt, Sal. That really hurt."
"I guess it did. I'm sorry."
"I told you you were getting jumpy. Now you get a glass of milk and try to go back to sleep, Sal."
"All right." He got a glass of milk and lay down beside her. In ten minutes she was asleep, but he was still lying there staring at the ceiling. He got out of bed again and began prowling around the apartment. What the hell was the matter with him, anyway? Nervous as a cat. He went to the bedroom door again, but he was afraid to stand there looking at her. He shut the door very quietly.
He made some coffee and he felt a little better but not much.
He sat in a chintz-covered chair -- the kind of junk Carola had all over the place -- and looked out into Sixty-eighth Street, watching it come to life. There was a taxi pulled up at the place opposite and a little old lady tottered out and got into it, followed by a nurse. Sal looked at his watch; it was five-thirty, 'a hell of a time to be going to a hospital, which was probably where the little old lady was going. Memorial Hospital was just a few blocks down, and, beyond that, New York Hospital. The taxi took off with the little old lady sitting straight and prim on the back seat. Sal could almost see the firm set of the little old lady's jaw. Memorial Hospital? He hoped it wasn't that. A bullet between the eyes would be a lot better than that. Well, what the hell was a little old lady to him? What the hell was the difference to him whether she had cancer, angina pectoris, gout, or a bullet between the eyes?
He got up, prowled around the room again, got his suit quietly out of a closet in the bedroom, laid it on the sofa. He got his shoes, socks, shirt, everything, laid them all out. He took the clippings out of his wallet and read the story about Rosa del Valle over again. It gave the address where she lived with her family in North Newark. Four eighty-four Mount Hope Avenue. He knew about where it was; he saw it in his mind's eye, saw the old-fashioned white frame houses set far back from the street, the white houses with green trims, the leafing trees of April, the bright April lawns, here and there a hedge, here and there a picket fence, white against new green spring lawn and the green shrubbery. Four eighty-four Mount Hope Avenue. He could almost see the house itself. Then he thought of the place he had lived as a kid, farther down toward the Passaic River, an apartment over a store, no lawn, just the sidewalk in front and down in back a weed-grown lot filled with cans, old stoves, junk, and beyond the lot the Erie Railroad tracks.
Four eighty-four Mount Hope Avenue ... He put the clippings back, the wallet back, and got dressed. He looked like what a successful head of a big plumbing company ought to look like. Well, what the hell, a little, anyway. Close enough.
He went north and crossed the George Washington Bridge, and although it was early morning yet and the great river flowed beneath him, and there were masses of green on the New York side and other masses of green on the Jersey side, still there was no freshness: the river looked hot, the green looked hot, the sky looked hot. He drove roundabout in New Jersey, not caring a hell of a lot where he was going or when he got there, but at last ended up in North Newark. He parked the Cad out of sight behind the diner. It was five minutes past eight.
Sal sat down on a stool and looked at the little old guy eating his oatmeal. Then he looked at Wally Winter.
"What'll it be?" Wally asked. "Same as usual?" There was nothing in his expression to show that he knew Sal hadn't been around for months. Well, Wall Winter was that kind of a guy.
Sal lighted a Camel and sat waiting for his breakfast. When it came out on the platter, sizzling hot, he put out his cigarette and said: "Long time no see."
"Yup," said Wally. "That's right."
"You seen any of the kids around lately?"
Wally looked at him for a moment, and then he said, "Not lately. You mean guys like PeeWee Schoenfeld and Pete Koscki?"
"Yeh. Guys like that."
"I ain't seen them lately," said Wally. "There was a holdup out here, I don't know if you remember -- " Wally Winter's eyes were looking out at a Number 13 bus which had stopped. just beyond the Erie over-head -- "and after the holdup I heard the cops picked up Shoney and, Pete Koscki. Turned 'em loose, though. Didn't have nothing on them, I guess. But I ain't seen them since then."
"Yeh?" Sal said. He saw Wally's bleak gaze rove around the inside of the diner and then rest on him. The gaze told him that Wally knew that the cops had picked up Sal, too, but the bleak gaze also told him there was no comment. Well, Wally Winter had been around long enough.
"Only one of the guys you know I can think of is still around is Squarehead Johanson. He's still around. Got a job swamping at Pop Venizia's joint."
"Yeh?" Sal answered. Then he spent the rest of his meal thinking, planning, deciding how he could fit Squarehead into his schemes.
As he left Wally's diner, he thought that before he did anything he wanted to fit some pussy into his schemes. It had been too long since he had been laid last.
After having fucked Carola in the ass so many times, he was beginning to yearn for some good pussy for a change. And the best pussy he knew about was Patricia. Before going to see Squarehead, he knew he just had to try for a quick fuck at Patricia's place.
When he got there, he found the front door open. He jauntily walked inside and was just about to call out her name when he heard a familiar rhythmic grunting sound coming from her bedroom.
Quietly, Sal walked up to her door and opened it just a crack. When he looked inside, he was treated to the sight of Patricia on all fours on her bed giving some young guy an intense blow job.
Feeling his cock go hard instantly, Sal decided on a plan of action. Ripping off his clothes, he walked into Patricia's room with his dick sticking up hard and thick. He saw the young woman's eyes bulge out when she saw him enter the room, but Sal motioned for her not to stop, that everything would be all right.
The young man with Patricia had his eyes locked tight, concentrating on the wonderful suck job that he was getting. His hips were moving swiftly back and forth, and the whole bed was shaking. But Patricia managed to keep her lips locked tightly on his slippery cock.
Sal quietly slipped up onto the bed and took up a place behind Patricia. He watched delightedly as her hips moved from side to side. Her pussy was exceedingly wet, and juices were leaking out down her thighs. Gripping one of her asscheeks in each hand, Sal moved in between her legs, preparing to fuck her dog-style.
Just then, the guy Patricia was blowing opened his eyes and stared with shock at the naked man about to fuck his lover from behind.
"W-w-what are y-y-you doing here?" he asked, his voice quivering with both fear and impending orgasm.
"Don't worry about it, buddy. Just let the little lady keep sucking and you'll be that much better off. Understand?"
"S-s-sure," he answered.
It took a few moments for him to get back into the groove, but when he did the young man was fucking into Patricia's face with renewed fervor.
Returning to the object of his desire, Sal lunged forward and eased the tip of his cock into Patricia's wet cunt. He felt her quiver all over as he entered her. She moaned onto the cock trapped into her mouth, causing her young friend to twitch almost out of control.
Sal was the strongest of the three, and when he began pumping into Patricia's cunt, he destroyed the rhythm of her blow job. But Sal was patient, and it wasn't long before the three of them had successfully orchestrated their menage a trois.
"Now that's what I call fucking," Sal gasped, "and sucking!"
Each time Sal humped up into Patricia's pussy, she moved forward and took in the full length of her young lover's cock into her mouth. And when Sal pulled back, she allowed the young man in front of her to withdraw his penis, also. The three of them worked in a perfect flowing motion like this until it became too much for the young man to take.
"I'm coming!" he shouted, gripping the back of Patricia's head and pounding his hips into her face. "Oh, damn, it feels too good!"
Sal watched, thoroughly turned on, as the young man shot his cream into Patricia's mouth. His load of jizm was too much for her to take, and before long, strands of the white sticky stuff were leaking out of her mouth, dangling from her chin.
When the young man fell back exhausted and spent, Sal picked up the slack and began fucking into Patricia with all his strength.
"Harder!" she whimpered, her. voice thick with gooey sperm. "Fuck me harder!"
Gripping her sides intensely, gouging his fingers into her ribs, Sal gave her what he thought she wanted, and then some. Each time he. smacked into her cunt, driving his cock in balls-deep, a loud slapping sound filled the room. They were both growing very sweaty and their bodies were, slick, the sweat highlighting their rippling muscles and grimacing faces.
"Ohhh, shoot it!" she cried. "I want to feel your cum inside me! Shoot it!"
With his cheek pressed hard against her shoulderblade, Sal held on while he spurted his cum into her clenching pussy. He struggled to keep his shooting cock inside her until he had emptied his balls.
Then he fell to the side, exhausted. When his cock slipped out of Patricia's cunt, a long string of jizm came with it, tangling up in her thighs and legs, trailing finally across her ankles.
"Damn, that was good," Sal gasped. "So fucking good."
At the other end of the bed, the young man whom Patricia had sucked off was still trying to catch his breath. Tapping him gently on the shoulder, Patricia said, "Jimmy, I think you better leave now. I want to say something to Sal in private. Okay?"
"Sure," the young man said, and just like that he was gone.
Patricia returned to Sal and put her arms around him. Kissing him on the cheek, while inhaling the musky odor of his body, she said, "Even though I had two of you, I still didn't get to come."
"Oh, is that right?" Sal said. "Well, let's see if we can't fix that, all right?"
Patricia giggled while Sal tossed her over onto her belly. And her giggles soon turned to loud sighs of pleasure as Sal fucked her in the ass until she came three times.
* * *
On his way down the street toward Pop Venizia's place, Sal happened to go by the church. Father Callaghan was outside talking with a crowd of small children.
"Sal! Sal!" Father Callaghan called out. "I haven't seen you for a long time. Come on over here and talk to me for a while. To me and the children."
Sal obliged, trying as best he could to restrain his anxiety. He wanted to get out of there as soon as he could, but knew in order to save face he would have to stay and talk to the priest.
They exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, and Sal even went so far as to tousle the hair of one of the little boys, playing with him cheerfully. But when a police car drove by, Sal was suddenly reminded of his plans. He had to get over to Pop's and talk with Squarehead as soon as possible.
"Well, Father, it's been nice seeing you again,". Sal announced. "But I gotta be goin' now."
"Fine, my son," the priest answered. "But why don't you go in and pray for a while? It'll do you good, don't you think?"
"Sure, Father, whatever you say," Sal mumbled. Reluctantly, he walked into the church and went through the motions. Then he charged out the side door of the church as fast as he could.
A few minutes later he was talking with Squarehead Johanson. And when Sal revealed his latest plan, Squarehead's eyes lit up and he smiled broadly.
"This sounds great, Sal," Squarehead said. "You know, I'm still on probation, and if I didn't think this plan was foolproof I wouldn't chance it. But this is great, Sal. You're a damn genius."
Sal beamed with pride. Yeh, he had always thought that about himself. The perfect plan. He thought he had finally done it. This was going to be big money. The last holdup was just practice for this one. And he knew that in Squarehead Johanson he had a worthy accomplice. Shoney and Koscki were big risks compared to Square-head.
Two nights later, Squarehead and Sal met in an alley two blocks down the street from the church. There was no moon that night, something Sal had considered. And there was also going to be a transfer of money that night, something else Sal had considered.
The two young men were busy loading their guns behind a large dumpster. And right next to them was one of the biggest clothing factories in the city. It just so happened that this time once a month an armored car drove up to this factory, the last stop on its run, to pick up cash that would be deposited in a local bank.
Sal knew that since this was the last stop of the night the men in the armored car were tired and hungry and were apt to be off their guard. Smiling wickedly while thinking about how flawless his plan was, how intricate and devious, he turned to Squarehead and said, "You ready? Truck's gonna be here in five minutes."
"Ready as I'll ever be," Squarehead answered. Then they slapped palms and shook hands one last time.
When the truck arrived, Sal and Square-head ran out from their hiding places and took up positions near the street. They could see everything, and they waited with bated breath and pounding hearts until bags of cash and change were brought out of the building. Right before the guard closed the back of the truck, Sal and Squarehead leaped out with guns drawn.
"Okay," Sal commanded, "we're taking over."
Squarehead held the door open while Sal pointed his gun inside the truck. The guard quivered, unsure what his next move would be.
Then a shotgun blast lit up the street. Squarehead fell to the pavement, a gaping hole in his chest. The guard up front had fired the shotgun after jumping out of the cab.
Sal panicked. Seeing his friend dead on the street caused him to react irrationally. He stuck out his gun and pulled back the trigger, intending to shoot the guard who was in the back of the truck. But when he heard the guard with the shotgun coming around toward, him, Sal recovered his senses. Grabbing the guard out of the truck, Sal hooked his arm under the man's chin and pressed his forearm hard into the guard's throat. Holding his gun to the guard's temple, Sal backed away toward the alley, just when the other guard came around the side of the truck brandishing his shotgun.
"Drop it or your buddy gets it," Sal said coolly. "I said drop it!"
Reluctantly, the second guard tossed his shotgun to the ground. It clattered right next to Squarehead's bloody body. By this time, some people had arrived and were looking on from the doorways of the buildings up and down the street. Realizing that he had an audience, Sal began acting his role to the hilt, trying to prove to everyone in the neighborhood just what a man he was.
While Sal dragged his hostage down the street slowly, the young man could see a man running down the street toward them. As the man drew closer, Sal saw that it was Father Callaghan. For some reason, Sal panicked again. Looking around, he saw that he really didn't have anywhere to go. His hostage was essentially useless to him.
"Stop, Sal! Don't!" the priest cried out.
Sal felt like his world was closing in on him, and the only thing he wanted to do was get out of there fast. Pushing the hostage guard away, he tried to make a run for it. When the guard came after him, struggling to get his pistol out of his holster, Sal fired and sent the man reeling into the street.
Then he started running blindly, on impulse, hoping his instincts would get him through this one.
Sal was captured a few hours later just before he reached Carola's apartment. Five squad cars were on the scene in seconds, and Sal was apprehended quickly and violently. Hearing the commotion down in the street, Carola came running out of her apartment. She arrived just as Sal was being slammed into the back seat of a police car, his arms handcuffed behind him and his head bruised and bloody.
"Oh, Sal!" she yelled. "What have they done to you?"
Despite his battered appearance, Sal looked up at her and grinned defiantly.
"Don't worry, honey," he said. "I'll be back. They might throw the book at me, but there's always parole. You just wait, baby, and I'll be back for you."
Sal was still smiling when the police officer slammed the door in his face. As the squad car streamed off down the street, fighting its way through the crowd of curious onlookers, Carola began weeping.
But somehow she knew that Sal had been telling the truth. Intuitively, she knew that he knew something that the police didn't.
