Act of Fear (22 page)

‘I hated them. My dirty rotten father who didn’t love enough to forgive or even understand. My whore of a mother who could not face life sober or alone. She couldn’t face an empty bed when it got dark. Sure, she told herself that it was all for me, but it wasn’t for me. She just had to have men to tell her that she was a woman even if her man had run out on her. So I hated them, and because I hated them I was going to show them I could do for them what they never did for me. I was going to take care of my mother. I was going to be a big man and show my rotten coward of a father. You know what a kid does in Chelsea if he wants to be big. Sure. He steals, he mugs, he becomes a crook.’

I lighted a cigarette. Another. My arm throbbed and my teeth hurt down to the roots. ‘You do what your society tells you to do to get ahead. If I’d been born in the suburbs I’d probably have quit school to get a job and to hell with any fine future. But I was born in the slums, so I started stealing. I was pretty good. I supported my mother for a year. Then I fell into the hold of a ship I was looting. The cops couldn’t touch me, but I lost my arm from that fall. In the hospital I was bitter at first, then I started to think. One night around 4 a.m. I suddenly got the message. Who was I to set myself up as judge and jury? Because that was what I was doing. My mother and father had lived their own lives, made their own choices. They were what they were. Who the hell was I to sacrifice myself for them? Who gave me the right to be responsible for their lives? I lost my arm stealing for them! I had gone out and done what my world told me to do. It had cost me my arm. And for what? I had no right to judge them, to be a martyr for them. I didn’t want to be a thief. I suddenly asked myself what I wanted?
Me.
What did I owe myself?’

I smoked easier. My arm did not ache as much. ‘I asked myself what I was doing? I was living their lives. I had no right to apologize for their lives. I had, somewhere, a life of my own. I had a duty to myself. My mother had to live her own life, and my father had to make his own amends. I had no right to suffer for them. When I got out of the hospital I left the city. I never broke the law again. I made my own life, Jo-Jo. Maybe I didn’t make it much, but that’s another story. At least I failed in my own life, not in their life.’

My throat was dry. It had been a long speech. Maybe I should have heard it more often myself and made more of my life. Who knows? All I knew is that I wanted Jo-Jo to hear it. He was young, and I had never had a son.

‘People say that a good man faces his obligations,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s true. Only too many men face every obligation except the hard one. The hard duty is what you owe yourself. When you face your obligations to everyone else the only person you can hurt is yourself. For most people that’s easy. It’s a lot harder to hurt someone else, someone you love, are close to. When you hurt someone for a purpose you take the risk that the purpose wasn’t worth it. Because you have to hurt them before you know you can do what you hurt them to do. You might not be worth another person’s pain. You don’t know until you do it, and if you fail, it’s too late. It’s easier to let it slide, hurt yourself for the sake of others, and feel good and noble and loved. It’s harder to follow your own dream the way the old Vikings did.’

The cabin was quiet. I listened to the cars pass on the highway. Then Jo-Jo smiled. Not a smile of happiness or of triumph or of relief. A smile of simple recognition.

‘They did, didn’t they?’ Jo-Jo said. ‘The Vikings didn’t take handouts. My father even lets them call him Swede.’

It’s his life, Jo-Jo,’ I said.

‘Yeh,’ Jo-Jo said.

‘Win or lose, they have their own lives,’ I said. ‘They made their choice. You can’t live for them. The Vikings left their kids and old folks behind. Not because they were mean or cruel, but because they were honest; and it had to be that way.’

‘I guess it does,’ Jo-Jo said.

And that was all.

I called the police. Gazzo had been in touch, and they said they would start right out.

I borrowed Jo-Jo’s extra pistol, and together we waited for the two hard boys. With any luck the police would arrive first.

We didn’t have that luck.

Chapter 18

They came in a hired grey car, and they walked right up to the door of Cabin Three.

Why not? They expected to find only one unsuspecting boy who had never been known to carry a weapon. One scared boy on the run, supposedly even hiding out as a kind of favour to Roth, that was what they expected. I could almost see the smiles of secret anticipation on their faces as they thought about the surprise they were going to hand Jo-Jo.

I watched them get out of the car and check their guns before they came on. They put the guns loose in their suit-coat pockets and walked across the dusty courtyard to the door of Cabin Three. I went and started the water running in the sink. They knocked as easy as two men calling on a pal. We waited. They knocked again. Louder to sound above the running water.

‘It’s open,’ Jo-Jo called out. ‘Come on in.’

They stepped inside. They were that stupid. No, not stupid, arrogant. They had the arrogance of the man with the gun who has used the gun with success and not been stopped. They had that false security that comes to all dull men who have guns and think that having the gun makes them strong and bright. They were also young and inexperienced, and they had been unopposed so far; and they were near the end of the trail and already thinking of their reward.

I was behind the door when it opened. Jo-Jo was flat against the wall on the other side of the door, hidden by a kind of hat rack on legs.

The two men came in fast. They were past both of us before they saw the water running in an empty sink and started to turn to look around.

I hit the smaller one with the barrel of my borrowed gun before he turned an inch.

Jo-Jo had to hit the one with muscles three times before he went down to stay.

Neither of them got their guns out of their pockets. Jo-Jo bent to get the guns. I jumped to close the door.

The two shots hit the door frame just over my head.

Wood splinters kicked. The bullets whined away. There was blood on my face where a splinter had cut me so fast I did not feel it. I went down and inside the room, flat and backward. I hit my head a solid bump. My feet kicked the door closed. Jo-Jo headed for a window. I staggered up, a little groggy from the bump on my skull.

‘No!’ I shouted to Jo-Jo. ‘Below the window! Stay down.’

I went to the other window. I crouched low and peered out at the lower left-hand corner. I saw their grey car, and a kind of shadow behind it. There was a bright sun. Cars were passing on the road as jaunty as you please. The flowers and trees were myriad colours. The whole scene was as ridiculous as a battlefield in any war. Even the birds were singing.

The shadow behind the car stood up warily and still half hidden. A tall, thin shadow in a grey suit.

‘Roth,’ I said, as much to myself as to Jo-Jo crouched at the other window. ‘Watch the first two.’

Jo-Jo sat with his back to the wall and covered the two unconscious men. It was now clear why they had been so slow. They had waited for Jake Roth. They had called Roth, as the small man at the speedway had overheard them say, and Roth had told them to wait for him before they went out after Jo-Jo. It is amazing how many mistakes a smart man can make. Of course, Jake was smart only if you mean shrewd or cunning. He was not bright, and he was both too arrogant and too careful. He made his men wait, probably to make sure himself that they really got Jo-Jo and the ticket. That had cost him his last chance.

‘Listen, Jake,’ I called out.

I had just heard the first faint police sirens. Roth stood out in the clear. He held a revolver.

‘It’s over, Jake,’ I called out.

‘I’ll get you, Fortune,’ Roth said.

He was standing there to draw a shot. I did not fall for the invitation. It would expose me, and Jake Roth was a crack shot.

‘No you won’t,’ I said. ‘Not now, and not later. We’ve got your two boys, and they’ll talk. Olsen’s got the ticket safe. We won’t show ourselves. Run, Jake.’

Roth stood there. He seemed undecided. If I could keep him talking, maybe the police would arrive in time. I was not sure that that would be a favour to the cops. Roth would get someone.

‘All you had to do was sit tight, Jake,’ I called out into that bright sunlight. ‘It was a thousand-to-one against Andy finding out. You blew it, Jake. You panicked.’

Roth said nothing. I could see the cords of his jaw muscles. He was trying to decide if he could rush us. He was still hoping we would expose ourselves. A man like Roth always thinks he will somehow handle it all and come out smelling sweet. Maybe he hoped we would fail to watch his two boys inside with us or get careless some other way.

‘All you had to do was trust Jo-Jo, leave him alone,’ I called out to Roth. ‘You had to be sure. Just like the girl, right? You couldn’t trust her either, right? Did she know something? Did she say she’d tell Andy? Did she scare you, Jake?’

But I knew the answer, of course. Fear. The answer to all of it in the end. Roth had lived so long by the gun and fear that he could only act one way. He was too afraid of Pappas. He had to be sure. A violent animal who could think of only one way to be safe – to kill anyone who could harm him. The twisted mind. The mind of all killers. They kill to be safe from some danger that, in the end, was not half as dangerous as a murder charge. They kill and complicate the simple and so defeat themselves.

‘I’ll get you, Fortune,’ Roth said, out there in the sun. ‘I’ll get you, and the kid. Just like I got the others. You’re dead!’

The sirens were close. It was his parting shot. It did not worry me. Roth was going to be too busy to come for me or Jo-Jo. But he had scared me, and he had beaten me, and I’m human. I could not resist a parting word.

‘Run, Jake,’ I called out into the sunny open space. ‘Run fast, Jake.’

I saw Jo-Jo move. He was raising up to take a shot at Roth as the skinny killer got into the grey car.

‘No!’ I said. ‘Let him go, Jo-Jo. You couldn’t hit him now anyway. He can still get us if we try. Even if you hit him, he’ll get some of those cops who don’t even know he’s here. Let him run. There’ll be a better chance.’

We watched the grey car drive out of the yard and turn north on the highway. The police arrived a few minutes later. People came out of the other cabins. They were very excited. It was all quite an event. The police took us and the two hoods, who were just scared amateurs now. We told our story in the safety of a good strong cell just in case Roth had ideas of one last-gasp attempt. Jo-Jo gave them the locker key to pick up the parking ticket from the locker where he had hidden it. Then the cops took us to the airport and we flew north with a lot of friendly guards.

Captain Gazzo welcomed us with open arms and a secure paddy wagon. At headquarters Gazzo called in Andy Pappas to identify the licence number on the ticket and to give any information Pappas could in the light of the evidence. Pappas looked at that parking ticket for a long time. Andy was as dapper as ever, but he was pale; and he came alone.

‘It’s my small Mercury convertible,’ Pappas said. ‘It was down in Jersey. Jake was alone down there. You say Jake used it the day Tani … was killed?’

‘He got it back before you returned from Washington,’ Gazzo said. The captain was trying to be civil to Pappas. It was not easy for him. ‘Fortune’s got the whole story.’

I told Andy the story as I knew it. His face darkened when I got to the part about the Olsens. His cold eyes looked at Jo-Jo. When I told him about Roth working me over, he nodded.

‘I never ordered that,’ Pappas said.

‘We found a losing stub from Monmouth in her place,’ Gazzo said.

‘Yeh,’ Pappas said slowly. ‘Jake was at Monmouth the day before. I remember.’

‘His two hired hands are singing anyway,’ Gazzo said. ‘The whole story, as much as they know of it.’

‘Yeh,’ Pappas said. He stared at the parking ticket. He licked his dry lips. ‘Do you know what … I mean, what happened? In her place?’

‘You mean why did he kill her?’ I said. ‘His two boys say that he told her some big plan he had. He shot his mouth off, that’s the way the two hoods put it, and then he had to cool her.’

‘Plans?’ Pappas said, his dead eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Plans against you, Pappas,’ Gazzo said. ‘It looks like Jake was making a play for Tani, and to show her what a big man he was he told her some plans he had.’

‘He didn’t go to kill her,’ I said. ‘He went to play games with her. But he made a mistake, and he had to silence her.’

‘Jake and Tani?’ Pappas said. ‘Yeh. She was just a poor dumb kid who liked men. I guess she just had to play around. But you know something? The kid loved me. Yeh, she did.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s what killed her.’

I could picture the scene that afternoon. Jake Roth, alone with Tani, encouraged by her, and for one arrogant instant sure that she would prefer him to Pappas. After all, he was younger, and in his own mind a better man. He was sure she would choose him, but with a faint doubt, a small need to impress. So he told her of some plans, his big schemes. Probably a boast that he would soon be the boss. Then, a moment later, aware of his error. Maybe he saw it in her eyes. The shock, the horror she was too naive to hide. In that one instant Roth must have seen the truth: that he was only a momentary little excitement to Tani, and that Pappas was the big thing, the important man to her. Maybe Tani did not know who Pappas really was, or care, but she knew a threat to her man when she heard one. Jake Roth saw that, realized his mistake, and acted in the only way Roth could act. He shot her.