The Amboy Dukes (27 page)

Frank looked at her. “I had to do it, baby. I’m sorry. Don’t worry, I’ll get away.”

The sight of his sister weeping upset him. Hesitantly he approached her and then realized that he was losing time he needed desperately.

“Say good-by to the folks.” He jammed his hat on his head, and as she did not reply he turned again to her. Alice sat hunched over the table with her head pillowed on her arms, crying, her thin shoulders shaking, her heart twisted into a knot of grief.

Somehow he could not leave Alice, and as he hesitated again he heard the thin metallic shrill of the police sirens as the scout cars raced into Amboy Street and blocked off Pitkin Avenue and East New York Avenue.

“The cops,” he gasped. “The cops!”

Alice looked up. “I’m glad,” she said.

“You little bitch,” he snarled wildly, “glad that I’m gonna burn?”

“We’ll save you,” she said wanly. “We’ll help you.”

Frank’s eyes rolled in his head. His tongue flicked his lips and, dumb with fear, he raced out of the flat up to the roof. Cautiously he peered over the edge of the roof and saw the cars blocking the entrance of the tenement and the crowds of people, thin streamers of heads, arms, and legs converging and surging against the police lines around the tenement. Hopelessly he passed his hand across his eyes and thought of the suspense, fears, and uncertainties that had made of his days and nights an anguish and rack of misery, and which had corroded and rotted the guts out of his friendship for Black Benny, until in his all-consuming hatred, his mortal funk, he had betrayed Benny and had trapped himself beyond all hope of escape. He thought of Betty, of her bright smile, her firm young breasts, her soft lips and mouth whose kiss and caress he would never know again. He thought of July, freedom, the sea, the escape that almost had been his. He thought of living, clean sweet air, broad fields and rivers, clean streets and houses.

And as he stood at the edge of the roof, uncertain and afraid, suddenly he was struck a staggering blow in the back of his head that sent him stumbling against the roof ledge. The pain was a throbbing club that beat in his brain, and reeling and helpless, he turned about slowly and saw Crazy Sachs advancing toward him. Crazy wore brass knuckles on his right hand, and in his brutal, insane face there was the red lust of the killer. Weakly Frank raised his hands to ward off the next blow, but Crazy hit him a jarring blow that deadened the muscles of his arm, and as he dropped his guard Crazy’s left cut into his face.

“I was listenin’ to the radio,” Crazy hissed, “and you squealed on Benny!”

Frank choked, and a thin spume of blood flecked his lips. “Let me alone,” he gasped, and tried to run, but Crazy blocked his escape.

“Now I gotcha.” Crazy’s voice was triumphant. “Gotcha!” He swung again, and the brass knuckles broke Frank’s nose. “Gotcha for everything!”

Frank was blind and helpless with pain, and Crazy rushed him, pounding killing blows on his head and shoulders, blows that broke his flesh and muscles and bone, that left him gagging with an incessant drumming pain. Suddenly he grabbed Frank by the throat and forced him back over the ledge.

People in the street began to scream and to point at the struggling figures on the roof. They could see the threshing boys and the slow, inexorable stiffening of Crazy’s arms as he choked Frank and forced him back over the roof ledge. From the surrounding windows the people screamed for help, shielding their eyes, wanting not to look or see, and yet fascinated by the deadly tableau on the roof.

As Crazy continued to force Frank back and over the roof edge, his arms were grasped by his mother.

“Leon!” she shrieked.
“Zindele,”
she implored, and tugged vainly at her son. “Leon! Let him go. For God’s sake, let him go! Leon! Leon!” She clawed at his clutching fingers. “Zindele, zindele!”

Crazy’s breath came in great heaving gasps and he looked at his mother, who stared at him with dead, rigid eyes. In her face and eyes there was no longer the love and affection he had always known, and she appeared like a woman made of wax, whose features have been frozen into an expression of terror beyond belief.

Snarling, Crazy shoved his mother aside and with one last blow and curse he hurled Frank from the roof. With flaying arms and legs Frank fell and hit the rail of the third-story fire escape, then caromed out in an arc toward the street, screaming his life away.