The Erection Set

The pancakes and sausages weren’t sitting very well with Lee at all. He couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting to the front page of the News where the body shots of Markham and Bridey-the-Greek were laid out side by side with the “Mystery Murders” caption hinting at some dark intrigue. The same .22 caliber gun had killed both of them, but Bridey had tried to scramble out and it took four shots to pull him down. The last was through the back of the head and he lay face down halfway out the open window leading onto a fire escape.

Lee finally pushed his plate away and tried to swallow some coffee. It was a bad try. His hand was shaking and coffee spilled down on his shirt. I said, “Relax, buddy.”

“Sure, relax. Easy to say, isn’t it?”

“No trouble at all.”

He stopped dabbing at his clothes and looked up at me “lf I were you I’d be scared shitless. How the hell can you sit there like that?”

“Look at the bright side. Two of those punks are ooled. The odds are going down.”

“Why, Dog? Hell, if they were after you ...”

“Object lessons. You screw up an assignment and you’re in line for a tapout yourself. The lesson goes a little higher than to the hit men themselves.”

“Dog ...”

I knew what he wanted and shook my head. “Don’t ask me, kid. From now on I’m not going to be close to anybody so there’s not much chance of anybody trying the bathtub routine again. That little bit didn’t work either, so the next time out it will be the direct approach. There’s a cover on you and Sharon just to make sure, but my bet is they’ll go straight after me.”

His clenched knuckles rapped against the edge of the table with impatience. “Damn it, Dog ... why?”

“Because sombody thinks I had something to do with a situation I wasn’t involved in at all.”

Lee pursued his mouth, then nodded with his eyes tight. “Okay. Just one other thing Did you ever have anything to do with something like it?”

I picked up my coffee cup and watched him because he was looking to see if my hand was shaking too. It wasn’t. “All the time,” I told him.

“You know, Dog. I knew it when I opened that damn suitcase. I could almost taste it. And I wasn’t the only one. Everybody else could feel it too, except they didn’t know it for what it was. Remember how we always seemed to know when there were krauts hanging around in the sun overhead or on the other side of a cloudbank? That’s the way it is with you now. You’re there and you’re trouble. It was better with the krauts when you had some sky to maneuver in, but with you it’s like being on a strafing mission when you lose one of those beautiful dimensions to run in and the krauts could pick you off like flies because they had the altitude and the speed and you were all wrapped up in trying to keep your K-14 sights on a fat-bellied locomotive.

“It was all so nice and easy when you weren’t here. Life was one big ball with a lot of laughs and just the normal tangles that make it interesting. Everybody was getting laid and nobody was getting killed, then you decide to pick up a lousy ten-grand bonus to add to that suitcase and it was like Titanic time. The fucking ship is sinking only nobody knows it. They keep eating and singing and when it comes time for the big bailout there aren’t enough lifeboats and the only ones having a ball are the sharks.”

“You think too much,” I said.

“What happens to your little doll, buddy? Suddenly you got her all turned upside down too.” I went to talk but he stopped me short. “Shit, man, don’t put me on. Everybody knows everything in this town. That kid’s turned colors like a chameleon since you gave her that tingly look of yours. You melted the ice, now you’re going to let her drip all over the place. What happens if they try giving her the bath too?”

“She’s got a cover on her.”

“Great. Fine. Beautiful games you play, kiddo. For what? Just what the hell are you after, Dog?”

I snubbed out my cigarette in the coffee cup and looked at the wet filter floating in the dregs. “I keep saying it, but nobody wants to believe me. I don’t want anything. Just my ten grand.”

“Suppose they keep on not believing you?”

“Then they’re going to have to find it out the hard way.”

The late editions of the papers carried a bigger story on Markham and Bridey-the-Greek. A reporter with an inside track to classified information blew the whistle on their being contract men and the six o’clock TV news report confirmed it with an overseas source tying them in with The Turk’s operation in Europe. One of the wire services had managed to contact The Turk, but he claimed he was a legitimate businessman and denied the connection. The analysis mentioned the suspected killing of a narcotics courier in Marseilles and the furor in certain circles because a multimillion-dollar shipment of heroin was supposedly sidetracked and hinted at a connection between all the events.

Al DeVecchio gave the new color TV a disgusted slam with the flat of his hand and switched the set off. “Now we know,” he said.

“Now you know nothing.”