Tony and Pepper had it down to a ritual. Tony would walk up and ask the pigeon for a light, while Pepper curved in from the bushes. They always made certain there were bushes handy.
While the pigeon was busy putting the light to Tony’s ciggy. Pepper would lace him a couple times with a gloveful of half-dollars. Half-dollars worked best. No matter how broke they were—no matter how desperately their finances demanded they go on a job—they always had the half-dollars around. They worked best, that was all.
Then Tony would catch the pigeon and lower him away into the bushes. One, two, three and they were a block away, with the pigeon’s wallet, watch, rings and tie neatly shoved into the waistband of their slacks, of course, where any bulge made by the stuff they’d pinched would be covered by the fall of their flashy sports jackets.
It was Pepper who had started swiping the pigeon’s ties. Pepper was a real clotheshorse. He was a slim boy with dark hair and wise, old eyes that made him seem far older than the sixteen years indicated by his birth certificate. He was a quiet boy, with a nervous habit of biting the inside of his cheek when he was thinking. Tony couldn’t figure him.
The first time Pepper had unknotted an unconscious pigeon’s tie, Tony had said to him, “What the hell you wanna swipe that guy’s tie for?”
And Pepper had answered: “When I hit a drag at the Club, I want to look sharp, man. Why should I blow three, three-fifty, when most of these guys we’ve been rolling got nice ties I can’t afford? All I have to do is haul the tie off and use it myself! That ought to be easy enough to dig. Dig?”
“I dig, I dig.” Tony had answered, sucking his cheeks with annoyance. He’d never figure this Pepper. He’d known the kid two years, ever since he’d moved into Tony’s neighborhood, and they’d rolled maybe fifteen, twenty marks in the park. Yet, he still couldn’t figure the dark-haired boy.
Pepper didn’t seem to have the attitude of a good mugger. He didn’t want to wear the black leather jacket or jeans most of the kids affected when park-prowling. When Tony had first approached Pepper about jack-rolling, the dark-haired boy had looked up at him wisely from the tenement’s front steps, and asked, “We do it the way you guys been doing it? Jackets and jeans? Mug, then run like hell?”
Tony had spread his hands. “There’s another way?”
“If I start mugging pigeons with you,” Pepper had said, “we got to work it my way. My way once, twice and always! Dig?”
Tony had looked skeptical for a second, then dropped down next to Pepper on the steps. “So tell me what your way is.”
Pepper had told him, and though the idea was different to Tony, it seemed cool, and looked like it might work. So they had dressed in their best clothes: topcoats, jackets, slacks, gloves—and the half dollars—and taken to the park.
After they had rolled a guy, they joined the crowd, and no cop had yet stopped them. They just didn’t look like juvies. They were too well-dressed. Juvies always mugged wearing black jackets and heavy stomping boots.
It had worked fine, real fine, the last six months. They’d mugged twice as many marks as any other kids in the Club, and hooked twice as much dough. Pepper seemed to be a natural for this racket. A real mastermind!
Still. Tony felt ill-at-ease with Pepper. The kid was too quiet. Too sure of himself. All the Club members were sure of themselves—hell, Tony could swagger with the best of them—but not like Pepper. It was an animal grace, the way he walked. Like some cat-thing that knows someone might jump him at any second.
But as long as the money kept being as easy to pick up as it had been these last six months, Tony didn’t give a flying damn if Pepper walked on his hands!
Tony’s peace of mind might not have been the most serene with Pepper, but his faith had grown tremendously over the months. Now, tonight, they were going to take the second step. Tonight they would mug more than one person! You could stay in the peanut division only so long—then you had to move up.
Tonight: two pigeons would get cooled properly.
The evening was cool, but they hadn’t worn topcoats. The first twinges of spring were coming off the Hudson, and the park was loaded. Necking couples lay barefoot in each other’s arms, whispering inanities. Old women sat toothlessly humming on the Drive, staring at the tugs on the river. Mothers with socks and flats walked baby carriages, feigning nonchalance, inviting bench-warmers to coo at their kids. The park was loaded.
“Plenty of dough kicking around here tonight,” Pepper said, as they came down the hill into the Park.
Tony squinted against the sparkling light of the lamp posts. The evening was graying down, and shadows were starting to deepen across the grass. “Yeah. Maybe too much. How we gonna be able to pull anything off without anybody spotting us?”
Pepper grinned, revealing even, only slightly-stained teeth, and nudged him in the side. “Man, there ain’t no place better to pull off a job than in the center of a crowd. Specially in New York.”
They walked the pavements, watching the people, sizing up the crowd, making certain they knew where the cops were at all times.
The cops weren’t really as much of a problem as they had thought they’d be when they’d first started. There were only so many harness boys, and the few couldn’t be everywhere at once.
They left the sidewalk, after a while, and took to the paths leading through the bushes. It was always a soft touch if you could spot a guy making love to some chick in the bushes. They never set up a squawk till after you’d left—and the girl had fixed herself up. By then you could be blocks away; and with the foolproof disguise they had, they were a cinch to make it clean.
They were rounding a bend in the path, going up a slight slope around a boulder, when they spotted the first mark.
He was a young guy, walking with his arm around the waist of a girl in a flowery summer dress.
“He look like he’s got anything?” Tony asked. The occasional whine in the boy’s voice broke out, and was distinct as he asked the question. He was a year younger than Pepper, and it bothered the hell out of him.
Pepper turned halfway toward his companion, his voice lowered so the young couple should not hear. The wide grin spread once more. “He sure does. He looks like he’s got plenty to take his dollie out. That suit ain’t no Robert Hall item. We’ll take ’em. Dig?”
“Dig,” Tony replied emphatically. They prepared themselves, while the couple disappeared around the next bend in the path.
They hadn’t worn topcoats or gloves. It had turned too warm. But Pepper slipped the single black leather glove out of his inside jacket pocket, and dropped the eight half dollars into it. He held out his hand, and Tony funneled the other eight into the glove. The sixteen weights made a hefty fistful. The boys parted, slipping off the path, coming up on the strolling couple from either side of the path.
The boy was a tall, almost gangling fellow, freckles dotting his face, and an unruly head of auburn hair. He talked intently to the girl, leaning over and looking closely into her face.
It was obvious they were very much in love, for the girl stared back with an intentness equal to his own. She was a slim girl, rough-featured, but with beautiful, glossy black hair. They seemed lost in one another.
“Young love—ain’t it grand?” Tony jibed, pushing a bush aside, stepping onto the path behind them.
The freckle-faced boy dropped his arm from the girl’s waist, turning at Tony’s voice. “What…?”
He never finished the sentence. Pepper struck from slightly in front of the young couple, now that the boy had his back turned. He broke onto the path from the concealing bushes, swinging the heavily-laden glove. The weight crashed into the back of the boy’s skull, spinning him slightly. A second blow, almost before the first had finished its arc, caught him in the left eye, even as he tried to turn.
The second blow threw the boy back, and he staggered against the girl. “Oh, my God, Roger!” the girl screamed. Her eyes had grown wide and white in her pale face. She looked as though the white snow of her face had been spattered with ink.
“Ease it quiet, sister!” Tony snapped, stepping next to her. He grasped her by the upper arm, and drew her around.
“Leave him alone!” She screamed again, and this time spun on Tony. Surprisingly, her fingernails raked down the mugger’s face. Four thin lines of red welled up, though the skin was not broken.
Rage mottling his face, Tony threw a fist into the girl’s face, the fingers so tightly clenched they crackled at the knuckles. The fist caught the girl on the cheek, and she flailed back into the bushes. She fell heavily, swinging her weight around awkwardly on the foliage as she tried to grab a handhold. She fell to the ground, her skirt hiking up to reveal thin legs.
Pepper had pursued the boy, during Tony’s trouble with the girl. Again he lashed out with the weighted glove. This time the boy rolled with the blow, and swung on Pepper.
“You miserable…rotten…what do you think…you’re…” he panted, trying to land a wild blow on the agile Pepper. The first strike had affected him, however, and he stumbled after Pepper, who dodged quickly. The boy tripped on the rough ground.
He fell to his knees with a thud, and Pepper was in quickly. The young mugger grasped the boy’s long hair in both hands. The weighted glove gripped in his teeth, Pepper brought his knee up sharply, pulling the boy’s face down to it with savage viciousness. There was a crack! as they met and the boy’s nose skewed to the side, beginning to bleed. Again Pepper jack-kneed him, and this time the freckled boy’s eyes rolled up, as a hoarse moan slipped past his lips.
He fell sideways, doubling over.
Pepper took a deep breath, looked around for Tony. His partner was kneeling over the girl in the bushes. All Pepper could see of her was the pale white of legs and thighs protruding onto the path.
“For crine out loud! You miserable raunch, you!” Pepper spat at him, through thinned lips. “What a helluva time for you to pick a cheap feel! Get the hell out here and help me run over this guy before someone comes down the path!”
In a minute they had searched the boy, cleaned his wallet, removed his watch and ring; they removed the girl’s watch and rings also.
“Let’s go,” Pepper said, shoving the rings into the inner lining of his waistband, through the pockets.
Tony was looking down at the girl, still breathing raggedly, though unconscious. Her dress had been torn open at the neck, and one breast was nearly revealed. “Pity to let that stuff just lie there.” He shook his head sadly.
Pepper swung him around by the arm, cracked a flat hand into the boy’s face. A spot of angry red appeared, “Are you nuts?” Pepper seethed with incredulousness. “You want to stay here and greet the cops when this chick wakes up?”
Tony pursed his lips in undisguised anger. “Don’t you ever hit me like that again. I don’t give a damn how many guys we rolled together, I ain’t…”
Pepper stepped in to him quickly. “Oh, shut up, for Chrissakes. Don’t start bein’ a hero. Let’s pile outta here!”
They strode quickly back the way they had come. Around the bend past the boulder, down the slope, and across the darkening sidewalk. In a few minutes they were a block away, walking nonchalantly. No one could possibly have connected them with the mugging.
“That’s enough for tonight,” Tony said.
“You chickie?” Pepper goaded him. “We said two tonight, and two it’s gonna be. Dig?”
His anger still apparent, Tony mumbled, “Dig!”
A block later they had smoothed over their disagreement, and were looking for their second victim of the evening.
Two blocks behind them, in a stand of bushes, a dirt-smudged girl in a torn flowered print dress was coming to consciousness, to see the bloody beaten shape of her steady, lying doubled over. His skull was fractured.
The second mark, the second pigeon, was a natural. A twenty-four carat, diamond-encrusted natural. He was a tall, large-boned man with a sharp face, all planes and angles. He carried himself with an assured air, that wore well with his dark blue suit and grey snapbrim. He walked slowly down the sidewalk, between the trees, hands in pockets, a cigarette dangling at an impossible angle from his mouth.
Pepper looked at Tony. They were a double-dozen steps behind the man. Tony looked back at Pepper. An instant’s message flashed between them. This guy had been made for them! Pepper slipped off the sidewalk, into the dark area beside the route.
Tony shook a cigarette from his pack, stuck it in his mouth, and ambled up behind the man. An instant before the boy could tap the man on his shoulder, the man whirled.
He fastened an unwaveringly hard look on Tony, nearly a head and a half shorter than himself, and the words rapped out without inflection. “Something you want, kid?”
Tony stopped abruptly, the suddenness of the question throwing him momentarily off balance. He regained himself quickly, and tilted his face up to the man. The winking lights from across the river on the Jersey docks made diamonds in the tall man’s dark eyes. “Yeah. A light, if you’ve got one. I’m all out…” he said.
The man squinted an instant, then dipped a hand quickly into his jacket pocket, brought out a gold lighter. Tony stared at the instrument with open approval. It was a beautiful piece of equipment. He looked up quickly; the man had been watching him staring at the lighter.
The man clicked the lighter several times, till it lit, then offered his hand to Tony. It was rock-steady, and the flame moved only a fraction in the breeze. The boy edged closer, cupping his hands around the flame, keeping the wind off it, keeping the man’s attention fastened on himself.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Pepper edging out of the bushes behind the man, the glove hanging down tightly from Pepper’s upraised arm.
The barest flicker of Tony’s expression made the man’s eyes widen momentarily. Pepper was within a few steps of the man. bringing the gloveful of half dollars back even further for the strike, when the man spun around.
One thick hand shot out, grabbed Pepper around the throat, and heaved him off the ground with tremendous strength. The boy’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, and his mouth dropped open, though nothing came out.
The man lifted Pepper bodily, and flung him around his own outstretched leg. The boy flew through the evening air, and crashed into Tony, who had moved forward automatically as the man had grabbed Pepper. He had moved quickly, but even so, too slowly for the swiftness of what happened next.
They came together with an audible thump, and tumbled together onto the grass on the other side of the sidewalk.
In an instant, the man was on Tony. Dragging him erect, the man flat-handed the boy across the face…crack, crack, crack…crack, crack. Five sharp sounds echoed from the trees, and Tony’s head hung down, his eyes closed, the corner of his mouth bleeding; unconscious.
Pepper was trying to scramble to his feet, trying to rush away from this suddenly terrifying pigeon who was beating hell out of them. He took two steps, then the man had him by the collar of his sports jacket, and Pepper felt the flat edge of a hand as it snapped quickly down—then away.
For a second he felt nothing. Then the blackness oozed over him, and he joined Tony.
They came to almost within seconds of each other. They were lying stretched out, under a tree, in full view of the night-lit Hudson and the Drive. Cars roared past them in a whishing stream, metallic blurs without meaning or rest. The night had closed down completely. The park lights were on, but fewer people bulked on the benches.
The man was sitting with his face in darkness, the orange snip of his cigarette showing against total shadow. He was sitting, with his hands clasped around his drawn-up knees, hat slipped back on his head.
Pepper fluttered his eyelids first, raised himself off the ground, then moaned weakly and fell back on the grass. The striking of his head made booming and lights in his skull; the tiny pinpoints of light erupted on the inner surface of his eyelids. “Oh. God!” he moaned, rising up a bit on flattened palms. “What s-slammed me? Oh God!”
Tony’s dry gulping rattled in at that moment. He muttered a half-formed oath, slid his eyes open a fraction and stared sidewise at the man. The man arched his eyebrows as he looked down at the boy with interest. He held his head at an odd angle, looking down over the slope of his own shoulder.
The man scissored two fingers into his shirt pocket and withdrew another filter cigarette. He removed the butt of the first cigarette from his thinned lips and lit the second one with its glowing tip. He dragged deeply, to start the fresh cigarette properly. Then he said, “Up. I want to talk.”
The boys looked at each other across the grass. A mixture of wariness and terror minded in their glances. The two muggers struggled erect slowly. Tony tried to get to his feet, the intention to run like hell obvious in his movements. The man clamped a thick hand on the boy’s shoulder, bumped him down hard. Tony scrunched his face up in pain, and bit his lip. “What d’you want with us? You a cop?”
The man didn’t need to shake his head, but he did. It was obvious he was no harness boy. Pepper and Tony could see that immediately: even so there was a small victory in getting the stranger to declare his position. But he was no cop; he was dressed too well. He had too many expensive accessories, like the lighter, and the gold watch that peeked out from under a French cuff.
“No cop. I just want to talk.” the man added, still puffing deeply but thoughtfully on the fresh cigarette.
Pepper scrutinized the man. He looked as though his face was made of glass. The features were so sharply defined, framed by the light of the lamp posts, the boy was certain he’d slice a finger were he to run it over the man’s chin or cheekbone.
“Talk about what?” Pepper asked cautiously.
“You aren’t in much of a position to argue, are you?” the man said slowly, almost tauntingly. He had an infuriating smugness about him. He lipped the cigarette in a corner of his gash mouth, and smiled with all the knowledge it took to put Pepper and Tony away in the Home for five years.
“What’re your names?” the man asked, watching them carefully, almost narrowly.
“Jim,” said Tony.
“Arnie,” said Pepper.
They spoke almost at once, the words leaping out simultaneously.
The man’s hand lashed across, first in one direction, then backhand in the other. The boys clutched their heads as throbbing aches started once more. “Why the hell’d ya do that?” Pepper cried.
“Lie once more, and I’ll make damned certain the next park bull that crosses here takes you rummy little creeps with him. Do you understand me?”
They nodded sullenly.
“Now,” he said, gently again. “Let’s have your names. I mean, your names!” He placed a no-mistaking emphasis on the phrase.
They gave him their proper names, all the while staring sullenly at the ground.
“Look, mister,” Pepper said in a juvenile tone, “if you want to toss us to a cop, why the hell don’t you do it. Get it over with!”
“I don’t want to toss you to any cop,” the man said. “I dig you boys. I think you got real initiative; real guts and spunk. I like you!”
The boys looked briefly at one another, then back at the man. Confusion mirrored itself in their faces.
The man laughed shortly. His voice was only faintly tinged with sarcasm. He smiled, and ruffled Tony’s curly hair in a movement that made the boy start nervously. It had been a fatherly movement.
“You a fag?” Tony asked, but stopped short as a look of anger spread across the man’s face. The stranger made a hesitant motion of violence toward him. “Sorry, sorry…never can tell.”
“No, I’m not gay.” He took a deep breath, changing the subject, with obvious distaste for the previous track of thought. “My name may be familiar to you. Topper Kalish?
“Know it?” He waited, watching their faces almost expectantly.
The muggers looked at one another, then back to him, in astonishment. “You say Kalish?” Tony asked, amazed. The man nodded, smiling.
“Jeezoo, you’re the biggest!” Pepper blurted with awe.
“You held up the Sun Savings and Loan…”
“They still want you for cooling that guy and his doll…what was his name…that guy…?” Pepper mumbled.
The man supplied a name. “Marty Jukovsky?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the guy. The big boy in the numbers racket downtown!” Pepper stared back at the man with open-mouthed admiration. “They got that hood that paid you to knock Jukovsky off. y’know,” Pepper informed the shadowy bulk that was Topper Kalish.
“He told ’em you got twenty-five grand to do the job! Gee, you’re the biggest!”
“That’s the trouble,” Kalish sucked on a tooth. “That’s why I’m walking around down here. I can’t find a good place to stash the dough till I can come get it. I’m hot, now. I have to cool off where the cops can’t find me.
“Then you two tried to roll me. That was the real finishing touch!” He started to laugh, rocking back and forth, still hugging his knees.
“Crineoutloud, Mr. Kalish,” Tony said, embarrassed, “we’re awful sorry we jumped ya. If we’d of known who you was, we’d of never…”
“Forget it.” Kalish waved the apology away. “I think it’s one of the luckiest things ever happened to me.”
“But…”
“I said forget it. I like you two. You fit into a thought I been having the last few days, while I’ve been looking for a place to hide out.” He paused and removed his hat. Setting it beside him on the grass, he rubbed the back of his neck as though he were overcome with weariness.
“What’s that? What you been thinking?” Tony asked anxiously.
Pepper nudged the curly-haired boy in the ribs. “Why don’t you stop flappin’ your lips. Let him tell us if he wants to. This ain’t some poolroom flunky—this is Mr. Kalish! So shut up for a change!” His face had darkened with anger, but the shadows of the evening hid the change in expression.
“No, that’s okay,” Kalish said magnanimously, “I want to tell you kids because I think you might be the answer.
“You see, I’m pretty hot, and there ain’t nobody that will work with me. They’re all scared. I been thinking the last couple days, why not bring a couple boys up from the ground. You know, train them—make them my apprentices. I could teach a couple boys a helluva lot about this business.” He stopped again, looking at them meaningfully.
As he had spoken, their faces had come alive with excitement.
“Interested?” Kalish asked.
“Interested! Interested?” Pepper blurted. “Are you kiddin’? You bet your life we are! Hey, that would really be somethin’! To work with Topper Kalish! Geezoo!”
“You kids haven’t got no ties—no folks that’ll start lookin’ for ya if you were to go away—have you?” Kalish inquired.
Pepper snorted a half-laugh. “Me? Nothin’ but a rummy old man that’ll be dead before winter anyhow. I’m free.”
They looked at Tony.
“Well…” he began, slowly, “…I dunno. My old lady don’t worry about me a helluva lot, but she might…if I was to go away…”
Pepper nudged him again. “You can do it, Tony. Your old lady’s too busy tryin’ to get your sister a husband.” He added in an undertone, “When she ain’t gettin’ layed by the milkman or the buyer from the Woolworth’s.”
“Listen! You just watch your goddam mouth, you lousy…! He cut himself short, and lunged across at Pepper. The other boy countered quickly and slapped Tony hard across the mouth.
They were about to go at it when the man dragged them apart with a half-snarl. “Can it! Or I got to look for two other kids. I don’t want no fighting between you. Understand?”
They nodded, sullenly. Tony’s face came up with a fierce expression on it. “I don’t give a dam what he says!” He jerked a thumb in Pepper’s direction. “But my old lady ain’t been doing nothin’ but tryin’ to get the cops to put me away anyhow.
“No, I ain’t got nothin’ to worry about if I leave.” He glared at Pepper momentarily, then looked down at his hands.
“Okay, then.” Kalish smiled. “Here’s the idea…”
They sat and talked for another hour, till the park cop came around to tell them the park was being emptied. Kalish turned his face toward the Hudson, quickly, till the cop passed into the dusk, to the next group of people.
“The parks always empty out after ten,” Pepper said. “It keeps the muggers away.” He grinned wolfishly.
“Come on,” Kalish said, “let’s find a place for me to hide out. I want to talk some more to you boys. I feel like you’re my own kids already. I’m sure we can hit it off.”
“Where away?” Pepper asked.
“I know a joint up on a Hundred-and-Fourteenth where they don’t give a damn who you are, long’s you got the dough for a room. You can do any goddam thing you want in there if you don’t burn the joint down,” Tony said quickly.
Kalish nodded. “That sounds like the joint. Let’s roll.”
They got up, brushing dirt and grass from their pants. Kalish walked off, up the slope, the two admiring boys a step behind him, excitement in their eyes.
It was a short walk to Kalish’s car.
The next two months with Topper Kalish were an education for Tony and Pepper.
Kalish had at one time been the chief triggerman for the Combine. He had been turned out a few years back because his face and gun were too well known. That he had not been killed was a testimony to the perfection of his past services.
Kalish had gone out on his own, and the trigger business was bigger than ever. He had even branched out on his own into armed robbery and small-job heists.
He was a craftsman, and did a job right. Except for the method he used. It was too rough for most of the New York gangs. No one wanted Topper Kalish working with them. He was a brutal man, receiving an almost fantastic pleasure from inflicting pain on anyone he robbed or killed.
The boys had been with Topper two months, before he scheduled them to come with him on a really big job. They had lived in the furnished room on 114th Street, and gone out with him only once or twice.
They had seen Kalish in action only once, and tonight was going to be a big night!
They remembered the first time they’d seen Topper work.
He had needed some quick cash. The money from the Jukovsky slaying was too hot—too many big bills. He needed quick money. He had taken a bar over the ropes to the tune of eight hundred bucks.
“Bars ain’t the easiest joints to lift,” Pepper had said warily. They were in Kalish’s car, parked two doors down from George and Lenny’s Bar & Grill.
“Watch me,” Kalish had replied, shoving the .32 into his waistband.
He had gotten out of the car, and walked into the bar, the boys following behind. They had taken a table close to the front door, while Topper had walked to the bar.
The bartender, a heavy and bald man with protruding ears, had smiled up, and Topper had asked him, “Are you George or Lenny?”
“I’m Freddy—I only work here.” The big man had begun to turn away, just as Topper had whipped out the gun, covered by his other hand, and said, low so no one but the barkeep could hear: “Well, George, Lenny or Freddy—I don’t give a damn which—walk real slow over to that register and take out every last bill. Bring it back here real quick, or I might decide to smear your face across that backbar mirror with this.” He had jiggled the gun, and the boys had smiled as they saw the big man’s face slide to deathly white.
But he didn’t flicker an eyelid. He had turned and walked to the cash register. He had punched the “No Sale” button and as the drawer banged open, had reached in.
Kalish had leaped onto the barstool, and one-armed over the counter, firing as he vaulted. The bullet had caught the bartender under the right eye and—as Topper had warned—plastered the back of the man’s head across the mirror wetly. The body had sagged out of sight as Topper had scooped up the money in the till and leaped back across the bar.
So quickly had Topper moved, that people sitting right in front of the bartender as his pulpy body had dropped in the duckboards, had not realized what was happening. By the time they were yelling and dropping onto the floor, the women were screaming, the drinks and stools were overturned, Topper had been halfway to the front door, the boys already in the car and revving the motor.
They had been around the corner and disappeared before the front door of the bar had erupted people, screaming, “Cop! Cop! Call the cops! Robbery! Murder!”
It had been eight hundred bucks. That fast.
The boys had been impressed by the sureness and authority in Topper’s movements.
That was why tonight was big to them. Tonight they were going to help Topper Kalish on his big job. They had listened to what he had said, and now they were more than ready.
Topper had given each of them a gun, a smooth and loaded .32, and they were prepared to study—if not assist—the way Topper Kalish earned his living.
Topper’s inconspicious grey Ford cruised crosstown on 110th, traveling well within the speed limit. “You boys remember everything I told you?”
“We learn fast, Topper,” Pepper said.
“Where we hitting tonight?” Tony asked, matter-of-factly.
“A candy store,” Topper answered, his even, white grin spreading. He massaged the steering wheel.
Tony, in the back seat, let out a startled, “What?” His voice registered amazement. “A candy store?”
“That’s right,” Topper answered, cutting off a cab at the light. The motor idled, and Topper looked back quickly at the confused Tony. “A candy store. Haven’t you ever been in a candy store?”
The light turned, and Topper accelerated rapidly. “Sure, sure. We been in a candy store, Topper,” Tony said, still bewildered, “but why you want to hold up a…?”
“The front is a candy store,” Topper cut him off. “The rear is a floating crap game that doesn’t float a helluva lot A Mrs. Chaplin and her old man run the place up front and get a cut off the game in the back. I used to sit in and make a few bucks there; tonight I’m gonna make more than a few.
“I got word there’s a big set-to running this evening. A couple of big boys from out of town with wads.” He made a circle with thumb and forefinger, waggled it beside his head. “A sure thing.
“What do we do?” Pepper asked quietly.
“You just sit in the car, and keep the motor hot Any cops come on the picture, you cool them off proper. That’s what you got rods for. Okay?”
“Okay, Topper.”
Pepper said softly, “We’ll take care of everything.”
They could see into the shop clearly. The evening was a summery lightness, and the wide door and window of the candy store afforded them a straight view. They could, in fact, almost hear what was being said. It wasn’t a very busy block, this time of the evening.
Topper walked in, and bought a pack of cigarettes. Then he leaned across the counter, talking to the old woman, who nodded and bobbed her head in answer to his questions. Topper jerked a thumb toward the door set into the back wall of the candy shop, and the woman shook her head with vehemence.
“Ain’t he the greatest!” Pepper admired him from the car.
“Yeah. He’s really something,” Tony agreed with pride.
Topper made hand movements the boys were certain meant he wanted into the back room. But the old woman was firm. She was a wrinkled thing, almost prune like, with stringy, dirty white hair falling down to her shoulders. She shook the wrinkled head on the wrinkled neck. Not and called out, loud enough so the boys could hear, Sigmund! Sigmund! Come here, qvick!”
The back door opened, and an old man, equally as wrinkled as the old woman, nut-brown and hunched over, limped out.
Abruptly, before the old man could shut the door, Topper had his gun out. He gripped it by the barrel and charged the old man.
The old man fell back, the door slamming shut, a look of terror on his face, as Topper smashed into him. They heard Topper give a short, sharp laugh as he smashed the gun’s butt across the old man’s face. The man screamed, and Topper hit him again, harder. The old man’s face seemed to fly apart under the viciousness of Topper’s blows.
They could hear Topper chuckling as though he were enjoying himself. The old man collapsed across a rack of paperback novels and fell to the floor, dragging the rack with him. Topper raised one foot.
The old woman screamed again and again. Shrilly.
She seemed unable to drag her eyes off the beaten mess on the floor. Her eyes were wide, and she dug her blunt fingers into the loose folds of her face, the terror streaming across her features.
“Ain’t he something!” Tony said, with ill-concealed good humor.
“Really someth…” The words were sliced off suddenly. He looked down the block. A cop was running from the corner, drawn by the old woman’s screams.
“Cop,” Tony said, quietly opening the door on his side.
“Yeah…cop,” Pepper whispered, getting out.
They walked away from the car quickly, to the opposite curb, stepping swiftly into the shadows of a doorway.
They still watched Topper in the store, and the running cop, coming on fast.
“Looks like the cop’ll take him, doesn’t it?” Pepper said.
“Suppose so.”
“We were supposed to take care of cops, you know,” Pepper said seriously.
“Think we should?” Tony said, making no move from the doorway.
“Ain’t that Topper something!” replied Pepper, ignoring Tony’s question.
The woman was crying hysterically, trying to climb out from behind the counter, over a soft drink cooler. Calmly, and with deliberation, Topper took aim and put three shots into her. The first two were calculated to cripple her, which they did; they caught her in the hip, as she struggled to the top of the cooler. Brittle old bones shattered, and with a scream she fell across, tumbling onto the floor. The third shot was a clean one into the face.
Topper turned toward the back door, which was coming open. Men in shirtsleeves appeared in the doorway, and Topper dumped two more bullets in their direction, sending one man slipping through, clutching his shoulder.
At that second, the cop burst into the shop.
“Too late now,” said Pepper, watching the scene.
“Um-hmm,” Tony agreed. They watched.
Topper spun, saw the cop, and emptied the gun at him hurriedly. The cop took the slugs in his side, and spun around, into the candy counter. In an instant, Topper was out in the street, making for the car.
He stopped short and yanked open the front door, started to jump in. Then he noticed it was empty. He began to get out, looking for the boys. “Hey! Hey. Pepper! Tony! Where are y…” He managed to spot them just an instant before the cop dragged himself through the front door and dumped all six shots from his .38 Special into Topper’s retreating form.
Topper gave one high-pitched, soprano scream, then tumbled forward, falling against the car, running his clutching hands down its dusty surface in five wiggling lines as he fell. The sound was like fingernails scratching across a blackboard.
He fell backwards and lay with knees folded under him, like the fake blind men who fold their knees under them in the subways. He lay on the sidewalk, still pulsing, bleeding his life away.
From the doorway across the street, Pepper pursed his lips. “Looks like Topper’s dead.”
“Looks like it, don’t it?”
“Better go and take a look.”
“Might as well.”
The crowd had deepened around the body. There was another crowd around the wounded cop, and in the store. But the crowd was biggest around the body of Topper Kalish, who lay with an angry circle of blood under him.
The people looked down, and the horror was in their faces, their voices muted but their words unmistakable.
“Monster!” A woman with a coat pulled on over her nightgown spat on the body. “A real monster! You see what he did to that poor Mrs. Chaplin?”
“Migod in Heaven,” said a man. The backs of his feet were red and horny in the bedroom slippers. “He should of been shot dead before he was turned out into these streets loose!”
Tony and Pepper looked at one another. Tony said, “Wonder what they was doing in bed this early in the evening?”
Pepper bent down, hands on knees. “First two caught him in the neck.”
He drew back as one man with army boots stepped up and kicked—in a burst of bravado—the dead face of Topper Kalish. The sirens of the ambulances shattered the crowd noises, as they streaked whitely to the curb.
Pepper and Tony stood on the inside of the circle that surrounded Topper’s body. They listened to the mutters and curses directed at the dead man.
“A monster!” the woman repeated. “A real monster; Just look what he done! And that’s what got him caught!”
“Yeah,” Pepper muttered to Tony, “look what he done.”
Tony nodded. “Look what got him caught.”
Pepper turned away suddenly, his face clear and untroubled. Under his breath, but loud enough so that Tony could hear and agree, “He was the greatest. But we know better.”
Three nights later, a bar on Amsterdam and 83rd Street was held up. for over six hundred dollars.
Questioned later, the bartender and witnesses swore the robbers were young boys.
They made a point of remarking that the boys were overly polite, and were certain to treat everyone with respect and kindness—up to the point that such an act would allow them to conduct their business. They had not hurt anyone, and had spoken with “sirs” and “ma’ams” that had amazed the crowd.
One woman remarked, in fact, that though she had been relieved of sixty-eight dollars, her watch and rings—and her companion had lost as much money, his watch and, oddly enough, his tie—“They seemed so mannerly. Like such fine boys. How could they have become criminals?
“I wonder where could have learned anything like that!”