I didn’t bother locking my apartment door. If Hub’s men wanted to get in, they’d get in, the only question was whether I’d have to deal with a busted doorframe afterwards.
I took up a position so I’d be behind the door when it opened. I stood there and nothing happened. I kept standing, feeling like a fool. But in the last thirty-six hours I’d had a gun pointed at me, been threatened by gangsters and by the police, and found a mutilated body. I waited.
The knock came, three heavy thuds made with the meat of a fist. I stayed quiet. We all listened to the floorboards. The knock again, more insistent, and this time, “Come on, Foster. We know you’re in there. We just want to talk.” It was Mitch’s voice.
I heard a hand on the doorknob, and then the door swung towards me, but faster and harder than I’d expected. It slammed into my hip, sending a sharp pain up and down my side. I must have cried out, because Mitch hurled his full weight against the door, pinning me behind it. I tried to lean forward but my shoulders were pushed together, my arms in front of me like a fighter trying to protect his middle. I was stuck.
Mitch peeked around the door, still holding his weight against it. At the sight of me, he eased the pressure for a moment only to fall back against the door, shooting pain along my shoulder blades.
A second man appeared, rail thin and well over six feet tall, wearing a gray suit with a black vest underneath. He patted me down to see if I had a gun. I didn’t. He took the newspaper article I’d stolen from the library out of my pocket. Then he nodded at Mitch.
The weight fell away from the door and I staggered forward. “What do you two want?”
The tall man unfolded the newspaper article, glanced it over, and looked back at me. “For somebody not working on a murder, you have an interesting choice of reading material.”
“I just ripped that out for the crossword on the back.”
He held up the backside, which wasn’t a crossword. “We were told to give you a chance. We were told to use our discretion.”
“I told it to Gilplaine straight. I’m working another job.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t even say why it was important. I didn’t know anything other than I was a damn fool for having gotten mixed up with this business in the first place.
“Mr. Gilplaine finds your explanation unconvincing,” the tall man said. He turned to Mitch, who was jumping lightly in place on the balls of his feet, like he was warming up. “Leave his face alone. This is only a warning.”
I tried to dodge to my left in an attempt to get out the door, but Mitch barreled into me, slamming me back up against it. Holding me there, he punched me in the kidney. One would have been plenty, but he did it again and then a third time, so that my legs went watery and tears pushed out between my squinting eyelids. A fire lapped around my midsection. He let me go since he was sure I wasn’t going anywhere now. Before I could collapse, he propped me up and punched me just once in the stomach. I doubled over, throwing my upper torso into Mitch’s waiting fist. The dull ache of my pectoral met up with the fire in my side, and I fell back against the door, trying to draw breath and failing.
Mitch stood up, his breathing only slightly heavy. “He doesn’t look too good, does he?”
The tall man made no comment. We could have been reading the stock prices. He was bored.
Mitch jumped in place again. “I think I better even him out.” He twisted his torso, bringing his arm all the way back. He was going to show me that fist long before it was going to get to me. I couldn’t move anyway, and he barreled it into my other kidney. I fell forward onto my knees.
“He’s blocking the door.”
“You’re in the way,” Mitch said. He shoved me over with the toe of one shoe. I didn’t resist. I couldn’t have if I’d tried.
“I think we’ve made our point,” the tall man said.
Mitch kicked me in the stomach once more for good measure. Before I could catch my breath, he bent down and snaked a thick arm around my windpipe, his hot breath up against my ear. “Just because I’m not supposed to mark up your face don’t mean I’ve got to leave you conscious, you flatfooted...”
Whatever it was that he called me was lost to the ages. There were more interesting things to command my attention, black splotches appearing before my eyes intermixed with white flashes, and then the black beat out the white and then I was drifting above the floor, high up near the ceiling, and then I wasn’t.
The black-and-white flicker of a movie screen came on in front of me, the test strip counting down five, four, three, two, one. Chloë Rose lit up the screen, a radiant aura around her. There were quick cuts and there was a knife and there was a gun, and then there was a body floating on a pool of blood. Chloë Rose came back again, and she was screaming. She was beautiful. Then there was a man seen from behind. It must have been the star of the picture. John Stark or Hub Gilplaine. He came to a mirror and I saw that it was me. But I’m down there with the paying marks in the cinema seats. How could I be up on the screen? The image flickered past. There was a lanky brunette stuffing a body into a car. There was another body floating in a pool of blood, but this time the blood was mixed with white foam. It was on the beach, and the waves were lapping away at the black blood, white, black, white, black, a gaping throat. A gunshot. And they’re off. The horses pounded around the track. Cut to the stands. Chloë Rose. The horses rounding the far turn. Cut to the stands. Mitch and the tall man and me holding our tickets. The horses are coming around. Cut to the stands. John Stark holding hands with Greg Taylor. The photoflash! It hurts my eyes. And then the horse race was a prize fight and Mitch was in the ring with me and the bell was being rung...
And then suddenly it was a telephone ringing.
A voice said, “Turn off the lights.”
I took a deep breath and immediately started coughing. Every part of my upper torso ached, except when I moved, at which point the ache was replaced with shooting pain.
“It’s too bright,” the voice said. “Turn off the light and bring me a drink.”
No one answered, and it’s a good thing, because I was alone.
I looked over at the phone, but it had stopped ringing. If it ever had been ringing. Maybe it had just been my head.
I put my hand against the wall. It was a good wall. It stayed where you left it. Not like my breath. I gasped to draw it in, my throat getting tight, but in it went, and I exhaled with the only consequence being more throbbing and jabbing along my ribs.
The wall helped me to my knees and even held me when I fell against it. Like I said, it was a good wall. I was able to reach up and flip off the light.
Now it was too dark. Whatever little light was supposed to come from the window in the bathroom wasn’t there, so I’d been out at least a couple of hours.
Okey, Foster, one step at a time. That’s the way. Hands and knees. Now just knees. What do you say about feet?
One foot was under me now, and then with the help of the doorknob I got up onto both feet and stumbled across to my chair and fell into it. The newspaper article was sitting on the bed. That was nice of them. They were solid people who wouldn’t steal a newspaper clipping from an unconscious man. The library should hire those two. They’d never have any late returns again.
I rested for some amount of time, re-learning how to breathe. I got so I was pretty good at it. I could even do it with my eyes closed. When I had gotten that under my belt, I figured I might as well try for that drink. I got to my feet, and this time it wasn’t like riding a bicycle with a bent wheel. I made it to the liquor, poured a stiff drink, and drank it off in one gulp, enjoying the only burning inside of me that I had put there. While I poured another one, the phone began to ring again. Or maybe it was the first time. I looked at it way over on the side table. It was probably Pauly Fisher. Anything he had to tell me, I didn’t want to know just then; he could call me at the office tomorrow.
I made my way back to the light switch with the second drink in my hand, the phone still ringing. The lights came on and I squinted, holding up my hand as if to ward off a blow.
I drank the second drink. I could see then. The clock on my nightstand said it was almost half past eight. It had been just about five when I’d left the library. I’d been out for three hours, assuming it wasn’t the next day.
The phone was still hollering at anyone who would listen. Pauly Fisher wasn’t that persistent, but I didn’t want to find out who was. It was still plenty early for Market Street—in fact, it might still have been too early. But it was time to go either way. Because that was my job. All of this other stuff was just a sideline, a hobby.
I looked at the newspaper article again. Gilplaine had done me a favor in his own vicious way. He’d told me this dead woman was much more important than I’d known. That seemed like a mistake a man like Gilplaine wouldn’t make. Maybe someday I’d know why.
I thought about a third drink, but left my glass on the table and went to the door instead. I got it open without any problem. No one was waiting outside. It was just me and the hallway. They seemed pretty confident I’d gotten the message. I’d gotten it, but it might not have been the message they intended.
I locked up behind me and leaned against the wall. Behind my door the telephone was still ringing. That was an awfully long time to let a phone ring. Maybe it was important after all.
But getting out of there was important too. Whoever it was could call back.
I went down the hall, took the automatic elevator, and found my car just like a man who had all of his organs in the right place.