The Almost Perfect Murder, Hulbert Footner [digital e reader .TXT] 📗

said with a lordly

indifference, “these ladies are wit’ me, see? I’m buyin’ for them.

What’ll you have, girls?”

 

“You’re a fool, Chico,” said Luigi, shrugging, “you had oughta leave

the women alone. You’re like to get plugged yourself for this.”

However, his scorn was tempered by a grin. Chico was evidently a

favourite.

 

“Thanks for the tip,” said Chico insolently. “I know my business.”

 

Little Tina suddenly sprang up, livid and trembling with passion. “You

would, would you?” she cried. “With the likes of that! She’s a

murderess! Put her out! Put her out!”

 

Everybody turned on Tina. “Yah! are you tryin’ to make trouble now?”

snarled Luigi. “I don’t have to take it from you! Git your things and

git, see!” He pointed a stubby forefinger towards the door.

 

Tina’s voice rose shriller and higher, but Luigi bellowed her down.

“Git! … Git! … Git!”

 

The girl suddenly collapsed and stumbled out of the room, weeping

tempestuously. There is no justice in such matters. Luigi followed

her out.

VI

In obedience to a glance from Madge I moved around to the other side of

the table, leaving the place next to her for Chico. We sat down. More

grappa was brought to our table, and everything went on just as if

there had been no shooting five minutes before. I may say that Madge

and I made no pretence of drinking all this stuff. Luigi didn’t care,

of course, so it was ordered often enough. The full glasses were

whisked away from in front of us, and I have no doubt brought back

again directly afterwards.

 

It was very thrilling to find oneself so close to the redoubtable

Chico. He was so frankly the preening, strutting male I was almost

ashamed to look at him. “Aah! buck up, girl!” he said to Madge with

his scornful grin; “you’re too good-lookin’ a girl to mind a little

thing like that! Nobody’s gonna do anything to a girl like you!”

 

However scornful his words might be, there was a dangerous purring

quality in his voice whenever he addressed a woman that was—well,

weakening! The little wretch was too good-looking, too sure of

himself. It wasn’t fair. Madge permitted herself to smile wanly in

his direction.

 

“What’s yer name?” he demanded. “Me, I’m Chico Cardone.”

 

“Madge Regan,” she said.

 

“And who’s she?” he asked, with a contemptuous jerk of the head in my

direction.

 

“Me sister Bella.”

 

“Well, say, they ain’t nobody layin’ fer Bella outside,” he said

coolly. “Why can’t she beat it home?”

 

“Nix,” said Madge. “Me and Bella allus sticks together.”

 

“Aah,” he drawled, at once contemptuous and cajoling, “send her home,

go on.”

 

“No,” said Madge.

 

Their hard glances contended for the mastery. In the end it was Madge

who faced him out. Chico was inveigled by the touselled head. “Well,

drink hearty,” he said, lifting his tiny glass. No more was said about

sending me home.

 

Chico, with his insolent narrowed eyes fixed on her face, picked up her

hand and fondled it. “Pretty damn quick on the draw aw right,” he said

grinning. “Me, I like ‘em dangerous, meself. They’s some kick about a

girl that totes a gun. What makes me tired is the kind that blubs all

over the place…. Just the same when you go out wit’ me I’ll make

sure first-off you ain’t got no gun in your stockin’ before I git it

meself.”

 

Madge pulled her hand away. “I ain’t gonna get messed up with you,”

she said, giving him scorn for scorn.

 

“Why ain’t ya?”

 

“Too many women runnin’ after ya. I don’ hafta enter no free-for-all

to git a fella.”

 

“Is zat so?” drawled Chico.

 

“You heard me.”

 

“Nobody ever caught me by runnin’ after me. I pick me own.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

It is impossible to convey in words the spirited exchange of glances

that passed back and forth. I wondered where Mme. Storey could have

learned the technique of Bleecker Street love-making. She was as good

as Chico. “You don’t exactly hate yerself, do ya?” she asked with arch

scorn.

 

“Why should I?” retorted Chico grinning. “I never lie to a woman.”

 

“No, you don’t!”—very sarcastically.

 

“Sure, I don’t. That’s what makes ‘em sore. They expect a man to lie.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah! But I allus give it to ‘em straight.” He drew her arm through

his, and leaned warmly towards her. “Listen, kid,” he murmured

thrillingly, “I’m for you, see? … There it is, you can take it or

leave it, and I ain’t sayin’ you’re the on’y girl in the world neither.”

 

“Nor are you the on’y fella,” she retorted.

 

Luigi had returned to the room and was watching the couple with a

cynical grin. The scene between them was interrupted by the clanging

of a gong in the street. Everybody looked at the door uneasily. The

haggard little waiter ran in.

 

“The police,” he gasped; “the police…”

 

A window was thrown up and Chico went over the sill, pulling Madge

after him by the hand. Chico never thought of me, but you may be sure

I stuck close to them. We dropped on damp flagstones outside, with a

high wooden fence looming before us. There was a ladder lying in the

yard, which Chico placed against the extension. We scrambled up, and

he pulled it after us. We crossed a flat tin roof that crackled

underfoot, and went over another window sill into the main house. We

found ourselves in a bedroom. There were actually two people lying in

the bed. One rose up as we crossed the room, but Chico said: “‘S’all

right, Mike;” and he lay down again. It was like a crazy dream.

 

Gaining the main hall of the house, we went up three more flights of

stairs, and up another ladder. Chico pushed open a scuttle, and once

more we found ourselves under the sky. Chico carefully closed the

scuttle. I had a momentary impression of peaceful still beauty high

above the confusion of the town. The sky threatened rain, and the

low-hanging clouds reflected the street lights with a delicate pinkish

radiance.

 

Chico ran over the roofs pulling Madge after him, and I close at their

heels. We climbed over the low parapets that separated the houses.

The noises of the street came up to us slightly muffled. I counted the

houses we crossed. On the fourth house Chico dropped to his knees

beside a little skylight in the roof, and lifted it.

 

“This is me own room,” he said. “We’ll be as safe here as in church.”

 

He dropped out of sight into the black hole, and presently his voice

came back: “Wait till I shove a table under, and then let yourself down

easy.” And a moment later: “Now!”

 

I had a moment of horrible panic when Mme. Storey dropped into the

blackness, thinking she might be spirited away from me. But when I let

myself down, I found the table under my feet, and Chico’s hand to guide

me. He steered me to a bed.

 

“Sit there,” he said. “I gotta close the shutter before I light up.”

 

Mme. Storey was beside me. I was trembling like an aspen leaf, and she

pressed my hand to reassure me. By a little catch of laughter in her

breath I knew she was enjoying every moment. Well, that is her way.

It made me a little sore at the time, because my nerves were in strings.

 

The light flashed on, and I beheld a sordid little inside room with

only the skylight overhead to admit light and air. It was closely

shuttered now. The place was clean enough, but utterly cheerless; the

sagging iron bed on which we sat, the rickety pine table; a cheap

bureau marked all around the edge with the burns of innumerable

cigarette butts; and two broken chairs. The only humane touch in the

room was a photograph stuck in the glass on the bureau. Curiously

enough it was not of a woman, but a handsome Italian boy, thirteen or

fourteen years old.

 

Chico stood before us grinning. “Well, here we are!” he said. “On’y I

wish to God Bella was home and in bed.”

 

Madge now assumed a sullen and rather scared look. “If she wasn’t here

I wouldn’t stay,” she muttered.

 

“Would you sooner run out into the arms of the cops?” asked Chico

teasingly.

 

“Yes, I would,” she muttered. “When can I get out of here?”

 

“I don’t care if you never go,” said Chico ardently.

 

Now that we had separated him from the gang, Chico showed us a new

aspect of his character. He was not on parade now. There was no

necessity for him to play the part of the swaggering little bravo, who

felt nothing and cared for nothing. Now that he had us practically at

his mercy, something perilously like decency and kindness appeared in

his hard face. I gradually lost my fear of him.

 

“Aw, I ain’t a gorilla,” he said cajolingly to Madge. “I ain’t a gonna

bite ya. What ya scared of, kid? You was game enough when the utter

fella got ugly.”

 

Gradually Madge allowed herself to be won back to a smile. In his

room, however, her manner was entirely different from what it had been

in the caf�. There were no more scornful challenges from her dark

eyes. She was friendly and gentle as if she trusted him—and Chico

responded to it. Nobody is completely bad, of course. He talked to

her like any simple fellow to his girl.

 

Chico poured out the story of his life and adventures as if it was

relief to unburden himself. It was a lurid tale. He was mum as to the

particular incident in which we were interested. He still boasted, of

course, but there was a simplicity about his recital that disarmed one.

The poor lad’s moral values were hopelessly confused: he boasted of his

crimes, and apologised for his better impulses.

 

Madge took advantage of a lull in his talk to ask: “Who’s that a

pitcher of in your bureau?”

 

Chico sprang up and fetched it to the bed. “That’s me kid brutter,

Tony,” he said eagerly. “Ain’t he a swell-lookin’ kid?” The question

unlocked the last stronghold of Chico’s guarded breast. There was

something almost piteous in his eager fondness. “Say, I cert’ny am

foolish about that kid,” he went on. “Have to keep it dark around the

fellas or they sure would razz me…. There’s on’y the two of us, him

and me. Our folks is all dead, and I’m raisin’ the kid, see? I mean,

I’m payin’ for his raisin’. I got him in the Paulist Fathers’ school

up-town. Damn good school, too. The sons of judges and doctors and

politicians and all kinds of high-ups go there, and my Tony’s as good

as the best of them!”

 

“The sons of doctors and lawyers and all!” exclaimed Madge as if amazed.

 

“Sure, I know you’ll t’ink I’m a fool,” said Chico shamefacedly, “but

that kid’s gotta have the best education money kin buy. None of the

rough stuff for him; none of what I went troo. Me, I got my education

in the prisons. He don’t know where the money comes from that pays his

bills. He thinks I’m a travellin’ man. Gee! it would raise a stink up

in that school if they ever found out, eh? But I’ll take care of that.

The on’y thing that bothers me is, suppose I was to get mine sudden.

Suppose I stopped a bullet or got sent up