‘I don’t want to listen,’ she said. ‘You either quit your Mr Williams, or I go to the police. That’s it, Manny. I’ve had enough.’
‘You ain’t had nothing,’ I said. ‘Baby, we’ll be in the chips. I’m moving up. Mr Williams-‘
‘I’ll scream!’ she shouted. ‘If you mention his name once more, I’ll scream.’
‘Baby-’
‘Shut up! Shut up, Manny!’ She started crying then, and I’ve never known what to do with a chick that bawls, so I left her alone and walked the streets for a while.
I found Turk, and I bought a few joints from him. Marijuana was candy to Turk. It never gave him a jolt, but he was willing to sell it so he could get his paws on the needle stuff. I lit up one of the joints, sucking it in with loose lips, mixing it with air for a bigger charge. The street got longer and the buildings seemed to tilt a little, but outside of that, I didn’t feel a thing.
I lit the other joint and smoked it down to a roach, and then I stuck a toothpick in that and got the last harsh, powerful drags out of it. I flew down the street, then, and I forgot all about Betty and her goddamn loose mouth. I was on a big cloud, and the city was just a toy city down below me, and I felt good. Hell, I felt terrific.
It didn’t last. You pick up, and the charge is great, but it wears off and you got the same old problem again. Unless you’re Turk, and then your big problem is getting the stuff that makes you forget.
On the sixth day, I knew what I had to do.
She went to a movie that night, and I walked the streets thinking it all over in my mind. Around eleven o’clock, I took a post in an alley near her pad. I knew the way she came home. She always came home the same way. The army .45 was in my pocket. It felt heavy, and my palm sweated against the walnut stock.
I heard her heels, and I knew it was her when she was still a block away. She crossed the street under the lamp-post and the light danced in her hair, threw little sparkles across the street. She walked like a queen, Betty, with her shoulders back, and her fine, high breasts firm under her coat. Her heels tapped on the pavement and she came closer and I took the automatic out of my pocket.
When she reached the alley, I said, ‘Betty,’ soft, in a whisper.
She recognised my voice, and she turned, her eyebrows lifting, her mouth parted slightly. I fired twice, only twice.
The gun bucked in my hand and I saw the holes go right through her forehead, and she fell back without screaming, without making a sound. I didn’t look back. I cut down the alley and over towards Eighth Avenue. I dropped the gun down a sewer, then, and I walked around for the rest of the night. It was a long, long night.
The party was a big one. I stayed close to Mr Williams all night, and he called me his boy, and all the punks came around and looked up to me and I could see they were thinking, ‘That Cole is a tough cat, and a big man.’
I was wearing a tailor-made suit. I’d laid down two hundred skins for it. My pinky-badge was white and clear even if I’d got it at a hock shop. It was a big party, all right, and all the big wheels were there, and Manny Cole was one of them. They were afraid of me, and they respected me. Even Julie. Julie maybe respected me more than all the rest.
The usual punks were there, too, eager, falling all over Mr Williams, waiting for the big kill, the one that would put them up there on top of the heap. Mr Williams introduced me to a young squirt named Davis, Georgia Davis or something. He said the kid was worth watching, that he’d done nicely on a few gigs so far. I watched the kid, and a few times I caught him watching me back, and there was a hungry, glittering look in his eyes.
I didn’t get home until five in the morning. The dawn was creeping over the edge of the night in a grey, lazy way.
I stood in the kitchen in the quiet apartment. I had the money to move out of there now, but I hadn’t made the break yet. I pulled back the curtain, and I looked down over the rooftops, the way I used to long ago when Betty would come up to see me, when we were both a little younger-when Betty was alive.
It got chilly in the apartment. The chill reached through my skin and settled in my bones. I tossed the curtain aside and walked over to the phone, flipping open the pad. I’d written the number down when it was an important number to know, when I’d been a punk like Georgie Davis and when this number belonged to a guy on the top.
‘Hello?’ The voice was tired, not a big shot’s voice.
‘Hello, Turk,’ I said. ‘This is Manny Cole.’
‘Oh, hello, Mr Cole, how are you? What can I do for you?’
I smiled a little. ‘Turk, bring a girl over. I feel lonely, Turk.’
‘A girl?’ Turk said. ‘Why sure, Mr Cole. Any particular kind?’
Mister Cole again. The smile got bigger on my face. ‘Use your own judgment, Turk. You know what I like.’
‘Sure, Mr Cole. Right away.’