A car pulled up to the curb, and two men climbed leisurely to the sidewalk. Ray turned, began walking toward Park Avenue.
It was a lazy morning, the kind of morning that made a guy want to lie in the grass with his shoes off. Maybe he’d walk in the park, relax a while. Hell, there wouldn’t be many cops in the park. Who’d look for a murderer in Central Park?
The idea appealed to him. There wasn’t much he could do now, anyway. Ask a few more questions, possibly. But who? Rusty O’Donnell? She was Kramer’s new doll, and maybe she knew something. Well, he could do that later. He was tired, and he could use a little nap. He quickened his step, suddenly became aware of the clicking foosteps behind him.
A man drew up on his left, and Ray turned his head quickly. He snapped it back when he felt strong fingers tightening on his right arm.
“Hey, what—”
“Just keep walking, Mac,” the man on his left said. “Just keep walking and nobody’ll get hurt.”
The police! That lousy, rotten doctor had…
“That’s a good boy,” the man on the right said. “Just keep your trap shut and keep walking.”
He clamped his teeth on his lower lip, kept walking between the two men. Somehow, they didn’t act like cops.
“See that gray Buick turning the corner?”
Ray looked, saw a car pulling onto Park Avenue. It was the same car that had drawn alongside the curb as he left the doctor’s office. He nodded.
“Well, we’re going to get in that car,” the man on his left said softly. “Just walk up to it, understand? I’ll open the door and get in first. You’ll get in next, and Freddy’ll get in last. All natural-like, you understand, Mac?”
“I understand.”
They walked over to the car, three gentlemen out for an afternoon stroll. The man on Ray’s left opened the door, showed Ray his broad back as he entered. Ray climbed in after him, and Freddy got into the car and slammed the door.
“Okay,” the burly man said. “Let’s go.”
The driver turned back, grinning. He had a toothpick in his mouth, and his nose curled down almost to his lips. His hair was slicked back with oil. “This the junkie?” he asked.
“This is him.” The man on Ray’s left nudged Ray in the ribs. “That right, Mac?”
“I—”
He jabbed Ray again, harder this time. “Answer when I talk to you, Mac.”
“Sure,” Ray said, beginning to get angry now. “I’m the junkie.”
The big man’s hand lashed out, catching Ray on his jawbone. Ray’s head snapped back, and he brought his hand to his face, his eyes wide in surprise.
“Talk decent,” the big man said.
“Easy, Hank,” Freddy cautioned. “Easy.”
Hank shrugged, seemed to pout off into his corner of the car. “He was getting snotty,” he said. “Damn hophead.”
The driver threw the car into gear, set it in motion. They headed west, hitting the West Side Highway, up the Henry Hudson Parkway, finally onto the Saw Mill River Parkway. They rode in silence, Hank’s big shoulders pressing against Ray, Freddy’s shoulders against his on the right.
“You’re not police,” Ray said.
The driver laughed, and Hank said, “You’re smart, you know?”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“What’s it all about?” Ray persisted.
“You talk too much,” Freddy said.
Ray looked at the man. He had bright red hair, a freckled face. For a moment, he reminded Ray of the bartender at the Ace High. But there was a meanness in Freddy’s eyes that killed that thought immediately.
Hank cleared his throat and Ray turned his head. He was heavily bearded, with thick lips and a thick nose. Heavy scar tissue hugged his eyes, lidding their brownness. Ray looked at the beard, and was suddenly happy that he’d shaved.
“You’ll get plenty of chance to talk later,” Hank informed him. “Meanwhile, shut up.”
* * *
The windows of the farmhouse were boarded up, the house itself set far back from the main highway. The car bounced and jostled along the rutted road.
“This is it,” the driver said.
They were in Connecticut. Ray looked at the old red house warily. He felt Hank’s elbow in his ribs again.
“Get out,” the voice said.
Ray stumbled out of the car, his feet plunging into mud. Hank shoved him from behind, shouted, “Up to the house.”
They walked on either side of Ray, the driver just ahead of them. The driver opened the door with a small key, walked inside and opened a window. They followed behind him.
The house was unfurnished except for several straight chairs. Thick dust covered the floors and windows, and the room smelled musty and aged.
“Sit down,” Hank said. He gestured toward a chair.
“Listen, don’t you think you ought to tell me—”
“Sit down!”
Ray looked up at the gun in Hank’s fist. It was big and blue, and the gaping end of it stared at Ray menacingly. A .45, with big fat slugs. Not the kind that had killed Eileen and Charlie.
He sat down while Freddy came over with a heavy rope, swinging it over Ray’s head and then pulling it tight over his arms. He wrapped the rope around Ray several times, looped it under the chair, and then tied each of his ankles to opposite chair legs.
“You can yell all you want now,” Hank said. “Ain’t nobody for miles.”
Hank kept the gun in his fist, put both fists on his hips, stood in front of Ray with widespread legs and looked down at him.
“What’d you do with it?” he asked.
A frown crossed Ray’s forehead, “What? What’d I do with what?”
Hank grinned. “Look, junkie, this can be easy or it can be hard. Any way you like it. You tell us what we want to know, and the party’ll be short and sweet. One-two-six, all over. You want to play coy, we’ll have to help you along. It’ll be easier the other way. You understand?”
“Sure.” Ray squirmed against the ropes that were cutting into his ankles and wrists.
“So what’d you do with the stuff?”
“What stuff?”
Hank shook his head, as if he were chiding a naughty boy. “I don’t think you got my point, junkie. We don’t mind a joke, you understand, but we ain’t got much time. No time to waste with a punk like you, anyway. So you tell us what we want to know without any fooling around and everything’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ray said.
The gun came up with amazing speed, a bluish blur in the sunlight streaming through the open window. He tried to turn his head aside, but he was too late. The barrel slashed across his cheek, slapping into the bone, ripping the flesh back in a tearing flash of pain.
Ray yelled, “What the hell—”
“Where’s the heroin?” Hank asked. He stood over Ray with the gun on the flat of his palm now, ready for another blow.
“Heroin? What heroin?”
The blow came, the checked walnut stock slamming into the side of his face. Ray shook his head to focus his eyes. He wanted to touch his face to see if he were bleeding. He tried to move his hands, felt the rope bite into them.
Hank’s sweating face came into view, the scar tissue white against his brown eyes. He leaned over close to Ray’s face, his breath smothering Ray with tobacco and beer fumes.
“The sixteen ounces of horse. Where’d you hide it?”
“Oh,” Ray said, his breath rasping into his throat. “Eileen’s horse. Yeah, yeah.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know, I told you.”
Hank slapped Ray with his open palm.
“Where is it?” The hand sliced across in a backward motion, and the knuckles rocked Ray’s head to the side.
“I don’t know. Jesus, I don’t know.”
“You saw the stuff?”
“Yes.” He felt something sticky work its way down the side of his face, ooze over his jawbone, down his neck, onto his open collar. “Yes, I saw it.”
“Sixteen ounces?”
“Yes. In a tin. A candy tin.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. It was gone in the morning.”
Freddy moved up close to Hank. “Ain’t no use talking to a junkie,” he said. “These slobs don’t know what they’re saying half the time.”
Hank sighed deeply. “What’d you do with it, junkie?”
“I didn’t take it, for Christ’s sake. Eileen and I had a fix that night. I looked for the horse in the morning, but it was gone.”
“We know it’s gone. Where’d you put it?”
“I didn’t put it anywhere. It was gone, I told you.”
Hank sighed again, slowly took the .45 from his belt. “Well, junkie,” he said. “It looks like we’re gonna have to prolong the party a little.” He slapped the gun against the palm of his hand.
* * *
There were faces moving in a sea of darkness. Faces that swam into view and then faded, drowning, drowning. There was a steady battering, pounding, thrashing, rocking. Incessant. It fell on his face, the pounding, hammered at his stomach and ribs. His mouth was a gaping red wound, and there were razor blades slashing at his lips, or knives, and spikes inside his mouth, or nails, or sharp glass.
Something was heavy on his stomach, a Mack truck, or an El pillar, something. And white hot pliers were squeezing his entrails, searing them with flame. He wanted to scream but every time he opened his mouth, he would choke and something thick and hot in his throat would strangle him.
And under it all was the soundtrack, persistent, monotonous, eating through the pain like acid on steel. “Where’s the heroin? Where’s the heroin heroin heroin heroin heroin…
”
“I don’t know!” he screamed.
“Easy,” a voice said.
“He’s coming out of it,” another voice murmured. The voices were far away, lined with fur. They were coming from the end of a long conical cave, and there was a pinpoint of light at the far end of the cave, and the light was getting brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter.
“I don’t know!” he screamed again. “I don’t know. Honest, honest.”
Something slapped his face. The skin was raw. It hurt when the slap touched it. The slapping continued, little pats, gentle little pats, coaxing him to awareness.
Ray opened his eyes.
“That’s a good boy,” a voice said.
“You been out for a long time,” another voice said.
“Wh—where am I?”
“You’re at the Waldorf-Astoria,” the first voice said. Ray heard a laugh, tried to turn his head. He squinted his eyes shut in pain against the throbbing that shook his temples.
“I—I remember now,” he mumbled.
“Do you remember where the heroin is?”
“No!” He shouted it. “I mean, there’s nothing to remember. I just don’t know, that’s all. I never did know. It just disappeared, that’s all.”
“You know how long you been out, junkie?”
Ray focused his eyes, looked up at Hank’s bearded face.
“How long?”
“Just about four hours. Just enough time for us to send to New York for a little present. A present just for you if you tell us what we want to know.”
“I already told you—”
Hank’s voice was persuasive, oily. “When was the last time you had a shot, junkie?”
“A real shot,” Freddy joined in.
The driver, lounging against the wall with a toothpick still between his teeth, smiled. “Heroin,” he said, announcing the word, making it sound like “diamonds.”
“The night with Eil—” Ray stopped short. What were they driving at? What had they cooked up?
“How would you like a shot?” Hank asked.
“I wouldn’t,” Ray lied.
Hank took his hand from behind his back. He held a syringe, the glass tube glistening in the late sun, the needle reflecting tiny slivers of light. In the barrel, Ray saw the whitish fluid he knew so well. His throat suddenly went dry. He swallowed, stared at the hypo in Hank’s fingers.
“There’s enough in here to send you to the stars and back, junkie. Not too much, but just enough. Just enough to quiet your nerves.” He paused. “You can have it, junkie.”
Ray’s breath came out in short, machine-gun spurts. He sobbed dryly, his head rocking back and forth. “I—I—I don’t—don’t want it—don’t want it—”
His eyes began to tear, and his muscles shook. His face fell apart gradually, a tic near his eye first, a muscle twitch close to his lips, a trembling of the chin. All at once, it became a shivering mass of flesh that twitched and jerked spasmodically. His teeth rattled in his mouth and he tried to shake his head, tried to turn it away from the tormenting sight of the loaded needle, waiting, waiting.
“Come on, junkie,” Hank’s voice went on, smooth and soft now. “You know you’d love a shot. We’ll jab it right into your arm, junkie, all of it. You’re a mainliner, aren’t you, junkie?”
“Yes— I mean, no. I— No—” He wet his lips, tried to control the frantic heave of his chest. “Get it away, for Christ’s sake,” he shouted. “Get it away!” His voice trailed off into a sob.
“Sure, junkie, we’ll get it away. We’ll give it all to you. Just tell us where you hid the stuff.”
“I didn’t hide it,” he screamed. “I didn’t take it! I didn’t, didn’t. Leave me alone.”
“Look, junkie.”
He raised his head, the muscles in his neck jerking crazily. Hank was grinning, one hand on the syringe, the other hand spread wide, the thumb touching the plunger. “Look, junkie,” he repeated.
Hank’s thumb tightened on the plunger, and a short squirt of white fluid arched out into the air, formed a tiny wet line on the floor.
Ray stared at the precious liquid, looked quickly back to the rest of the heroin in the syringe. Hank’s voice went suddenly hard.
“Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I’m going to squirt all this horse on the floor unless you start talking fast.”
“There’s nothing—nothing to say, nothing. I don’t know where the stuff is. I just don’t know.”
“All right, you dumb bastard. Watch.” He pressed the plunger again, and a longer stream squirted out this time.
“Don’t!” Ray shouted.
“Where’s the heroin?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
The thumb flicked again, the liquid squirting from the end of the needle. “Where is it? God damn it, where did you put it? We’ll beat your silly brains out, Stone. Where’s that heroin?”
Ray shook his head dumbly, too spent to speak. Hank’s thumb shoved against the plunger, pushing it clear down into the glass cylinder. Ray watched the heroin arc out of the needle, squirt onto the floor, seep into the dust of the boards.