Frank sat erect and electric in the chair. That meant the cops had doubted them and had decided to drag the Rockaway channels. Now they had the proof. Frank felt himself going limp, and his heart and pulses began to pound violently, beating and thumping with fright. They were caught. Trapped. Benny, the smart apple who made him go on the hook, made him go back to the school to talk to Mr. Bannon,
made him a murderer,
made him think that the cops would never find the gun! If they had thrown the gun into a sewer they would be safe now, but no, Benny had to know it all. Now the cops had the gun and they had told Lieutenant Macon that they had been necking in the Jacob Riis parking lot the night of the murder, and it wouldn’t be long now before the cops would have them again, sweating them until they confessed, and after they confessed there would be the trial and the chair. Frank sprang out of the tall chair with the arms. The resemblance was too close.
“Let’s see your paper,” Feivel called to him. “I hear they found the rod what knocked off your teacher.”
Frank handed him the paper. “Keep it,” he said.
“Hey,” Feivel called after him, “I’ll give it right back. Where you goin’?”
Frank closed the poolroom door behind him without replying. What was he going to do? For certain the cops would be out looking for them now. He had to get out of town. Alone. Without Benny, the bastard who knew so much that he was in a jam now that was going to burn them. If only he were certain that there weren’t any fingerprints on the plaster or the gun. But then cold reason showed him that even the lack of fingerprints was not a defense. They were suspect, and the police, if they had to, would painstakingly check every store in Brooklyn in order to find out whether he or Benny ever had purchased plaster of paris, and then they would be through. Even at that very moment as he was walking along Remsen Avenue the cops might be at his home or Benny’s searching for a container of plaster of paris.
Frank moaned in anguish. He was through, done for. He would die in the electric chair, moaning as he was dragged along the corridor to the death chamber. All his nerve, poise, reason had left him. He stumbled along Remsen Avenue, unseeing, his face white and drawn. There wasn’t an out for him. Nothing. At any moment he expected to feel a firm hand on his shoulder, a hand which would be the first instrument that would take him to his death.
And as he thought of death the desire to live became stronger, more dominant and insistent, and Frank began to reason again. Things were bad for him and for Benny. He shut his eyes to eliminate Benny. Benny no longer belonged in his thinking. Benny didn’t count any longer. Only he, Frank Goldfarb, mattered. He had to figure his way out of this jam, not Benny’s. The bastard. The drunken bastard. Two more days and it would have been Friday and June thirtieth, the last day of the term, the last day of the month, the last day of the nightmare. July would have meant escape. But why should he wait three days to escape? Why escape only in July? Why not now?
The sudden buoyance left him as he looked in his wallet. Three dollars. Seventy-two cents in his jacket pocket. At home he had a little more than twenty dollars tucked away in the bottom of his bureau drawer. He had to have the money. He had to have some clothes. He had to have the reefers. The reefers would pep him up, give him the courage and guts he needed. As he smoked them he would think of being tough and not being afraid of anything, and the mood would be carried over and exaggerated so that nothing would faze him. He had to get home for his money, clothes, and cigarettes. He had to get the twenty dollars so that he could buy a gun, for he was determined to go out fighting, shooting, killing. With the gun he could stick up a poolroom or lunch wagon and maybe get enough money to disappear. He needed the money. He needed a gun.
Frank looked at his watch. It was still early, before eleven. If he could get started soon he might be able to hitch a couple of hundred miles before dark. He didn’t know whether to head for Canada or Mexico. Or maybe out to the cattle or lumber country, where he could lose himself and never be found. But so long as he left New York he was safe temporarily. Frank walked with more determination to the bus stop. He would still beat the rap. He had to. He was too young to die. And if he had to die he was going out fighting.
As he waited for the bus the hatred and fury that he felt for Black Benny drove everything else from his mind. Benny had done this to him, and now he was going to become a fugitive because of Benny. Then it would be Benny’s luck to squirm clear of the murder charge and drop the entire blame on him. Because if there weren’t any fingerprints on the gun Benny could claim that Frank had done the shooting. That wasn’t any good. Benny had to be made to pay. The bastard. The drunken bastard.
The bus swerved toward the curb and Frank entered, paid his fare, and sat staring out of a window. It was Benny’s fault. Only Benny’s fault. Not his. It wasn’t his idea to go back to school. Benny had been waiting for him with the car, not he for Benny. It was even Benny’s idea that they should act like wise guys when Mr. Bannon questioned them. It was because Benny had bought the bottle and they had become half tight that Bannon was dead. And whose idea was it to go back to the school? And who wouldn’t throw away his gun? And who had slugged Bannon with the gun and then shot him? Not he. Benny. Benny the wise guy, who thought he was a hard guy and wanted to be a killer. Now he was on the spot, not Benny. He was the one who had done most of the alibiing to the cops, had kept them from tripping them up, from confusing them so that they would tell incriminating, conflicting stories. And for all of this he had nothing to face but the chair, or maybe life. Frank saw prison: its gray monotony, its closeness, its stifling of freedom. Look how long the month of June had been. How much longer would thirty—no, fifty—years be than a month?
Frank yanked the signal cord as the bus approached Amboy Street. Benny had to be paid off. He entered a shabby little candy store on East New York Avenue and looked up the telephone number of the police station. Now Benny was going to get his. The troublemaking bastard. Carefully he placed his handkerchief across the telephone mouthpiece and dialed the station number.
“Hello,” he said in a disguised and muffled voice, “I want to speak to Lieutenant Macon. It’s important.” Frank waited as the connection was made. “Hello,” he said again, and his voice trembled and the telephone receiver was damp in his hand, “I want to talk to Lieutenant Macon—Yes, Macon.”
Frank peered out of the booth. The only customers in the store were two little girls buying colored jelly beans. No one would walk in and see him in the booth, but to play safe he shifted about so that he stood with his back against the glass panels in the door. Perspiration dampened his lips and nose, and he rubbed them against the handkerchief that covered the mouthpiece. He started as he heard Macon’s voice and he gulped before he was able to speak.
“Detective Macon,” he began, “I’m a friend of Mr. Bannon’s… Yes”—Frank nodded—“the teacher who was murdered. I wanted to call you before this but I was scared. Yeah, scared. The guy who knocked him off is one of them tough Jews. A killer.” Frank congratulated himself. This would help throw suspicion from him as the informer. If he played it right they’d only get Benny, and when Benny tried to implicate him he would deny it. That was the angle! The out! Benny was the killer!
At the other end of the telephone line Macon signaled for Gallagher and Wilner to listen in on the extension telephones. He winked at them and made a circle with his thumb and index finger. The case was breaking.
“So you know who did it.” Macon spoke into the telephone. “Can you tell us?”
“I can,” Frank said. “I used to go to the same church with Mr. Bannon and we were good friends, but I was afraid to talk before now.”
“We’ll take care of you,” Macon said. “You don’t have to be afraid. Who did it?”
“I—it—it—”
“You want to tell us at the station? We’re at East New York and Rockaway.” Macon spoke quietly.
“No,” Frank faltered. “His gang is liable to get me. They’re killers. I’ll tell you who did it and that’s all.”
“All right.” Macon nodded at the telephone. “Who did it?”
Frank struggled to speak.
“Who did it?” Macon asked again, and covered the mouthpiece of the telephone with his hand. “Gallagher,” he whispered, “start tracing that call!”
Gallagher nodded, hung up, and left the room.
“Don’t be scared,” Macon said soothingly. “Who did it?”
Frank’s mouth was dry and his tongue felt as if it did not belong to him. He had to go through with it. Benny had got him in trouble and Benny had to be paid off. It was Benny or him. He wet his lips and spoke directly into the mouthpiece. “Benny, the kid they call Black Benny, did it. He shot Mr. Bannon.” And as he informed, Frank wanted to recall the words, but it was too late.
Macon’s face was triumphant, and Wilner tried to smile but found it difficult to do so. “Thanks,” Macon said. “So he did it? We suspected him.”
“He did it,” Frank repeated hoarsely.
“O.K.” Macon played his trump card: “You better come in, Frank. We want to talk to you too.”
Frank slammed the receiver onto the hook, stuffed his handkerchief into a pocket, and ran out to the street. He stood on the sidewalk, dazed, turning about, not knowing where to go. Macon had been too smart for him. There was no escape. Blindly he ran into the hallway of his tenement and up the stairs. He flung open the kitchen door, and his hands trembled as he opened the bureau drawer and searched under his clothing for the wallet. He sighed with relief and hope as he found it and skimmed rapidly through the compartments. The money was there, though now, as he looked at it, twenty dollars was so little. But he could still buy that gun. There was only one reefer in the cigarette case, and the paper wrapper of the reefer was old and wrinkled. For a moment he debated whether he ought to save it for a tight spot, but then he decided that he was in as tight as he could ever be, and so long as he felt the way he did about shooting it out with the cops he ought to smoke it now. With a gesture of defiance he struck the match, lit the marijuana cigarette, and blew the first puff of smoke at the mirror. He looked all right. His eyes were narrowed and drawn at the corners and his lips twitched, but he knew he would get away. He had to get away, but he regretted squealing to the cops. What he should have done was buy the gun and knock off Benny. That would’ve been best. That way he would’ve paid the bastard off, and he still wouldn’t have ratted. But it was too late. The cops were going for Benny, and the heat was on for him.
He jerked erect as he heard the front door open and Alice’s light step in the kitchen.
“Oh.” She was startled as she saw him standing in the doorway. “I didn’t know you were home.”
Frank dragged on the cigarette and felt the first pulses of false courage surge through him. “Yeah,” he replied. “It’s me. I’m clearin’ out.”
Alice barred the kitchen door. “No!”
“I got to, baby.” He laughed. “I’m in a jam. The cops must be lookin’ for me now.”
He derived a perverse joy from seeing the sorrow in his sister’s face.
“Yeah,” he went on, “in a jam. You know what I done?”
Alice struggled to speak.
“I’ll tell you,” he went on. “I just told the cops who killed Mr. Bannon.”
“Frank!” Alice screamed.
Frank advanced toward her and drew back his fist. “Don’t yell,” he warned her, “or I’ll flatten you. I told them Benny did it, but the cops want me too.”
Alice’s relief was explosive. “Thank God!” she said.
Frank took one last luxurious drag on the reefer and threw the butt into the sink. “Don’t thank nobody,” he said to her. “I was with Benny when he shot him. The cops are lookin’ for me. I gotta get goin’.”
Alice’s world sank into the sea. She looked at her brother with a fear and despair that aged her. She struggled to speak, to cry out, to say something, to call aloud, but she could do nothing but stand against the kitchen door, rigid, stiff with despair and fear.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Frank said. “You better let me go.”
“No,” she whispered. “We’ll save you. Somehow we’ll save you.”
“Save me,” he laughed, “for what?”
“We’ll save you.” Alice stood with her back against the kitchen door. “You didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t mean it. We’ll get a lawyer; we’ll get all the lawyers you need, only don’t run away and make it worse. Don’t run away,” she repeated.
Frank hesitated. “You think so?”
“Yes,” Alice whispered, “we’ll get lawyers. Mom ‘n’ Pop’ll come home and we’ll tell them.”
“That’s no good.” Frank took his cigarette case from his hip pocket and then put it back again as he realized it was empty. “You heard Mom on Sunday when she called me a murderer.”
“Don’t say it!” Alice shook with sudden nausea.
“A murderer,” Frank repeated hollowly. “She called me a murderer.”
“Don’t say it!”
“A murderer.” The phrase was hypnotic and he had to repeat it again. “A murderer.”
Alice looked about her. There was nothing she could do.
“If you love me”—Alice stretched out a hand—“if you love Mom ‘n’ Pop you’ll stay so we can help. It was an accident, wasn’t it?” she plunged on desperately. “So maybe you won’t get so long in prison and then you’ll come back and we’ll be waiting here for you.”
“That’s all, sister,” Frank flung at her. “Come back to this? To this!” He pointed about him. “To this dump and these flats and houses? To these streets? To Brownsville? To this?” he screamed at her, and his face was a contorted mask of fright, disgust, and frustration. “I’d rather die! Hear me, die!”
“We’ll save you,” Alice whispered. “Save you. Momma, Poppa—” Her voice broke. “Momma! Poppa!” She called desperately, as if by some strange miracle her cries would bring her parents to her.
“Get outa my way.” Frank grasped her shoulder.
Alice flung herself at him. “No,” she wept, “no! Stay! Stay! You can’t go. They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you for telling on Benny!” She locked her arms around him as he struggled to break free, and suddenly Frank hit her a short jolting blow on the jaw. Stunned, she released him and staggered to the table.