The Mugger Read online

  There had never been a racial or religious riot in this section of the city, and Kling doubted if there ever would be one. He could remember back to 1935 and the race riots in Diamondback and the way the people in Riverhead had wondered if the riots would spread there, too. It was certainly a curiously paradoxical thing, for while white men and black men were slitting each other’s throats in Diamondback, white men and black men in Riverhead prayed together that the disease would not spread to their community.

  He was only a little boy at the time, but he could still remember his father’s words: “If you help spread any of this filth, you won’t be able to sit for a week, Bert. I’ll fix you so you’ll be lucky if you can even walk!”

  The disease had not spread.

  He walked up the avenue now, drinking in the familiar landmarks—the latticini, and the kosher butcher shop, and the paint store, and the big A&P, and the bakeshop, and Sam’s candy store there on the corner. God, how many ice cream sundaes had he eaten in Sam’s? He was tempted to stop in and say hello, but he saw a stranger behind the counter, a short, bald-headed man, not Sam at all, and he realized with painful clarity that a lot of things had changed since he was a carefree adolescent.

  The thought was sobering as well as painful, and he wondered for the fiftieth time why he had come back to Riverhead, why he was walking toward De Witt Street and the home of Peter Bell. To talk to a young girl? What could he say to a seventeen-year-old kid?

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. He was a tall man, and he was wearing his dark-blue suit tonight, and his blond hair seemed blonder against the dark fabric. When he reached De Witt, he turned south and then reached into his wallet for the address Peter had given him. Up the street, he could see the yellow brick and cyclone fence of the junior high school. The street was lined with private houses, mostly wooden structures, here and there a brick dwelling tossed in to break the monotony. Old trees grew close to the curbs on either side of the street, arching over the street to embrace in a blazing, autumn-leaved cathedral. There was something very quiet and very peaceful about De Witt Street. He saw the bushels of leaves piled near the gutter, saw a man standing with a rake in one hand, the other hand on his hip, solemnly watching the small, smoky fire of leaves burning at his feet. The smell was a good one. He sucked it deep into his lungs. This was a lot different from the crowded, bulging streets the 87th Precinct presided over. This was a lot different from crowded tenements and soot-stained buildings reaching grimy concrete fingers to the sky. The trees here were of the same species found in Grover’s Park, which hemmed in the 87th on the south. But you could be sure no assassins lurked behind their stout trunks. That was the difference.

  In the deepening dusk, with the street lamps going on suddenly, Bert Kling walked and listened to the sound of his footsteps and—quite curiously—he was glad he had come.

  He found Bell’s house, the one in the middle of the block, just as he’d promised. It was a tall, two-family, clapboard-and-brick structure, the clapboard white. A rutted concrete driveway sloped upward toward a white garage at the back of the house. A flight of steps led to the front door. Kling checked the address again and then climbed the steps and pressed the bell button set in the doorjamb. He waited a second, and the door buzzed, and he heard the small click as he twisted the knob and shoved it inward. He was in a small foyer, and he saw another door open instantly, and then Peter Bell stepped into the foyer, grinning.

  “Bert, you came! I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Kling nodded and smiled.

  Bell took his hand. “Come in, come in.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Jeannie’s still here. I’ll introduce you as a cop friend of mine, and then Molly and me’ll take off, okay?”

  “Okay,” Kling said. Bell led him to the open doorway. There were still cooking smells in the house, savory smells that heightened Kling’s feeling of nostalgia. The house was warm and secure, welcome after the slight nip there had been in the air outside.

  Bell closed the door and called, “Molly!”

  The house, Kling saw immediately, was constructed like a railroad flat, one room following the other, so that you had to walk through every room in the house if you wanted to get to the end room. The front door opened into the living room, a small room furnished with a three-piece sofa-and-easy-chair set that had undoubtedly been advertised as a “Living Room Suite” by one of the cheaper furniture stores. There was a mirror on the wall over the sofa. A badly framed landscape hung over one of the easy chairs. The inevitable television set stood in one corner of the room, and a window under which was a radiator occupied the other corner.

  “Sit down, Bert,” Bell said. “Molly!” he called again.

  “Coming,” a voice called from the other end of the house, an end he suspected was the kitchen.

  “She’s doing the dishes,” Bell explained. “She’ll be right in. Sit down, Bert.” Kling sat in one of the easy chairs. Bell hovered over him, being the gracious host. “Can I get you something? A glass of beer? Cigar? Anything?”

  “The last time I had a glass of beer,” Kling said, “I got shot right afterward.”

  “Well, ain’t nobody going to shoot you here. Come on, have a glass. We’ve got some cold in the Frigidaire.”

  “No, thanks anyway,” Kling said politely.

  Molly Bell came into the room, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “You must be Bert,” she said. “Peter’s told me all about you.” She gave her right hand a final wipe and then crossed to where Kling had stood up and extended her hand. Kling took it, and she squeezed it warmly. In describing her, Bell had said, “Molly’s no slouch—even now, pregnant and all.” Kling hated to disagree, but he honestly found very little that was attractive in Molly Bell. She might at one time have been a knockout, but those days were gone forever. Even discounting the additional waist-high bulge of the expectant mother, Kling saw only a washed-out blonde with faded blue eyes. The eyes were very tired, and wrinkles radiated from their edges. Her hair had no luster; it hung from her head disconsolately. Her smile did not help, because it happened to be a radiant smile, which served only as a contrast for the otherwise drab face. He was a little shocked, partly because of Bell’s advance publicity, partly because he realized the girl couldn’t have been much older than twenty-four or twenty-five.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Bell?” he said.

  “Oh, call me Molly. Please.” There was something very warm about Molly, and he found himself liking her immensely and somewhat disliking Bell for giving a buildup, which couldn’t fail to be disappointing. He wondered, too, if Jeannie was the “knockout” Bell had described. He had his doubts now.

  “I’ll get you a beer, Bert,” Bell said.

  “No, really, I—”

  “Come on, come on,” Bell said, overriding him and starting out toward the kitchen.

  When he was gone, Molly said, “I’m so glad you could come, Bert. I think your talking to her will do a lot of good.”

  “Well, I’ll try,” Kling said. “Where is she?”

  “In her room.” Molly gestured with her head toward the other end of the house. “With the door locked.” She shook her head. “That’s what I mean. She behaves so strangely. I was seventeen once, Bert, and I didn’t behave that way. She’s a girl with troubles.”

  Kling nodded noncommittally.

  Molly sat, her hands folded in her lap, her feet close together. “I was a fun-loving girl when I was seventeen,” Molly said, somewhat wistfully. “You can ask Peter. But Jeannie…I don’t know. She’s a girl with secrets. Secrets, Bert.” She shook her head again. “I try to be a sister and a mother both to her, but she won’t tell me a thing. There’s a wall between us, something that was never there before, and I can’t understand it. Sometimes I think…I think she hates me. Now, why should she hate me? I’ve never done a thing to her, not a thing.” Molly paused, sighing heavily.

  “Well,” Kling said diplomatically, “you know how kids are.”
/>   “Yes, I do,” Molly said. “It hasn’t been so long ago that I’ve forgotten. I’m only twenty-four, Bert. I know I look a lot older than that, but taking care of two kids can knock you out—and now another one coming. It isn’t easy. And trying to handle Jeannie, too. It takes a lot out of a woman. But I was seventeen, too, and not so long ago, and I can remember. Jeannie isn’t acting right. Something’s troubling her, Bert. I read so much about teenagers belonging to gangs and what not. I’m afraid. I think she may be in with a bad crowd, kids who are making her do bad things. That’s what’s troubling her, I think. I don’t know. Maybe you can find out.”

  “Well, I’ll certainly try.”

  “I’d appreciate it. I asked Peter to get a private detective, but he said we couldn’t afford it. He’s right, of course. God knows, I can barely make ends meet with what he brings home.” She sighed again. “But the big thing is Jeannie. If I can just find out what’s wrong with her, what’s made her the way she is now. She didn’t used to be like this, Bert. It’s only…I don’t know…about a year ago now, I suppose. She suddenly became a young lady, and just as suddenly, she…she’s slipped away from me.”

  Bell came back into the room, carrying a bottle of beer and a glass.

  “Did you want one, honey?” he asked Molly.

  “No, I’ve got to be careful.” She turned to Kling. “The doctor says I’m putting on too much weight.”

  Bell poured the beer for Kling. He handed him the glass and said, “There’s more in the bottle. I’ll leave it here on the end table for you.”

  “Thank you,” Kling said. He lifted his glass. “Well, here’s to the new baby.”

  “Thank you,” Molly said, smiling.

  “Seems every time I turn around, Molly’s pregnant again,” Bell said. “It’s fantastic.”

  “Oh, Peter,” Molly said, still smiling.

  “All I have to do is take a deep breath, and Molly’s pregnant. She brought in a specimen of me to the hospital. The doctors told her I had enough there to fertilize the entire female population of China. How do you like that?”

  “Well,” Kling said, a little embarrassed.

  “Oh, he’s such a man,” Molly said sarcastically. “It’s me who has to carry them around, though.”

  “Did she tell you a little more about Jeannie?”

  “Yes,” Kling said.

  “I’ll get her for you in a few minutes.” He looked at his watch. “I got to be taking the cab out soon, and I’ll drop Molly off at a movie. Then you and Jeannie can talk alone—until our sitter gets here, anyway.”

  “You drive a lot at night?” Kling asked, making conversation.

  “Three, four times a week. Depends on how good I do during the day. It’s my own cab, and I’m my own boss.”

  “I see,” Kling said. He sipped at the beer. It was not as cold as Bell had advertised it. He began to doubt seriously any of Bell’s advance promotion, and he looked forward to meeting Jeannie with vague skepticism.

  “I’ll get her,” Bell said.

  Kling nodded. Molly tensed where she sat on the edge of the sofa. Bell left the room and walked through the apartment. Kling heard him knocking on the closed door, and then heard his voice saying, “Jeannie? Jeannie?”

  There was a muffled answer, which Kling could not decipher; then Bell said, “There’s a friend of mine I’d like you to meet. Nice young feller. Come on out, won’t you?”

  There was another muffled answer, and then Kling heard a lock being unsnapped and a door opening and a young girl’s voice asking, “Who is he?”

  “Friend of mine,” Bell said. “Come on, Jeannie.”

  Kling heard footsteps coming through the apartment. He busied himself with the glass of beer. When he lifted his head, Bell was standing in the doorway to the room, the girl beside him— and Kling no longer doubted his veracity.

  The girl was a little taller than Molly. She wore her blonde hair clipped close to her head, and it was the blondest hair Kling had ever seen in his life. It was almost yellow, like ripe corn, and he knew instantly that she had never touched it. The hair was as natural as her face, and her face was a perfect oval with a slightly tilted nose and wide, clear blue eyes. Her brows were black, as if fate hadn’t been able to make up its mind, and they arched over the blue eyes, suspended between them and the yellow hair, strikingly beautiful. Her lips were full, and she wore a pale-orange lipstick, and her mouth was not smiling.

  She wore a straight black skirt and a blue sweater, the sleeves showing up to her elbows. She was a slender girl, but a slender girl with the remarkable combination of good hips and firm, full breasts that crowded her sweater. Her legs were good, too. Her thighs were full, and her calves were beautifully curved, and even the loafers she wore could not hide the natural splendor of her legs.

  She was a woman, and a beautiful woman.

  Peter Bell hadn’t lied. His sister-in-law was a knockout.

  “Jeannie, this is Bert Kling. Bert, I’d like you to meet my sister-in-law, Jeannie Paige.”

  Kling got to his feet. “How do you do?” he said.

  “Hi,” Jeannie answered. She did not move from where she stood alongside Bell.

  “Bert’s a cop,” Bell said. “Maybe you read about him. He got shot in a bar downtown.”

  “Outside the bar,” Kling corrected.

  “Sure, well,” Bell said. “Honey, your sister and I have to go now, and Bert only just got here, so I thought you wouldn’t mind talking to him a while—until the sitter gets here, huh?”

  “Where are you going?” Jeannie asked.

  “I got to hack a while, and Molly’s taking in a movie.”

  “Oh,” Jeannie said, looking at Kling suspiciously.

  “So okay?” Bell asked.

  “Sure,” Jeannie replied.

  “I’ll take off this apron and comb my hair,” Molly said. Kling watched her as she rose. He could see the resemblance between her and Jeannie now, and he could now believe that Molly, too, had been a damned attractive woman once. But marriage and motherhood, and work and worry, had taken a great deal out of her. She was no match now for her younger sister, if she had ever been. She went out of the living room and into a room Kling supposed was the bathroom.

  “It’s a nice night,” Kling said awkwardly.

  “Is it?” Jeannie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Molly! Hurry up!” Bell called.

  “Coming,” she answered from the bathroom.

  “Very mild. For autumn, I mean,” Kling said.

  Jeannie made no comment.

  In a few minutes, Molly came out of the bathroom, her hair combed, fresh lipstick on her mouth. She put on her coat and said, “If you go out, don’t come home too late, Jeannie.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jeannie answered.

  “Well, good night. It was nice meeting you, Bert. Call us, won’t you?”

  “Yes, I will.”

  Bell paused with his hand on the doorknob. “I’m leaving her in your hands, Bert,” he said. “Good night.” He and Molly went out of the room, closing the door behind them. Kling heard the outside door slam shut. The room was dead silent. Outside, he heard a car starting. He assumed it was Bell’s cab.

  “Whose idea was this?” Jeannie asked.

  “I don’t understand,” Kling said.

  “Your coming here. Hers?”

  “No. Peter’s an old friend of mine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old are you?” Jeannie asked.

  “Twenty-four,” Kling said.

  “Is she trying to fix us up or something?”

  “What?”

  “Molly. Is she trying to finagle something?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Jeannie stared at him levelly. Her eyes were very blue. He watched her face, suddenly overwhelmed by her beauty.

  “You’re not as dumb as you sound, are you?” she asked.

  “I’m not trying to sound
dumb,” Kling said.

  “I’m asking you whether or not Molly has plans for you and me.”

  Kling smiled. “No, I don’t think she has.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” Jeannie said.

  “I take it you don’t like your sister very much.”

  Jeannie seemed suddenly alert. “She’s okay,” she answered.

  “But?”

  “No buts. My sister is fine.”

  “Then why do you resent her?”

  “Because I know Peter wouldn’t go hollering cop, so this must be her idea.”

  “I’m here as a friend, not as a cop.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Jeannie said. “You’d better drink your beer. I’m leaving as soon as that sitter arrives.”

  “Got a date?” Kling asked casually.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “That puts me in my place, I guess.”

  “It should,” Jeannie said.

  “You seem a lot older than seventeen.”

  For a moment, Jeannie bit her lip. “I am a lot older than seventeen,” she answered then. “A whole lot older, Mr. Kling.”

  “Bert,” he corrected. “What’s the matter, Jeannie? You haven’t smiled once since I met you.”

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  “Trouble at school?”

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “Aha,” Kling said. “When you’re seventeen, it’s usually a boyfriend.”

  “I haven’t got a boyfriend.”

  “No. What then? Crush on someone who doesn’t care?”

  “Stop it!” Jeannie said harshly. “This is none of your business. You’ve no right to pry!”

  “I’m sorry,” Kling said. “I was trying to help. You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I meant with the law.”

  “No. And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t tell it to a cop.”

  “I’m a friend, remember?”

  “Sure, friend.”

  “You’re a very pretty girl, Jeannie.”