John MacDonald - The Whispering Knives

What bitter fruit is borne by the tree of inadequacy? A Hitler strutting his way to a lonely death a Dillinger blasting his way out of every trap but the last one...

It was a mining town in Pennsylvania, a soft coal spot near the Ohio border its narrow streets covered with soiled snow in winter, tattered, blowing papers in summer. It was a place of mixed races. In the foreign section, the place the kids called Hunkietown, the old people sat in quiet dusty rooms and dreamed of the long days they had known. Their children lacked that repose. Their children and their childrens children were fitting into the angular turbulent stream of neurotic America. Only their names told of the lands of their ancestors...

This town had a simple place where young men drank and gambled. The sturdier citizens would look through the bleared windows as they hurried by at night, catching a glimpse of the blue smoke-haze, the faded green felt on the lighted tables, the slouching intent figures. They would hear the click of ivory balls and sometimes a great laugh without humor, like the cry of an animal. The place was called Lombards.

Lombard himself was a thin, old man, his hair dyed a dusty black. His most consistent customer was his nephew, a boy whose name was Santoni. It was said that his mother had named him Carmen but there was no one who dared call him by any name but Santoni. Such awe was not due to Lombards quiet presence but rather to something in the boy something in a feral glint in his small eyes something unclean and savage about his awkward, undernourished body.

It was custom to nod at Santoni when you walked into Lombards. He would always be sitting on the high stool near the one billiard table, smoke curling up through his thin fingers.

If you moved to that town, after maybe a hundred evenings at Lombards, one of the regulars might pull you aside and say, with furtive glances toward the tall stool, Dont ever mess with the kid. Something screwy about him. Old Lombard told me that the kid spends half his lime in the cellar of his mothers house doing nothing but throw knives across the cellar into a big board. Lombard says the kid can light matches with them knives. Always got a couple on him and hes just bats enough to toss one close to you if you try to push him around or maybe into you if he really doesnt like your looks.

But the generous stranger wont tell you about Bella. Nobody says anything about Bella.

To look at Santoni, after hearing about him, you would still see nothing fierce about him just a swarthy kid with an aimless chin and a snow of dandruff on his soiled blue shirt.

Santoni was in his usual spot on the afternoon that Jon Poronoff came back to town. Santoni didnt hear the muttering in comers, didnt notice the occasional glances.

Ryan, who should have known better, had been drinking since 10 oclock. With the courage of the very drunk, he wavered over to Santoni, shoved his heavy red face up close to the kids, and said, How is Santoni, the untouchable? I wish youd tell me why the cops never picked you up on that Bella business.

The pool game stopped. There was no traffic on the street outside. The air suddenly seemed too thick to breathe. Santoni answered in his reedy, adenoidal voice, Thats big talk. My old lady, my uncle and ray cousin were with me all evening when that happened. The cops know that. As he spoke he reached inside the dirty shirt and with loving, tender fingers slowly withdrew a crude home-made knife. It looked as though it had been ground from a file, but an expert would have noticed that the balance was perfect, the heavy butt sweat-stained, the point needle-keen.

Ryan, his pale blue eyes on the knife, backed away with unsteady steps. When he was at a suitable distance, the thin arm flashed back, the blade of the knife resting along Santonis thumb. The arm flashed down like a striking snake, and the knife re appeared in the floor, its butt quivering from the thud of impact, its blade pinning Ryans frayed pants cuff to the dry boards.

Pick it up!

Ryan stooped unsteadily and tugged at the knife. He grunted and pulled harder and it came free.

Bring it here!

Ryan walked slowly forward and handed the knife to Santoni. Then with greasy beads of sweat on his fat face, he turned and left Lombards, half running, his eyes wide and frightened.

The game continued. The air was once more breatheable. Santoni looked half asleep on his tall stool.

But Jon Poronoff was in town...

Jon Poronoff checked his bag at the dingy baggage room and walked through the station. His eyes were quick and he glanced from side to side looking for familiar faces in the home town that he had left two years before. He was a brown man giving a constant impression of squareness heavy square hands thick, high cheek bones and a neck as solid and heavy as six-by-six timber. He hadnt made many friends in the town. Those who had known him had thought him a sour, moody man. But under the solid immobility of his face was a mind as emotional and sentimental as a womans. He had learned in the tough, bitter schoolyards of the town to keep what he thought and felt to himself.

As he walked out onto the street he reached into the vest pocket of his worn dark suit and fingered the clipping that in two weeks had become dog-eared and tattered. He fingered the clipping and thought of Bella Bella lying with the glaze of death in her dark eyes, the cruel, bright knife thrust in her breast. He thought of Bella lying throughout the rainy night in the small patch of woods near the freight yards.

When he thought of her he felt the muscles of his back ridge tasted a tight coppery feeling on his lips felt a quiver of anticipation run through him.

There were more customers than usual in Lombards when Poronoff walked in. He walked stolidly by the figure of Santoni walked to the little bar in the corner, ordered a beer, and thirstily gulped half of it before he turned and looked across the smoky room at the lounging, spidery figure of Carmen Santoni. The boy stared back at him with dull eyes black eyes staring into brown ones without a shred of recognition in either.

When Poronoff finished the beer he set the glass down gently and walked across the room. He stopped a few feet from Santoni, the square hands hanging at his sides, his face expressionless.

Just get back into town, Poronoff? Santoni asked.

Yeah. Thought Id find you here.

Why are you looking for me?

I want your help.

Help? From me? What the hell are you talking about?

Poronoff leaned closer to Santoni and lowered his voice so that the others in the room could not understand.

You got a reputation in this town for being a bad kid to mess with, Santoni. I come back here cause I know of a game going on in a house just outside of town. I want to crack that game and I am going to need somebody to back me up and help me get out if I clean up the way I think I am going to. I couldnt bring any of the regular men I use because they are busy in Pittsburgh tonight. Youre the only guy I know in town that can back me up the way I want to be backed up.

Poronoff paused and reached into his side pocket. Santoni tensed when he saw the hand go into the pocket but relaxed as Poronoff withdrew it, holding a slim roll of bills. Santoni could see that the top bill was a hundred. Poronoff continued, I got eleven hundred bucks to stake myself and I give you a hundred now plus twenty-five percent cut of the profit.

Santoni licked his thick lips, his eyes on the money. He said softly, Sure, Poronoff. Ill go along on that. I thought you maybe wanted to see me about something else. I was sorry that Bella had hard luck and I thought maybe youd heard some of the talk about me being mixed up in it.