Fish Farm by Walt Sautter (ereader for android TXT) 📖

cops?”
“Are you kiddin’?
The cops don’t want any part of down here. And second, who’s gonna call?
If they find out who did you can be god damn sure that guy’s gonna have some serious problems if you know what I mean.”
They sat silently, Jack slowly puffing on the cigar and Hal thumbing through the newspaper he had brought with him.
“Any good news in there?”
“Yanks won three in a row. That’s about it.”
They continued to sit with Hal sporadically commenting on the items he was reading in the paper and Jack courteously responding.
Then, after an hour or so, with his cigar consumed to an inch beyond his lips, Jack arose.
“Well, that’s about it for today. Gotta go up and get supper together. See ya tomorrow.”
The front door of the building closed behind him with its familiar squeal of metal on metal and he proceeded up the narrow stairs towards his apartment. As he slid his hand up the banister his grasp weakened. There was something slippery on the banister, preventing a firm grasp. He looked closely in the dim shadow of the hallway. It looked like blood. He lifted his hand towards his face. It was blood. All over the hand rail and the steps.
He continued up the staircase trying to avoid stepping in the trickle that covered each step. He arrived at the second floor and moved down the hall toward the next flight. As he made the turn, he saw the blood stream leading through the open door of apartment 2-B.
He approached the door and carefully pushed it wide open with one hand not knowing what to expect. He cautiously peered in.
“Mrs. Murray.”
“Ellen.”
He carefully stepped over the blood trail and into the apartment.
In the kitchen he found her seated on the floor leaning against the cabinet door, bloodied and sobbing.
“What happened?”
“He…He…” she gasped.
“Who? What?”
“He came to rob me” she stammered.
“Where are you hurt? Let me call the police. Where’s the phone?”
“No! No! Don’t! He said if I did he’d be back to kill both Suzy and me.
Please don’t. I’m okay.”
With Jack’s help, she attempted to lift herself from the floor.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m okay.”
“Where did all this blood come from?” he asked as he looked for wounds.
“From him.”
She got to her feet and hobbled over to a chair never the kitchen table.
“Would you give me a glass of water?”
Jack obliged.
“Now what exactly happened?”
“I was sitting right here, getting Suzy’s dinner ready. I was opening the can of cat food when I heard a noise at the front door. It was like a thud. I started to get up to see what was going on and suddenly there him was in the kitchen doorway. A big guy, with plenty of tattoos holding a crowbar.
‘I need some cash. Whatta you got?’ he said.
I told him that I didn’t have any except what’s in that drawer.”
She pointed to the open drawer at the other side of the kitchen.
“He looked in the drawer. There was only about twenty-five dollars and some change in there. That got him real mad.
‘You got more than that’ he yelled.
I told I didn’t but he didn’t believe me. I really didn’t.
Then, he went over and grabbed Suzy by the back of the neck and said ‘If you don’t tell me where the rest of it is this cat is history’ and then he turned on the gas stove and was bringing her over towards the flame.
When I saw that I guess I just snapped. I had the can lid on the table and I grabbed it and sliced it down his face and neck. Then the blood started pouring out and he dropped Suzy and the crowbar and grabbed his neck. I could see the blood was shooting through his fingers.
When he saw all that blood he yelled ‘Don’t you tell anybody or I’ll be back for both of you.’
Then, I guess he panicked because there was an awful lotta blood and he ran for the door and took off down the stairs.
There’s the crowbar over there.”
Jack looked over to where she pointed to the blood covered crowbar lying on the floor near the doorway.
“I gotta call the cops.”
A recorded voice issued for the phone “You have reached the police department for an emergency please press…..”
“If you do I’ll tell them it never happened, so don’t.”
“He’ll be back anyway, even if you don’t call the police.”
“Maybe not! Don’t call”, she replied in a quivering voice.
Jack lowered the phone from his ear. He knew this wasn’t going to be the smartest thing he’d ever done but the look of terror on her face convinced him. He hung up the phone and helped to clean up the blood from the floor and the cabinet doors.
He had a hard time sleeping that night. Maybe he should have called he the cops after all. If something else happened to the old lady, he’d be to blame. Then again, if he did call, like she said, she would deny everything, so what would be the point?
Chapter 2
“Hey, ya know what I heard? I heard the boy that was runnin’ that FM gang I was tellin’ you about the other day got himself pretty cut up.”
“What do you mean, ‘Cut up’?”
“Well, the way I heard it, he was jumped by an up town gang and they cut him good. Almost ear to ear. He just made it to the hospital in time. Gave him a couple of pints to save him. Too bad.”
“What do you mean ‘Too bad’?”
“They shoulda let the son of a bitch die. That’s what I mean. Goin’ around takin’ advantage of everybody like they do. Especially the old people, like us.”
“Is he still in the hospital?”
“Not from what I hear. Couple people said they seen him walkin’ around with a big bandage on his neck. That gang kinda stopped collectin’ those dues for a week or so while he was gone but from what I heard they’re right back at it again now.”
“Did they ever come to get dues from you Hal?”
“Not yet. But I think they’re comin’. They’re kinda workin’ their way down the block from buildin’ to buildin’. They haven’t got to mine yet. I’m pretty sure that they’ll be comin’ soon and to your buildin’ too.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to say that I’m not gonna give ‘em nothing but who knows. If they got Petey to pay up, I don’t know. He’s a tough buckaroo and he paid. What about you, Jack?”
“I don’t know either. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”
They both sat on the bench in silence, Jack puffing on his cigar and Hal staring into the distance.
“Did you ever hear of Patrick Henry?”
“Patrick who? Where does he live?”
“No. Patrick Henry was a famous patriot during the Revolutionary War. He said ‘United we stand, divided we fall’.”
They both again sit silently.
“Do you know what that means Hal?”
“Yeah, sure. Ya gotta stick together or you’re done for.”
“Right.”
Silence again.
“Who are we gonna unite and what are we gonna do? We’re all old guys.”
“We’re old but we’re not dead and we’re not stupid.”
There was a pause.
“Did you ever play Bocce, Hal?”
“No.”
“How would you like to learn? There’s a Bocce court down at the other end of the park. Nobody ever uses it. I’ve got the balls. Let’s go down tomorrow and I’ll show you how to play.”
“I guess. It’s gotta be better than sittin’ here all day.”
“And, Hal ask Petey to come too. Okay?”
“Sure.”
The next day, at the park.
“Hey, Hal you made it, and you brought Petey with you.”
“Yeah, Jack this is Petey, Petey ; Jack” as they shook hands.
“You guy ready for some Bocce lessons?”
“Guess so.”
“You know, when I was a kid, I used to ride my bike down to the park in the summer and watch all the old Italian guys play Bocce. They spent the whole day there puffing those short, little cigars, tellin’ stories and playing. Some would play Bocce while the others played Pinochle on the picnic tables then they’d switch back and forth.
They used to let me play once in a while and that’s how I learned. It was a lot fun. I even saved my money and bought a Bocce set. Here let me show you. It’s kinda like bowling and horseshoes combined.”
He took out the balls.
“I’ve had these since I was a kid.
“See this little one, it’s the pallino. The first player throws the pallino and then he throws a second big ball and tries to get close as he can to the pallino. Then the next guy throws to try to get even closer. The guy who’s furthest away always gets the next shot until we run out of balls. Closest to the pallino gets one point for each. Thirteen wins.”
They began to play.
“Hal tells me you live over by him in the gray brick building.”
“Yeah, been there for about three years now.”
“How is it?”
“Are you kiddin’? It’s like all the other places in this neighbor, for shit!
But everybody’s gotta live somewhere and I guess this is it for us.”
“How’d you wind up here?”
“I wound up broke, that’s how. Not a pot to piss in.”
”Hal told me that you were a Navy Seal during Nam. How long were you in the service?”
“ ’Bout eighteen years.”
“And you didn’t get a good pension?”
“That’s a long story. A long sad story.”
“We’ve got all afternoon.”
“I don’t even wanna talk about it.”
He paused.
“Let Hal tell ya. He knows the whole thing.”
Jack turned to Hal and saw he get an approving glance from Petey.
“When Petey was in Nam he had a commanding officer, well, they didn’t see eye to eye about a lot of stuff.”
“Stuff? What kind of stuff?”
“Treatment of civilians for one. One day a girl in the village that they secured came to Petey and told him the Lieutenant forced her into sex. He told her that otherwise her whole family would wind up being collateral damage, if you know what I mean. ”
“Sure, I do.”
“Well, then when Petey went to the Lieutenant and told him what he heard the guy threatened him.
You don’t know Petey very well, but I do and he’s not the kinda guy that’s gonna back off, so he told the Lieutenant he was goin’ higher up with this stuff.”
He paused.
“And?”
“And then the Lieutenant went back to the girl and forced her to accuse Petey before he could report it.”
“So what happened then?
“I did three years in the brig and got kicked out of the service. That’s what happened”, Petey interjected.
“How?”
“Shay, that was the guy’s name, he got the girl to testify against me and he got some of the guys in our company to say it was true too. From what I got later on, he told them ‘If you don’t go with me and say what I tell ya, you’ll be the point man from here on out’.
You know what that means; you’ll probably be a short timer. You’ll probably be goin’ home real soon, in a box. So some of them got scared real quick and they went with Shay and I got my three years.”
He paused.
“And here’s the