A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [112]
Johnny had a friend named Burt who was night watchman at the corner bank. Burt was forty years old and married to a girl half his age of whom he was insanely jealous. He suspected that she took a lover in the nights when he was at the bank. He brooded over this so much that he came to the conclusion that it would be a relief if he knew for sure that this was so. He was willing to exchange soul-destroying suspicion for heartbreaking reality. Accordingly, he slipped home at odd hours during the night while his friend Johnny Nolan watched the bank for him. They had signals. When, in the night, poor Burt got so tormented that he had to go home, he asked the cop on the beat to ring the Nolan bell three times. If Johnny was home when the signal came, he jumped out of bed like a fireman, dressed hurriedly and ran to the bank as though his life depended on it.
After the watchman slipped out, Johnny lay on Burt’s narrow cot and felt the hard revolver through the thin pillow. He hoped someone would attempt to rob the bank so he could save the money and be a hero. But all the hours of his night-watching were without event. There wasn’t even the excitement of the watchman catching his wife in adultery. The girl always was sleeping soundly and alone when her husband sneaked into their flat.
When Johnny heard of the rape and murder, he went over to the bank to see his friend Burt. He asked the watchman whether he had another gun.
“Sure. Why?”
“I’d like the lend of it, Burt.”
“Why, Johnny?”
“There’s this fellow loose that killed the little girl on our block.”
“I hope they ketch him, Johnny. I sure hope they ketch the son-of-a-bitch.”
“I have a daughter of my own.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Johnny.”
“So I’d like you to loan me a gun.”
“It’s against the Sullivan Law.”
“It’s against some other law for you to go away from the bank and leave me here. How do you know? I may be a robber.”
“Aw, no, Johnny.”
“I figure if we break one law, we might as well break another.”
“All right. All right. I’ll lend it.” He opened a desk drawer and took out a revolver. “Now I’ll show you. When you want to kill somebody, you point it at ’em like this,” he pointed it at Johnny, “and pull this thing.”
“I see. Let me try it.” In his turn, Johnny aimed it at Burt.
“ ’Course,” said Burt, “I ain’t never shot off the God-damned thing myself.”
“This is the first time I ever held a gun in my hand,” explained Johnny.
“Watch out then,” said the watchman quietly. “It’s loaded!”
Johnny shivered and put the gun down carefully. “Say, Burt, I didn’t know. We might have killed each other.”
“Jesus, you’re right.” The watchman shuddered.
“One jerk of a finger and a man is dead,” mused Johnny.
“Johnny, you ain’t thinking of killing yourself?”
“No, I’m letting the booze do that.” Johnny started to laugh but stopped abruptly. As he left with the gun, Burt said,
“Let me know if you catch the bastard.”
“I’ll do that,” promised Johnny.
“Yeah. So long.”
“So long, Burt.”
Johnny gathered his family around him and explained about the gun. He warned Francie and Neeley not to touch it. “This little cylinder holds death for five people in it,” he explained dramatically.
Francie thought the revolver looked like a grotesque beckoning finger, a finger that beckoned to death and made it come running. She was glad when Papa put it out of sight under his pillow.
The gun lay under Johnny’s pillow for a month and was never touched. There were no further outrages in the neighborhood. It seemed that the fiend had moved on. Mothers began to relax. A few, however, like Katie, continued to watch in the door or hallway when they knew the children were due home from school. It was the killer’s habit to lurk in dark hallways for his victims. Katie felt that it cost nothing to be careful.
When most of the people were lulled into a feeling of security, the pervert struck again.
One afternoon, Katie was cleaning in the halls of the second house away from