John D. 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 children’s 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 Lombard’s.

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 Lombard’s 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 Lombard’s. 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, “Don’t 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 mother’s 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 he’s just bats enough to toss one close to you if you try to push him around — or maybe into you if he really doesn’t like your looks.”

But the generous stranger won’t 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 didn’t hear the muttering in comers, didn’t notice the occasional glances.

Ryan, who should have known better, had been drinking since 10 o’clock. With the courage of the very drunk, he wavered over to Santoni, shoved his heavy red face up close to the kid’s, and said, “How is Santoni, the untouchable? I wish you’d 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, “That’s 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 Santoni’s 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 Ryan’s 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 Lombard’s, 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 hadn’t 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 woman’s. 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 Lombard’s 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 I’d 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 couldn’t bring any of the regular men I use because they are busy in Pittsburgh tonight. You’re 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. I’ll 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 you’d heard some of the talk about me being mixed up in it.”

“Hell, no, Santoni! Let the cops figure it out for themselves. I’m no dick. She was probably asking for it anyway.”

“I’m glad you figure that way, boy. Otherwise you and me might have had a little trouble, and that wouldn’t have been very damn healthy for you.” Santoni drew his lips back in a crazy, crooked grin.

“I’ll be back for you at nine o’clock,” Poronoff muttered. He turned away and walked out.

At nine o’clock Poronoff parked his hired black sedan in front of Lombard’s. Santoni was waiting, a light grey felt hat on his narrow head. Poronoff nodded to him and the kid followed the square brown man out to the car.

Poronoff slid behind the wheel. Santoni climbed in, slouched in the seat and lit a cigarette.

“Where’s this place, Jon?”

“Oh, about five miles out on the lake road. By the way, Santoni, you bring a gun?”

“Nuts! I can toss a knife into a guy’s arm while he’s just reaching for one. Never use ’em.”

“Okay, kid. I hope you’re right.”

The car droned on. They sat quietly. Poronoff’s eyes were steady, his square hands hard on the wheel. Then be glanced quickly over at Santoni. They turned into the lake road. The corner was dark. Poronoff reached his left hand down between the seat and the door and his blunt fingers touched the chill handle of a wrench. He stealthily grasped it, and with a quick motion, effortless and smooth, he swung it around. The heavy end chunked against Santoni’s slanted forehead. There was a gasp and then a spout of dark blood. Poronoff shifted the wrench to his right hand, and, with his eyes on the road he tapped it lightly against Santoni’s skull. The soft hat muffled the thuds of steel against bone. He looked at Santoni again. The frail figure had lurched over against the door. The arms hung slack. Poronoff smiled once, the small cool smile of a careful man, a man who could gamble.

He turned the car around and drove back toward that section the kids called Hunkietown. When he stopped for lights he could hear the rasp of Santoni’s breath, louder than the motor hum. He stopped by a high narrow frame house. It was a dim street. With cautious hands he fumbled with the senseless figure. He found three knives, two in crude scabbards under the armpits, one strapped to a thin calf. He was careful not to overlook any inch of the figure. His flesh crawled and hr felt an acid nausea as he fumbled in the dark car.

After a cautious glance at the silent street, he picked up the frail form and carried it quickly into the house. He carried it up to the second floor, to a cheerless room lighted by two feeble bulbs. He dropped Santoni from shoulder height onto the bare floor. Santoni’s shoes clattered as he thudded down.

Then Poronoff made many preparations. He moved quickly. He was finished many long minutes before Santoni began to stir. Poronoff sat in a straight chair, a small automatic in his brown hand. His eyes were sad as he watched Santoni struggle for consciousness.

After feeble stirring, Santoni rolled over onto his back. He opened bewildered eyes and looked up at the grey ceiling. Then his hand moved up and he felt tenderly of his forehead. He moaned. He raised his head and saw Poronoff. Sudden memory brought a bright light of bate into his eyes. He sat up and stared at Poronoff.

“What the hell are you doing? What’s the idea of slugging me? I’ll cut out your heart.” Poronoff saw his elbows press against his sides, feeling only the empty scabbards, saw him press his lean legs together and find the third knife gone.

“Be careful, Santoni; you shouldn’t wish to die with threats on your mouth. Better to die talking truth. Your knives are gone. Why did you kill Bella?”

Santoni snarled. His fingers worked. He glanced at the open door, saw the dark mouth of the stairs.

Poronoff lifted the automatic. “So I kill you before you confess.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

Santoni saw the light in the brown eyes and his face took on a greenish tinge. He showed that he knew he couldn’t reach the door and the stairs. His eyes widened and the words began to come — slowly at first. “Don’t do it, Jon. They’ll hang you. Bella wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t see me. I sent her a note with another guy’s name on it for her to meet me in the woods. She came. When she saw it was me she called me dirty. The next thing I knew I had thrown a knife into her. Please Poronoff...” The words became hoarse and shrill as the gun lifted and the heavy finger pulled on the trigger.

There was a dry click. He pulled the slide back, jammed it forward and tried again. Another empty click. Sudden comprehension came into Santoni’s face. He bounded to his feet. Poronoff fumbled with the gun. Santoni darted for the door.

“Don’t go down the stairs, Santoni,” Poronoff roared. “Don’t go down the stairs!”

The only answer was the clatter of feet as Santoni rushed down the dark steep stairway.

Poronoff stood listening — heard the sudden silence, the hoarse scream and the great crash as Santoni tripped over the wire across the stairs.

He slid the gun into his pocket, the gun that he had known was empty — for he had a heart which made it impossible for him to kill even an animal like Santoni.

He walked wearily into the hall and clicked on the lights. His square face looked older, there was a redness about his eyes.

He stood and looked down at the crumpled body — the body which had dropped down onto the thirsty points of the three knives held, points upward, in a sheet of cardboard. He thought of them sinking home into the flesh of the creature who, in his warped way, had loved them.

Two frightened old people walked timidly out in the hall and stared at the still figure of Santoni — shuddered as they saw the points of the knives protruding through his back.

The old woman looked up and said, “Yes, Jon. We hear you tell him not to go down stairs. We tell police. Big accident.”

“Jon, in a voice they didn’t know,” said softly. “It was for my wife. For Bella Poronoff.”

Content

John D. MacDonald
The Whispering Knives