Manhattan Noir 2 by Lawrence Block

I don’t live alone …”
    Lueger laughed. “Little frightened girl. That’s nice. I love you for it.”
    “My brother,” Sally said. “I swear to God I live with my brother.”
    Lueger grabbed her and kissed her, hard, bruising her lips against her teeth, his hands pressing harshly into the flesh of her back. She sobbed into his mouth with the pain, helpless. He released her. He was laughing.
    “Come,” he said, holding her close. “I am anxious to meet your brother. Little liar.”
    “All right,” she said, watching Charley and Stryker move out from the L shadow. “All right. Let’s not wait. Let’s walk fast. Very fast. Let’s not waste time.”
    Lueger laughed happily. “That’s it. That’s the way a girl should talk.”
    They walked swiftly toward the elevated ramp, Lueger laughing, his hand on her hip in certainty and possession.
    “Pardon me,” Stryker said. “Could you direct me to Sheridan Square?”
    “Well,” said Sally, stopping, “it’s …”
    Charley swung and Sally started running as soon as she heard the wooden little noise a fist makes on a man’s face. Charley held Lueger up with one hand and chopped the lolling head with the other. He carried Lueger back into the shadows against a high iron railing. He hung Lueger by his overcoat against one of the iron points, so he could use both hands on him. Stryker watched for a moment, then turned and looked toward Eighth Avenue.
    Charley worked very methodically, getting his two hundred pounds behind short, accurate, smashing blows that made Lueger’s head jump and loll and roll against the iron pikes. Charley hit him in the nose three times, squarely, using his fist the way a carpenter uses a hammer. Each time Charley heard the sound of bone breaking, cartilage tearing. When he got through with the nose, Charley went after the mouth, hooking along the side of the jaws with both hands, until teeth fell out and the jaw hung open, smashed, loose with the queer looseness of flesh that is no longer moored to solid bone. Charley started crying, the tears running down into his mouth, the sobs shaking him as he swung his fists. Even then Stryker didn’t turn around. He just put his hands to his ears and looked steadfastly at Eighth Avenue.
    When he started on Lueger’s eye, Charley talked. “You bastard. Oh, you lousy goddamn bastard,” came out with the sobs and the tears as he hit at the eye with his right hand, cutting it, smashing it, tearing it again and again, his hand coming away splattered with blood each time. “Oh, you dumb, mean, skirt-chasing sonofabitch, bastard.” And he kept hitting with fury and deliberation at the shattered eye….
    A car came up Twelfth Street from the waterfront and slowed down at the corner. Stryker jumped on the running board. “Keep moving,” he said, very tough, “if you know what’s good for you.”
    He jumped off the running board and watched the car speed away.
    Charley, still sobbing, pounded Lueger in the chest and belly. With each blow Lueger slammed against the iron fence with a noise like a carpet being beaten, until his coat ripped off the pike and he slid to the sidewalk.
    Charley stood back, his fists swaying, the tears still coming, the sweat running down his face inside his collar, his clothes stained with blood.
    “O.K.,” he said, “O.K., you bastard.”
    He walked swiftly up under the L in the shadows, and Stryker hurried after him.

    Much later, in the hospital, Preminger stood over the bed in which Lueger lay, unconscious, in splints and bandages.
    “Yes,” he said to the detective and the doctor. “That’s our man. Lueger. A steward. The papers on him are correct.”
    “Who do you think done it?” the detective asked in a routine voice. “Did he have any enemies?”
    “Not that I know of,” Preminger said. “He was a very popular boy. Especially with the ladies.”
    The detective started out of the ward. “Well,” he said, “he won’t be a very popular boy when