“Come on! Don’t just stand there! Help me before they find us!”
Jack was still struggling to get his breath back, but he pulled with all his might and the shutter rose with a metallic screech. Walter ducked under the half-raised shutter and turned toward his friend to usher him in. When Jack was inside, Walter lowered the shutter, and they were suddenly in almost complete darkness. Jack remained on the alert. He could barely make out his friend’s form, but he could hear his agitated breathing. A few seconds later, there was a crackle, and a flame appeared in Walter’s hand. Jack looked around. The intense smell of ink and damp, coming from an old Linotype, told him that they were in an abandoned printer’s. At his feet lay dozens of packages of old newspapers with long-forgotten headlines, while the walls were plastered with moldy posters that seemed to come to life in the flickering flame of Walter’s cigarette lighter.
“It’s the printer’s where I worked before I was laid off,” he informed his friend. “When it closed down, I kept a set of keys, and since then I’ve used it as a union meetinghouse.”
“Is it safe here?”
“Safer than your house.”
Jack fell silent. He couldn’t get Kowalski out of his mind.
“Do you think he’s dead?” he asked Walter, hoping his reply would be no.
“I don’t know, but he was bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Shit! We should go to the police.”
Then they heard a noise, and Walter shut off his lighter. Jack felt his heartbeat quicken. A moment later, Walter relit, and his spectacles glistened a handbreadth from Jack’s nose.
“Shhh . . . rats!” Walter whispered.
“They’ve found us?”
“No. Actual rats.” He kicked a creature that went flying with a shrill squeak.
Jack sighed with relief.
“I was saying that we should go to the police. We can’t stay hidden forever. Sooner or later Kowalski’s goons will find us.”
“Are you kidding? If that bastard’s dead, they’ll send you straight to Old Sparky.”
“That guy was going to kill us. You saw it, Walter.”
“Of course I saw it! But what do you think those tough guys will say to the judge when he asks them? That it was their gun that went off? And anyway, those people have contacts, Jack. How else do you think they’ve gotten rich while the rest of us are starving to death? Corrupt capitalists . . . ,” he muttered.
“Damn it! But I didn’t kill him,” he insisted.
Walter surveyed Jack’s anguished face. Sweat pearled on his brow.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t know if he’s dead.”
“All right . . . So, what’re we going to do? Shit! I can barely breathe. Those assholes must’ve broken my ribs.”
“I don’t know. Let me think . . .” He moved away from Jack, searched around on top of a workbench, and returned with a candle in his hand. “We should stay here until things calm down. There’s a washbasin with running water out back, and a lavatory. We could—”
“Wait. And my things? They’re all at the apartment.”
“For God’s sake, Jack. You’re not saying we should go back . . . The police will have been called by now. They’ll be looking for you, or waiting.”
“I don’t care! Everything I have is there.”
“Listen to me. All you have left now is your freedom.”
Jack fell silent. He knew that Walter was right, but as insignificant as they might seem to his friend, he couldn’t accept losing the last traces of his life.
“My photographs are there,” he replied.
“Photographs?” Walter grimaced in disbelief.
“Of my parents.”
“You’re joking, right? We’ve got to get away from here, and all we need for that is our driver’s licenses.”
“What?”
“We’d need them to get a passport. You do have your license on you, right?”
“I already have a passport. But why the hell would I need it?”
“Hey, I can’t force you to leave the country, but if Kowalski’s dead . . .”
“Damn it, Walter! You said yourself that we don’t know if he is.”
“All right. Let’s keep calm.” He lit a crumpled cigarette and inhaled. He offered one to Jack, who readily accepted. The smoke tasted of ink. “OK. Give me the keys!”
“Huh?”
“Give me the fucking keys! I’ll go to your father’s apartment and pick up your things.”
“Are you nuts? I ain’t gonna let you put yourself in danger. I’ll go myself.”
Walter put his hands in Jack’s pockets and snatched the keys.
“You can’t so much as move. Anyway, do you think I’m an idiot? I’ll only go in if the coast’s clear.” He cleaned his glasses and pulled his hat down to his ears. “No one in that neighborhood knows me. If I get the chance, I’ll ask about Kowalski. Maybe the slug just scratched him.”
“All right. But be careful. I couldn’t bear to lose my only friend.”
“Don’t worry, Jack. We’ll get out of this, you’ll see.”
4
Jack gazed at the rays of light filtering in through the holes that the rust had bored through the metal shutter at the entrance. He clenched his teeth. His head felt as if it had been stomped on, but the cause was neither the ink fumes nor the blows from the goons. He went back to the chair where he’d spent the entire night thinking about the tragic death of Solomon Beilis. He might not have been the most caring of fathers, but he had been the only father that Jack had. He kicked a bundle of newspapers, which flew in all directions like leaves in the wind.
He looked at the rays of light again. Walter had assured him he’d be back before dawn, but that was already a couple of hours ago. Jack began to consider the possibility that his friend had been caught.