Somebody Owes Me Money

I felt myself duck, which was ridiculous. Like the old superstition about three on a match. On the other hand, how many people do you see either light the third cigarette with a new match or go ahead with the original match but then look vaguely nervous for a few minutes afterward? Hundreds. And I’m one of them.

Still, it struck me there was something wrong somewhere. I’d been shot. In the head. How could I be even contemplating not calling the police?

I said, “What do I do instead? For Pete’s sake, they’ll take another shot at me the next time they see me. I can’t go home, I can’t go to work, I can’t even walk down the street.”

“You’re not supposed to, anyway,” she said. “The doctor said you’re supposed to stay in bed for a couple of days, so you stay right here and you’ll be perfectly safe. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody even knows I’m here.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said. “I lie around here for two days, and then I go out and get shot.”

“No, you won’t, Chet,” she said. “They won’t be after you any more by then.”

“That’s good news,” I said, “but I believe I have a doubt or two.”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” she said. “Just think about it for a minute.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Chet, don’t be silly. Ask yourself, why did they try to kill you?”

“I don’t want to ask questions like that. I don’t want to think about it.”

“Well, the answer,” she persisted, “is that they still think you had something to do with Tommy’s death. They think you work for that man Napoli or somebody, and you killed Tommy, and so they’re paying Napoli back by killing you.”

“They’re paying Napoli back!”

“That’s the way they’d think,” she said. “An eye for an eye.”

“Yeah, but it’s my eye.”

“But what if they find out,” she said, “that you didn’t have anything to do with killing Tommy? Then they won’t be after you any more.”

“Praise be,” I said. “Only, how are they going to find out this good news?”

“From me,” she said.

“From you?”

“I’m going to find out who the murderer is. I still think Louise had something to do with it—”

“She didn’t.”

“Whether she did or not,” Abbie said, “I’m sure she wasn’t working alone. There’s a man in the case somewhere, the man who actually pulled the trigger. He’s the one I’m going to find.”

“You are?”

“Yes. Then the mob will know it wasn’t you after all, and they’ll leave you alone.”

I shook my head. “I’m not hearing right,” I said. “Everything’s okay because sometime in the next two days you’re going to find Tommy’s murderer and prove he’s the murderer and turn him over to the police and then the mob won’t try to kill me anymore.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“Abbie,” I said. I reached out to where her hand was resting on the blanket near my knee. I put my hand over hers and said, “Abbie, I don’t want to suggest I don’t have perfect faith in you or anything, but face it. You aren’t a detective, you’re a blackjack dealer.”

“Don’t you worry, Chet,” she said. “I’ll find him.” She slipped her hand from under mine, patted mine, and got to her feet. “You go to sleep now,” she said. “We’ll talk some more in the morning.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” I said. “I’m not tired.”

“The doctor said those pills would make you drowsy.”

The fact was, the pills had made me drowsy, but I was fighting it. “I’m not drowsy,” I said, “and I don’t want to talk in the morning, I want to talk now. I want to talk about what—”

“Chet,” she said. “I’m sorry, maybe you aren’t drowsy, but I am. I was going to take a shower when you woke up, and I really need one. I’m exhausted, I’m sore all over from helping carry you up here, and I’m still sticky.” She made still-sticky wiggles with her fingers.

I said, “Still sticky?”

“Well, you bled all over the place, Chet,” she said. “You should see the car. I don’t know what the Avis people are going to say.”

“Oh,” I said. I suddenly felt very faint, and twice as drowsy as before. I began to blink, blinking because my eyes wanted to be closed and I wanted them to be open.

“I’ll look in on you after I shower,” Abbie said. “And we’ll talk in the morning. Whatever we decide, Chet, it can wait till morning.”

“All right,” I said. I couldn’t struggle against it anymore, I was drowsy. I lay back on the bed, tiredly pulling the covers up to my chin. “See you later,” I murmured.

“See you later,” she said, and through my blinking I saw her in the doorway, pausing to grin at me. “You are cute bare-ass,” she said, and left.

That almost woke me up again. I stared at the doorway for a few seconds until my eyelids grew too heavy to maintain the posture, and then subsided. What a way to talk. Well, a girl who dealt blackjack in Las Vegas for a living, you wouldn’t expect her to be exactly a sheltered maiden. No, neither sheltered nor a maiden.

As my eyes slowly shut, I found myself counting the months. How long had it been since I’d been in bed with a member of the opposition? Six months? Seven months. Not since that girl Rita had last refused to come out to the track with me.