Somebody Owes Me Money

Abbie, of course, heard me hit the floor. She spun around and yelled my name, but what I heard more than that was Benny’s exasperated “He’s faking, Ralph. Let’s just bump him now.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I can do it.” I pushed with my hands, my head and torso came up, and then my arms failed and I flopped onto my nose like a fish.

“God damn it,” said Ralph.

“He can’t help it!” Abbie cried. “He’s wounded, can’t you see that? Do you like seeing him fall on the floor?”

“I do,” Benny said. “I’d like to see him fall out a window.”

Ralph said, “Shut up, Benny. Okay, lady, we’ll leave him here. He can talk, can’t he?”

“I can talk,” I told the floor.

“That’s good. Come on, Benny.”

Hands gripped me. I was lifted, the floor receding, and dumped on the bed like a bag of laundry. I bounced, and just lay there. It must have been Abbie who covered me up.

Ralph said, “Watch them, Benny, but don’t do nothing.”

Benny growled.

I was rolling over, a slow and painful process. I got over in time to see Ralph leaving and Benny glowering at me.

Abbie said, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am very hungry.”

“I’ll get you something,” she said, and got up from the bed and started for the door.

Benny blocked the way, saying, “Where do you think you’re goin?”

“To the kitchen,” she said coldly.

I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

He glared at me. “You better not,” he said. Then, to Abbie, he said, “And I got my eye on you.”

She disdained to answer. She left the room, and Benny went after her.

I sat there alone a minute, thinking my gloomy thoughts, and then I noticed a telephone on the bedside table.

Call the police? I remembered what Abbie had said about the cops, the chance of getting a crook on the same payroll as Tommy, but thinking about it I decided the chance of a crooked cop was still better than the certainty of a couple of crooks, which was what I had now.

I reached out and picked up the phone.

I heard, “—could tell us — Hold on a second, boss.”

“Right.”

I heard the small thud of a receiver being put down on a table. Very gently I put my own receiver back in its cradle. I lay down in bed, covered myself to the chin, folded my arms over my chest, looked at the ceiling, and tried to look absolutely innocent.

Ralph walked in. He looked disgusted. Without glancing at me at all he walked around the bed, reached down to the baseboard beside the bedside table, and yanked the phone wire out of the box. He then straightened, gave me a look, and said, “You got no brains at all.”

I looked sheepish.

He shook his head, turned away, and left the room.

Nothing happened for about five minutes, and then Abbie came, carrying a tray and followed by Benny. Benny took the chair in the far corner and Abbie put the tray down on the foot of the bed. She helped me sit up, adjusted the pillows behind me, and put the tray on my lap, its little feet straddling my legs.

Clear chicken broth. Buttered toast, two slices. Tea with lemon. A dish of vanilla ice cream.

I ate everything in sight, while Abbie sat on the edge of the bed and watched me in approval.

At one point, taking a break from eating, I said, “How long was I out? This is Thursday, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You practically slept the day away. I was afraid you were dying there for a while, you just lay in one place and didn’t move at all.”

“My father must be worried,” I said. “I always call him when—”

“I called him,” she said. “I told him you were all right. I couldn’t tell him where you were, in case somebody put pressure on him, so I sort of let him get the idea you were shacked up with me. So he wouldn’t be worried.”

Benny didn’t seem to be listening to our conversation. I looked at her and said, “Shacked up, huh?”

She slapped my blanketed knee. “You’re too weak to be thinking about things like that,” she said, and smiled at me.

“I’ll get well soon,” I said, and Ralph came in.

Abbie turned to him. “What now?”

“We wait,” he said.

“For what?”

“For Sol,” he said.

I said, “He’s coming here? Solomon Napoli?”

“Yeah,” said Ralph. “He wants to talk to you.”

15

By the time the doorbell sounded nearly an hour later I was about ready to come apart like a broken kaleidoscope. Abbie was sitting beside me on the bed, and I reached out and grabbed her hand, and we gave each other nervous smiles that were supposed to be encouraging, and I began to blink a lot.

There were voices in the hall, and then Ralph came in, and behind him three other guys.

Solomon Napoli?

Even in my astonishment there was no question which of the three was Napoli. The two on either side were just hoods, Benny and Ralph all over again, just better-dressed. It was the one in the middle who was Solomon Napoli.