Somebody Owes Me Money

I couldn’t help staring at him. He was barely five feet tall, for one thing, the top of his head just about reaching the shoulders of the two guys flanking him. He was dressed very formally, as though on his way to an opera first night. But the most amazing thing was his head, which was too big for his body. Not enough to look deformed, just enough to make him look imposing, commanding, impressive. Leonine, a leonine head, and with the thick mane of hair that goes with it. A square jaw, magnificent white capped teeth, strong level eyes, a healthy hint of tan. He was about forty, with the smooth weathered look of a man who keeps himself in shape with handball and self-esteem.

And he was smiling! He came in smiling like a politician opening a campaign headquarters, his teeth sparkling, his eyes showing bright interest in everything they saw, his stride youthful and determined-without-crabbiness. He came in, and his flankers stopped just inside the door, and he came over to the bed, hand held out, saying to Abbie in a resonant voice, “Miss McKay! How do you do? I thought very highly of your brother. A shame, a shame.”

Through my own paralysis I could see that Abbie, too, was mesmerized. Her hand left mine, she rose uncertainly to her feet, she took his outstretched hand, in a vague and uncertain voice she said, “Uh, thank you. Thank you.”

He turned her off, turned me on. You could see him do it. He kept her hand, but he looked past her at me, his eyes and smile full of candle power, saying, “And how’s our patient?”

“Okay, I guess,” I mumbled.

“Good. Good.” He turned me off, turned Abbie on. “My dear, if you’ll go into the living room for just a few minutes, Chester and I have one or two things we want to discuss. We won’t be long. Ralph.”

“Here, boss,” said Ralph, and in his saying that the spell was broken. I had been totally hypnotized by Napoli up till now, his magnetism, his aura, the massive presence with which he filled the room. It wasn’t until Ralph said, “Here, boss,” that I remembered who this man really was. Solomon Napoli. Gangster.

I had to remember that. For my own good I had to remember it.

Suddenly I was twice as frightened as before. A cigar-chewing tough-talking obvious hood would have terrified me, but I would have understood him, I would at least have felt I knew what I was dealing with. But this man? I remembered how Sid Falco’s very ordinariness had been the most frightening thing about him, and this was Sid’s boss. A super-Sid.

I pulled the covers up around my chin and waited to see what would happen next.

Ralph led Abbie out of the room, she glancing back at me with a worried look just before going out of sight, and then I was alone with the crocodiles. One of the new hoods brought a chair up beside the bed, Solomon Napoli sat down in it, and we were off.

He had turned me on again. “I guess you had a close call, Chester,” he said. His smile showed sympathy, but I didn’t count on it.

“I guess I did,” I said warily.

“Who would take a shot at you, Chester?” he asked, and now his smile implied an urge to be helpful, but I wasn’t about to count on that one either.

“I guess the people Tommy worked for,” I said.

“Why would they do that?” His smile was as delicate an instrument as a theremin, and now it projected polite curiosity.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I suppose they think I had something to do with killing Tommy.”

Can a smile be threatening? Can it glint as though it would bite? Napoli sat back in the chair and his smile changed again and he said, “Chester, I’m a very busy man. I’m due at the Modern Museum in” — he looked at his watch — “forty minutes for a meeting of the board of trustees. Please just take it for granted we already know your involvement, we already know Frank’s involvement, a lot of wide-eyed innocent lying isn’t going to get you anywhere. There are a few things I want you to tell me, after which I promise you you will not find me an unreasonable man. You know Droble’s people are after you now, it shouldn’t take too much intelligence to realize that under my wing is the safest place for you right now.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh, go ahead and shoot,” I said. “I really can’t take any more.” And at that moment I think I really meant it.

Nothing at all happened. I lay on my back, head against the pillow, eyes closed, hands folded over my breast, already laid out you might say, and absolutely nothing happened.

Well, it wasn’t up to me to make the next move. I was done. I went on lying there.

Napoli said, “Chester, you don’t impress me.”

I continued to lie there. My eyes continued to be closed. But my despair, if that’s what it was, had already been diluted by my unsinkable liking for life, and I could feel myself beginning to tense up again. I had shut down like this out of conviction, but I was staying shut down as a kind of technique, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.