Somebody Owes Me Money

He held a hand up. “I’ll accept that,” he said. “I’ll accept it now. Naturally, I’ll have to check it. My men did the right thing. They were about to contract you out when somebody else took a shot at you. So they did nothing. They followed you here, and phoned me to tell me the situation, and I told them to get you, if you were still alive, and bring you to me to explain yourself. To explain why other people are trying to kill you when I want you killed.” His smile turned chummy, pals together, confidential buddies. “I found it confusing,” he confided.

I nodded, vaguely. I was still stuck on a phrase he’d used, a euphemism that was new to me but which I found as grisly as anything I’d ever heard. “They were about to contract you out,” he’d said. “Contract you out.”

For Pete’s sake. Contract me out? Is that any way to talk about something as brutal and final as murdering me in front of my own house? It sounds like a magazine subscription lapsing. “Sorry we didn’t get your reorder, we’ll just have to contract you out.”

Napoli looked at me. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said faintly.

“You mean, why should I think you were responsible for killing Tommy McKay?”

“That. And why should you care? And who are all the people you mention all the time? Droble, and Frank Tarbok.”

“Frank Tarbok,” he said, “works for Walter Droble. Walt is what you might call a competitor of mine. There are territories he has, there are territories I have. For some time there’ve been a few territories in dispute between us.”

“And Tommy was in the middle?”

“Not exactly. McKay worked for Droble, but was also in my employ. I am nearly ready to make a move I’d been planning for some time, and McKay was a part of that move. You’ll forgive me if I don’t get more specific.”

“That’s all right,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to know too much.”

“That’s wise,” he agreed, smiling at me, pleased with me. He looked at his watch and said, “I must be off. You take it easy now.”

“I will,” I said.

He got to his feet. “Get well soon,” he said, and smiled, and left.

17

I had two or three minutes to be alone with my thoughts after Napoli and his bodyguards left, and then Ralph and Abbie came into the room. Ralph said to me, “The boss says, as long as you’re good I leave you alone. Got the idea?”

“Yes,” I said.

He turned to Abbie. “You, too?”

“Me, too,” she said.

“Good,” he said, and went out and shut the door. We both heard the key turn in the lock.

Abbie immediately came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Looking concerned, she put a hand on my forehead, saying, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’ve been through so much,” she said.

I said, “What about you? Did they give you a bad time?”

She shrugged the whole crew of them away with one shoulder. “They don’t bother me,” she said. “They just talk tough.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, and went on to tell her Napoli’s amusing anecdote about how my being shot in the head had saved my life.

She was amazed. “You mean he actually sat here and said that?”

“He thought it was funny.”

“That’s the most insulting thing I ever heard in my life,” she said. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, I would have—”

I took her hand. “I know you would,” I said. “You’ve got no more self-preservation instinct than a lemming. But I’m twenty-nine years old, and I don’t think that’s enough. I’m supposed to get forty-one more, and I want them.”

She said, “What’s going on now? They wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Napoli is going to check my story,” I said. “When he finds out I really don’t work for Frank Tarbok and Walter Droble, he’ll leave me alone. He’ll call Ralph and tell him everything’s okay, and Ralph will leave.”

She spread her hands, saying, “Then we’re all right, aren’t we?”

“You are,” I said. “I still have Tarbok and Droble after me.”

“Who are they?”

I’d forgotten she wasn’t up to date on all that. “Droble was Tommy’s boss,” I said. “Tarbok works for Droble. Tarbok is the one I was taken to see Tuesday night.”

“Ah. Why can’t Napoli tell Droble you’re all right?”

“Because Napoli and Droble are enemies,” I told her, and went on to explain as much as I knew of the gambling barons’ feudal wars, including Tommy’s part in it all.

When I was done, she said, “That would be Tommy, all right. Play both sides against the middle every time. He always had to copper his bets.”

“Well, he left me in a mess.”

Sitting back, frowning, gazing at the opposite wall, Abbie said, “If both sides were after you for killing Tommy, that means neither of them is the murderer. It isn’t a gang killing at all.”

“No,” I said. “I’m the gang killing. Tommy was extracurricular.”

“Yes,” she said. “And Louise is still missing. I knew it was her.”

“You don’t know it,” I said. “You think it, and you could be right, but you don’t know it.”

“Who else is there?” she demanded.

I didn’t know. “I don’t know,” I said.

“I’m hardly jumping to conclusions,” she said, “when I pick the last one left.”