Somebody Owes Me Money

“Hmmm,” I said, because it was a description I couldn’t find myself disagreeing with, though I would have liked to. He stuck his hand out. “Is it a deal?”

I shrugged, shook my head, and took his hand. “It’s a deal,” I said. We shook hands, the unlikeliest team since the lion and the mouse, and once again the doorbell rang.

24

Walter Droble.

Now, Walter Droble was more like it. A stocky fiftyish man of medium height, with a heavy jowly face, graying hair brushed straight back, wearing a slightly rumpled brown suit, he looked like the owner of a chain of dry cleaners. No, he looked like what he was, the kind of mobster executive who shows up on televised Congressional hearings into organized crime.

He smoked a cigar, of course, and he viewed me with unconcealed suspicion and distaste. His attitude made it plain he was used to dealing at a higher level.

He said, “What’s this about McKay?”

The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, Droble’s bodyguards having joined the ladies in the living room. I’d cleared away the coffee cup and the remains of the liverwurst sandwich — except for a few crumbs — and except for the refrigerator turning itself on and off every few minutes you could sort of squint and make believe you were in an actual conference room somewhere in Rockefeller Center.

So I told Walter Droble about Tommy McKay. Midway through, Frank Tarbok got to his feet and I faltered in my story, but he was only getting a white saucer for Droble to flick his cigar ash in, so I went on with it. Droble sat there and listened without once interrupting me, his eyes on my eyes at all times, his face impassive. He was a man who knew how to concentrate.

When I was done he looked away from me at last and frowned down instead at his cigar. He stayed that way for a hundred years or so, and then looked back at me again and said, “You know why I believe you?”

“No,” I said.

“Because I don’t see your percentage,” he said. “I don’t see where it makes you a nickel to convince me McKay had sold me out. That’s why I believe you.”

“That’s good,” I said.

“Now,” he said, “do you know why I don’t believe you?”

I blinked. “Uh,” I said.

“Because,” he said, “it don’t make any sense. What did McKay do for Sol? What did Sol want with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. I don’t know either. I also don’t know where’s McKay’s percentage. What’s in it for him to sell me out?”

“Insurance,” I said. “That one’s easy. Apparently the trouble between you and Napoli is coming to a head. If you win, he’s always been one of your people. If Napoli wins, his true loyalty was to Napoli all the time.”

He worked on his cigar, which did not smell like elevators in the garment district, so I assumed it was very expensive. “Maybe,” he said, conceding the point. “Just maybe.” He glanced at Tarbok. “Get his wife in here,” he said.

Tarbok said, “Walt, she didn’t know a thing about it. It was as big a surprise to her as anybody.”

“Maybe so,” Droble said. “Let’s ask her.”

I said, “I think you can take Mr. Tarbok’s word for it, Mr. Droble. He knows Mrs. McKay pretty well.”

Tarbok gave me a dirty look, and Droble said, “What’s that supposed to mean? Frank?”

Tarbok hemmed and hawed.

Droble frowned at him. “Frank, you been playin around with the woman? Are you the reason she’s been hiding out for a week?”

Tarbok sighed, gave me another look, and said, “Yeah. She and me had a thing going.”

“Well, that’s fine,” Droble said. “Whose idea was it she should cop a sneak?”

I was sorry I’d gotten Tarbok into this, but I’d learned in the last week that the only way to keep confusion from spreading like crab grass was to tell the truth every chance you got. Sometimes the truth made for an initial increase in confusion, but sooner or later it always had a calming effect.

So now I sat back and kept out of the conversation while reluctantly Tarbok explained things to his boss. Droble had to keep asking questions, but at least Tarbok didn’t try telling any lies, so when they were done Droble had a clear understanding of the situation.

And it didn’t make him happy. He said, “Frank, you should have put more trust in our lawyers. Let the woman go bitch to the cops. So it makes for a little unpleasantness, we would of got it straightened out in jigtime. McKay was killed when was it, last Monday, in the normal course of things the cops should have wrapped it up and put it in the pending file by Wednesday morning, but with the wife all of a sudden out of sight they kept being underfoot till Thursday night. We finally got our boys to convince the rest of them the wife took off only because she was afraid to get mixed up in the middle of a gang war, but the other way would have been a hell of a lot simpler. The wife goes in Monday night and makes her squawk, you spend Monday night in a cell, Tuesday morning we get it all straightened out, Tuesday they do their regular paperwork and routine, Wednesday morning the case is filed on schedule. You cost us a day and a half of irritation, Frank.”