Somebody Owes Me Money

Did you ever see two cats meet unexpectedly coming around a corner or through a doorway? Then I don’t have to describe the meeting between Walter Droble and Solomon Napoli. Or how full the hall became of assorted henchmen, with Napoli’s commandos crowding in from outside and Droble’s irregulars hurrying down from the living room.

I slithered back into the kitchen — not bad for somebody who can’t stay on a diet — and over to the far side of the refrigerator, wanting to be out of the line of fire in case there was a line of fire, from where I watched the opening stages of the drama.

Droble had leaped to his feet, of course, the minute Napoli had appeared in the kitchen doorway, and for what seemed several years they just stood glaring at each other, both in a half-crouch, hackles rising everywhere, like the opening of the gun duel scene in a western movie. There was noise and commotion out in the hall from the rival gangs of extras, but that all seemed to be happening in a different world, as though a thick pane of glass separated this room from the planet Earth as we know it. Frank Tarbok had stayed exactly where he was, seated at the table, hands in plain view on the tabletop.

Droble spoke first: “You’ve been past-posting me, you son of a bitch.”

Napoli, small and dapper and vicious, said, “But you were a real boy scout in that East New York business, weren’t you?”

“If you hadn’t pulled that stunt with Griffin, nothing would have happened in East New York.”

Napoli was about to reply, but Tarbok said, “Walt. Remember the civilian.”

Droble looked angrily around, irritated at the interruption, and when he met Tarbok’s eye, Tarbok nodded in my direction. Then everybody looked at me.

I never felt so present in my life. I was right there, right out in the open, plain as the sweat on my face. I resisted the impulse to say, “Uh.”

But I was going to have to say something, because I could sense the mood changing all of a sudden. The room was full of tension looking for an outlet, and I was the stranger, the foreigner, the civilian, the one who didn’t belong. It would relieve everybody’s feelings if they all got together and stomped me into the linoleum.

I said, “Well,” and put a horrible smile on my face. “Here’s a chance for all you people to settle your differences. All you do is make trouble for each other when you argue like this, and New York ought to be big enough for everybody. And here’s a perfect opportunity to sit down and discuss things and work everything out so everybody’s satisfied. Mr. Napoli, why don’t you take my chair, that one there, and I’ll just go wait in the living room. I know you won’t want any outsider listening in. So I’ll just, uh, go on into, uh, the living room now, and if you want to talk to me later on,” as I started moving, slowly but with a great show of the confidence I didn’t feel, toward the doorway, “I’ll be right in there, on tap, ready to help out any way I can,” as I edged around Napoli, talking all the time through the ghastly smile painted on my face, “and looking forward to hearing that you two have ironed out your differences, buried the, uh, settled everything to your mutual...” and through the doorway, and out of their sight.

Successfully. So far. I inched my way through all the hard- noses in the hall, all standing around like a Mafia wake, filling the hallway with the dark awareness of all the guns tucked just out of sight inside all those suit coats, and though all of them gave me the evil eye none of them made a move to stop me. They wouldn’t without orders from the kitchen.

Which didn’t come. Neither Napoli nor Droble shouted out, “Stop that guy!” or, “Kill him!” or, “Bring that bum back here!” or any other fatal commands. I got past the last of the heavies and continued on to the living room, where Abbie and Mrs. McKay were sitting now alone at opposite ends of the room, and fell in nervous paralysis into the nearest empty chair. “Uhhhhhh,” I said, and let my arms hang over the sides.

Abbie hurried to me and whispered, “What’s going on?”

“Summit meeting,” I said. I took a deep breath and sat up and wiped my brow. “Napoli and Droble are talking things over in the kitchen.”

“Napoli and Droble? Both of them?”

I nodded. “You don’t know how it felt to be in there with them,” I said.

“I can imagine,” she said.

I wasn’t sure she could. I said, “You know, years ago somebody put an ad in a couple of papers in New York for a guaranteed bug killer, to be delivered with complete instructions. It cost a dollar or two, I don’t know how much. So a lot of people sent in their money, and they got a package back, and in the package there were two ordinary bricks, one lettered A and the other one lettered B. And a sheet of paper with instructions: ‘Place bug on brick A. Hit with brick B.’ In that kitchen just now, I finally understood what the bug felt like.”

Abbie, hunkered down in front of me, elbows on my knees, took my hand in hers and squeezed. “I know,” she said. “It must have been terrible.”