Time to Murder and Create

"They go with ulcers, too."

"You bet your ass they do." Spin. "What it is, I got something I want you to hold for me."

"Oh?"

He took a sip of milk. He put the glass down and reached over to drum his fingers against the attaché case. "I got an envelope in here. What I want is for you to hold on to it for me. Put it some place safe where nobody's gonna run across it, you know?"

"What's in the envelope?"

He gave his head an impatient little shake. "Part of it is you don't have to know what's in the envelope."

"How long do I have to hold it?"

"Well, that's the whole thing." Spin. "See, lots of things can happen to a person. I could walk out, step off the curb, get hit by theNinth Avenue bus. All the things that can happen to a person, I mean, you just never know."

"Is somebody trying for you, Spinner?"

The eyes came up to meet mine, then dropped quickly. "It could be," he said.

"You know who?"

"I don't even know if, never mind who." Wobble, snatch. Spin.

"The envelope's your insurance."

"Something like that."

I sipped coffee. I said, "I don't know if I'm right for this, Spinner. The usual thing, you take your envelope to a lawyer and work out a set of instructions. He tosses it into a safe and that's it."

"I thought of that."

"So?"

"No point to it. The kind of lawyers I know, the minute I walk out of their office they got the fuckin'

envelope open. A straight lawyer, he's gonna run his eyes over me and go out and wash his hands."

"Not necessarily."

"There's something else. Say I get hit by a bus, then the lawyer would only have to get the envelope to you. This way we cut out the middleman, right?"

"Why do I have to wind up with the envelope?"

"You'll find out when you open it. If you open it."

"Everything's very roundabout, isn't it?"

"Everything's very tricky lately, Matt. Ulcers and aggravation."

"And better clothes than I ever saw you wear in your life."

"Yeah, they can fuckin' bury me in 'em." Spin. "Look, all you gotta do is take the envelope, you stick it in a safe-deposit box, something, somewhere, that's up to you."

"Suppose I get hit by a bus?"

He thought it over and we worked it out. The envelope would go under the rug in my hotel room. If I died suddenly, Spinner could come around and retrieve his property. He wouldn't need a key. He'd never needed one in the past.

We worked out details, the weekly phone call, the bland message if I wasn't in. I ordered another drink.

Spinner still had plenty of milk left.

I asked him why he had picked me.

"Well, you were always straight with me, Matt. You been off the force how long? A couple of years?"

"Something like that."

"Yeah, you quit. I'm not good on the details. You killed some kid or something?"

"Yeah. Line of duty, a bullet took a bad hop."

"Catch a lot of static from on top?"

I looked at my coffee and thought about it. A summer night, the heat almost visible in the air, the air conditioning working overtime in the Spectacle, a bar inWashingtonHeights where a cop got his drinks on the house. I was off duty, except you never really are, and two kids picked that night to hold up the place.

They shot the bartender dead on their way out. I chased them into the street, killed one of them, splintered the other one's thigh bone.

But one shot was off and took a richochet that bounced it right into the eye of a seven-year-old girl named Estrellita Rivera. Right in the eye, and through soft tissue and on into the brain.

"That was out of line," the Spinner said. "I shouldn'ta brought it up."

"No, that's all right. I didn't get any static. I got a commendation, as a matter of fact. There was a hearing, and I was completely exonerated."

"And then you quit the force."

"I sort of lost my taste for the work. And for other things. A house on theIsland . A wife. My sons."

"I guess it happens," he said.

"I guess it does."

"So what you're doing, you're sort of a private cop, huh?"

I shrugged. "I don't have a license. Sometimes I do favors for people and they pay me for it."

"Well, getting back to our little business…" Spin. "You'd be doing me a favor is what you'd be doing."

"If you think so."

He picked up the dollar in mid-spin, looked at it, set it down on the blue-and-white checkered tablecloth.

I said, "You don't want to get killed, Spinner."

"Fuck, no."

"Can't you get out from under?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Let's don't talk about that part of it, huh?"

"Whatever you say."

" 'Cause if somebody wants to kill you, what the fuck can you do about it?

Nothin'."

"You're probably right."

"You'll handle this for me, Matt?"

"I'll hang on to your envelope. I'm not saying what I'll do if I have to open it, because I don't know what's in it."

"If it happens, then you'll know."

"No guarantees I'll do it, whatever it is."

He took a long look at me, reading something in my face that I didn't know was there. "You'll do it," he said.

"Maybe."

"You'll do it. And if you don't I won't know about it, so what the fuck.

Listen, what do you want in front?"

"I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do."

"I mean for keeping the envelope. How much do you want?"