Somebody Owes Me Money (14 page)

That surprised him, and he actually showed it. “For me?”

“He thought maybe I killed Tommy for you,” I said. “So he had those other two guys grab me and take me to him, and he asked me questions. The same as you.”

Napoli grew thoughtful again. “So he thought I might have had Tommy taken care of, eh? Mmmm. I wonder why.”

“He didn’t say,” I said.

“But you convinced him,” he said. “Convinced him you didn’t work for me.”

“Sure.”

“Then why did he try to kill you last night?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he changed his mind. I don’t know.”

He sat back, smiling reminiscently. “It’s a good thing for you he did,” he said.

I wasn’t sure I understood. I said, “A good thing he tried to kill me?”

He nodded, still with the reminiscent smile. “If he hadn’t,” he said, “you’d be dead now.”

That didn’t make any sense at all. I said, “Why?”

“Because,” he said, “I’d ordered you shot. What do you think my people were doing outside your house? They were there to kill you.”

I stared at him. A man had just calmly told me to my face that he’d ordered me murdered. What was the correct social response to a thing like that? I just lay there and stared at him. He was unconcerned. The whole thing struck
him
as no more than amusing. Mildly amusing. “And the funny part of it is,” he said, incredibly enough, “
I
was going to have you killed for the same reason as Walt Droble. I figured you’d killed McKay, you were working under Frank Tarbok.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No.”

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.

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.”

Since I didn’t have any answer to that one, I stopped thinking about it, and instead my mind went back to something that had struck me a long time ago. I’d been meaning to ask Abbie about it, but then things started to happen, and I forgot. So I asked now. “What about the doctor?” I said.

She stared at me. “The doctor? Tommy’s doctor? Why would
he
kill him?”

“No, no. The doctor that took care of my head. The one you called, that helped you carry me up here.”

“He didn’t even know Tommy,” she said. “He never even knew me before last night. What makes you think
he’s
the killer?”

Confusion was setting in again. “I don’t,” I said. “I’m not talking about the killing at all. I’m talking about something else now.”

“I was talking about the killing,” she said, “and who could have done it, and there’s nobody left but Louise.”

“All right,” I said, not wanting to go around that barn again. “You’re probably right.”

“So what’s all this about the doctor?”

“I was shot in the head,” I said. “Aren’t doctors supposed to report gunshot wounds to the police?”

“They’re supposed to,” she agreed.

“Then shouldn’t we be getting cops here sooner or later, asking questions?”

She shook her head. “He won’t report it. I told him you were
my boyfriend, and my husband shot you, and we couldn’t stand the scandal and notoriety, and I promised him his name would never come up if there was a police investigation.”

“And he agreed?”

“I also bribed him a hundred dollars.” She winked. “You have to know what neighborhood to get your doctor in.”

“You bribed him?”

“It was the only thing to do,” she said, and shrugged.

That girl just kept amazing me. I had known capable, competent take-charge women before, but none of them came within a mile of Abbie McKay. I shook my head and said, “You’re a wonder. How about taking care of Tarbok and Droble for me?”

“Sure thing,” she said. “First thing in the morning.” Then she looked at her watch and said, “Which will be coming along any minute. I’ve got to go to the funeral tomorrow, too. At ten o’clock.” She looked around and said, “It looks like we spend the night co-ed.”

“I’d offer you the bed,” I said, “but I’m not sure I can get out of it.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “We can share.”

“Share?”

“In your condition,” she said, “what virtue I have left is probably safe. Just move over to the side a little bit. No, the inside, I don’t want to have to crawl over you all the time.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that,” I said, and hunched myself over against the wall. What’s that old image about a sick person, when they’re about to die, they turn their face to the wall? That’s what ran through my head when I got over by the wall, of course. My mind isn’t always so full of morbid notions, but even Mary Poppins would have had a grim thought or two if she’d had my last four days.

Meanwhile Abbie was stripping to her underwear again, the
second night in a row I’d seen her like that. I said, “Hey.”

She glanced at me. “What?”

“I may be wounded,” I said, “but I’m not a eunuch. I was shot up at this end, up at the head.”

She grinned and said, “Oh, don’t be silly, Chet. You’ve seen girls before.”

“That’s perfectly true,” I said. “But.”

She looked at me. “But what?”

“Nothing,” I said. “That was the whole sentence.”

“Oh, you’ll be all right,” she said, and went over and switched off the light.

I heard her moving around in the dark, and then the bed sagged, and then a knee touched my near leg. It moved around a little, the covers shifted this way and that, the knee left, a hip touched my hip, the hip left, the covers settled down, she sighed in contentment, and there was silence.

I said, “This is ridiculous.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m in bed with you.”

“Haven’t you ever been in bed with a girl before?”

“Not like this, Abbie.”

“It’s kind of a nice change of pace,” she said.

“Change of pace,” I said.

“Sure,” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

She went to sleep before I did.

My arms were around somebody. Somebody warm. Somebody soft. Somebody who smelled musky and nice. Somebody female.

Female? My eyes popped open, and I was looking at a lot of tangled blond hair. I blinked at the hair, felt the warm female body snuggled against mine, and for just a second I was afraid I was in terrible trouble. Then I remembered. I
was
in terrible trouble, but not that kind.

I must have moved or something, because all at once the mass of hair lifted, like a drawbridge going up, and two wide-open blue eyes were three inches from my face, staring at me. I blinked. They blinked.

I said, “Good morning.”

She jumped a mile, or at least out of my arms, and sat beside me, holding the covers up against herself and staring down at me.

I said, “Abbie, this was your idea. You were very cool about the whole thing last night, so don’t fly off the handle now.”

Comprehension flowed into her eyes as though poured in from above, and she said, “Chet?” As though to be sure what she was seeing was right.

“It’s me,” I said.

She shook her head, fluffed her hair, scrubbed her face with her palms. “Whoof!” she said. “Boy, did I sleep!”

“Me, too,” I said.

She smiled at me. “That was kind of nice. Together like that.”

“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” I said. “When I’m stronger.”

Her smile turned a touch lewd. “It might be fun,” she said.

I reached out and touched the bare skin of her side, between panties and bra. “It might be.”

She pushed my hand away and got out of bed. “You shouldn’t excite yourself,” she said. “You’re still sick.”

“
I’m
not exciting me.”

“I’ll get dressed. You look away or something. How are you this morning, anyway?”

“All cured.”

“Oh foo.” She put on her robe. “Now. How do you feel?”

It was a peculiarly uninteresting robe, a pale blue terrycloth with a pale blue terrycloth sash. I turned my attention inward instead, and said, “I’m starving.”

“That’s a good sign.” She picked up her watch, wound it, put it on, looked at it. “I’ve got to hurry. How do you like your eggs?”

“Over easy. And coffee regular.”

“Tea,” she said.

“For breakfast?”

“Make believe you’re English.” She went over and knocked on the door, and after a minute Ralph let her out. He glanced in at me and decided to leave the door open.

Abbie came back a while later with a tray for me, and dressed while I ate. Surprisingly, I did not stab myself in the cheek with my fork. When she was dressed she took the tray away again and came back in her orange fur coat and said, “I’m off to the funeral. Isn’t this an awful thing to be wearing? But it’s all I have.”

“You look great,” I said.

“Do I? Thank you.” She smiled and frowned at once. “But you’re not supposed to look great at funerals.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “Nobody will complain.”

“You say very nice things,” she said. “See you.”

“See you.”

She left, and Ralph came in to help me to the bathroom. He was morose and bored, and when he had me back in bed he asked me if I played gin rummy, asking in a fatalistic way as though sure I was going to say no. He perked right up when I said yes, went and got a deck of cards and a pencil and a score pad, and we settled down to business.