Somebody Owes Me Money (18 page)

Louise McKay suddenly said, “Abbie, it’s perfectly all right for you to stay here while you’re in New York, but I’d rather you didn’t bring other people in with you. Particularly a foul-mouthed individual like that one.”

I said, “Mrs. McKay, I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“Huh!” she said.

“But,” I said, “you’re going around being very shrill and emotional and you’re not thinking sensibly. We could
all
have gotten killed if Ralph had decided to start shooting. Do you think he’d have shot Tarbok here and left three witnesses alive to tell about it? Just exactly at the moment when I was about to get him quietly out of here you start yelling all this stuff about Tarbok killing your husband, when you know perfectly well he didn’t.”

She stared at me. “I know no such thing.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” I said. “You probably did think he’d done it at first, but now you know he didn’t and you’re just going on momentum. You’re mad at him and maybe you should be, but that’s why you’re going on saying he killed Tommy.”

“He did.”

“No. You know the motive isn’t right, you know he wouldn’t have killed Tommy in order to marry you. And besides that,” I said, pointing at the wound on my head, “somebody shot at me Wednesday night.”

She sat there waiting for me to go on, but I’d said all I wanted to say, so finally she said, “Well? What difference does that make?”

I said, “The Droble gang didn’t do it, and the Napoli gang didn’t do it. So who did it?”

“I don’t know,” she said coldly. “Who else have you insulted recently?”

“Come on,” I said. “Be serious. Nobody’s ever shot at me before, and nobody’s going to be shooting at me now except in connection some way with the murder of Tommy McKay. It would be too much of a coincidence if the shootings weren’t related.”

“I don’t see what point you think you’re making,” she said.

I said, “The point I think I’m making is that the only person who would take a shot at me has to be the same person who killed Tommy. And Frank Tarbok didn’t do it. He didn’t shoot at me Wednesday night.”

Tarbok said, “What time?”

“Around one-thirty,” Abbie told him.

Tarbok looked at Mrs. McKay. “You know where I was at one-thirty Wednesday night.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “All we have is your word for it,” she told me, “that you were shot at one-thirty Wednesday night.”

“Well,” I said, “there is also this healing wound on the side of my head, which ought to count for something.”

She glanced at the side of my head, but her expression didn’t change. It remained locked up, cold, unreachable. “It doesn’t say one-thirty Wednesday night on it,” she said.

“I say one-thirty Wednesday night,” Abbie said. “I was with Chet when it happened.”

She faltered for a second at that, but then she said, irritably,
“What difference does it make anyway? The shooting doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t have to be connected to all this at all. If you associate with underworld figures, you shouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later you get yourself shot at.”

“The only underworld figure I ever associated with up till now,” I told her, “was your husband.”

She stiffened even more, and got to her feet. “Nothing you say is going to change the facts,” she said. “And the fact is that Frank Tarbok killed my husband. He’s held me incommunicado for a week to keep me from telling the police what I know, and that’s proof enough for me.”

“What if he hadn’t held you for a week?” I said. “What would have been proof enough then?”

But she was done with listening. No, she’d never listened, she was done now with answering. She turned and walked toward the kitchen door, very haughty.

Tarbok said heavily, “Don’t try making any phone calls.”

She left the room without deigning to answer.

Abbie looked at the doorway, frowning. “Maybe I ought to go talk to her,” she said.

“Forget it,” I said. “She’s got a closed mind.”

“I didn’t mean to convince her of anything. Just to comfort her a little.” She got to her feet. “In fact, I will.” She also left the room.

I said to Frank Tarbok, “Care for some liverwurst?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “My stomach’s been acting up the last few days.”

“I wouldn’t wonder. Can you take coffee?”

“No, nothing for me.” He looked at me. “You got any idea who it is?”

“The killer?”

“Who else?”

“No, I don’t. I wish I did. Abbie thought it was Louise, but I never did think so and I still don’t.”

He shook his head. “Naw, she didn’t do it. She ran around on him, but she liked him okay. Just like I like my wife. Louise and me, we both knew it was just for kicks, neither of us was looking for no permanent change.”

“Right,” I said. “So it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t you—”

“You’re damn right.”

“Right. And it wasn’t Napoli or any of his people, because Tommy was working with them, and it wasn’t Droble or any of his people, because he didn’t know Tommy was double-crossing him. So who’s left? I don’t know.”

“We oughta find out,” Tarbok said. “It’d help us both if whoever he is he got found out.”

“Yes, it would,” I said. “You’d have Mrs. McKay off your back, and I’d have the killer off mine.”

“Maybe we oughta work together,” Tarbok said. “Maybe the two of us could maybe find out something.”

I stared at him. “You mean, play detective? You and me?”

“Why not? The cops ain’t playing detective, and somebody ought to.”

“The cops are still working on the case,” I said. “They were as of Friday, anyway.”

“Well, they’re off now,” Tarbok told me. “I get information, I can guarantee it.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes for a problem, doesn’t it?”

“We’re both of us in big trouble if the guy ain’t found,” Tarbok said.

“You’re right.”

“So why don’t we join up and take a look for him?”

“Abbie’s looking, too,” I said. “You know, to avenge her brother.”

“She can come aboard,” he said. “Plenty of room. What do you say?”

I grinned at him. “You want to team up with a shlemozzle?”

He grinned back, and it was amazing how the change of expression lifted his face. He almost looked human now. “You’re a kind of a super shlemozzle,” he said. “You do dumb things, but you always got smart reasons.”

“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.

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.”

Tarbok hung his head. “I’m sorry, Walt,” he said. “I just got panicky, I guess.”

“You should of come talk to me, Frank. You know my office door is always open.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Frank. You know I want the organization to run smooth, and it can’t run smooth if everybody’s private life gets in the way on the job. That’s why I’m always ready to help, Frank. You should of come to me.”

“You’re right,” Tarbok said. “I should of thought.”

“Okay,” Droble said. He reached out the hand without the cigar and patted Tarbok’s hand. “Now we forget it, Frank,” he said. “What’s over is over. Now we think about tomorrow.”

Tarbok’s head came up. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Walt,” he said. “The question is, who did for McKay if it wasn’t Napoli?”

Droble frowned. “I don’t get you.”

“We been taking it for granted it was Napoli,” Tarbok said. “Paying us back for that Corona incident.”

Droble gave me a quick look and said to Tarbok, “Easy. Not in front of civilians.”

“I wasn’t going into any details, Walt. Anyway, the point is, if McKay was working for Napoli, Napoli didn’t rub him.”

“If,” Droble said. “We never did get that straightened out.” He looked at me again. “I already told you I’m of two minds on this one,” he said. “You think you can convince me one way or the other?”

I’d been waiting for the chance. I quickly told him about my having been shot Wednesday night, and the presence of Napoli’s men, and the fact that they’d been planning to kill me themselves to avenge Tommy, and their presence in this apartment for the next twenty-four hours, and Napoli’s visit—Droble had
me describe Napoli, which I did—and the inescapable conclusion that Napoli’s presence and interest meant Tommy really had been working for him.

When I finished, Droble looked very sour. He said, “Okay. I don’t get it, but okay.”

Tarbok said, “So that’s what raises the question, who did for McKay if it wasn’t Napoli?”

Droble said, “What do we care?”

I knew why Tarbok cared, but I doubted it was a motivation Droble would find much sympathy with. It mattered to Tarbok whether or not his sweetie believed he’d killed her husband, but it was unlikely to have the same urgency for Droble. So I wondered how Tarbok was going to handle it.

With a mask on. Leaning forward he said, “Walt, we got to know. It happened inside our organization, we can’t remain ignorant about it. Whoever he is, the guy’s caused us trouble. He almost made us move against Napoli before we were ready, he—”

“Shut up, Frank.”

Tarbok glanced at me, remembering my presence, and leaned closer to Droble to say, “Okay. You know the situation, Walt, I don’t have to spell it out.”