Peril

MORTIMER

He took his usual place at the dark end of the bar, and it struck him unpleasantly that he had always tended toward shadowy corners. Like a bug, he thought.

Jake stepped over and poured a drink. “You look like shit, Morty.” He gave the bar a quick wipe, then slid over a bowl of beer nuts. “Like shit,” he repeated like some doctor who was making sure his professional observation had not gone unnoted.

“Yeah,” Mortimer said. He knocked back the round. “Where’s Abe?”

“Back in his office,” Jake said.

“I hear he’s got a girlfriend,” Mortimer said, allowing himself the small pleasure that Abe had shared this intimacy. But that was what best friends did, wasn’t it, share things they didn’t share with other guys? It was the only thing that gave relief, he decided, the warmth of friendship, all that trust. “He told me about her,” he added as if displaying a medal he’d won for good service.

“She’s probably gonna work here,” Jake said absently.

“Doing what?”

“Singer, I guess.”

“No shit,” Mortimer said.

Jake indicated Mortimer’s empty glass. “Another?”

“Why not?”

Jake poured the drink and Mortimer took a quick sip. “Is she any good, Abe’s girl?” he asked.

“She ain’t bad. Coming in later tonight, Abe says. Gonna do a couple numbers.”

Mortimer rolled the glass between his hands and watched the amber liquid slosh back and forth. He could feel the weight of the pistol in his jacket pocket. He knew it wasn’t much to offer, just a way for Abe to defend himself if some tough guy showed up and started throwing his weight around. You wave a gun in a guy’s face, and he cools down right away, starts figuring the odds, decides the guy holding the piece is one serious bastard, and that the lady in question is by no means worth taking a bullet for.

And as for the piece, Mortimer thought, hell, he didn’t need it anyway. He wasn’t going to shoot anybody at this late date, and if somebody wanted to shoot him, so what? They’d shave off a few weeks at the most. And bad weeks at that. Hospital. Dottie fretting. Fuck it, Mortimer thought, now feeling oddly urgent about getting the gun to Abe before it was too late, doing just one good thing while he still could.

He slid off the stool. “So Abe’s in back?” he said hastily.

“Yeah,” Jake said dully. “Probably mooning over the broad.”

Mortimer didn’t like Jake’s attitude, but what could you do with a guy like Jake, a dry kernel of a man, probably without a friend in the world. At least, Mortimer concluded, nobody could say that about him. Suddenly the pistol was like a gold watch after a long career, the physical proof that he had not lived in vain. After all, how many guys in New York City actually had an unregistered piece he could give to a friend? Not many, Mortimer told himself. You had to have lived a certain way to have an unregistered piece at your disposal. Thinking that, Mortimer abruptly decided that perhaps his life had always been headed for this moment, when he’d have a piece he could pass on, and touching it now, as he made his way toward the back of the bar, it felt like the one sweet fruit of a long, dry season.

“Hey, Abe,” he said as he stepped into the office.

Abe sat behind the desk, papers spread over it.

“So, how you doing?” Mortimer asked.

“Okay,” Abe said. He looked surprised to see him. “And you?”

“Good,” Mortimer answered, amazed that it was the truth, that he actually felt okay despite the fact that the dark eddies of his last conversation with Stark continued to drift through his mind. But again, what was the worse Stark could do? Fire him? So what. Shoot him? Same answer. The good news about reaching the end of the line was that there just wasn’t all that much anyone could do to you.

Okay, so nobody could really do anything to you, Mortimer concluded, but you could still do something for somebody. On the bounce of that notion, he stepped forward with a springiness that surprised him, took the pistol from his pocket, and placed it on the desk. “This is for you.”

Abe looked at the gun as if it were a coiled rattler.

“You said you could use a gun,” Mortimer reminded him. “So there it is.”

Abe stared at the gun. “Morty… I didn’t really…”

“My gift to you,” Mortimer said. “In case that fucking guy tries to muscle in on your girl.”

“Morty, I don’t want a-”

“I wouldn’t give it to nobody else, Abe,” Mortimer said quietly.

“Yeah, but-” Suddenly Abe stopped, and Mortimer noticed a curious softening in his gaze, as if something had just come to him, a different take on things.

“Yeah, okay,” Abe said quietly. “Thanks.” He gingerly reached for the pistol, like a guy picking up a scorpion, and put it in the top drawer of his desk. “Thanks again,” he said with a quick smile. “You’re a… a good friend, Morty.”

Mortimer smiled brightly and sat down opposite Abe’s desk. “So, tell me about this woman, Abe. You didn’t tell me much last time.”

“She’s nice,” Abe said.

Mortimer waited for more, but when Abe kept the rest of it to himself, he said, “So, tell me about her.”

Abe shrugged.

Mortimer smiled. Abe was playing it close to the vest, but he could see that his friend wanted to spill it all, that he just needed a little encouragement. “Jake says she’s a singer.”

“Yeah,” Abe said, adding nothing else.

“Jake says you’re going to hire her,” Mortimer coaxed.

“If she’ll take the job,” Abe said.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“She’s got a few problems,” Abe answered with a slight shrug.

“Like what?”

“Left her husband,” Abe said hesitantly.

“Plenty women do that,” Mortimer said in a worldly tone.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a clean break.”

“How so?” Mortimer asked, happy that the conversation was going so smoothly now.

“She’s sort of on the run,” Abe said darkly.

“So the husband’s after her,” Mortimer said.

“That’s what you’d think, right?” Abe answered. “But not in this case.”

Mortimer smiled. Now he was getting to the true heart of it, to those little intimacies friends shared. “So, who she running from?” he asked.

“Her father-in-law,” Abe said. “She’s pretty scared of him.”

Mortimer watched Abe silently for a moment, a dark possibility suddenly sputtering to life. No way, he thought, no fucking way. Then he considered the fact that life had always managed to twist around and bite him in the ass. Take Cajun Spice, for example. What were the odds that fucking soap bar would surge ahead at the last minute, beat Lady Be Good, empty the coffers once again, leaving Dottie in the lurch?

“So, when did she show up?” he asked tentatively. “This woman.”

“Couple days ago,” Abe said. “She was staying at some hotel in Brooklyn, but I set her up in Lucille’s old place. I figured it’d be safer for her, you know?”

Mortimer’s eyes fled to the wall calendar that hung to his right. “Lucille’s old place,” he whispered almost to himself. “Jane Street, right? I heard her say that once. Over a Chinese laundry.”

Abe nodded. “Place was paid up to the end of the month.”

“Jane Street,” Mortimer repeated softly.

Abe looked at him quizzically. “You okay, Morty?”

Mortimer nodded heavily, the full weight of what he’d feared now falling upon him. “This guy she’s running from. The father-in-law. She say who he was?”

“No,” Abe answered. “She wants to keep me out of it.”

Mortimer drew in a slow breath as he figured the odds that Abe’s girl was the one Leo Labriola was looking for. “Yeah, well, maybe you should do that, Abe,” he said cautiously. “I mean, it ain’t your business, right?”

Abe looked surprised by the advice. “Of course it’s my business.”

“Yeah, but a guy like that, dangerous…”

Abe gave a theatrical wink. “So what if he’s dangerous? Thanks to you, I got a gun, remember?”

Mortimer suddenly felt a slicing pain in his belly.

“Morty?” Abe said. “You look a little-”

“I’m fine,” Mortimer said quickly. He waited for the throbbing to pass, then got to his feet.

“You sure you’re okay?” Abe asked.

“Fine,” he repeated as he turned toward the door. Fucked again, he thought.