Somebody Owes Me Money

10

“Maybe I was wrong,” she said in a very small voice.

I was just making my left at Flatlands Avenue, the nearest police station I knew of being on Glenwood Road the other side of Rockaway Parkway. Since even after a snowstorm Brooklyn is full of elderly black Buicks being driven slowly but stupidly by short skinny women with their hair in rollers, I finished making the turn before looking in the rear-view mirror, where I saw my passenger looking very contrite. She met my eye in the mirror and said, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” I said. “You threatened me with a gun, you shot a hole in the roof, you accused me of all sorts of things, and now you’re sorry. Sit back!” I shouted, because she’d started to lean forward, her hand reaching for my shoulder, and I didn’t trust her an inch. That contrite look and little-girl voice could all be a gag.

She sat back. “It made sense,” she said, “before I saw you. Before we had our talk. But now I believe you.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Because,” she said, “if you were having an affair with Louise, and if you did help her kill Tommy, you wouldn’t dare leave me alive now. You couldn’t take a chance on having me running around loose.”

“I can’t take a chance on having you running around loose,” I said. “That’s why we’re on our way to the cops.”

She acted like she wanted to lean forward again, but controlled herself. “Please don’t,” she said. “I was desperate, and I did foolish things, but please don’t turn me up.”

Up? Most people would say “turn me in,” given the situation; “turn me up” was a very insidey gangland way of saying the same thing. And come to think of it, that wasn’t the first odd thing she’d said. Like quoting me twelve to one on my having helped kill her brother. Like talking about seeing who was bluffing when I said I’d take her to the cops.

It looked like she was really Tommy’s sister.

And that might mean, it suddenly occurred to me, that she might know who Tommy’s boss was. Maybe I wouldn’t have to look for Tommy’s wife at all anymore.

This part of Flatlands Avenue is lined with junkyards with wobbly wooden fences. I pulled to the side of the road, next to one of these fences, and stopped the car. Then I turned around and said to her, “I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”

She got the instant wary look of the gambler in her eye. “What kind of a deal?”

“There’s something I want to know,” I told her. “You tell me and I’ll forget the whole thing. I’ll let you out of the cab and that’ll be the end of it.”

“What do you want to know?” She was still wary.

“I’ll give you the background first,” I said, and quickly sketched in the incident of Purple Pecunia. I left out the business about the hoods last night, seeing no purpose in opening that can of worms right now, and finished by saying, “So what I want to know is, who do I collect from now that I can’t collect from your brother?”

“Oh,” she said. “Is that why you’ve been hanging around the apartment?”

“I haven’t exactly been hanging around,” I said. “I’ve been over there a couple times is all.”

“Three times yesterday and once today,” she said. “I’ve been waiting in the apartment for Louise to show up so I could confront her—”

“With the gun?”

“With the fact that I know she’s guilty,” she said fiercely.

“Well, you’re wrong,” I told her. “Nobody on earth could do an acting job like that. When Tommy’s wife saw him dead there, she had hysterics, and I mean hysterics.”

“It could have been guilt,” she said. “And nervousness.”

“Sure,” I said. “Only it wasn’t.”

“Then why did she disappear?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she’s staying with some relative, maybe she doesn’t want to be around the apartment now.”

She shook her head. “No. I called both her brothers and they don’t know where she is either. And I had to make all the arrangements for the funeral and the wake myself.”

“Wake? When?”

“It starts this evening,” she said. “At six.” She looked at her watch.

I said, “What time is it?”

She looked at her watch again. Did you ever notice how people do that? They look at their watch and a second later you ask them what time it is and they don’t know. She said, “Twenty after four.”

I said, “I’m losing a whole day’s work because of you. Not to mention the six bucks you ran up on the meter.”

“I’ll pay you for that,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m not a stiff.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Just tell me who Tommy’s boss was and where I find him.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Okay, sister,” I said, turning around to the wheel again. “It’s the hoosegow for you.”

“No!”

I waited, both hands on the steering wheel. “Well?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d tell you if I knew, honest I would.”

“Tommy’s sister would know,” I said. “Especially if she was as close to him as you claim.”

“I didn’t claim to be close,” she said. “I just came to town because he was killed.”

“From where?”

“Vegas.”

I turned around again. “You live in Las Vegas?”

“For a couple of years now,” she said. “Can I show you something out of my purse?”

“If you move very slow,” I said.

She moved very slow, and produced an airline ticket from her purse, which she handed over to me. It was TWA, it was the return half of a round-trip ticket between Las Vegas and New York, it showed she’d come in yesterday morning, and it gave her name as Abigail McKay.

I said, “Abigail?”

“Abbie,” she said.

“That’s very funny,” I said. “Abigail. You don’t look like an Abigail.”

“I’m not an Abigail,” she said. She was getting irritated. “Everybody calls me Abbie.”

But I was enjoying needling her about it, maybe because of the trouble I have about Chester, maybe just to get some of my own back with her. “Abigail,” I said, grinning. “It’s hard to think of you as an Abigail.”

“Well, you’re a Chester, all right,” she said. “You’re a Chester if there ever lived one.”

“That’s it,” I said, twisted around, started the car, and we moved out onto Flatlands Avenue again.

“I think you stink,” she said.

“The feeling is mutual,” I said. “In fact, the feeling is para-mutual.”

In the mirror I could see her looking blank. “What?”

It had been a pun, on parimutuel, of course, the betting system at race tracks. I’d meant “para” like more than or above, like parapsychology or paratrooper. But try explaining a pun. Explanations never get a laugh. So I didn’t say anything.

We were stopped by a traffic light at East 103rd Street. We were into an area of brick projects and fake-brick row houses now, the streets full of kids throwing snowballs at each other. As we sat there waiting for the light to change, kids flowing all around us, she said, “I’m sorry. I just hate that business about Abigail.”

“I hate that business about Chester,” I said.

“What do people call you?”

“They call me Chester,” I said. “I want them to call me Chet, but nobody does.”

“I will,” she said. “If you don’t call me Abigail I won’t call you Chester.”

I looked at her in the mirror and I saw she was really trying to be friends, and I realized that she did have the same thing about her name that I had about mine, and it had been kind of mean of me to make a thing about it. “It’s a deal,” I said.

She said, “Would you please don’t take me to the police, Chet? If you do, there won’t be anybody to look for Tommy’s murderer, not anybody at all.”

Watching her in the mirror, seeing that her chin was trembling and she was on the verge of tears, I said, “What about the cops? Let them find the murderer.”

“Somebody who killed a bookie? Are you kidding? How hard do you think they’re going to work?”

“They’re still working now,” I said. “One of them came out to see me just this morning. They don’t suspect me of anything, by the way.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “Not anymore. And I’m not saying the police won’t do all the routine stuff. They’ll do all that, they’ll do enough to be sure the record looks good on paper, but they won’t really try, not for a bookie, and you know it as well as I do.”

Somebody honked. I looked through the windshield and the light was green. I went across the intersection and found a hydrant to park next to in the middle of the block. I stopped the cab again, turned around, and said, “All right, maybe. The police aren’t going to work as hard as if it was the Governor, I’ll grant you that. But what do you know about any of it? You’re running around with a lot of dumb ideas in your head, leaping to conclusions, waving a gun around, acting like a nut. You aren’t going to solve any murders, all you’ll do is get yourself in trouble.”

“I was wrong about you,” she said. “I admit that. I admit I should have found out more before I made up my mind. But now I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll be more careful from now on.”

I shook my head. “You don’t get the point. The point is, you don’t know the first thing about detective work. You’re like one of those people goes out to the track, doesn’t know word one about handicapping, and picks the horses with the cute names.”

“Sometimes those people pick a winner,” she said.

“What’s the odds?”

She frowned. “All right. But I’m not wrong about Louise! She’s been having an affair with somebody. Tommy knew about it but he didn’t know who it was. He wrote me months ago about it.”

“Did she ask for a divorce? Did he say no?”

“She didn’t bring anything out in the open,” she said. “Tommy just knew about it, that’s all.”

I shook my head. “There’s no reason for her to kill him,” I said. “It isn’t like she was going to inherit a million dollars. If she wanted to be through with Tommy, all she had to do was pack up and leave.”

“There could be things we don’t know about,” she said.

“My point exactly,” I said. “There could be all sorts of things you don’t know about, and until you find out what they are you can’t be sure about anything. And you certainly can’t go around accusing somebody of murder.”

“Then why did she disappear?” she demanded.

“How do I know? But I’m sure there’s more than one possible explanation. She’s liable to show up at this wake tonight, and you can ask her.”

“I just bet she is.”

“She might. How do you know?”

“If she shows up,” she said, “I’ll owe you an apology.”

“You owe me an apology now,” I said.

“I already said I’m sorry. And I did mean it.” I had my forearm up resting on the top of the seat, and now she leaned forward and rested her hand on my arm, saying, “Will you help me? I’m all alone in the world now, I don’t have anybody now that Tommy’s dead.”

I looked at her, and it just didn’t sound right. This was a very good-looking girl, with big blue eyes and smooth skin and full blond hair, and she was dressed expensively and well, and it was hard to imagine her ever being all alone in the world. I said, “Don’t you have anybody back in Las Vegas?”

She shrugged. “People I know,” she said. “But nobody I’m really close to.”

“I’m somebody you’re really close to?”

She took her hand off my arm and sat back. “No, you’re not,” she said, and looked out the side window. “There isn’t anybody, like I said.”

“Frankly,” I said, “I don’t want to get mixed up in any murder situation, and I don’t think you should either.”

“I’m doing it for Tommy,” she said, looking at me again. “Because somebody has to, and because he was the only brother I had. And because I’m the only one he has.”

“Okay,” I said. “I see your point. But you’ve got to handle things differently from now on.”

“I will,” she said. “Believe me, I will.”

“I tell you what,” I said. “I want to know where to collect my money, you want to know who killed your brother. We’ll probably overlap a little anyway, so I’ll help you for a little while. Until either you find out what you want to know or I find out what I want to know. Is it a deal?”

“Definitely,” she said, and smiled a glowing smile, and stuck her hand out. I took it, and it was cool and smooth and very delicate. “Thank you,” she said.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” I said. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“I wish you would.”

“You go to this wake,” I said. “Stay there from beginning to end. Check out everybody who comes in, find out who they are. If Tommy’s wife shows up, ask her some questions about where she’s been. If anybody that Tommy worked for shows up, ask them about where I can get my money. What time is the wake over?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“Okay. There’s a poker game I’m in on Wednesdays, I’ll be there by then, I’ll give you the number. You can—”

“Do they let girls sit in?”

Surprised, I said, “Well, we’ve had girls sit in a couple of times.”

“I’m not like them,” she said. “I promise I’m a good player.”

“Not too good,” I said, and grinned.

“We’ll see,” she said. “Do you think they’d mind if I sat in?”

“They won’t mind,” I said. “You come right along. It’s in Manhattan, 38 East 81st Street. Between Park and Madison. The guy’s name is Jerry Allen.”

“All right. I’ll be there around nine-thirty.”

“Good. Where do you want to go now?”

“Back to Tommy’s place,” she said. “That’s where I’ve been staying.”

“Okay. I’m going to have to run the meter, you know, or a cop is liable to stop us.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “I have money.”

“Fine. You already owe me six forty-five for the trip down.” I started the car and the meter and headed up to Rockaway Parkway and made my left to go back to the Belt.

“I’m glad you’re going to help,” she said.

“Only till I get my money,” I reminded her. “I don’t want to act unchivalrous or anything, but it really isn’t my scene to go looking for murderers.”

“It isn’t mine either,” she said. “But it has to be done. And I know you naturally don’t have as strong feelings about it as I do, so I won’t ask you to do any more than you want.”

“Good,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, as though it had just occurred to her, “and could I have my gun back, please?”

“Ha ha,” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“You mean I can’t have the gun back?”

“Right.”

“That’s mean, Chet. I need that gun, for my own safety.”

“You’ll be a lot safer without it,” I said. “And so will everybody else.” And that was the end of that conversation.