Somebody Owes Me Money

17

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.