Somebody Owes Me Money

24

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.”

“You better not spell it out.”

I said, “I could wait in the living room if you want.”

Tarbok said, “No. You stay here, you’re a part of this.”

“That’s right,” said Droble. “You just sit right where you are.”

Tarbok said to Droble, “Okay, I’m not spelling it out. But you know and I know we can’t have no wild card in the deck. There’s somebody out there doing something we don’t know anything about. He killed McKay, he took a shot at Conway here, who knows where he’ll crop up again? So we don’t have the balance screwed up we need to know who he is. Whether we turn him over to the cops is another question. What we got to know is who he is and what he’s up to.”

Droble nodded, reluctantly but judiciously. “You’re right,” he said. “And you want to handle it, is that right?”

Tarbok, being a lot more deft than I would have given him credit for, said, “Right. After all, I got a private stake in this, too. I don’t like Louise McKay thinking it was me killed her husband.”

“The question is,” Droble said, “what’s the situation with this guy?” Meaning me.

“I’ll keep him with me,” Tarbok said. “He’s been in the middle of it all along, while I been holed up with Louise.”

Droble looked at me. “There’s another question,” he said. “How come you been in the middle of it all along?”

I said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” and I then proceeded to tell him about my nine hundred thirty dollars, finishing, “So you’re the one I should talk to about it, I guess.”

“About what?”

“My nine hundred thirty dollars.”

Droble frowned. “What about it?”

“I want to collect it. You still owe it to me.”

He shook his head. “Not on your life,” he said. “That money was turned over to McKay. As far as the organization is concerned, you’ve been paid.”

“Hey, wait a second,” I said. “Maybe Tommy got the money, but I never did.”

“That’s not our problem,” he said. “You want to take it up with his widow, you go right ahead.”

I looked at Tarbok, but he was no help. I said, “What happened to the money?”

Tarbok shook his head, and Droble shrugged. They couldn’t care less.

I said, “Wait a second, this might be important. Are you sure he got it? Are you sure the money was actually paid to him?”

“Our courier got here at five thirty-five,” Droble told me. “We already checked that out.”

I said, “Are you sure? What about this courier?”

“He’s my son-in-law,” Droble said drily. “He’s being groomed for the top, and he knows it. He didn’t bump McKay for your nine hundred thirty dollars.”

“Hmm,” I said. “And he got here at five thirty-five? Tommy was alive then, and he was dead when I got here at six-ten. That’s thirty-five minutes.”

“He was alive at five-fifty,” Droble said. “We’ve done some checking out, and somebody in our organization talked to him on the phone at ten minutes to six.”

Tarbok said, “So it’s down to twenty minutes.”

I said, “It’s a good thing I didn’t get here much earlier. What happened to the money afterwards?”

“Gone,” Droble said. “Our cop on the scene told us the bundle wasn’t here.”

“How much can you trust him?” I asked.

“He picks up no percentage in lying on that one,” Droble said. “If the money was here the cops would have picked it up and divided it, and our cop would of told us so. There wouldn’t be any question about us getting it back or anything.”

“So the murderer took it with him.”

“Right,” Droble said. “So there’s your answer. Go find the killer, and collect your nine hundred from him.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” I said. “I made my bet in good faith, and just because you have an administrative problem inside your organization is no reason I should—”

“Administrative problem!”

“What else do you call it? I didn’t get my money because somebody in your organization lost it in transit. It should be up to you to make it good.”

“You want to take us to court?” he asked me.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “That money’s important to me.”

“It isn’t the money,” he said, “it’s the precedent. We don’t pay off twice, and that’s all there is to it. Look, the other big winner that day didn’t come squawking, he understood the situation. Why don’t you?”

“Another big winner?” I said.

“Yeah. Another guy had the same horse as you, only he had a hundred on it. That’s almost three grand.”

“Who was he?”

“What difference does it make?” Droble said.

“I don’t know, I’m just asking. Who was he?”

Droble shrugged in irritation. “I wouldn’t know. McKay would have the name, it might be in his records around here some—”

He stopped. He looked wide-eyed. He glanced at Tarbok, who looked back in bewilderment and said, “Walt?”

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Droble said. “That’s what the bastard was doing for Napoli! He was robbing me blind!”

I was happy to see Tarbok didn’t get it any more than I did. He said, “How do you figure that, Walt?”

“I remember,” Droble said, “Higgins in Accounting said it to me a couple months ago, how McKay had a couple of consistent winners, guys who’d pick two, three horses a week, long shots. Cleaning up. McKay was actually running at a loss because of those guys, but it disappeared in the overall accounting picture. Don’t you see it, Frank? The bastard was past-posting us!”

I grinned. How lovely. Napoli, in other words, had been feeding Tommy the names of one or two good money winners a day, getting the information to Tommy right after the race, before the news would be on the wires. Then Tommy would make those bets for non-existent players, and probably he and Napoli split the proceeds. A nice way for Napoli to hit his competition in the cash register and build up his own funds for when the open warfare started. Particularly if Napoli had more than one of Droble’s bookies doing the same thing.

I said, “Mr. Droble, if it wasn’t for me you would never have found out about this. Napoli was suborning your organization from the bottom, and financing it with your own money. Now you know about it and you can do something about it, and if it wasn’t for me you’d have gone under. Now, if that isn’t worth nine hundred thirty dollars, I don’t know what—”

“Will you shut up about that lousy nine hundred?” Droble was angry and worried, and in no mood to be fair about things.

But Tarbok, surprisingly, was. He said, “Walt, I think Conway’s right. I think we owe him a debt. And I also think he could go on being helpful to us for some time to come. We could afford to—”

“With that bastard Napoli sucking my blood? Not on your life. Don’t either of you say another word about that nine—”

The doorbell rang.

I said, “I’ll get it,” and got to my feet. As I left the room, Droble started to say something to Tarbok about having the Accounting Department check all the other retail bookies.

I was really angry, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. To be too cheap to pay me my money, when in reality he owed me a heck of a lot more than that. Boy, some people are really pigs.

I looked through the peephole in the front door, and there was Solomon Napoli himself, with several tough-looking types behind him, that snitch Ralph among them.

What did I owe any of these clowns? The debts were all the other way, it seemed to me. I opened the door and bowed them in with a flourish. “Come on in, fellas,” I said. “You’re just in time for the punch.”