Somebody Owes Me Money

25

Did you ever see two cats meet unexpectedly coming around a corner or through a doorway? Then I don’t have to describe the meeting between Walter Droble and Solomon Napoli. Or how full the hall became of assorted henchmen, with Napoli’s commandos crowding in from outside and Droble’s irregulars hurrying down from the living room.

I slithered back into the kitchen — not bad for somebody who can’t stay on a diet — and over to the far side of the refrigerator, wanting to be out of the line of fire in case there was a line of fire, from where I watched the opening stages of the drama.

Droble had leaped to his feet, of course, the minute Napoli had appeared in the kitchen doorway, and for what seemed several years they just stood glaring at each other, both in a half-crouch, hackles rising everywhere, like the opening of the gun duel scene in a western movie. There was noise and commotion out in the hall from the rival gangs of extras, but that all seemed to be happening in a different world, as though a thick pane of glass separated this room from the planet Earth as we know it. Frank Tarbok had stayed exactly where he was, seated at the table, hands in plain view on the tabletop.

Droble spoke first: “You’ve been past-posting me, you son of a bitch.”

Napoli, small and dapper and vicious, said, “But you were a real boy scout in that East New York business, weren’t you?”

“If you hadn’t pulled that stunt with Griffin, nothing would have happened in East New York.”

Napoli was about to reply, but Tarbok said, “Walt. Remember the civilian.”

Droble looked angrily around, irritated at the interruption, and when he met Tarbok’s eye, Tarbok nodded in my direction. Then everybody looked at me.

I never felt so present in my life. I was right there, right out in the open, plain as the sweat on my face. I resisted the impulse to say, “Uh.”

But I was going to have to say something, because I could sense the mood changing all of a sudden. The room was full of tension looking for an outlet, and I was the stranger, the foreigner, the civilian, the one who didn’t belong. It would relieve everybody’s feelings if they all got together and stomped me into the linoleum.

I said, “Well,” and put a horrible smile on my face. “Here’s a chance for all you people to settle your differences. All you do is make trouble for each other when you argue like this, and New York ought to be big enough for everybody. And here’s a perfect opportunity to sit down and discuss things and work everything out so everybody’s satisfied. Mr. Napoli, why don’t you take my chair, that one there, and I’ll just go wait in the living room. I know you won’t want any outsider listening in. So I’ll just, uh, go on into, uh, the living room now, and if you want to talk to me later on,” as I started moving, slowly but with a great show of the confidence I didn’t feel, toward the doorway, “I’ll be right in there, on tap, ready to help out any way I can,” as I edged around Napoli, talking all the time through the ghastly smile painted on my face, “and looking forward to hearing that you two have ironed out your differences, buried the, uh, settled everything to your mutual...” and through the doorway, and out of their sight.

Successfully. So far. I inched my way through all the hard- noses in the hall, all standing around like a Mafia wake, filling the hallway with the dark awareness of all the guns tucked just out of sight inside all those suit coats, and though all of them gave me the evil eye none of them made a move to stop me. They wouldn’t without orders from the kitchen.

Which didn’t come. Neither Napoli nor Droble shouted out, “Stop that guy!” or, “Kill him!” or, “Bring that bum back here!” or any other fatal commands. I got past the last of the heavies and continued on to the living room, where Abbie and Mrs. McKay were sitting now alone at opposite ends of the room, and fell in nervous paralysis into the nearest empty chair. “Uhhhhhh,” I said, and let my arms hang over the sides.

Abbie hurried to me and whispered, “What’s going on?”

“Summit meeting,” I said. I took a deep breath and sat up and wiped my brow. “Napoli and Droble are talking things over in the kitchen.”

“Napoli and Droble? Both of them?”

I nodded. “You don’t know how it felt to be in there with them,” I said.

“I can imagine,” she said.

I wasn’t sure she could. I said, “You know, years ago somebody put an ad in a couple of papers in New York for a guaranteed bug killer, to be delivered with complete instructions. It cost a dollar or two, I don’t know how much. So a lot of people sent in their money, and they got a package back, and in the package there were two ordinary bricks, one lettered A and the other one lettered B. And a sheet of paper with instructions: ‘Place bug on brick A. Hit with brick B.’ In that kitchen just now, I finally understood what the bug felt like.”

Abbie, hunkered down in front of me, elbows on my knees, took my hand in hers and squeezed. “I know,” she said. “It must have been terrible.”

“I only hope,” I said, “that when it’s over they don’t decide we’re a couple of loose ends that ought to be tied off. Like Captain Kidd taking care of the diggers after burying treasure. I wish we still had that gun of yours.”

“We’re better off without it,” she said. “It was just about useless anyway. It shot way off to the left all the time, you had to aim there if you wanted to hit over there, and it was so light even if you did hit somebody you wouldn’t do him much damage. And if we did have it and you showed it to that bunch in the hall, they’d fill you up with so much lead we’d have to paint you yellow and use you for a pencil.”

“You don’t have to paint me yellow,” I said.

She smiled and shook her head. “You’re braver than you pretend,” she said.

“Not me. You’ve got it wrong which is the pretense.”

Somebody shouted, angrily.

We looked at one another. We looked at the hallway.

Somebody else shouted, also angrily. Two voices shouted angrily at the same time.

I said, “The foolish thing is, I let them all in. I can’t remember why.”

Abbie said, “Do you think we’re in any danger?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re in a cage full of irritated crocodiles. There’s nothing for us to worry about.”

“Maybe we ought to get out of here,” she whispered.

“Have you seen lately what’s between us and the door?”

She leaned closer to me. “Fire escape.”

“What?”

She gestured with her head at the window beside which Mrs. McKay was sitting. She’d continued to sit there since I’d come into the room, ignoring the two of us, ignoring the shouts which had subsided now, ignoring everything. Her arms were folded, her back was straight and her jaw was set. She glared into the middle distance as though seeing an apparition there of which she disapproved.

I put my head next to Abbie’s and whispered in her ear, “There’s a fire escape there?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Where does it go?” I whispered.

“Away from the apartment,” she whispered.

“That’s a good place,” I whispered. “Come on.”

I got to my feet and hoisted Abbie up, and the two of us tippy-toed across the room. The only person in sight was Louise McKay, who continued to ignore us until we were almost on top of her, at which point she focused on me with a glare intended to rout me in case I had it in mind to start a conversation.

I didn’t. “Excuse me,” I said, and edged around between the chair she was in and the floor lamp next to it. I raised the window shade.

Mrs. McKay said, “What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer her, I was too busy unlocking the window, but Abbie said, low-voiced, “We’re getting out of here. Do you want to come along?”

“I live here!” she said, very loudly.

I raised the window, and an icy blast rushed in. I’d completely forgotten it was winter outside and here I was in shirt sleeves. Not to mention Abbie in a miniskirt.

Mrs. McKay shouted, “Close that window! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, you’re a pain,” I said, exasperated beyond endurance, and threw a leg over the windowsill. “Come on, Abbie, before this nut rouses the crocodiles.”

Abbie tried, low-voiced, to talk sweet reason to Mrs. McKay, who interrupted with another shouted question or demand or order or something. In the meantime I slid through the open window and out onto the fire escape. I turned around and stuck my head back in and whispered shrilly, “Abbie, come on!”

Mrs. McKay was really yelling now. For some damn reason she was tipping off the heavies. Abbie finally gave up her missionary work on the idiot woman, came hurrying around the chair to my frantically waving hands, and as I helped her over the windowsill I saw past her shoulder the other end of the living room filling up with mean-looking guys with guns in their hands.

“Stop!” somebody shouted.

Was he out of his mind?