Why Me?

27

When the little man sidled into the office, ushered by Tony Cappelletti, Mologna gazed sternly across his desk and said, "Benjamin Arthur Klopzik?"

"Gee!" the little man said, with a sudden huge beaming smile. "Is that me?"

Mologna frowned and tried again: "You are Benjamin Arthur Klopzik?"

"I am?"

"Siddown," Tony Cappelletti told the little man, giving him a shove toward the chair in front of Mologna's desk. "This is Klopzik, all right. You trying to pull something, Benjy?"

"Oh, no, sir, Captain," Benjamin Arthur Klopzik said, and turned an appealing little smile in the direction of Mologna. "Good morning, Chief Inspector."

"Go to hell," Mologna told him.

"Yes, sir." Klopzik placed his dirty-nailed hands between his bony knees and sat very alertly, like a dog who can do tricks.

"So," Mologna said, "a lot of you social misfits, penny-ante heisters, cheapjack four-flushers, and miserable hopeless losers figure you'll help the Police Department of the City of New York find the Byzantine Fire, is that it?"

"Yes, sir, Chief Inspector."

"Not to mention the FBI."

Klopzik looked confused. "Chief Inspector?"

"Not that I want to mention the FBI," Mologna went on, and looked past Klopzik to toss a wintry smile at the still-standing Tony Cappelletti, who gave nothing back at all; it was like telling a joke to a horse. Mologna wished Leon wouldn't spend so much time in the outer office, doing his crochet. Was there an excuse to buzz for Leon? Frowning severely at Klopzik, Mologna said, "So you'll make a statement, is that right? And sign it?"

But Klopzik looked terrified: "Statement? Sign?" Twisting around in his chair, he stared mutely at Cappelletti, as though at his trainer.

Who shook his heavy hairy head. "We don't want to blow Benjy in the underworld, Francis."

No statement, then, and therefore no Leon. "All right," Mologna said. "Klopzik, there's no deal involved in this, you understand that. If you bums and parasites and miserable scum decide to help the authorities in their investigations into this heinous crime, it's strictly public spiritedness on your side, you got that?"

"Oh, sure, Chief Inspector," Klopzik said, happy again. "And in the meantime, the blitz is off, isn't that right?"

This time, the full frigid force of Mologna's wintry smile was directed at Klopzik, who blinked under it as though he'd developed immediate frostbite of the nose. "You call that a blitz, Klopzik?" Mologna demanded. "You think that little exercise we've had up till now deserves the word blitz?"

Mologna stopped there, waiting for an answer, but he might as well have saved saving his breath. The mind of Benjamin Arthur Klopzik was nowhere near intricate enough to figure out whether the right answer was yes or no. Mologna waited, and Klopzik sat blinking at him, alert for an order to roll over or fetch a stick, and at last Mologna answered the question himself: "It does not," he said. "Tomorrow, if we're still lookin for that blessed ruby, you and all your riffraff ne'er-do-well friends will have a golden opportunity to see what a real blitz looks like. Do you want that, Klopzik?"

Klopzik knew that answer: "No, Chief Inspector!"

"You go back and tell that gang of ruffians what I said."

"Yes, Chief Inspector."

"And you can also tell those hooligans and boyos, as far as I'm concerned they aren't doin me or the Police Department or the City of New York any favors."

"Oh, no, Chief Inspector."

"Their civic duty is all they're performin, and the sweet Virgin knows it's overdue."

"Yes, Chief Inspector."

"They'll get no thanks if they succeed, and they'll feel the wrath of my fist if they fail."

"Yes, Chief Inspector. Thank you, Chief Inspector."

"And when I say—"

The door opened and Leon drifted in, like Venus toward shore. "You'll never believe this one," he announced, while Tony Cappelletti surveyed him with the gloomy frustration of a muzzled St. Bernard studying a cat.

"Hold it, Leon," Mologna said, and went on with his sentence: "When I say tomorrow, Klopzik, do you know what I mean?"

Wrinkles of bewilderment further marred the little man's features. "Yes, Chief Inspector?"

"I'll tell you what I mean," Mologna warned him. "I do not mean whenever it is you drag your miserable carcass out of your vermin-infested bed."

"No, Chief Inspector."

"I mean one second after midnight, Klopzik. That's tomorrow."

Klopzik nodded, extremely alert and receptive. "Midnight," he echoed.

"Plus one second."

"Oh, yes, Chief Inspector. I'll tell Tuh-my friends. I'll tell them just what you said."

"You do that." To Cappelletti, Mologna said, "Take it away, Tony, before I forget myself and polish my shoes with it."

"Right, Francis." Cappelletti cuffed Klopzik almost amiably across the top of the head. "Come along, Benjy."

"Yes, sir, Captain," Klopzik said, spurting to his feet. "Good morning, Chief Inspector."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Yes, sir!" Klopzik turned his happy face toward Leon: "Good mor, morn, uh…"

"Out, Benjy," Cappelletti said.

"You're cute," Leon told Klopzik, who left the room looking suddenly glazed and uncertain.

When they were alone, Mologna said, "Leon, don't you overstep the bounds of good taste."

"Oh, I couldn't."

"That's good. Now, tell me what it is I won't believe."

"The thief just called," Leon said, with the kind of little smirk that means there's more than that to the story.

"The thief. The thief?"

"The man with the ruby in his bellybutton," Leon agreed. "The very one."

"But that's not the part I'll not believe."

"Oh, no," Leon said, and actually giggled. "See, he called asking for you—he got the pronunciation right and everything—so they put him through to me."

"How'd he sound?"

"Nervous."

"He damn well oughta be. So what happened?"

"I said you were in conference and could you call him back at ten-thirty, and he said yes."

Leon stopped there, swaying, dancing in place to some inner rhythm, grinning with barely repressed mirth. Mologna frowned at him, feeling stupid, not getting it. "So? What happened next?"

"Nothing," Leon said. "He hung up. But don't you see? I said you'd call him back. He gave me his phone number!"