I studied him. He looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him.
“Not now,” I said. “Maybe some other time.”
“Sure,” he said, “some other time.”
SIXTY NINE
Jerry and I flew back to Vegas with a leather briefcase case bearing Jackie Gleason’s $50,000. I decided there was no hit man looking for me, so I’d go home. I also suggested that Jerry fly back to Brooklyn.
“Not til this is over, Mr. G.,” he said. “You know me better than that.”
“I just thought I’d make the suggestion.”
Jerry insisted on driving me home in the Caddy, and staying the night on the sofa. We took the $50G’s with us.
When we got into my house I called Danny.
“Come on over and bring some food,” I said. “We have to talk.”
“Chinks?” he asked.
“Chinks okay?” I asked Jerry.
“Sure,” Jerry said, “but plenty of pork fried rice, huh?”
“I heard ‘im,” Danny said. “See you in half an hour.”
I hung up.
“What’re you gonna tell the dick?” Jerry asked,
“Everything.”
“Mr. Gleason gonna like that?”
“Danny deserves to know what he’s getting into.”
“Why?” Jerry asked. “You know he’d help you, anyway. All you gotta do is ask.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s what I’d do.”
***
Danny showed up 35 minutes later, and 10 seconds after that the kitchen table was covered with Chinese food take out containers. He also brought two six packs of Ballantine beer.
“And a bottle of diet soda for you, big guy.”
“Forget it,” Jerry growled, “I ain’t drinkin’ that crap.”
Danny laughed and put the soda in the frig. Then we sat down and started to divvy up the food. Danny brought paper plates and, for all three of us, plastic forks. We were all hopeless with chopsticks.
“If you’re back home you must be feelin’ pretty safe,” Danny said.
“They’re not gonna kill me,” I said, “when they need me to deliver some blackmail money.”
“What? Gleason’s gonna pay?”
“Fifty grand,” I said.
“You got it here?”
I nodded with a mouth full of lo mein.
“Jesus. So you’re gonna make the delivery?”
I sat back and looked at him.
“I thought maybe between you, me and Jerry, we could catch this guy.”
“Guy?”
“Well, it’s a woman who’s actually blackmailing him, but it’ll be a man collecting the money.”
“Would this man happen to be the blade killer?”
“That’s what we think,” I said, looking at Jerry.
“This gypsy woman has had one guy she can count on,” Jerry said. “He killed the guy in the elevator, and had the nerve to approach Mr. G. in the hotel bar.”
“And she had two men she couldn’t count on,” Danny went on. “One got himself killed because he went out on his own, and the other got himself killed by going up against you.”
“Right.”
“Do we think they’re both here in Vegas? Merlina and the blade guy?”
“We do,” I said. “Two blackmailers lookin’ for a place to lay low until they pick up the money.”
“You want me to see if I can find them,” Danny said.
“Yes,” I said, “and failing that, maybe we can catch him at the drop and make him take us to her.”
“And then hand them over to Hargrove?”
I made a face.
“What, the Highway Patrol?” he asked.
Now Danny made a face. “They’re part of the Department of Motor Vehicles. That’s not real police.”
“Okay, then what about Ralph Lamb?” Danny suggesated.
Lamb was the sheriff of Clark County, had been for several years, and was respected.
“All we have to do is tell him he has to hand them over to the Miami Beach Police,” I added.
“You’ve met Lamb,” Danny said.
“No.”
“I have,” Danny said. “He doesn’t like me much.”
“Okay, then,” I said, “I promised the Chief-of-Detective in Miami Beach I’d keep him informed. What if we call him, and have him send a couple of men to pick them up?”
“And what do we do with them until they get here?” Danny asked.
“Sit on ‘em,” Jerry said.
“We’re gonna have to make sure Hargrove never finds out about this,” Danny warned us. “You know what a glory hound he is.”
“Only the three of us are gonna know,” I pointed out, “and none of us are gonna tell him. Right?”
They both nodded their heads.
“Pass the pepper steak,” Jerry said.
SEVENTY
Of course, I had to fill Jack Entratter in on what was going on, but not what we intended to do when we caught the blackmailers.
“Jesus, Gleason almost got you killed gettin’ you involved in this.”
“And Frank.”
“Well, now—“
“I’m pretty convinced that this wasn’t a coincidence,” I said. “He invited me to go to Miami Beach with him so Gleason could check me out.”
“But it was the Taylor dame who asked you for help.”
“Right, she jumped the gun without knowing it, but that worked in Jackie’s favor.”
“Okay, so they all almost got you killed.”
“Right.”
“But now all you’re gonna do it make this payoff.”
“Right, again,” I lied.
“Do you know what Gleason is getting blackmailed about?” Jack asked.
I hated to lie to him again, but I said, “No idea. He won’t say.”
“Then why are you makin’ the payment?”
“Come on, Jack,” I said. “He’s Frank’s friend, and in the end, we’ve gotta make Frank happy.”
“You got that right.”
I stood up.
“You still in that suite?”
“I’m keepin’ it for Jerry while he’s here,” I said, “but there’s no reason I can’t go home and sleep.”
“So you can get a call—I mean, I can call you at home or in the suite?”
I knew what he was asking. “Yeah, tell Frank to call me at either number.”
“I think he wants to apologize.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I went out, gave his girl a wave and hit the elevator.
***
Jerry was waiting down in the lobby.
“What’d your boss have to say?”
“That Frank is gonna be calling me to apologize.”
“Whataya think of that?”
“I think it’s the least he can do since somebody took two shots at me.”
“You still pissed at him?”
“Maybe now more than ever.”
“You gonna tell ‘im?”
“What do you think?”
***
The call came into Jerry’s suite while we were up there trying to strategize. How would we make the drop, and then hang around to catch the guy, without being seen?
“You’re the local guy,” Jerry said. “They should let you pick the place.”
“S that was blackmailers do?” I asked. “Leave the location in somebody else’s hands?”
“Not pros,” Jerry said, “but we ain’t dealin’ with pros, here. We’re dealin’ with a crazy gypsy broad and her boyfriend who likes to work with a knife.”
“How do we know they didn’t recruit another guy with a gun?”
“We don’t,” Jerry said, “but they lost two other guys, already. I’m thinkin’ they’re just gonna trust each other.”
“That’s good thinking,” I said.
The phone rang at that point. I picked it up, thinking it would be the blackmailers. I wasn’t. It w
as Frank.
Well, it was the hotel operator telling me Frank was looking for me.
“Put him through,” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Gianelli,” she said.
“Eddie?”
“Hello, Frank.”
“Jeez, kid, I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “I heard what happened. I sure didn’t mean for you to almost get killed. Neither did Jackie.”
“I know that Frank,” I said. “Nobody wanted me to get killed. But I was kept in the dark about a lot of things.”
“I know, kid, Frank said, “so was I. Believe, I tore Jackie a new one when I heard what happened. I told him to come clean. Did he?”
“Almost,” I said.
“Whataya mean?”
“He told me he’s being blackmailed,” I said, “as a result of going to see a psychic. But he didn’t tell me for what, exactly.”
“Are you still gonna help him?”
“I’m in this pretty deep, Fran,” I said, “and the blackmailers asked specifically for me to deliver the money, so yes, I’m still gonna help him.”
SEVENTY ONE
The blackmailers were supposed to call Jackie, and then Jackie would call me. Still, when the phone rang and it was Frank, I couldn’t help wondering if it was the blackmailers. Were they going to stick to the plan?
“These are amateurs, Mr. G.,” Jerry told me over breakfast the next morning, “not pros. In some ways that makes them even more dangerous.”
“How so?”
We had ordered room service, and were sitting across from each other at the table they had wheeled in. Once again, I had spent the night in the suite.
“We can’t predict what they’re gonna do,” Jerry said.
“And they don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“That’s right.”
I put my knife and fork down and sat back with my coffee cup in hand.
“Jerry, I need you more than ever for this. I’m in the dark, here.”
“I’ve dealt with blackmailers before,” Jerry said, “but they were pros. But I’ll do the best I can, Mr. G..”
“That’s all I ask.”
“You better be ready with a time and place,” Jerry said. “That is, if they let you pick either.”
“I’ll make them a fifty-fifty proposition,” I said. “One of us picks the time, the other picks the place.”
“That’s a start,” he said, taking some more bacon and toast.
“What happened to your diet?” I asked.
He chewed and said, “After. I’m gonna need all my strength for this.”
I took two more pieces of toast, added bacon and held the sandwich in my hand.
“Me, too.” I took a bite.
***
We had no way of knowing when the blackmailers would call Jackie, or me. So I simply went back to work, with Jerry dogging my heels the whole time.
It was two days later that the call came in from Jackie. I had given him my home number, and that’s where Jerry and I were when he rang.
“Eddie? I just got off the phone with them.”
“What’d they say? Where do they want the drop? Is it a drop or a meet?”
“I don’t know any of that,” he said, frustrated. “They asked me if you had the money and I said yes. Then they said they’re gonna call you.”
“When?”
“That they didn’t say.”
“Did you talk to a man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“How did he sound?”
“I don’t know... confident. Well spoken.”
That fit the guy who had talked to me in the Fountainbleau bar in Miami Beach. But it also fit a lot of people.
“Jackie, have you ever heard the voice before?”
There was a pause, and then he said, “Now that you mention it, he did sound familiar.”
“Do me a favor,” I said. “If it comes to you where you heard it before, give me a call and let me know.”
“All right,” he said. “And you call me when you hear from them. I wanna know when this is gonna end.”
“You got a deal.”
“They call?” Jerry asked as I hung up. He was sitting on the sofa with a can of beer.
“They did, but they didn’t say much.” I relayed Jackie’s side of the conversation to him.
“So now we gotta wait for them to call you,” Jerry said. “Great. How bad do they want this money?”
”I don’t know. Guess we’ll know more when they call.”
I sat at the other end of the sofa and picked up a beer bottle.
“The dick comin’ over tonight?” he asked.
“Yeah, he said he might have somethin’.”
We both sucked on our bottles and looked at the blank t.v. screen
“Where do you think you wanna set up the meet?” he asked.
“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” I admitted. “The middle of nowhere at night, or during the day with people all around?”
“If it’s a drop,” Jerry said, “at night. If it’s a meet and a payoff, then during the day.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “The middle of nowhere, out in the desert, where we can see in all directions.”
“And they can see us.”
“Good point. Somewhere on a deserted road, then. In a parking lot. We can see from a window or a roof.”
“And during the day?”
I thought a moment, “The Sands, by the pool.”
“They’d never agree to that.”
“We’ll see what they agree to,” I said. “They may not even give us any choices.”
The doorbell rang.
“That must be Danny,” I said.
“I hope he brought food.”
I opened the door and let Danny in. As Jerry had hoped, he had take-out bags.
“Don’t cook tonight call Chicken Delight,” he said, holding up the two bags.
“There aren’t any Chicken Delights in Vegas,” I pointed out.
“They got ‘em in New York,” Jerry said.
“So it’s just chicken,” Danny said. “And fries, and beans, and biscuits. Okay?”
“Sounds good,” Jerry said, coming off the couch. He grabbed the bags from Danny and took them to the kitchen.
“I hope you’ve got more than chicken,” I said.
“I thought I did.”
“Thought?”
“I heard somethin’ about a man and a woman squattin’ in a motel, plannin’ somethin’. Turned out to be a couple of Bonnie and Clyde wannabes. Not the two we’re lookin’ for. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ll eat and keep waiting for a call.”
SEVENTY TWO
But they didn’t call that night.
Or the next.
On the third day, Jerry and I were in the Horseshoe Coffee Shop, waiting for Danny to arrive when a familiar figure walked in.
“Holy shit!” I said.
Jerry turned to see what I had seen.
Detective Winter of the Miami Beach Police Department was walking toward us.
“Eddie G.,” he said, with a grin. “Good to see you again. Mind if I join you?”
Before I could object he slid into the booth next to me.
“You want me to wring his neck, Mr. G.?” Jerry asked.
“I’m armed,” Winter said, moving his coat aside to show us his shoulder holster.
“So is Jerry,” I said, and Jerry showed Winter the butt of the .45 in his belt.
“So we’re even. But that wouldn’t be good for any of us,” Winter pointed out.
“And why not?” I asked.
“Because then I wouldn’t be able to tell you where to deliver the blackmail payment.”
“You?” I said. “You’re working with the blackmailers?”
“Not originally,” he admitted, “but then there came a point where our interests sort of... aligned.”
“Why would you throw in with amateurs?” Jerry asked.
Winter looked at Jerry. “It just seemed to be the thing to do.”
“Where have you been?” I asked,
“Around.”
“And how did you know we were here?”
“I followed you.” He looked around. “How’s the food here?”
“Great—“ Jerry said, annoyed that he’d answered before he could cut himself off.
“Are we waiting for your P.I. friend, or can we order?” Winter asked.
“It’s just us,” I lied.
“Then what should I order? Ah, I think the burger platter,” he said, looking at the menu.
“Why don’t we just get down to it?” I asked.
“Because I’m hungry,” Winter said. “Come on, now, fellas, let’s have lunch together, and then we’ll talk.”
“I wanna talk during lunch,” I said.
“Fine with me,” he said, “about anything but blackmail. That will come after.”
Jerry and I both ordered the burger platter...
***
“So did you kill your partner?” I asked as we ate.
Winter laughed. “If I did, would I tell you?”
“He must’ve had the goods on you,” Jerry said.
“What goods?”
“To prove you were on the take.”
“He couldn’t prove that,” Winter said.
“Why not?”
“Because then he would have had to admit that he was on the take, too.”
The Miami Beach P.D. Internal Affairs Detectives must have known that Winter was guilty of something much more serious than his partner, otherwise, why recruit Eisman?
“Come on,” Jerry said, “he probably took a buck or two, but you must’ve been gettin’ more—or doin’ more for it.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because you’re alive,” Jerry said, “and he ain’t.”
Winter looked sideways at me.
“Does this guy do all your talking for you, Eddie?”
“People don’t generally know this,” I said, “but he’s the smart one.”
Winter laughed uproariously at that.
“What’s so funny?” Jerry demanded.
[Rat Pack 11] - I Only Have Lies for You Page 21
