The Vig

by John Lescroart

  Another smile at his wife. Everything was under control, he was telling her, the fucking wimp, except somebody just shot my door off.

  “Sometimes you don’t let yourself get interrupted.” He held his hands up. “Bad timing, I guess. Right?”

  Johnny glanced at the woman, who had sat back down and was sipping white wine with her legs crossed.

  She was doing okay, trying to go with it, but her hands were shaking.

  Elaborately, Johnny put the gun back in his holster. He nodded at Sally, smiled at Bram. “Excuse us, would you? Bram, you mind we talk a second in the hallway?”

  They were on the rug, the shattered door pulled behind them.

  “I’ll have it tomorrow,” Smyth said. “I thought it was tomorrow, Johnny, swear to God.”

  “Eight hundred tomorrow.”

  Smyth’s eyes widened. “Johnny, it’s four.”

  Johnny shook his head. “How long you been paying on Thursdays now? Four months? Five? You’re into next week’s vig.”

  The guy was going to pee on his nice suit in about two minutes. “Look, the stock business, Johnny, it’s up and down. I mean one week I’m golden and the next I’m flat. You know?”

  Johnny held up a hand. “You needed money. Mr. Tortoni, out of the goodness of his heart, helped you out and the deal was you pay him back anytime you want, but until you do, you go the vig, capisce?”

  Smyth hung his head. “Yeah. Tell him I’m sorry. Tomorrow, okay.”

  “Okay.” Johnny stuck out his hand. “Your door’s broken,” he said. “You might want to call the maintenance people.”

  Smyth looked at Johnny’s extended hand.

  Johnny smiled. “What? I’m gonna break your arm?”

  Smyth let out a breath and smiled, taking Johnny’s hand.

  Johnny gripped tight and brought his left hand down across the arm at the elbow, hearing the crack as Bram Smyth crumpled to the ground. He looked up at Johnny, holding his broken wing, tears streaming down his face.

  “Eight hundred,” Johnny said. “Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Glitsky kept telling himself that he wasn’t doing this for the money. Still, the fact that he wasn’t going to get any overtime made a difference.

  Ray Weir, the murdered woman’s husband, hadn’t been home in the afternoon. Many working men weren’t. So Abe killed the rest of the day at the Youth Guidance Center, interviewing a potential witness to another killing. The boy, a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican kid, improbably named Guadalupe Watson, was not a big talker. A friend of Guadalupe had put him at the curb in front of Rita Salcedo’s house when her husband Jose chased her outside and shot her in the back as she ran from him.

  But if Guadalupe had been there, he didn’t remember it.

  The lack of cooperation didn’t exactly roll off Glitsky’s back, in spite of the fact that it happened all the time. Some people didn’t want to talk to cops—ever, about anything. It could only come back and get you.

  So Abe had talked and talked and waited and listened to a seemingly endless succession of yes and no, Guadalupe answering only what was asked, volunteering nothing, and in all probability lying when he did manage to mumble out a syllable.

  Then it was five o’clock, or close enough to it, so he’d gone home, had dinner with Flo and the kids and now was walking up the steps leading to Ray Weir’s house, thinking about overtime, more or less. Or none.

  The front door opened on a small lobby. To Abe’s left a stairway led to the upper flat of the duplex. On the wall by the stairs was a logo of an old-fashioned tripod motion-picture camera with the name Weir inside. He climbed the stairs and stood at the small landing for a moment, waiting again, listening again. Sometimes you heard things.

  This wasn’t one of those times. He pushed the button by the door, didn’t hear a bell ring, then knocked.

  The door opened on a man who looked like nobody, or anybody. As Glitsky introduced himself and produced his identification, he tried to get a physical handle on him.

  Ray Weir was the guy you opened your checking account with at the bank, the mid-level manager in a cheap gray suit who rode in the elevator with you, your buddy’s cousin from, say, Nebraska. He had light brown hair, regular features. Neither skinny nor fat, short nor tall. A quiet, nice-guy loner type who one day might find himself walking into a tower carrying an automatic weapon.

  “Is this an official call?” he asked.

  Glitsky wasn’t sure what that meant. “Well, I’m officially investigating your wife’s murder, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You might as well come in,” he said.

  Glitsky, checking in after dinner, had found out that they had located Ray from some information that had been in Maxine Weir’s wallet. A couple of blues had caught up with him at work and informed him of Maxine’s death. Now he seemed resigned, lost, and immediately asked Glitsky if he was a suspect.

  “Why?” Glitsky, crossing the living room, thought he might as well go for it. “Did you kill her?”

  He sat on a floral couch, motioned Abe to an easy chair. “No, but I mean, you know, with being separated …”

  “Did you want to kill her?”

  He looked someplace over Glitsky’s shoulder, focusing on something so intently that Abe turned around. The wall behind him was nearly covered with eight-by-ten glossies of a beautiful woman. Glitsky stood up and walked over for a better look. Some of the pictures had the name Maxine Weir on them, and Abe tried to reconcile this stunning, face with the woman he had found in a neck brace on Ingraham’s barge that morning. He could not do it.

  Ray had come up behind him.

  “I wanted her to come back. I didn’t want her dead.”

  “How about her boyfriend?”

  “Him I wanted dead.”

  “But you didn’t kill him?”

  Ray’s eyes went back to the pictures. “Seven years.” He shook his head. “You know what it’s like to be with someone that beautiful when she’s in love with you? It’s like nothing else. You walk in a room and you’re the proudest man there. It doesn’t really make too much difference what else is going on in your life. I mean, my scripts. So nobody wants them. At least I’ve got Maxine, I’m worth something. You know?”

  Glitsky didn’t much buy the line. His wife, Flo, was a fine-looking woman, but he sure didn’t define himself by what other people thought of her. He also noticed that Ray didn’t deny killing Rusty Ingraham. On the other hand, Rusty wasn’t officially dead yet, so he said, “Were you separated a long time?”

  “Five months, eleven days today.”

  Glitsky kept coming back to the pictures. There were several nudes, tasteful, also erotic. She hadn’t looked the same this morning with bullet holes in her.

  “How did she get with Ingraham?”

  He tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out right. “That was pathetic. You had to know her.”

  “I’m trying to,” Glitsky said.

  They were back sitting down. Ray was smoking an unfiltered Camel. Glitsky saw another cigarette butt with lipstick on it in the ashtray. “Pathetic, how?” he asked.

  “It was the way Maxine was. There always had to be a dream. I guess it comes with being an actress. Maybe we writers have it, too. I think it’s what kept us together so long, that shared dream.”

  “What was the dream?”

  “Oh, the usual, I guess. Fame and fortune. She becomes a star and I write the Great American Screenplay.” He drew on his cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. He leaned back on the couch. “Then she had the accident and met Ingraham and the dream just changed.”

  “To what?”

  “All of a sudden it was just the money. For some reason, Ingraham made her feel like she was too old to be a star. At thirty-three. Look at her, she’s not too old.”

  Glitsky didn’t have to turn around to remember what she looked like. “But Ingraham told her she was?”

  Ray shook his head. “Not so much told her as m
ade her see that the dream—our dream—just didn’t work. It wasn’t realistic, like a dream has to be realistic. Jesus.”

  “So what happened?”

  “She finally saw she had a chance to make some money right away, without the rejection, without having to keep herself ready for the break.”

  “How was that?”

  Ray looked at Glitsky for a moment in surprise, as though he didn’t understand why this wasn’t common knowledge already. “Well, the insurance.”

  “What insurance?”

  “She got badly rear-ended and sprained her neck something awful. Ingraham was literally hanging around the emergency room when she came in. What a sleaze the guy is.”

  Is, not was. Glitsky made a mental note.

  “Anyway, Ingraham told her he could get a settlement for like a hundred grand, maybe more, and she bought that. Then she started thinking if she got that much money, she’d just invest it and retire for a couple of years. And then I became no fun because I didn’t want to do that. I’d still want to write even if I was already rich.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “But it wasn’t her dream anymore. I guess Ingraham played make-believe with her better than me.” He stared down at the floor.

  Well, motive is pretty solid, Abe thought. “What do you do during the day, Ray?”

  Ray looked up, the question taking him off guard. “I’m a courier downtown. Bicycle demon.”

  “You mind telling me where you were last night?”

  The eyes looked down and up. “I was here all night.”

  “By yourself?”

  Again a pause. “I’m afraid so. Does that make me a suspect?”

  Glitsky gave him his best man-to-man. “You were a suspect before I got here. I’m trying to eliminate you because I don’t have the feeling you killed somebody you loved that much. Do you own a gun, Ray?”

  “No. I mean, yes. Well, I did.”

  Glitsky waited.

  “After the accident, Maxine got—” He stopped. “It was after she moved out, actually. Living alone, she wanted the protection, she said. She got really paranoid, in fact, and finally asked if she could take it and I said yes.”

  “So she had it?”

  He nodded.

  “And what kind was it? Maybe we’ll find it in her apartment.”

  “It was just a popgun, really. A twenty-two.”

  Glitsky knew the kind of wound created by that type of gun. He’d seen several of them that morning. “You know, Ray,” he said. Then he stopped himself. He’d been about to tell him he was starting to look like a pretty good suspect. In fact, if there was any physical evidence tying him to Ingraham’s barge last night, Glitsky would bring him in right now.

  Ray waited.

  “When was the last time you saw Maxine?”

  He thought about it. “Three weeks ago, maybe. She needed some money for rent and came by here. She said, you know, when the insurance came in, we’d both have a ton anyway.”

  “You were going to split that?”

  He lit another cigarette. “Well, it was community property. Even if we got divorced. One of those weird times when California law helps the husband.”

  “And you helped her out?”

  Ray looked down at the floor again. “She softened me up first.”

  “How’s that?”

  Ray Weir lifted his shoulders, an embarrassed kid.

  “You made love? Three weeks ago?”

  Ray was nervous now. “I know it doesn’t look very good, but we are, were, still married. And she came up, looking so beautiful. Radiant, really.”

  Glitsky had to ask. “With a neck brace she looked radiant?”

  He shook his head. “She didn’t have the brace. She stopped needing that a couple of months ago.”

  “But—” Glitsky said, remembering that Maxine had had the brace on when found dead. “Never mind, go on.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more. We made love. I gave her the money. She left.” He stubbed out the newly lit cigarette. “I thought … anyway, that’s the last time I saw her.”

  Glitsky let the silence build for a minute before he stood up. “Ray,” he said, “if I were you I’d get myself a good lawyer.”

  “But I was here all last night. I didn’t leave the flat.”

  “That’s what you said.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I’d believe you better if you’d made some phone calls or ordered out for pizza or something.”

  Ray started to say something but stopped himself again. “Well, I guess that’s about it, then.”

  Glitsky stood by the door for an extra beat while Weir held it open for him. “That’s about it,” he said.

  Normally, Hardy worked from around 12:30 to 7:30 P.M. and Moses McGuire picked up at 6:00 until 2:00 A.M. So for an hour and a half almost every day they shared duties behind the rail.

  “Who ordered that?” Moses was a purist. Hardy was squeezing a lime wedge over a Manhattan. Moses whispered. “Whoever ordered that, cut him off.”

  Hardy looked down at the drink, seeing it for the first time. He swore and dumped it into the sink. He tapped the side of his head, grabbed a fresh glass and the sweet vermouth, and started another one. “Good catch,” he said.

  “Cherry,” Moses said, “is the proper garnish for a Manhattan. You need your Mr. Boston?” Referring to the bartender’s guidebook.

  Hardy finished making the drink, put it in front of the customer and came back down to the front of the bar, where Moses was now sitting on his stool, talking to his sister Frannie.

  “He’s like a thermos,” Hardy said.

  Frannie sipped at her club soda. Hardy thought she looked fantastic—highlights in her red hair, green eyes almost laughing again. “A thermos?”

  “You know how a thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well”—Hardy paused—“how do it know?”

  Frannie smiled, impossibly attractive—sexy. Impossible because this was Moses’ little sister, about five months’ pregnant. Impossible because Hardy had known her since she was in high school. Impossible she had come so far—Hardy had not seen her since a couple of weeks after Eddie died. Eddie, her husband.

  Hardy’s eyes left her, went to Moses, who leaned back on his stool. “A guy puts a lime in a Manhattan, I feel it down to my toes.”

  “Hey, I’m a little distracted, all right?”

  “Maybe it’s the gun.” Moses did not like having a loaded weapon in the bar, but Hardy had come straight from downtown and was not about to leave it outside in his topless Samurai.

  “What gun?” Frannie said.

  “Nothing,” Hardy said.

  But Moses explained. A little.

  “This morning?” Frannie asked, suddenly worry all over her.

  “It’s no big deal,” Hardy said.

  “Some guy’s trying to kill you and it’s no big deal?”

  “He puts a lime in a Manhattan …”

  “Yes, okay, it’s entered my mind, all right?” His eyes went from Moses to Frannie. “Anyway, it’s not definite anybody’s trying to kill me.”

  “But you’re walking around with a gun?”

  Hardy leaned over the bar. He smelled jasmine. “Frannie, I took the gun with me this morning. I haven’t gotten around to getting home yet. End of story.”

  “But you’re not going home?”

  He straightened up. “I’ve considered it, living there and all like I do.”

  “But what if this man tries to get you? What if he goes to your house?”

  “Tell the truth, I’m more worried about me having to, or being tempted to, kill him if I see him, which my friend Abe tells me would be a problem.”

  “Well, I don’t think you should go home. I think it’s too dangerous.”

  Hardy patted Frannie’s hand on the bar. “Okay,” he said, closing the subject.

  Moses had gotten up and was pulling a Bass Ale at the spigot. “How abo
ut you think about tending some bar.”

  “I’m talking to your sister.”

  “And she is my date tonight. I am off work and I am pouring beer. Something is wrong here.”

  Surprisingly, Frannie covered Hardy’s hand and squeezed it. “I mean it,” she said. A look passed between them. Hardy had been telling himself he wasn’t all that worried. Naturally, he’d been a little concerned, but the earlier adrenaline fear he’d felt in Rusty’s blood-soaked bedroom had passed.

  Now, Frannie hearing about it fresh, she was passing some of it back to him. And it was a fact that he had garnished the Manhattan with lime. He tried to tell himself that it was just the way women were, especially Frannie, who’d so recently lost her husband. Nervous. But suddenly he wasn’t sure that was all it was.

  “Two margaritas, no salt,” Moses called over, and Hardy started pouring into the blender. Moses sidled up next to him. “No sugar, either,” he said.

  Hardy couldn’t get the till to balance, and he had continued to pour some pretty shabby drinks. Gin and Coke. Rum and ginger ale. Thinking about it made him shudder. He’d started three Black and Tans backward, forgetting that while Guinness floats on Bass Ale, the opposite wasn’t true.

  It was just after midnight and he had closed down the bar early. No sense continuing the charade longer than he had to. The clientele would get over it. After all, this was the Little Shamrock, Established in 1893. It wasn’t going to go out of business over closing early one time. Moses might bitch a little, but Hardy would explain it later.

  He found he just couldn’t pay attention thinking that someone was going to come in and shoot him just as he was reaching up to the top shelf or wiping down a section of the bar with his rag or ringing up a drink tab.

  After talking to Tony Feeney, Hardy had at last been able to get his gun back, and now it was stuck in his belt behind him as he counted the money for the sixth time. It was no use. He had $597 in cash and the register showed he’d rung up $613. It wasn’t going to balance.

  He went to his tip jar and made up the difference, then crossed to the dartboards with a last Guinness, trying to decide what he was going to do.