Fifty-to-One

by Charles Ardai

  “But it says right here,” Borden said, picking up a copy of I Robbed the Mob!, “that Nicolazzo has a private suite in the back, with poker and craps games all night long—”

  “I made it up—the whole thing, I made it up.”

  “The counting room with the stacks of hundred dollar bills—”

  “The whole thing.”

  “Even the girl with the...?”

  Tricia nodded. “Everything. Out of whole cloth.” Her voice cracked. “Pure, unadulterated malarkey. I’m sorry.”

  “But then why,” Borden said, “did those two goons just try to shake us down?”

  “That’s what I want to know!” Tricia said. “It doesn’t make any sense. There never was any robbery. There wasn’t any money stolen. There couldn’t have been. I mean, I made it as realistic as I could—I based it on what I know about the place and what I’ve read in the newspapers—but everything about the robbery itself? I made it up. It never happened.”

  Borden looked at her sideways, started to say something, then lapsed into silence again.

  “Maybe,” Erin said, after the silence had stretched on long enough to become uncomfortable, “those two guys don’t really work for Nicolazzo—but they’d like to. Maybe they’re small timers, they read the book, they figured the robbery really happened, and they thought if they could find the man who stole the money from Nicolazzo they’d have an inside track to his affections—”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Borden said, kicking a couple of books against the wall, “have you been reading these things again? I don’t pay you to read, I pay you to answer the phones and keep the riffraff out.”

  “You hardly pay me to do that,” Erin muttered.

  “Wait a second,” Tricia said. “I’m confused. He pays you? I thought you worked for Mr. Hoffman.”

  “Who do you think Mr. Hoffman works for?”

  “Some woman named Madame Helga.”

  “Kid,” Erin said, waving a hand in Borden’s direction, “you’re looking at Madame Helga. He’s the Edmund of Edmund and Edmund, too.”

  “Ladies, ladies, if I can interrupt this little tea party,” Borden said, “we’ve got a big problem here. There are men—large men, angry men—who would be happy to do me great physical harm if I don’t give them a piece of information you’re telling me I can’t give them. This is not an acceptable situation.”

  “So what do you want me to do about it, boss?” Erin said. “I already gave you an idea and see what that got me. Last time I ever—”

  “Trixie,” Borden said, “Trixie, Trixie, Trixie, I’m asking you one more time, my hat in my hand—” he lifted his fedora off a peg on the wall, actually held it out toward her “—you’ve got to give me something here. Something I can use to get those apes off my back. Because if they came after me right now, I’d have no name to give them—other than yours.”

  Tricia blanched. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t want to,” Borden corrected her. “But after I’d gone a few rounds with the big guy, who’s to say what I would or wouldn’t do?”

  While they all stood there pondering that question, a knock came on what was left of the glass of the door.

  Through the jagged hole they saw a blue sleeve with metal buttons at the cuff.

  Then the sleeve went away and a face appeared in the hole. The skin was ruddy and pocked beneath the glossy bill of the man’s uniform cap. “Hello?” the man said. “Is this the office of the Hard Case Crime book publishing company?”

  Above the bill, the cap had a little metal insignia on it that featured an eagle, a shield, and what looked like a frontiersman standing with a musket by his side—it was a little hard to make out all the details. But you didn’t need to make them out to know what insignia it was.

  “I thought you said you didn’t call them,” Tricia said.

  “I didn’t!” Erin said.

  Borden put his hat on, swung the door open.

  “Yes, this is Hard Case Crime,” he said. “What can I do for you, officer?”

  The man stepped inside. He was beefy and barrel-chested and he moved with the careless manner of an outdoorsman used to having plenty of room to swing his arms. You could picture him felling redwoods with an axe.

  He doffed his cap, pointed with it at the overturned desk. “What happened here?”

  “We’re renovating,” Borden said.

  “I’ll say,” the policeman said. “Listen, I want to talk to the man in charge.” He took a leather-covered pad from a clip on his belt, flipped through its pages till he found the one he wanted. “A mister Charles Borden.” He shut the pad. “That you?”

  “For variety’s sake,” Borden said, “let’s say yes.”

  “And who are these two?” Pointing at Erin and Tricia.

  “Colleagues of mine.”

  “I suppose that’s all right then,” the policeman said. “Just as well for you all to hear this. I need some information about one of your authors.”

  Tricia’s heart fell.

  “And which of our authors would that be,” Borden said. “As if I didn’t know already.”

  The policeman reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a battered copy of I Robbed the Mob!.

  “The one who stole three million dollars from Salvatore Nicolazzo last month,” he said.

  7.

  Home Is the Sailor

  “Funny story,” Borden said. “That book isn’t what you think it is. You probably think it’s a true story, and I can certainly understand why, what with the word ‘true’ on the cover and all. But it isn’t. It’s actually a novel, same as all the other books we publish. One hundred percent fiction. Some of us just thought it would be,” he took a deep breath, “amusing to present this one as if it had really happened.” Borden smiled weakly. “But it didn’t.”

  “Well, now, that is a funny story,” the cop said. “Because someone did steal three million dollars from Sal Nicolazzo last month.”

  “Really,” Borden said.

  “Oh, yeah. Walked into the Sun after hours, made his way to the counting room, opened the safe, emptied it out, and got away with three million smackers, pretty much to the letter the way it’s described in this fictional book of yours. Nicolazzo’s managed to keep it under wraps, but we’ve got people on the inside and word is the big man’s beside himself.” He pointed to the desk again. “You want some help with that?”

  “Sure,” Borden said. “Why not.” Together, he and the cop turned the desk over, set it on its stumpy legs again. Borden was breathing hard when they were done, but the exertion didn’t seem to have bothered the cop at all.

  “Mr. Borden,” he said, “I’ve been doing this a lot of years. I know where renovations like these come from. They come from men with names that end in vowels.”

  “Like O’Malley?” Borden said, aiming a thumb at the nameplate pinned to the cop’s jacket.

  “Wiseass,” O’Malley said. “ ‘Y’ isn’t a vowel.”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  “Well, the ones I’m talking about are your ‘I’s and your ‘A’s and your ‘O’s. Especially,” he said emphatically, “your ‘O’s.”

  “You trying to say something, officer,” Borden said, “or is this the Police Benevolent League’s version of a crossword puzzle?”

  “All right, Borden. I’ll make it plain, so that even a two-bit smut peddler like you can understand it. I think the men who did this to your office work for Nicolazzo, and unless you gave them what they wanted, I don’t think they’re through with you. Now, I want the same thing they do—but me, I don’t put holes in people’s doors, or in people. What I do is put people in holes. And I can put you in a deep one for a good long time if you don’t come across with a name.”

  “Mother of mercy,” Borden said. “What a day. O’Malley, I’m going to tell you something and you’re not going to believe me, but it’s going to be the god’s honest truth. There’s no name to give you. None. This book was not written by a
man whose name ends with a vowel, or by one whose name ends with a consonant, or by any other sort of man. It was written by a sweet young girl with an overactive imagination and no more knowledge of gangsters than you have of ballet. If there was an actual robbery at the Sun it’s a pure coincidence, and I’m sure Nicolazzo will figure that out soon enough. Now would you please leave us alone so we can clean the place up and go home?”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the position you’re in,” O’Malley said. “You think this guy is a run-of-the-mill heel? He’s not. The man’s a killer, Borden. He’d think no more about snuffing you than he’d think about blowing his nose. He’s been convicted on fifteen federal racketeering charges and sentenced to three consecutive life terms. In principle, he can’t even set foot in the United States or he’ll be arrested on the spot.”

  “You’re telling me this guy I’m supposed to be afraid of isn’t even in this country?”

  “Actually, I’m not telling you that,” O’Malley said. “I’d have told you that for sure three weeks ago—he’s been living for years on a yacht he keeps just outside U.S. coastal waters, where we can’t touch him. Sails off for the open sea any time we come close. But that was before someone stole three million dollars from him.

  “Word is, he’s come home. We don’t know when and we don’t know where, other than he’s somewhere in New York City. One of our sources says he was smuggled in in a pickle barrel. How do you like that? Another says he was brought in in the trunk of an automobile. Either way, it’s a lot of trouble and discomfort and risk for him to have gone to, and it can’t have put the man in a better mood. But he apparently felt it was worth it in order to find out who robbed him.”

  O’Malley slapped his copy of I Robbed the Mob! on the newly righted desk, where it had no competition for the attention of everyone in the room.

  “And who do you think he’s going to look to for the answer?”

  Borden grimaced.

  “The name, Borden. I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman or a newborn baby, I want a name. I’ve been after this son of a bitch for seven years, this is the best chance we’ve had in all that time of getting him, and I’m not leaving here without a name.”

  Tricia stepped forward. “I’ll give you her name.”

  “Don’t, Trixie,” Borden said, but she ignored him.

  “I’ll give you her name, if you tell me what you’re going to do with it.”

  “Do with it? I’m gonna find her and—” O’Malley halted, checking whatever it was he’d been about to say. He licked his lips. When he spoke again, it was more slowly and quietly and carefully. “I’m going to talk to her, and find out what she knows and how she learned it. Then I’m going to, to, um, keep an eye on her—so Nicolazzo can’t get at her without our knowing about it. And then when he tries,” he said, heating up again, “I’m going to put him away for the rest of his miserable life!”

  “And you won’t come after the woman who wrote this book,” Tricia said.

  “Come after her? Only to give her a medal,” O’Malley said. “Anyone who helps us put Nicolazzo away deserves the key to the goddamn city. Excuse my French.”

  “You won’t say she must’ve had something to do with the robbery,” Tricia said. “You won’t try to charge her with anything.”

  O’Malley seemed to be struggling to restrain his impatience, or maybe it was his temper. “What do we care if someone robs a crook like Nicolazzo?” he said. “It’s dirty money to begin with. Let her have it.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have it,” Tricia said.

  “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “Then let someone else have it, I don’t care. Just as long as we get Nicolazzo.”

  “You swear,” Tricia said.

  “On my sainted mother’s grave,” O’Malley said. “Now, talk, lady.”

  “All right,” Tricia said. She stiffened her spine and stood as straight as she could. “I wrote the book.”

  “You did,” O’Malley said.

  “That’s right,” Tricia said. “I did.”

  “Well,” O’Malley said, slapping his cap back on his head, “that makes things easy. You’re under arrest, lady.”

  “What?”

  O’Malley whipped a pair of handcuffs off his belt with one hand and started drawing his service revolver from its holster with the other.

  “But you said—” Tricia started.

  “I don’t remember saying anything,” O’Malley said, or anyway he started to. He hadn’t quite gotten the whole thing out when the brass desk lamp in Erin’s hands collided with the back of his head.

  8.

  Kiss Her Goodbye

  The big man sank to his knees and tipped forward, landing face-first on the carpet.

  “Great,” Borden said. “That’s going to make us popular with the police.”

  “How popular were you before?” Erin said.

  Borden took Tricia by the arm. “What the hell were you thinking, Trixie? Did you really think he was going to let you walk out of here after you told him you wrote a book detailing a three million dollar robbery?”

  “He said—”

  “He said,” Borden scoffed. “If I said I’d step out that window and fly to Minnesota, would you buy tickets to see it?”

  “No,” Tricia said, “but he’s a policeman and you’re a liar.”

  “Well, kiddo, I think you’ve just had a valuable lesson in how honest New York’s Finest are.” Borden knelt beside O’Malley on the floor, yanked the man’s belt out of his pants and used it to bind his hands behind his back.

  “Should we take his gun?” Erin said.

  “Absolutely, that’s a great idea. Because we’re not in enough trouble as it is.” Borden looked around the dark little room. “I really liked this office, too.” Beneath him, O’Malley started groaning. His eyes were still closed, but how long would that last?

  “Ladies, would you please wait for me outside in the hall?” Tricia and Erin stepped outside, shut the door behind them. Through the hole in the glass, Tricia saw Borden give O’Malley another clout with the heavy base of the lamp. O’Malley stopped groaning and lay still. A moment later, Borden joined them in the hallway.

  “Is he dead?” Tricia asked.

  “Just napping,” Borden said. “Though he’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up. Erin—will you let Billy know what happened?” Erin nodded. “Tell him I’ll be working out of 902 till the heat’s off, assuming it ever is. Now, Trixie: I need you to explain to me how this made-up robbery of yours could somehow actually have happened.”

  “I don’t know,” she said miserably.

  “You’re telling me you didn’t steal three million dollars from the Sun,” Borden said.

  “Would she still be living here if she had?” Erin said.

  “I need to hear it from her,” Borden said. “Trixie, do you swear on your life—on your mother’s life—on my life, that you didn’t steal any money from the Sun?”

  “Of course not,” Tricia said. “What do you take me for?”

  “I didn’t take you for a novelist, and look how that turned out.”

  “I’m not a thief,” Tricia said.

  “All right, fine. If you didn’t steal the money, someone else did. And if it happened the way you described in the book, it means whoever did it must’ve read the book.”

  “Thousands of people have read the book by now,” Erin said. “Probably tens of thousands.”

  “Sure—by now. It’s on every newsstand in America now. But a month ago? That would have been a bit harder, considering it hadn’t been published yet. The question is, who could have read the book a month ago? Who had access to the manuscript?”

  “The printer?” Erin said.

  “Moe? Moe’s seventy years old and walks with a cane.”

  “Any of the girls could have read it,” Tricia said. “They all saw me working on it, and I just kept it in a box under my bed. But I didn’t think any of them were interested—”r />
  “Apparently one of them was,” Borden said. He crossed the hallway. “Maybe more than one.” He knocked briskly on the door to the chateau. “Everyone decent in there?” he called. “I’m coming in.”

  “Just a minute,” a voice called back. It sounded like Rita.

  “Come on, Charley,” Erin said. “You really think one of the girls could pull off a heist like that? Forget about climbing eleven stories and opening a safe—just picture one of them trying to lug three million dollars around. How much would three million dollars even weigh?”

  “Couple of tons, if it’s pennies,” Borden said. “Couple of ounces if it’s diamonds. If we’re talking about hundred dollar bills?” He thought for a second. “Maybe fifty, sixty pounds. I know men who couldn’t carry that much and girls that could. Besides, who’s to say our girl didn’t have help? Any of them could’ve gotten a boyfriend involved in it.” He knocked again, on the glass this time and louder. “Or a girlfriend.”

  An image of Joyce sprang into Tricia’s mind—and Tricia knew Erin was thinking the same thing. Strapping, six-foot-tall Joyce, who from the first day had seemed so resentful of Tricia. She certainly could’ve carried fifty pounds if she had to.

  Borden turned the knob, swung the door open. Rita was buttoning a blouse she’d obviously thrown on hastily—the buttons were one hole off all the way down. Annabelle was lying on her cot in a transparent nightie and slippers, blissfully unconcerned about being seen that way. The other cots were empty; from the bathroom came the sound of a shower running.

  “Jeez,” Rita said. “Can’t a girl have a little privacy here?”

  “No,” Borden said. He strode over to the writing desk, where Tricia’s typewriter was still set up. A small stack of pages next to it held her latest attempt at a short story. It hadn’t been going very well, and she’d been on the verge of giving up on it and starting another book instead, maybe something about a rugged, two-fisted detective this time, or maybe an assassin, cruel but principled. She had no shortage of ideas, and the prospect of another five hundred dollars was a powerful incentive. But now that opportunity seemed to have shattered along with the glass across the hall.