Lucky at Cards hcc-28

by Lawrence Block

  I managed to light a cigarette.

  There were a few possibilities that occurred to me. Maybe Murray was crazy—maybe by now he managed to believe that he had killed Milani, that everyone else was right about it and Murray was wrong. Or else he was going for the safe play, hedging his bet by copping the plea and trying for a temporary insanity defense. I asked him if he wanted to tell me about it.

  “Nothing much to tell,” he said. “I was a party to a very large case of tax evasion. It involved a couple of real estate deals, and the end result was that the government got screwed out of close to two million dollars in income taxes. Milani knew about it, God knows how. He had proof. He could reach the Internal Revenue boys and make things very rough for us. What I did was out-and-out criminal, Bill. It meant a heavy fine and a jail sentence no matter how you looked at it.”

  “I see.”

  “So Milani tried blackmailing me,” Murray continued. “I tried to dodge him but he had me over a barrel. Finally I paid him off, sent the money over to his hotel. He was greedy. He had a perfect fish on his hook and he wasn’t going to stop with one payment. On Monday I went to see him. I was just going to argue with him, try to make him see I couldn’t afford to contribute to a private fund for the enrichment of August Milani for the rest of my life. I had no intention of killing him. It happened by itself, or at least it seemed to. We started arguing. I grabbed him by the throat. He pulled a gun on me. I took it away from him and—I shot him.”

  He said all this very sincerely, very convincingly. If I hadn’t known better I would have believed him without thinking twice about it.

  “The body,” I said. “What did you do with it?”

  “Dragged it through the alley, stuffed it into my car and drove to the lake shore. I stuffed his clothing with rocks and lead pipe and tossed him in. I barely remember that part. I was in a fog from the moment I shot him. Everything’s very fuzzy. I meant to throw the pillowcase in with him but I forgot. So I wound up stuffing it in my own garbage can.”

  “And the gun?”

  “In the lake.”

  I dropped my cigarette on the floor, covered it with my shoe. “Jesus,” I said. “What happens to you now?”

  “I don’t know, Bill. At the worst they’ll call it manslaughter of one degree or another. With luck it will go as temporary insanity—that’s what we’re trying for. Nester’s a good man. He says we have about a sixty percent chance of getting off scot-free.”

  “And the tax evasion?”

  “No problem there,” he said. “I could tell the Treasury Department agents about it, but I don’t intend to. And they can’t force me, because I can always take the fifth amendment to avoid incriminating myself. Milani had information, but Milani is dead now.”

  “Can they trace him?”

  “Evidently not. The police have been trying, naturally. Milani probably isn’t even his right name. They can’t find any record of a man by that name and they couldn’t lift any fingerprints from the room at the Glade. The police know I was mixed up in something very crooked but they don’t have a case until they know something about it. And they’ll never find out a thing. I won’t tell them, my associates won’t tell them, and Milani can’t tell them.”

  “Then you’re in pretty good shape,” I said.

  “It could be a lot worse, Bill.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  He stood up, paced the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. “Not so good and not so bad,” he said slowly. “I was a wreck at first. The whole concept of murder—well, it gets to you. Were you in combat?”

  “No.”

  “Neither was I. I was just old enough to go into a defense plant during the Second World War. Later on I did government tax work. I suppose it would be different for someone who saw combat, someone who killed men in the line of duty. But I never killed anyone before Milani, never witnessed a violent death. The idea of homicide took a little getting used to. I’m used to it now.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He sighed. “It means a change in my living pattern,” he went on. “I’ve got the mark of Cain now. I don’t imagine we can go on living in this town, not very comfortably.” He smiled softly. “Maybe we’ll travel, Bill. Joyce has always wanted to travel, though she’s never pressed the point. I think she feels cramped in a town like this one. She’s used to a more sophisticated environment. I can afford to retire. Maybe we’ll try traveling until everything cools off.”

  Our ten minutes were up, and with interest. The guard came back, an apologetic look on his face, and told me I’d have to be going now. I shook hands with Murray and he pumped my arm.

  “It’s funny,” he said. “I couldn’t tell this to anyone else, not so easily. I feel pretty close to you, kid. You’re easy to talk to.”

  The guard opened the door. I stepped out of the cell and he closed the door and locked it. I took a last look at Murray, smiled at him, said something cheerful. Then I walked with the guard along the corridor and down the stairs.

  The bastard tipped. Murray tipped, he caught on, he knew. And now, cute as a palmed jack, Murray Roger was playing games of his own.

  Well, what else? He had a perfect explanation, a hell of a convincing confession. He was a killer, he couldn’t get away with it, he was admitting it and taking the consequences. He had an explanation for everything, even had a way doped out to beat the tax boys and keep them from hanging an evasion rap on him. He told me this, earnest and sincere, and there was only one hang-up.

  Because I damn well knew he hadn’t killed anybody and he damn well knew it. There were three possibilities—he was crazy, or he was just trying to save his neck. Or finally, he knew. And if that were the case, God alone knew what he was up to. God and Murray Rogers. I spent the rest of Saturday listening to the radio and dying to tell myself everything was clear and clean and he didn’t know a thing. I tried reaching Joyce once. The phone rang and rang and rang and I put the receiver back on the hook and gave up.

  My own phone rang that night. It was Barb Lambert. What was I doing? Did I feel like coming over? I didn’t, at first. But there was calmness and softness and warmth in her voice and it reached me. I told her I would pick up a bottle and come over right away.

  The liquor store around the corner sold me a fifth of Cutty Sark and I drove to Barb’s house. We spent the first half hour making a dent in the bottle and becoming comfortable. The comfort didn’t last. When I draped an arm over her shoulder I could feel her whole body go slightly tense. I took the arm away and she turned to stare at me.

  “Bill—”

  “Go on.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Barb said. “I—what’s happening with us, Bill?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked away for a moment or two. Then she said, “You swept me off my feet, you know. I was going along in a quiet little rut and then you came along and changed things. I started caring again. I started to feel alive. I thought you liked me.”

  “Of course I like you—”

  “But things are changing,” she said. She was staring at me now, eyes wide, innocent. “You’re all wrapped up in something, Bill. You don’t really seem to give a damn about me. You slept with me once. Or don’t you remember?”

  “Barb—”

  “But you don’t seem to remember. Don’t you want to—to sleep with me again? Wasn’t I any good?”

  I didn’t answer her. I stood up, took fresh ice cubes from the silver bucket on the walnut breakfront. I put the ice in our glasses and poured some fresh scotch over the cubes. I set her glass on the coffee table in front of her. She didn’t pay any attention to it. I took a long drink and waited.

  “I’m shameless,” she said. “I like you, Bill.”

  There were tears welling up in the corners of her eyes but she was determined not to let go of them. She wouldn’t cry.

  “Bill,” she said, “I don’t want to be—used. I want to mean something. I want you to like me and to�
�to love me. I want us to get married, Bill. I’m not in any hurry. But I have to feel that we’re moving toward something, not just wandering around in circles. I’m not a kid in college any more. I’m not that young. Do you see?”

  “I see.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I wish I knew you,” she said. “I only wish I knew you. But I don’t know you at all.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Who are you, Bill?”

  “You know the answers.”

  She shook her head very gravely. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. There’s something about you that doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t fit. I wish I could put my finger on it. You just came to town and slipped into a slot and fitted in perfectly, but there’s a part of you that doesn’t fit. I—I wish I knew more about you.”

  “You’re making a big thing out of nothing,” I said. “I’m just another ordinary Joe, that’s all. You can’t make me into a romantic figure any more than you can call yourself a call girl. We’re ordinary people, Barb.”

  I tried to kiss her. She pulled away, shaking her head. “Not now,” she said.

  I finished my drink. She changed the subject, somehow, and we talked for a few moments about trivia. The trivia didn’t grasp us all that firmly and the conversation ran out of gas. The silence that followed was uncomfortable, awkward.

  Then Barb said, “You can always tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me, Bill. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Even if there’s nothing to tell?”

  Deep eyes cast downward. “There is,” she said. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  14

  I spent Sunday night in the little neighborhood tavern where Joyce and I had swigged Black and White and first doped out the way to separate Murray Rogers from his money. I went to the bar sort of by accident. There was dinner in a diner, then aimless driving while the sky went from gray to black in a slow fade. I kept driving, and I worried about Murray and played games guessing how much he knew, and the Ford found that particular bar. There was a handy parking space, I had a thirst. The Ford rolled into the space and I found a stool for myself in the bar.

  The same bartender was on duty, the same show on television. I finished one drink and let the bartender pour a new one for me. He took a dollar away and brought back a shiny quarter. I picked it up, held it between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. I moved my right over it, letting the coin drop into my palm at the last minute. I plucked empty air with my right hand, made a fist.

  “Pretty,” the bartender said.

  I had forgotten he was there. He was looking at my hands with something approaching interest.

  “Do it again,” he suggested.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Lemme see.”

  So I did it again.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Could swear it’s there.” He tapped my right fist. I opened it, empty, then opened the left one and showed the coin.

  “Again,” he said. “If I don’t see it this time, the house buys a round.”

  This time I did take the coin in the right hand. He thought he had it cased and tapped the left one. I showed him he was wrong. He clucked admiringly and poured a fresh shot in my glass.

  “That’s a talent,” he said.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s a real talent,” he said. “Try it again for a buck?”

  So what the hell. I was quick and smooth this time and when he tapped the left hand I opened it and the right hand at the same time. There was no coin in either hand. He stared at me.

  “Try your shirt pocket,” I said.

  He didn’t believe it. But he looked, finally, and there was the quarter, gleaming brightly. It’s not a hard move. A little business with the right hand takes his eye out of the picture, and a quick flip from the left hand puts the coin in his pocket. He was leaning forward, so it was easy to drop the coin in without his feeling anything. He shook his head in amazement and gave me a dollar.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You do this for a living?”

  “It’s just a hobby.”

  “You’re good at it, though. Real good.”

  After a while he left me alone. He refocused on the television show and I again lapped at my drink. I sat there and thought about a lot of things. I tried to figure out Murray’s angle, and I tried to figure out just how I was going to play things with Barb, and I tried to figure out what the hell I was doing in this town. I didn’t come up with any answers. Maybe there weren’t any.

  On Monday morning Murray Rogers left jail. I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang and Joyce told me he was on his way home. I told her to be careful, she asked of what, and I mumbled something and put the phone down. Be careful of everything, I thought.

  I had some calls to make, some people to see. There was a pack of index cards on my desk, all of them typed out neatly and precisely, and there was a long sheet of legal-size yellow paper with a dozen more names and addresses copied down in someone’s neat handwriting. I thumbed through the cards and surveyed the yellow sheet of paper and decided I didn’t want to call anybody. There were three morning and afternoon appointments listed in my date book. I called two numbers, cancelled out. The third party didn’t answer.

  I shrugged him off and closed my datebook and left the office. I settled behind the wheel and drove about at random. After a while I hit a red light, stopped for it, lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter.

  The job, the life, the world—weren’t working. It was a good job, something I could do, something that brought in the money. And it was a good enough life in a good enough world, and for anybody else, maybe, matters would have been fine.

  But not for me.

  You see, when you’re a freelance operator on the periphery of the underworld, you never have to worry about dropping into a bind. You aren’t confined, aren’t tied down in the least. My business card, if I had one, would go something like this:

  WILLIAM MAYNARD

  card mechanic and hustler

  No Fixed Address

  No fixed address. Got a frail hanging on your neck, a broad who won’t let you go? Pack your toothbrush, slide into your car, go. Go anywhere because every town has men in it who play cards for money, every town has an angle ready for an angle player. Anybody giving you a hard time? Your room rent overdue? A batch of debts scattered around? Anything like that?

  Pack the toothbrush, pile in the car, scram.

  You start to function in those terms. Even if you’re legit—a traveling show biz type, a carnie roustabout, a salesman on the road, an outdoor construction worker—even then you tend to operate in this manner. You become used to living your life on the move, and when a situation turns sour you run from it and into something better. But if your life runs on illegal tracks to begin with, you find it just that much easier to work this way. Scruples never come along and trip you up. If you’re a con man, or a card cheat, or any sort of a thousand hustlers, you’re fully accustomed to milking the parks and hunting greener pastures.

  Now I was starting to put down roots. A job, sure and steady. A bank account. An apartment with a lease. A circle of friends, most of whom had been born in the area, and who would die there. A girl, a boss, a friend, a friend’s wife—

  I was in the Ford and the Ford was hurrying along Main Street past Olga Road. A while ago we had crossed Cherry Avenue, the city line around there. If I stayed on Main Street long enough I would wind up in the state capital some three hundred miles away. Or, if I made a right turn in a quarter mile, I could take the big ribbon straight on to New York, a few hundred miles of perfect roadway. I didn’t even need my toothbrush. Toothbrushes aren’t all that hard to come by, and I had never developed any great sentimental attachment to mine. Just swing the wheel soft right, pick up a ticket at the toll gate—

  But I couldn’t, and that was the hang-up. Not now, not with Murray’s case all up in the air. So far no one had given me much of a second glance. If I
skipped town now, someone would start thinking.

  I pulled the Ford off the road, lit another cigarette, smoked a little of it. When the traffic thinned out I whipped the Ford around in a U-turn and drove back into town.

  I made my apartment in time to answer the phone. I picked it up, said hello, sat down in a chair. It was Murray, and for a second or two the sound of his voice threw me. I’d almost forgotten that he was out of jail now.

  “You’re a hard man to find,” he said. “I tried you at your office. No luck. Been keeping busy?”

  “Fairly busy.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Listen, Bill, I’d like to talk to you. Got anything doing right now?”

  I didn’t, but I had no overwhelming desire to rush over there. “I’ll be tied up for an hour or so,” I said.

  “And after that?”

  “I’ll be free.”

  “Good. I’d ask you to come over here, but I’d rather go some place where we can be alone. I’m not under house arrest, you know. I’m just supposed to stay within city limits, something like that. Where can you meet me?”

  “Anywhere.”

  He thought it over for a moment. “There’s a little lunch counter at Washington and Plum,” he said. “Sort of a central location, and the coffee’s not bad. All right with you?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “About an hour?”

  “Right.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up and found a bottle of Cutty Sark with a little left in it. I poured a small shot and tossed it down. Murray Rogers wanted to see me. I didn’t know why.

  The hour dawdled along. I smoked a few cigarettes and listened to mood music on the radio. I had another shot of scotch. Then it was time to go. I found Washington and Plum. The lunch counter was diagonally across the street from me on the northwest corner next to a drugstore.