My head was a balloon, a red balloon, being filled up and up, filled up and up, the pressure increasing on the inside, the pressure increasing too much, the pressure increasing.
The last thing I heard was the balloon exploding.
16
How had I gotten so tiny? Swimming upside down in a cup of tea, warm orange-red tea, rolling around, needing air, wanting to get to the surface but sinking instead to the bottom of the cup. White china cup. Looking up through all the tea at the light in the world up there, knowing I had to get out of this cup before I drowned. Before somebody drank me. Holding my breath, orange-red in the face, the weight of the tea too much for me, pressing me down. Straining upward, pushing against the bottom of the cup, and then everything confused. Had the cup broken? I was falling out the side, tea splashing all around me, white cup fragments, falling out, falling down, landing hard on elbow and shoulder and cheek.
I was on the floor surrounded by legs, feet, and even though I was awake now I cowered as though I was still tiny and the feet would crush me. My left arm was pinned under me, but I managed to get the right arm up over my head.
Then hands were holding me, lifting me, voices were jabbering, and the confusions of the dream faded away, leaving the confusions of reality in their wake. When last I’d heard from the real world, somebody was strangling me.
I was placed on the bed and the covers drawn up over me. People were speaking, but I kept my arm up over my head and didn’t look at anything or listen to anything until Abbie touched my shoulder and spoke my name and asked me how I was. Then I came out slowly, warily, like a turtle in a French kitchen, to see Abbie sitting on the bed and leaning over me, with a lot of people I didn’t like in the background.
Abbie asked me again how I was, and I muttered something, and the leader of the pack came forward to say, “I want you to know that wasn’t intentional, Chester. I don’t do business that way.”
I looked at him.
“I hope there’s no hard feelings,” he said, and the expression his face wore now was concerned. Not that I believed there was ever any relationship between what he was thinking and what his face showed.
I looked at Abbie, and she gave me a look that said, “Be circumspect.” So I looked back at Solomon Napoli and said, “No damage done.” My throat was a little hoarse, so that my voice rasped a little, slightly undercutting the meaning of my words, but not so much that he couldn’t ignore the discrepancy, if he chose.
He chose. “That’s good,” he said. He glanced at his watch, gave me a smile that I guess was supposed to be friendly, and said, “I missed my meeting to be sure you were all right.”
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Good. Then we can get back to what we were talking about. Miss McKay?”
So Abbie squeezed my hand and went away, leaving me once again with Napoli and his two elves. Napoli seated himself in his bedside chair once again and said, “I’ve been thinking over what you said, and it’s entirely possible you’re telling the truth. It could be you’re just an innocent bystander in all this, you don’t work for Droble at all.”
Droble. Was that one of the names Detective Golderman had asked me about? It seemed to me it might have been, but I was in no condition to pursue the question. I didn’t really care one way or the other.
Napoli went on, “But if that’s true, if you are an innocent bystander, how is it you’re underfoot all the time? You found the body, you had a meeting with Frank Tarbok, you kept hanging around this apartment, you’re traveling with McKay’s sister, you got yourself shot at. An awful lot of activity for an innocent bystander.”
“I’ve been trying to collect my money,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Money?”
“I had a bet on a horse and he came in. That’s why I came here the time I found Tommy dead. I was coming to get my money.”
Napoli frowned. “And all of your activity since then has been concerned with collecting it?”
“Right. With Tommy dead I didn’t know who should pay me. I wanted to ask Tommy’s wife, but she’s disappeared some place.”
“And the meeting with Tarbok? Didn’t you collect your money then?”
“I didn’t ask,” I said. “I didn’t think to ask till it was all over.”
The frown deepened, grew frankly skeptical. “Then what did you talk about, you and Frank?”
I said, “Frank Tarbok is the man in the garage, right? The one I was taken to see Tuesday night.”
“Of course,” he said.
“You say of course, but I didn’t know his name till just now. He wanted to see me because he wanted to know if I worked for you.”
That surprised him, and he actually showed it. “For me?”
“He thought maybe I killed Tommy for you,” I said. “So he had those other two guys grab me and take me to him, and he asked me questions. The same as you.”
Napoli grew thoughtful again. “So he thought I might have had Tommy taken care of, eh? Mmmm. I wonder why.”
“He didn’t say,” I said.
“But you convinced him,” he said. “Convinced him you didn’t work for me.”
“Sure.”
“Then why did he try to kill you last night?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he changed his mind. I don’t know.”
He sat back, smiling reminiscently. “It’s a good thing for you he did,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I understood. I said, “A good thing he tried to kill me?”
He nodded, still with the reminiscent smile. “If he hadn’t,” he said, “you’d be dead now.”
That didn’t make any sense at all. I said, “Why?”
“Because,” he said, “I’d ordered you shot. What do you think my people were doing outside your house? They were there to kill you.”
I stared at him. A man had just calmly told me to my face that he’d ordered me murdered. What was the correct social response to a thing like that? I just lay there and stared at him. He was unconcerned. The whole thing struck him as no more than amusing. Mildly amusing. “And the funny part of it is,” he said, incredibly enough, “I was going to have you killed for the same reason as Walt Droble. I figured you’d killed McKay, you were working under Frank Tarbok.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No.”
He held a hand up. “I’ll accept that,” he said. “I’ll accept it now. Naturally, I’ll have to check it. My men did the right thing. They were about to contract you out when somebody else took a shot at you. So they did nothing. They followed you here, and phoned me to tell me the situation, and I told them to get you, if you were still alive, and bring you to me to explain yourself. To explain why other people are trying to kill you when I want you killed.” His smile turned chummy, pals together, confidential buddies. “I found it confusing,” he confided.
I nodded, vaguely. I was still stuck on a phrase he’d used, a euphemism that was new to me but which I found as grisly as anything I’d ever heard. “They were about to contract you out,” he’d said. “Contract you out.”
For Pete’s sake. Contract me out? Is that any way to talk about something as brutal and final as murdering me in front of my own house? It sounds like a magazine subscription lapsing. “Sorry we didn’t get your reorder, we’ll just have to contract you out.”
Napoli looked at me. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said faintly.
“You mean, why should I think you were responsible for killing Tommy McKay?”
“That. And why should you care? And who are all the people you mention all the time? Droble, and Frank Tarbok.”
“Frank Tarbok,” he said, “works for Walter Droble. Walt is what you might call a competitor of mine. There are territories he has, there are territories I have. For some time there’ve been a few territories in dispute between us.”
“And Tommy was in the middle?”
“Not exactly. McKay worked fo
r Droble, but was also in my employ. I am nearly ready to make a move I’d been planning for some time, and McKay was a part of that move. You’ll forgive me if I don’t get more specific.”
“That’s all right,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to know too much.”
“That’s wise,” he agreed, smiling at me, pleased with me. He looked at his watch and said, “I must be off. You take it easy now.”
“I will,” I said.
He got to his feet. “Get well soon,” he said, and smiled, and left.
17
I had two or three minutes to be alone with my thoughts after Napoli and his bodyguards left, and then Ralph and Abbie came into the room. Ralph said to me, “The boss says, as long as you’re good I leave you alone. Got the idea?”
“Yes,” I said.
He turned to Abbie. “You, too?”
“Me, too,” she said.
“Good,” he said, and went out and shut the door. We both heard the key turn in the lock.
Abbie immediately came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Looking concerned, she put a hand on my forehead, saying, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’ve been through so much,” she said.
I said, “What about you? Did they give you a bad time?”
She shrugged the whole crew of them away with one shoulder. “They don’t bother me,” she said. “They just talk tough.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I said, and went on to tell her Napoli’s amusing anecdote about how my being shot in the head had saved my life.
She was amazed. “You mean he actually sat here and said that?”
“He thought it was funny.”
“That’s the most insulting thing I ever heard in my life,” she said. “What did you say to him?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, I would have—”
I took her hand. “I know you would,” I said. “You’ve got no more self-preservation instinct than a lemming. But I’m twenty-nine years old, and I don’t think that’s enough. I’m supposed to get forty-one more, and I want them.”
She said, “What’s going on now? They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Napoli is going to check my story,” I said. “When he finds out I really don’t work for Frank Tarbok and Walter Droble, he’ll leave me alone. He’ll call Ralph and tell him everything’s okay, and Ralph will leave.”
She spread her hands, saying, “Then we’re all right, aren’t we?”
“You are,” I said. “I still have Tarbok and Droble after me.”
“Who are they?”
I’d forgotten she wasn’t up to date on all that. “Droble was Tommy’s boss,” I said. “Tarbok works for Droble. Tarbok is the one I was taken to see Tuesday night.”
“Ah. Why can’t Napoli tell Droble you’re all right?”
“Because Napoli and Droble are enemies,” I told her, and went on to explain as much as I knew of the gambling barons’ feudal wars, including Tommy’s part in it all.
When I was done, she said, “That would be Tommy, all right. Play both sides against the middle every time. He always had to copper his bets.”
“Well, he left me in a mess.”
Sitting back, frowning, gazing at the opposite wall, Abbie said, “If both sides were after you for killing Tommy, that means neither of them is the murderer. It isn’t a gang killing at all.”
“No,” I said. “I’m the gang killing. Tommy was extracurricular.”
“Yes,” she said. “And Louise is still missing. I knew it was her.”
“You don’t know it,” I said. “You think it, and you could be right, but you don’t know it.”
“Who else is there?” she demanded.
I didn’t know. “I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m hardly jumping to conclusions,” she said, “when I pick the last one left.”
Since I didn’t have any answer to that one, I stopped thinking about it, and instead my mind went back to something that had struck me a long time ago. I’d been meaning to ask Abbie about it, but then things started to happen, and I forgot. So I asked now. “What about the doctor?” I said.
She stared at me. “The doctor? Tommy’s doctor? Why would he kill him?”
“No, no. The doctor that took care of my head. The one you called, that helped you carry me up here.”
“He didn’t even know Tommy,” she said. “He never even knew me before last night. What makes you think he’s the killer?”
Confusion was setting in again. “I don’t,” I said. “I’m not talking about the killing at all. I’m talking about something else now.”
“I was talking about the killing,” she said, “and who could have done it, and there’s nobody left but Louise.”
“All right,” I said, not wanting to go around that barn again. “You’re probably right.”
“So what’s all this about the doctor?”
“I was shot in the head,” I said. “Aren’t doctors supposed to report gunshot wounds to the police?”
“They’re supposed to,” she agreed.
“Then shouldn’t we be getting cops here sooner or later, asking questions?”
She shook her head. “He won’t report it. I told him you were my boyfriend, and my husband shot you, and we couldn’t stand the scandal and notoriety, and I promised him his name would never come up if there was a police investigation.”
“And he agreed?”
“I also bribed him a hundred dollars.” She winked. “You have to know what neighborhood to get your doctor in.”
“You bribed him?”
“It was the only thing to do,” she said, and shrugged.
That girl just kept amazing me. I had known capable, competent take-charge women before, but none of them came within a mile of Abbie McKay. I shook my head and said, “You’re a wonder. How about taking care of Tarbok and Droble for me?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “First thing in the morning.” Then she looked at her watch and said, “Which will be coming along any minute. I’ve got to go to the funeral tomorrow, too. At ten o’clock.” She looked around and said, “It looks like we spend the night co-ed.”
“I’d offer you the bed,” I said, “but I’m not sure I can get out of it.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “We can share.”
“Share?”
“In your condition,” she said, “what virtue I have left is probably safe. Just move over to the side a little bit. No, the inside, I don’t want to have to crawl over you all the time.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that,” I said, and hunched myself over against the wall. What’s that old image about a sick person, when they’re about to die, they turn their face to the wall? That’s what ran through my head when I got over by the wall, of course. My mind isn’t always so full of morbid notions, but even Mary Poppins would have had a grim thought or two if she’d had my last four days.
Meanwhile Abbie was stripping to her underwear again, the second night in a row I’d seen her like that. I said, “Hey.”
She glanced at me. “What?”
“I may be wounded,” I said, “but I’m not a eunuch. I was shot up at this end, up at the head.”
She grinned and said, “Oh, don’t be silly, Chet. You’ve seen girls before.”
“That’s perfectly true,” I said. “But.”
She looked at me. “But what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “That was the whole sentence.”
“Oh, you’ll be all right,” she said, and went over and switched off the light.
I heard her moving around in the dark, and then the bed sagged, and then a knee touched my near leg. It moved around a little, the covers shifted this way and that, the knee left, a hip touched my hip, the hip left, the covers settled down, she sighed in contentment, and there was silence.
I said, “This is ridiculous.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m in b
ed with you.”
“Haven’t you ever been in bed with a girl before?”
“Not like this, Abbie.”
“It’s kind of a nice change of pace,” she said.
“Change of pace,” I said.
“Sure,” she said.
“Sure,” I said.
She went to sleep before I did.
18
My arms were around somebody. Somebody warm. Somebody soft. Somebody who smelled musky and nice. Somebody female.
Female? My eyes popped open, and I was looking at a lot of tangled blond hair. I blinked at the hair, felt the warm female body snuggled against mine, and for just a second I was afraid I was in terrible trouble. Then I remembered. I was in terrible trouble, but not that kind.
I must have moved or something, because all at once the mass of hair lifted, like a drawbridge going up, and two wide-open blue eyes were three inches from my face, staring at me. I blinked. They blinked.
I said, “Good morning.”
She jumped a mile, or at least out of my arms, and sat beside me, holding the covers up against herself and staring down at me.
I said, “Abbie, this was your idea. You were very cool about the whole thing last night, so don’t fly off the handle now.”
Comprehension flowed into her eyes as though poured in from above, and she said, “Chet?” As though to be sure what she was seeing was right.
“It’s me,” I said.
She shook her head, fluffed her hair, scrubbed her face with her palms. “Whoof!” she said. “Boy, did I sleep!”
“Me, too,” I said.
She smiled at me. “That was kind of nice. Together like that.”
“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” I said. “When I’m stronger.”
Her smile turned a touch lewd. “It might be fun,” she said.
I reached out and touched the bare skin of her side, between panties and bra. “It might be.”
She pushed my hand away and got out of bed. “You shouldn’t excite yourself,” she said. “You’re still sick.”
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