Funk had all the moves. Like neutralizing people was second nature for him, which it was, the dumb cop. He spun Bodan Tom around face to the wall, stepped on the back of Bodan’s shoe, and drove a knee into his leg, Bodan’s foot coming up with the pain real fast and leaving the shoe behind. Seconds later Bodan had a shoelace twisted around his wrists, holding them tight, tight, very tight.
“ ’Course, I could cuff you, you little bohunk, but that’d mean leaving a clue behind, wouldn’t it?”
He shoved Bodan into the closet.
“An’ if I shot you, same thing. That crap gun of yours’d leave your powder burns on me, or mine’d leave my bullets in you. So I got another idea, good buddy...”
“Let me go,” Bodan pleaded, “you’re hurt. I can help you.”
“Buddy, I been bit worse by mosquitoes. Like I said, you oughtta get yourself a gun.” With a jerk Funk twisted Bodan’s tie up under his ear and passed it around the steel closet bar, heaving Bodan up onto his toes. He knotted the tie, then picked up the Iver Johnson, pumping the cartridges out and holding the gun gingerly to avoid leaving fingerprints, then tucked it back into Bodan’s belt. He stood back, pale now and swaying slightly on his feet. “Goddamn, I must be getting old, good buddy. This exercise is... pooping me out. Anyways... you... may be here a while. Have a good one!”
Funk slammed the closet door on Bodan Tom.
Downstairs George took a last regretful glance at the door lock, wishing that Ma were able to doublelock it but accepting that there was nothing they could do about that now. Zeke, for all his grousing, making them even more dependent on Ma. George unhooked the chain that was stretched across the archway, let Zeke squeeze by, then passed through himself and did the chain back up. They climbed the stairs together, Zeke one step ahead and favoring the leg Ma had bruised. He wasn’t happy either.
“I told you not to bring her. I told you that, didn’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“She’ll slap me up the head or whack me one of these days, an’ that’s gonna be it. I’m gonna turn around an’ do some thing to that woman, pal. Kicking me like that. Jesus.”
“If you do anything,” George advised, “you better do it right, or what’s left of you will be rattling around loose in a shoebox.” One of the steps creaked just then, and he cringed. “I want to tell you, big brother, I can’t believe this guy doesn’t post himself a guard.”
“He used to, but he got sloppy.”
“He’s not mobbed up or anything, is he?”
“You kidding? In this town? Only mob here is the mob at City Hall.”
There was a dark corridor at the top of the stairs, you could hardly see your hand in front of your face.
“Be nice if they put some lights on,” Zeke complained.
“We don’t want lights,” George reminded him, and gave his head a shake. Man. This guy. Put a brain in his head and see what improvement you got. Upgrade to a half-witted klunge. An ape with an attitude. Scary.
Zeke’s big hand beckoned. There was a door at the end of the hall. Zeke looked at George and George nodded — sure, you open it — and Zeke turned the handle carefully and peered inside.
“What the hell,” he said hoarsely. “Nobody here.” Then he hesitated, reconsidering. “Wait a sec. Could be I’m wrong about that.” He eased farther into the room.
By looking over Zeke’s shoulder, George could see that the room was an office, all right, and a large one, fitted out like some sort of working bachelor apartment. There was a wide mahogany desk at one end, some fancy chairs and lamps, and a full-sized couch, this last piece of furniture situated with its back towards them and having a pair of large black tassled men’s loafers sticking out over one end of it, with the toes pointing up. He watched Zeke creep silently forward and peer down.
“Ask him about the money,” George whispered.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead? Get out.”
“I’m tellin’ you, this guy’s dead. Come here an’ look at him, you don’t believe me. Is this a dead guy or isn’t it?”
George followed Zeke into the room, not liking this development, not liking it at all. He stopped by the couch where he could see over the back of it and took a careful long look for himself, discovering that the guy on the couch was a big-boned, heavy-jowled man in a rumpled sports coat and wrinkled grey slacks, stretched out on his back with one hand trailing on the floor like he was asleep. Only he wasn’t asleep. People didn’t fall asleep with their eyes and mouth wide open — except Zeke maybe on the kitchen floor sometimes, after a hoot. But the real giveaway was — look at it! — a patch of dark, caked blood on the side of the big guy’s head.
“He’s dead, all right.”
“I already told you that.”
“Who is he?”
“How the hell do I know?”
“He’s pretty tall, sticking out over the arm of the couch like that. You think it’s the Big Guy?”
“I just told you I don’t know. I never actually seen the Big Guy before.” Zeke straightened up, giving the room a quick sweep with his eyes. “So, little brother, whaddya think?”
“What do I think? I think we better get our buns out of here while we still got the option, big brother. I mean, here we are, we’re in a room that’s off limits and the first thing we find, we almost trip over it, is a body? I think we better get our buns out of here fast.”
“What about our dough?”
“Our dough? It never was our dough, pal. We were going to take it, remember, from somebody else. To teach the Big Guy a lesson is the reason you gave. Well, I’d say somebody’s already taken care of that for us and gave the Big Guy a lesson he’ll never forget.”
“Shows how dumb you are,” Zeke snorted. “He already forgot it. He’s dead.” Zeke’s face turned hard and stubborn then, not giving anything. “But I’ll just tell you somethin’, bro. I come here for that dough, an’ if it’s here in this room I’m gonna find it, unnerstand?”
“You’re gonna get us arrested for murder, that’s what you’re gonna do.”
“We didn’t kill nobody. And if the dough’s here, I want it. We’re gonna find it, pal.”
George felt a sick feeling creep through his gut. Oh, man, why did he keep letting this dope talk him into things?
But he wasn’t going to stand there and argue. No percentage in that. Instead he began pulling drawers open, rummaging, looking for anything resembling a night deposit bag, thinking if they were actually going to have to search the place to satisfy Zeke, then the best thing was to get it over and done with in a hell of a hurry.
Zeke’s big hand suddenly flagged him again.
“Shut up. You hear that?”
They stood stock still. After a moment, George could hear what Zeke was referring to, what sounded like a baritone voice droning in the woodwork somewhere. Turning his head to get a fix, he decided the sound was associated with a narrow closet door at one end of the room, the actual words being indistinguishable and coming at them in murmurs with long stretches of silence in between. Zeke went over and pressed a hairy ear to the door.
“Hey, bro, there’s some goon in here talkin’ to hisself.”
“Great, let him talk,” George said, with a glance at the body on the couch. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hang on. There’s the dough, remember? Maybe Closet Man knows where we can find it.” Frowning, he cautiously eased the door open.
It was a closet, all right. There were men’s clothes hanging in it. Three or four suits hanging there, a raincoat, lots of empty hangers. Also a short fat man, the fat man more or less hanging in the closet with his necktie turned back to front and knotted behind his head to the steel clothes bar. There was a small handgun stuffed under the bulge of his midriff, in his belt. He suddenly stopped muttering to himself, opened his eyes wider, and said in surprise, “Who the hell are you?”