Zeke reached out to take the gun away from him, then hesitated, the dope just in time remembering the dead guy on the couch. He took it with the tips of his fingers and dropped it on the floor.
“Us?” Zeke was surprised at the question. “We, uh...”
“We’re cops,” George announced.
“Yeah,” Zeke agreed, “yeah, that’s it. Cops.” Then he scratched his neck, obviously wondering what to say next, wondering what an actual cop might say, as if he didn’t know, as if he hadn’t heard his share of them in his time, the dumb arse, and then finally, “So I guess you’re under arrest.” He made a motion at George. “Hook him up, pal.”
George stood there shaking his head.
The little fat man glared back at them. His eyes, which had flown open when Zeke opened the door, now seemed to withdraw cautiously into his face. Or maybe what it was his head was swelling up from being tied to the bar. One or the other.
The fat man said, “What is this? You two ain’t cops. I can smell a cop. You couldn’t hook me up if you wanted to, you don’t even have any cuffs.”
“You... uh... didn’t bring cuffs?” Zeke asked George. George shook his head. “Well,” Zeke said, “that isn’t really a problem. We don’t need cuffs the way they got you hog-tied to that bar there, pal...”
Zeke was about to say more, but George figured he’d said enough. He reached past Zeke and gently closed the closet door on the guy.
“What’s going on here tonight?” he asked Zeke.
Zeke looked at him.
“I dunno what’s going on here tonight, bro. It was supposed to be a ordinary drop night for the loaners, just like I told you, the loaners coming in, the money bagged up. I don’t unnerstand it any more than you do.”
Suddenly there was one hell of a thumping. A racket they could hear out in the street. The guy in the closet kicking the door. Zeke pulled the door open and stepped on the guy’s foot, saying in a reasonable tone, “Don’t do that, okay?” the fat guy howling as Zeke closed the door on him again.
George stood thinking.
“Something just occurred to me. Maybe Ma was right. Maybe we’re not the only ones who knew what the Big Guy was up to in here, and maybe we’re not the only ones who planned a hit on him tonight.” He frowned. “That guy on the couch—” George nodded at the corpse “—what I’d like to know, is there any chance at all he could be the Big Guy, you think?”
“I dunno, bro.”
“You don’t have any idea what he looks like?”
Zeke looked doubtful. “Well. Like I told you. I never really seen him before, I only heard about him. But I guess it’s possible. I mean, I suppose he could be. I mean, if you’re expecting to find — you know — a big guy, well then...”
“You know what?” George said, suddenly realizing something. “We forgot to put the stockings over our heads.”
Zeke looked at him.
“Hell,” he said.
He opened the closet.
“Who are you, pal?”
The little fat guy was hopping up and down and making the coat hangers ring. “You busted my foot, you didn’t have to go an’ do that, you—”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a cop!” the fat guy snapped.
“You sure?”
“Why not? If you can be a cop, I can be a cop!”
“And the big stiff on the couch? Where does he fit in? Is he a cop, too? Or is he the owner of this place or just what?”
The fat guy didn’t seem to comprehend. He blinked his eyes a few times.
“Look. Whoever you guys are, untie me. Let me out of here, and then maybe I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Oh yeah?” Zeke said. “Hang on a second.”
He closed the door.
“Tell you what,” he said to George, “could be the closet man here really is a cop.” As George began raising his eyebrows at the suggestion, Zeke said quickly, “No, listen. I know what you’re gonna say. Cops always travel in twos, like nuns, but I dunno, I just kinda got this feelin’ about him.”
“What are you talking about?” George breathed. “If the guy is a cop—” he jerked his head at the closet door “—then why isn’t he telling us cop-type things? You know, hollering, reading us the riot act, and coming on really officiallike?”
“Maybe — I dunno — because he don’t want us to take him too seriously?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he’s undercover. Or no, here’s what it is, he’s on the take. Listen. I think I know. What could of happened, he came here tonight to get his cut and walked into the middle of a hit. Or maybe,” Zeke suggested, getting into it now, “after the loaners left, he decided to lean on the Big Guy for more grease. And the Big Guy, which we see now lyin’ here with his toes up, he don’t like the idea, so Closet Man pops him.”
“You’ve got an overactive imagination,” George said.
“At least I got an imagination.”
“It doesn’t tell me how he got in the closet, though, does it?”
“Well, there coulda been other guys here, too, only they left.”
Zeke opened the closet door and they both took a good long look this time at the little fat man in the blue suit. They took a real good long look.
“If you really are a cop,” Zeke said, shaking his grizzled head at the fat man, “and if you’re really on the take, then I got to tell you, I’m disappointed. It kinda shakes a guy’s faith in law an’ order, pal. Faith in the good guys.”
“Are you gonna let me out of here?” the fat guy asked.
“Depends. You know what happened to the money, pal?”
“What money?”
“The money the loaners brought in tonight.”
“You know about that?”
“Sure, I know about that. I’m askin’ you, ain’t I?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about it.”
“Now why did I think you were going to say that?”
“And why do I think you should mind your own business?”
Zeke took a patient, deep breath and looked at him. “Ain’t that necktie a little tight?” Peering closer at the knot. “I’d bet, I mean it looks to me that thing could tighten up even more when your legs start to give out in — say — five or six more hours.”
“Five or six hours! What’re you talking about?”
Zeke said to George, “He don’t know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“That’s too bad,” George said. “Yeah, that too bad.”
“What are you talking about?” George asked.
“What I’m talkin’ about, bro, is what’ll happen when we close this closet door on this guy, back the way we found it, an’ walk outa here an’ mind our own business like he told us to. He could be stuck in there — I don’t know — weeks.”
For the first time it looked as though the little fat man was going to break out in a sweat. He’d been remarkably contained up to this time, all things considered. But now his forehead wrinkled, his face got redder, and he shifted on his feet, making the coat hangers ring some more.
“Wait a minute! Fellas! Listen! Let’s not get in too big a hurry here—”
“Why would we get in a hurry,” Zeke said, “standin’ around here in a private office with a dead guy beside us on the couch. I dunno why that should make us wanna get in a hurry, do you?”
“Dead guy?” The fat man seemed puzzled. “You mean...”
“The Big Guy,” Zeke said, “is who I’m talkin’ about. Lying right here on the couch where somebody plugged him.” He hooded his eyes at the fat man. “I can see why you’d wanna be in a hurry, pal, this bein’ a messy situation for a cop on the take to be in, somebody gettin’ the drop on you an’ that stiff left lyin’ around.” Zeke lowered his voice. “Hey, you can tell me. How long you been on the take, anyway?”