“Me? Me on the take?” The little guy looked as if he was going to swell up even more and float right off the floor when Zeke said that. He danced around. “Me on the take?” he said. “Me?”
There was a lot going around in Bodan Tom’s head all of a sudden. Trying to cobble it all together. These two yo-yos — the younger one more reasonable, a not too bad-looking a guy, but the older one sloppy, unshaven, with boots on his feet that looked like they were worn down to forty-five degree angles at the sides, one of which he had stomped on Bodan Tom’s poor aching toes with — who were these men? Where had they come from? And what were they trying to tell him? That Funk, the big dope, was still here? That he’d staggered away and croaked out there on Bodan’s couch? Why did the big dumb cop have to go and do that for? And if he ever managed to get out of this closet, what the hell was Bodan going to do with him?
One thing he knew, he couldn’t depend on his kid brother bailing him out. No telling where that Romeo was. Bodan had to get unhitched from this goddamn clothes bar before some real cops showed up or he strangled to death.
“Okay,” he said, “whatever you say. You’re right, I’m a cop. And yeah, I’m on the take. That what you wanna hear? Now are you gonna cut me loose from this bar?”
“Whaddya think?” the sloppy one said, consulting his pal. “Should we cut him loose?” Then he said to Bodan, “One thing, though — you’re gonna hafta show us where the dough is stashed.”
“Deal,” Bodan said, wondering himself where in the hell the night deposit bag had got to. “Now you guys cut me down from here, okay?”
They undid the knot.
When the necktie went loose, Bodan’s legs began to tremble, and then shake, and then they gave out on him altogether, letting his pudgy body slump to the floor.
“We’re waitin’,” said the sloppy one.
They kept their eyes on Bodan as he dragged himself painfully across the floor to the desk. They didn’t escort Bodan. They didn’t move to see what he was reaching for. They really were amateurs. Bodan pulled open a bottom drawer and took out the Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, rolled away from the desk, and aimed it at them, thinking, that Funk — telling Bodan Tom he ought to get a bigger gun. What? Did he think a guy wearing a beautiful handmade suit like this was going to carry a weapon the size of a hair dryer under his arm?
“Oh, man,” the sloppy one said, looking at the gun, “didn’t you know he’d try something like this on us, bro? I mean, don’t you think you should of gone over there with him and helped him open that desk? Jeez!”
“That’s right. It’s my fault,” the younger one said. “You were standing right there closer, you could of gone with him, but it’s my fault.”
These two guys arguing. Couple of idiots.
“I don’t know what you guys should of done,” Bodan told them — boy, his legs ached — “but I know what you’re gonna do now. You’re gonna stand right there while I make a phone call. Then you’re gonna wait till a friend of mine gets here. Then you’re gonna go for a ride with that dummy lying there on the couch — just like in the movies — and when they find the three of you, it’s going to look like you got into one terrific argument and—”
Bodan caught only a glimpse of the squat shape stepping through the door into his peripheral vision, a shape that was blurred, its features distorted, before something collided with the side of his head, and it was funny, he couldn’t be certain, but he thought vaguely that the thing that connected with him could have been a purse...
George and Zeke got the little fat guy cinched up to the bar in the closet again, Zeke supporting the guy’s dead weight under the armpits while George took care of the knot. Zeke stood back panting with his pouchy face flushed as George shut the closet door. “Man, but that’s one heavy little goober, I’m tellin’ you that for nothin’.”
“Something new,” Ma said, “you doin’ somethin’ for nothin’. You never do nothin’ for nothin’. You’d want twenny dollars to show up at a funeral.”
“I’d pay twenny dollars to show up at your funeral,” Zeke growled, but keeping his voice low and muffled so Ma couldn’t quite hear. Talking up, he said, “The Closet Man there, I guess he isn’t a cop. He knew where that gun was. He must be the Big Guy.”
“Who’s the other one, then?” George asked.
Zeke bent over the couch and flipped the dead guy’s sports coat open. “Take a look.” George edged closer. There was a half-open thumb-break paddle holster on the hip of the big man’s thin dress belt, and a SIG P228 nestled in it. “Not police reg issue, that setup,” Zeke said, “but then I guess the guy wasn’t either.” He poked at some cuffs. “Nice set of Smiths.”
Ma stood by the desk, a square, mannish figure with features blurred by the fine mesh of the stocking she had pulled over her face. Her sweater was twisted off center, and her dress was rucked up at the side. She had one ghostly pale ankle showing where she’d pulled off one of her knee-highs so she could snug it down over her head.
“Ma,” George said, “you look terrible.”
“What he’s saying, you should maybe take the stocking off your face,” Zeke told her, “you look like something from Star Trek — I dunno — a Nylonian.”
“You’re the next generation, not me, God help us all,” Ma told him. But she pulled the nylon off. “So what’re we doin’ here?”
“Takin’ a last look around,” Zeke said.
“What’re we lookin’ for?”
“Never mind.”
“Suits me. If you’re gonna be like that, you can go an’ get stuffed.”
You couldn’t haul Zeke out of the place with a winch until he was ready, George knew. You had to stand back and let the guy go for it, there was nothing you could do. Old Zeke desperate to find that money now, looking everywhere. Looking in places he had already looked in, and then coming back and looking there again.
George suddenly noticed Ma was busy, too.
“What you doing there, Ma?”
“Just lookin’.”
On her knees with her big rear end jutting out, patting down the edges of the couch under the dead guy, jamming her hands under the cushions and going in deep, right up to the elbow.
“If Zeke don’t want my help, that’s his business. But the Lord helps those who help themselves, an’ I’ll just tell you somethin’. I found six bits already, in this sofa, which is prob’ly all I’m gonna get outa this deal, time you weasels get through screwin’ it up.” George noticed she’d already pulled a slipcover off one of the cushions and had it stuffed with loot, the green shade of the brass banker’s lamp from the desk sticking out, and some other bulges in there, filling it up.
Zeke turned around and realized it, too.
“Ma, we ain’t gonna take that stuff. You crazy? That’s a dead guy there. You see him? It’s nuts cartin’ all kinds of stuff away that might connect us with this place.”
She glared at him.
“This just in. You call me crazy one more time, I’ll pull your lips off. I notice you’re cartin’ something away — or you’re fixing to — if you ever find it, which I doubt.”