I stepped up, keeping an eye on his hands in case he tried something stupid, and said, “How much does Charley Rudabaugh owe you?”
“Huh?”
“How much?” I kept my voice even, without a hint of emotion.
The beady eyes examined me up and down, then he sat and said, “You ain’t Italian. What are you? Some kinda Mexican?”
I wasn’t about to tell this jerk I’m half French, half Spanish, so I told him, “I’m the man with the money. You want your money, tell me how much Charley owes you.”
“Three hundred and fifty. Tomorrow it’s gonna be four hundred.”
“I’ll be right back.” And I didn’t look back as I strolled out, making it to the nearest branch of the Whitney Bank before it closed. My bank accounts, I have a savings account now, were both in good shape after the Duponçeau case. As I stood in the teller line, I remembered the salient facts that brought such money into my possession—
It was a probate matter. When it got slow, I’d go over to civil court, pick up an inheritance case. This one was a search for descendants of a recently deceased uptown matron. Flat fee for my work. If I found any, they got the inheritance; if not, the state got it. I’d worked a dozen before and never found anyone until I found Peter Duponçeau, a fellow vet, in a VA Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.
Not long after I had caught a bullet from a Nazi sniper at Monte Cassino, he collected a chest full of shrapnel from a Japanese bombardment on a small island called Saipan. Peter was the grandson of the recently deceased uptown matron. His mother was also deceased. When I met him to confirm his inheritance, he was back in the hospital for yet another operation. At least the last months of his life were lived in luxury in a mansion overlooking Audubon Park. He left most of his estate to several local VFW chapters and ten percent to Lucien Caye, Esquire. When the certified check arrived, I contemplated getting an armored car to drive me to the bank. I couldn’t make that much money in five years, unless I robbed a bank or two.
Grosetto was back behind his desk, but there was an addition to the room, a large man standing six four, outweighing me by a good hundred pounds of what looked like gristle, with thick, unruly black hair and a ruddy complexion. He wore a rumpled brown suit, and he stared at me with dull brown eyes, Mississippi River water brown. My Irish friend Sullivan described Haney as black Irish, that is, probably descended from the Spanish of the Great Armada, the ones who weren’t drowned by the English. The ones who took the prevailing winds, beaching their ships along the Irish coast to be taken in by fellow Catholics to later breed with the locals. I would have given Haney only a cursory look, except I didn’t expect he’d be so young, early twenties maybe.
Stepping up to the desk, I dropped the bank envelope in front of Grosetto. “Rudabaugh sign anything? Promissory note? IOU?” I knew better but asked anyway.
Grosetto picked up the envelope and counted the money, nodding when he was finished. I turned to Haney. “You still have that baseball bat?”
He looked at Grosetto for an answer and then looked back. I could see he wasn’t all there.
“Try that stunt again and I’ll put two in your head. And I’ll get away with it,” I said.
“Alls I want is the girl,” Haney said.
“What?”
He looked down at his feet, all shy-like, and said, “I seen her,” looking up now with those dull eyes, “Real pretty.” He followed with a childlike chuckle.
I turned back to Grosetto, “Better let him in on the real world.”
Grosetto was smiling now, or trying to with that crooked mouth. “He usually gets what he wants.”
“Not this time,” I said.
No use arguing with idiots. When I got back to my office, I located my blackjack, a chunk of lead attached to a thick spring, covered with black leather, brand-named the Bighorn because, allegedly, it could coldcock a charging bighorn ram. I only used it twice back when I was a patrolman, and it worked well enough to incapacitate bigger, combative men. Then I put away my .38 and brought out my army issue Colt .45 caliber automatic and loaded it, switching holsters now. I needed something with stopping power.
I called upstairs and Kaye answered, telling me the baby and Charley were asleep.
“I need to get a couple things, okay?”
She let me in, and I quickly packed a suitcase with essentials and grabbed a couple suits and fresh shirts. Before stepping out, I waved her over and we whispered in the hall. I told her they owed Grosetto nothing. How? she wanted to know. I told her someone had given me a lot of money, and now I was giving them some.
“Charley won’t stand for it. We’ll pay you back.”
I shrugged, then watched her eyes as I told her I’d met Haney. She blanched, so I followed it with, “Back at Charity, why did you ask Charley if Haney asked where you were?”
She took a step back, crossed her arms, and said, “He’s my half brother.”
Sitting at my desk in my dark office, I watched the rain finally taper off.
“What about your parents?” I’d asked Kaye up in the hall. She told me her father was dead and her mother had abandoned her when she was five and wouldn’t say anything else about the matter, not even who had raised her.
I was thinking that at least they were safe for now, just as I spotted Haney standing next to the playground fence across the street. Didn’t take him long to find us. He stood there for a good ten minutes before coming across the street.
I expected the baseball bat, not the revolver stuck in the waistband of his suit pants as he stepped in the foyer of my building. I’d moved into the shadows next to the stairs, blackjack in my left hand. Slowly, I eased my right hand back to my .45 as he saw me and said softly, “Where is she?”
The sound of squealing tires behind him made him look over his shoulder. When he looked back I had my .45 pointed at his face and said, “That’ll be the cavalry.”
Two uniforms alighted from the black prowl car and came into the building with their guns out. It was Williams and Jeanfreau, both rookies when I was at the Third Precinct.
I lowered my weapon. “He’s got a gun in his waistband.”
Williams snatched Haney’s revolver, and Jeanfreau cuffed him and dragged him out.
“Aggravated assault, right?” Williams checked with me for the charge.
“Yeah. Hopefully he’s a convicted felon.” A felon with a firearm would hold Haney for quite a while.
“Thanks,” I called out to my old compadres. Williams called back, “Your call broke up the sergeant’s poker game. But only for a while.”
Charley sat shirtless at my kitchen table holding Donna with his good arm, Kaye in my terry cloth robe again, getting us coffee, them looking like a family now, and I had to tell them about Haney.
Kaye blanched at the news; Charley just nodded while Donna gurgled.
“How close are you?” I asked.
“I’m not even sure he is my half brother,” Kaye answered. “He claims to be. Claims my dad was his father. I never met him until he showed up at the hospital when Donna was born.”
She didn’t volunteer any more, and I didn’t want to cross-examine her, sitting at my table, all three adults sipping coffee, which wasn’t bad, and I’m picky about my coffee.
I turned to Charley and said, “We need to press charges against Grosetto. I’ll back you, and we’ll put the slimeball away. My buddy Detective Sullivan is chomping at the bit to nail him.”
Charley shook his head and told me, in careful, low tones, how he wanted Grosetto and Haney and all of it behind him, how he was going to pay me back whatever it cost me. I tried for the next half hour, but there was no changing his mind. He said he didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. God, he was so young.