Tiny Tony turned and stared at it for a moment. “My first wife,”
he said. “Eleanor. Her breasts were marvelous, but she turned out to
be as vicious as a polecat. My second wife was even worse. But we’re
not here to discuss my catastrophic family life. Sit, sit.” He gestured
Kyle toward the easy chair and then moved behind an ornate mahogany desk, picked a box off the desktop and flipped open its lid.
“Cigarette?”
“No thank you,” said Kyle, sitting.
“A man of good habits, then, unlike your father,” said Tiny Tony
as he pulled a cigarette from the box, tapped it on the desktop, lit it
with a crystal lighter the size of a grapefruit. “All my habits are bad,
which is why I’m still alive. No one cared enough to kill me, seeing as
I was doing such a good job killing myself.”
Just then the phone on the desk rang. It was a big black phone,
with a heavy handset that lay in a cradle. Tiny Tony put the huge
handset to his ear, listened. “Six and a half, five and a half,” he said.
“How many? Done.” He scratched something on a small pad, hung
up the phone. For a moment, as a waft of smoke rose from the halfhidden face, he stared at Kyle with eyes burning bright and angry. “I
didn’t know Liam had any children,” he said finally.
“He wasn’t married to my mother.”
“And that makes you . . .”
“Yes, it does.”
“Ahh, I see. But still you were close.”
“Not really.”
“Yet here you are, like a responsible young son. And you have for
me a file.”
“I was going through some of my father’s old things in his office,”
said Kyle, raising the file in his hand, “and I found this.” “And the lawyers there, they let you rifle through the files?” “Well, they didn’t quite let me.”
“Ahh, a scoundrel. You are indeed Liam Byrne’s son.” The phone rang again. Tiny Tony stared at Kyle for a moment
as if Kyle were responsible for the ring itself, and then picked up the
phone, listened. “Three to one against. Even money the sap doesn’t
last six. Done.”
Tiny scribbled a few more lines on his pad, scratched his nose
with a thumb, snuffed out the cigarette, took another from the box,
flicked the crystal grapefruit to life, inhaled, exhaled. “Okay,” he said,
“enough with the suspense.”
A greedy little hand reached up from the desk, and its fingers
snapped.
“Before I hand the file over,” said Kyle, “I have a question.” “A question, hey?” The old man reached into a pocket, pulled out
the gun. He slapped it on the desktop, gave it a spin until the barrel
pointed at Kyle. “Okay, shoot.”
“Double Eye investments.”
“You get right to the meat of it, don’t you?”
“Who are the two eyes?”
“Double Eye, the Italian and the Irishman. Your dad and I were
partners of a sort.”
“What sort?”
“Quiet partners. Your dad did all the investing, kept all the papers,
made all the filings.”
“What did you do?”
“I paid.”
“So Double Eye was a way to launder your gambling earnings.” “Clever, aren’t you? You know, in this part of town clever usually
gets you dead. Let’s cut to it, shall we? What is it you’re after?” “I’m looking for a file cabinet of my father’s. It is big and heavy
and brown, with fake wood grain painted on the metal. I wondered if
you might have it along with the partnership records.”
“You’re looking for a file cabinet of your father’s.”
“Yes.”
“And so you’ve come to me.”
“Yes.”
“And that is why you beat the hell out of my men.”
“Yes.”
“If the cigarettes hadn’t taken all my wind, I would be laughing
now.”
“I’m glad I can be such a source of humor.”
“Oh, you are, young Byrne, you are. Your father and I were partners, yes. But things don’t always work out the way we would want
them to. Have you noticed that most stories end either with a marriage or with death? This story didn’t end with a marriage.” “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You will, in time. Now, let me have the damn file.” Tiny Tony
snapped his fingers and then snapped them again.
Kyle looked at the old man’s hand, once more outstretched, and
the barrel of the gun, still pointing in his direction. He stood, put the
file in the old man’s hand, sat down again. He watched as Tiny Tony
pushed a pair of glasses onto his nose, lifted his chin, and paged
through the file quickly.
“What the hell is this?” said Tiny Tony.
“Your last will and testament.”
“I can see that. But why the hell would I want this?”
“I thought you might need it in case—”
“In case?” He threw the file atop his desk. “Since your father made
this for me, I’ve had three more. Each new will revokes the last. This
is useless to me.”
“What about the betting slips?”
“As valuable as yesterday’s lottery tickets. If this is all you’re bringing to the table, what the hell good is this to me?”
The phone rang. Tony answered, listened. “He’s going off at seven
to two. You won’t make me send Vern this time, right? Okay. Done.”
He slammed down the phone and made a jot on his pad even as he
gave Kyle another accusatory stare.
“You don’t care about the file cabinet, do you?” said the old man.