“Jesus, Walter.”
“I don’t trust him.” The ape pushed himself up in the bed, the covers bunching at his waist. He had a big patch on his ribs, white cotton stained yellow with Mercurochrome. Nancy just stood there with the glasses in her hands.
“I want him out,” said the ape. “You’re too fucking trusting, Nancy.”
“He could have come in with a gun at my head,” she said.
“Listen to her, Walter. I’m on your side.”
“Oh, fuck.” Surface let the gun drop to the bed. “Gimme that.” Nancy brought him the drink, and he tossed half of it back in a gulp. She gave me the other one and then leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.
It was a big glassful of gin, just barely haunted by the specter of tonic. I didn’t mind. My cigarette had gone out in my mouth; I laid it in the ashtray and took a big drink of the gin. It was another way to deaden the endings in my nose.
“Phoneblum’s boys want me dead, they’ll find a way,” said Surface, working his logic out loud, reminding me of myself again. “You wouldn’t come walking in here and let me pull a gun on you.”
I didn’t say anything, just sipped my drink.
“What’s your racket?” he said. He scratched gingerly at his bandage with the nail of his thumb.
“Same as you,” I said. “I was the guy you were hired to replace. I balked at the job I was asked to do and was shown the door, same as you, maybe. Only I didn’t end up with a bloody lobby.”
“Lucky fucking you.”
I took another sip, slowly. “I’d like to bring Phoneblum down, Surface. Maybe you can help me.”
“And maybe you can help me get killed. No thanks.”
“Nobody knows I’m here. Besides, you said it yourself. They want you, they got you. Why not talk shop with me for a few minutes? Get it off your chest.”
Surface’s intelligent eyes glistened in their worn, pouchy sockets. He ran them back and forth across my face for most of a minute.
He sighed, looked down at the gun and the drink in his hand.
“Shoot,” he said finally.
I could see Nancy relax her posture against the wall. She obviously liked to see the ape sitting up and talking.
“Phoneblum said he hired you to watch Celeste,” I said. “You ever have contact with her husband?”
“Dr. Stanhunt?”
“Yes,” I said. “Maynard Stanhunt.”
“Never laid eyes on him. Seemed like that was the point.”
“With me it was the reverse. I was hired by the doctor, and never met Phoneblum. I guess Maynard didn’t enjoy working with me and asked Phoneblum to take over the arrangements.”
“I guess.” Surface put the gun down on the windowsill beside the bed and poked at the curtain. A beam of sunlight flicked across the bed, disappeared.
“How long did you tail her?”
“A week”
“Learn anything?”
“Only what Phoneblum obviously already knew.”
“What was that?”
Surface made an impatient face. “The boyfriend.” Then he saw the look of nonrecognition on mine. “You knew about the boyfriend, right?”
“No.”
Surface squinted into my eyes.
“That’s what Dr. Stanhunt was looking for,” I said, “but I never saw a thing. Are you sure?”
He wrinkled his brow, skeptically. “Of course I’m sure.”
“Where?”
“That motel. The Bayview. The place Stanhunt got bumped off at.”
I was baffled. “Tell me more.”
“She went up there twice or three times, spent a long time in a room, came out with a mussed-up hairdo. Standard stuff.” He looked at me like I was crazy, and I felt crazy. Either he was lying or I’d missed it completely.
“You see the guy?” I asked.
“Once. I couldn’t pick him out now.”
I thought about it a little. Suddenly there was a gaping hole in my picture of things, a hole shaped like a third party in a love triangle, a hole shaped like a prime suspect in the murder inquisition that should have been. It didn’t completely rule out Angwine, except that the image of Angwine and Celeste as lovers was laughable. She’d eat him alive.
I tried to think of who that left, and couldn’t come up with anyone.
“How’d you get in so bad with Phoneblum?” I asked.
Surface emitted a short, shrill laugh. “He wanted somebody to play the tough guy, which I sometimes do. Only this time it looked more like fall guy than tough guy, and I said no. He didn’t like that.” He grimaced, and it reminded me I was talking to an ape. Then he put his hand over his bandages. “We tossed some threats around. I guess he made good on his.”
“I guess. They wanted you to hurt Celeste?”
Surface gave me that sour look again. “That what Phoneblum told you he wanted from me?”
“Phoneblum didn’t say. But I took my orders from Stanhunt, and he asked me to poke Celeste a couple of times and send her home.”
“That’s nice.” Surface’s voice was grim. He looked over at Nancy. “You hear that?”
Nancy didn’t say anything.
“I might have considered that,” he said, turning back to me. “Hell, I probably would have done it. Only in my case it was a little different”
“Different how?”
He sighed. “When Phoneblum told Stanhunt about loverboy, the doctor had an attack of jealousy,” he said. “Phoneblum got back to me with an offer of five thousand dollars to take the boyfriend permanently out of the picture.”
“A killing.”
“That’s right. Only I said no.”
“And Phoneblum panicked. He thought you knew too much.”
“I guess so.”
The Muzak on the television changed colors, and the room went from pale blue and green to white and gold. Surface switched on the lamp on the windowsill and turned off the television with the remote. Nancy took away my glass and left the room.
I was used to Surface’s smell by now, and I guess he must have gotten used to whatever it was that most grated on him about me. He put away the gun and slid back down into the big bed. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.
“What did you learn about Celeste?”
“Not that much, really,” I said. “I spent a lot of time up on Cranberry Street learning she doesn’t close the blinds when she changes clothes.”
“I could have told you that.”
“I was first, smart guy.”
I’d made the ape smile, almost laugh, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he grimaced from the stress on his ribs. I watched while he swallowed the pain away.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve got,” I said. “You fill in the gaps.”
He nodded.
“She’s a hard one, or she was once. Knew Phoneblum in a business way. About two and a half years ago she has a change of heart, and leaves town for a while—or maybe she’s asked to leave. At which point she has her past customized, slimmed down, and her prospects lifted and firmed up. When she marries the rich doctor, the job is apparently complete. Except Phoneblum still has his strings on her. He won’t let go.”
“That sounds about right,” said the ape.
“Tell me what you know about Phoneblum.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me what you don’t know.”
“Just about everything. What’s his racket?”
“Racket? Sex. Drugs. Karma. What isn’t his racket?”
“I get your point,” I said.
“You know the club called the Fickle Muse? That’s his place. Get into the back room and ask for a guy named Overholt”
I repeated the name.
“What he sells is what Phoneblum’s got,” said Surface. “Meaning anything you want.”