Benny blocked the way, saying, “Where do you think you’re goin?”
“To the kitchen,” she said coldly.
I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
He glared at me. “You better not,” he said. Then, to Abbie, he said, “And I got my eye on you.”
She disdained to answer. She left the room, and Benny went after her.
I sat there alone a minute, thinking my gloomy thoughts, and then I noticed a telephone on the bedside table.
Call the police? I remembered what Abbie had said about the cops, the chance of getting a crook on the same payroll as Tommy, but thinking about it I decided the chance of a crooked cop was still better than the certainty of a couple of crooks, which was what I had now.
I reached out and picked up the phone.
I heard, “—could tell us — Hold on a second, boss.”
“Right.”
I heard the small thud of a receiver being put down on a table. Very gently I put my own receiver back in its cradle. I lay down in bed, covered myself to the chin, folded my arms over my chest, looked at the ceiling, and tried to look absolutely innocent.
Ralph walked in. He looked disgusted. Without glancing at me at all he walked around the bed, reached down to the baseboard beside the bedside table, and yanked the phone wire out of the box. He then straightened, gave me a look, and said, “You got no brains at all.”
I looked sheepish.
He shook his head, turned away, and left the room.
Nothing happened for about five minutes, and then Abbie came, carrying a tray and followed by Benny. Benny took the chair in the far corner and Abbie put the tray down on the foot of the bed. She helped me sit up, adjusted the pillows behind me, and put the tray on my lap, its little feet straddling my legs.
Clear chicken broth. Buttered toast, two slices. Tea with lemon. A dish of vanilla ice cream.
I ate everything in sight, while Abbie sat on the edge of the bed and watched me in approval.
At one point, taking a break from eating, I said, “How long was I out? This is Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You practically slept the day away. I was afraid you were dying there for a while, you just lay in one place and didn’t move at all.”
“My father must be worried,” I said. “I always call him when—”
“I called him,” she said. “I told him you were all right. I couldn’t tell him where you were, in case somebody put pressure on him, so I sort of let him get the idea you were shacked up with me. So he wouldn’t be worried.”
Benny didn’t seem to be listening to our conversation. I looked at her and said, “Shacked up, huh?”
She slapped my blanketed knee. “You’re too weak to be thinking about things like that,” she said, and smiled at me.
“I’ll get well soon,” I said, and Ralph came in.
Abbie turned to him. “What now?”
“We wait,” he said.
“For what?”
“For Sol,” he said.
I said, “He’s coming here? Solomon Napoli?”
“Yeah,” said Ralph. “He wants to talk to you.”
15
By the time the doorbell sounded nearly an hour later I was about ready to come apart like a broken kaleidoscope. Abbie was sitting beside me on the bed, and I reached out and grabbed her hand, and we gave each other nervous smiles that were supposed to be encouraging, and I began to blink a lot.
There were voices in the hall, and then Ralph came in, and behind him three other guys.
Solomon Napoli?
Even in my astonishment there was no question which of the three was Napoli. The two on either side were just hoods, Benny and Ralph all over again, just better-dressed. It was the one in the middle who was Solomon Napoli.
I couldn’t help staring at him. He was barely five feet tall, for one thing, the top of his head just about reaching the shoulders of the two guys flanking him. He was dressed very formally, as though on his way to an opera first night. But the most amazing thing was his head, which was too big for his body. Not enough to look deformed, just enough to make him look imposing, commanding, impressive. Leonine, a leonine head, and with the thick mane of hair that goes with it. A square jaw, magnificent white capped teeth, strong level eyes, a healthy hint of tan. He was about forty, with the smooth weathered look of a man who keeps himself in shape with handball and self-esteem.
And he was smiling! He came in smiling like a politician opening a campaign headquarters, his teeth sparkling, his eyes showing bright interest in everything they saw, his stride youthful and determined-without-crabbiness. He came in, and his flankers stopped just inside the door, and he came over to the bed, hand held out, saying to Abbie in a resonant voice, “Miss McKay! How do you do? I thought very highly of your brother. A shame, a shame.”
Through my own paralysis I could see that Abbie, too, was mesmerized. Her hand left mine, she rose uncertainly to her feet, she took his outstretched hand, in a vague and uncertain voice she said, “Uh, thank you. Thank you.”
He turned her off, turned me on. You could see him do it. He kept her hand, but he looked past her at me, his eyes and smile full of candle power, saying, “And how’s our patient?”
“Okay, I guess,” I mumbled.
“Good. Good.” He turned me off, turned Abbie on. “My dear, if you’ll go into the living room for just a few minutes, Chester and I have one or two things we want to discuss. We won’t be long. Ralph.”
“Here, boss,” said Ralph, and in his saying that the spell was broken. I had been totally hypnotized by Napoli up till now, his magnetism, his aura, the massive presence with which he filled the room. It wasn’t until Ralph said, “Here, boss,” that I remembered who this man really was. Solomon Napoli. Gangster.
I had to remember that. For my own good I had to remember it.
Suddenly I was twice as frightened as before. A cigar-chewing tough-talking obvious hood would have terrified me, but I would have understood him, I would at least have felt I knew what I was dealing with. But this man? I remembered how Sid Falco’s very ordinariness had been the most frightening thing about him, and this was Sid’s boss. A super-Sid.
I pulled the covers up around my chin and waited to see what would happen next.
Ralph led Abbie out of the room, she glancing back at me with a worried look just before going out of sight, and then I was alone with the crocodiles. One of the new hoods brought a chair up beside the bed, Solomon Napoli sat down in it, and we were off.
He had turned me on again. “I guess you had a close call, Chester,” he said. His smile showed sympathy, but I didn’t count on it.
“I guess I did,” I said warily.
“Who would take a shot at you, Chester?” he asked, and now his smile implied an urge to be helpful, but I wasn’t about to count on that one either.
“I guess the people Tommy worked for,” I said.
“Why would they do that?” His smile was as delicate an instrument as a theremin, and now it projected polite curiosity.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I suppose they think I had something to do with killing Tommy.”
Can a smile be threatening? Can it glint as though it would bite? Napoli sat back in the chair and his smile changed again and he said, “Chester, I’m a very busy man. I’m due at the Modern Museum in” — he looked at his watch — “forty minutes for a meeting of the board of trustees. Please just take it for granted we already know your involvement, we already know Frank’s involvement, a lot of wide-eyed innocent lying isn’t going to get you anywhere. There are a few things I want you to tell me, after which I promise you you will not find me an unreasonable man. You know Droble’s people are after you now, it shouldn’t take too much intelligence to realize that under my wing is the safest place for you right now.”