She sat there waiting for me to go on, but I’d said all I wanted to say, so finally she said, “Well? What difference does that make?”
I said, “The Droble gang didn’t do it, and the Napoli gang didn’t do it. So who did it?”
“I don’t know,” she said coldly. “Who else have you insulted recently?”
“Come on,” I said. “Be serious. Nobody’s ever shot at me before, and nobody’s going to be shooting at me now except in connection some way with the murder of Tommy McKay. It would be too much of a coincidence if the shootings weren’t related.”
“I don’t see what point you think you’re making,” she said.
I said, “The point I think I’m making is that the only person who would take a shot at me has to be the same person who killed Tommy. And Frank Tarbok didn’t do it. He didn’t shoot at me Wednesday night.”
Tarbok said, “What time?”
“Around one-thirty,” Abbie told him.
Tarbok looked at Mrs. McKay. “You know where I was at one-thirty Wednesday night.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “All we have is your word for it,” she told me, “that you were shot at one-thirty Wednesday night.”
“Well,” I said, “there is also this healing wound on the side of my head, which ought to count for something.”
She glanced at the side of my head, but her expression didn’t change. It remained locked up, cold, unreachable. “It doesn’t say one-thirty Wednesday night on it,” she said.
“I say one-thirty Wednesday night,” Abbie said. “I was with Chet when it happened.”
She faltered for a second at that, but then she said, irritably, “What difference does it make anyway? The shooting doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t have to be connected to all this at all. If you associate with underworld figures, you shouldn’t be surprised if sooner or later you get yourself shot at.”
“The only underworld figure I ever associated with up till now,” I told her, “was your husband.”
She stiffened even more, and got to her feet. “Nothing you say is going to change the facts,” she said. “And the fact is that Frank Tarbok killed my husband. He’s held me incommunicado for a week to keep me from telling the police what I know, and that’s proof enough for me.”
“What if he hadn’t held you for a week?” I said. “What would have been proof enough then?”
But she was done with listening. No, she’d never listened, she was done now with answering. She turned and walked toward the kitchen door, very haughty.
Tarbok said heavily, “Don’t try making any phone calls.”
She left the room without deigning to answer.
Abbie looked at the doorway, frowning. “Maybe I ought to go talk to her,” she said.
“Forget it,” I said. “She’s got a closed mind.”
“I didn’t mean to convince her of anything. Just to comfort her a little.” She got to her feet. “In fact, I will.” She also left the room.
I said to Frank Tarbok, “Care for some liverwurst?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “My stomach’s been acting up the last few days.”
“I wouldn’t wonder. Can you take coffee?”
“No, nothing for me.” He looked at me. “You got any idea who it is?”
“The killer?”
“Who else?”
“No, I don’t. I wish I did. Abbie thought it was Louise, but I never did think so and I still don’t.”
He shook his head. “Naw, she didn’t do it. She ran around on him, but she liked him okay. Just like I like my wife. Louise and me, we both knew it was just for kicks, neither of us was looking for no permanent change.”
“Right,” I said. “So it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t you—”
“You’re damn right.”
“Right. And it wasn’t Napoli or any of his people, because Tommy was working with them, and it wasn’t Droble or any of his people, because he didn’t know Tommy was double-crossing him. So who’s left? I don’t know.”
“We oughta find out,” Tarbok said. “It’d help us both if whoever he is he got found out.”
“Yes, it would,” I said. “You’d have Mrs. McKay off your back, and I’d have the killer off mine.”
“Maybe we oughta work together,” Tarbok said. “Maybe the two of us could maybe find out something.”
I stared at him. “You mean, play detective? You and me?”
“Why not? The cops ain’t playing detective, and somebody ought to.”
“The cops are still working on the case,” I said. “They were as of Friday, anyway.”
“Well, they’re off now,” Tarbok told me. “I get information, I can guarantee it.”
“Oh,” I said. “That makes for a problem, doesn’t it?”
“We’re both of us in big trouble if the guy ain’t found,” Tarbok said.
“You’re right.”
“So why don’t we join up and take a look for him?”
“Abbie’s looking, too,” I said. “You know, to avenge her brother.”
“She can come aboard,” he said. “Plenty of room. What do you say?”
I grinned at him. “You want to team up with a shlemozzle?”
He grinned back, and it was amazing how the change of expression lifted his face. He almost looked human now. “You’re a kind of a super shlemozzle,” he said. “You do dumb things, but you always got smart reasons.”
“Hmmm,” I said, because it was a description I couldn’t find myself disagreeing with, though I would have liked to. He stuck his hand out. “Is it a deal?”
I shrugged, shook my head, and took his hand. “It’s a deal,” I said. We shook hands, the unlikeliest team since the lion and the mouse, and once again the doorbell rang.
24
Walter Droble.
Now, Walter Droble was more like it. A stocky fiftyish man of medium height, with a heavy jowly face, graying hair brushed straight back, wearing a slightly rumpled brown suit, he looked like the owner of a chain of dry cleaners. No, he looked like what he was, the kind of mobster executive who shows up on televised Congressional hearings into organized crime.
He smoked a cigar, of course, and he viewed me with unconcealed suspicion and distaste. His attitude made it plain he was used to dealing at a higher level.
He said, “What’s this about McKay?”
The three of us were sitting at the kitchen table, Droble’s bodyguards having joined the ladies in the living room. I’d cleared away the coffee cup and the remains of the liverwurst sandwich — except for a few crumbs — and except for the refrigerator turning itself on and off every few minutes you could sort of squint and make believe you were in an actual conference room somewhere in Rockefeller Center.
So I told Walter Droble about Tommy McKay. Midway through, Frank Tarbok got to his feet and I faltered in my story, but he was only getting a white saucer for Droble to flick his cigar ash in, so I went on with it. Droble sat there and listened without once interrupting me, his eyes on my eyes at all times, his face impassive. He was a man who knew how to concentrate.
When I was done he looked away from me at last and frowned down instead at his cigar. He stayed that way for a hundred years or so, and then looked back at me again and said, “You know why I believe you?”
“No,” I said.
“Because I don’t see your percentage,” he said. “I don’t see where it makes you a nickel to convince me McKay had sold me out. That’s why I believe you.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Now,” he said, “do you know why I don’t believe you?”
I blinked. “Uh,” I said.
“Because,” he said, “it don’t make any sense. What did McKay do for Sol? What did Sol want with him?”