“He swum out,” Kaplan said.
“Huh.”
“How’s your wife?”
“We split,” I said.
“I wondered when she was going to wise up.”
“How’s business?”
“Terrible. I’m trying to work a deal with Nathan’s, but they don’t seem much interested.”
“You think hot dogs would go over here?”
“How the hell should I know? McDonald’s is moving in. Colonel Sanders and his goddamned fried chicken is already all over the place. Why not genuine Nathan’s hot dogs? I could probably make a pile, except that Nathan’s don’t seem interested.”
“I got an idea.”
“What?”
“Real old-fashioned English fish and chips.”
“Jesus, you’re funny, St. Ives. You’re really funny.”
Kaplan took my corned beef on rye from the sandwich man and placed it in front of me. “One salt beef, sir.”
He watched while I took a bite. Manny Kaplan had been handsome at forty, probably pretty at twenty, and now he was distinguished at fifty or so with thickly waving gray hair, a trimmed, gray mustache, a dark, brooding face with cynical black eyes, straight nose, and a box chin that was growing flabby.
“Well, how is it?” he said.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s the best damned salt beef you’ll find between here and Sixth Avenue.”
I nodded at his stomach. “You look as if you’ve been at the potato pancakes again.”
Kaplan looked down at his stomach that was half-covered with a long white apron that reached to his shoe tops. It was another New York touch. “What the hell,” he said, “I’ll be fifty-two next September.” He looked at me. “You’re as skinny as ever.”
“I eat my own cooking.”
Kaplan leaned his elbows on the bar and slipped on his most confidential look. “No kidding, Phil, what’re you doing in town?”
“This and that,” I said. “Last night a little gambling. Guess who I ran into?”
Kaplan ran through his mental list of our mutual acquaintances. I decided that it was a long one. “Probably in Mayfair, weren’t you?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Shields?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then you ran into Wes Cagle, didn’t you? Now there’s a right bastard.”
“How long has Wes been in town?”
Kaplan thought about it. “A couple of years at least,” he said. “How much did you lose?”
“I won a little.”
“But you didn’t come over to play poker, did you?” He picked up a bar rag and gave the old polished wood a couple of swipes that it didn’t need. “You know, I keep up, I do. I hear it around that you’re in a queer sort of business where you don’t work too hard and where nobody gets too mad at you, not even the coppers, and you do all right for yourself, you do.”
“That’s what you hear, huh?”
“That’s what I hear. So what I’m wondering is, is this. Is there any way you might want to cut me in?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Manny. No way.”
“So what the hell did you come down here for? Where you staying, the Hilton?”
“That’s right.”
“You would. You could’ve had ’em send you up a corned beef on rye.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “I supply ’em with a hundred pounds a week, although don’t tell anybody I said so. You’re not down here just for old times’ sake. Our old times weren’t that long or that good.”
“I don’t know about you, Manny, but I treasure those memories.”
“Sure you do,” he said, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one that he took from his mouth. His hands would never touch the fresh one again until he used it to light yet another one.
“You interested in making ten pounds?” I said.
He looked up at the ceiling and spread his hands wide. “God, to think I should be reduced to this.” Then he looked at me. “What do you want, a broad?”
“No, but I am looking for somebody. And it’s worth ten pounds if I can find him.”
He looked me over. “You’re not suffering. Twenty.”
“Fifteen.”
“Done. Who you looking for?”
“Tick-Tock Tamil.”
Kaplan’s face broke into a large, white smile. “Jesus, I haven’t even thought of Tick-Tock in years. I really mean in years.”
“Is he still around?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“That’s what I’m going to pay you the fifteen pounds for. To find out.”
Through his arms that rested on the bar, Kaplan looked down at the floor, as though he might find the missing Tick-Tock’s address written large at his feet. Then he looked up at me. “He was in the nick for a couple of years a while back, but I hear he got out. What do you want with Tick-Tock, a gold watch maybe that’s just been stolen from the Maharaja of Rangpur?”
“Is he still working that?”
“Was the last I heard.”
“Is he still into gold?”
If a man’s ears can really prick up, Kaplan’s did. “Be a good lad, Phil. If it’s gold you’re into, there’s got to be enough to go around.”
“I don’t know what I’m into,” I said. “That’s why I want to talk to Tick-Tock. But if there is any way I can cut you in, I will. But don’t bank on it. Anyway, there’s fifteen pounds in it just for Tick-Tock’s address.”
“How the hell should I know where he lives?”
I sighed. “Make a phone call or two and find out.”
Muttering something about snotty sonsofbitches who forget their old mates, Kaplan went through a door that must have led to his storeroom, whatever he used for an office, and the telephone. I looked at my watch, saw that it was five till three, and had the sandwich man bring me another beer before the law clamped down.
I was just finishing the beer when Kaplan came back. He had a piece of white paper in his hand. “Where’s my fifteen quid?” he said.
I took out my wallet. “With the sandwich, two beers, and tip,” he said, “that’ll come to an even twenty.”
I nodded at the stick-up and held out two ten-pound notes. He took them and handed me the slip of paper which read, “13 Start Street, W.2.”
“Where’s Start Street?” I said.
“It’s in Paddington. Where the hell else do you think Tick-Tock would live?”
Chapter Fifteen
I had been in no particular hurry to see Tick-Tock Tamil and I was back in my room at the Hilton, watching something about ants on BBC-2 and waiting for the phone to ring, when there was a knock on the door. It was a firm knock, even an authoritative one, and I wasn’t especially surprised when my caller turned out to be William Deskins of Bunco and Fraud, or whatever Scotland Yard calls it.
“Twice in two days,” I said. “Not quite enough to be called harassment.”
I opened the door wider and he came in, wearing the same dark brown suit. He had on a different shirt though, a white one, and his tie looked something like scrambled eggs with chopped chives sprinkled over them.
“Do you mind?” he said, looking at the television set.
“Not at all. I was learning more about ants than I really wanted to know.” I switched off the set.
“Over here,” he said and moved over to the dresser. I followed him. “You ever gamble, Mr. St. Ives?”
“Now and again.”
He took three playing cards from his pocket and dealt them face up on the dresser. The cards were the jack of hearts, the jack of spades, and the queen of hearts.
“Watch carefully,” he said. “Keep your eye on the queen.” He turned the cards face down and moved them about. His movements seemed to be neither tricky nor fast. “Now for five pounds, tell me which one’s the queen.”
“Let’s make it for fifty,” I said.