Читать книгу Sucker Punch - Marc Strange - Страница 12

“Joe, I need you,” Margo says when I get down. “There’s a line of people halfway around the block. I think they’re all here for the money. You’re going to have to tell them there isn’t any.”

The uniformed cops at the entrance have been keeping the great unauthorized at bay, but there’s grumbling on both sides of the yellow tape when I get outside.

“We’ll get the horses down here if it gets any worse,” one uniform says. “Some of these guys are starting to get rowdy.”

There are about fifty people, mostly men, a lot of them street people, but I can see a few suits and some kids who should be getting ready for school. The sky is still dark. The streets are wet, but it’s not raining now, just damp and unfriendly on the sidewalk.

“Hundred-dollar bills in there.”

“Shot the fucker.”

“I just heard about it.”

“Everybody settle down,” the uniform in charge says. “There’s no hundred-dollar bills and there’s no free money. You just all head on home or wherever you’re going. There’s nothing to see, nobody’s getting inside. I’m serious. Let’s start breaking it up, people.”

“Not doing nothing, just standing on the sidewalk,” someone mutters. “Law against that now?”

Two camera trucks arrive. Channel 20 and Channel 13, competing local news specialists. A few flashes go off. The city papers are represented. I hear my name called and spot a grey fedora with a red feather in the band. A guy named Larry Gormé from the Emblem is waving his hat. He’s stuck on the edge of the mob. He really wants to talk to me. I give him a shrug and a complicated gesture that I hope conveys regret, a vague promise of personal attention at some unspecified later date, and an urgent need to be elsewhere. More uniforms arrive, and it looks as if things won’t get out of hand. It’s too damp and chilly for a riot. There’s no catalyst, the goose is dead, nothing left but gawking and grumbling. And picture-taking. Won’t be the most flattering images taken of the stately Lord Douglas facade.

Inside the lobby we have guest problems. At least ten people are checking out. The quality of the grumbling is more refined in here. It has a self-righteous tone and an undercurrent of recrimination. Someone in the party is a lawyer.

Margo is handling things pretty well, considering. She has Melanie locating other suites in the hotel, other hotels in the area. Raymond D’Aquino is still on duty, hearing complaints, adjusting bills. Lorraine, the hotel operator, is handling calls with her usual aplomb.

In Lloyd Gruber’s office, Margo takes a moment to look me up and down. “Can you shower? Can you put on a suit?”

“Right away. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“The police won’t let people check out until they’ve been questioned. Not just the people on fifteen, but anybody who’s checking out. And the cleaning staff want to get home, but they’re taking names, asking questions.”

“They have to.”

“Can you just put on a suit and take over some of that.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Joe?” She looks worried. “Did we do it? Somebody from the hotel? Please God say it wasn’t somebody on staff.”

“I’ll find out, Margo.”

“First put on a suit.” Then she slaps her forehead. “What am I thinking about? Go see a doctor. Immediately. You could have a concussion. You could suddenly fall over.”

I take Margo’s advice about the shower and the suit and I don’t fall over during either procedure. I’m even managing to tie a decent knot in my best tie when Dan comes in looking shaky, not well rested at all. He glances around as if expecting to see a bunch of cops.

“They drag you out of bed?” I ask.

“Seven-thirty. Pounding on the door.” He looks around. “Just you?”

“Gritch is in the hospital. He’s going to be okay. You already talk to Weed?”

“Weed, his partner, big-haired pain in the ass. He thinks I did it.”

“That’s just cops. They think everybody did it until they’re sure who did do it.”

“Yeah, well, they’re pretty sure I did it. Told me to sit tight in here. They’d get back to me. They like me for it.”

“Because of the gambling debts?”

He stares at me, sighs deeply, scratches himself, then studies the corner where the walls and ceiling meet in shadow. “Well, yeah, sure, because of the gambling debts, like I owe Randall Poy about eighteen thousand plus the interest, which compounds, like, hourly, and he’s already threatening my knees, and I could definitely use a suitcase full of cash right now.”

“What colour suitcase?”

“What?”

“What colour was the suitcase with the money in it?”

“How should I know?”

“So you told Weed you didn’t take it?”

“Yeah, I told him, but I don’t think he believed me, and his big lard-ass partner with the Elvis hairdo sure as shit doesn’t believe me, and I can’t say I blame them, except when they get around to checking things out they’ll come up dry because I still owe Randall Poy eighteen K and counting and he’s going to break a kneecap for me on Wednesday if I don’t make a substantial payment, which I’d be inclined to do if I had some cash to avoid getting a kneecap busted, which doesn’t sound like a lotta laughs.”

He looks disgusted and scared — with himself and of Randall Poy, I’m guessing.

“Want me to talk to Randall?” I ask him.

“What could you do, boss? Randall’s just a businessman doing business. That’s how he does business. I know the rules. Shit, I should. I’ve been trying to bend them all my life.”

“I could talk to him about a schedule of payments.”

“Won’t work, boss. You know how it is. The only way out is forward. I can’t pay him back in installments. I couldn’t even keep up with the vig that way. I need a score. A trifecta, aces over kings and everybody calls, a small miracle.”

“How much is the vig for Wednesday?”

“I can keep my knee for five K.”

“I can maybe work something out for Wednesday.”

He looks at me, and I can see he’s grateful but still disgusted with himself, and still scared. “You think? Buy me a week. Something might turn up.”

I pull my chair up closer to my side of the desk and lean across the blotter pad to get as close to him as I can. “Okay, we’ll work it out somehow, but you’re going to have to tell me some stuff you don’t want to tell me and probably didn’t tell Weed and his partner.”

“Like what stuff?”

“Like about the other apartment.”

“What other apartment?”

“The one on East Sixth.”

“My mother’s place? I pay half the rent.”

“Dan, your mother has been phoning your wife, complaining about the rent situation and asking her if she has a new refrigerator and if she has her own car. Your mother and your wife have been getting real chummy on the phone, talking about Bangkok and how to get citizenship papers and which one of them should dump you first.”

Dan looks back up at his favourite corner in the room and shakes his head. “Aw, shit, she got so demanding.”

“The thing is, Dan, when Weed finds out about the apartment on East Sixth, and he’s going to, because he’s a good cop, and if he doesn’t, then I’ll be telling him because I have to, then he’s going to go over there and meet the woman. What’s her name?”

“Prana.”

“He’s going to meet Prana and find out she isn’t your mother, that she isn’t a legal resident, and that’s she been nagging you for a car and a new refrigerator. All of that’s going to give them a whole new set of ideas of where the money is, or where it went.”

“They won’t find it there, either, and they won’t find a new refrigerator or a new car, and if they throw her out of the country, they’ll probably be doing me a big favour because she’s not the same woman I brought over.”

He pushes back his chair, stretches his legs, and puts his hands behind his neck. “They change so fast. Couldn’t do enough for me. Cooked me special meals, did stuff. You don’t need to know that angle, but I’m telling you, that woman could do stuff, not anymore but back then. Now all she does is complain because I’m not as rich as she thought I was.”

“Probably not a smart move trying to keep two households going on what you make.”

“Two years ago I was rolling in it. I was ahead fifty thousand. People owed me money. That’s when I took my trip to the Orient to check out the action. I told Doris. What’d she care? I gave her a pocketful of dough. I’m not cheap, Joe. When I have it, I spend it.”

He gets up and goes to the window that looks out on the back street and across at Connor’s Diner and the Scientology Reading Room. “What goes up must yada yada, as they say. She’s like I brought bad luck back with me from Thailand. Two months after I get Prana set up on East Sixth, I’m scrambling to make my nut and getting deeper and deeper into Randall Poy.” He turns to look at me. “If I had the guts, Joe, I would have hit the Buznardo kid for some cash, but I know my luck too well. I know when I’m on a roll and when I can’t catch a card to save my ass. I’d never get away with it. You know it and I know it. I’m not smart enough or cool enough. Not even desperate enough, come right down to it. I’ve been here before. I’ll dodge this bus. I always do.” He sits back down and rubs his face. “That’s a pisser about Prana and Doris being in touch with each other. She’s a cool one that Doris, I tell you.”

“She loves you, Dan.”

“Weird, eh?”