False Allegations (5 page)

“Uh…I mean, you wanna see somebody?”

“That’s right, handsome. Can you just ring twenty–one G for me?”

“Sure! I mean, who should I say— ?”

“My name’s Michelle, baby. What’s yours?”

“Manny.”

“Manny? I know
that’s
not it. That’s a nickname, isn’t it? What’s your real name?”

“Emanuel. It’s a family name, like. But I don’t— “

“Oh you
should
,” Michelle assured him. “It’s a very strong name. Suits you much better than ‘Manny,’ don’t you think?”

“Well…Yeah, I guess I do. But the tenants here, they like— “

“Emanuel is a
man’s
name,” Michelle cooed at him. “Maybe you should just save it for grown–ups.”

“I…”

“Can you push that button for me, honey? Tell him I’m on my way up?”

“Sure!”

Michelle twirled slowly, then started for the elevator. Old Emanuel’s jaw dropped— up to then, he thought he’d been staring at the best part.

We got on the elevator together. But if a cop came around later, Emanuel would swear that it was only Michelle. And he’d be telling the truth.

M
ichelle disdained the discrete little black button set into the door jamb of 21G, rapping lightly with her knuckles instead. The guy who opened the door was in his late forties, taller than me, with a pale, jowly face and a droopy mustache. His too–black hair was done up in an elaborate comb–over. His eyes had that intense look you see in guys who should be wearing glasses.

“Michelle! I wasn’t— “

“Ah, Harry, it isn’t like that,” Michelle said softly. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Yeah. I mean, sure. Why don’t you…”

Michelle slipped past, gently bumping him with a rounded hip, moving him just enough for me to step in. He opened his mouth to say something. I showed him the pistol, asked, “You here by yourself, Harry?”

His face froze. Michelle closed the door behind her, twisting the dead bolt home with a harsh snap.

“What is this?” he asked, face going a shade paler.

“Why don’t we all sit down?” I suggested, pointing the pistol at a white leather living room set: sofa, love seat, easy chair with ottoman.

Harry backed toward the easy chair, his eyes everyplace but the pistol. I nodded. He dropped into the chair. I took the love seat. Michelle perched on the arm of the sofa, crossing her spectacular legs. “You want a drink?” she asked Harry.

“Yeah. I’ll— “

“Let me do it, honey” she interrupted, getting to her feet and moving off. I didn’t watch her go. Neither did Harry.

She was back in a couple of minutes, carrying a little round tray. “Scotch rocks,” she announced to Harry, bending forward like a stewardess. “Your usual, right?”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, reaching to take the heavy tumbler.

“Vodka and tonic,” Michelle said to me. I took the glass, tipped it to my lips. My kind of drink— vodka and tonic, hold the vodka.

Michelle had mixed herself a Green Hornet— gin and crème de menthe— in a highball glass. She held it in her hands, contented herself with licking the moisture off the outside of the rim. Harry watched, forgetting the pistol.

“How well do you know this Bondi girl?” I asked him, breaking the spell.

“I don’t. I mean, I just met— “

“And she told you she had a problem? Needed somebody to do something for her?”

“Yeah.”

“And you thought, maybe Michelle might know somebody who could get the job done…whatever it was, right?”

“Right.”

I reached inside my jacket, took out a tube silencer, held the semi–auto in one hand while I screwed the silencer in with the other.

“Hey!” Harry yelped. “I didn’t— “

“Yeah you did,” I assured him. “You’re lying. I’m not mad at you, Harry, but business is business. I got no time to shove bamboo slivers under your fingernails. No taste for it, either. Whoever’s idea it was to come to Michelle, it wasn’t yours. You can tell me, and it’s over. You tell me and I’m out of here. You don’t, this thing goes
pop
. And then I go and talk to the broad. Your choice.”

“That’s enough!” he said.”

“Whatever you say.”

“No! I don’t mean it that way. I’m gonna tell you. He
said
I could tell you…just to see what you’d do first, that’s all.”

“And…?”

“And you fucking
did
it, okay? You don’t need the piece.” He took a deep hit from his Scotch rocks, leaned back. “I’m a gambler,” he said. “You’d think I’d know better, what with what I do for a living and all, right? I mean, I know numbers. If there’s one thing I know, it’s numbers. But you keep feeding the kitty, she gets used to a steady diet. You stop feeding her, she growls— you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. You’re a hard–core gambler, and— “

“Hard–core? Man, I’m a
degenerate
gambler, a sucker’s sucker. I win, I tell myself I’m playing with the track’s money. You think I don’t
know
that’s bullshit? I mean, you win the money, it’s
your
money. But it ain’t your money unless you go home with it. And me, I never go home with it. I got in deep. And then I went deeper.”

“Okay, what then? The sharks?”

“Of
course
the sharks?” he sneered. Not at me, at himself. “What else? And with the vig, I was getting buried alive. So I did some other stuff…helped a couple of clients work bust–out, ran a little laundry, did some structuring— you know what that is?”

“Yeah.” Structuring: breaking big cash transactions into bite–size chunks of less than ten grand to slip past the IRS currency reporting laws. Michelle had him pegged— wannabes always love the language.

“I was chasing,” Harry said. “You know what that means— no way I was gonna get out of it. I was going on the arm from one shy to pay another. Then I got this foolproof scheme,” he laughed acidly. “A fucking horse, what else? An undefeated monster, going into the Meadowlands Pace. Million–dollar purse— no way anyone’s gonna tank that one. So I decide, I’m gonna bridge–jump, all right? I empty the tax escrow account. All my clients’ money on this horse. Not to win; to show. It’ll pay two twenty minimum on a deuce, maybe even two forty, two fifty. Ten, twenty, even twenty–five percent return in less than two minutes— how could you beat that? I figure I’m golden.”

He took another deep drink. “That’s why they call it bridge–jumping, I guess. The fucking nag breaks stride. They pull him to the outside, get him under control. And then he
flies
, but he doesn’t make it. Misses third by a goddamned neck. And then it’s
my
neck. I’m done.

“I’m afraid to go out. Just sit here, waiting for them to come. But I get a phone call instead. From the guy who holds my markers. He tells me, maybe I can square it. I ask him, who does he want me to kill? He just tells me, just go to this place, see this guy. Me, I figure I’m dead anyway, so I go.

“And I meet this guy. He tells me, all I gotta do is call Michelle, tell her that there’s a good score, give her this Bondi’s number.

“‘That’s all?’” I ask him. He says, one more thing. A man’s gonna come around, sooner or later. He’s gonna ask some questions. I figure you’re that guy. Anyway, he says, this guys comes around asking questions, you just give him this…”

He reached into his shirt pocket, came out with what looked like a business card. I walked over to him, still holding the pistol, took the card from his hand. It was slightly oversized, with deep–chiseled copperplate engraving on blue–gray vellum. Just the word

KITE

and a phone number. No area code.

“That’s all I know,” Harry said. “And it’s the truth. Look, I just did what I had to do. You didn’t get hurt, right? No hard feelings?”

I looked over at Michelle. She nodded agreement.

I sat there without moving until Harry’s eyes finally came around to me. I pointed the pistol at the bridge of his nose. “You don’t get a next time,” I told him, holding the pose for a silent count of three before I slipped the pistol back into my jacket.

“W
hoever he is, he went to a lot of trouble. Spent a lot of cash too,” I said. Sitting in my booth at Mama’s with my family, looking for a battle plan.

“Harry was telling the truth,” Michelle said. “I know him a long time. He doesn’t have what it takes to look at a gun and lie. Especially when a man who looks like you is holding it.”

“That Bondi broad is strictly gash–for–cash,” the Prof put in. “And there’s the apartment, that whole setup. Plus he bought up all that fool’s markers. And it wasn’t to middle you either— he
knew
you was gonna go see this Harry boy.”

“And even before that,” I said, “he knew where I was going to be, right? Once I got inside that Bondi’s apartment, there was a hundred ways for her to get a signal out. I had no cover— nothing close. He wanted to take me out, nothing to it.”

Max nodded, reading my lips and following my hand signals as good as listening. He wouldn’t have said anything if he could. Figuring things out wasn’t his thing— he needed a target to do his work.

“We got three pieces,” I went on. “We got Harry, we got Bondi, and we got this guy’s card.”

“Harry’s dry,” Michelle said. “He’s Tap City. You could make him talk some more, but he’s got nothing more to say. I’m sure of it.”

“Nobody die on telephone,” Mama said. Meaning why not just call this Kite, whoever he is, see what he wants?

“Bondi’s probably in the wind already,” I said. “Harry must’ve called the man, told him he gave me the word.”

“Whatever the man wants, it ain’t about no chump–change score. Before you book, let’s all take a look,” the Prof answered, putting it on hold.

F
our days later, the cellular phone in my jacket purred. I flipped it open, said “What?” and waited.

“It’s all like it was,” the Prof’s voice came. “The spot’s still hot…and the geek’s still on the peek.” The connection went dead.

Bondi was still living in that high–rise with the blue leather performance–platform. And the watcher was still across the street, a few floors up, ready to look down on what he paid for.

So far, we’d already been through her apartment. Clarence kept watch until she went out, stayed with her until she got a good distance away, and used the cell to signal the team. Michelle drew the doorman outside to look at her pretty little blue BMW coupe— and her prettier little white dress. Maybe the nice man knew who owned the fat Mercedes that had put all those scrape–marks on the BMW’s front fender when he pulled out without looking? The nice man didn’t know, but he spent a few minutes looking around anyway. More than enough for the Mole to slip into the basement wearing his NYNEX uniform. And for the Prof to get past the apartment locks and go to work, while Max stood by the door just in case.

Me, I made a couple of phone calls. One to a reporter named Hauser, the other to a cop named Morales.

Morales owed me one and he came through. He found Bondi’s girlfriend. Sybil. And she lived in the Village, just like Bondi told me. If this was a scam, there was a ton of truth in it. The mark of a pro.

J
ust past midnight the next Tuesday, we got together at Mama’s. The joint wasn’t closed, but Mama rarely got late customers— she worked at keeping the place looking about as inviting as a TB ward.

“Ante up,” I told the crew.

“The Mole says there’s three separate phone lines,” Michelle said, “I gave you the numbers before. Probably one for her, one for the modem, and the one the watcher uses.”

“Good guess,” I answered her. “Morales pulled the records. One of the numbers hasn’t made a single outgoing call in the past three months. On the other line, she calls this girlfriend of hers, Sybil, every day. Sometimes a few times.”

“This Sybil a ho too?” the Prof asked.

“Dancer,” I said. “Works the Playpen in Long Island City. Same place Bondi used to work, Morales said.”

“They got sheets?” the Prof wanted to know.

“No. Not a single fall between them. Only reason Morales had her name, some freak jumped her in the parking lot a couple of years ago, tried to carve her a new face.”

“Trick thought he got picked, right?”

“Right,” I said. Happens all the time in those joints. Lap–dancers, they’re not as honest as whores. They make their money off repeaters, let the suckers think they got something going between them besides the cash. A
relationship
, right? Sooner or later, some psycho goes for it, decides he’s not a customer, he’s the boyfriend. And they hold the wedding in a body bag.

“She get hurt bad?” Clarence asked.