False Allegations

'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.

Michelle 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 creme 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.

'Whoever 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.