“I’ll give it a shot,” Ed answered. Shit, a gangster like Joey Beans hooked up with Landis? No way.
“We’d better give Neal a call,” Graham said. “He’s not going to be happy.”
“He’s never happy.” Ed thought he’d try to cheer Graham up and added, “Hey, speaking of happiness, guess who went to that big tote board in the sky a few days ago?”
“Who?”
“Sammy Black.”
“No shit.”
“No shit,” Ed said. “Sitting in a bar at closing time. Guy walks in while the bartender’s taking a piss, pops Sammy and his bodyguard in the head, and walks out.”
“They must be having parties all over Midtown South.”
“They are. The homicide guys have a nickname for the shooter,” Ed said. “Preparation H.”
“Because he removed that itching burning hemorrhoid?” Graham said. Not that funny a topic, seeing as how he’d been sitting on this chair for three days.
“Listen, I’ll get on this Joey Beans stuff,” Ed said. “You take it easy with those tacos, okay?”
Yeah, okay, Graham thought as he hung up. He was worried. He had promised Neal there was no mob stuff, and now he thought he had seen Joey Beans. And although Ed Levine was very good at chasing paper, mob guys were pretty cute these days. It could be weeks before Ed could unravel the kind of twisted paper trail the mob was capable of leaving. And he wasn’t sure that they had days, never mind weeks. There had to be a quicker way.
Graham put his binoculars away.
Sammy Black in a box, huh? Old Walt must be standing for a round somewhere.
7
Martini please,” Walt Withers said.
Withers didn’t notice that the bartender scowled at him and didn’t move an inch to fix his drink. Withers was preoccupied trying to figure out where he’d been the past few days. He had woken up hard in a Reno hotel room and gone for a drink or two and then woken up harder in a different Reno hotel room.
Thank God Gloria had left the note in his jacket pocket, he thought. In other days, Gloria would have been what is known as a good broad, but those were different times.
So Withers had solved the mystery of what he was doing in Nevada, and he wouldn’t be the first private investigator in history to blow a few days on a bender. What bothered him was the money.
He was $1,327 short.
He had done the figures in his head thirty times. Five thousand had gone to Gloria for the tip, and he didn’t think Scarpelli could object to that. Twenty-three thousand had gone to Sammy, and certainly Scarpelli could and would object to that. Withers was just hoping that Scarpelli would be so pleased with his smutty pictures of Polly that he’d forget about it. Or maybe he could just short Polly on the up-front money. In any case, he’d much rather owe money to Ron Scarpelli or even Polly Paget than to Sammy Black. Ron Scarpelli or Polly Paget would not break his wrists.
But what had happened to the other $1,327? He had used plastic to pay for the airline ticket and the hotels.
Oh my God, Withers thought. Could I really have drunk $1,327?
The bartender was staring at him.
“Yes?” Withers asked.
“I don’t serve martinis,” the bartender growled. “I don’t serve martinis, or white wine, or anything with fruit in it.”
Withers swore he heard a dog growl from behind the bar.
The bartender continued, “I serve beer, whiskey, and gin. What do you want?”
Feeling somewhat guilty at the possibility of having consumed in excess of a thousand dollars in alcohol, Withers answered, “Do you have coffee?”
Growling dog again. Next it will be a trumpeting pink elephant.
“Made a pot just this morning,” Brogan mumbled. He stepped over to the coffeemaker, found a mug that had been washed at least once during the Reagan administration, wiped it on his shirttail, and poured it full of the greasy coffee. “Milk or sugar?”
“How old is the milk?” Withers asked.
“It has Amelia Earhart’s picture on the carton.”
“Black, thank you.”
“Fifty cents,” Brogan said.
Withers laid a five on the bar and told him to keep the change. It was time to get to work, and that meant getting in good with the locals.
“Do you have a phone I could use?” Withers asked.
“Phone booth across the street, outside the gas station,” Brogan said. He took four dollars and fifty cents in quarters out of the cash register and set the change on the bar.
Withers drank his coffee under the watchful eye of the bartender and then went across the street. Except for modern additions like the gas station and the power lines, the street looked like the set of a Western. He had never been in this small a burg in his life. He didn’t know they still existed.
That gave him an idea.
Luckily, the phone booth had an intact phone book, something you’d never see in New York. In a town this dinky, Withers thought, it shouldn’t be too tedious or time-consuming a process to take the phone number Gloria gave me and check it against the numbers listed in the book, which will then produce an address. Yes, you have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to put one over on Walter Withers, P.I., he thought.
“She can’t be pregnant,” Neal said.
“Why not?” Karen asked.
“Because she can’t be. It makes things too complicated.”
“Don’t whine.”
“I’m not whining,” Neal whined.
“I dunno,” Polly said. “My friend is usually very prompt.”
“Well, maybe your friend got a flat tire or something,” Neal said irritably.
Karen looked at Neal and shrugged.
“And this is going to be the water slide,” Jack Landis was saying on the television. “The biggest in the world.”
“I wouldn’t ride down that ting,” Polly said as she looked at the videotape of the water slide at Candyland.
“Not in your delicate condition, anyway,” said Neal.
“Right, Jack,” said Candy. “And we’re having a ‘Name the Water Slide’ contest. You can win an all-expenses- paid week during the grand opening of Candyland by picking the name for the water slide. Who are the judges going to be, Jack?”
“Why, you and me, Candy,” Jack answered.
“Can we turn this off?” Neal asked. He had a headache that had started in his toes.
“Now, what are we looking at here, Jack?” Candy asked.
“These are the time-share condos, Candy,” Jack said. “And believe it or not, we still have a few to sell, but you have to act now. Just dial one-eight hundred-CAN-DICE for a color brochure. You know, Candy, folks can buy seasonal, month-long, week-long, or even a weekend package. We have something for every size wallet, fat or thin.”
“Yes,” Candy picked it up, “and for those of you who aren’t interested in a time-share but would still like to contribute to this wonderful family fun center, we have special discount Honored Guest coupons for when you come to visit Candyland.”
“How about The Break Your Stupid Neck and Drown Ride?” Polly suggested.
