She stared at me so long I thought she was controlling outrage at the scandalous suggestion.
“Of course it’s stolen, Lovejoy! Jeech! You know how much they
She took my arm and walked me. Zole was yelling obscenities, exhorting the gunmen to even greater mayhem. “Tell him you like it, Lovejoy,” she whispered. “He’ll be thrilled.”
I cleared my throat, put my soap and towel away. “Zole. That set’s the very best I ever saw. It’s splendid. Thank you.”
“Ain’t nuthin’, Rube,” he said, engrossed.
That was it. Zole, aged seven, was also a gang leader. I said so-long, started downstairs with Magda along.
“Look, love,” I said. “This is a bit awkward to say. But if the police catch me with a stolen television I’ll be in real trouble. Can you tell Zole no more presents, please?”
She laughed. We came into the hallway. The desk man was watching a quiz show, impatiently muttering answers to himself.
“Lovejoy. Watch out for yourself, okay? There’s people watching you. I just want you should know.”
“Me? You sure, Magda?”
She made to move off. I caught her. “Look, love. What about Zole? Who’s looking after him while you’re, er, working?”
All she did was laugh at me. “Murder, man,” she said.
I must have recoiled because she stopped scanning cruising cars and looked at me directly. She didn’t often do that.
“Hey.” Yanks are brilliant at inflexion. She squeezed more compassion into that one syllable than Moliere averaged in a Paris rep. “I mean you’re weird, okay?”
“Sorry, Magda. Just spooked, is all.” It was a phrase picked up from a dozing bar bum. “I just wish I could help. You have a difficult time, the pair of you.”
She smiled. “Most guys are shovers or pullers, Lovejoy. You’re weird because you’re neither. You off to see that skinny bitch?”
I said nothing.
“She’ll not fly you far, hon. Fly Magda Airlines some time.”
If it hadn’t been for the prickly feeling of unease I’d have talked longer. Anyhow, a crumpled motor crawled by and she trotted off to answer the whistled summons. I sighed and walked off. People do what they’re good at, I always think.
As I started off, I tried working out this Land of Opportunity’s determinants. Like, how come Kelly Palumba was rich beyond the dreams of whatnot, while same-age Magda was a street prostitute? It couldn’t simply be silver- spoon-at-birth, could it? Kelly had offered me more money for a pinch of drugs than Magda saw in a month. Maybe our olden-day system was simply continued here in the USA? Except in America the bosses didn’t wear emblazoned coats of arms.
Then I heard sirens, denoting carnage somewhere close. It wasn’t far, maybe three hundred yards, to where the cars congregated around the man lying near the pavement.
Taxi drivers were yelling and horns blared accompaniment. I didn’t bother listening to the explanations and shouts of whose fault it all was, how some car had suddenly accelerated and the man suddenly fell off the kerb… I went on past the crowd, sick to my soul. No question of what had happened to Tony, not now I’d seen Bill lying there. The taxi drivers were wrong. It was my fault. I’d assumed the police were invulnerable, that nobody could possibly harm a special agent, or whatever Bill was. Had been. I’d rung the Aquilina number to ingratiate myself. I knew that. Well, I’d made myself secure now. Bill had paid up, for me.
Against all habit I went into a late-night bar up from Times Square. I had some Californian wine, pale and faintly opalescent. I vowed no revenge. How could I? I was just badly shaken, even leaping like a scalded cat when the bar door banged in the night wind. I was frightened. I didn’t know what I was into. Stupidly, I’d assumed I was free of obligations to Nicko’s crowd once Gina had sent me back to pasture in Manhattan.
In Apple Zee’s nutritious joint I pulled out the letters. I memorized Bill’s phone number, but kept the card to give to Nicko. It wouldn’t matter to Bill, not now. All betrayal is a one-off, complete and entire of itself. The card would add nothing, but be proof of my good faith. The first letter was a note from Sophie Brandau’s secretary, on scented notepaper that must have cost a bomb. It said to call on Mrs. Brandau at my earliest convenience, Park Avenue. The second was a scrawled note from a Mrs. van Cordlant’s secretary’s assistant, saying to call, on Madison Avenue.
Not much. So? The only way was to feel my way out of New York, along any thread. Rose was my least likely thread. The others? Well, Sophie might reveal most. Except this Mrs. van Cordlant coming out of the blue… When in doubt, grab for antiques. Therefore Sophie, Park Avenue.
I was about to go when Zole slipped in beside me.
“Two more burgers, ma-main,” Zole sang. He had his star-spangled yo-yo.
“Not for me, ta. And put that yo-yo away.”
“You ain’t gettin’, Rube.”
I watched him in the bar mirror, grabbing the food. A lad after my own heart. “Eat well, Zole.”
“Your pal was dead before he got hit,” Zole said conversationally. ”He got
“I guessed.” Bill was no accident-prone stumbler. He was a capable bloke.
