Philly nodded and began writing in his black, pocket-sized, vinyl-covered notebook, which he had plucked from a leather over-the-shoulder briefcase. He wrote down the brand of beer Weiss was drinking and the size of his television and doodled the shape of the scar that intersected with his right eyebrow.
“He was all right. For a jock,” Weiss said. He retrieved his beer and took a chair on an adjacent side of the table. “He didn’t hold it over everybody like some of them.”
“How well did you know him?”
“What are you after?”
“Like I said: a story about Jimmy Spears.”
“There are a hundred people in this town who knew Jimmy better than I did. Why don’t you talk to them?”
Again, no good answer. “Maybe I already did.”
“If you had, then you wouldn’t need me, would you?”
Canella shut his notebook. “I’m sorry. Someone told me you knew him. I’ve made a mistake.” He was trying to act nonchalant, and in doing so, left the notebook unprotected on the table. As soon as Philly said the word “mistake” he understood that he really had made one.
Weiss reached over and snatched it, turning in his chair to protect it.
“Hey!” Philly stood up and tried to reach over Ricky’s shoulder, but the greenskeeper spun away. He tore quickly through the pages and Canella tried to imagine what sense he might make from his notes.
They faced each other, Philly in the kitchen and Ricky in the living room but hardly more than a body’s length apart, and Canella watched helplessly as Ricky squinted his way through scrawled transcriptions of conversations at the diner and the elementary school and notes from other cases that would make no sense at all to him. The one thing Philly knew he wouldn’t find was a single word about Jimmy Spears, NFL football, or the Miami Dolphins.
He stopped on one page and put his finger on the paper, either to mark his place or to make a point. “You’re with the judge, aren’t ya?”
Judge? Philly thought. Maybe this wouldn’t be a waste of time after all. “Who’s that?” he said.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Ricky said in a growling drawl. Canella punctuated his conversation with that word all the time, but Weiss was able to startle him with it now.
“I’m not fucking with you,” Philly said. “Give me the notebook.”
Ricky held it behind his back. “I know what the judge is up to.” There was a nervous edge to his voice, but he was also laughing with the relief of an Italian grandmother leaving confession.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Canella said.
“ Now you’re fucking with me.” Ricky Weiss glanced at the detective and then turned back to the notebook, which he held very close to his face. “You and Forak are in this together. What are you supposed to do? Take care of me? Blackmail me? Shut me up?”
“I don’t know anybody named Forak,” Philly said truthfully. “I don’t know any judge. But maybe we can help each other.”
“Bullshit.”
Canella was frustrated and embarrassed enough to think about leaving. He stood between Weiss and the door. Even at his age, it would be fairly easy to make a run for it. He hated to lose that notebook, though. “A man came to you a few days ago,” he said quickly. “A man and a woman. You met at the diner.”
Ricky smiled with half his face. “I thought you said you didn’t know the judge.”
“He’s not a judge,” Philly said. “He’s a doctor.”
“What’s going on?”
Canella, who was a professional liar, hesitated before telling the truth. “That’s what I came here to find out.”
Weiss took two aggressive steps forward and his right arm snapped like a whip over the table, snatching Canella’s bag and pulling it toward him. Philly, now resigned to honesty in dealing with the enraged greenskeeper, made no attempt to stop him, a gesture he hoped would win the man’s confidence.
But he had forgotten, somehow, about his gun.
“What the fuck?” Ricky took the. 38 out and held it in front of him, pointing the barrel toward the ceiling. Philly could tell by the assured grip of Weiss’s long, thin hands that he’d handled a firearm before. “What the hell is a reporter doing with one of these?”
Philly cursed aloud. He was so stupid. When he had been a cop, he never would have made that mistake.
The door opened behind him. “Ricky!” A woman shrieked.
“Shut the door, Peg!” Weiss yelled.
She did, quickly, closing both the screen and the wooden door behind it. A plastic bag from the drugstore swung from her wrist and a can of shaving cream inside it banged against the door frame. “Ricky, what’s happening?”
“Shut up, Peggy! I’m thinking!” He kept the gun pointed up and away as he brought his hands to his head.
“Who is he?” Peg asked. She squeezed hysterical tears from her eyes. “Where did that gun come from?”
Ricky twitched at the first question. He pulled Canella’s wallet out and pried it open with the end of the. 38.
“My name is Phil Canella,” he told them. “I’m a private investigator from Chicago.”
Weiss nodded and showed his driver’s license to Peg, who was at his side now. “Okay. Why did Judge – Doctor, whatever – why did Forak hire you?”
“His name isn’t Forak. His name is Dr. Davis Moore. And he didn’t hire me. His wife did.”
“To do what?”
“To find out if he was having an affair.” Now that Mrs. Weiss was here, Philly was hopeful they could talk their way to a resolution. He wondered if he could ask for a glass of water. His throat was burning.
“An affair?” Peg muttered. “Ricky! Put that gun down!”
He ignored her. “That lady. She wasn’t his wife?”
“No.”
“Put the gun down, Ricky!”
“Who was she?”
“A colleague. Possibly his mistress. I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to find out.”
“Do you think she’s in on it?” Ricky asked. “The mistress?”
“Put the gun down, baby!”
“In on what?” Weapon pointed at his face or not, Canella was collecting information on his case.
“He’s a lunatic,” Ricky said. “But you know all about that, I bet.” Psychologists, Philly thought, would accuse a man like Ricky Weiss, waving a gun around on a Thursday afternoon and calling another person a lunatic, of projecting.
“What are you talking about?”
“Jimmy Spears,” Ricky said. “Forak’s going to kill him.”
“What?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Ricky! Give me the gun!”
“I’m not lying,” Philly said. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your guy. Forak. He wants to kill Jimmy.”
Canella almost laughed. “Kill Jimmy Spears? That’s crazy.”
“He told me himself.” This was a lie, but a lie to which Ricky thought he was entitled, since he was holding the gun.
“Look, I’ve never met Davis Moore, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to kill some second-string football player-”
“Put down the gun, Ricky!”
“ – and I don’t think you mean to hurt anyone, either.”
“You’re a liar,” Ricky said. “He sent you to do me so he could go ahead and kill Jimmy and there wouldn’t be anyone left to know about it and go to the papers or the cops.”
