“Thank you,” the bellman Billings was saying to Fearless, and I realized that my friend had given our warden a tip.
“Mr. —?” Manly hesitated.
“Minton,” I said. “And this is Mr. Jones. May we come in?”
“What is this about?”
“It’s about a Jewish fortune stolen by Nazis and one turncoat Jew named —”
“Come in,” the man who answered to the name John Manly said. He backed up, ushering us into the sitting room of a large suite. A yellow couch and four blue chairs were arranged around a table with all kinds of official-looking papers on it. The room was heavy with strange-smelling tobacco smoke. It wasn’t an American blend.
From a side door two more men entered. One was short with heavily muscled arms. He wore a gray T-shirt and ocher pants with no shoes. He had a big belly and a hawkish nose. He wasn’t happy to see us, but from the look of that scowl, I doubted if much made him happy. The third man, and the youngest of the three, was taller and sleeker than Fearless. His skin was pale, and he wore a small black cap on the back of his head.
“This is Ari,” Manly said, pointing at the shorter man, “and Lev.”
We stood there for a moment, wondering what manners to follow.
“Would you gentlemen like to sit down?” Manly asked us.
Fearless moved for a blue chair, I followed suit. Manly took a seat on the yellow couch, but Lev and Ari stayed on their feet.
A pair of glass doors led out to a vine-encircled patio. The sun shone in, slightly green from the vines.
“What do you have to tell us?” Manly inquired.
I was getting ready to launch into the business at hand, but Fearless beat me to it.
“Sol an’ Fanny Tannenbaum’s dead,” he said, “an’ I don’t like it one bit. They was good people, and I promised to look after ’em. I got a pretty good idea’a who killed ’em, but I want to get the man that was the cause of their death.”
Manly glanced at the stocky Ari. The latter hunched his shoulders and turned down his lips.
“That has nothing to do with us,” Manly said.
“That’s a bunch’a shit,” Fearless said. “You want the lost money, the money that Sol took. Whoever killed him was after that. An’ if it’s you, I’m’a find it out.”
I came for a parley and found myself on the verge of war.
“Vat do ve care about you?” Ari said in a surprisingly high voice. Fearless stood up.
“You don’t wanna know what I can do.” The
Ari looked like he wanted to test Fearless’s claim.
“We didn’t have anything to do with the Tannenbaums’ deaths.” Manly was tense but still thinking.
“What do you know about a man named Zimmerman?” Fearless asked.
I didn’t think that the atmosphere could stand any more tension, but the mention of that name caused tremors in all three of our hosts.
“Vat do you know about Zimmerman?” Ari demanded.
“I think it was him caused Sol and Fanny’s killing,” Fearless said. “You know I do, ’cause if I didn’t, I’d’a come in here with my guns blazin’.”
“Zimmerman,” Lev uttered his first word since we entered. “Zimmerman.”
“Why’ont you two guys sit down here with us?” Fearless demanded. “Either we gonna fight or we gonna talk.”
Ari was still taking Fearless’s measure when Lev took a seat.
“Sit down, Ari,” Manly said.
“I want the finder’s fee,” I said.
Maybe I was a little hoarse, because Manly asked, “What did you say?”
“The finder’s fee,” I said, clearing my throat as I did so. “I want the finder’s fee.”
“Vat is it you do for this?” Ari asked.
“We know how you can get to the money,” Fearless said with absolute confidence. “But we don’t tell you a thing unless you tell us about Zimmerman.”
