“Outfit. I’m with the Outfit, on loan. Menlo didn’t have no sidemen of his own.”
Handy said, “He still doesn’t have any worth a damn. These guys had me for three hours and didn’t get me to say one word.”
“Nobody knew you had a partner.” Ambridge sounded resentful, as though Handy hadn’t played fair.
“Now we get to the question again,” Parker said. He picked up the pliers and held them loosely in both hands. “Who is Menlo, and what’s he after?”
“It don’t make no difference,” Ambridge said. “I can tell you and it don’t make no difference at all. You guys have had it anyway. You ought to know better. You can’t buck the Outfit.”
Handy laughed then, because Parker had bucked the Outfit twice in the last year and hadn’t done too badly either time. And when it came to operating without Outfit permission, Parker and Handy and most of the people they knew had been doing it for years.
Ambridge looked at Handy the way a patriot looks at somebody who forgets to take off his hat when the flag goes by. “You’ll get yours,” he said.
“Quit stalling,” Parker replied.
Ambridge shrugged. “I’ll tell you. It don’t make no difference. This guy Menlo came around” He looked suddenly startled, and stared at their faces. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you guys Commies?”
Handy laughed again. “Not us, bo. We’re capitalists from way back.”
“Who is Menlo?” Parker was getting tired asking the same question and he was holding the pliers tighter now.
“Menlo’s a defector.” Ambridge said it the way a man says a good word he just recently learned. “He’s from one of the Commie countries. They sent him over here to do a job for them, but he’s copping out. He says this Kapor’s heavy, and it’s all got to be in the house, so we’re taking it away from him.”
“How heavy?”
“Maybe a hundred G.”
Handy whistled low, but Parker said, “Crap. In cash? Where’d he get all that?”
“Don’t ask me. This Menlo made a contact and talked to Mc talked to the boss here, and the boss figured it’s worth the chance for a fifty-fifty split. Menlo’s got the goods, the Outfit’s got the manpower. It don’t make no difference what I tell you; you can’t buck the Outfit.”
Maybe if he said it often enough, about his talking not making any difference, he’d start to believe it himself. Better than believing he’d been scared into it with nothing but threats.
Which meant he was probably telling the truth. The fat man, Menlo, had convinced the Outfit that Kapor’s house was full of money. But where was an embassy aide from a small and unfriendly country likely to pick up a hundred thousand dollars? Either Menlo was pulling a fast one, giving the Outfit a tale in return for some muscle, or there was more to this Kapor than Harrow knew about.
The next one to see was Menlo. Parker asked, “Where’s Menlo now?”
Ambridge shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s got the wind up, on account of you guys. He was going to stick at Clara’s place, but he won’t be there now.”
“Don’t get cute, Wally. You were supposed to get in touch with him after Handy talked. Where?”
“He didn’t say. That’s the straight goods, I swear to God. He just called us here and said take that guy to the garage, that he’d get in touch with us later.”
Handy shifted his position against the refrigerator. “He’ll be going deep now. We left the other two breathing back there.”
“That’s all right. Wally knows where he’d go.”
“How the hell would I know?”
“He’ll go where the rest of you can find him. He wants his muscle close to him. Where is it, Wally?”
“I don’t know. That’s the straight”
Parker lifted the pliers again. “First we tie you,” he said. “Then we take your fingernails off. Then we take your teeth out.”
“What do you want from me? I don’t know where he is.” Ambridge was sweating now, his forehead slick under the fluorescent light. “I been telling you what you want, what the hell do you think?”
“I think you’re afraid of somebody finding out you let us know where to find Menlo. I think you’re afraid of these pliers too. Which you afraid of most, Wally?”
“I don’t knowwhere he is!”
Parker turned his head to Handy. “Take a look in the drawers. People usually keep twine around. We’ll have to tie him down this time.”
“Wait wait a second. Wait now, just wait a second.” Ambridge was a big man, but he was fluttering now like a little man. “I mean, maybe I”
“Don’t make up any addresses, Wally. You’ll give us the address and we’ll keep you on ice here till we check it out, and if Menlo isn’t there we’ll come back and talk to you again.”
“I can’t be surehe’s there! For Christ’s sake, maybe he”
“Take a chance.”
“Well
