“Yeah.”
“Romantic Benny!” Tober said. “Here-warm yourself on an ice cube.”
“Listen, Tober. Anybody here from your old crowd?”
“All dead,” Tober said, “except me. I’m recharged daily.”
“Anybody here knows Pendleton and those people of his?”
Tober looked up and his eyes were almost normal. “I thought I knew her,” he said. “The Pendleton kid!”
“Yeah.”
“An ill-fated romance, Romeo Tapkow, an ill-”
“Business,” Benny said. “I’m just bringing it up so you can tell me to blow. This is like dynamite.”
“A snatch? An old-fashioned abduction?” Tober started to shake with laughter. It stopped as unaccountably as it had started and then he winked. “And doesn’t she know it?”
“Hell, no.”
“Bring the ice, Benjamin.” Tober picked up the tray with the bottle and glasses. They walked down the long corridor that led to the room where Pat was waiting.
“Tober, listen to me. Don’t tell her. It would foul-”
“Benjamin!” Tober stopped, balancing the tray like a mad juggler. “Dear Benjamin, what do you take me for? A hophead?” and then he started to laugh again.
Back in the room Tober made two highballs on the piano and handed them to Pat and Benny. “To the lovers!” he yelled, and watched them hold their glasses. Then he stepped close to Pat. “Meet anybody else yet?”
“Do I have to?” When she caught Benny’s eye she gave him a short smile.
He turned away.
“Pattypat,” said Tober, “you’re not heisting your highball.”
“And you?”
“Tober doesn’t drink,” Tober said.
“You don’t?” She sounded as if she hadn’t heard right.
“I am beyond drink.” He sounded confidential. “I don’t heist highballs, just heist balls.”
“You what?”
“Heist balls, baby. It’s higher than high ball. It’s the highest ball!” He giggled.
Pat laughed too.
“And I don’t often do this,” Tober was saying, “but for a high-built baby like you I’ll fix one.” He started to drag her out of the room.
“Benny,” she called. “What’s a heist ball, Benny? Tober, let go. Benny, he wants to-”
“Go and find out,” he said.
Pat stood still for a moment and her tongue made a nervous movement along her teeth, but she didn’t say anything. Then she turned abruptly. “Show me the thing you can make, Tober,” and she walked out of the room.
Benny watched them leave and sipped at the drink he’d been holding. Let Tober carry the ball if he wanted to. As long as Pat stayed around-two days at the most; as long as he could finish the deal and deliver the goods in the end, let Tober think he was taking over.
He walked out into the hall and found a phone. It took a while to get New York. He lit a fresh cigarette from his stub and sucked on it as if it were his first one in days. Then he said, “Hello, Wally? Tapkow. Well?”
“Hi, Benny. He sent a cable.” A group of maniacs came charging into the hall. They were all chasing a short, squealy blonde who was wrapped in a wet sheet; apparently the idea was to get the sheet off her. The way they were all yodeling and yelling, she really must have been something under that sheet, but Benny wasn’t thinking of that. He watched the chase, hoping she’d lead them down the hall to hell or someplace. The blonde made it.
“Yes-Wally? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“He sent a cable, Benny. Two of them.”
“So let’s hear.”
“Well, I didn’t know where you was when the first one came, so I answered it. The first one he asks is everything O.K. so I wire back sure, you got her and everything’s under control. I figured you’d want it that way, and besides, it is, ain’t it?”
“Come on, come on, what else?”
“Nothing else, Benny. And then he sends the second one.”
“Well?”
“He really thinks you’re the nuts, Benny, really proud of you.”
“Christ, get to the point, Wally. When’s he coming back?”
“He says he’s proud of you and have yourself a ball while he’s gone, seeing that you deserve it and he’s doing likewise. You know, he’s got this other dame on board, the one who got switched, and she really musta-”
“When’s he coming back, goddamnit?”
“I can hear ya, I can hear ya. He says a week or so. Keep her under wraps a week or so and that’ll really stew her old man. After a week or so Pendleton’s going to be ripe for anything.”
Benny burned his mouth on the stub he was holding and cursed. He cursed with a hard cramped throat while his hand clenched the phone as if it were the straw that might keep him from drowning.
“What’s his cable address, Wally?”
“He didn’t leave one. He’s cruising around the Caribbean or something.”
A week or so, another week of stalling for time, watching every move she made for fear she’d do the unpredictable. Thousands of minutes while that crazy female turned into a leech boring at him. And Alverato. Big fat Alverato getting soft in the head over a spinster with a home permanent. The dumb bastard was losing his grip. If he didn’t have his reputation to coast on and his army of hoods-But the anger didn’t get Benny anywhere.
He stomped at the butt that was still smoking on the floor and walked back to the room with the piano. The bottle and ice were still sitting there but the room was empty. He wasn’t after a drink. He had to find Pat, stay close by, to watch his property.
He found Tober on the terrace.
“Where’s Pat?” Benny stopped in front of the thin man.
“Asleep, Tapioca. And don’t shout. Things are jangling enough without you stirring the air.”
It was that time of day and Tober was running down.
“Where, Tober?”
“In bed, where else?” Tober sounded edgy.
“Come on. Up, Tober. I want to see where she is.”
“Jesus, Benny!” Tober jumped out of his chair, pulling back. “Don’t touch me, whatever you do,” and he stood making nervous gestures with his hands.
“You need a pop, don’t you?” Benny stood watching the man.
“Gad, yes!” Tober turned to go but Benny blocked his way.
“First I want to see Pat.”
They went upstairs together but Tober was distracted and couldn’t find the right room. They walked from one to the other, finding several things, but no Pat.
“Tober, think!” Benny held the thin man by one wrist. “What did you do with her?”
Tober winced, but then he remembered. “I made her a heist ball. That’s all, Benny. I fixed her a little drink and she said, ‘Aah, how nice and bitter,’ and then-”
“Bitter? What do you mean, bitter?” Benny’s voice got hard. “You lousy junkhead, did you give that kid a jolt? Answer me, or I’ll break your wrist!”
Tober almost fainted with confusion, but then he got himself straightened out. “Just a wee pinch, Benny. Such a wee pinch in a big glass of something. Grapefruit juice, I think. No, Martini! Such a Martini, Benny boy!”
“You crazy sonofabitch-” But he didn’t finish the sentence because his breath came in a grunt when his fist swung hard against the side of Tober’s jaw.
Tober collapsed in tears. There was no point in doing any more, so Benny stood and waited. He was breathing hard and his hands were working. She wasn’t crazy enough without being doped up in this nut house.
“Tober, on your feet Where is she?”
