'Okay, Gino, let's see if I've followed the bouncing ball. After talking to Mrs Archie, Missing Persons made a trip to the Bath, where somebody with a weak bladder snitched out this little game-fixing thing, and Missing did what they always do, lateraled to someone else, Financial Crimes in this case, telling you what a great investigation you had, and by the way, should you run into an actuary or a corpse, assuming you can tell the difference, give Missing a call. Am I guessing good so far?'
He didn't say a thing. We made an odd little group — me, Brushy, Pigeyes and Dewey, scattered around Brushy's high-tech office, each of us visibly wary. Brushy was behind her glass desk, which was sided by the potted jungle plants. I was the only one standing, walking around, waving my hands, having a great time. I was in full dashing formal array, tuxedo and cummerbund and a boiled shirt I'd owned for twenty years and never replaced; it sported silly button-on frills that reminded me of the comb on a cockatoo. Gino'd looked up and down at my getup 'when he walked in and asked for a ‘I-bone, medium well.
'So that's why you're looking for these guys, Kam Roberts especially, and Archie and Bert along the way, and you're pretty sure you have a hot one and you get half the Force helping out cause here's what you see: A, a bunch of characters from the Russian Bath say they were winning money with Bert, who was getting information from someone he called Kam Roberts. B, Bert has got a credit card in the name of said Kam Roberts. C, we have sightings here and there of said Said. And D, the bookie, Archie, is among the disappeared. But there are a few questions: One, who the screw is Kam Roberts? Two, how does a partner in a big law firm fix basketball games? Three, why is he playing hide-and-seek all over North America? And four, by the way, where's Archie? Am I on the right track?'
Pigeyes gave me something, a shrug, a tip of the hand. He still wasn't talking. You never explain what you're investigating, not until you tell them the charges when they're under arrest. Still in their overcoats, Pigeyes and Dewey were seated side by side on Brushy's chrome-trimmed sofa. I could tell Gino was uneasy because I was having such a good time.
'Okay, so let's explain some of this. Hypothetically, of course, since if one is a big-goddamn-deal lawyer he has to watch out for BAD and his shingle, which is why you're hearing from me. But let's get one thing straight to start: Nobody was fixing games. Nobody here and nobody anybody here is friends with.'
That got a rise. 'No?' Pigeyes asked. Skeptical, you might say.
'No. Here's how it ran. Archie is a tout, but he's an actuary to start. Clever with computers. Does his number runs. Let's say there are some gentlemen, we'll call them Valpolicella and Bardolino, V and B, who just always seem to get certain Mid-Ten games right. Let's say Archie notices. The nature of the world is that Archie is supposed to keep such thoughts to himself. V and B are making suckers out of the suckers, and Archie's getting a break on his street tax.
'But let's imagine Archie's got a buddy — a real good-type close intimate friend.' I hit Pigeyes's peepers to make sure he got it. 'Archie clues him on this info. The friend, a certain hotshot partner in a certain big law firm, starts betting what V amp; B do, winning big. So far so good?'
Pigeyes somewhere had acquired a photo of Bert and he withdrew it now from the many layers of his coats.
'Good-lookin here? We sayin he's that way?'
'How you talk, Gino. Let's not get too personal, okay? Just remember, you're the one who told me about Archie. Pecker tracks in the porthole, didn't you say?'
He and Dewey liked that one. Brushy covered her eyes.
'Anyway, Bert, which is what I'll call this lawyer hypothetically, he tries to be discreet, but these guys at the Russian Bath are always in each other's pockets and heads, they've got to know everyone's action. One thing leads to another. And pretty soon everybody there realizes that Bert, or Kam Roberts as he's called when he's putting down money, is hitting big on certain games. Now he's not about to explain why. Everybody sweating there is in Archie's book. It's bad business to favor one customer. And the reasons for doing so are highly personal. So Archie and Bert start this little thing like it's Kam Roberts who's got inside stuff. But it isn't. It's Archie all along.
'Sooner than Archie hoped, V amp; B hear about what's going down at the Russian Bath and they know sure as shooting the info ain't from any Kam flippin Roberts. It's their proprietary confidential trade-secret business-time information and Archie's peddled it, denting their odds, and they let it be known that Archie is about to literally have his private parts fed to some mutt. Archie scoots and V amp; B start hunting, which brings them pretty quickly to Bert's door. They give Bert the choice — twenty-four hours to dig up Archie or he's the one who's dog food. So Bert scrams too. Until one of his intrepid partners who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy arranges what we might call an amnesty. High-priced. Could be, hypothetically, that Bert is repaying his profits at interest rates that exceed the ceiling on usury.'
Brush, when I glanced her way, was sunk back in her desk chair regarding me with an uneasy eye. It troubled her, I suspect, to see me lying with such elan.
'And?' Pigeyes asked me.
'And what?'
'And where's this crumb Archie? Today?'
'I'd look in the sanitary canal. Watch what comes out of the treatment plant. That's the way I hear it. V amp; B found him. He's got something around his neck besides his tie. And if your people on the street are half as good as they used to be, Gino, you've heard the same thing.'
Whacking a guy, making him dead, is not something anybody owns up to, but word spreads. It has to. It's the way those guys keep everybody in line.
Lucinda knocked. 'Mr Gold,' she said.
'Tell him five minutes.'
'He wants to talk to you right now.'
'Five minutes,' I repeated.
Lucinda stepped to the phone and pressed a button. She held out the extension. It's been this poor woman's lot for years to protect me from myself.
'We are not amused,' Martin said when I put the handset to my ear.
'I'm busy.'
'So I hear. What, pray tell, are you and the nice policemen discussing?'
'Detective Dimonte had some questions about Bert.' I smiled at Gino when I mentioned his name.
'We're not talking high finance?'
'Bert,' I said.
'Did Bert do something else that was naughty?'
'Never kid a kidder, Martin. I'll be up in one minute. We're just about done.' I put the phone down without allowing further comment.
Gino was waiting. 'So this Kam Roberts thing was strictly an act?' he asked. 'Exactly.'
'Except there's a Kam Roberts.' Pigeyes sneered.
'No. There's a certain young man who's used Bert's bank card a few times. That doesn't make him Kam Roberts.'
'No? Who is he?'
'Friend of Bert's.'
'Another one? Good-lookin's real frisky, isn't he? He's two-timing the other guy?'
'Hey, Gino, call it what you like. But remember, I used to ride with you. I've seen you stop off with three different gals on the same
He was flattered, of course, by the memory. He stole a glance toward Brushy, hoping she was impressed. Someday I'd have to tell Pigeyes about
'Anyway, there's this young man,' I said. 'Bert's piling up a lot of credit on the card, so he's got plenty to share. Now it could be, hypothetically, this young man, he's got a connection to the U. Maybe he's the one who let a certain middle-aged lawyer into the refs' room the other night so Bert and the middle-aged lawyer could confer outside the watchful eye of the law in the hopes of straightening some of this out.'
'That so?' Gino asked.
'Could be,' I said and rested on a chair arm to see how it had gone down. Better, it seemed, than I might
