“Are you?”
“Sure I am. You got any word on him yet?”
“We got a little. That’s why we wanted to talk to you.”
“Me? What’ve I got to do with anything?”
“Relax. You want a beer?”
“Sure, I’ll have a beer with you, Bin.”
Bindy, shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, soup stain on shirtfront, no tie, wearing eyeglasses and house slippers, looked like somebody else to Billy, not Bindy McCall, the dapper boss of the street. He looked tired, too, and Patsy the same. Patsy stared at Billy. Max Rosen, in his suit coat, tie up tight to a fresh collar, also stared. Billy in the middle, a new game. He was glad to see Bindy come back with the beer bottle and glass: Stanwix.
“I heard you took a beating today with the nags,” Bindy said, pouring Billy’s beer.
“You hear what I had for breakfast?”
“No, but I could find out.”
“I ate alone, no witnesses.”
“There’s other ways.”
“Yeah.” And Billy took a drink.
“You know where your old man is?” Patsy asked.
“My old man?”
“Yours.”
“No. I don’t know.”
“I heard he was in town,” said Patsy.
“My father in Albany? Where?”
“I didn’t hear that. Somebody saw him downtown today.”
“Goddamn,” Billy said.
“You wanna see him?” asked Patsy.
“Sure I wanna see him. I haven’t saw him in twenty years. Twenty-two years.”
“I’ll see if I can track him down.”
“That’d be terriffic, Mr. McCall.”
“Call me Patsy.”
“Patsy. That’s a terrific thing if you can do that.”
“Maybe you can do something for us.”
“Maybe I can.”
“You heard that kidnap rumor about me,” Bindy said, sitting on a folding chair across the card table from Patsy. The card table Billy worked at was in better shape.
“I heard that last summer.”
“From who?”
“Jesus, I don’t remember, Bin. One of those things you hear at a bar when you’re half in the bag, you don’t remember. I didn’t give it the time of day. Then I remembered it today.”
“And got hot at Louie Dugan for telling me about it.”
“I didn’t expect to have it repeated.”
“We heard the same rumor last year and traced it to a couple of local fellows. And maybe, just maybe, that ties in to Charlie. Do you follow me?”
“I follow.”
“Neither of these fellows are in town and we don’t know just where they are. But they got a friend who’s in town, and that’s why you’re here.”
“I’m the friend?”
“No, you’re a friend of the friend. The friend is Morrie Berman.”
The noise Billy made then was a noncommittal grunt. Maloy and Curry, Berman’s pals. On the list, Curry.
“We understand you know Mr. Berman well,” Max Rosen said.
“We play cards together.”
“We understand you know him better than that,” Rosen said.
“I know him a long time.”
“Yeah, yeah, we know all about it,” said Patsy, “and we also know you didn’t give Pop O’Rourke’s man his ten dollars today.”
“I told Pop why.”
“We know what you told him,” said Patsy, “and we know your brother-in-law, Georgie Quinn, is writing numbers and don’t have the okay for the size books he’s taking on.”
“Georgie talked to Pop about that, too.”
“And Pop told him he could write a little, but now he’s backing the play himself. He’s ambitious, your brother-in-law.”
“What is all this, Bindy? What are we talking about? You know the color of my shorts. What’s it for?” Billy felt comfortable only with Bindy, but Bindy said nothing.
“Do you know the Berman family, Mr. Phelan?” Max Rosen asked.
“I know Morrie’s old man’s in politics, that’s all.”
“Do you like Morrie Berman?” Rosen asked.
“I like him like I like a lot of guys. I got nothing against him. He’s the guy had the idea to buy me a steak tonight. Nice.”
“Do you like Charlie?” Patsy asked.
“Do I like him? Sure I like him. I grew up with him. Charlie was always a good friend of mine, and I don’t say that just here. I bullshit nobody on this.”
Bindy poured more beer into Billy’s glass and smiled at him.
“All right, Billy,” Bindy said, “we figure we know your feelings. We wouldn’t have okayed you for that Saratoga job if we didn’t trust you. We know you a long time. And you remember after the Paul Whiteman thing, we gave you that other job, too.”
“The Chicago Club?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought that came from Lemon Lewis. I didn’t think you even knew about that.”
“We knew. We do Albany people.”
“Then it’s two I owe you.”
“Just one,” Bindy said. “We trusted you then, we trust you now. But that don’t mean forever.”
“Who the hell am I not to trust? What do I know?”
“We don’t know what you know,” Patsy said.
“It’s what you might come to know in the next few days that’s important,” Max Rosen said. “We’re interested in Mr. Berman, in everything he says and does. Everything.”
“Morrie doesn’t tell me secrets,” Billy said.
“We don’t expect that,” said Max. “If he’s involved in the kidnapping, and we’re by no means saying that he is, then he’s hardly likely to talk about it at all. But you must know, Mr. Phelan, that men sometimes betray themselves indirectly. They reveal what’s on their mind merely by random comment. Berman might, for instance, mention the men involved in a context other than criminal. Do you follow me?”
“No.”
“You’re not stupid,” Patsy said, an edge to his voice. He leaned forward in his chair and looked through Billy’s head.
“Nobody ever said I was,” Billy said, looking back through Patsy’s head.
“Billy,” said Bindy in a soothing tone, “we’re playing in every joint where we can get a bet down. I tell you one thing. Some people wouldn’t even put it past Berman’s old man to be in on this.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Max Rosen said. “Jake Berman isn’t capable of such behavior. I’ve known him all my life.”
“I don’t accuse him,” Bindy said, “but he don’t like us. I just make the point that we suspect everybody.”
“People might even suspect you, with your name in the paper,” Patsy said.
Billy snorted. “Me?”
“People talk.”
“Don’t pay attention if you hear that,” Bindy said. “We know you’re clean. We wanted you and Berman in the same boat. He don’t know why you’re on the list, but now you and him got that in common.”
“You think that’ll make him talk to me?”
“It could. What’d he say tonight?”
“We played cards and he kicked the holdup guy a little. He said he talked to Mr. Rosen here, and he said he didn’t get along with his old man. We talked about a drink that we had one time.”
“Who did he talk about?” Bindy asked. “Who?”
“Tabby Bender. George Kindlon, who tended bar for Tabby.”
“Who else?”
“That’s all I remember.”
“Edward Curry is on the list. Did he mention him?”
“I mentioned Curry, that his name was spelled wrong. And I told a story about him.”
“What story?”
“About the whore in Boston called him honey and he asked her, How come you know my name. You think Curry’s mixed up in this?”
“What did Berman say when you told the story?” Bindy asked.
“He laughed.”
“You didn’t talk about nobody else? Nobody? Think.”
“I talked about a lot of things but not to Berman.”
“Did he say anything about Hubert Maloy?”