He lifted his head again.
A closed door. The voices beyond it.
“… in a garbage can someplace,” the woman said.
“… like behind a McDonald’s.”
“… drive the cops nuts.”
Three people in that other room. Two men and a woman. None of them sounded like anyone he’d ever met. All three of them were laughing now. They thought this would be comical. Driving the cops nuts.
“Or kill him and just leave him here,” one of the men said. “In Ju Ju’s bed.”
They all thought this would be even more comical. Killing him and leaving him here in Ju Ju’s bed. Was Ju Ju’s bed the one he was tied to? The one that stank of piss? Was Ju Ju a cutesy-poo name for Judy Jordan? Was this, in fact, Judy Jordan’s bedroom? Was Judy Jordan a bed-wetter? There was hysterical laughter in the other room now. It was contagious. Michael almost laughed himself. He had to stifle his laughter.
Michael wondered who Ju Ju was.
He hated movies with casts of thousands.
“We’d better wait till Mama gets here,” the woman said.
Mama again.
The woman’s mother?
Or did everybody call her Mama?
Maybe Connie was right. Maybe Mama was a big, fat lady who everyone—
Connie!
She’d told him if he wasn’t back in ten minutes she’d come up and get him. How much time had gone by since he’d left her down there on the ground floor? Five minutes to climb to the third floor, another three minutes while he’d waited in the hallway for the naked woman to put on her—
The doorbell rang.
Oh, Jesus, he thought. Connie!
Or maybe Mama.
Either way, that ringing doorbell could only mean more trouble.
Because if the person doing the ringing was Connie, they would hit her on the head and then tie her up alongside him on the bed.
And then when Mama finally arrived, it would be so long to both of them. Shoot them both and leave them in Ju Ju’s bed, ha ha. Or else shoot them and drop them in a garbage can behind McDonald’s, which would be almost as amusing. Michael found neither choice acceptable. So he hoped against hope that it was not Connie ringing that doorbell. Because if they were going to shoot anyone at all, he much preferred it to be himself alone, leave Connie out of this entirely. The doorbell kept ringing. He began actively wishing that one of them would go answer the door and it would be big, fat Mama standing there, Hi, kids, it’s me.
“Who is it?” one of the men yelled.
“Abruzzi Pizzeria,” someone yelled back.
Michael listened.
Someone was coming into the apartment.
“You order a large pizza?”
A delivery boy.
“That’s right.”
The woman. Obviously the one who’d placed the order.
“Half anchovies, half pepperoni?”
“Right.”
“Three Cokes?”
“Three Cokes, right.”
“Here’s the napkins, that comes to thirteen dollars and twenty-one cents.”
“That sounds like a lot,” one of the men said.
“How do you figure it’s a lot?” the delivery boy asked.
“For a pizza and three lousy Cokes? Thirteen bucks and change?”
“Yeah, but it’s a large with anchovies and pepperoni.”
“Only half anchovies and half pepperoni.”
“Which costs nine dollars and ninety-five cents. For the large with the anchovies and pepperoni.”
“So how much are the Cokes?”
“Seventy-five cents each.”
“That sounds high, too.”
Cheap bastard, Michael thought.
“How do you figure that’s high?” the delivery boy asked.
“For a lousy Coke? Seventy-five cents?”
“Yeah, but these are twelve-ounce Cokes.”
“That’s still high. That’s six cents and change for an ounce!”
“Yeah, but that’s what it costs an ounce,” the delivery boy said.
“That’s very high for an ounce of Coke.”
“Yeah, but that’s what it costs. Seventy-five cents for twelve ounces.”
“So how do you get thirteen dollars and twenty-one cents?”
“There’s an eight and a quarter percent tax. See it here on the bill? A dollar is the tax. So if you add a dollar to the nine ninety-five for the pizza and the two and a quarter for the Cokes, you get thirteen twenty-one. See it here?”
“Who added this?”
“The cashier.”
“What’s her name?”
“Marie. Why?”
“She’s a penny off.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see this here? Add it yourself. Nine ninety-five for the pizza, two twenty-five for the Cokes, and a dollar for the tax is thirteen dollars and twenty cents, not thirteen dollars and twenty-one cents.”
“Gee,” the delivery boy said.
“Tell Marie.”
“I will.”
Cheap bastard, Michael thought again.
“Here’s fifty bucks,” the man said.
“Keep the change.”
Michael heard the door opening and closing again. The sudden aroma of cheese and garlic and tomatoes and pepperoni and anchovies wafted into the room where he was tied to the bed.
In that moment, he wanted nothing more from life than a slice of pizza.
If they told him they would kill him the moment Mama got here, his last request would be a slice of pizza.
“This is very good pizza,” the woman said.
A rap sounded at the window.
He turned his head sharply.
A man wearing a black silk handkerchief over his nose and down to his chin was standing on the fire escape. He put his forefinger to where his lips would have been under the handkerchief, signaling Michael to keep quiet.
Michael looked at him.
The man was wearing a black cap to match the black handkerchief. And a black jacket bristling with little chrome studs. In keeping with his attire, the man himself was black, or at least what was nowadays called black even though his exposed hands were certainly not the color of his clothing. His hands were, in fact, the color of Colombian coffee.
The man hefted something onto the windowsill.
A black satchel.
He opened the satchel and took out some kind of black tool.
Terrific, Michael thought. A burglar. In the other room, they began talking about pizza.
One of the men maintained that pizza with a thin crust was the best kind. The woman said she preferred her pizza with a thick crust. The other man said extra cheese was the secret. They all agreed that extra cheese was desirable on a pizza.
Michael was dying of hunger.
The black man was working on the window with the black tool, which Michael surmised was a jimmy.
“When we finish this pizza here,” one of the men said, “I think we ought to do him. Whether Mama’s here or not.”
Michael guessed they were talking about him.
About doing him.
“Anchovies I don’t find too terrific on a pizza,” the woman said.
“Me, neither, Alice,” the other man said. Alice.
The woman’s name was Alice.
“They’re too salty,” she said.
“They overpower all the other ingredients,” the man said, agreeing.
“Because the longer this man stays alive, the bigger the threat he is,” the first man said, making a reasonable case.
“I think we should wait for Mama,” Alice said.
“It was Mama sent you after him the first time,” the other man said.
“I know that, Larry.”
Larry. Another county heard from.
“So if Mama wanted him dead at eight o’clock tonight,” he said, “why should it be any different now?”