That was a quiet, genteel street, and he fitted into it, by looking at him, the way anybody else in sight did. He resumed mowing his lawn.
I tagged after him. “Use your head, Georgie.”
“You don’t get one damn penny out of me.”
I knew I was licked. I’d ask Oscar to try. He could persuade him if anybody could. I left Georgie plodding stolidly behind the mower.
Tiny was harder to find. He was like me, without anywhere to stay put. He was paying rent on a mangy room he’d sublet downtown, but he only slept in it. I made the rounds of the neighboring ginmills. What with lingering in this place and that and shooting the breeze with guys I knew, I didn’t come across Tiny until after nine o’clock.
He was sitting wide-shouldered and gray-haired at the bar, drinking beer. He was always drinking beer.
He said, “Gee, am I glad to see you.” Picking up his glass, he slid off the stool and we went to an isolated table. “I’ve been trying to get Oscar on the phone,” he said, “but he ain’t in. Stella says she don’t know where he went.” He glanced around. “Johnny, there’s been a city dick asking me questions this afternoon. A fat guy.”
“Brant?”
“Yeah, that’s the name. He’s got it, Johnny. He knows who was in on it and what happened to Wally and all.”
I thought of Abby.
“Go on,” I said.
“Remember last Wednesday when the five of us went over the route in Oscar’s car? It was hot and when we came back through the Holland Tunnel from Jersey we stopped for beer on Tenth Avenue. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Somebody that knew us saw the five of us sitting in that booth together.”
I let out my breath. Not Abby.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Search me. This Brant, he wasn’t telling. Some goddamn stoolie. He knew four of us – me and you, Oscar and Georgie. The one break is he hadn’t never seen Wally before. Brant is one cagy cookie, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I figure they showed the stoolie Wally’s picture, but he wasn’t sure. If he’d been sure, they’d be piling on us.”
“That’s right,” I said. “The cops can’t make any move officially unless they can link us to Wally. I saw Georgie this afternoon and he didn’t mention being questioned.”
“He’s been by now, I guess. The way I figure, this stoolie didn’t spill till today.” Tiny took a slug of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But I don’t get it, Johnny. A stoolie sees four of us and a strange guy in a beer joint. What makes this Brant so all-fired smart he can tell from that Wally was the strange guy and we was the ones did the job way over in Jersey a couple days later?”
“Because Oscar is too good.”
“Come again?”
“The caper bore the marks of genius,” I said, “and Oscar is a genius. Then Brant drops into Oscar’s apartment a few days ago and finds me staying there, so he’s got two of us tagged. Then he learns we two plus you and Georgie were drinking beer with a fifth guy who could’ve been Wally Garden, and he’s got us all.”
“The hell he has! All he’s got is thoughts running in his head. He needs evidence. How’ll he get it if we sit tight?”
“He won’t,” I said.
This was a good time to tell him about Abby. I told him.
When I finished, Tiny complained, “What’s the matter with Oscar these days? First he lets us all be seen together in a beer joint—”
“I don’t remember any of us objected. In fact, I remember it was your idea we stop off.”
“Sure, but Oscar should know better. He’s supposed to have the brains. Then he don’t know the kid had a wife and would blab every damn thing to her. Where’d he pick up Wally, anyway?”
“He never told me,” I said. “But there’s the widow and we promised her two grand. I want five C’s from you.”
Tiny thought about it, and he came up with what, I had to concede, was a good question. “You said you saw Georgie this afternoon. Did he shell out?”
“Not yet.”
“Expect him to?”
“Sure.”
“Bet he don’t?”
“Look, Oscar will get it out of him. I’m asking you.”
Tiny said cheerfully. “Tell you what I’ll do, Johnny. When Georgie shells out, I’ll shell out.”
And he looked mighty pleased with himself. He had confidence in Georgie’s passion for hanging onto a buck.
So after chasing around for hours I had only the thousand I’d started out with. Well, that wasn’t hay and the evening was young. I could bring the thousand to Abby and tell her it was part payment. She would be grateful. She would thank me. One thing could lead to another – and perhaps tonight would be the night, the beginning.
I took a hack to her place.
Through her door I heard music going full blast. I knocked. No answer, which wasn’t surprising considering all the row a hot dance band was making. I knocked louder. Same result. I turned the knob and found the door unlocked.
Abby wasn’t in the living room. The bedroom and the bathroom doors were both closed. The band music, coming from a tiny table radio, stopped and a disc jockey’s voice drooled. In the comparative quiet I heard a shower running in the bathroom. I sat down to wait for her to come out.
The music started up again. It was too raucous; my mood was for sweet stuff. I reached over the table to turn off the radio, and my hand brushed a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses. She hadn’t worn them when I’d seen her, but women were vain about such things. Probably only reading glasses.
She’d stopped showering. Now with the radio off, there was no sound in the apartment. Suddenly it occurred to me that I ought to let her know she had a visitor. Thinking she was alone, she might come trotting out without anything on. I wouldn’t mind, but she might, and I was still on the perfect little gentleman technique.
I went to the bathroom door and said, “Abby.”
“I’ll be right out.”
I hadn’t time to wonder why she hadn’t sounded surprised to hear a man in her apartment and why at the least she hadn’t asked who I was. The explanation came almost at once – from the bedroom.
“What did you say, baby?” a man called.
“I’ll be right out,” she repeated.
Then it was quiet again except for the thumping of my heart.
I knew that man’s voice. If there was any doubt about it, there were those eyeglasses on the table. A minute ago I’d given them hardly a glance because I hadn’t any reason then to take a good look to see if they were a woman’s style and size. They seemed massive now, with a thick, dark frame.
The bathroom doorknob was turning. I moved away from there until the table stopped me, and Abby came out. She was wearing a skimpy towel held around her middle and not another thing.
Her body was very beautiful. But it was a bitter thing for me to see now.
She took two or three steps into the room, flowing with that wonderful grace of hers, before she realized that the man standing by the table wasn’t the one who had just spoken to her from the bedroom – wasn’t the one for whom she didn’t at all mind coming out like this. It was only I – I who had been dreaming dreams. Her free hand yanked up and across her breasts in that age-old gesture of women, and rage blazed in her blue eyes.
“You have a nerve!” she said harshly.
Again he heard her in the bedroom and again he thought she was speaking to him. He called, “What?” and the bedroom door opened, and he said, “With this door closed I can’t hear a—” and he saw me.
Oscar Trotter was without jacket and shirt, as well as without his glasses.
I had to say something. I muttered, “The radio was so loud you didn’t hear me knock. I came in.” I watched Abby sidling along the wall toward the bedroom, clinging to that towel and keeping her arm pressed in front of her, making a show of modesty before me, the intruder, the third man. “I didn’t expect she was having this kind of company,” I added.