"Maybe he thought we could trace the call."
"Could we do that?"
"It's hard even when you've got the cops and the telephone company cooperating on it," I said. "It'd be out of the question for us. But they don't necessarily know that."
"Catch us tracing calls," JohnKasabian put in. "We had our hands full installing the second phone this afternoon."
They had done that a few hours earlier, running wires from the terminal on the wall and hooking an extension phone borrowed fromKasabian's girl's apartment into the line so that Skip and I could be on the line at the same time. While Skip and John were doing that, Bobby had been auditioning for the role of referee in the brotherhood commercial and Billie Keegan had been finding someone to fill in for him behind the stick at Armstrong's. I'd used that time to stuff two hundred and fifty dollars into a parish fund box, light a couple of candles, and phone in another meaningless report to Drew Kaplan inBrooklyn. And now we were all five in Miss Kitty's back office, waiting for the phone to ring again.
"Sort of a southern accent," Skip said. "You happen to notice?"
"It sounded phony."
"Think so?"
"When he got angry," I said. "Or pretended to get angry, whatever it was. That bit about jump when he says frog."
"He wasn't the only one got angry just about then."
"I noticed. But when he first got angry the accent wasn't there, and when he started with the frog shit he was putting it on thicker than before, trying to sound country."
He frowned, summoning up the memory. "You're right," he said shortly.
"Was it the same guy you talked to before?"
"I don't know. His voice sounded phony before, but it wasn't the same as I was hearing tonight. Maybe he's a man of a thousand voices, all of them unconvincing."
"Guy could do voiceovers," Bobby suggested, "in fucking brotherhood commercials."
The phone rang again.
This time we made less of a thing out of synchronizing our answering, since I'd already made my presence known. When I had the receiver to my ear, Skip said, "Yeah?" and the voice I'd heard before asked what he was supposed to read. Skip told him and the voice began reading ledger entries. Skip had the fake set of books open on his desk and followed along on the page.
After half a minute the reader stopped and asked if we were satisfied. Skip looked as though he wanted to take exception to the word. Instead he shrugged and nodded, and I spoke up to say we were assured we were dealing with the right people.
"Then here's what you do," he said, and we both took up pencils and wrote down the directions.
"TWO cars," Skip was saying. "All they know is me and Mattare coming, so the two ofus'll go in my car. John, you take Billie and Bobby. What do you think, Matt, they'll follow us?"
I shook my head. "Somebody may be watching us leave here," I said. "John, why don't you three go aheadnow. Your car's handy?"
"I'm parked two blocks from here."
"The three of you can drive out there now. Bobby, you and Bill walk on ahead and wait at the car. I'd just as soon you all didn't walk out together, just in case somebody's keeping an eye on the front door. You two wait ahead, and John,give them two, three minutes, and then meet them at the car."
"And then drive out to- where is it, Emmons Avenue?"
"InSheepsheadBay.You know where that is?"
"Vaguely.I know it's the ass end ofBrooklyn. I've gone out on fishing boats there, but somebody else drove and I didn't pay too much attention."
"You can take the Belt, theShore Parkway."
"All right."
"Get off, let me think, probably the best place isOcean Avenue. You'll probably see a sign."
"Hang on," Skip said. "I think I got a map someplace, I saw it the other day."
He found aHagstromstreet map of the borough and the three of us gave it some study. BobbyRuslander leaned in overKasabian's shoulder. Billie Keegan picked up a beer somebody had abandoned earlier and took a sip and made a face. We worked out a route, and Skip told John to take the map along with him.
"I can never fold these things right,"Kasabian said.
Skip said, "Who cares how you fold the fucking thing?" He took the map away from his partner and began tearing it along some of its fold lines, handing a section some eight inches square toKasabian and dropping the rest to the floor. "Here'sSheepsheadBay," he said. "You want to know where to get off the parkway, right? What do you need with all the rest of fuckingBrooklyn?"
"Jesus,"Kasabian said.
"I'm sorry, Johnny. I'mfuckin ' twitchy. Johnny, you got a weapon?"
"I don't want anything."
Skip opened the deskdrawer, put a blue-steel automatic pistol on top of the desk. "We keep it behind the bar," he told me, "case we want to blow our brains out when we count up the night's receipts. You don't want it, John?"Kasabian shook his head. "Matt?"
"I don't think I'll need it."
"You don't want to carry it?"
"I'd just as soon not."
He hefted the gun, looked for a place to put it. It was a.45 and it looked like the kind they issue to officers in the army. A big heavy gun, and what they called a forgiving one- its stopping power could compensate for poor aim, bringing a man down with a shoulder wound.
"Weighs a fucking ton," Skip said. He worked it underneath the waistband of his jeans and frowned at the way it looked. He tugged his shirt free of hisbelt, let it hang out over the gun. It wasn't the sort of shirt you wear out of your pants and it looked all wrong. "Jesus," he complained, "where am Igonna put the thing?"
"You'll work it out,"Kasabian told him. "Meanwhile we ought to get going. Don't you think so, Matt?"
I agreed with him. We went over it one more time while Keegan andRuslander walked on ahead. They would drive toSheepsheadBay and park across the street from the restaurant, but not directly across the street. They would wait there, motor off, lights out, and keep an eye on the place and on us when we arrived.
"Don't try and do anything," I told him. "If you see anything suspicious, just observe it. Write down license numbers, anything like that."
"Should I try and follow them?"
"How would you know who you were following?" He shrugged. "Play it by ear," I said. "Mostly just be around, keep an eye open."
"Got it."
After he'd left Skip put an attaché case on top of the desk and popped the catches. Banded stacks of used currency filled the case. "That's what fifty grand looks like," he said. "Doesn't look like much, does it?"
"Just paper."
"Itdo anything for you, looking at it?"
"Not really."
"Me either." He put the.45 on top of the bills, closed the case. It didn't fit right. He rearranged the bills to make a little nest for the gun and closed it again.
"Just until we get in the car," he said. "I don't want to walk down the street like Gary Cooper in High Noon." He tucked his shirt back into his pants. On the way to the car he said, "You'd thinkpeople'd be staring at me. I'm dressed like a grease monkey and carrying a case like a banker. Fucking New Yorkers, I could wear a gorilla suit andnobody'd look twice. Remindme, soon as we get in the car, I want to take the gun out of the case."
"All right."
"Bad enough if they pull something and shoot us. Be worse if they used my gun to do it."
HIS car was garaged onFifty-fifthStreet. He tipped the attendant a buck and drove around the corner, pulled up in front of a hydrant. He opened the attaché case and removed the pistol and checked the clip, then put the gun on the seat between us, thought better of it and wedged it down into the space between the cushion and the seat back.
The car was a Chevy Impala a couple of years old, long and low, loosely sprung. It was white, with a beige and white interior, and it looked as though it hadn't been through a car wash since it leftDetroit. The ashtray overflowed with cigarette butts and the floor was deep in litter.