Boldt (6 page)

Moses downs the rest of his Coke. “Why the fuck should I care if your brother gets whacked or not?” he says. “Maybe if I bumped into the guy, I might ask him if he was okay for ammunition.”

“Maybe, but Moses, look at it this way. You don't care if he isn't whacked. Politics don't interest you. The only thing that interests you is keeping this place going and that's all. So, just supposing you heard something, why not give us a break? We give you a break all the time that's why this place never closes.”

“This place never closes because of the dollars that go into your department every week so don't give me any of that crap.”

“Sure, but if it closed, if we had to close you down, there are other places with money going out of them, so we'd survive, we'd still make a living.”

Moses shrugs. “The thing is,” he says, “if this hypothetical guy should spill his guts in here, a highly unlikely event in itself, then you'd never know, not if I don't care to tell you.”

“You're right, Moses,” Murdock says, “but we were just counting on your naturally friendly nature.”

Moses takes a cheroot from the top pocket of his kaftan, sticks it in his mouth and feels about for a light until Murdock flashes his lighter and lights him up.

“In my experience,” he says, “no guy who's planning this kind of no-percentage deal is going to walk in and out of bars shouting his mouth off to the assembled throngs.”

“A point, Moses,” I agree. “But then he sent a letter telling us about what he's got in mind, so maybe he's the kind of nut who wants to get caught. Before or after the event, I couldn't guess at, but it's a possibility.”

Moses gives a soft whistle. “Wow,” he says. “They giving you night classes in the psychology of the criminal mind these days?”

“What do you say, Moses?” Murdock asks. “You going to help us out in the event or not?”

Moses stares at the smoke curling from his cheroot and says, “What's the hassle? It's a million to one, so I won't break any sweat. Sure, I'll play my part in keeping death off the streets of this city.”

“You'll pass the word around your staff?”

“Yeah, but keep your fingers crossed it ain't actually one of them.”

“None of your staff could keep their hands steady for the required length of time.”

Moses gets as close as he ever gets to a smile. Then he gets up and he says, “I got to go now and sit in my office trying to figure out how much those bitches been cheating me out of lately. I don't have to tell you gentlemen that while you're here, there's a drink for you if you want it.”

“You're a real sweetheart, Moses,” I say to him.

“Don't let anybody tell you different,” he says, and goes out back.

Murdock and me sit there in silence for a few minutes. The room is getting a little more crowded and a little more gaudy as the afternoon crowd starts getting set for the rest of the day. We watch the scene from our elevated position and after a while Murdock comments, “In this job, over the years, I've got used to all kinds of things, things that twenty years ago I would have thrown up over, but never, never, will I get used to being around Moses.”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I know what you mean.”

“It's not what I know about him that gives me the creeps,” Murdock goes on. “I can live with that although I make sure I don't think about those things too often. It's what I imagine about him, what I imagine he's capable of. That's what really gives me the fucking creeps about that guy.”

“Yeah. He makes me feel like going home and going to bed with a nice book like
A History of Torture
through the Ages.”

“Hey,” Murdock says. “You see who I see?”

I scan the crowd but I can't see anybody that might warrant Murdock's remark.

“There, look,” he says. “The far side of the blond fag at the end of the bar.”

I look again and then I see who Murdock's talking about, a little guy called Pete Foley, trying to get the attention of somebody, anybody, behind the bar. With Pete that always takes time, and that's the kind of guy Pete is, right down the line. There are people who consider themselves failures in life, who are bitter about the breaks, but if you took them down to meet Pete Foley then within five minutes they'd realize what roaring successes they'd actually been. If Pete ever did anything right or had anything good happen to him, then the event was so unusual that he wasn't used to the words that could express such an event to the rest of the world, and so nobody ever got to know about it. But what you could get from Pete, you could get all the news about everybody else's successes because that's what Pete feeds on, the successes of other people, successes he'd like to achieve himself. He's a mine of information about who's done what, and what they made out of it, and consequently, he's sometimes a big help to Murdock and me. He loves to hang out with the guys who've made it, and he loves everybody to associate him with their achievements.

“Shall we have a word with Little Pete?” Murdock says.

“Why not? He goes everywhere there is to go.”

We wait and watch while Pete works at getting his drink. About five minutes later he's got it and puts the glass to his lips and whips his eyes all around the place. They pop a little bit when he sees us and where we're sitting. Murdock crooks his finger and Pete looks this way and that, a parody of a guy who doesn't want to be watched, then he maneuvers his way through the crowd, steps up to where we are and puts his glass to his lips again looking at us over the top of it.

“Hello, Pete,” I say to him. “How's your luck?”

Pete takes the glass away from his mouth and with his free hand he makes a shaky fluttery movement.

“
Comme ci, comme ça
.”

“Yeah,” Murdock says. “As if you'd tell us. As if you'd tell us about your successful killings.”

Pete shrugs and smirks really pleased that we figure he may be knowing more than we do.

“You guys get me all wrong,” he says. “You know me. Never was a guy to get involved in a wrong play.”

“Oh sure,” Murdock says. “But one day, Pete, you're going to make a mistake, and me and Roy here are going to be around because that's a day we won't want to miss.”

Pete's growing by the minute. His smirk turns into a grin and he says, “I ain't saying nothing. You guys heard what I said and I ain't saying any more. You figure what you will. I told you I'm not into things that'd be any interest to you guys.”

I shake my head.

“Okay, Pete,” I say. “We won't push it. Wouldn't be no use anyhow.”

“Why don't you sit down and join us?” Murdock says. “Things were getting a little slow around here, anyhow.”

“Well,” says Pete, “I guess I might. Only I hope there aren't too many people in this place right now to see me do that particular thing.”

So Pete sits down and looks around the room to see how many people are taking in the fact that Pete Foley is sitting down with Boldt and Murdock, and of course, hardly anybody is but Pete is doubtless computing that number into a higher score.

“So,” he says, “how's it with you. Still filling the penitentiary with losers?”

“No, not really,” Murdock says. “It's kind of slow right now. That's why we're down here, why we're looking. Trying to drum up business. You know how it is ---we get stamps for every conviction.”

Pete cackles his appreciation and he's almost coming in his Jockeys, cracking wise with a couple of cops.

“Listen,” he says. “I could tell you, I could really give you goods on some of the characters in here.”

“Really?” I say to him.

“Oh, sure,” he says. “You'd never believe it. But of course, you understand, I never would, not with me sitting up here. I mean, some of those guys, they could easy get the idea if you guys moved in on them after me talking to you guys.”

“Yeah,” Murdock says. “I guess you got a point there, Pete.”

“Better believe it,” Pete says. “But there's one particular thing, something concerns a guy who ain't here right now, if you'd care to hear about it and provided it's worth talking to you about.”

“We're always in the market, Pete,” Murdock says.

“Tell us about it.”

“Well, it ain't anything,really. I mean, it ain't like a caper or anything like that. Nothing you can really move in on but I heard, well, some day soon, a trio of guys is going to try and knock over the guys who bank the takings of one of Mr. Florian's games, which one I'm not sure yet. The way I hear they're going to do it is to open up on the guys who are carrying it while they're between places and naturally, so's Mr. Florian doesn't know who to go after, they don't intend to leave anybody around who can tell. But I only know when it's going to be not which one.”

“So why don't you go tell Florian?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” says Murdock. “In any case he pays better than we do, doesn't he?”

“Yeah,” Pete says. “But you pay, that's certain. And Mr. Florian might think I know more than just about this particular job and he might decide to ask me.”

“Well,” Murdock says, “we got better things to do than be security guards for Florian and his millions.”

“Yeah, but it's going to be out on the street,” Pete says. “I mean, there won't be just the guys and Florian's guys in the street. They ain't going to bide their time until the street's clear.”

“These guys must figure they really need the money,” I say to him. “I mean they're going to have to spend it awful quick; they realize that don't they?”

Pete shrugs. “They got their plans.”

“And who are these optimists,” I ask him. “What's their names?”

“Well, that's what I want to tell you—if, you know, it's like always.”

One of Moses's staff drifts nearby on the area below picking up glasses. Murdock grips him and the man drifts off to get three more drinks.

“Sure,” I say to Pete, “it's like always, but this time you better get hold of Miller. We don't have the time right now; we've got something else on our minds.”

“Oh?” Pete says.

“Yeah,” I say, and I tell him all about our little mission. When I've finished Pete says, “You're crazy.”

I don't say anything.

“I mean,” he says, “you're never going to find who this guy is unless he makes a mistake in how he sets up the deal on the day or something like that.”

“Well, that's what we're inclined to think, too, Pete,” I tell him. “But you never know. And if you were to fall over the guy, then it'd be worth more than anything you'd get for the kind of information you've got on you right now.”

“Okay,” says Pete, “but in the meantime, I guess I'll give Miller a call.”

Pete gets up.

“You've got a drink coming,” Murdock says.

“Yeah, well. I guess I'll have it when I get back from calling Miller.”

Pete gets up and goes off to find the phone. The man comes back with the drinks, puts them in front of us and goes away again.

“So where now?” Murdock says.

I take a sip of my drink.

“We go back to the route, check out as many places as we can.”

“We could still be doing that next Thanksgiving.”

“Like Pete says the only way we're going to find this guy if he exists is with his rifle in his hand. Just before or just after he's pulled the trigger.”

We finish our drinks and get up and go out of Clark's and leave them all to the smell of their perfume.

The Hillcrest Hotel isn't on a hill and it isn't really a hotel just a rooming house with a lobby big enough to hold a desk and a desk clerk. Murdock and me are standing at the desk going through the register and the desk clerk is standing behind the desk going through his nostrils, first one then the other, devoting equal time to each.

“Who's this?” Murdock says, pointing a finger at a name.

The clerk leans slowly over and turns the book around then turns it back again.

“A bum,” he says.

Murdock and me wait for him to go on.

“A lush,” the clerk says. “Up there right now. Saw him this morning around ten. Goes out, ten minutes later comes back with a grocery bag. Two bottles of gin, some other stuff. Probably sleeping right now.”

“And this one?” I say, pointing to another name.

The desk clerk shrugs. “Young guy. I don't know. My guess is he could be a hustler.”

“So he's a hustler. Does he bring them back here or does he deliver on the street?”

“Couldn't say that. See, I'm not here all the time.”

“So he brings them back here. How long's he been here?”

“It's down there, in front of you.”

“How long?”

“Couple months. Maybe a little longer.”

“He in now?”

“I guess so.”

Murdock flips over a couple of pages.

“You seem to be pretty well full up,” he says. “One moves out, another moves in. Hardly time to change the sheets.”

“We do all right.”

“Except this room,” Murdock says. “This room here, number fourteen. That's been empty a couple of days.” The desk clerk nods.

“How come?” Murdock asks. “Why no takers for fourteen? It being redecorated or something?”

I grin and light a cigarette. The desk clerk says, “No. I guess it's just one of those things. Nobody to use it for a couple of days. It'll be taken soon.”

“Faces front, does it? Like those other two rooms?”

“Yeah.”

Murdock closes the book.

“Let's go and take a look,” he says.

The clerk leaves his nose alone long enough to pick the keys off the rack, comes around to our side of the desk and starts to go up the stairs. The stairs are steep and the naked light bulbs do nothing for the wallpaper or what passes for the stair carpet. Just before he gets to the top he says, “You going to bust that hustler?”