Hickey pointed toward the far wing, from where he’d seen another smoking chimney. “Who’s back there?”
“Mac and a gal.”
“Anybody else around besides Tyler and Frieda?”
Harry wagged his head, gave a pensive scowl. For a minute he tapped the phone receiver against his shoulder. Then he dropped it back onto the cradle. “Tom, let’s cut the jive. See, I know you’re not gonna pop me.”
“Uh-huh,” Hickey muttered, peering into the shadows of corners and doorways.
“You wanta know how I know?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re not the kind who could pop a guy just because he won’t take orders. You know how I know?”
“I don’t have to. You’re gonna tell me.”
“I know because I’m the kind who could.” He flashed a wan smile. It looked tainted by regret. He picked up the receiver, dialed, and a moment later said, “Pauline, give me some phone numbers. Charlie Schwartz. Sal Randazzo. The guy they call the Jockey, what’s his name—Schweidel, something Schweidel.” He cupped a hand over the receiver and hollered, “Tyler, bring me a paper and note pad.”
Instantly, Tyler came strolling from the kitchen. Halfway across the room, between the snake tank and the Formica desk, he stopped cold, staring at Hickey’s gun.
“Don’t get all hot and bothered, Tyler,” Harry drawled. “Tom just needs some, whatta you call—security. Like a guy falls asleep holding his dick, that’s all the rod’s for.”
Tyler shrugged and opened the desk, fished out a steno pad and pen, delivered them. With a quizzical look at Hickey, he turned back toward the kitchen. The boss uncovered the receiver.
“Okay, hon. One more time.” He jotted on the pad. “Yeah.…Check.…Okay. Yeah, see you tonight. Late, probably. How you dressed?…Ooh, that red angora with the poofy sleeves? I’d climb Mount Everest to see you in that.”
Frieda poked her head out from the kitchen, long enough to verify the story Tyler must’ve given her, about the loco neighbor who’d probably get snuffed any minute now.
“Who’re Randazzo and Schweidel?” Hickey demanded. “I never heard of the guys.”
“You been outta touch, Tom. Sidekicks of Angelo and Cohen, respectively. They oughta know what’s up. Paoli and the Mick don’t take calls straight from a nobody like me. To them, I’m a nickel-and-dime hustler from the boondocks. How about I ring Charlie first?”
Hickey nodded. The boss dialed the operator, gave her a San Diego number. He reached one of Schwartz’s errand boys, left a message that Charlie should call him on urgent business. He pestered the operator again, got forwarded, gave a similar message to a Mrs. Randazzo.
Arnold Schweidel he caught at home. After gabbing a minute, Harry pardoned himself, muffled the phone, and asked, “How about it, Tom? Ought I tell him you’re threatening to plug me? Give him a laugh?”
“Tell him whatever you want.”
“So, Jock,” Harry said, “the deal is, a neighbor of mine stopped by here a while ago, pulled a heater, waved it around. Then he ran off someplace.” He listened a moment and reared back chortling. “The Jockey asked can I change my will,” he told Hickey. “Bequeath him one of my speedboats.”
Harry told the man that persons unknown had snatched his neighbor Tom Hickey’s wife, on account of Tom was a snoop and had got a little arrogant, trying to push guys around to deliver some female from an arson rap, for which behaviors Tom was sorely ashamed and willing to make amends anyhow he could. All he wanted was his wife back. The wife being pregnant, Harry figured Mr. Cohen might take pity, ferret out whoever put the snatch on, and persuade them to reconsider.
Or else, he said, this lunatic was apt to waste somebody and get the yokels all flustered, just when there’s already talk of Washoe County putting the screws on gambling.
“I could take him out, but the thing is, I like the guy, and he does good work when he’s not off his rocker. Talk to Mickey, will you?”
He told Schweidel they’d wait for a call. He hung up, slid to the middle of the couch, picked his ale bottle off the floor, and leaned back contentedly. “Now we relax, huh? Don’t wanta tie up the line.” He sipped, sighed. “You know why I didn’t tell him you were pointing a gun at my ear?”
“It would’ve made you blush.”
“Close. What kinda reputation’d it buy me, getting stuck up in my own parlor? You’re compromising me, Tom. I don’t like that.”
A wiry fellow with flyaway black hair, shirtless, wearing jeans and a silver cowboy belt buckle had appeared in the doorway to the northeast cube, leaning on a rifle as if it were his cane. A Latin woman stood behind him, peering over his shoulder.
Raising his gun to where the cowboy could see it angled in his direction, Hickey said, “Get Mac over here.”
The boss hollered and Mac obeyed, letting his rifle drop to the floor. The stock landed on the woman’s instep. She yipped and jumped from the doorway into the dark. Mac ambled through the maze of couches to stand beside the hearth, about five feet from Hickey. He sucked a deep breath as though to expand and exhibit his furry chest. “Problem, boss?”
“Don’t sweat it,” Harry said. “Tell Tom what you saw this morning.”
“Big blue four-door, looked like an Olds. About six. I was making the rounds. It came clunking out from behind the trees out front of your place.”
“Clunking?”
“Yeah. Had chains.”
If they were flatlanders, Hickey thought, if they’d driven up from the coast, they must’ve stopped in a gas station to buy the chains. “You get a number, see anybody inside?”
“I look like a cat? Hey, last night was so dark I couldn’t see the tip of my nose.”
Hickey stared hard.
Mac yawned, wrinkled his nose. “Hey, I’m sorry. That good enough? You want me to keep a watch on your place, you gotta tell me ahead of time.”
“I’m telling you now. Bundle up and go over to my place. Claire Blackwood’s there. Send her here and wait till she gets back. Stay by the phone.”
Mac turned to Poverman, got a nod, and strolled off toward the cube from where he’d appeared.
“Another drink?” the boss asked. Hickey declined. “So, while we’re sitting by the phone, how about a card game?” When he got no response, Harry clapped his hands for attention. “Cards?”
“No.”
“Tell me something, then. How’s it feel, being a family man after playing the field all those years?”
Hickey sat glowering, at the fire for one long moment, another at Harry, a third scanning the room. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t believe he could muster the heart to sit conversing. Besides, talk would shift his mind off business. Off Wendy. But the tempest inside him had to find some release, or else it might blow him apart at the seams. He filled and lit his pipe, smoked awhile, watching Harry and wondering about the man. Sure, he was a gambler, probably had his finger in some other rackets. But Hickey’d known a few mobsters who had a decent side. If he had to make book on the roster in heaven, there were mobsters on whom he’d put shorter odds than on plenty of churchgoers he’d met. At least on one churchgoer he’d known intimately: his mother.
When Mac came out dressed and started for the north door, Harry shouted a command. “Hey, not a peep to anybody! One yokel laughs at me, whoever spilled the beans gets crucified.” Mac waved his assent and left.
“Look, Tom. I don’t mind you holding that piece. Just don’t bore me to death. How about it? Talk to me.”
“Give me a topic,” Hickey muttered.
“You and the wife. What else?”
“You wanta hear about me and Wendy?”
“Yeah. Give me the scoop. I been wondering a long time. When I first saw you and her, with the Blackwood dame always hanging around, I figured you and Blackwood were smooches. Wendy I made as your kid, maybe the Blackwood doll’s niece. How much older are you?”
“Plenty.”
“Yeah, well, young’s just fine. Young’s magnifico. Only she’s…you know. What keeps you stuck on a gal like that?”
“Like what?” Hickey growled.
“Aw, how do you say it? Sweet. Pure. One of those. What’d you think I was gonna say?”
“Lots of people think she’s stupid,” Hickey muttered.
“Hell, Tom, if I spurned dames on account of their intellect, I’d be a horny guy. She stupid?”
“No,” Hickey said adamantly. “Claire’s got her reading these books—I’d guess she’s brighter than me, only she never went to school.”
“Why’s that?”
“Her ol’ man wouldn’t let her.”
“I get it,” Harry said. “Must’ve been a German. So the tale I heard, you and a gang of pachucos stormed the old Agua Caliente Casino, swiped a ton of gold, and massacred about a thousand Nazis who were holed up there scheming an invasion. The way the yokels tell it, the girl was some Nazi honcho’s sweetheart. That story pretty accurate?”
“That’d be the Hollywood version.”
The north door flew open and Claire ran in, looking robust as if in the past hour she’d taken a magic elixir. In the entryway, she halted and gawked at Harry’s decor. Then she hustled through the maze of dyed leather couches, pulling the snow cap off her head and shaking out her hair, pausing for a glance at the snakes.
“Quite a layout,” she remarked flatly, just before noticing Hickey’s gun.
Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes flashed darkly. She strode past the gambler to the fireplace side of Hickey’s chair, leaned over him, and demanded, “What the hell are you doing, Tom?”
Hickey smiled bitterly. “You got any smarter ideas?”
“No. But I can’t match this one for ignorance, either.” After scalding him with her glare, she turned it on the boss.
“Miss Blackwood,” Harry drawled, in his silkiest bass. He rolled his hand toward the .45 and shrugged. “Never mind the prop. Tom and I are having a swell time, chewing the fat. Say, I don’t recall our being properly introduced, and I’d remember if we had.” He stood and offered his hand.
Claire stayed beside Hickey long enough for the gambler’s arm to tire, yet he resolutely held it out. Finally she stepped to meet him halfway and awarded her hand for a second. As he started lifting it toward his lips, she yanked it away and hustled back to kneel beside Hickey’s chair, scowling.
“Sit down,” Hickey snapped at the boss.
With a mock servile nod, winking at Claire, Harry retreated and sat primly on the sofa’s edge. “Drink, Miss Blackwood? Hors d’oeuvres?”
“Look, you wanta put the make on Claire, you had the last two years and maybe you’ll get a few more. It’s not what I called her over here for.”
“Why did you send for me, Tom?”
“A couple chores. How about you call every gas station, starting from here, to Truckee, over the pass, all the way to Auburn if you have to. Ask did anybody in a blue Olds buy chains last night. Somebody says yes, get all you can. Maybe there’s a receipt with a license number. Maybe an attendant can describe the guys. If nothing turns up that direction, start back here and go south, off the hill at least to Placerville. Got it?”
“Sure.”
“Call from your place. That’ll leave my line clear. Stop on the way and tell Mac to stay put, would you?”
“Okay. Is that all?”
“Yeah. Thanks, babe.”
“For the record, Tom, you’re acting like a dope.” Sorrowfully, she gave him a peck on the forehead and hustled off.
“A pleasure, Miss Blackwood,” Harry called after her.