LITMIR.BIZ

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were you doing out there?”

      “Never mind that.”

      “I want to know.”

      “It’s not important, Johnny.”

      I let that ride. The sun ricocheted off the windshield, stinging my eyes. I lit a cigarette. It was almost as bad as the pipe. Damn the heat.

      “Believe me, Johnny, when I say this is big.”

      “Okay, so I believe you.”

      I didn’t though. You couldn’t believe Jocko Quinn, not and expect to know the truth.

      He said, “A cool quarter-million bucks. Does that interest you, Johnny? Does it?”

      I didn’t answer. I watched a blonde climb into a Mercury convertible. She had nice legs.

      “I can’t handle it alone,” he said. “Dammit, I wish I could! But I can’t.”

      “You said that before.”

      “Yeah, so I did. Listen, Johnny, listen to me real close. I’m not bulling you. There’s two hundred and fifty grand bouncing around here. Two hundred and fifty.” The way he said the amount sent chills down my back. “That’s a lot of money. It’s all tax-free, if we play our cards right.”

      “We?”

      “Sure, Johnny. You and me. I’m going to cut you in. Just like old times, Johnny. We’ll be working together again. Just like old times.”

      He was too nervous, The hands continued to move and he continued to sweat and the smell grew stronger.

      “What’s the pitch?”

      “There’s no pitch. This dough’s just lying around, just waiting to be picked up.”

      It was a lot of money for a punk like Jocko Quinn to be worrying about; it was a lot of money for me, too. His eyes danced around in his face and I could see him forming the amount with his lips. I felt a little sick.

      “You meet me tonight,” he said. “Ten o’clock sharp. At Fairfax and Wiltshire.”

      “Why there? Why not my place?”

      “I think I’m being tailed. I’m not sure.”

      “What’s this got to do with Claire Harding?”

      The little red veins tightened on his cheeks again.

      “Not with her, Johnny, not with her.”

      “What were you doing out there?”

      “I told you it wasn’t important. Goddamn it, Johnny, do you want in on this or not?”

      “All right,” I said.

      “You’ll meet me tonight? Promise?”

      I nodded.

      I watched his little fat form waddle out of the parking lot. Jocko Quinn was getting in the big time. I still felt a little sick.

       2

      THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING WHEN I got to my apartment. I left the door open and picked up the receiver.

      “Hello,” I said.

      “Mr. Phelan?”

      I recognized the voice.

      “Yes.”

      “This is Claire—”

      “I know.”

      A man and a woman walked by my open door. I heard them laugh and then their footsteps going down the carpeted stairs.

      “No results yet,” I said.

      “Really, Mr. Phelan, I didn’t expect any.”

      “Uh-huh. Miss Harding, do you know a Jocko Quinn?”

      The telephone was silent. I tried to picture her in the sunsuit—my watch said 5:30, though, and she was probably dressed by now.

      “I don’t think so,” she said, after a while. “There was a Jocko something-or-other in a picture I did about two years ago. An Englishman, I think. A real bore, if I remember correctly.”

      “Wrong man,” I said.

      She laughed suddenly, saying something to someone on her end of the line. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I wished I could see her, see what was going on.

      “Mr. Phelan,” she said, “I’m having a little party tonight. Just a few friends. Perhaps you’d like to come?”

      “In the line of duty?”

      “In the line of duty.”

      I thought about it a moment.

      “I’d be delighted.”

      “Fine. Around nine then, Mr. Phelan.”

      I thought of Jocko and the appointment.

      “I’ll be a little late. Maybe ten-thirty.”

      Her voice lost its pleasantness. “If that’s the best you can do.”

      “It is. I’m a working man.”

      “You’re working for me, aren’t you?”

      “That’s right.”

      I could hear her fingers drumming against the receiver; the noise rebounded against my ears.

      “No one need know about—”

      “Of course not, Miss Harding.”

      “You are discreet, Mr. Phelan?”

      “Always.”

      The telephone was dead, quite suddenly. She seemed to have a habit of ending things that way. I walked across the room, closing the door. The night promised to be a long one. I decided to catch forty winks.

      The thing kept pushing at my shoulders. I tried to resist it, but it wouldn’t go away. I opened my eyes. A face stood above me and a voice said something. The face was fuzzy. I reached over to the table by my bed, putting on my glasses.

      The face took form and I recognized it. I swung up to a sitting position and recognized the other face, too. The faces belonged to Adam Wheeler, a detective-lieutenant in Homicide and a very intelligent cop, and to Hap Rossi, one step lower in rank and five steps lower in intelligence. Rossi was the one who had been pushing at me.

      “Gents,” I said, rising to my feet.

      Wheeler didn’t smile at me. He sat in a straight-backed chair by the window, cleaning his fingernails. Rossi glared at me from his tiny brown eyes—but, then, he always glared at me. He didn’t like me and made no bones about it.

      I walked into the kitchen, rinsed out a dirty glass, took a long drink of cold water, and came back into the other room.

      “Been sleeping long, Johnny?” Wheeler asked.

      I looked at the clock on the dresser. It said 8:20.

      “Not long enough,” I said.

      “How long, Phelan?”

      Rossi’s bulk moved in front of me. His face was broad and dark and his head was rimmed with fuzzy black hair and quite bald in the middle. He was an ugly brute.

      “Whoever gave you the name Hap?” I asked.

      “Don’t be a wise guy,” he said.

      His right hand tightened into a fist. He wouldn’t need much to set him off.

      I said, “Why all the build-up? What do you characters want?”

      “How long, Johnny?”

      I turned to Wheeler. “I don’t know, Adam. I guess I

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