Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online

winnings?”
    “Never. Tommy was always straight about things like that.”
    He nodded, thought for a second, then said, “Do you know anybody else in that building?”
    “Tommy’s place? No.”
    “Does the name Solomon Napoli mean anything to you?”
    Until last night I could have given that question a straight no with no qualms. Trying to figure out what such a denial would have sounded like and then imitate it, I furrowed my brow, scratched my head, shook my head, stared out the window, and finally said, “Solomon Napoli. Noooo, I don’t think so.”
    “You seem doubtful.”
    “Do I? I don’t mean to. I really don’t know the name, I just wanted to be sure before I said anything. Who is he?”
    “Somebody we’re interested in,” he said, making it clear it was somebody he didn’t want me being interested in.
    I said, “Does he live in the same building as Tommy?”
    He frowned, as though confused. “Of course not. Why?”
    “Well, you asked if I knew anybody in that building, and then right away you wanted to know if I—”
    “Oh,” he said, interrupting me. “I see what you mean. No, it’s two different questions.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Did you ever hear of Frank Tarbok?” he asked. “And he doesn’t live in McKay’s building either.”
    “Tarbok? No.”
    “You don’t want to think about that one first?”
    “Well,” I said. “Uh. It’s just, I just knew right away he—”
    “Okay,” he said. “How about Bugs Bender?”
    “That’s a name? No, if I’d ever heard that one I’d remember it.”
    “What about Walter Droble?”
    I was about to say no when the name did ring some sort of distant bell. “Walter Droble,” I repeated. “Did I read about him in the papers or some place?”
    “That would be the only way you know him?”
    “Yeah, I think so. It’s like I’ve heard the name somewhere, a long time ago.”
    “All right.” He seemed to consider things for a minute, and then said, “How well do you know Mrs. McKay?”
    Him, too? “Not very well,” I said. “Mostly I just had dealings with Tommy.”
    “Ever hear any rumors about her? Running around with another man, anything like that?”
    I shook my head. “Not a thing,” I said.
    “Did she ever make a play for you, flirt with you?”
    “Mrs. McKay? Have you ever seen her? Sure you have, the other day.”
    “She wasn’t looking at her best the other day,” he said. “You don’t think she’s good-looking enough to flirt?”
    “Well, she’s not bad -looking,” I said. “I don’t know, I never saw her dressed up or anything, I don’t know what she’d look like.”
    “All right,” he said, and got to his feet. “That’s about it. Thank you for your cooperation.”
    “Not at all,” I said.
    “You’re going to be around town?”
    “Sure.”
    “You’ll be notified about the inquest.”
    “I’ll be here,” I said, and led the way to the front door. He buttoned up his coat and put his hat on and then I opened the door and he slogged out into all that swirling snow. There were little puffs of wind, this way, that way, with still places in between, so when you looked out, it was like looking at a photograph full of random scratches.
    I watched him go down the stoop, then shut the door and went back to the living room, but this time I left the television off. I sat there thinking, and it seemed to me if there was anybody in this world I didn’t want to be right now it was probably Solomon Napoli. The cops obviously thought he might have had something to do with Tommy’s death, and so did Tommy’s bosses, and that seemed to leave Napoli square in the middle.
    Who was Napoli? Maybe the boss of some other gang that was trying to muscle in. Maybe all this was part of some kind of gang war. There still are gang wars, only they don’t get as much publicity as they used to. Mobsters just disappear these days, they don’t get blown up in barbershops or machine-gunned in front of nursery schools