361 - Donald E. Westlake [28]
“You did?” I went over and looked at the back of the car. He’d done a good job, realistic, with mud and dirt on the bumper and over the license plate, so a part of each number was showing. Enough so it didn’t look like a covered plate, but it wasn’t easy to read the numbers.
I went back and said, “Thanks. You did a good job.”
“You better go back upstate,” he said.
I dug out my wallet and found a ten. I slid it down the fender to him. “Here’s an installment on the two-fifty,” I said.
“You didn’t have to, but it’s okay.” He palmed the ten.
“This guy, what’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I’ve heard him called Sal. Or Sol, I don’t know which. He comes around sometimes, and sometimes he works here. Every once in a while, he parks some fancy car here. The boss knows him. He’s big, with a great big jaw like Mussolini.”
“And Alex’s?”
“That’s a car rental place, up by the bridge. Up in Washington Heights.” He swiped another quick look at me. “You don’t want to spoil with them, Mister. You better go back upstate.”
“Thanks for the help,” I said.
He shrugged. “You got to wait out by the sidewalk,” he said. “I’ll bring the car to you.”
“Okay.”
We walked back over the gravel to the sidewalk, and he drove the car out and gave it to us without a word. We went around the block and down to 39th Street and through the Lincoln Tunnel. In Jersey City, we parked the car on a street off Hudson Boulevard and took the tube back to Manhattan, switched to the subway and went uptown to the hotel. We unpacked the suitcase and showered and brushed our teeth.
Bill said, “Do you want to follow up this car rental place?”
I shook my head. “That’s a Pacific campaign. Fight your way across every useless little island you can find for five thousand miles, before you get to the big island you wanted all along. I want to stay away from the little islands. That’s why we switched hotels. Thursday we get to the big island.”
“Fine with me,” he said.
Later on, we went to a movie. I couldn’t sit still, so we went down to Brooklyn on the subway and drank a while at a neighborhood bar. He closed at four and we took the subway back. There wasn’t anything to drink in the room. I lay on my back in the dark and stared at the ceiling. “Bill,” I said, “I think I know why they futzed around on all those little islands.”
But he was asleep already.
Fifteen
Monday afternoon I called the other hotel. Beeworthy and Johnson had both called, leaving messages for me to call them back. Since I now knew it was Eddie Kapp I was looking for, at least to begin with, there wasn’t any point in calling either of them.
Bill went out for a deck of cards and was gone an hour. When he came back, he had a haircut and he said he didn’t know I’d be worried. We played cards and I walked around and the room got smaller. We went out after a while and went to see a movie up in the Bronx. Then we went to a bar.
Tuesday, I called Johnson, just to have something to do. He was frantic. He said, “Where the hell are you people? I’ve been going nuts. Did you move out or something?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “We’re still here. We aren’t around the room much.”
“Jesus Christ, I guess not. I’ve been over there half a dozen times. I was ready to think those guys got to you.”
“Not a peep,” I said.
“They haven’t been around at all?”
“Nope.”
“You son of a bitch, you’ve moved someplace else.”
I grinned. It was fine just to be talking to somebody. “We’re still registered at the Amington,” I told him, “and our suitcase is still there. I mean here.”
“All right, you shouldn’t trust me with the address, but you don’t have to lie to me.”
“We’re still at the Amington, Johnson,” I said.
“All right, all right.” He was irritated. “On that other thing,” he said, “do you want to hear what I’ve got to say or not?”
“It’s up to you.”