Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [48]
Lucky shook his head. “It don’t make no sense.”
I thought about Lopez’s primary theory. “So you think that whatever is going on, it’s not another Gambello-Corvino war?”
Lucky shook his head. “I don’t know who killed Charlie, but I do know that we haven’t put out a contract on Danny Dapezzo. So if his doppelgangster’s walking around now cursing him with death, well, it ain’t us that ordered the hit. That’s a guarantee. So this ain’t no Gambello-Corvino thing. We ain’t going to the mattresses with them. Not yet, anyhow.”
Max frowned. “Going to the mattresses?”
“Going to war with another famiglia,” I translated. “It involves sleeping in hideouts where your enemies can’t find you. So that you won’t wake up dead.” I’d learned a lot working at Stella’s. “Going to sleep on different mattresses, in other words.” Often rather unsanitary ones, I gathered, in a grimy flop shared by several soldiers from the same family.
“Fascinating!” Max murmured.
Returning to the point, I said, “So if it’s not an inter-family war, could the Corvinos just be doing some housecleaning, so to speak?”
“That’s out. They’d know they couldn’t whack Charlie without starting a new war with us,” Lucky said, shaking his head again. “And Danny’s one of their top guys, so he’d have to screw up big to get himself whacked by his own family. I ain’t saying it can’t happen. I just think it’s too big a coincidence that, like Charlie, he’s suddenly got a perfect double.”
“Coincidence does seem too improbable to consider seriously,” Max agreed.
“So could this be personal?” I asked. “Do Charlie and Danny have something in common?”
Lucky shrugged. “Well, they’re both assholes.”
“Something more specific,” I said.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Max?” I prodded. “What should we be looking for? What does this mean?”
“And what should we do now?” Lucky added.
“Well, first of all,” Max said, “I think we should warn Doctor Dapezzo. We must assume that he’s been marked for death by whatever entity marked Chubby Charlie for death.”
Lucky nodded. “I can’t say I’d be sorry to see Danny take the big sleep, but I suppose we gotta warn him. Anybody could be next, after all. Even me.”
Which was why I wasn’t in a cab on my way home right now, wisely washing my hands of this whole business. Without more facts, as Lopez would say, I couldn’t assume that these mysterious doppelgangsters would only portend the deaths of violent felons whom I either didn’t know or wished I didn’t know. What if Lucky or Stella got duplicated next?
I was fond of Stella, a nice lady who employed hungry actors. I was even fond of Lucky, though he was a killer and not very wise about women. If Lopez got evidence on Lucky and arrested him, I wouldn’t interfere; but I certainly wouldn’t just stand by idly while some supernatural thing cursed Lucky with death.
If there’s one thing I had learned from Max, it’s that once Evil comes to the party, everything goes haywire. So you’ve got to kick its butt out the door and down the street as soon as you encounter it or you’ll regret it later.
“In addition to warning Doctor Dapezzo,” Max said, “I need to interview him. Actually, what would be most helpful would be if I could interview his doppelgangster. Er, gänger.”
“You want to talk to the doppelgangster?” Lucky sounded appalled. “Speak with that thing?”
“Well, obviously it does talk,” Max said reasonably. “And in a sentient, naturalistic fashion. Mr. Be Good does not seem to be the most lucid and insightful of men—”
“Now there’s an understatement,” I said.
“—but it does seem likely that he’d have noticed if the doppelgangster was puppetlike or transparent.”
“And you and I,” I said to Lucky, “couldn’t tell Charlie apart from his double. So obviously these doppelgangsters are as lifelike as the real thing. At least when seen in limited doses.”
“But since they aren’t the real thing,” Max mused, “it’s possible that interviewing one of them will help me understand their purpose. Are they self-aware? Or do they actually believe