Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“What happened to your foot?” Angelet asks.

“I hurt myself.”

“How?”

“I got run over.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Is it broken?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a shame,” he says. “Cup of coffee? Something to eat?”

“Just coffee,” she says. “Thanks.”

Angelet signals to a waitress wearing a pink uniform.

“Another cup of coffee, honey,” he tells her.

The waitress smiles and goes off again. She is back with Alice’s coffee not three minutes later. She smiles again at Angelet. It occurs to Alice that she is flirting with him. He is not a bad-looking man. In his late thirties, early forties, Alice supposes, with dark brown eyes and a pale complexion for a Floridian — if indeed he’s from Florida. His voice on the phone sounded more like Brooklyn than Cape October. Alice suddenly wonders if he knew Eddie while they were still living in New York. On the phone, he said, “I’m an old friend of your late husband.” How old? she now wonders.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Angelet says.

“This is a serious matter here,” Holmes says. “Your husband owed us two hundred thousand dollars when he met with his unfortunate accident. He still owes us that money.”

“Which is a lot of money,” Angelet says.

“A whole fucking lot of money,” Holmes says.

“I can’t imagine my husband owing—”

“Imagine it, lady,” Holmes says.

“How… how could he possibly…?”

“The puppies, lady,” Holmes says.

“The what ?”

“The hounds.”

“I don’t know what—”

“The dog races. Your husband liked to bet.”

“He liked to bet big.”

“Too big.”

“Losers shouldn’t bet so big.”

“He was into us for two hundred large when he drowned,” Holmes says.

“Drowned too soon, ” Angelet says.

“Too fucking soon,” Holmes says, and both men laugh.

Alice gets up to leave.

“Sit!” Holmes says, as if he is talking to a disobedient dog. “And don’t get up again.”

Alice sits. She looks across the table at him.

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” she says. “I don’t believe you knew my husband, I don’t believe he owes you money, I don’t believe—”

“Want to see his markers?” Holmes asks.

“Markers?”

“Show her the markers, Rudy.”

“What…?”

“His betting slips,” Holmes says.

Angelet reaches into the inside pocket of his sports coat. When his hand emerges again, it is holding a sheaf of three-by-four white papers, some two inches thick.

“They’re all dated,” he says. “They go back a year and a half. That’s when he started betting with us. We were carrying him a long, long time.”

“We since found out he stiffed half a dozen other bankers in town.”

“We shoulda been more careful,” Angelet says.

“You’ll probably be getting a few more calls,” Holmes says.

“Once word gets around there was insurance.”

“What do you mean? How do you know…?”

“A check went out from Garland last week. Seems your lawyer threatened them with a lawsuit…”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s true, ain’t it?”

“How do you—?”

“I’ll tell you how we know,” Angelet says. “One of the people who bets with us happens to work for Garland, and he also happens to owe us a little money. So when we mentioned to him one day that this fucking deadbeat Eddie Glen—”

“Don’t you dare —!”

“Stay put, lady, I warned you!” Holmes says, and pulls her down into the booth again.

“When we mentioned to this man, whose name is Joseph Ontano, if you’d care to check, that your husband owed us two hundred large, but he was already dead and we weren’t about to let some little pissant like Mr. Ontano stiff us for a mere five, he said the name rang a bell, and he looked up the file when he got back to the office, and sure enough a check went out.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Lady…”

“I haven’t received any check.”

“You will.”

“I hope so. I can use it just now.”

“So can we. When that check arrives, we want two hundred of it.” “Before the other sharks start circling.”

“We’ll call you tomorrow,” Angelet says. “And we’ll keep calling you every day until that insurance check is in your hands. Then we—”

“I don’t know when a check is coming. I don’t even—”

“ Whenever it—”

“I don’t even know if one is coming. I haven’t heard they’re paying. Your Mr. Ontano must be mistaken. When did he say this check went out?”

“Lady,” Holmes says, “ whenever that fucking check gets to you, we want our piece of it. Or we’ll break your other foot, you know whut I’m saying?”

“You don’t frighten me,” she says.

“How about your kids? Do they frighten you?” Angelet asks.

“Are you in this with the others?” she asks.

Their faces go blank.

“What others?” Holmes asks.

“To each his own,” Angelet says, thinking he understands.

“Let them collect their own fuckin markers,” Holmes says, picking up on it.

They have no idea what she’s talking about. With an enormous sense of relief, she realizes they have nothing whatever to do with the kidnapping, Eddie’s gambling was not responsible for—

“We’ll call you this afternoon,” Angelet says. “After the mail comes.”

“Keep an eye on the mailbox,” Holmes says.

Both men rise in the same moment, as if by prearranged signal. Alice sits alone in the booth, watching them as they go. The waitress in the pink uniform walks over.

“Who’s getting this check?” she asks.

Outside, Alice hears an automobile starting. She looks through the blinds on the diner window. The white Caddy is moving out of the parking lot.

Too late, she thinks of writing down the license plate number.

The car is gone.

She calls her lawyer at home from the cell phone in her car.

“Andy,” she says, “hi. It’s Alice Glendenning, can you hear me?”

“Hello, Alice, how are you?” he asks.

“I’m fine. If we get cut off, I’ll call you back. I’m in the car.”

“What’s up?”

“Have you heard anything more from Garland?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Because some people seem to think a check to me has already been cut.”

“Really?”

“So they say.”

“What people?”

“Some people who knew Eddie.”

“I haven’t heard anything to that effect. You’d be the first to know, Alice.”

“I know that. But they seemed so positive…”

“I can call Garland again, if you like.”

“Could you, Andy? It’d be nice to know if a check is really on the way.”

“I’ll do that right now. Are you on the way home?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’ll call you there. Say half an hour or so?”

“Thanks, Andy.”

When she hangs up, she realizes she’s forgotten to give him Joseph Ontano’s name.

She tries to call him back, but she can’t get a signal.

I’m in a dead zone, she thinks.

Again, she thinks.

Ashley was five months old when the call came from Alice’s best friend in film school. Denise Schwartz had set up a low-budget production deal with an independent producer named Backyard Films, who were ready to finance a script Denise herself had written and planned to direct — and would Alice care to come in as her partner?

What?

What!

Her heart stopped.

Denise elaborated. The budget was only $850,000, which meant they would both have to wear many hats. Denise would be director and executive producer. Alice would work the camera and serve as line producer…