John Lescroart - The Vig

"And the moral is?"

"The moral is, this man makes it hard to do my job. He cuts staff, hours, ups production schedules. Damn near impossible. We having the special?"

The waiter was standing over them, taking their orders. The special started with soup and bread and proceeded through pasta, salad, a main course (roast pork today), ice cream (spumoni), and coffee.

"So what happened?" Abe asked.

"So eventually they shut down the plant."

Abe chewed bread for a minute. "Did I miss something?"

"The point is, while there was a job to do, I kept doing it right. But there's always something, everywhere you go." He buttered some bread of his own. "All I'm saying is this… you want to be a cop, don't kid yourself it'll be different in L.A. You're either supported or you're not, but what does it matter? You're raising your family, you're doing something worthwhile."

"But-"

"But what you don't do," Nat interrupted, "is you don't do it half-assed." He looked up at the waiter, who had brought the soup and a carafe of red wine. "Bring a glass for my son here, would you?" he said. "He's taking a day off."

"Now see?" Abe said, his spoonful of spumoni halfway to his mouth. "The very case I've been talking about." He indicated a young burly man who was nodding his way across the room. Nat always said it could be a very small world sometimes.

"You eat your ice cream. Have another cup of coffee. I think I'll just go have a word with him."

Nat shrugged. "How could it hurt?"

The man was talking to the waiter as Abe pulled out a chair and sat himself backward on it. "Don't mind me," he said. Then, to the waiter, "I'd like an herb tea, please. His tab. That right, Johnny?"

"Sure, sergeant."

Glitsky put on a smile and asked Johnny LaGuardia how he was doing. He was doing fine. He tucked his napkin in over his tie and rearranged the silverware a little in front of him. He kept his sports coat on, probably for the same reason Abe hadn't taken his off. It was awkward, showing your piece in a public place.

He'd been a very sweet-faced teenager, Abe supposed, but now, in his late twenties, there was starting to be a fleshiness under his cheeks and just a hint, a premonition, of jowls. His eyebrows were starting to meet over his fighter's nose, and his thin forehead, under the still thick black hair, was shiny with oil. He'd shaved very close, and Abe could see the tiny capillaries through the stretched skin on his face, could smell the overstrong cologne. Johnny fiddled with his water glass now. He wore three heavy rings on his right hand.

"I'm here with my father," Abe said, motioning over to where Nat was.

"That's nice," Johnny said. He looked over, creased his brow, came back to Abe. "He must of left."

Half-turning, Abe saw that he hadn't. "Old guy with the skull cap on. That's my dad."

He enjoyed watching Johnny having trouble doing the math. "Yeah, well, it's good to get out with the old man," he said.

The waiter brought Johnny a beer and Abe his herb tea. They both took small sips, Abe waiting it out. Finally, Johnny put the glass down. "So what's going on?" he asked.

"Your name came up the other day. Then I'm in here eating lunch and here you are and I think what a coincidence. I think maybe we can talk and it saves me two or three days of running around."

"How'd my name come up?"

Abe pulled the chair right up against the table, lowering his voice. "That's the thing, Johnny. Your name came up talking about prints we found at the scene of a murder."

Johnny shook his head. "Goddamn."

"What?"

"Rusty Ingraham, right?" Johnny drank off half his beer, put it on the table, belched politely and said, "Shit, I knew it."

"Knew what, Johnny?"

"You lose your temper, you get in trouble."

"Yeah, that happens a lot. You lose your temper with Rusty?"

"Hey, I didn't kill him."

"Nobody said you killed him."

"You think I killed him, you're wrong. The girl neither."

"Read my lips, Johnny, we don't think you killed them. We got another suspect in custody at County Hospital. We think he killed them, which is why he's under arrest. But what I was curious about was your fingerprints. And you knew the girl was there?"

"She was already dead."

"And Rusty? Was he already dead?"

Johnny shook his head. "I never saw no Rusty. The girl was in the hall blocking the back of the place. I took a look at her and didn't do, like, the inventory."

"You just took off?"

"Hey, sergeant, what am I gonna do? Call the cops? What do you think they do they find me with a couple stiffs?"

"What am I doing now?"

"This is different. You got a guy on ice already. If it'd been me called the cops, you wouldn't even be looking for him 'cause I'd be your suspect."

Glitsky hated to admit it but Johnny wasn't too far off on that one. Especially lately. He sipped some tea. "Yeah, but the fingerprints, Johnny. I could take you in on those."

"But you got a suspect!"

"So now let's say I'm just curious. An inquisitive guy like myself, I hate when I don't know how everything fits together."

"Maybe I should get a lawyer or something."

Abe cupped his hands around his tea, still close in, still whispering. "Johnny, you're not under arrest. We are talking, that's all. Loan sharks aren't my beat. If it's not homicide, I'm not busting anybody."

Johnny finished his beer. The waiter came with minestrone. Johnny ordered another beer, then tore off a bite of bread, swirling it around in the soup.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, here's the deal. Ingraham's vig was six."

Glitsky's eyebrows went up. "A week?"

Johnny nodded. "That's how we do the vig, capisce?

"Six hundred dollars a week?"

Johnny popped some bread into his mouth. "Guys pay more. So anyway-"

"Wait a minute. What was Ingraham doing business with you for? He owed, what, six grand? Why didn't he get it from other sources?"

"Like where?"

"How 'bout a bank, for example. He was a lawyer. He must've had credit."

Johnny shook his head. "Banks generally don't lend money to put on the ponies."

"Ingraham played the ponies?"

A slug of beer. "The ponies owned the sucker. The guy was a mess." He put his spoon down. "One of these guys that say he hits the daily double, he stays around for the Exacta and puts the extra money down on it."

"Was he any good?"

"Guys like that are never good. There's something else pushing 'em. It's like a sickness. I been collecting vig from him on and off since I started working for Mr Tortoni. Just keeps getting bigger and bigger."

"And he's never paid it off?"

"The principal? No way. He gets that kind of money, he plunks it on some nag's nose."

Abe had finished his tea. The waiter came by and put down a steaming plate of ravioli, taking away the soup bowl. "How's a guy get into it that deep?"

Johnny lifted his shoulders. "I told you, he can't help it. He gets a hunch, he's gotta play it, you know? That's how it all started, a couple hundred he didn't have. Twenty a week vig. Who can't make that? Then the vig's a hundred. One week he can't make the hundred, so he rolls it, borrows more to pay the vig. Between you and me, this is suicide. But he keeps paying, the vig keeps growing."

"So what happened at Rusty's?"

Johnny studied a piece of ravioli on his fork for a minute. "I been in some heat with Mr Tortoni lately. Couple guys stiffing me, coming in short." He shrugged, trying to make light of it, but Abe could see his worry. "It's business, you know, and Mr Tortoni is someone who takes his business very serious."

"So?"

"So I gotta explain to Mr Tortoni about how there's a body at Ingraham's, plus there's no money. So I'm short six hundred there on top of short"-he paused-"other places." He put his fork down without eating. Abe had the impression he was about to tell him something more personal, but the moment passed. He shrugged again, went back to his food. "So I got mad. I was in trouble here, you understand."