Donald Westlake - Smoke

"Moonlighting," Mordon explained. "A few members of the New York Police Department are unofficially helping NAABOR in this matter. I'm going to see one of them next, on the question of how we make contact with Mr. Noon." Tucking the mug shots away again in their envelope, and returning the envelope to his jacket pocket, he said, "Before seeing him, I needed a positive identification that we were on the track of the right man." Rising, he said, "Now I know we are, I can proceed."

The two doctors got to their feet, Heimhocker fixing Mordon with a stern eye as he said, "You'll keep us informed of progress, of course."

"Of course," Mordon said, and thought, I'm lying. He knows I'm lying. I know he knows I'm lying. But does he know I know he knows I'm lying? And does it make any difference? Well, time would tell. "I can find my own way out, thank you," he said, and departed.

16

A restaurant can be a very satisfying business. Barney Beuler found that so, certainly. It had so many advantages. For instance, it always gave you a place to go if you wanted a meal, but you it didn't cost an arm and a leg. It gave you, as well, a loyal — or at least fearful — kitchen staff of illegals, always available for some extra little chore like repainting the apartment or standing on line at the Motor Vehicle or breaking some fucking wisenheimer's leg. It also made a nice supplement to your NYPD sergeant's salary (acting lieutenant, Organized Crime Detail) in your piece of the legit profit, of course, but more importantly in the skim. And it helped to make your personal and financial affairs so complex and fuzzy that the shooflys could never quite get enough of a handle on you to drag you before the corruption board.

The downside was that, in the six years Barney Beuler had been a minor partner — one of five — in Comaldo Ristorante on West Fifty-sixth Street, he'd gained eighty-five pounds, all of it cholesterol. It was true he'd die happy; it was also true it would be soon.

Another advantage of Barney's relationship with Comaldo was that it made a perfect place to meet someone like the attorney Mordon Leethe. The NYPD frowned on its cops using department time and department equipment and department clout on nondepartment matters, but what did Barney Beuler have to sell to a big multinational corporation like NAABOR except his NYPD access? I mean, get real. A man with three ex-wives, a current wife, a current girlfriend, a very small drug habit (strictly strictly recreational), two bloodsuckers he's paying off to keep their mouths shut and himself out of jail, a condo on Saint Thomas, a house and a boat on the north shore of Long Island, and a six-room apartment on Riverside Drive overlooking the Hudson from eleven stories up needs these little extra sources of income to make ends meet, as any sensible person realizes.

Barney was having lunch at "his" table near the front (it was his and the rest of the partners' table every midday till 12:45, when, if none of them had showed up, it would be given away as needed, Comaldo always doing a brisk lunchtime trade) when he saw Mordon Leethe come in with a tall skinny young guy who looked like Ichabod Crane. Ich would be one of the recent law school graduate employees of Leethe's firm and would not know he was the beard in this meeting between Leethe and Barney; the sap would think he was being earmarked for the big time. Well, maybe he was; stranger things have happened. Every day.

Barney, who was lunching with one copartner and two Long Island boating friends, gave Leethe the smiling nod of a restaurateur spying a good customer, and Leethe responded with the dignified nod of that good customer. He and Ich were shown to a table near the rear, one selected earlier by Barney because the acoustics at that back-corner location were particularly good if you didn't want your conversation overheard.

Barney kept his attention on his own table and food and companions, but nevertheless was also aware when Leethe and Ich ordered their lunches, and when they were given their bread, their water, and their olive oil. Only then, "Be right back," Barney told his pals, filled his mouth with gnocchi, and got to his feet.

Every year, it seemed, it was a little harder to squeeze between the tables. Seemed like the customers sat with their chairs farther back than they used to. Maybe everybody was getting fat.

Still, Barney eventually forced his way through the clientele to that rear table, where he did his complete boniface number, smiling broadly, extending his hand out across the table, bowing from the general vicinity of his waist as he said, "How are ya, Mr. Leethe? Been a while."

"I've missed the place, Barney," Leethe said, showing one of his own false smiles as he laid a dead bird into Barney's hand.

Barney shook the dead bird, returned it, and said, "How you been keepin, Mr. Leethe?"

"Just fine, Barney. That tip you gave me on the brandy was perfect, thank you for it."

The "brandy," of course, was the minor punk and thief called Fredric Urban Noon, who had turned out to be the perp Leethe was looking for. Barney grinned and said, "My pleasure, Mr. Leethe, I'm glad it worked out. Speaking of brandy and suchlike, you and your companion having some wine this lunchtime?"

"No, Barney, not today, we've got a lot of work ahead of us back at the shop." The false smile took in Ich Crane: "Right, Jeff?"

"Right," Ich said, and sat at attention. He was mostly Adam's apple, over a yellow tie. Who'd told him yellow ties were still in?

"Nevertheless, Mr. Leethe," Barney said, "I'd like you to just cast an eye over our new wine list. I'm not trying to tempt you—"

"You couldn't, Barney," Leethe said, chuckling at his underling, who chuckled back.

"I'm sure I couldn't. But for your future reference, I'd just like you to see some of the Italians we got in. Okay?"

"Be happy to look at it, Barney," Leethe agreed.

"Be right back."

Barney went into the kitchen, took the sheet of paper he'd earlier worked up on the restaurant's computer — the same computer that did the menus, the billing, and the inventory — slipped it into the middle of one of the restaurant's large wine books, and went back to Leethe's table, where he presented the book with a flourish and said, "Just take a look at that."

Leethe found the insert right away, of course, and Barney watched him study it with just as much pleasure as if it had actually been a list of fine Italian wines. What the insert was, though, was a letter. Printed in three colors and four different typefaces, it looked like an expensive print job, and what it said was:

NEW YORK STATE GAMING AUTHORITY

WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWER #2

NEW YORK, NY 10001

212-555-1995

June 16, 1995

Mr. Fredric U. Noon

124-87 130th Crescent

Ozone Park, NY 11333

Dear Mr. Noon:

CONGRATULATIONS!

As you may know, the New York State Gaming Authority, in response to a consent order from the New York State Supreme Court, dated September 25, 1989, has been required to make a reimbursement of a certain percentage of the "tote" in the various gaming operations under the Authority's control, due to a computer malfunction between February 9, 1982, and October 1, 1986. The class-action suit brought against the Gaming Authority was completely satisfied by that court action.

It was directed by the Court, and agreed to by the Authority, that all citizens of the state of New York who, according to the records of the Authority, engaged in gaming activities under the control of the Authority between the dates of February 9, 1982, and October 1, 1986, shall be given equal standing in a lottery drawing to be held on the fourth of July, 1994, and the fifteen hundred (1,500) citizens whose names would be drawn would share equally in the court-directed judgment against the Authority of three million, one hundred seventy-six thousand, seven hundred dollars ($3,176,700.).