A car door slammed and he woke up. He’d been drifting off under the umbrella for several hours, not caring much, for nothing was happening in the mansion.
Three men had gotten out of a cab. Brewer looked at his watch: ten after two. He observed the guard quickly admit the three men with short bobs of his head. Moments later they reappeared in a second-floor office. One of the men had lifted a bottle from a desk drawer: a cheap bottle of American vodka. Brewer smirked and toasted them with a drink of brandy. From lifelong habit he studied their faces. One of them surprised him: it was Colonel Maksim Edemsky, the world’s most overqualified embassy chauffeur, the groin-kicker himself. And right now he was very angry. As he talked, he waved his hands and brandished a fist, then shook a finger at the two other men who sat nodding at him.
Three men in pajamas entered and stood near the door. They listened and shook their heads. Everyone was serious. Edemsky picked up a pad and a pencil. He was describing some kind of tussle. He pushed an imaginary opponent with both hands. He shook his fist. Then he drew some lines on the paper. He shook his fist again and swelled his chest. Then he tossed the pad on the desk and threw the pencil at it.
The diagram he’d drawn in slashes was a Nazi swastika.
That night was the longest in Brewer’s memory. He slumped repeatedly in the folding garden chair, waking each time with a stiff neck. Sometime after three he woke and felt numbness in both feet. The rain had slowed, and a misty drizzle, like fog, was blowing across the island. Brewer got up and stretched, amazed to discover that he was still relatively dry.
He urinated into the night and took a long pull on the brandy. It was nearly gone. Then he walked back through the door to the stairs and sat on the top step inside to have a smoke. He woke a few minutes later with the cigar dead between his fingers. It brought back bad memories of sleepless nights on railroad station benches. He sat smoking and picturing his bed in the Sports Complex.
At six he was awake. His eyes burned and he was stiff in all his joints. Dawn was nearly an hour away. Fog and drizzle filled the air. Visibility was less than a block. A light appeared in a bedroom on the fourth floor. Precisely at six. Three more on the fifth floor went on; figures descended in the elevator; kitchen lights went on; a kitchen worker carried steaming cups on a tray up to the guards.
Men in business suits, women in business dress descended to the basement and passed through the kitchen, apparently to a dining room beyond.
Brewer watched wearily.
At seven-fifteen the kitchen man in the white jacket ascended in the elevator to the fifth floor. He carried a tray covered with a cloth, while from his jacket pocket swung the key on the string as he walked.
In the growing daylight Brewer studied the fifth-floor window under the peak. What had seemed to be a double shade now emerged clearly in the telescope. It was paper—two large sheets of it, one pasted on each windowpane. Someone had peeled back the corner of the lower one to make a peephole.
The bathroom shade next to it went up. With startling clarity there appeared in the telescope a tall, dark and very thin man with deep-set eyes. By the morning light coming in the window, he held up a hypodermic syringe, studied it, then pushed it into the muscle of his left arm. The shade was pulled down.
Wearily Brewer put his head in his hands and sighed. “Oh my God,” he said. “It’s Kotlikoff.”
Slick Willie Walker sniped his way through a rack of balls, smoothly, without a wasted motion; stepping up, setting, shooting, stepping up to the next shot; always knowing his next five or six moves and, with every rack, increasing his tempo, improving his rhythm. As he played he kept watch on the stairs, for if something didn’t come in the door soon, Willie would have to go out after it.
Brewer sat wearily in a high chair, watching. He looked around the poolroom. Just John was sitting in a low chair by the staircase, smoking and swinging a leg, waiting for Fatty the Fence. Beyond him was a group of four men talking in close tête-à-tête. Another deal: another glow of hope.
They were all scheming. And, Brewer realized, he too was sitting there just like the rest of them, scheming, just like the group on the landing, just like Just John, just like Willie Walker, all of them mentally on the run, all hoping for lightning to strike, all desperately looking for the true pot of gold. For Walker it was a five-hundred-dollar night, a series of them, to set up his nest egg against the day when he’d get shot down. For Just John a score, a big score that would put him on the road out. For the four it was a warehouse or the back window of a mansion, or a jewelry store or a fixed horse race. And for him Christmas was a game plan to rescue Kotlikoff.
Each of them had just one ace to play—one hole card: hope. In every one of them, hope was there like a vigil candle, flickering in a little red-glass cup. Hope: without it, they were all dead men.
Sometime during that evening as he sat in that chair trying to devise a rescue plan, Brewer knew he’d become one of them.
Brewer sagged in his chair. He was still stiff from his night on the roof, still sleepy from the shallow, fitful naps he’d taken, and he wished the problem would go away. There was no solution. Think, he demanded yet again. Don’t give up hope. There is a way. Think harder—or else die here in the Sports Complex, with a shaky hand, a watery eye, stinking of liniment and cheap hootch, watching an ancient palsied Walker get cleaned.
Every idea he’d considered he’d already rejected dozens of times throughout the afternoon and evening, every one—from deliberate arson (which might burn Kotlikoff along with the entire building) to armed attack (which had too many holes in it to be worth considering at all). He’d gone through such other improbable ideas as a tunnel from the office building (with an earth-shaking air hammer) and a helicopter (with a rope ladder).
He knew what the solution was. He kept rejecting it. He’d seen it clearly last night, and it occurred to him regularly every few minutes, yet each time he thought of it, he immediately rejected it again. It terrified him.
He started through his list of absurd alternatives again. Footsteps scuffed on the staircase. The four men on the landing stepped apart to let three sailors through. In the lead was a tall blond kid with wide shoulders, while behind him came the two who’d lost to Walker the other night. Brewer glanced at Walker, who ignored them, bending over his cue to sink another ball and then smoothly moving into position on the next one. He straightened up only when they stood around him, watching him shoot.
“This is your champ? This is your best man?”
“Yeah,” said one of the sailors. “This is him. He’s the best on the ship.”
“He’s going to clean you, Walker.”
“Fine. Fine. I always like to meet a man who can teach me something. What is your name, sailor?”
“They call me Duke.”
“Okay, Duke. What’s your pleasure?”
“Straight pool. How about Nine Ball?”
“Nine Ball! You’re the best in the fleet and you want to play me Nine Ball?”
“And we want odds too,” said one of the seconds. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Look, when it comes to Nine Ball, at any given moment on any given pool table, any three-for-a-nickel cue bum can take any champion pool shooter in the world. It’s a game of chance and pure luck. Come on, sailor. Right in this room I seen the likes of Danny McGoorty get whacked out clean as an old bone by a boy who’d hardly played the game for six months. Nine Ball is for idiots.”
“Okay, okay,” said the Duke. “What do you have in mind?”
“How about One Pocket?” said one of the sailors.
Slick Willie Walker looked aggrieved. “Pocket-a-Piece? Now, come on. One Pocket. Your boy here will never stand a chance—”
“Not if you give him the break and three balls plus three pockets.”
“Tell you what. We’ll play One Ball. Not One Pocket. One Ball. I’m going to stack the odds astronomically in your favor—and then I’m going to shoot you down in cold blood. Okay?”
“Wha
t’s the game?” Duke stood truculently with his arms crossed, waiting.
“Why—One Ball.”
“What’s One Ball?”
“One Ball, Duke my friend, is your way to riches. It’s your way to clean out Slick Willie himself so that the whole borough will hear about it.”
“Yeah, yeah. What’s One Ball?”
“It’s really very simple. All you have to do is sink the one ball. That’s all. Put the one ball in that corner pocket down there and you win.”
“You mean the first guy to pocket the one ball wins?”
“Oh no. Not a bit of it. I told you we wasn’t going to play even up. Listen to this fantastic offer. All you got to do is put the one ball in that corner pocket while I have to—are you ready?—I have to run off one hundred fifty balls.”
“A hundred fifty balls!” Duke stepped back in a crouch. “What’s the catch?”
“Ahhh, come on, Duke. What kind of catch? If you can’t put the one ball away before I rack off one hundred fifty balls, you’re going to get laughed out of the fleet.” “There’s a gimmick in there somewhere.”
“What kind of gimmick? Look. I ask you. How good are you? How many balls can you normally run?”
“I’ve run two racks now and then. Three’s my best.” “Three! That’s forty-five balls. Why, you’re no cuescratching amateur, then. Sinking the one ball is a piece of cake for you.”
“Spell it out for me.”
“Okay. It’s unbelievably simple. I get the break. And I can mouse any ball on the table except the one ball. That’s yours. I have to run off one hundred and fifty. No ass. I have to call every shot before I make it. If you sink the one ball—wait—wait. I’ll make it better. If you sink the one ball, or if I sink—me—even if I sink it, you win. Okay?”
“What if you don’t make a run of a hundred fifty?”
“Oh, hey, I’m not going to sink one hundred fifty balls without a miss. Every time I miss, it’s your turn to shoot at the one ball for that corner pocket.” Slick Willie looked around. “Tell you what. That gentleman sitting over there will be a referee. His name is Charlie Brewer. He lives in an apartment right upstairs over this billiard room, and he has a reputation for honesty and integrity that you can check out with anyone here. Twenty years of U.S. government service. We’ll give him the money for safekeeping.”
“What’s to prevent him from skipping off with the money while we’re watching you?”
“May God strike me dead, what a cynic you are! Okay, okay. This is what we’ll do. We’ll put the money under one of the legs of the pool table. You three lift and I’ll place the dough there. Okay?”
“Nah,” said the Duke. “I guess your friend’s all right. In fact, no one has to hold the money.”
“Thank you,” said Slick Willie Walker. “I do have a reputation to consider, and skipping out of here with your money wouldn’t do it no good. Besides. I’m telling you. There’s no way you can beat me. I’m going to get that money from you, fair and square. I’m going to shoot the lights out.”
“Let me have a conversation here,” said Duke. He silently waved the two others into a huddle away from Walker.
Walker stepped over to Charlie Brewer’s high spectator’s chair.
Brewer smiled. “You really can take him?”
“Take him? In One Ball? And I got the break? With that kind of a setup, I could take Willie Mosconi. In fact, tell you what. How about a side bet? I’ll give you eight-to-five odds this kid don’t get one clean shot at the one ball even if we play for a week.”
The three sailors shambled back to Walker.
“Okay,” said the Duke. “If it’s like you say, we’re interested. How much you want to play for?”
“What did you three gentlemen have in mind?”
Duke considered. “Well, you took them for seventy bucks the other night—”
“I never worked so hard in all my life….”
“Yeah, yeah. You got seventy. We want to win that back, plus a little for cab fare. Say a hundred.”
“A hundred, even up. No odds on this money, right? Handicap on the table but even up money. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Slick Willie Walker smiled happily. Then he rapped the butt of his cue on the wooden floor to summon Arty the rack man.
Abbott was oiled. He ascended the steps and walked directly toward Brewer. His eyes wore a familiar brightness from the first drinks of the night, and his gait was almost capering; his cap was down over one eye. He carried a brown paper bag—very carefully.
“Hey there, Brewer, old poop. It’s the night of the full moon.”
Brewer studied him. “I wish you had a million dollars, Abbott.”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’d take it all from you on that pool table.”
“Yeah? How about a little shit ball?”
“Sure. You’ll never get through the first rack.”
Abbott looked at the sailors. “Is Mr. Walker about to play those Navy gentlemen a little rack pool?”
“The blond kid.”
“He doesn’t hold his stick like much. What are they going to play?”
“They’re in for a game called One Ball.”
Abbott smiled and shifted his cap on his head. “That Willie ain’t got no shame left in him at all.”
They watched Willie set to break the rack. He placed a soft shot along the side of the triangle of balls. The rack opened loosely. Willie stepped back.
The sailor studied the rack. “That’s it? That’s your first shot?”
“Yeah. What’s a matter?”
“Nothing.” The sailor looked again at the rack and found the one ball in the center. He crouched and drove the cue into the balls. They scattered.
Willie stepped back up to the table. “Three ball, corner pocket.” The three ball fell into the corner pocket. “Five, side pocket.” The five rolled obediently into the side pocket, and the one ball rolled away from the rack. It came to rest on the rail away from its corner pocket. Four balls blocked the one ball.
Abbott got a cue stick and rapped on the floor for Arty. “Come on and get my million, Brewer.” He bent over and picked up his brown paper bag. Deftly he pressed the top of it down around the neck of a bottle and took a pull on it. Then with the back of his hand he wiped his mouth. He cleared his throat. Ahhh,” he said happily.
Brewer got a cue. “You ain’t going to get that rich widow that way.”
“I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Where’s Arty?” He took three balls and put them on the table like a triangle. Then he set the cue ball on the scratch mark. He pumped the cue ball into the triangle. All three balls rolled into a pocket.
Brewer smiled at him. “Pretty good. Let me ask you something, Abbott. You know all that magic and tricks—whachamacallit—illusions. You can get in and out of strait-jackets and trunks. How about getting in and out of buildings? Locked buildings?”
Abbott leaned close with a silly smirk. His breath was heavy with the liquor. “If I could do that, I’d empty every bank vault in the city.”
Abbott watched Walker’s cue pocket the seven ball, the eight, the fourteen. Willie’s was a soft game. The cue hit the target ball just hard enough to roll it into the pocket. Then the cue ball rolled backward or sideward or forward, depending on Walker’s plan.
The word had spread, and other pool players began to saunter slowly toward Walker as he ran out the rack. The one ball lay frozen on the rail.
“No kidding, Abbott. Have you ever gotten in and out of a locked building?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know like what. That’s what I’m asking you.”
Abbott shrugged and broke the rack. “There’s only one way in and out of buildings. Doors or windows. If you want to get in and out of buildings, get a good second-story man.”
It wasn’t getting any easier, and soon Abbott would be stuffed into a crock. “How about a bosun’s chair?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“You know how to operate one of those?”
“Yeah. Sure. How high?”
Brewer hesitated. “Nah. Won’t work.”
“How high?”
“How about sixteen stories?”
“That’s a long way.”
“Can’t be done, huh?” Brewer felt relieved.
“Sure. It can be done. No sweat.”
Brewer exhaled. His palms were soaked.
“Even up.”
Willie Walker had run four racks of balls. He watched the Duke’s face. On every break, Willie had just kissed the rack open, leaving the cue behind the rack, hidden from the one ball frozen on the far rail. And, following every break, the sailor had tried to three-cushion, even four-cushion the cue to the one ball. He failed, and Willie dined piecemeal on the rack. He watched the Duke’s eyes go from the table to the wooden counters on the wire over his head. At the end of each rack, Willie rapped the butt of his cue on the old wooden floor to summon the rack man, then slid the wooden counters on the wire with the thin end of his cue. In the fifth rack, he sensed the sailor’s growing dismay. Willie missed a two-bank shot on the seven ball and stepped back from the table.
The Duke stepped up for his first real shot. His arms hung limp as he studied the table. The one ball was frozen against the rail at the far end of the table. He examined the several balls that lay between the one ball and the pocket. “Jesus. There’s no shot here.”
Walker stood with the cue resting on the floor. He said nothing.
The two other sailors came to the edge of the pool table and studied the lie of the balls. “Over here. A bank shot off this rail.”
The Duke shook his head. “Nah. It’s not there. It’s not on the table. The ball’s dead against the rail. Shit.” He crouched, lined up the cue ball and the one ball and tried the bank shot. He tried to muscle it. The one ball spun off the rail, rolled down the table, hit the lip of a side pocket and rolled back toward the rail.
Willie Walker stepped back to the table and resumed shooting. A cluster of a dozen-odd men stood in an outer circle watching. Walker ran off three more racks of balls, always hiding the cue ball on the break. The one ball remained on the far rail, dead. Walker watched the sailor’s shoulders slumping. He missed a one-bank shot and stepped back.
Catch Me: Kill Me Page 15