Dirty Words - страница 4

"What poker game?"

"The one on Saturday."

"What's poker?"

I sighed. I should have known better. If push came to shove, Paulie would wind up with his own ass in a sling if he gave Johnnie his alibi. "This is between you and me, Paulie. I just need to know whether or not he was here."

Paulie stopped sweeping and gave me the once over. "Why you wanna know?"

"He's in Riker's for something that went down on Saturday night and he needs somebody to say that he was elsewhere."

"It ain't gonna be me."

"Well, I need to know."

Paulie scratched his chin. "He came by Saturday night. Got his hair cut."

That was all I needed to hear. Johnnie wouldn't let Paulie touch his hair with a velvet glove, much less his scissors. "How long?"

"He was here all night. Man's got one helluva complicated haircut."

"Would you be willing to tell a cop that? Even on the DL"

"Nope." Paulie resumed his sweeping. I started to leave when the broom stopped. "Next time you see that fat turd, you tell him he dropped one of his cards under his chair when he left."

"His cards?"

"Wasn't one of mine. You tell him he comes back again, I'm gonna cut more than his hair."

I left Brooklyn and returned to Manhattan for stop number two over at Dino's bar.

Josh already had the bottle of Makers in his hand when I told him I was having coffee. The bottle hovered for a second in Josh's unbelieving hand.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I'm working."

"Whew! For a second I thought you were gonna say you were on the wagon. I don't think I make my rent, you stop drinking."

"Hardy har, Sheckie."

Josh poured me a cup that tasted like it was brewed around the time Paulie picked up that Johnnie Bench S.I.

Scumbag claimed that Josh was at the poker game with him. Or danced a polka with him. After my talk with Paulie, I wasn't so sure anymore. After my tongue stopped shitting in my mouth from that first sip of coffee, I said as much.

"What poker game?" Josh said innocently. Or as innocently as a man sleeved in tattoos with an old bottle scar across one cheek can say it.

"Don't start that shit with me, Josh. I just went through it with Paulie." Josh and I went back a-ways together, so I wasn't about to play verbal hide & seek with him. I'd been a semi-regular at Dino's for a decade and tip well for an alcoholic. The amount of money I'd dropped in the last year alone should have been enough to buy me some straight talk.

"Okay, okay. Yeah. I was there. So was Scumbag."

"He's gonna need somebody to alibi him then."

Josh shook his head. "I'm not doing it. My wife finds out I was gambling, she's gonna have my balls in her spaghetti sauce."

I accidentally slugged another mouthful of coffee. Josh reached for the pot to refill it and I almost pulled my gun. "So don't say you were gambling. Say you were at a bar with him. Say you were playing pool with him. Say you were dancing a goddamn cha-cha with him in Monte Carlo for all I fucking care."

Josh blushed a deep red all the way up to the tips of his ears. "I can't"

"Why the hell not?"

"Well…" The red deepened into crimson. "My wife doesn't know I was out. I kinda snuck out after she fell asleep. She takes an Ambien, she wouldn't notice if I had the poker game in the bed on top of her."

"Josh, an innocent man is in jail right now and you're willing to let him stay there because you're afraid of your wife?"

"You never met Janelle, have you?"

"No…"

"There you go."

"For the love of…"

"And you got a weird sense of humor calling Johnnie Scumbag innocent." Josh's face went hard when he said it.

I met his eyes evenly. "He didn't rob Tino, Josh. If he was with you at the poker game, he didn't kill Nina either. Or the baby."

"Yeah. I know all about that. It's a tragedy. But Johnnie ain't no saint, either."

"I know that."

Josh nodded, solemnly. "You know about Geraldine?"

The name sounded familiar, but a face wouldn't appear in my mind. "I think so. What about her?"

"You mighta called her Sharkie."

"Oh yeah, Sharkie." Sharkie was a local hustler who fleeced the uptown boys whenever they played pool on the L.E.S. She wasn't a supremely skilled player, but was extremely gifted, nonetheless. Gifted by the way of 38-24-36, two inches of tits more than the Commodores granted. She played in a wifebeater t-shirt and a pair of bike shorts. Looking like she did, the best pool players in the world had trouble lining up a shot while staring at her womanly goodness. To top it all off, she possessed both a smile and nature so sweet, her marks would lose all of their money and then break out credit cards to buy her drinks when she was done. "What's this got to do with Sharkie?" I asked. "She hasn't been around in a while."