Saturday night, about midnight, Frank Tree got in his LTD and by the time he was settled behind the wheel, leaning forward to insert key in ignition, I had put the fat cold nose of the silenced nine-millimeter up against the side of his neck, just under his ear.
I had to give the guy credit. He didn’t jump. Hell, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t yell, either. And he knew enough not to turn towards me. He didn’t try looking at the rear-view mirror, as if he knew in advance I’d turned it to face the windshield.
All he did was say: “I don’t have any money on me.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you’re not a total idiot.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you ever hear of locking your car? How many hundred buck tape decks do you lose a week?”
“What is this?”
I leaned back a little, eased the gun off his neck. “Look on the seat next to you,” I said. “Tell me what you see. “
“A shirt.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s pale lemon color. It’s got a monogram on the pocket. It’s dirty.”
“What else.”
“It’s mine.”
“Where do you suppose I got it?”
“My dirty laundry, I guess. So you’ve been in my apartment. So what?”
“So now I’m in your car and I got a gun on you.”
“Yeah, well, congratulations. Now what the fuck’s this all about?”
“It’s about a guy who drives an LTD and makes a hell of a lot of money, who leaves his car unlocked and lives in an apartment you can open with a credit card, in an apartment building whose security is a joke.”
“There are two armed guards on duty twenty-four hours a day at Town Crest.”
That was the name of the high-rent apartment building I could see from Lucille’s window. Frank Tree was a tenant.
“Those guys aren’t guards,” I said. “They’re parking lot attendants. Anybody in a jacket and tie can walk in the lobby and go up the elevator and nobody says a word.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“The point is if I’d been hired to kill you, you’d be dead by now.”
“Hired to…”
“The only problem I can see in killing you is trying to pick from the dozens of ways to do it. I heard of sitting ducks, but this is ridiculous.”
Tree brought a hand up, and I touched the back of his neck with the silenced gun. But he was only scratching his head. A few flakes of dandruff floated onto his shoulders.
“I can offer you double,” Tree said. “Double whatever you’re being paid.”
“You don’t understand. No one’s paying me. Yet. I only said if I’d been hired to kill you.”
“What is this, some kind of extortion racket? Maybe you don’t know the kind of people I count as friends.”
“Mafia guys, you mean? They probably helped get you into this.”
“Into what?”
“You’re being watched. You’re being set up.”
“Watched? Set up for what?”
“What do you think?”
“Hey, I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
“Sure. Hitler probably felt the same way. Anyway, I’ve already established you’re going to be killed.”
“Established…?”
“You got two weeks, at the outside.”
“Two weeks…”
“I’ll be going now. Don’t turn around as I go.”
“But…”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, Frank. Sleep well.”