ran from the camera to some kind of computer. Solly once told me that even if someone used a battering ram on the door, their pictures would be in a safe place before they could get to the computer, so I guessed the computer automatically sent the pictures someplace else.
I didn’t know all this because Solly trusted me. I know why he told me. Me and anyone else who knew where to find him. That’s why I called and got the okay from him first.
Even so, I stood under the light long enough for him to see whatever he needed. Then I rapped two knuckles on the door. Three times, tap-tap-tap. I waited a couple of seconds, then I did it again. Seven, that time. Another wait before I slapped my palm against the panel. You had three shots to hit blackjack, and a flat palm counted as an ace.
I heard the metal-against-metal sound of a deadbolt being thrown open. Heavy metal. I didn’t wait after that. Just turned the knob and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind me.
The room was so dark all I could make out was the shape of a man behind a desk.
“What more do you need?” I said.
“I didn’t get to be this old taking chances,” Solly said. Not from behind the desk. That shape was a dummy. If you walked in shooting, you’d be punching holes in some plastic thing with clothes on it. Solly would be off to the side, one of those old Jew submachine guns in his lap. One long burp, everything on the wrong side of the barrel is dead.
And if more men were waiting outside, Solly still had an out. There was a second room behind the first one. Nothing in there but a giant freezer and piles of old books. And a door that would take him out to the hall. By the time anyone got a flashlight working, he’d be upstairs, in the apartment he lived in.
I’d never been in that apartment. Couldn’t even tell you what floor it was on. Or even if Solly was telling the truth about it. What he told me was all I knew. I never asked him any questions.
“So?” Solly says. “Come on over and sit with an old friend.”
A soft light showed me Solly’s chair and another one, empty. One, only. Solly never let more than one person at a time in his basement.
That’s what he told me, anyway.
I sat down. The chair looked old. It was comfortable, though. And soft, real soft. You sank deep down into it. Like sitting in quicksand.
There was some kind of little table to my right. Fresh ashtray, little box of matches.
“Go ahead,” Solly told me. “Don’t worry about the windows. I got a machine, filters out the smoke.”
What he meant was, the basement windows had all been bricked up.
“I gave it up.”
“Yeah? Good for you, kid. You want something to drink, maybe?”
“No thanks.”
“Relax, okay? I was gonna do anything, I could have done it already.”
“I know.”
“You got the money, right?”
“The money you sent me Upstate? Yeah. I appreciate that. Made the time a lot easier. Those magazines, too. I never heard of cons subscribing to magazines before.”
“Depends on the joint,” Solly said. “Some, you can mail in just about anything. Others, you’d be lucky to get even a letter from your own lawyer.”
“Yeah. Well, like I said, Solly, I’m grateful and all, but—”
“—where’s the rest of your money, huh?”
“I don’t care where it is.”
“You didn’t use to be this cute, Sugar. What’d you do, take one of those college courses while you were away?”
“I’m not the one being cute here, Solly. Everyone else got their money. Me, I waited a long time for mine. I don’t even know how much there is, but we had to have cleared enough to give me a vacation. A long vacation.”
“You don’t want to work anymore?”
“Fuck, what is this? I don’t know how big a pie there is to slice, but I know it won’t be enough for me to live on the rest of my life, okay? So, yeah, I’m going back to work. But not for a while. There’s something I’ve got to do first.”
“What are you—?”
“Just give me my fucking money, Solly.”
“Ah. Now, that’s the Sugar I know. You want the numbers; I got the numbers. The stones came out to around five mil, retail. Even when loose stones are GIA-registered, you can still usually get about half for them. Overseas, I mean.”