Detective

I gotta call Ospina and try to shift some of the burden down there, but it ain’t gonna be easy. The guy got ripped off at our end. You wanna make Ospina believe someone followed him all the way from Miami to rip him off in New York, well that’s a problem. It’d be a smart as hell move, by the way, but it’s still hard to believe anyone’d do that.”
    TONY: “Some of Ospina’s friends may be smart as hell.”
    PLUTO: “Sure they may. I gotta start him worrying about that, but that’s another story. It doesn’t concern us now. We gotta forget Miami and say, if it came from our end, where’d it come from?”
    TONY: “I have no idea.”
    TDU: “Me neither, boss.”
    PLUTO: “Well, think, damn it. Is there anything that happened lately, anything out of the ordinary?”
    I tensed up. I was afraid Tall, Dark, and Ugly’d chime in, “What about the phone being out?” but he said, “Nothing, boss.”
    I let out a sigh of relief. Then Tony said something that stood my hair on end.
    TONY: “Yeah. There was something, boss. About a week ago. Murphy brought some guy around the casino, some guy from Miami. Said he knew Albrect.”
    In the silence that followed my beeper went off and I almost jumped out of my socks.

28.
    I S HUT OFF M Y B EEPER . Seconds later, I shut off the automatic safety check. I shut off the tape recorder. I knew I had to hear what came next, but not just yet.
    Back when I was 25 or 26 and doing summer stock, I remember that after the show one night a bunch of us actors were sitting around drinking and shooting the shit, and one of the guys had a Penthouse magazine that everyone had been reading during rehearsal all day, and we got to talking about some of the more bizarre letters in the Penthouse Forum. One was from a guy who claimed he could perform fellatio on himself, and got off on having people watch him do it. We were laughing and joking about that, and one of the actresses in the company asked if such a thing were possible, and we all laughed and said, “No.” Then one guy laughed and said, “And we all knew the answer,” and we all laughed some more.
    That, to the best of my recollection, is the only time in my life I ever consciously considered what it would be like to have my penis in my mouth.
    Until now.
    I took deep breaths, hyperventilating, trying to keep the nausea from overpowering me. I couldn’t quite do it, but I managed to calm down somewhat. I forced myself to turn the machine back on.
    Pluto was saying, “Good thinking. Good thinking, Tony. That’s exactly what I mean. Something like that. Now when did you say this was?”
    TONY: “A week or two ago. I don’t remember exactly. Just that Murphy brought him around.”
    PLUTO: “Well, was it before or after Albrect was killed?”
    TONY: “After.”
    PLUTO: “You sure?”
    TONY: “Yeah, I’m sure. In fact, it was right after. I remember now. ’Cause I had to play cute with Murphy. You know, ask him if Albrect was coming. And he told me Albrect was dead.”
    PLUTO: “You sure about that?”
    TONY: “Yeah. I remember now.”
    PLUTO: “Then it must have been the next night. I mean, Albrect must have been killed just the night before.”
    TONY: “That’s right.”
    PLUTO: “And the very next night this guy shows up, says he knows Albrect, says he’s from Miami?”
    TONY: “Yeah. That stinks, don’t it?”
    PLUTO: “It sure does. What’d the guy look like?”
    TONY: “I don’t know. Dark hair. About 30. Six feet. 160 pounds.”
    Great. Younger, taller, and thinner. My world is collapsing and they’re trying to flatter me.
    PLUTO: “You think Murphy had anything to do with this?”
    TONY: “Naw. Murphy’s a civilian. He don’t know shit.”
    PLUTO: “He knows too damn much. Look, get him on the phone, find out what he knows about this guy.”
    TONY: “O.K. You want me to tell him what it’s all about?”
    PLUTO: “Fuck, no. The less he knows the better. Look, tell him we might want to cultivate this guy to take over Albrect’s run. Don’t let him know anything’s wrong. Right? Just tell him you want some info on this guy and ask how you can get in touch with him.”
    TONY: “Right.”
    There was the sound of footsteps, of Tony walking to the phone. Something was wrong. I mean, aside from the obvious fact that everything had turned to shit, something didn’t make sense. I didn’t know what it was, I just knew that somehow, something I had just heard didn’t fit in with my known