Scam

day, Sandy didn’t look too good. A little pasty in the face. Almost a sickly color. Of course, standing face to face with a cold-blooded killer might have something to do with that. Though he was bigger than me, you wouldn’t have known it. It occurred to me I could play off it.
    “All right, Sandy,” I said. “Here’s the deal. I want you to talk, and I want you to talk straight. If you do that, you and I have no problem. If you don’t, we have a problem in a big way. Someone set me up to take a fall, and I’d like to think it wasn’t you.”
    Sandy looked ready to pee in his pants. “No, no,” he said. “It wasn’t me.”
    “Now, let’s be careful here. Like I said, you gotta talk straight. Maybe it wasn’t all you, but maybe just a little bit.”
    “Oh, sweet Jesus,” Sandy said.
    “Hey, no one’s gonna hurt you, Sandy,” I said. “But I got a little problem here. Let me tell you what it is. To begin with, I know where you live.”
    Sandy’s knees buckled. “Oh, my god!”
    “Hey, don’t freak out on me. This is just conversational. You happen to live on the Upper West Side. 88th and Columbus. You live there, you work here. And that’s my problem.”
    He blinked at me. “What?”
    “What are you doin’ in a topless bar on 20th Street and Eighth Avenue? It’s not near where you live. It’s not near where you work. It’s not one of the big-name joints. Why, of all the places you could pick, did you happen to hang out there?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Sure you do, Sandy. You understand just fine. I wasn’t findin’ the girl fast enough, so you had to give me a hand. Only thing I don’t know is who put you up to it. But that’s what you’re gonna tell me. And you’re gonna tell me straight.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “Hey, Sandy. Look at the position you’re in. You’ve already given your story to the cops. And you didn’t happen to mention this at all. Cops don’t like that. They’ll be pissed off. They’ll be pissed off at you.” I pointed my finger. “But they won’t get nearly as pissed off as I will if you don’t tell it and tell it fast.”
    “It was her,” Sandy said.
    “Huh?”
    “It was the girl.”
    “You were in it together?”
    “No, no, I swear,” Sandy said. He looked like he was gonna cry. “I had no idea. No idea. I still don’t.”
    “Careful, Sandy.”
    “No, no. I’ll tell you what I know. It’s just not much.”
    “Whatever it is, let’s have it.”
    He took a breath. “When you came in the bar. The first time. Lookin’ for the girl. I remembered her and him, just like I said.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “But I had no idea who she was. Swear to god. It was the first time she’d been in, and I’d never seen her before.”
    “What about the topless bar?”
    “I made it up.”
    “You didn’t make it up. She worked there.”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t know it. I’d never seen her there. I’d never been there.”
    It was all I could do to keep my hands off him, and I think he sensed it. “Go on,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”
    “You’re not gone half an hour when she walks in the door large as life.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Not at all. Swear to god. Straight stuff. She comes walkin’ up to the bar, sits down at a stool, bats her eyes, says, How’d you like to make some cash?”
    My mouth fell open. “What?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I recognize her, of course. And I just got through talking to you. So, I’m wondering what’s the deal. When she tells me, it floors me.”
    “What?” I said. “What’s the deal?”
    “She wants me to tip you off.”
    “What?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Tip me off to her?”
    “That’s the ticket.”
    “Hold on. Hold on,” I said. “The girl wants you to tell me where to find her?”
    “Sure. She’s the one tells me the whole thing. She works in this topless bar. I’m to tell you I recognize her from there, bring you there, and point her out. I do that, I make some cash.”
    “How much?”
    He made a face. “That’s where she’s cagy. She tells me I’ll get it from you.”
    “What?”
    “Right. She says you’ll be happy to pay. Turned out she was right. If not, well, I knew where she worked.”
    I blinked. “So, she wanted to be found.”
    “Yeah. I don’t know why.”
    “So you say. But you’ve said a lot of things.”
    “No, no, no. It’s the truth. I swear.”
    “Oh, yeah?” I said. “You’d never seen this girl before?”
    “No. Not