52 Pickup (19 page)

Going through the outer office he said to Janet, “I'll try it again. See if I can get out of this place.”

PEGGY WAS THE ONLY ONE IN THE LOBBY
when Mitchell walked in. She had her coat on, ready to leave.

“You quitting already? It's only five-thirty.”

“I've taken my clothes off eleven times,” the girl said, “and put them back on again. That's enough for one day.”

“Where is everybody?”

“You mean Doreen?”

“Well, now that you mention it.”

“I don't know. I haven't seen her.”

“How about the other girls?”

“Sickies. Leo lets you call in sick once a month.”

“Is he here?”

“In back.” She moved past him to the door. “If you see him, tell him I left.”

“Yeah, maybe I'll stick my head in, say hello.”

She took a moment to look at him again as she opened the door. “You don't have anything better to do?”

“Tell you the truth,” Mitchell said, “not that I can think of.” He felt dumb standing there waiting for her to leave.

“Well—” The girl gave a little shrug and finally walked out. The door swung closed behind her.

Leo Frank sat at his desk studying a list of job applicants trying to remember faces and match them to the names. They were mostly dogs: for some reason a lot of fat broads lately. He couldn't figure out where all the fat broads were coming from, or why they thought anybody would pay to look at them naked. Most of them would have trouble showing themselves for nothing.

He heard the front door close. Peggy leaving. Independent broad. Hire them, pay them good dough, they call in sick or leave anytime they felt like it.

He heard the footsteps in the hall, coming this way, and thought of Peggy again. But as he looked toward the doorway he knew it wasn't Peggy. It was a man. It was the guy. For some reason he was sure of it and had a moment to get ready, to prepare a pleasant expression before Mitchell walked in to stand in front of his desk.

“Well,” Leo said, “our favorite customer. I hope what you're here for is to give me that picture you took. That wasn't very nice of you.”

“No,” Mitchell said, “I came to deliver the money.” As he spoke, his hand came out of his inside pocket with the envelope.

“What money you talking about?”

“That I was supposed to leave out at the airport,” Mitchell said. “I wondered if I could drop it off here.”

Leo frowned and shook his head, wishing to God he wasn't alone. “Man, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Ten thousand,” Mitchell said. “The down payment.”

“You want to give me ten thousand?”

“It's all here.” Mitchell took out the packet of hundred dollar bills and laid it on the edge of the desk.

“Wait a minute,” Leo Frank said. “You want to give me ten thousand bucks? What for? I mean, man I'll take it, but what for?”

“I guess I was wrong,” Mitchell said. “I thought you were in on it.”

Leo was staring at the money. He had to take it a step further. “In on what?”

“Well, if you're not involved, there's not much sense talking about it, is there?”

“You see ten grand laid out,” Leo said, “you can't help but be a little curious.”

“I owe it to these three guys, but I don't know where to find them.”

“That's a strange situation,” Leo said. “I never heard of anything like that before.”

“One's a skinny guy with long hair, one's a colored guy. I thought maybe the third guy was you.”

Leo laughed, made a sound that resembled a laugh.

“Why'd you think that? I mean why'd you think I was one of them?”

“I don't know, I guess it's just a feeling. The fact you run this place. You see all types of guys come in and out.”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“Well, there was a girl involved in this. She used to work here.”

“Man, there're fifty girls used to work here. Turnover, man, I guess you have it in your business—guys quitting, absenteeism, that kind of situation—but, man, nothing like I got to put up with.”

“You're right there,” Mitchell said. “I guess every business's got its problems like that.”

Leo couldn't take his eyes off the stack of hundred-dollar bills. “That's ten thousand bucks, uh? Doesn't look like what I'd picture ten thousand.”

“All hundreds,” Mitchell said.

“I'm trying to think of a way I might be able to help you,” Leo said, “but I'm stuck. Three guys, man, they could be anybody.”

“No, they're somebody,” Mitchell said. “The
trouble is I got to find them to pay them the dough.”

“You want to pay them personally, is that it?”

“See, I was supposed to leave it in a locker out at the airport, but I forgot which one.”

“That's a problem.” Leo shook his head. “What I mean to say, I wouldn't want to see anybody not get that money if they got it coming.”

“They got it coming all right,” Mitchell said, “but it's up to them to collect it.”

“I sure wish I could help you,” Leo said.

“I wish you could too.” Mitchell paused. “Well, I might as well be going.”

As he started for the door, Leo stood up. “Say, you wouldn't happen to have that picture on you, would you? The one you took?”

Mitchell paused to look at him. “Why?”

“I was just curious how it came out.”

“You're in it,” Mitchell said. He turned again and walked out.

Leo waited, listening to the footsteps in the hall. There was a silence before he heard the front door close, and again silence. He was still tense and anxious, but he was also proud of himself at the way he'd handled Mitchell, and he wasn't sweating too much. He picked up the phone and dialed Alan's home number. No answer. He tried the theater and was told Alan
was out. The son of a bitch, he was never around when you wanted him. Leo decided to go across the Street. Christ, have a couple of drinks.

Leo lived in a duplex on an old tree-shaded Street of two- and four-family flats. Mitchell stood on the porch by the pair of front doors and rang the bell for the lower flat. He waited. The door opened partway and Mitchell saw the stunned, wide-eyed look on Leo's face before he noticed his silky, wrinkled black-and-red pajamas and bare feet.

“How you doing?” Mitchell said.

Leo backed up as Mitchell came in. His stringy hair was uncombed, matted flat against his head; his eyes had a glazed watery look. He said, “How'd you know where I live?”

“I looked it up in the book,” Mitchell said. “Mrs. Leo Frank, Jr. That your wife?”

“My mother. She used to live here. I mean we did, we lived here together before she died.”

Mitchell looked around, at the dark woodwork and pale-green rough-plaster walls, heavy, velvety-looking draperies, closed, heavy stuffed chairs with doilies on the arms and headrests. Everything was dark and old and reminded him of other living rooms, some in places where he had lived, some in the homes of friends; dark, solemn, never changing.

“I was just putting the water on for coffee,”
Leo said. “You want some? Or a beer, or a drink?”

“No thanks, but go ahead,” Mitchell said. He followed Leo through the dark dining room to the kitchen. There was an old smell to the place. The wallpaper was stained. The linoleum in the kitchen was worn, coming apart at the seams. He watched Leo, at the stove, place the kettle on a burner and turn up the gas.

“You probably wonder what I'm doing here.”

“It crossed my mind.” Leo opened a cupboard and looked in.

“It was something you said last night.”

Leo closed the cupboard and turned to the sink that was full of dishes. He said, “What was that?” and began rinsing a coffee mug.

Mitchell didn't say anything until Leo looked over at him. “We were talking about employee relations.”

“We were?”

“In your office last night. You said, ‘I guess you have the same problems in your business, absenteeism and so on.”

“Yeah?”

“How did you know what business I'm in?”

There was a pause, a silence, and Mitchell felt it, his gaze holding on Leo who was scratching or touching or fooling with the crotch of his red-and-black silky pajamas.

“I don't know what business you're in. I just assumed you're in business. The way you dress and all.”

“I could be working for somebody,” Mitchell said. “I could be a salesman or an engineer, anything. How'd you know I had my own company?”

“Hey, listen, I'm not even sure now what I said. I was just making a point about it's hard to keep people nowadays, that's all. Am I right? Isn't that what I said?”

“I don't know,” Mitchell said. “I had the feeling—I thought about it after, in the car—you knew exactly what I did, the company, everything.”

“Man, I don't even know your name.”

“It's Mitchell. My company's Ranco Manufacturing.”

“It's nice to know you,” Leo said, “but listen, man, I think you heard it wrong. I never said I knew what business you're in. We never even talked before. How could I know?”

Mitchell stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, maybe so. I guess I heard you wrong.”

“Well—you sure you don't want some coffee?”

“Thanks, but I got to make a call. I was down this way, that's why I stopped in. I'm sorry if I troubled you.”

“No, it's no trouble at all. I've probably made
the same mistake myself.” Leo was behind Mitchell, following him to the front door. As they reached the door, and Leo opened it, the phone rang in the front hall and the kettle began to whistle in the kitchen. “Everything at once,” Leo said.

Mitchell wanted to wait. He tried to think of a reason, but Leo was letting it ring, pushing the door closed. “I'll see you around,” Leo said. He got Mitchell out and closed the door on him, hurried to the phone in the hall, but it stopped ringing as he reached it. The kettle was still giving off a shrill whistle. Leo got to it, steam pouring out, and took the kettle off the stove. He didn't make a cup of coffee though. He poured a vodka and 7-Up instead. In fact he had three of them while he was getting dressed.

Mitchell sat in his car, four houses down from the duplex. He was watching Leo's house and the white T-bird parked at the curb. He remembered Barbara saying the man who had been in their house, the skinny guy with long hair, had gotten into a white car. Looking at the car—that he hadn't noticed before, when he arrived—the gut feeling
was stronger than ever. Thirty minutes later, when Leo Frank came out of the house and got into the white car, Mitchell's gut feeling moved up into his mind where he could look at it and reason and believe—not
know
, as O'Boyle would say, but believe—that Leo was one of them. Mitchell said to himself, Stay with him.

* * *

“Leo, what'd I say? At my office, right? Jesus, you come here.”

“I went to your office,” Leo said. “Man, you're out to lunch. I got to talk to you.”

“You tell me he's following you, so you come here. Jesus.”

“No, today I haven't seen the guy at all. Maybe he's quit, I don't know. Yesterday he comes in the studio again. Says hello, that's all. How you doing? Later on I go out have something to eat. I look over, the guy's sitting there having a cup of coffee. I go home last night, I see his car drive by twice, maybe three times.”

Alan was having a corned beef sandwich and a bottle of red pop. He wasn't paying any attention to Doreen dancing topless on the stage, grinding out a slow rock number for the last of the lunch trade. He was tense because Leo was half in the bag and it wasn't three o'clock yet. But he had to appear calm and convince Leo that everything was all right, that the guy didn't
know anything, the guy was groping, taking a shot in the dark.

“Let's say he really did forget the locker number,” Alan said. “Okay, I call him again and tell him. I've
been
calling him, the son of a bitch is out following you around.”

Leo was hunched over the table with his drink, his back to Doreen as the rock number ended and Doreen started down from the stage. “But why me?” Leo said. “Why's he picking on me?”

“Leo, stop and think, will you? Because you knew his girlfriend. She used to work for you.” Alan looked up as Doreen, still topless, approached their table.

She touched Leo on the shoulder as she went by and said, “Hey, baby, I want to see you before I leave. You still owe me for last week.”

Alan waited until she was past them, going toward the bar. “Look, he pulls this cute stunt because he's got no place else to go—hey, you listening to me?”

“Yeah, I'm listening.”

“He's got no place else to start. But what's he prove? Nothing. The only thing is, we don't want to take any chances, right? You're going to finish that drink before I finish this corned beef. So why don't you do it and get out of here?”

Leo drank down the rest of his vodka and 7-Up.
He wanted another one, but Alan would say something and get nasty about it. He'd stop off someplace else, down the street, before going back to the studio.

“Okay, I see him again I'll let you know.”

“On the phone,” Alan said. “Don't ever come to the theater or my place unless I tell you it's all right. Now get out of here.”

Leo paid his check at the bar, walked down past the stools into the dark front part of the place. He had his hand on the door to push it open, then moved forward quickly, off balance, as the door seemed to open by itself. He stopped to avoid bumping into the guy coming in—the
guy
—feeling the shock of suddenly seeing him, appearing out of nowhere.

Mitchell stepped back, holding the door open. He said, “How you doing?”

“Man, I don't know,” Leo said, trying hard to smile. “We keep running into each other, don't we?”