Page 141 of Fifty-Fifty

Harry got down on his hands and knees, then lay flat on the floor. The bed was tall enough for his purposes, and he shuffled his body beneath it. Bloch came in from the other side. They could see the open door to the bedroom. No

lights on in the hallway. Not yet. They were trapped up there. Bloch took out her phone and began typing.

FIFTY-TWO

EDDIE

In a private room in Mount Sinai Hospital, a man I’d never met lay asleep in his bed. He looked peaceful. There were bandages still on his head and at the side of his face. His right leg in a cast, elevated on a hoist, didn’t seem to bother him too much. It was hard to tell. His right arm was also in a cast, and draped over his large belly.

I opened the door to his private room and waited at the threshold until he saw me. He didn’t seem to recognize me. I’d been staring at him for a few minutes,

and I was sure I hadn’t seen him before.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

His skin looked deathly pale, to match his death-rattle voice. His lips were angry red, and cracked.

I didn’t answer him. Instead I came into the room for a better look.

‘Are you a doctor?’ he asked.

Another man came into the room. Jimmy the Hat took up a seat at the side of the bed.

‘How you feelin’?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Good. Better,’ said the man.

‘Tony, this is Eddie Flynn. He’s a good friend of mine. Eddie, this is Little Tony P. This is the guy I told you about. He got run over crossing the street.’

‘Good to meet you,’ I said. ‘I have a couple of questions about your accident.’

‘You the lawyer? I-I-I don’t want to sue nobody. I didn’t get the license plate.

I don’t know who ran me over.’

Sweat broke out on his face. A light tremor in his good hand. He was nervous when he had no reason to be.

‘As I understand it, you parked your car close to Jimmy’s restaurant. It was early in the morning, before you started your shift there. And when you got out of the car a motorcycle rammed straight into you, crushing you between the bike and the car door. That’s what you told Jimmy. That right?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, yeah. I probably didn’t look in my mirror before I got out of the car.

It’s probably my own damn fault.’

Jimmy looked at me. I nodded.

‘The way some witnesses described it, the motorcyclist almost took the door clean off, then walked the bike back, and slammed the front wheel down on your head? Doesn’t sound like an accident to me?’

‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember. Last thing I remember was getting out of the car,’ said Tony.

‘This was your new car?’

He swallowed, said, ‘Yeah, yeah. Brand new. A bet came in for me. One hundred Gs. Just when I thought my luck had changed, this happens.’

He raised his good arm, as if to remind us that he was badly hurt.

‘Broke my goddamn skull. I don’t know. I guess I should’ve looked before I got out of the car.’

‘I asked Jimmy to speak to his bookies, and anyone else who runs a book in Manhattan who paid out a hundred grand in the last six months. Guess what they