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“Yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“Uh, I shot him.”
“Right.”
“It was easier than suing him.”
“Easier for you,?
? Stone said, remembering what he had had to do to keep Herbie from being tried. “If you kill somebody else you think is trying to kill you, the DA is going to remember that little incident with Dattila. You understand?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Don’t guess, Herbie, know it. You can’t make a habit of that sort of thing and stay out of prison.”
“All right, I know it.”
“Now, who’s trying to kill you?”
“My bookie,” Herbie said.
“And what is his motive?”
“I stopped betting with him.”
“You got a new bookie?”
“No, I just stopped betting. I went into the bar he works out of, put a hundred and forty-eight grand on the bar-that squared me with him-and told him I wasn’t betting anymore.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He didn’t take it very well,” Herbie said.
“He didn’t take it very well how?”
“Well, first he shook my hand and slapped me on the back and offered me a credit line of a quarter million.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Stone said.
“When I told him I wasn’t betting anymore he backhanded me across the face and told me if I tried betting with anybody else he would kill me.”
“He assumed you would change bookies?”
“I guess.”
“I suppose that would upset him.”
“I explained it to him: I told him I just wasn’t going to bet anymore… with anybody. That really pissed him off, like I had violated his constitutional rights or something.”
“And you think he took it hard enough to want to kill you.”
“Well, if I’m not going to bet anymore, what does he have to lose?”
“Herbie,” Stone said, “that may be the first entirely logical thing you’ve ever said to me. You’ve just had a lucid interval.”
Herbie looked puzzled. “Huh?”
