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“Sure, two hundred k,” said Robbie. “Nobody owed me more. But I cut him slack because he was a cop once. He could watch the store for me. Find other deadbeats. I made allowances.”
“So he was your enforcer?”
“Whoa, whoa. That’s too much, too far. He was a part-time bouncer. That’s all. I wasn’t losing as much as you seem to think. Are we done now?”
I said, “This is important, Mr. Robbie. Do you know anyone who’d have liked to get Marty out of the way?”
He shrugged. “No insult intended, but he wasn’t diplomatic. I’m sure there were plenty of people who didn’t like the sight of him. Dozens.”
Oh, brother. Unnamed dozens of people who wanted my father dead. I could imagine that some of them had gotten a beating from Marty on behalf of Jack Robbie.
Alvarez said, “Does this look right?” She showed Robbie a picture of the JR tab page from Marty’s betting book.
Robbie looked at it.
“That looks right.”
“And what does ‘FSR’ stand for? Here. Next to a dollar amount, a line drawn through an amount.”
Robbie shrugged. “Taking a wild guess. ‘For services rendered’?”
Okay. A fair exchange. His debt was shaved for services rendered. I jumped back into the interview. “Mr. Robbie, where were you last night?”
“To repeat. Where I always am. In the shop. I live there. I didn’t go out. I ordered from the Chinese at the mall at around seven something. I used my double cash card.”
“Good. And the last time you saw Marty?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I only see him on payday. So sometime last week.”
I asked, “What can you tell me about that meeting?”
“What do I remember? That he busted into the shop two seconds before the pistol went off at the track. He wanted to double down on what he just lost. Another two grand. See, the rich guys bet twenty-five bucks. The bums bet the bank. Your dad bet beyond his means. I said, ‘What about what you already owe me?’
“He was persuasive in the stand-up comic way that he has. Needed to make a mortgage payment first. Said, ‘Please.’ That I shouldn’t worry. He would pay me back no matter what. Hadn’t he always come through? Like that.
“This time I rolled over so I could close the book. I placed his two thou on Pretty Baby in the seventh to win. She stumbled in the stretch and… and she’s in horse heaven now. I expected Marty to call this morning.”
I thought of my father lying on the street between two vehicles. I excused myself and went next door to the observation room.
I asked Cappy and Conklin what they thought.
Conklin said, “He’s a gifted storyteller. Want us to give him a lift back to his shack?”
“Yes and stop off at the Chinese restaurant. Get the receipt for Jack’s dinner, if there is one.”
I didn’t know if Jack Robbie was the doer, if he’d hired someone to shoot my father, or if he was just a slob running a gambling joint, making his car payments like the rest of us. Jack Robbie had given us nothing but dozens of unnamed possible suspects Marty may have threatened or shaken down or pistol whipped.
I doubted we would ever know the name of even one of them.
CHAPTER 16
I WAS LATE for my appointment with Marty’s attorney, Brad Mitcham. He practiced law at Sayles, Mitcham and Lalhezar at 450 Sutter, an imposing building in Union Square. It was quarter to five when I stepped into an open elevator, hoping that despite the hour, Mitcham would still be waiting for me. I tapped in the floor number and watched the numerals above the doors light up as the car climbed steadily to the twenty-first floor.
Those ascending lights lifted my mood until I felt almost optimistic. Mitcham could help me make sense of my father’s life and death. I was sure of it.
The receptionist was straightening her desk when I came through the door. She looked up at me and said, “Detective Boxer? Brad said to send you right in.”
I was about to knock when the door swung open and a man about my age with streaked blond hair and blue-framed glasses, dressed in khaki and blue, stretched out his hand.
