"This city has never had a worse cop than you," I said. "Why? Because
you're an actor, not a cop. You're going back to acting, Lou. This
money will keep us both going until we get a break."
He gave me the slit-eyed look he'd picked up in line of duty. "That
wouldn't be a bribe, would it?"
"Call it a kind of memorial to a lot of poor, innocent old people and
a sick, tormented woman."
We walked along in silence out in the clean sunshine. It was our
silence; the sleek cars and burly trucks made their noise and the
pedestrians added their gabble, but a good Stanislavsky actor like Lou
wouldn't notice that. Neither would I, ordinarily, but I was giving
him a chance to work his way through this situation.
"I won't hand you a lie, Mark," he said finally. "I never stopped
wanting to act. I'll take your deal on two considerations."
"All right, what are they?"
"That whatever I take off you is strictly a loan."
"No argument. What's the other?"
He had an unlit cigarette almost to his lips. He held it there while
he said: "That any time you come across a case of an old person who
died of starvation with $30,000 stashed away somewhere, you turn fast
to the theatrical page and not tell me or even think about it."
"I don't have to agree to that."
* * * * *
He lowered the cigarette, stopped and turned to me. "You mean it's no
deal?"
"Not that," I said. "I mean there won't be any more of those cases.
Between knowing that and both of us back acting again, I'm satisfied.
You don't have to believe me. Nobody does."
He lit up and blew out a pretty plume, fine and slow and straight,
which would have televised like a million in the bank. Then he
grinned. "You wouldn't want to bet on that, would you?"
"Not with a friend. I do all my sure-thing betting with bookies."
"Then make it a token bet," he said. "One buck that somebody dies of
starvation with a big poke within a year."