He didn’t answer. I brought back my hand to slap him again, and he twisted his head away, and closed his eyes like a child expecting punishment from a wrathful father, and then he nodded and said, “Please... no more.”
I got to my feet. He was writhing on the pavement, his hands clutching his abused genitals. I picked up the .32, tucked it into my belt, helped him to his feet, and sat him down on the bottom step of the stoop. “Are you Jeffrey Gibson?” I said.
“Yes,” he answered.
“What the hell’s the matter with you, Gibson? Why’d you pull a gun on me?”
“You know why,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Who are you?” he said.
“Who’d you think I was?” I said.
“One of them.”
“One of who?”
“The men who killed my father.”
“What men?”
“I don’t know who they are.”
“What makes you think someone killed him?”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“They threatened to do it, and now they’ve done it.”
“Why’d they threaten to kill him?”
“Because he owed them money.”
“How much money?”
“Twelve thousand dollars. My father was a gambler,” Jeffrey said, and then raised his head and grimaced, and said, “A very bad gambler.”
“Tell me,” I said.
Anthony Gibson had been not only a bad gambler, according to his son, but actually the worst kind of gambler. I have very little respect for people who play for a living. In my book, the world is divided between the Players and the Workers. Thieves and gamblers are Players. So are prize fighters, entire football teams, tennis champions, golf pros, and men gifted with the talent of tossing a dart a hundred yards across a pub to hit the bull’s-eye in the center of a board. Even expert gamblers, those who’ve made a science of figuring the odds, are still only Players. But the worst sort of gambler is the man who’ll bet on anything, the man who actually believes Lady Luck is controlling the outcome of any given event.
Anthony Gibson had been such a man. He would bet on a cockroach race or the eventuality of a snowstorm in July. He would bet that Jack Benny’s real name had been Myron Fenstermacher; he would bet that any given blonde walking down the street was in reality a brunette; he would bet that on the twelfth of October, in the city of Rangoon, a rat would bite a Buddhist monk on the backside. Such a man is a fool. He’s a bigger fool if his income can’t keep up with his wild wagers. Anthony Gibson had worked as an advertising copywriter for the firm of Haley, Blake & Bonatti, and had earned a yearly salary of $47,500, which he’d squandered on ponies, crap games, card games, lottery tickets, and bets as to whether or not the moon would rise over Seattle at 7:10 p.m. on Monday night. His wife and recent widow, Rhoda, ran an interior-decorating business that brought in another thirty thousand a year—much of which Gibson begged or badgered from her to get him out of one gambling debt or another.
A month back, the phone at the Gibson residence had begun ringing with calls for Gibson père. The calls sometimes came in the middle of the night. Gibson would hold a brief conversation with whoever was on the other end of the line, and then instantly get out of bed and go down to the riving room, where he sometimes sat drinking till dawn. During one of those early-hour calls, Jeffrey had picked up the extension and eavesdropped on the conversation. He learned that his father owed twelve thousand dollars for an I.O.U. he’d signed during a poker game in July. His father promised the caller he was working on raising the money, and that all he needed was a little more time, and would they please stop phoning in the middle of the night, as they were beginning to alarm his family. The man on the other end said the family would be even more alarmed in the future if Gibson didn’t come up with the cash damn soon. Toward the end of August, two men arrived at the house shortly after dinner. One of them was about my size, with a scar on his face, which was why Jeffrey had mistaken me for him not five minutes ago, and drawn the revolver—in self-defense, of course. Jeffrey overheard the terse discussion they had with his father. The men told Gibson that if he didn’t pay the twelve thousand dollars before September 8, they would kill him. As best as he could recall, the visit had been sometime during the weekend of August 24. Today was Monday, September 9, and his father had met with a fatal automobile accident last night on his way home. Jeffrey had to assume the “accident” had been arranged by the men who’d been dunning his father. Nor did he believe they were finished yet. On their warning visit, he had been the one who’d opened the door to let them into the house; he had seen them, he knew what they looked like. He was certain they would come after him next.
