Somebody Owes Me Money (1969) – Random House

A common introductory phrase for the might-have-been conditional sentence is “I bet…” I bet if this had happened, then that wouldn’t have happened; that sort of thing. It came into my head one day that the guy saying that phrase was a gambler, which would mean he would have a gambler’s tale of woe to tell. Come over here, I told him, not yet knowing him, I’ll listen to your tale of woe. The result was Somebody Owes Me Money, a story toward which I’ve always had a soft spot. I’m delighted to see it back in the world. And the girl on the cover is just exactly what I had in mind. I bet… ~DEW

_____“Whose idea was it you should come over at six?”
_____I had a problem there, since I didn’t feel I should tell a cop my relationship with Tommy was customer to bookie, but on the other hand I felt very nervous making up lies. I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Mine, I guess. We both decided, that’s all.”
_____“Hmm.” He seemed to think for a minute, and then said, “How did Tommy get along with his wife, do you know?”
_____“Fine,” I said. “As far as I know, fine.”
_____“You never knew them to argue.”
_____“Not around me.”
_____He nodded, then said, “What’s your home address, Chester?”
_____“8344 169th Place, Jamaica, Queens.”
_____He wrote it down in a notebook. “We’ll probably be getting in touch with you,” he said.
_____“You mean I can go now?”
_____“Why not?” And he turned around and walked out of the bedroom as though I’d ceased to exist.
_____I followed him out. He turned right, toward the living room, and I went the other way. I went out to the street, which seemed much colder now, and walked over to Eighth Avenue, where I get my subway to go home. I sat in the train thinking about things, and I was all the way to Woodhaven Boulevard before it occurred to me I hadn’t collected my nine hundred thirty dollars.