Time to Murder and Create - Page 8/23

"Well, we can find a use for it," she said. "Thanks. Do you want to talk to the boys?"

I did and I didn't. They're getting to an age where it's a little easier for me to talk to them, but it's still awkward over the phone. We talked about basketball.

Right after I hung up, I had an odd thought. It occurred to me that I might not be talking to them again. Spinner had been a careful man by nature, a man who had made himself inconspicuous reflexively, a man who had felt most comfortable in deep shadows, and he still had not been careful enough. I was accustomed to open spaces, and in fact had to stay enough in the open to invite a murder attempt. If Spinner's killer decided to take a shot at me, he just might make it work.

I wanted to call back and talk to them again. It seemed that there ought to be something important for me to say, just on the off chance that I'd taken on more than I could carry. But I couldn't manage to think what it might be, and a few minutes later the impulse went away.

I had a lot to drink that night. It was just as well no one took a crack at me then. I'd have been easy.

MONDAY morning I called Prager. I'd left him on a very loose leash, and I had to give it a yank. His secretary told me he was busy on another line and asked if I would hold. I held for a minute or two. Then she came back to establish that I was still hanging in there, and then she put me through to him.

I said, "I've decided how we'll work this so that you're covered. There's something the police tried to hang on me that they could never make stick." He didn't know I'd been a cop myself. "I can write out a confession, include enough evidence to make it airtight. I'll give that to you as part of our deal."

It was basically the arrangement I'd tried out on Beverly Ethridge, and it made the same kind of sense to him that it had to her. Neither of them had managed to spot the joker in it, either: All I had to do was confess at great length to a crime that had never happened, and while my confession might make interesting reading, it would hardly enable anyone to hold a gun to my head. But Prager didn't figure out that part of it, so he liked the idea.

What he didn't like was the price I set.

"That's impossible," he said.

"It's easier than paying it in bits and pieces. You were paying Jablon two thousand a month. You'll pay me sixty in one chunk, that's less than three years' worth, and it'll all be over once and for all."

"I can't raise that kind of money."

"You'll find a way, Prager."

"I can't manage it."

"Don't be silly," I said. "You're an important man in your field, a success. If you don't have it in cash, you certainly have assets you can borrow against."

"I can't do it." His voice almost broke. "I've had… financial difficulties. Some investments haven't turned out to be what they should have been. The economy, there's less building, the interest rates are going crazy, just last week somebody raised the prime rate to ten percent-"

"I don't want an economics lesson, Mr. Prager. I want sixty thousand dollars."

"I've borrowed every cent I could." He paused for a moment. "I can't, I have no source-"

"I'll need the money fairly soon," I cut in. "I don't want to stay in New York any longer than I have to."

"I don't-"

"You do some creative thinking," I said. "I'll be in touch with you."

I hung up and sat in the phone booth for a minute or two, until someone waiting to use it gave an impatient knock on the door. I opened the door and stood up. The man who wanted to use the phone looked as though he was going to say something, but he looked at me and changed his mind.

I wasn't enjoying myself. I was putting Prager through a wringer. If he'd killed Spinner, then maybe he had it coming. But if he hadn't, I was torturing him to no purpose, and the thought did not set well with me.

But one thing had come out of the conversation: He was hurting for money. And if Spinner, too, had been pushing for the fast final settlement, the big bite so that he could get out of town before someone killed him, that might have been enough to put the last bit of pressure on Henry Prager.

I'd been on the verge of ruling him out when I saw him in his office. I just didn't see that he had enough of a motive, but now he seemed to have a pretty good one after all.

And I'd just given him another.

I called Huysendahl a little later. He was out, so I left my number, and he called around two.

"I know I wasn't supposed to call you," I said, "but I have some good news for you."

"Oh?"

"I'm in a position to claim my reward."

"You managed to turn up that material?"

"That's right."

"Very quick work," he said.

"Oh, just sound detective procedure and a little bit of luck."

"I see. It may take some time to, uh, assemble the reward."

"I don't have very much time, Mr. Huysendahl."

"You have to be reasonable about this, you know. The sum we discussed is substantial."

"I understand you have substantial assets."

"Yes, but hardly in cash. Not every politician has a friend in Florida with that kind of money in a wall safe." He chuckled over the line, and seemed disappointed when I didn't join in. "I'll need some time."

"How much time?"

"A month at the outside. Perhaps less than that."

The role was easy enough, since I kept getting to rehearse it. I said, "That's not soon enough."

"Really? Just how much of a hurry are you in?"

"A big one. I want to get out of town. The climate doesn't agree with me."

"Actually, it's been rather mild the past few days."

"That's just the trouble. It's too hot."

"Oh?"

"I keep thinking about what happened to our mutual friend, and I wouldn't want it to happen to me."

"He must have made someone unhappy."

"Yeah, well, I've made a few people unhappy myself, Mr. Huysendahl, and what I want to do is get the hell out of here within the week."

"I don't see how that would be possible." He paused for a moment. "You could always go and come back for the reward when things have had a chance to cool down somewhat."

"I don't think I'd like to do it that way."

"That's rather an alarming statement, don't you think? The sort of venture we've discussed requires a certain amount of give-and-take. It has to be a cooperative venture."

"A month is just too long."

"I might be able to manage it in two weeks."

"You might have to," I said.

"That sounds disturbingly like a threat,"

"The thing is, you're not the only person furnishing a reward."

"I'm not surprised."

"Right. And if I have to leave town before I can collect the reward from you, well, you never know what might happen."

"Don't be foolish, Scudder."

"I don't want to be. I don't think either of us should be foolish." I took a breath. "Look, Mr. Huysendahl, I'm sure it's nothing we can't work out."

"I certainly hope you're right."

"How does two weeks sound to you?"

"Difficult."

"Can you manage it?"

"I can try. I hope I can manage it."

"So do I. You know how to reach me."

"Yes," he said. "I know how to reach you."

I hung the phone up and poured a drink. Just a small one. I drank half of it and nursed the rest of it. The phone rang. I tossed down the last of the bourbon and picked it up. I thought it would be Prager. It was Beverly Ethridge.

She said, "Matt, it's Bev. I hope I didn't wake you?"

"You didn't."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I'm lonesome."

I didn't say anything. I remembered sitting across the table from her, making it obvious that she wasn't getting to me. The performance had evidently convinced her. But I knew better. The woman was good at getting to people.

"I hoped we could get together, Matt. There are things we ought to talk about."

"All right."

"Would you be free around seven this evening? I've appointments until then."

"Seven's fine."

"The same place?"

I remembered how I had felt in the Pierre. This time we would meet on my turf. But not Armstrong's; I didn't want to take her there.

"There's a place called Polly's Cage," I said. "Fifty-seventh between Eighth and Ninth, middle of the block, the downtown side."

"Polly's Cage? It sounds charming."

"It's better than it sounds."

"Then I'll see you there at seven. Fifty-seventh between Eighth and Ninth-that's very near your hotel, isn't it?"

"It's across the street."

"That's very convenient," she said.

"It's handy for me."

"It might be handy for both of us, Matt."

I went out and had a couple of drinks and something to eat. Around six I got back to my hotel. I checked with the desk, and Benny told me I'd had three calls and there had been no messages.

I wasn't in my room ten minutes before the phone rang. I picked it up, and a voice I didn't recognize said, "Scudder?"

"Who's this?"

"You ought to be very careful. You go off halfcocked and upset people."

"I don't think I know you."

"You don't want to know me. All you gotta know is it's a big river, plenty of room in it, you don't want to try and fill it up all by yourself."

"Who wrote that line for you, anyway?"

The phone clicked.

Chapter 9

I got to Polly's a few minutes early. There were four men and two women drinking at the bar. Behind it, Chuck was laughing politely at something one of the women had said. On the jukebox Sinatra was asking them to send in the clowns.

The room is a small one, with the bar on the right side as you enter. A railing runs the length of the room, and on the left of it there is an area a few steps up that contains about a dozen tables. They were all unoccupied now. I walked to the break in the railing, climbed the steps, and took the table that was farthest from the door.

Polly's gets most of its play around five, when thirsty people leave their offices. The really thirsty ones stick around longer than the rest, but the place doesn't pick up much passer-by trade, and almost always closes fairly early. Chuck pours generous drinks, and the five o'clock drinkers usually tap out early on. On Fridays the TGIF crowd shows a certain amount of perseverance, but other times they generally lock up by midnight, and they don't even bother opening up on Saturdays or Sundays. It's a bar in the neighborhood without being a neighborhood bar.

I ordered a double bourbon, and had put half of it away by the time she walked in. She hesitated in the doorway, not seeing me at first, and some conversations died as heads turned her way. She seemed unaware of the attention she was drawing, or too accustomed to it to take notice of it. She spotted me, came over, and sat opposite me. The bar conversations resumed once it was established that she wasn't up for grabs.

She slid her coat off her shoulders and onto the back of her chair. She was wearing a hot-pink sweater. It was a good color for her, and an excellent fit. She took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her handbag. This time she didn't wait for me to light her cigarette. She drew in a lot of smoke, blew it out in a thin column, and watched with evident interest as it ascended toward the ceiling.