Lawrence Block - The Devil Knows You’re Dead

“You look all right.”

“Do I?”

She looked fine to me. She was wearing tan flannel slacks, a moss-green turtleneck, a brass-buttoned navy blazer. She had lipstick on, and a little makeup. And she was wearing perfume, a woodsy scent.

There was coffee made and I agreed we had time for a cup. After she’d poured it she went into the bedroom and came back with the strongbox. I took it from her and felt its weight, then set the dial to 511 and lifted the lid.

She said, “You remembered the combination.”

“I remember stuff.” I took out a stack of bills and flipped through them, giving them a close look. She asked, her voice rising, if there was anything wrong with the money. I told her the bills looked good to me. They weren’t counterfeit. They hadn’t been stuffed in fruit jars and buried out behind a stone barn somewhere in Pennsylvania, either. Some of them were older — hundreds circulate at a more sedate pace than smaller denominations, and take longer to wear out — but most bore dates within the past decade. They were not part of Holtzmann’s legendary patrimony. I told her I was glad she hadn’t thrown them out the window.

“I was going to undo the wrappers,” she said, “so as not to hurt anybody. Imagine being killed by falling money.”

“You wouldn’t want that on your conscience.”

“No. But I thought how pretty it would look, all those bills floating through the air, tossed here and there by the breeze. And think of how many people I would have made happy.”

“Even so,” I said.

We went downstairs and hailed three cabs to find one willing to make the trip. Cabbies these days apply for a hack license as soon as they clear Immigration, and the first five words of English they learn are, “I don’t go to Brooklyn.” The first two showed off their command of the language and drove away smiling. The third, a Nigerian who’d grown up speaking English, had nothing to prove and was willing to go wherever we wanted. He didn’t know how to get there, but he took direction well.

Of course the subway would have been faster and easier, and about fifteen dollars cheaper, but who in his right mind would take three hundred thousand in cash for a ride on the subway? You might as well toss it out the window.

Drew Kaplan sat at his desk and listened attentively while I filled him in on who Lisa was and why we were there. I told him just about everything, but didn’t say anything about the contents of the metal strongbox I’d placed on his desk. When I’d run through it he went back over a couple of points, but he didn’t say a word about the box, either. Then he tipped his chair back and gazed up at the ceiling.

“Needs a paint job,” I offered.

“So? You could use a haircut, but am I insensitive enough to bring that up?”

“Evidently.”

“Evidently. Mrs. Holtzmann, first let me offer my sympathies. Of course I read the press coverage of the case. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“On the basis of what I’ve just been told, I think you definitely need someone to look after your interests. I gather you’d like to put that” — he indicated the strongbox — “in a safe place. You haven’t told me what’s in it and I don’t see any reason why you should, but perhaps Matt here would like to take, say, three wild guesses as to what it might conceivably contain.”

“Three guesses?” I said.

“Sure. Shot-in-the-dark time.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, there might be several tusks of poached ivory in the box, smuggled in from Tanzania.”

“There’s a possibility.”

“Or Judge Crater might be in there.”

“Could be,” Drew said, enjoying himself. “He’s been missing a long time.”

“What’s that, two guesses?”

“Uh-huh. One to go.”

“Well, I suppose there could be a substantial amount of cash in the box.”

“And if by some wild coincidence there really was cash in there, would you like to take another wild guess where it came from?”

“Uh-uh. Not a clue.”

“As much of a mystery as the apartment equity, and everything else about this mysterious man. All right.” He laid a hand on top of the strongbox. “I’m going to take this for safekeeping,” he announced, “with the understanding that I have no idea what it contains, and that not only my custodianship of the box but its very existence are confidential matters. I’ll give you a receipt for the box, Mrs. Holtzmann, or should that be Ms.?”

“On the receipt? I don’t care.”

“On the receipt it will just say Lisa Holtzmann. I wanted to know how you preferred to be called.”

“Lisa,” she said. “Call me Lisa.”

“Fine, and I’m Drew. As I said, I’ll give you a receipt, but if this box disappears in a burglary you’ll have to understand that there’s no question of reimbursement or insurance coverage. I’d reimburse you for the strongbox, but not for what’s in it.”

She looked at me. I nodded, and she told Drew she understood.

“Set your mind at rest,” he said. “I don’t steal from clients, I just overcharge them. It’s a lot more lucrative in the long run and you spend less time in prison. Lisa, if this box here were all we had to worry about I’d take it and charge you a few dollars for storage. Or I might suggest you go around the corner and lease a safe-deposit box in your maiden name, or in some name you always thought you might like to use.” He sat up straight, clasped his hands. “But there’s more at stake here. You’ve got your apartment, which those nice folks at Internal Revenue might take an interest in if your husband happened to buy it with unlaundered funds. You’ve also got insurance proceeds, which they shouldn’t be able to attach, but might depending on the nature and ownership of the policies, and on just how Laughing Boy filed or didn’t file his tax return.” He frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make slighting references to your late husband. There’s no disrespect intended, it’s just he’s left you in a tricky spot and that tends to inspire me to heights of sarcasm.”

“But underneath it all,” I said, “Drew’s a prince.”

He ignored me. “There’s also a good possibility of hidden assets,” he went on, “which might only come to you if you’re aware of them. What I’d like from you, Lisa, is a check for five thousand dollars as a retainer. That should cover the actions I undertake on your behalf.”

Again she looked at me. This time I said, “That’s no good, Drew. She hasn’t got it.”

“Oh?”

“Not in the bank. She’ll get the insurance money eventually, but for the time being all she’s got is a household account with enough dough in it to cover her day-to-day expenses.”

“I see.”

I shot a look at the strongbox. His eyes went to it and back to me.

“I’d like to get paid by check,” he said. “If I went down the hall for a minute and didn’t put that in the safe until I got back, and if she wrote out the check, maybe when she got back home she’d happen to discover five thousand dollars in the refrigerator, just enough to deposit in the bank so the check wouldn’t bounce. What do you think?”

“I think that would leave a paper trail that wouldn’t do her a whole lot of good. One look from anybody and the first thing they pick up is the cash deposit.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Shit. Give me a minute.” He sat back and closed his eyes. After a full minute he opened them and said, “Okay, here’s how we’ll do it. You brought your checkbook with you, I hope? I’d like you to write out a check payable to Drew Kaplan, Attorney-at-Law, in the amount of two hundred dollars.”

I said, “See? They’re all alike. They start out high, but you can generally Jew them down.”