Lawrence Block: Time to Murder and Create

“I thought since those papers had your name on them, along with those other names, I thought you might like to own them.”

He didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I picked up the silver dollar and gave it another spin. This time we both watched it. It stayed spinning for quite a while on the leather desk top. Then it glanced off a photograph in a silver frame, wobbled uncertainly, and landed heads again.

Prager picked up his desk phone and pushed a buzzer. He said, “That’s all for today, Shari. Just put the machine on and go ahead home.” Then, after a pause: “No, they can wait, I’ll sign them tomorrow. You can head along home now. Fine.”

Neither of us spoke until the door of the outer office opened and closed. Then Prager leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his shirt front. He was a rather plump man, but there was no spare flesh on his hands. They were slender, with long fingers.

He said, “I gather you want to take up where — what was his name?”

“Jablon.”

“Where Jablon took off.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m not a rich man, Mr. Scudder.”

“You’re not starving.”

“No,” he agreed. “I am not starving.” He looked past me for a moment, probably at a seascape. He said, “My daughter Stacy went through a difficult period in her life. In the course of it, she had a very unfortunate accident.”

“A little boy died.”

“A little boy died. At the risk of sounding callous, I’ll point out that that sort of thing happens all the time. Human beings — children, adults, what does it matter — people are killed accidentally every day.”

I thought of Estrellita Rivera with a bullet in her eye. I don’t know if anything showed in my face.

“Stacy’s situation — her culpability, if you want to call if that — stemmed not from the accident but from her response after the fact. She didn’t stop. If she had stopped, it would not have helped the boy at all. He was killed instantly.”

“Did she know that?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “Is that pertinent?”

“Probably not.”

“The accident… if she had stopped as she should have done, I’m sure she would have been exonerated. The boy rode his tricycle right off the curb in front of her.”

“I understand she was on drugs at the time.”

“If you want to call marijuana a drug.”

“It doesn’t matter what we call it, does it? Maybe she could have avoided the accident if she hadn’t been stoned. Or maybe she would have had the judgment to stop once she hit the kid. Not that it matters any more. She was high, and she did hit the boy, and she didn’t stop the car, and you managed to buy her off.”

“Was I wrong to do that, Scudder?”

“How do I know?”

“Do you have children?” I hesitated, then nodded. “What would you have done?”

I thought about my sons. They weren’t old enough to drive yet. Were they old enough to smoke marijuana? It was possible. And what would I do in Henry Prager’s place?

“Whatever I had to do,” I said. “To get them off.”

“Of course. Any father would.”

“It must have cost you a lot of money.”

“More than I could afford. But I couldn’t have afforded not to, you see.”

I picked up my silver dollar and looked at it. The date was 1878. It was a good deal older than I was, and had held up a lot better.

“I thought it was over,” he said. “It was a nightmare, but I managed to straighten everything out. The people I dealt with, they realized that Stacy was not a criminal. She was a good girl from a good family who went through a difficult period in life. That’s not uncommon, you know. They recognized that there was no reason to ruin a second life because a horrible accident had taken one life. And the experience — it’s awful to say this, but it helped Stacy. She grew as a result of it. She matured. She stopped using drugs, of course. And her life took on more purpose.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“She’s in graduate school at Columbia. Psychology. She plans to work with mentally retarded children.”

“She’s what, twenty-one?”

“Twenty-two last month. She was nineteen at the time of the accident.”

“I suppose she has an apartment here in town?”

“That’s correct. Why?”

“No reason. She turned out all right, then.”

“All my children turned out well, Scudder. Stacy had a difficult year or two, that’s all.” His eyes sharpened their focus suddenly. “And how long do I have to pay for that one mistake? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I’m sure you would.”

“Well?”

“How deep did Jablon have the hook in you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What were you paying him?”

“I thought he was your associate.”

“It was a loose association. How much?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “The first time he came I gave him five thousand dollars. He gave the impression that one payment would be the end of it.”

“It never is.”

“So I understand. Then he came back a while later. He told me he needed more money. We finally put things on a business basis. So much a month.”

“How much?”

“Two thousand dollars a month.”

“You could afford that.”

“Not all that easily.” He managed a small smile. “I was hoping I could find a way to deduct it, you know. Charge it to the business in some fashion.”

“Did you find a way?”

“No. Why are you asking all this? Trying to determine just how much you can squeeze out of me?”

“No.”

“This whole conversation,” he said suddenly. “There’s something wrong with it. You don’t seem like a blackmailer.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know. That man was a weasel, he was calculating, slimy. You’re calculating, but in a different way.”

“It takes all kinds.”

He stood up. “I won’t go on paying indefinitely,” he said. “I can’t live with a sword hanging over me. Damn it, I shouldn’t have to.”

“We’ll work something out.”

“I don’t want my daughter’s life ruined. But I won’t be bled to death.”

I picked up the silver dollar and put it in my pocket. I couldn’t make myself believe he had killed the Spinner, but at the same time I couldn’t positively rule him out, and I was getting sick of the role I was playing. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet.

“Well?”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said.

“How much is it going to cost me?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll pay you what I paid him. I won’t pay any more than that.”

“And how long will you pay me? Forever?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Maybe I can figure out something that’ll make us both happy,” I said. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

“If you mean a single large payment, how could I trust you?”

“That’s one of the things that has to be worked out,” I said. “You’ll hear from me.”

I had arranged to meet Beverly Ethridge in the bar at the Hotel Pierre at seven o’clock. From Prager’s office I walked to another bar, one on Madison Avenue. It turned out to be a hangout for advertising people, and the noise level was high and the tension unsettling. I had some bourbon and left.

On my way up Fifth Avenue, I stopped at St. Thomas’s and slipped into a pew. I discovered churches not long after I left the force and moved away from Anita and the boys. I don’t know what it is about them, exactly. They are about the only place in New York where a person has room to think, but I’m not sure that’s their sole attraction for me. It seems logical to assume that there’s some sort of personal quest involved, although I’ve no real idea what it might be. I don’t pray. I don’t think I believe in anything.