Ross Thomas - No Questions Asked

He shook his head. “We might as well go get it.”

The waiter brought over the check, and Spivey reached for it and signed his name and room number to it. He left a dollar bill for the waiter, and we got our topcoats and caught a cab outside of the hotel.

The cab driver was a Nigerian, and he had the heater up as high as it would go. He complained about the snow and the cold and told us about how nice and warm it was in Lagos and how on days like this he wished he were back there instead of here where he was studying to be an engineer.

He was a terrible snow driver, possibly because it was the second time he had ever seen any, and we went into a couple of breathtaking skids before we pulled up in front of a People’s drugstore. Spivey waited in the cab while I went in and bought a small, cheap plastic suitcase for $4.98 plus tax. After two more skids, one little one and one big one which made me close my eyes, the driver let us off at the Riggs bank on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the Treasury building.

In the bank Spivey asked for a Mr. Bilanow who was a vice-president and who, like all bankers, wasn’t at all pleased with the notion of parting with $250,000 that he couldn’t charge any interest on. He also wanted to make sure that Spivey was indeed Max Spivey of the Pacifica Life and Casualty Company, and it was only after Spivey produced his driver’s license, three credit cards, and a letter of introduction from the Bank of America, which was the corresponding bank in Los Angeles, that Bilanow said, “Well, yes, Mr. Spivey, everything seems to be in order. Now how would you like it?”

Spivey looked at me. “Old bills,” I said. “A hundred thousand in twenties, a hundred thousand in hundreds, and the rest in fifties.”

Bilanow wrote it down in a neat hand, excused himself and left us sitting at his desk while he went over to a teller’s cage. He was gone about ten minutes, and when he returned he was carrying a wire basket that was full of money. He put the basket down on the desk. “I suggest you count it, Mr. Spivey,” he said and then stepped back as though he wanted to be out of the way.

Spivey looked at me. “That’s just one hell of a lot of money, isn’t it?”

“For one book it is,” I said.

“Or for anything else. Let’s count it.”

I put the suitcase up on the desk, and we started counting the money into it. It was all in one- and five- thousand-dollar packets, and it nearly filled the suitcase.

“Is it old enough?” Spivey said.

“It looks all right,” I said.

“You’re the judge,” he said and closed the suitcase.

Bilanow stepped forward with some papers for Spisign. While he was signing them, Bilanow said, “Mr. Spivey, I offer the suggestion that one of our security people accompany you back to your hotel. It’s only a suggestion, of course.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You could ask somebody to go out and get us a cab though,” I said. “I’d rather not stand around on a corner trying to hail one with a quarter of a million dollars under my arm.”

Bilanow said that he would see to it and left to find somebody who liked to go out and hail cabs in near-freezing weather. I hefted the suitcase and then put it back down on the desk.

“How much does it weigh?” Spivey said.

“Exactly?”

“Well, close.”

“Fourteen pounds and maybe twelve or thirteen ounces. That’s not counting the suitcase.”

“Jesus, how can you be so sure?”

“There’re four hundred ninety bills to the pound. There’re seven thousand bills in there and after that you just do a little long division in your head.”

“Yeah, I guess you would know about things like that.”

“Uh-huh. I would.”

“You want to take it over now?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, when are you going to take it over?”

I pushed the suitcase a little toward Spivey. “When the thief tells me where to bring it,” I said. “That’s when I’ll take it over.”

Spivey and I were back in the hotel by a quarter to ten. I watched while he arranged for the suitcase to be put into the hotel’s safe, and then we went back up to my room. Once again he chose the bed to sit on.

“We just wait now, huh?” he said.

“That’s right. We wait. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yeah, I think I would.”

I called room service and asked them to send up a large pot of coffee and two cups. Spivey leaned back on the bed, supporting himself on his elbows. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“About what?”

“About Marsh. I’ve been thinking we ought to lean on them a little. Unless they agree to deliver Marsh along with the book, the deal’s off.”

“What if they can’t?”

“You mean what if Marsh is already dead?”

“Yes.”

“We’d better make sure that he isn’t.”

“I already asked them to let you talk to them. They said no.”

“Ask them again.”

“And if they say no again?”

Spivey raised himself up and leaned forward toward me. “Then I think we’d better turn it over to the cops or the FBI. I’ve got a couple of reasons for that. One of them is that Jack’s a friend of mine. The second one’s a little more crass. It wouldn’t read too well if the word got out that an insurance company got a guy killed just to get an old book back. That wouldn’t read too well at all.”

“If he’s already dead,” I said, “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“No, but maybe the cops can. Or like I said, the FBI.”

“And if he’s not dead?”

“Then we play along with the thieves.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll tell them that unless they let you talk to Marsh the deal’s off.”

“Yeah. I think that’s the way it’ll have to go.”

After that we didn’t have much to say to each other. I looked at my watch. It was five until ten. I forced myself not to look at it again until the phone rang, and when it did it was exactly ten o’clock.

I picked up the phone and said hello and the high voice said, “You got the money?”

“I’ve got the money, but I’ve also got a problem.”

There was a silence and then the voice said, “What kind of a problem?”

“The problem is Jack Marsh. Unless Max Spivey talks to him and makes sure that he’s okay, the deal’s off. We’ll just turn it over to the cops or the FBI — or maybe both.”

There was another silence. “You say Spivey’s there?”

“He’s here.”

“Okay. We’re going to let him talk to Marsh. But nothing cute, you understand?”

“I understand,” I said and waved Spivey over to the phone. He took it and held it away from his ear so that I could listen.

“Jack?” he said.

A man’s voice said, “Who’s this, Max?”

“Yeah, how’s it going, fellah?”

“It’s gone better,” the voice said. I looked at Spivey. He nodded sharply at me to indicate that it was Marsh’s voice.

“Are they treating you all right?”

“Yeah, they’re treating me all right. It’s not exactly the—”

Marsh’s voice ended, there was a pause, and then the high voice came back on, thick and muffled and hard to understand. “Put St. Ives back on,” the voice said.

Spivey handed me the phone. I said, “Hold it a second,” put my hand over the mouthpiece and said to Spivey, “That was Marsh, right?”

“Right,” Spivey said.

“Okay,” I said into the phone. “What’s next?”

“Next, you gotta understand that we’re not exactly stupid,” the voice said. “Your friend Marsh doesn’t know what we look like or what we talk like because if he did know that, he’d already be dead. Maybe you’ve noticed I’ve got sort of a funny voice.”