Lawrence Block - The Girl with the Long Green Heart

Now he said, “John, you don’t mind a personal question, do you?”

“I guess that depends on how personal it is.”

“Well, why beat around the bush? I’ll come right out and ask you. How much money do these Barnstable people pay you?”

I hesitated. Then I said, “Well, around two hundred a week.”

“A little less than that, isn’t it?”

“A little.”

“About one-eighty?”

“How did you—”

“Well, I didn’t inquire directly, John. It came out in the wash. That’s one-eighty Canadian, and with the discount that means you’re earning something like a hundred and sixty-five a week. I’ll tell you, John, that isn’t much for someone doing the work you do. And all the traveling and responsibility.”

“The travel expenses are paid for me.”

“Oh, I know that, naturally. But you still ought to be worth more than that.”

“I manage on my salary.”

“Of course you do. But if you could pick up a piece of change for yourself, why, you wouldn’t complain, would you?”

I didn’t answer that.

“I’m not saying you ought to work against your employers, John.”

“I couldn’t do anything like that.”

“You certainly couldn’t, and if I thought you were the kind of man who could, why, I wouldn’t want to have any dealings with you. But if you could do me a favor without injuring your employers, that might be something else, don’t you think?”

I reached for my drink. He smiled at the gesture, then looked away. Not right now, I thought. Give him a night to think it over some more. Take a little time.

“I’m not sure how much help I could be to you,” I said.

“Why not let me worry about that?”

I lowered my eyes and chewed my lip thoughtfully. “I ought to think about this,” I said.

“Fair enough. Will you be in town a few days, John?”

I took a breath, then expelled it with the air of someone coming to a minor decision. “Wally,” I said, “you must have figured out the main reason I’m here. I don’t have to tell you that, do I? That is, I already realized you weren’t likely to sell out to Barnstable. That was... well, an excuse for the trip.”

“You wanted to see Evvie.”

“That’s right.”

“I understand. And why not let the boss pay for the trip, eh?”

I looked very ashamed of myself.

“Perfectly natural,” Gunderman said. He laughed heartily. “But you will stay in town for a few days, won’t you?”

“If I can manage it.”

“Hell, you can manage it, John.” He laughed again. “Why, with all those phone calls I’ve made to your office, your boss will be sure I’m the hottest prospect on earth. He won’t begrudge you a few days in town, and if the deal falls through for him, well, that’s just the breaks of the game. You stay here in town, and you take some time to think things through, because I want you to make your own decision, John. And you drop around here, oh, come by tomorrow afternoon, and maybe the two of us can do some more talking and figure out how things are likely to shape up for us. I think we’ll both come out of this okay, John.”

We both finished our drinks. I rallied a little and told him I was glad we were bringing things out in the open, that the one thing I disliked about the Barnstable job was that I hated to misrepresent myself at all. “The hunting-lodge story,” I said. “I’d rather tell people the truth right off the bat, that we’re prepared to pay so much for their land and that’s all. It’s a good deal for a lot of them, Wally. They can write off their tax loss and get the bad taste of a bad deal out of their mouths. I’d rather just tell them that and leave it at that, and I know that’s how I would handle things if I were a principal in this deal. But I’m just a hired hand.”

He liked the way that sounded. He was very taken with me. I was just the man he wanted me to be. We shook hands and we made arrangements to meet the next afternoon, and I left him there ready to tell Diogenes to put down his lantern and call off his search — Wallace J. Gunderman had just found himself an honest man.

When Evvie left the office a little after five I was out in front with the motor idling. She came out of the building and over to the car. I stood holding the door for her. She was smiling hugely.

“Aim a kiss at me,” she said, behind the smile.

I did. She went on smiling and turned just a little in my arms so that the kiss missed her mouth and caught her cheek. Then in a second she was in the car. I walked around it and got behind the wheel, and away we went.

I said, “You think he was watching?”

“From the front window. That light’s red. Why not stop for it and kiss me proper?”

This time there was no audience for the kiss. She made a little choked-up sound and caught at my shoulders with her hands. Our mouths didn’t miss this time. She held on, and the wheels went around and came up three bars, jackpot. A horn honked behind us. She slipped away reluctantly and I piloted the rented Impala across the intersection.

“Now that was better,” she said.

She was too damned good to be true. The halfway kiss in front of Gunderman’s office building would tell him everything she wanted him to know — that I was hot for her, that she was not interested, but that she would play the game through thick and thin to do the right thing for Poppa Wally. I couldn’t have named more than eight women in the country who could have played the scene as well, and those eight were girls who were born to the sport.

I told her how good she was. She glowed a little. I asked her where she felt like going for dinner. Nowhere, she said. She had a pair of filets at the apartment and a hibachi to char them on. How did that sound?

“Home cooking,” I said. “You’ll spoil me.”

“You don’t mind? He wanted me to wine you and dine you. He thinks that’s the most effective treatment. The big show of money and influence. He knows a few variations, but they’re all on the same theme. I told him this would be more intimate.”

“It just might.”

She didn’t answer. I turned a corner and found her block, pulled up a few doors from her building. We went up to her apartment and she unlocked the door. She let me make the drinks while she got the charcoal going in the little Japanese stove. I made stiff drinks. We took them back into the living room with us.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“About what?”

“Everything, I don’t think he’s going to fall for it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Did he say something?”

She frowned. “No,” she said finally. “It wasn’t anything he said, nothing like that exactly. Right now he’s completely sold. You’ve got him in your pocket, John.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

She thought about it, worked on her drink, looked up at me. “Maybe I’m just worried,” she said. “Stage fright.”

“Could be.”

“It just doesn’t seem possible that he’ll fall for it. He’s not a stupid man, you know. He’s less of a clod than he seems. He’s got a tough streak of sharpness under it all.”

“Then this is tailored for him. A stupid man would never be able to pick up on it.”

“I know, but—” She raised her glass to her lips, lowered it again. “I’ll tell you something, John. I think you’re a little too perfect.”

“How do you mean?”

“Too honest and too square. Right now he believes every bit of it. Right now you could probably tell him you’re the chief holy man of the Ganges and he wouldn’t doubt a word. But he’s no believer in the incorruptibility of mankind. If you stay lily-white, he’ll start to wonder sooner or later.”