Lawrence Block - The Girl with the Long Green Heart

“Maybe you did too good a job,” she said the next night.

“How?”

“He just won’t let go of this. He talks about it constantly, John. I don’t even understand it. It’s not as if this was going to make him suddenly rich. He’s rich already. What kind of profit does he think he can turn on this?”

“A handy one. That’s not the point.”

“It’s not?”

“He got taken once, don’t forget. On a moose pasture dodge. This means getting even and then some. You know the man’s pride.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why he won’t let go, kitten.”

“It just worries me,” she said. “I think what would happen if he ever found out. I get shaky thinking about it. And here I thought I was so level-headed and calm and cool.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Am I? Maybe. I’ll tell you something, I don’t think I could go through this again. It’s not that bad when you know it’s one time and one time only. That makes it easier. I couldn’t do it again, though. Not ever. You used to do this all the time, didn’t you? I don’t see how you kept from flying apart.”

“You get used to it.”

“Are you used to it now?”

I didn’t answer immediately. Then I said, “It comes easy. When you know how to do something fairly well and when you’ve done it for a very long time, it comes easy enough. But no, I don’t think I could go back to the life all the way. This is the last one, a final shot at the moon and for a very good reason. I wouldn’t want to go through it again.”

“I’m—”

“What?”

“I guess I’m frightened, John.” A pause. “I wish you could come here. I wish—”

“It won’t be long.”

“No,” she said. “Not long.”

We tortured him with phone calls. He was under orders, he was not supposed to call me and he didn’t dare call Doug. We goaded him like picadors placing darts in a bull.

“John here, Wally. I can only talk for a minute. I think Rance will call you in a day or two at the outside. I think we’ve got Chicago hanging on the ropes—”

“They’re out?”

“About three-fourths out and going fast. I don’t even want to talk about the way I’ve played it, but I don’t think Rance will be in a hurry to deal with them. He may not call you, but I think he will. He’ll be anxious to talk price.”

“You mean he’ll deal, finally?”

“Now, I don’t think he’ll be that firm about it, Wally. He may keep it very iffy. What he’ll want to do, if he calls, is settle on a price so that he’ll have that much out of the way when the deal is in the final stages. Whatever price the two of you reach, it’ll be firm as far as he’s concerned when the time comes.”

“Do I have room to bargain?”

“I know what he wants.”

“How much?”

“He wants a hundred and a half, a hundred fifty thousand. He wants half of that in cash under the table and the other half showing on paper. Now, I have a pretty good idea what kind of a figure you can arrive at with him. Oh, God. I’ll call you back.”

“Wait—”

Click .

“Wally—”

“What the hell happened?”

“Company I hadn’t figured on. Where was I?”

He told me where I was.

“That’s right. I know it’s a bargain at his price, Wally, but I don’t think you should have to pay that much. You ought to be able to get in for less than that.”

“I don’t want to blow everything for nickels and dimes, John.”

A born mooch. “Don’t worry about that part of it. The thing is, they’ve got the tax consideration, and that’s important to them. That’s why part of the money has to be under the table, and that’s where you have a big bargaining point.”

“I think I see what you mean.”

“Sure. You offer less money overall but a higher proportion in cold cash. That makes it less like haggling, too. They can accept a lower offer without losing face.”

“I follow you.”

“Start by saying yes to the full price, Wally. But say you’ll pay that figure on paper, period. Don’t worry about Rance saying yes to it. He won’t. He can’t.”

“And then?”

“Then you come back with a counter-offer. Tell him you’ll go more in cash if he wants, but you want a concession on the price. Offer him fifty each way.”

“And he’ll take that?”

“No, but that should open it up. I think he’ll settle for seventy cash and fifty on paper. That’s a hundred twenty thousand, and that saves you thirty thousand dollars.”

You just have to let them think they’re getting a bargain. You have to put them in the driver’s seat, and then let them drive over the cliff. When Doug talked to him, he gave Gunderman just a little extra rope. They wound up ten thousand dollars under the figure I’d mentioned. A hundred ten instead of a hundred twenty. I’d supplied good information and Gunderman had showed himself to be a good and proper wheeler-dealer. He’d never dig his way out now. It was piled hip deep all around him, and the fool thought it smelled just fine.

“Wally, I think you should start raising cash.”

“Well, what the hell is this, anyway? Just Wednesday—”

“You don’t know how these things move. Or what I’ve been going through. This isn’t a promise, but it would be good if you had the cash on you when the time came. Can you get up the dough without being obvious about it? A little here and a little there?”

“Nothing easier.”

“You’re sure?”

“No problem, John.”

No problem at all. Doug called later and told him to raise the money, that he felt the deal was ninety percent firm, that he’d spoken with everyone on the board and every silent partner and all that was needed was the board’s formal approval. No problem, none at all. But Barnstable had better make its mind up, he wanted Doug to know. He wasn’t handing out an ultimatum, not by any means, but he had another very attractive opportunity open to him and he didn’t have the cash to swing them both at once. He’d prefer the Barnstable deal any time, but if they wouldn’t close with him soon he might not want to take the chance of losing out entirely.

Not a bad old horse trader, Wallace J. Gunderman. A standard pitch, one you see coming all the way but one you don’t want to ignore entirely because it just might be true. A handy way to put on pressure for a closing without seeming to press too hard.

He was good in his element. But we had never been in his element, had never played ball in his league. This was no straight deal. It was a con, and we sat and laughed at shrewd old Wally.

No problem, no problem at all. And on an early-to-bed evening my phone jangled brittlely on the nightstand. I cursed Gunderman for waking me and hustled the phone to my ear.

And a kitten’s voice said, “Oh, John. Oh, God—”

“What’s wrong?”

“Could you get on a plane right away? Could you come here? Maybe I’m crazy, I don’t know. Maybe I am. It’s risky, isn’t it? We shouldn’t see each other now—”

“Evvie, calm down.”

Silence. Then, “I’m all right.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I just better see you,” she said. “I think he knows. I’m scared to death he knows.”

Somehow I beat the sun there. I spilled out of a yawning cabby’s hack and dashed up the walk to her door. There was a light on upstairs. I took the stairs two at a time. She met me at the top and collapsed in my arms. She tried to talk and couldn’t make it. I got her inside, shut the door. She still couldn’t talk. Her eyes were circled in red, her face drawn. She looked like hell. Broken by a life of unquiet desperation. Shredded; wrung out.