Стюарт Вудс - Standup Guy

Joan came running and entered the office with her trusty .45 in her hand. “What?”

“You don’t need to be armed.”

“All right, then, what is it?”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s gotta be your cash,” she said, then left the room. She came back a moment later with two men and a steel cart that barely squeezed through the door. “Right over there,” she said, pointing at the sofa. The two men hefted the leaf bags and a cardboard box onto the sofa, Joan inspected the seals, approved and signed a receipt, and the two men left. “Now what?” she asked.

“What’s in the cardboard box?” Stone asked.

Joan read the label. “Cash-binding bands.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Stone said.

“What’s the problem?”

“The bank won’t take the money unless it’s sorted into tens and twenties and banded.”

“Won’t the bank do it?”

“They don’t have the people, and their equipment is broken.”

“Who’s going to do it, then?” she asked.

“That’s the problem.”

She looked at the bags. “Let me know when you figure it out,” she said, then went back to her office.

Stone sat, staring at the bags. Joan buzzed. “Hank is on line one.”

Stone picked up the phone. “Hi.”

“You sound a bit disconsolate,” she said. “Something wrong?”

“The bank won’t take the money back.”

“The five million?”

“Yes. It has to be sorted and banded or they won’t take it back. Right now, the two bags are sitting on my office sofa.”

Hank began to laugh. “You’re the only person I know who could possibly have this problem.”

“I’m the only person you know with five million dollars in small bills in the house?”

“I can’t think of another soul. You want to have dinner tonight?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where should I meet you?”

“Come here for a drink, say seven?”

“How do I dress?”

“Let’s keep it in the neighborhood—how about the Four Seasons?”

“You talked me into it. I’ll see you at seven.” She hung up.

Joan came into the office holding an office supply catalog. “Here’s a machine that could solve your problem,” she said, handing him the catalog.

Stone read the description; the thing would count currency and separate it into piles. “Order one,” he said, handing the catalog back to her.

She left the room. Five minutes later she was back. “They don’t have it in stock,” she said. “I called the manufacturer, but they closed for business at five o’clock, which was three minutes ago. I got a recording.”

“Call them tomorrow morning.”

“Today’s Friday, and Monday is a national holiday.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said. “What am I going to do with it?”

Joan stared at the two bags. “We could put it in the wine cellar,” she said. “It has a lock.”

“I don’t know where the key is, I never lock it.”

“Well, I guess you could just leave it there on the sofa. Nobody knows it’s here but Mike Freeman. I guess it’s as safe a place as any, except a vault, and we don’t have one of those, and it won’t fit in any of our safes.”

“Would you sleep in here, with your .45?”

“No, I would not.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to sleep in here.”

“Do you and Hank have a date tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d bet against your sleeping down here. I’m off. You and your five million have a nice weekend.” She left.

Stone continued to stare at the bags for a while, then he went upstairs.

49

Harry Moss sat on his usual stool at his usual sports bar and had his usual Cutty Sark and water. He was trying to watch a golf tournament on TV, but his vision kept blurring.

When it got a little quieter in the bar, Jerry, the bartender, drifted over. “Hey, Harry,” he said. “Some guy was in here asking questions about you a few days ago.”

Moss sat up straight. “Was it a black guy?”

“Yeah, he felt like a cop of one kind or another.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, cops all have something about them that I don’t like.”

“I was a cop,” Moss said.

“You were a fed—they have a different thing.”

“What do feds have?”

“Pressed suits, white shirts, boring ties, clean shaves.”

“Like me.”

“Yeah, like you, except I’ve never seen you in a suit.”

“And this guy wasn’t federal, you think?”

“Nah, city cop, state cop, probably.”

“What did he ask you about?”

“He mentioned knowing you, and then he just poked around a little: you know, how’s Harry doing? What’s he up to? Where’s he hang? Like that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Practically nothing.”

“Come on, Jerry, what’d you tell him?”

“Nothing, really. He seemed to know a lot already. What’s it about, do you think? You schtupping somebody’s wife?”

“I wish,” Moss said. His cell phone went off, and he dug it out of his pocket. “Harry Moss.”

“No kidding, the Harry Moss?”

The guy had a New York accent. “I’m the only one I know. Who’s this?”

“The Harry Moss who puts strange ads in the Palm Beach paper?”

“You saw that, did you? You calling from Palm Beach?”

“I’m calling from Vegas. Even way out here we get the Palm Beach papers.”

“You got some information for me?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

“Depends on what you’re selling.”

“How about this: I know somebody who was sitting out on the beach at Delray a few years back, late at night, and these two people came along, and they were having an argument of some sort.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Patience, Harry, I’m getting there.”

“All right, go on. What were they arguing about?”

“Seems the woman was real upset with her husband about his gambling habit. Seems the guy was a degenerate gambler. You know anybody like that?”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m getting there, Harry. Then this woman did something that really surprised the witness.”

“What?”

“She reached into her handbag, pulled out a gun, and shot her husband in the head.”

Moss didn’t know what to say.

“You’re going all silent on me, Harry.”

“This was not the subject of my ad. How’d you know I placed the ad, anyway?”

“In a minute, Harry. Next, the woman took a handkerchief out of her husband’s pocket, wiped the gun down, put his fingerprints on it, and dropped it next to his body. Then she walked away very quietly and returned to the building where she and her husband lived.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I thought you ought to have the true facts. There are other people who might like to have the facts, too.”

“So what? She’s dead. Nobody can touch her now.”

“Maybe not, but they could touch you. I hear the husband has relatives who thought they might have some of his estate coming.”

“Good luck to them with that.”

“But, Harry, if the police knew what really happened, there’d be an investigation. And if they talked to the witness and found that the woman murdered her husband, then, under Florida law, she couldn’t have legally inherited her husband’s money or property, since she caused her husband’s death. And—think about this, Harry—you wouldn’t have been able to inherit from her. Everything would go to his relatives.”

“What do you want?”

“That’s a pretty nice apartment you inherited, isn’t it, Harry? Worth what? A couple of million? More when the real estate market recovers.”