Bill Pronzini: Scenarios

"You see?" Annette Byers said bitterly. "You see, smart guy? He knows everything."

Cohalan shook his head. He'd gotten over his initial shock; now he looked stricken, and his nerves were acting up again. His hands had begun repeating that scoop-shovel trick at his sides. "You believed me, I know you did."

"Wrong," I said. "I didn't believe you. I'm a better actor than you, is all. Your story didn't sound right from the first. Too elaborate, full of improbabilities. Fifty thousand is too big a blackmail bite for any crime short of homicide, and you swore to me-your wife too-you weren't guilty of a major felony. Blackmailers seldom work in big bites anyway. They bleed their victims slow and steady, in small bites, to keep them from throwing the hook. We just didn't believe it, either of us."

"We? Jesus, you mean… you and Carolyn…?"

"That's right. Your wife's my client, Cohalan, not you-that's why I never asked you for a retainer. She showed up at my office right after you did the first time; if she hadn't I'd probably have gone to her. She's been suspicious all along, but she gave you the benefit of the doubt until you hit her with the fifty-thousand dollar sum. She figured you might be having an affair, too, and it didn't take me long to find out about Annette. You never had any idea you were being followed, did you? Once I knew about her, it was easy enough to put the rest of it together, including the funny business with the money drop tonight. And here we are."

"Damn you," he said, but there was no heat in the words. "You and that frigid bitch both."

He wasn't talking about Annette Byers, but she took the opportunity to dig into him again. "Smart guy. Big genius. I told you to just take the money and we'd run with it, didn't I?"

"Shut up."

"Don't tell me to shut up, you son of-"

"Don't say it. I'll slap you silly if you say it."

"You won't slap anybody," I said. "Not as long as I'm around."

He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. "What're you going to do?"

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

"You can't go to the police. You don't have any proof, it's your word against ours."

"Wrong again." I showed him the voice-activated recorder I'd had hidden in my pocket all evening. High-tech, state-of-the-art equipment, courtesy of George Agonistes, fellow PI and electronics expert. "Everything that was said in your office and in this room tonight is on here. I've also got the cassette tape Annette played when she called earlier. Voice prints will prove the muffled voice on it is yours, that you were talking to yourself on the phone, giving yourself orders and directions. If your wife wants to press charges, she'll have more than enough evidence to put the two of you away."

"She won't press charges," he said. "Not Carolyn."

"Maybe not, if you return the rest of her money. What you and baby here haven't already blown."

He sleeved his mouth again. "I suppose you intend to take the briefcase straight to her."

"You suppose right."

"I could stop you," he said, as if he were trying to convince himself. "I'm as big as you, younger-I could take it away from you."

I repocketed the recorder. I could have showed him the. 38, but I grinned at him instead. "Go ahead and try. Or else move away from the door. You've got five seconds to make up your mind."

He moved in three, as I started toward him. Sideways, clear of both me and the door. Annette Byers let out a sharp, scornful laugh, and he whirled on her-somebody his own size to face off against. "Shut your stupid mouth!" he yelled at her.

"Shut yours, big man. You and your brilliant ideas."

"Goddamn you…"

I went out and closed the door against their vicious, whining voices.

Outside the fog had thickened to a near drizzle, sucking the pavement and turning the lines of parked cars along both curbs into two-dimensional black shapes. Parking was at such a premium in this neighborhood there was now a car, dark and silent, double-parked across the street. I walked quickly to California. Nobody, police included, had bothered my wheels in the bus zone. I locked the briefcase in the trunk, let myself inside. A quick call to Carolyn Cohalan to let her know I was coming, a short ride out to her house by the zoo to deliver the fifty thousand, and I'd be finished for the night.

Only she didn't answer her phone.

Funny. When I'd called her earlier from the park, she'd said she would wait for my next call. No reason for her to leave the house in the interim. Unless-

Christ!

I heaved out of the car and ran back down Locust Street. The darkened vehicle was still double-parked across from Annette Byers' building. I swung into the foyer, jammed my finger against the bell button for 2-C and left it there. No response. I rattled the door-latched tight-and then began jabbing buttons on all the other mailboxes. The intercom crackled; somebody's voice said, "Who the hell is that?" I said, "Police emergency, buzz me in." Nothing, nothing, and then finally the door release sounded; I hit the door hard and lunged into the lobby.

I was at the foot of the stairs when the first shot echoed from above. Two more in swift succession, a fourth as I was pounding up to the second floor landing.

Querulous voices, the sound of a door banging open somewhere, and I was at 2-C. The door there was shut but not latched; I kicked it open, hanging back with the. 38 in my hand for self-protection. But there was no need. It was over by then. Too late and all over.

All three of them were on the floor. Cohalan on his back next to the couch, blood obscuring his face, not moving. Annette Byers sprawled bloody and moaning by the dinette table. And Carolyn Cohalan sitting with her back against a wall, a long-barreled. 22 on the carpet nearby, weeping in deep broken sobs.

I leaned hard on the doorjamb, the stink of cordite in my nostrils, my throat full of bile. Telling myself it was not my fault, there was no way I could have known it wasn't the money but paying them back that mattered to her-the big payoff, the biggest bite there is. Telling myself I could've done nothing to prevent this, and remembering what I'd been thinking in the car earlier, about how I lived for cases like this, how I liked this one a whole lot…

I stepped out of my office and looked over the garland-laden railing of the upstairs catwalk at the floor of Pier 24-1/2. Six o'clock and the annual charity Christmas party for staff members of the various businesses housed there had just begun.

The cars that we customarily parked downstairs had been removed to the street; a buffet table and bar in the center of the huge space was already surrounded; the loving cup for the best decorations-nonecumenical, as many of us practiced Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, or no religion at all-sat on its pedestal, to be awarded at the end of the festivities. We called this event the Season of Sharing party, because we solicited cash and noncash donations for a designated charity, with one firm handling the collection and disbursement on a rotating basis. This year's cause was a group called Home for the Holidays, dedicated to housing and feeding homeless people during the season.

A party with a serious purpose, but that didn't mean we hadn't enjoyed preparing for it and wouldn't have a great time celebrating. The decorations this year were exceptional all around. My office manager, Ted Smalley, had opted for a galactic theme in this time of worldwide dissension, hanging from the garland silver stars, moons, planets, and crystal beads to represent the Milky Way. The architects on the opposite catwalk, Chandler amp; Santos, had fashioned a cityscape of colored lights and neon tubing; and their neighbors, a group of certified public accountants, had suspended cardboard cutouts of people of all races and genders holding hands. Below was a miniature Santa's Village, complete with electric tram (marketing consultants); a forest of small live fir trees dusted in realistic-looking snow, where replicas of various endangered animals took refuge (ecological nonprofit); swirls of rich, colorful cloth that a fan moved in a kaleidoscopic pattern (fashion designer); a Model T Ford with Santa at the wheel and presents in the rumble seat (car leasing agency). One of these would win the big loving cup perched on the high pedestal for best of show.