Лоуренс Блок - Catch and Release

Like the others, Alfie was tied up tight, a piece of duct tape across his mouth. Mike Dunn had given him a wink when he tied him, and made sure his bonds weren’t tight enough to hurt. He sat there and watched as the five men hauled sacks of money out of the vault.

It was Eddie O’Day who found the bearer bonds.

By then they already knew that it was going to be a much bigger payday than they’d anticipated. A hundred thousand? The cash looked as though it would come to at least three and maybe four or five times that. Half a million? A hundred thousand apiece?

The bearer bonds, all by themselves, totaled two million dollars. They were like cash, but better than cash because, relatively speaking, they didn’t weigh anything or take up any space. Pieces of paper, two hundred of them, each worth ten thousand dollars. And they weren’t registered to an owner, and were as anonymous as a crumpled dollar bill.

In every man’s mind, the numbers changed. The night was going to be worth two and a half million dollars, or half a million apiece. Why, Alfie’s share as an informant would come to a quarter of a million dollars all by itself, which was not bad compensation for letting yourself be tied up and gagged for a few hours.

Of course, there was another way of looking at it. Alfie was taking fifty thousand dollars from each of them. He was costing them, right off the top, almost three times as much money as they’d expected to net in the first place.

The little son of a bitch... Alan Walker went over to Alfie and hunkered down next to him. “You did good,” he said. “There’s lots more money than anybody thought, plus all of these bonds.” Alfie struggled with his bonds, and his eyes rolled wildly. Alan asked him if something was the matter, and Mike Dunn came over and took the tape from Alfie’s mouth.

“Them,” Alfie said.

“Them?”

He rolled his eyes toward his fellow employees. “They’ll think I’m involved,” he said.

“Well, hell, Alfie,” Eddie O’Day said, “you are involved, aren’tcha? You’re in for what, ten percent?” Alfie just stared.

“Listen,” George Walker told him, “don’t worry about those guys. What are they gonna say?”

“Their lips are sealed,” his brother pointed out.

“But—” George Walker nodded to Louis Creamer, who drew a pistol and shot one of the bound men in the back of the head. Mike Dunn and Eddie O’Day drew their guns, and more shots rang out. Within seconds the four presumably loyal employees were dead.

“Oh, Jesus,” Alfie said.

“Had to be,” George Walker told him. “They heard what my brother said to you, right? Besides, the money involved, there’s gonna be way too much heat coming down. They didn’t see anybody’s face, but who knows what they might notice that the masks don’t hide? And they heard voices. Better this way, Alfie.”

“Ten percent,” Eddie O’Day said. “You might walk away with a quarter of a million dollars, Alfie. What are you gonna do with all that dough?”

Alfie looked like a man who’d heard the good news and the bad news all at once. He was in line for a fortune, but would he get to spend a dime of it? “Listen,” he said, “you guys better beat me up.”

“Beat you up?”

“I think so, and—”

“But you’re our little buddy,” Louis Creamer said. “Why would we want to do that?”

“If I’m the only one left,” Alfie said, “they’ll suspect me, won’t they?”

“Suspect you?”

“Of being involved.”

“Ah,” George Walker said. “Never thought of that.”

“But if you beat me up...”

“You figure it might throw them off? A couple of bruises on your face and they won’t even think of questioning you?”

“Maybe you better wound me,” Alfie said.

“Wound you, Alfie?”

“Like a flesh wound, you know? A non-fatal wound.”

“Oh, hell,” Alan Walker said. “We can do better than that.” And he put his gun up against Alfie’s forehead and blew his brains out.

“Had to be,” George Walker announced, as they cleared the area of any possible traces of their presence. “No way on earth he would have stood up, the kind of heat they’d have put on him. The minute the total goes over a mill, far as I’m concerned, they’re all dead, all five of them. The other four because of what they might have picked up, and Alfie because of what we damn well know he knows.”

“He was in for a quarter of a mill,” Eddie O’Day said. “You look at it one way, old Alfie was a rich man for a minute there.”

“You think about it,” Louis Creamer said, “what’d he ever do was worth a quarter of a mill?”

“He was taking fifty grand apiece from each of us,” Alan Walker said. “If you want to look at it that way.”

“It’s as good a way as any to look at it,” George Walker said.

“Beady little eyes,” Eddie O’Day said. “Never liked the little bastard. And he’d have sung like a bird, minute they picked him up.” The Walkers had a storage locker that nobody knew about, and that was where they went to count the proceeds of the job. The cash, it turned out, ran to just over $650,000, and another count of the bearer bonds confirmed the figure of two million dollars. That made the total $2,650,000, or $530,000 a man after a five-way split.

“Alfie was richer than we thought,” George Walker said. “For a minute there, anyway. Two hundred sixty-five grand.”

“If we’d left him alive,” his brother said, “the cops would have had our names within twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four hours? He’da been singing the second they got the tape off his mouth.”

Eddie O’Day said, “You got to wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“How much singing he already done.” They exchanged glances.

To Mike Dunn, George Walker said, “This dame of yours. Alfie was married to her sister?”

“Right.”

“I was a cop, I’d take a look at the families of those five guys. Dead or alive, I’d figure there might have been somebody on the inside, you know?”

“I see what you mean.”

“They talk to Alfie’s wife, who knows what he let slip?”

“Probably nothing.”

“Probably nothing, but who knows? Maybe he thought he was keeping her in the dark, but she puts two and two together, you know?”

“Maybe he talked in his sleep,” Louis Creamer suggested.

Mike Dunn thought about it, nodded. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Later that evening, the Walkers were in George’s den, drinking scotch and smoking cigars. “You know what I’m thinking,” George said.

“The wife’s dead,” Alan said, “and it draws the cops a picture. Five employees dead, plus the wife of one of them? Right away they know which one was working for us.”

“So they know which direction to go.”

“This woman Mike’s been nailing. Sister of Alfie’s wife.”

“Right.”

“They talk to her and what do they get?”

“Probably nothing, far as the job’s concerned. Even if Alfie talked to his wife, it’s a stretch to think the wife talked to her sister.”

Alan nodded. “The sister doesn’t know shit about the job,” he said.

“But there’s one thing she knows.”

“What’s that?”

“She knows she’s been sleeping with Mike. Of course that’s something she most likely wants kept a secret, on account of she’s a married lady.”

“But when the cops turn her upside-down and shake her...”

“Leads straight to Mike. And now that I think about it, will they even have to shake her hard? Because if she figures out that it was probably Mike that got her sister and her brother-in-law killed...”

George finished his drink, poured another. “Her name’s Alice,” he said. “Alice Fuhrmann. Be easy enough, drop in on her, take her out. Where I sit, she looks like a big loose end.”