Bill Pronzini - Bleeders

She said, “What’re you gonna do with the money?”

“Give it back to its rightful owner.”

“Jay. It belongs to him.”

“Like hell it does.”

“Try to keep it for yourself, I’ll bet that’s what you’re really gonna do.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“Well, it won’t happen.” She stamped her foot. “You hear me? You don’t have any right to that money!”

“You dumb-ass kid,” I said disgustedly, “neither do you.”

She quit looking at me. When she made to open the door I told her no, to wait for his knock. She stood with her back to me, shoulders hunched, face pale.

Knuckles on the door. She opened it then without hesitation, and he blew in talking fast the way he did when he was keyed up. “Oh, baby, baby, we did it, we pulled it off.”

“Shit! You’re not supposed to be here now...”

“I know, but I couldn’t wait.” He grabbed her, started to pull her against him. And that was when he saw me.

“Hello, Cohalan,” I said.

He went rigid for about five seconds, then disentangled himself from Byers and stood gawping at me. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. Manic as hell in his office, talking a blue streak — nerves and a hit or two of speed. He was a crankhead the same as her; that was the real reason he’d gone out to the john earlier. But facing me now, he was speechless. Lies were easy for him; the truth would have to be dragged out.

I told him to close the door. He did it automatically and then swung snarling on Annette Byers.

“You let him follow you here!”

“I didn’t. He already knew about me. He knows everything.”

“No, how could—”

“You stupid dickhead, you didn’t fool him for a minute. Not for a minute.”

“Shut up!” His eyes shifted to me. “Don’t listen to her. She’s the one who’s been blackmailing me, she—”

“Knock it off, Cohalan,” I said. “Nobody’s been blackmailing you. You two are the bleeders — a cute little shakedown to steal your wife’s money. You couldn’t just grab the bundle without facing theft charges, and you couldn’t get any of it by divorcing her because a spouse’s inheritance isn’t community property. So you cooked up the phony blackmail scam. What were you planning to do with the cash? Try to run it up into a big score in the stock market or in Vegas? Buy a load of crystal meth for resale, maybe?”

“You see?” Byers said bitterly. “He knows everything.”

Cohalan waggled his head. He’d gotten over his initial shock and he looked stricken; his hands had started 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, loaded with improbabilities. Seventy-five thousand is much too large a blackmail bite for any past crime short of murder, 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 in small bites to keep them from throwing the hook. We just didn’t buy it, either of us.”

“We? Jesus, you mean... you and Carolyn...”

“That’s right. You were never my client, Cohalan — it’s been your wife all along. Why do you think I never asked you for a retainer? Or suggested we mark the money just in case?”

He muttered something and pawed his face.

“She showed up at my office right after you did the first time,” I said. “If she hadn’t, I’d have gone to her myself. She’s been suspicious all along, and when you hit her with the big bite, she figured it for a scam right away. She thought you might be having an affair, that that’s where the money was going. Didn’t take me long to find out about Annette. You never had a clue you were being followed, did you? Once I knew about her, it was easy enough to put the rest of it together, including the business with the money drop tonight.” I showed him my teeth. “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 referring to Annette Byers, but she took the opportunity to dig into him again. “Wise guy. I told you it was a bad idea to hire a goddamn private cop—”

“Shut up, for God’s sake.”

“Don’t keep telling me to shut up.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!”

“You son of a—”

“Don’t say it. I’ll slap you silly.”

“You won’t slap anybody,” I said. “Not as long as I’m around.”

He pawed his face again. “What’re you going to do?”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

“You can’t turn us in. 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 the entire evening. High-tech, state-of-the-art equipment, courtesy of George Agonistes, fellow investigator and electronics genius. “Everything that was said in your office and in this room tonight is on tape. I’ve also got the cassette tape Annette played when she called your office number. Voice prints will prove you were talking to yourself on the phone, giving yourself instructions for the money drop. If your wife wants to press charges, you’re looking at jail time. Both of you.”

“She won’t press charges. Not Carolyn.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Jay,” Byers said, “don’t let him walk out of here with our money.” A frantic note had come into her voice. “Don’t let him.”

Cohalan said to me, “I suppose you intend to take it straight back to her.”

“No, he’s gonna try to keep it for himself. Stop him, for God’s sake. Stop him, Jay!”

“Straight back to your wife, that’s right,” I said. “And if you’ve got any idea of trying to take it away from her, tonight or any time, get it out of your head. That money’s going where you’ll never lay hands on it again.”

“No,” he said. Then, “I could take it away from you.”

“You think so?”

Byers: “Go ahead, do it!”

Cohalan: “I’m as big as you... younger, faster.”

That’s one of the things that makes crank such a nasty drug. It not only speeds you up, it creates a false sense of power and invincibility. On meth, cowards like Cohalan start to think they’re tough guys after all.

I repocketed the recorder. I could have showed him the .38, but I grinned at him instead — the kind of death’s-head grin I can work up at times like this. “Go ahead and try,” I said.

“I need that money, damn you.”

“Go ahead and try.”

Sweat made Cohalan’s face shiny; his stare seemed to be losing focus, the way eyes do when they’re about to cross.

Byers half-screamed, “Well, what’re you waiting for? Take it!”

He ignored her. Weighing the odds, wondering if he really was man enough, wondering if he’d loaded his bloodstream with sufficient crank to make him man enough.

“Make your move, Cohalan. Or else step away from the door. You’ve got five seconds.”

He moved in three, as I took a step toward him. Sideways, clear of both me and the door. Not enough drug, too much yellow.

“Bullshitter,” Byers spat at him, “pansy-ass!” And in the next second she charged me with her hands hooked into claws, one grabbing for the briefcase, the other slashing red-tipped nails at my face.

Men should not hit women; that’s an edict I believe in and live by. But in this case I had no choice. I twisted just in time to avoid being raked and backhanded her across the side of the head. It stopped her, put her enough off balance so that I could follow up with a hard shove. Cohalan caught her on reflex, held her. She fought free of him, glared at me but thought better of another rush. She turned on him instead, called him a name. He called her something worse. She one-upped him and then some; she had a mouth like a sewer rat.