Лоуренс Блок - Death Pulls a Doublecross [= Cowards Kiss]

“And the country is a healthy grave.”

There was a parking space down the block from my building. It was a tight squeeze but the Chevy fit in it. I slipped the briefcase out of sight under the front seat, walked to my door with my right arm draped over the bullethole in my pocket. In my own apartment I got out of the jacket, emptied its pockets and heaved it down the incinerator. It was a shame, because it was kind of a nice jacket, but it had to go. I put on a fresh jacket, put wallet and handkerchief and gun in the right pockets, and poured out a slug of cognac. I sat down in a chair and worked on the cognac while I flipped through the Times at long last.

I wasn’t exactly killing time. In the first place, I needed the drink. In the second, there was a chance that the Alicia bit was still getting an occasional few lines of printer’s ink, and I wanted to know about it if it was. So I sipped and flipped, in approximately that order. There was nothing about the late Alicia Arden. There was something else.

I almost missed it. It was on one of those catchall back pages, a short bit most of the way down the fifth column. I noticed it because they had happened to run a picture with it and pictures on the inside back pages are rare. This was a good news photo — a clear and infinitely sad shot of a dead little man propped up against a brick warehouse wall.

So I read the article. Nothing sensational, nothing spectacularly newsworthy. The sad little man in the photograph had been found in the very small hours of the morning after having been shot twice in the center of his chest. Police found him in the very West Thirties, the warehouse district on the wrong side of Eleventh Avenue. He had been killed elsewhere and dumped where he was found. In addition to the bullets, he’d been beaten around the face.

There had been no identification yet. He’d had no wallet, no papers. His fingerprints were not on file. He had one identifying mark, a six-digit number tattooed on his right forearm.

Nothing much at all. But it made me look at the picture again, and it actually took a second look to recognize him. His face had never been the memorable sort and it was less so in a news photo. But I had seen him before.

He was the tail I’d pounded on Times Square the night before.

I went back to the car. The briefcase was still on the floor under the seat, right where I had left it. I put it next to me and started the engine. I had a little more trouble getting out of the space than getting in, but the Chevy was in a good mood and we made it.

It was time to deliver the briefcase and collect my reward.

The air was gray, the sun smothered by clouds. Eighth Avenue swam with the human debris of late afternoon. A pair of well-dressed Negro pimps stood like cigar store Indians in front of the Greek movie theater across the street. A Madison Avenue type, his attaché case at his feet, leafed dispassionately and sadly through a bin of pornographic pictures in a bookstore. Taxi drivers honked their horns and pedestrians dodged rush-hour traffic. All over neon signs winked in electric seduction.

The Chevy was parked on Forty-fifth Street. I left it there and went into the Ruskin with the briefcase tucked under one arm. I found the taproom and had a double cognac. It went down smoothly and made a warm spot in my stomach.

In the lobby I picked up the house phone and called Peter Armin. He picked up the phone right off the bat.

“London,” I said. “Busy?”

He wasn’t.

“I’ve got a present for you,” I told him. “Okay to bring it right up?”

A low chuckle came over the phone. “You’re an amazing man, Mr. London. Come right up. I’ll be anxious to see you.”

I rang off, stuffed tobacco into a pipe and lit it. I walked to the elevator. The operator was a sleepy-eyed kid with a very short brushcut and a wad of gum in his mouth. He chewed it all the way to the eleventh floor, telling me at the same time who was going to win the fight at St. Nick’s that night. I yeahed him along, got out of the car and found Armin’s door. I knocked on it and he opened it.

“Mr. London,” he said. “Come in. Please come in.”

We went inside. He closed the door, then turned to me again. I looked at him while he looked at the briefcase I was holding. He was very pleased to see it. His clothes were different again — chocolate slacks, a dark brown silk shirt, a tan cashmere cardigan. I wondered how many changes of clothes he carried around in that suitcase of his.

“An amazing man,” he said softly. “You and I make a pact. Within twenty-four hours you produce the briefcase. One might almost be tempted to presume you’d had it all along. But I’m sure that’s not the truth.”

“It isn’t.”

“May I ask how you took possession of it?”

I shrugged. “Somebody dropped it in my lap.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Amazing, truly amazing. And Mr. Bannister? Have you any news of Mr. Bannister?”

“He’s dead.”

“You killed him?”

“I think he had a heart attack.”

He chuckled again. “Marvelous, Mr. London. De mortuis, of course. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Yet I cannot avoid thinking that few men have merited a heart attack more whole-heartedly, if you’ll excuse the play on words. You’re a man of action, Mr. London, and a man of economy as well. You waste neither time nor words. A rare and enviable combination in these perilous times.”

He stopped, reached into a pocket of the cardigan and dragged out his Turkish cigarettes. He offered me one, as usual. I passed it up, as usual. He took one himself and lit it.

“Now,” he said. “If I might have the briefcase?”

“One thing first.”

“Oh?”

“A matter of money,” I said. “Something like five thousand.”

He was all apologies. He scurried over to the dresser, opened the bottom drawer, drew out a small gray steel lockbox with a combination lock. He spun dials mysteriously and the box opened. There was an envelope inside it. He took it out and presented it solemnly to me.

“Five thousand,” he said. “The bills are perfectly good and perfectly untraceable. If you’d like to count them—”

“I’ll trust you,” I said. I stuffed the envelope in my inside jacket pocket.

“Now the briefcase?”

I said: “Of course.” I handed it to him and he took it from me, his small hands trembling slightly. He accepted the case the way a man takes into his arms a woman he has lusted after without success for a long period of time. I stood and watched him as he sat down in his chair and opened it.

He reacted just the way he was supposed to. He unzipped the briefcase quickly, ignored the letter and opened the pouch with the keys in it. He took them out, looked them over.

His face changed expression.

For a moment or two he sat still as Death and did not say a word. Then, his eyes still on the keys, he said: “There seems to be some sort of mistake, Mr. London.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said. “Somewhere along the line there’s been a slip. These are not the right keys.”

“Of course not,” I said. “I know that, Mr. Wallstein.”

The words sank in slowly. He stayed where he was, not moving at all for a minute or two. Then his eyes left the keys and climbed an inch at a time until they were looking at me.

They widened when they were focused on the Beretta in my hand.

He said nothing at first. His face changed expression several times and I could see his mind working, looking for avenues of escape, seeing each in turn sealed off in front of him. When he got around to speaking his voice was a thousand years old. He sounded like a man who had been running very hard and very fast for a very long time. And who was now discovering that he had been running in the wrong direction.