Брайан Гарфилд - The Hit

I said, “That’s a sample, mainly to prove to you that I really do have the stuff. You can do whatever you want with this. Most of it’s worthless now. The blackmail evidence against Doctor Brawley is somewhere in here, and quite a bit of stuff that would have nailed Aiello for tax fraud if he were still alive. Now, of course, it’s useless. The film you had on Joanne has been destroyed. The evidence on Frank Colclough and Stanley Raiford has already been mailed to the FBI, so I doubt those two will get very far with their primary election campaign before they’re indicted.”

Madonna gave me a hooded glare. “That’ll buy you a ticket to the graveyard. You know that.”

“No. The rest of the documents from Aiello’s safe are still under my control. They’ll be turned over to the appropriate federal agencies if my contact doesn’t hear from me regularly. I’ve got you over a barrel. You know as well as I do what’s in that collection. If it’s released, some prominent noses are going to bleed, yours included. It’ll crack the whole state open like an oyster — it’ll blow your whole stinking mess of an organization ten miles in the air.”

“Then why don’t you release it?”

“Because it’s my life insurance. Mine and Mrs. Farrell’s.”

“You’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, aren’t you? What about the cash?”

“It comes to three million, one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, in unmarked, untraceable bills.”

“That’s not what I asked and you know it.”

“It’s in a safe place,” I said. “You don’t need it. And I can’t think of anybody it ought to be turned over to. If it went to the law it’d just end up lining some crooked politician’s pocket. So I’ll tell you what’s going to happen to the money. Mrs. Farrell and I plan to honeymoon in Las Vegas a few weeks from now. I plan to win one hell of a lot of money when I’m there. Say a quarter of a million dollars, this trip, and I’ll repeat it every year or so until I’ve won three million, one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars across the roulette tables. I’ll declare it as income and pay taxes on it. I leave it to you to make the arrangements and see to it that Las Vegas comes across. Any slip-ups and a few pieces of warm information will start to dribble into the FBI’s hands until you straighten out.”

I grinned a tight grin at him. “Any questions?”

He said in a low growl, “What the hell do you need all that money for?”

“I want to buy my kid brother an operation so he can play the trumpet again.”

I took Joanne’s arm and walked her around the pool to the back gate. Madonna said something behind us, and Tony Senna was there with the key by the time we reached the gate. He opened it and let us through. I heard the gate click shut behind us, and the snap of the lock. We walked around the end of the house, across the lawn, and got into the car. Joanne gave me a long slow smile. I started the car and pulled out of the driveway. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but nobody was following us.