Ed Mcbain - Money, Money, Money

“Yes, that’s it,” Cass said.

She hadn’t mentioned the missing cash, and she didn’t intend to.

“One of them a full-length sable coat …”

“Yes, from Revillon.”

“How much would you say it’s worth, Miss?”

“Forty-five thousand dollars,” she said.

“And the mink stole? How much wasthat worth?”

“Six thousand.”

“Insured?”

“No.”

“You should insure things, Miss.”

“I intended to.”

“Your initials in either of them?”

“Both of them.”

“And what would those initials be?”

“CJR.”

“For?”

“Cassandra Jean Ridley.”

“Could you please spell Ridley for us?”

“R-I-D-L-E-Y,” she said. “What are the chances of getting them back?”

One of the detectives was redheaded. With a white streak in his hair. The other was short. She figured the chances were nil.

“We have a very good recovery record, don’t we, Hal?” the redheaded one said.

“Well, so-so,” the short one said, and smiled.

Which confirmed Cass’s doubts.

“We’ll let you know if we come up with anything,” the redheaded one said. “Here’s my card, I’ll write my beeper number on the back in case you think of anything else.” The card said he was Detective/Second Grade Cotton Hawes of the Eighty-seventh Detective Squad.

“Thank you,” Cass said, though she couldn’t imagine what else she might think of to call them about.

“We know just how you feel,” the short one said.

“Oops!” the redheaded one said, and stopped dead in his tracks and bent to pick up a black eyeglass case on the floor near the dresser. “Almost stepped on them,” he said.

Cass did not wear eyeglasses.

“Thank you,” she said at once, and took the case.

“Have a nice Christmas,” the short one said.

“You, too,” Cass said.

She led them to the door, and locked it behind them. The minute they were gone, she looked at the name and address imprinted on the case in barely legible gold letters:

Eyewear Fashions, Inc. 1137 Stemmler Avenue (corner of 22nd Street)

Cass went to the closet for her red fox jacket.

THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR came at a little past four that afternoon. Will went to the door and said, “Yes?”

“Secret Service,” a voice said. “Mind opening the door for us?”

Secretwhat?Will thought.

“Say again?” he said.

“Special Agent David A. Horne,” the voice said. “Few questions I’d like to ask you, sir. Routine matter.”

Which to Will meant he ought to go out the window this very minute. Trouble was, there was no fire escape outside the window.

“Just a minute, let me put something on,” he said, even though he was fully clothed. In the next thirty seconds, he debated whether he should go hide the stolen hundred-dollar bills in the toilet tank or the freezer compartment of the fridge, both of which places would be searched at once if this was related to the burglary he’d committed on South Ealey. He decided to play it cool.

“Just a minute,” he said again, and went to the door and opened it.

The man standing there was tall and thin and blue-jowled, wearing a neon blue parka and a woolen hat with ear flaps. “Special Agent David A. Horne,” he said again, “with an ‘e,’” and opened a little leather case to show a gold star that looked like the ones the Texas Rangers carried back home. Will tried to think if there were any outstanding warrants on him back home. He couldn’t think of a single one.

“Good evening,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s still afternoon,” Horne corrected. “Is your name Wilbur Struthers?”

“It is.”

“Ask me in,” Horne said, and smiled.

“Sure, come on in,” Will said.

He was somewhat frightened now, but he spoke calmly and politely because it was always best to be polite to policemen. Even back home in Texas, Will spoke politely to policemen, whose long suit was definitely not courtesy. But Horne was a Secret Service agent with considerably more sophistication, he hoped. He stepped into the room now, looking around as if there might be an accomplice or two lurking about.

“You were in Flanagan’s earlier today,” Horne said. It was not a question.

“That’s right,” Will said.

The hooker, he thought at once. Something happened to the hooker, so now the Secret Service is here to question me about her. He hoped it was nothing serious. He hoped nobody had killed her or raped her.

“You had some drinks there,” Horne said.

“I did.”

Had she been poisoned?

“You paid for them with a hundred-dollar bill,” Horne said.“This bill,” he said, and removed from the inside pocket of the bulky blue parka a narrow folder that looked like the kind you put money in for a Christmas gift to your mailman or your doorman, except that it had a gold star embossed on the front of it. Horne opened the folder and took a hundred-dollar bill from it. “Recognize it?” he asked, and handed it to Will.

“All hundred-dollar bills look alike to me,” he said.

“Where’d you getthis hundred-dollar bill?” Horne asked.

“I won it in a crap game,” Will said.

“Won a hundred dollars in a crap game.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Where? What crap game?”

“Pickup game on Laramie,” he said.

“Where on Laramie?”

“Don’t recall the address,” he said.

Two different agendas here, he was thinking. Man here wants to know all about this hundred-dollar bill, I want to make sure he don’t find out I stole it.

“This all you won in the crap game?”

“Just the hundred, that’s all.”

“Went out to spend it, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

Listen, he thought, why the fuck are you asking all these questions?

But knew better than to say.

Two different agendas here.

“I talked to a girl named Jasmine before I came up here,” Horne said.

“Oh?”

“Got your name from her.”

“So?”

“Ran a computer check.”

Will said nothing.

“Seems you ran into a little trouble here in this city, is that right, Wilbur?”

“It’s Will, by the way.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know that, Will.”

“That’s okay,” Will said.

He was thinking it still didn’t take the curse off the oldest cop trick in the world, calling a suspected perp by his first name, which reduced him to the status of a menial. What this was here wasWill andMr. David Horne.

“Burglarized a gas station seven years ago, did time for the deed up at Castleview. That the only burglary you ever committed, Will?”

“The one and only,” Will lied.

“That’s commendable,” Horne said. “But nonetheless, on the basis of this hundred-dollar bill here, I was able to obtain a search warrant.”

“A what?”

“I believe you heard me,” Horne said, and handed Will a court order with a judge’s signature and all on the bottom of it, authorizing a search of this very apartment for monies paid as ransom …

“Ransom?” Will said.

“Ransom in a kidnapping, is what it says.Ransom money, Will.”

“That’s not my bill,” Will said at once. “I told you. I won it in a crap game.”

“Well, that’s good, Will, because the serial numbers on this bill match the serial numbers on one of the bills paid as ransom in a kidnapping case we’re investigating. Do you understand the implications of that?”

“I’m not a kidnapper,” Will said.

“That’s good, too, Will, because I have a search warrant to look for anyother bills that may have been part of the ransom payment,” Horne said, and took off the blue parka to reveal a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. The suit jacket was taut over bulging pectorals and broad shoulders. The man was a fitness freak. He took off the hat with the ear flaps, revealing a head of very black, very thick hair.