Lawrence Block - Hit Parade

“Huh?”

“Either I’ll have some for breakfast tomorrow,” she said, “or I won’t. I have to say the odds are pretty good I won’t. Keller, you know what you could have done? You could have conked him over the head and walked off with the briefcase. We’d have half the money, and you wouldn’t even have to kill anybody.”

“I thought of that,” he admitted, “but afterward, while I was walking home. And the first thought I had, and it’s kind of silly, is that’s not what I do, I’m not a mugger.”

“You’ve got your code of honor.”

“I don’t know about codes, and I’m pretty sure honor hasn’t got anything to do with it. But it’s just not what I do. I told you it was silly.”

“Maybe, but I can’t argue with it. Next thing you know we’d be selling dope to schoolchildren and sucking tokens out of subway turnstiles. Except you can’t do that anymore, what with MetroCards. What do you suppose the token-suckers are doing these days?”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

“God, why would you want to?” She heaved a sigh. “You said he wants to be able to contact you. I hope you told him that’s not on.”

“I told him I’d work on it.”

“Well, don’t work too hard.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I think I’ve got it figured out.”

By the timeHarrelson showed up, at the same park bench they’d used the first time, Keller had been waiting almost forty-five minutes. Harrelson wasn’t late, if anything he was a couple of minutes early, but Keller had wanted to make sure there weren’t any surprises.

While he waited, trying to be unobtrusive without looking unobtrusive, a man and woman came along and sat down on the appointed bench. Keller couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from what he could see they weren’t picking out names for their unborn children. The woman looked on the brink of tears, and the man looked as though he wanted to give her something to cry about.

What if they were still there when Harrelson arrived? Would he have the sense to pick another bench? Or would he be spooked altogether, and head for home? It was moot, as it turned out, because after ten or twelve minutes of disagreement, the woman sprang to her feet, turned on her heel, and stalked off into the night. “Ignorant cunt,” the man said-to himself, but just loud enough for Keller to hear it-and eventually stood up, yawned, stretched, and set off in the opposite direction.

Other park visitors passed the bench, but nobody else sat on it, until Harrelson appeared. He looked around carefully, reminding Keller of a dog turning around three times before lying down. Then he sat, and Keller moved to approach him from the rear.

“Claude,” he said softly. “How was your trip?”

“Oh,” Harrelson said. “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting…well, that’s not true, of course I was expecting you, but…”

“Right,” Keller said. “Claude, let me ask you straight out. Do you want to go through with this?”

“Of course I do.”

“Hold still.” He frisked the man, wondering what he’d do if he actually found a wire. But he didn’t, so what did it matter?

“What makes you think…”

“That you might have had second thoughts? Well, you didn’t bring your briefcase.”

“Oh,” Harrelson said.

“So I’m taking a wild guess that you didn’t bring the money, either.”

“Last time,” Harrelson said, “there wasn’t any money in the briefcase.”

“Whatever you say.”

“The money’s in an envelope,” he said. “In my inside jacket pocket.”

Harrelson made no move to get it, and Keller wondered if he was supposed to reach for it himself. He wasn’t sure it was something he wanted to do. It was one thing to frisk a man, and another thing altogether to pick his pocket.

“The envelope,” he prompted.

“Oh, right,” Harrelson said, as if he hadn’t thought of the envelope in days. He reached for it and paused with his hand inside his jacket. “When I give you the money,” he said, “it’s on, right?”

“Right.”

“But it has to wait until I’m out of town.”

“So tell me your schedule.”

“Well, it varies,” Harrelson said. “I’m back and forth all the time. That’s why I need a way to get in touch with you.”

He didn’t really, as far as Keller could see, but he thought he did, and maybe that amounted to the same thing. He reached into his own pocket, extended his hand. “Here,” he said. “No, don’t turn around. And don’t unwrap it now. It’s a cell phone.”

“I already have a cell phone.”

No kidding, Keller thought. “This is untraceable,” he said. “It’s prepaid, and the only thing you can use it for is to call me at the number written on the wrapper. That’s the number of my untraceable cell phone, which I’ll only use to talk to you.”

“Like a pair of walkie-talkies,” Harrelson said.

“There you go. You call me when you need to, and I’ll call you if I need to, and as soon as our business is done we can throw both phones down a storm drain and forget the whole thing. Don’t lose the number.”

“I won’t. Incidentally, what’s the number of my phone?”

“You don’t need to know that. I mean, you’re not going to call yourself, are you?”

“No, but-”

“And you’re not going to give out the number, because the only person who’s going to have it is me. Right?”

“Right.”

“So all I need now,” Keller reminded him, “is the envelope.”

“It’s right here,” Harrelson said, drawing it at last from his pocket. “But, see, there’s a slight problem.”

“He only had half,”Dot said. “Well, that was the deal, right? Half in front?”

“He had half of half. Half of what he was supposed to have.”

“In other words, twenty-five percent of the total price.”

“Bingo.”

“I hope you took it.”

“If it was going to be in somebody’s pocket,” he said, “I figured it was better off in mine. But it’s still only half of what it’s supposed to be.”

“Call it a good-faith deposit,” Dot said. “When’s he going to come up with the rest?”

“He was thinking maybe never.”

“Huh?”

“Cash is evidently a problem for him these days,” he said, “and he made the point that raising the money might leave a paper trail that could be suspicious. If the cops take a good look at him, and he’s just liquidated assets and can’t account for where the money went…”

“So you’re supposed to do the job for a quarter of the price?”

“After it’s all done,” he said, “and Barry Blyden’s out of the picture, he’ll have access to all the company funds. At that point he’ll pay everything he owes, plus a bonus if the death passes for accidental.”

“What, like double indemnity?”

“Sort of. Not double, but a bonus. I didn’t get into numbers, because it seemed to me the whole business was a little hypothetical.”

“I’ll say. Keller, tell me you didn’t agree to do it for twenty-five percent down.”

“Tell me you got a phone call from somebody in Seattle or Sioux Falls,” he said, “and we got a real offer from a real client.”

“I wish.”

“So do I, but meanwhile I’ve got an envelope full of his cash, and I figure I can get started, you know? I can get a line on Blyden, track his movements, figure out his pattern, and make my plans.”

“I suppose it can’t hurt. What’s that?”

“My phone,” Keller said, and answered it. “Yes,” he whispered into it. “Yes. Right.” He rang off and told Dot that Harrelson was leaving town first thing in the morning. “Not that he has to be away for me to do a little reconnaissance.”