Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

“Gibney. Holly Gibney.”

“And what is it you want, Holly Gibney?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Blackmail,” he says, and gives his head a small shake, as if he’s disappointed in her. “Do you know what blackmail is, Holly?”

She remembers one of the late Bill Hodges’s old maxims (there were many): You don’t answer a perp’s questions; the perp answers yours. So she simply sits and waits with her small hands folded beside her unwanted slice of pizza.

“Blackmail is rent,” he says. “Not even rent-to-buy, a scam Chet on Guard knows well. Let’s suppose I had three hundred thousand dollars, which I don’t—there’s a big difference between what a TV reporter makes and what a TV actor makes. But let’s suppose.”

“Let’s suppose you’ve been around for a long, long time,” Holly says, “and putting money away all the while. Let’s suppose that’s how you finance your…” Your what, exactly? “Your lifestyle. And your background. Bogus IDs and all.”

He smiles. It’s charming. “All right, Holly Gibney, let’s suppose that. The central problem for me remains: blackmail is rent. When the three hundred K is gone, you’ll come back with your Photoshopped pictures and your electronically altered voiceprints and threaten me with exposure all over again.”

Holly is ready for this. She didn’t need Bill to tell her that the best confabulation is the one containing the most truth. “No,” she says. “Three hundred thousand is all I want, because it’s all I need.” She pauses. “Although there is one other thing.”

“And what would that be?” The pleasant TV-trained tones have become condescending.

“Let’s stick with the money for now. Recently my Uncle Henry was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He’s in an elder care facility that specializes in housing and treating people like him. It’s very expensive, but that’s really beside the point because he hates it there, he’s very upset , and my mother wants to bring him back home. Only she can’t care for him. She thinks she can, but she can’t. She’s getting old, she has medical problems of her own, and the house would have to be retrofitted for an invalid.” She thinks of Dan Bell. “Ramps, a stair-chair, and a bed-hoist to start with, but those things are minor. I’d want to hire round-the-clock care for him, including an RN in the daytime.”

“Such expensive plans, Holly Gibney. You must love the old dear very much.”

“I do,” Holly says.

It’s the truth even though Uncle Henry is a pain in the ass. Love is a gift; love is also a chain with a manacle at each end.

“His general health is bad. Congestive heart failure is the main physical problem.” Again she has Dan Bell to draw on. “He’s in a wheelchair and on oxygen. He might live another two years. It’s possible he could live three. I’ve run the numbers and three hundred thousand dollars would keep him for five.”

“And if he lives six, you’d come back.”

She finds herself thinking of young Frank Peterson, murdered by that other outsider in Flint City. Murdered in the most gruesome and painful way. She’s suddenly furious with Ondowsky. Him with his trained TV reporter’s voice and his condescending smile. He’s a piece of poop. Except poop is too mild. She leans forward, fixing her gaze on those eyes (which have finally, thankfully, begun to settle).

“Listen to me, you child-murdering piece of shit. I don’t want to ask you for more money. I didn’t even want to ask you for this money. I never want to see you again. I can’t believe I’m actually planning to let you go, and if you don’t wipe that fracking smile off your face, I just may change my mind.”

Ondowsky recoils as if slapped, and the smile does indeed disappear. Has he ever been spoken to like this? Maybe, but not for a long time. He’s a respected TV journalist! When he’s Chet on Guard, cheating contractors and pill-mill proprietors quail at his approach! His eyebrows (they are very thin, she notices, as if hair really doesn’t want to grow there) draw together. “You can’t—”

“Shut up and listen to me,” Holly says in a low, intense voice. She leans even further forward, not just invading his space but threatening it. This is a Holly her mother has never seen, although Charlotte’s seen enough in these last five or six years to consider her daughter a stranger, maybe even a changeling. “Are you listening? You better be, or I’ll call this off and walk away. I won’t get three hundred thousand from Inside View , but I’ll bet I can get fifty, and that’s a start.”

“I’m listening.” Listening has one of those pauses in the middle. This one is longer. Because he’s upset, Holly surmises. Good. Upset is just how she wants him.

“Three hundred thousand dollars. Cash. Fifties and hundreds. Put it in a box like the one you took to the Macready School, although you don’t have to bother with the Christmas stickers and the fake uniform. Bring it to my place of business on Saturday evening at six P.M. That gives you the rest of today and all of tomorrow to put the cash together. Be on time, not late like you were today. If you’re late, your goose is cooked. You want to remember how close I am to pulling the plug on this. You make me sick.” Also the truth, and she guesses that if she pushed the button on the side of her Fitbit now, her pulse would be up around 170.

“Just for the sake of discussion, what is your place of business? And what business do you do there?”

Answering those questions may be signing her death warrant if she fracks up, Holly knows this, but it’s too late to turn back now. “The Frederick Building.” She names the city. “On Saturday at six, and just before Christmas, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves. Fifth floor. Finders Keepers.”

“What is Finders Keepers, exactly? Some kind of collection agency?” He wrinkles his nose, as if at a bad smell.

“We do a few collections,” Holly admits. “Mostly other things. We’re an investigative agency.”

“Oh my God, are you an actual private eye ?” He has regained enough of his sang-froid to sarcastically pat his chest in the vicinity of his heart (if he has one, Holly bets it’s black).

Holly has no intention of chasing that. “Six o’clock, fifth floor. Three hundred thousand. Fifties and hundreds in a box. Use the side door. Phone me when you arrive and I’ll give you the lock code by text.”

“Is there a camera?”

The question doesn’t surprise Holly in the least. He’s a TV reporter. Unlike the outsider who killed Frank Peterson, cameras are his life.

“There is, but it’s broken. From the ice storm early this month. It hasn’t been fixed yet.”

She can see he doesn’t believe that, but it happens to be the truth. Al Jordan, the building super, is a lazybones who should have been fired (in Holly’s humble opinion, and Pete’s) long since. It’s not just the side entrance camera; if not for Jerome, people with offices on the eighth floor would still be trudging up the stairs all the way to the top of the building.

“There’s a metal detector inside the door, and that does work. It’s built into the walls; there’s no way to dodge around it. If you come early, I’ll know. If you try to bring a gun, I’ll know that. Following me?”

“Yes.” No smile now. She doesn’t have to be telepathic to know he’s thinking she’s a meddlesome, troublesome cunt. That’s fine with Holly; it beats being a wimp scared of her own shadow.

“Take the elevator. I’ll hear it, it’s noisy. When it opens, I’ll be waiting for you in the hall. We’ll make the exchange there. Everything’s on a flash drive.”