Donald Westlake - Smoke

"Whadda they use?"

"When you go the supermarket, you use your credit card."

"Don't have one."

"I know. When you rent a house, you pay by check."

"Don't have a checking account."

"I know. Freddie, we might have to get us one."

Freddie really and truly didn't get it. "Why? Peg, cash is money. You know? The green stuff, that's the actual money."

"But nobody uses it."

"Big companies don't use it."

" Nobody uses it," Peg insisted. "So when you use it, you stand out, people look at you."

"They don't look at me , Peg."

"You know what I mean, Freddie, don't be a smartaleck. You know, I used to have a checking account."

"What, and you miss it?"

"The problem is," Peg said, "when you move a lot of money around in a bank, they have to report it to the feds. I forget, it's either five or ten thousand. You move more than that, whichever it is, the bank tells the IRS, and they look at you to see what's what."

Dick Tracy's mask managed to look astonished, even skeptical. He said, "Regular citizens they do this to?"

"Anybody. Sure."

"And the citizens put up with it?"

"Well, yeah."

The Dick Tracy head shook, in mournful wonder. "Peg," Freddie said, from down inside there, "that's a world I never wanna be a part of."

"I don't think you'll be asked," Peg told him. "But what I think I'll do, I'll reactivate my old checking account, or start a new one, and put three or four grand a week in it, so we can pay our bills like regular people."

"Peg, I don't know about this," Freddie said.

"And I'll get a credit card," Peg said. "Dr. Lopakne'll give me a reference, if I ask." Dr. Lopakne was the dentist she'd most recently worked for.

"Peg!" Freddie cried. He sounded really alarmed now. "I don't like this, Peg. In our life, we don't need all this stuff."

"I tell you what I'll do," Peg said. "I'll use the address in the country. That way, when we move back to town, I can just cancel everything."

"Okay," he said, but he still sounded dubious.

"We don't want people wondering about us, Freddie," Peg said.

"Yeah, you're right, I know you're right," Freddie said. "It's just such a weird way to live, though. Afraid of the feds. Don't believe in cash money. Putting stuff down on paper all the time. How do the squares stand it?"

"They get used to it," Peg said.

The deal was, they were taking the house for four months, July through October, two thousand a month, and the owners were throwing in the last week in June, but they wanted a one-month deposit, so, four thousand in front. It was when Peg had opened her shoulder bag and taken out the envelope with five grand in it and counted it out on the desk until she got to four thousand, and then put the rest away again, that Call Me Tom began to look a little glassy.

Peg had seen that reaction, and understood it, and explained that her boyfriend was avoiding checks and normal paper trails at the moment because he was in a legal battle with his ex-wife, which was why Peg was signing the lease by herself and her boyfriend had given her cash to seal the bargain. Call Me Tom understood, of course, about legal battles with ex-wives, so that was okay, but still, at the end, after the signature and the handshake, as he escorted Peg out of his office, and over to her van, parked where the gas pumps used to be, he said, "I hope your friend's legal problems get worked out."

"Me, too," Peg said, and smiled, but she knew what he meant. Normal people really and truly don't trust cash.

The place was theirs right now, to move in whenever they wanted. Driving back, they discussed their plans. It would be nice to make the move, do it and be done with it, but on the other hand did they want to drive another hundred and some miles today? Probably not. So they go home to Bay Ridge, pack, make grocery lists and stuff, sleep in the apartment, and tomorrow morning head north.

It might have worked out that way, too, if they hadn't been interrupted. Freddie was in the bedroom, his two beat-up suitcases on the bed, drawers open as he transferred stuff, and Peg was in the kitchen, deciding what to take from the refrigerator and the shelves and what to toss out, when a banging sounded at the front door. Freddie and Peg both moved, meeting in the living room, giving each other wary looks. Peg called at the door, "Who is it?"

"Police!"

Already Freddie's head was coming off, as he dashed back into the bedroom. Peg called, "Just a second till I get dressed!" Then she returned to the kitchen, closed the cabinet doors, and ran some water from the sink over her head, dabbing it quickly with a dish towel.

Meanwhile, the pounding started up again at the front door. Crossing the living room, Peg called, "Here I come! Here I come!" Opening the door, she said, "I just got out of the shower."

It was plainclothes cops, which was worse than usual cops, because that meant already they were taking it seriously, whatever it was. One of them was your typical beefy cop, tough guy, looking for a chance to throw his weight around. He came in first, flashing his shield in its leather case, saying, "We're looking for Freddie Noon."

"Not here," Peg said. "You came to the wrong place."

"No, we didn't, girlie," the tough cop said. He put away his shield, then pulled out a folded document on thick paper. "This is the warrant," he said, waving it around like an incense holder, sanctifying the apartment for his search. "It says we can go through this place, look for your boyfriend."

"He isn't my boyfriend."

"Oh, yeah?" The cop opened his warrant and studied it, as though for the first time. "Are you," he said, frowning over the document, "Margaret Elizabeth Briscoe?"

Hard to believe; oh, well. "Sure," Peg said.

"Then we're in the right place," the cop said, and some ghostly stew came floating across the room; it looked something like chicken а la king.

Uck — she hadn't known about that. "Let me see that paper," she demanded, to distract both the cops and herself.

The cop held it up, so she could see but not touch, then frowned and said, "What are you standin there with the door open?"

"This all of you?" Peg made a production out of leaning out to look up and down the hall. A voice whispered in her ear, " Train, tomorrow, Rhinebeck. " Ghostly lips touched her cheek. She grinned at the air, winked, and turned back, saying, "The way you came in, I thought you had like an army with you."

The tough cop ignored all that. "Where is he?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him in weeks," Peg said, which was, of course, the literal truth. "I threw him out, I didn't like the way he carried on."

The tough cop said to his partner, "Keep an eye on her, I'll toss the place."

"Right," said the other one.

The tough cop left, to thud through the other rooms of the apartment, and Peg now took a closer look at his partner, and was surprised by what she saw. An older guy, sour-looking, deeply lined face, sloping shoulders. Not in good physical shape at all, but not in bad shape in that beer-and-weightlifting way that cops get. There's something weird about this guy, Peg thought. She said, "What did Freddie do this time?"

The guy shook his head. He seemed faintly embarrassed. "We don't have to have a conversation," he said.

What? Cops always want to have a conversation, particularly when they've got the upper hand. Now Peg was really leery of these guys. "I want to see that warrant," she said.

"Oh, it's real," the guy told her.

Meaning you're not, Peg thought, and the tough cop came back into the living room. "The bedroom's full of some guy's stuff," he said. "Freddie Noon's stuff, right?"

Peg said, "Don't you see the suitcases on the bed? I'm packing that crap up, taking it to the Good Will."