Cat on a Cold Tin Roof (27 page)

“Tell 'em anything you want,” I said. “I have to compute my finder's fee.”

“For the diamonds?” he said, frowning. “I thought that was earmarked for Sorrentino's daughters.”

“All right, my reward, then,” I said.

“For what?”

“For nine and a half million dollars,” I said.

“Eli,” he said seriously, “you're not thinking this through.”

It was my turn to frown. “In what way?”

“It's probably stolen money,” said Simmons. “But it wasn't stolen from the United States. Also, for all we know, that particular part of Palanto's fortune
was
totally legit. He'd made some very successful investments over the years, and he wasn't a pauper when he moved here.”

“Come on, Jim,” I said. “We both know it's the money he skimmed from the Bolivians.”

“From a Bolivian drug cartel,” he replied. “If anyone's offering a reward for a return of the money, it's them. But do you really want to deal with them after you got two of their hit men deported and a third killed?”

“I know that the US government gives a reward,” I insisted stubbornly.

He stared at me sadly. “First, you have to prove the money in question was stolen from the Bolivians and not legitimately earned through investments. Second, you have to prove that it wasn't Velma's money that he was keeping or investing for her. Third, by the time the government actually agrees, if they ever do, you're going to be an old, old man.”

I was silent for a long minute. Finally I looked across the desk at him.

“The Bengals had better win,” I said, “and that had better be the best steak I've ever tasted.”

32.

I was in a lousy mood when I got home, and it didn't get much better over the next few hours. I'd solved a murder and got nothing for it. I'd found a million dollars in missing diamonds and got nothing for it. I'd found almost ten million dollars hidden in a Swiss bank account and got nothing for it. All I'd gotten for the whole thing was half a transmission and a cat that had no more use for humans than Marlowe did.

I went out to a chili joint for dinner, brought back a cheese coney for each of the animals, and sat down on the couch to watch some TV while they were chowing down. I was hoping for a Bogey festival, or at least a Jimmy Cagney one. But it was as if someone at Turner Classic Movies had been spying on me and had a sardonic sense of humor. It was Animal Night, and as Sam ambled in and jumped up on her cushion and tried to push me onto the other one, and Marlowe jumped on
his
cushion and started pushing me back, we were treated to
Rhubarb
, about a cat that inherits a baseball team, which was certainly more productive than a cat that loses a ten-million-dollar collar; and
Lassie Come Home
, which was a few steps ahead of a dog that reluctantly leaves his couch very briefly three or four times a day.

I fell asleep ten minutes into the first one. I don't know how long I slept there on the couch, but life became appreciably better when Bettie Page started purring in my left ear while a magically youthful Sophia Loren passionately kissed my right.

Then the dog and cat movies were over,
The Black Stallion
came on, Bettie began running moist sandpaper in my left ear while Sophia started barking in my right, and I was back in the real world again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Hugette

Mike Resnick is the author of the previous Eli Paxton mysteries
Dog in the Manger
and
The Trojan Colt
. The all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction, he has won five Hugos (from a record thirty-six nominations), plus other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Croatia, Poland, and Japan. He is the author of over seventy novels, more than two hundred fifty stories, and three screenplays, and he has edited forty-one anthologies. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages.