Time to Murder and Create (6 page)

He wasn't looking at me and he wasn't talking to me. I had the feeling that he didn't remember I was in the room with him. He was looking into the future and watching it go down the drain.

"Just what I was afraid of," he said again. "I kept telling him that. If anything happened to him, he said, a friend of his would know what to do with those...

those pictures. But he had nothing to fear from me, I told him he had nothing to fear from me. I would have paid anything, and he knew that. But what would I do if he died? 'You better hope I live forever,' that's what he said." He looked up at me. "And now he's dead," he said. "Who are you?"

"Matthew Scudder."

"Are you from the police?"

"No. I left the department a few years ago."

He blinked. "I don't know... I don't know why you're here," he said. He sounded lost and helpless, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had started to weep.

"I'm sort of a freelance," I explained. "I do favors for people, pick up the odd dollar here and there."

"You're a private detective?"

"Nothing that formal. I keep my eyes and ears open, that sort of thing."

"I see."

"Here I read this item about my old friend Spinner Jablon, and I thought it might put me in a position to do a favor for a person. A favor for you, as a matter of fact."

"Oh?"

"I figured that maybe Spinner had something that you'd like to have your hands on. Well, you know, keeping my eyes and ears open and all that, you never know what I might come up with. What I figured was that there might be some kind of a reward offered."

"I see," he said. He started to say something else, but the phone rang. He picked it up and started to tell the secretary that he wasn't taking any calls, but this one was from His Honor and he decided not to duck it. I pulled up a chair and sat there while Theodore Huysendahl talked with the Mayor of New York. I didn't really pay much attention to the conversation. When it ended, he used the intercom to stress that he was out to all callers for the time being. Then he turned to me and sighed heavily.

"You thought there might be a reward."

I nodded. "To justify my time and expenses."

"Are you the... friend Jablon spoke of?"

"I was a friend of his," I admitted.

"Do you have those pictures?"

"Let's say I might know where they are."

He rested his forehead on the heel of his hand and scratched his hair. The hair was a medium brown, not too long and not too short; like his political position, it was designed to avoid irritating anyone. He looked at me over the tops of his glasses and sighed again.

Levelly he said, "I would pay a substantial sum to have those pictures in hand."

"I can understand that."

"The reward would be... a generous one."

"I thought it probably would be."

"I can afford a generous reward, Mr.... I don't think I got your name."

"Matthew Scudder."

"Of course. I'm usually quite good at names, actually." His eyes narrowed.

"As I said, Mr. Scudder, I can afford a generous reward. What I cannot afford is for that material to remain in existence." He drew a breath and straightened up in his chair. "I am going to be the next governor of the State ofNew York ."

"So a lot of people say."

"More people will say it. I have scope, I have imagination, I have vision. I'm not a party hack in debt to the bosses. I'm independently wealthy, I'm not looking to enrich myself out of the public till. I could be an excellent governor. The state needs leadership. I could--"

"Maybe I'll vote for you."

He smiled ruefully. "I don't suppose it's time for a political speech, is it?

Especially at a time when I'm so careful to deny that I'm a candidate. But you must see the importance of this to me, Mr. Scudder."

I didn't say anything.

"Did you have a specific reward in mind?"

"You'd have to set that figure. Of course, the higher it is, the more of an incentive it would be."

He put his fingertips together and thought it over. "One hundred thousand dollars."

"That's quite generous."

"That's what I would pay as a reward. For the return of absolutely everything."

"How would you know you got everything back?"

"I've thought of that. I had that problem with Jablon. Our negotiations were complicated by the difficulty I found in being in the same room with him. I knew instinctively that I would be at his mercy on a permanent basis. If I gave him substantial funds, he'd run through them sooner or later and be back for more money. Blackmailers always are, from what I understand."

"Usually."

"So I paid him so much a week. A weekly envelope, old bills out of sequence, as if I were paying ransom. As in a sense I was. I was ransoming all my tomorrows." He leaned back in his wooden swivel chair and closed his eyes. He had a good head, a strong face. I suppose there must have been weakness in it, because he had shown this weakness in his behavior, and sooner or later your character shows up in your face. It takes longer in some faces than in others; if there was weakness there, I couldn't spot it.

"All my tomorrows," he said. "I could afford that weekly payment. I could think of it"--that quick, rueful smile--"as a campaign expense. An ongoing one.

What worried me was my continued vulnerability, not to Mr. Jablon but to what might come to pass should he die. My God, people die every day. Do you know how many New Yorkers are murdered in the average day?"

"It used to be three," I said. "A homicide once every eight hours, that was the average. I suppose it's higher now."

"The figure I heard was five."

"Higher in the summer. One week last July the tally ran over fifty. Fourteen of them in one day."

"Yes, I remember that week." He looked away for a moment, evidently lost in thought. I didn't know whether he was planning how to reduce homicide rates when he was governor or how to add my name to the list of victims. He said, "Can I assume that Jablon was murdered?"

"I don't see how you can assume anything else."

"I thought that might happen. I worried about it, that is. That sort of man, his kind runs a higher-than-average risk of being murdered. I'm sure I wasn't his only victim." His voice rose in pitch on the last words of the sentence, and he waited for me to confirm or deny his guess. I outwaited him, and he went on. "But even if he weren't murdered, Mr. Scudder, men die. They don't live forever. I didn't like paying that slimy gentleman every week, but the prospect of ceasing to pay him was significantly worse.

He could die in any number of ways, anything at all. A drug overdose, say."

"I don't think he used anything."

"Well, you understand my point."

"He could have been hit by a bus," I said.

"Exactly." Another long sigh. "I can't go through this again. Let me state my case quite plainly. If you...

recover the material, I'll pay you the figure I stated. One hundred thousand dollars, paid in any fashion you care to specify. Paid into a private Swiss account, if you prefer. Or handed over to you in cash. For that I'll expect the return of absolutely everything and your continued silence."

"That makes sense."

"I should think so."

"But what guarantee would you have that you're getting what you pay for?"

His eyes studied me keenly before he spoke. "I think I'm rather good at judging men."

"And you've decided I'm honest?"

"Hardly that. No insult intended, Mr. Scudder, but such a conclusion would be naive on my part, wouldn't it?"

"Probably."

"What I have decided," he said, "is that you are intelligent. So let me spell things out. I will pay you the sum I've mentioned. And if, at any time in the future, you should attempt to extort further funds from me, on whatever pretext, I would make contact with... certain people. And have you killed."

"Which might put you right on the spot."

"It might," he agreed. "But in a certain position I would have to take just that chance. And I said before that I believe you are intelligent. What I meant was that I feel you would be intelligent enough to avoid

finding out whether or not I'm bluffing. One hundred thousand dollars should be a sufficient reward. I don't think you'd be foolish enough to push your luck."

I thought it over, gave a slow nod. "One question."

"Ask it."

"Why didn't you think of making this offer to the Spinner?"

"I did think of it."

"But you didn't make it."

"No, Mr. Scudder, I did not."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think he was sufficiently intelligent."

"I guess you were right about that."

"Why do you say that?"

"He wound up in the river," I said. "That wasn't very bright of him."

That was Thursday. I left Huysendahl's office a little before noon and tried to figure out what to do next.

I'd seen all three of them now. They were all on notice, they all knew who I was and where to find me. I in turn had picked up a handful of facts about Spinner's operation and not very much more. Prager and Ethridge had given no indication of knowing the Spinner was dead. Huysendahl had seemed genuinely shocked and dismayed when I pointed it out to him. So far as I could tell, I'd accomplished nothing beyond making a target out of myself, and I wasn't even certain I'd done that right. It was conceivable I'd made myself all too reasonable a blackmailer. One of them had tried murder once, and it hadn't worked too well, so he might not be inclined to try it again. I could pick up fifty grand from Beverly Ethridge and twice that from Ted Huysendahl and some as yet undetermined sum from Henry Prager, and that would be just perfect except for one thing. I wasn't looking to get rich. I was looking to trap a killer.

The weekend floated on by. I spent a little time in the microfilm room at the library, scanning old issues of the Times and picking up useless information on my three possibles and their various friends and relations. On the same page with an old story about a shopping center with which Henry Prager had been involved I happened to see my own name. There was a story about a particularly good collar I had made about a year before I left the force. A partner and I had tagged a heroin wholesaler with enough pure smack to give the world an overdose. I would have enjoyed the story more if I hadn't known how it turned out. The dealer had a good lawyer, and the whole thing got thrown out on a technicality. The word at the time was that it had taken an even twenty-five thou to put the judge in the proper frame of mind.

You learn to get philosophical about things like that. We didn't manage to put the prick away, but we hurt him pretty good. Twenty-five for the judge, ten or fifteen easy for the lawyer, and on top of that he'd lost the smack, which left him out what he'd paid the importer plus what he could have expected to clear when he turned it over. I'd have been happier to see him in slam, but you take what you can get. Like the judge.

Sometime Sunday I called a number I didn't have to look up. Anita answered, and I told her a money order was on its way to her. "I came up with a couple of bucks," I said.

"Well, we can find a use for it," she said. "Thanks. Do you want to talk to the boys?"

I did and I didn't. They're getting to an age where it's a little easier for me to talk to them, but it's still awkward over the phone. We talked about basketball.

Right after I hung up, I had an odd thought. It occurred to me that I might not be talking to them again.

Spinner had been a careful man by nature, a man who had made himself inconspicuous reflexively, a man who had felt most comfortable in deep shadows, and he still had not been careful enough. I was accustomed to open spaces, and in fact had to stay enough in the open to invite a murder attempt. If Spinner's killer decided to take a shot at me, he just might make it work.

I wanted to call back and talk to them again. It seemed that there ought to be something important for me to say, just on the off chance that I'd taken on more than I could carry. But I couldn't manage to think what it might be, and a few minutes later the impulse went away.

I had a lot to drink that night. It was just as well no one took a crack at me then. I'd have been easy.

MONDAY morning I called Prager. I'd left him on a very loose leash, and I had to give it a yank. His secretary told me he was busy on another line and asked if I would hold. I held for a minute or two. Then she came back to establish that I was still hanging in there, and then she put me through to him.

I said, "I've decided how we'll work this so that you're covered. There's something the police tried to hang on me that they could never make stick." He didn't know I'd been a cop myself. "I can write out a confession, include enough evidence to make it airtight. I'll give that to you as part of our deal."

It was basically the arrangement I'd tried out on Beverly Ethridge, and it made the same kind of sense to him that it had to her. Neither of them had managed to spot the joker in it, either: All I had to do was confess at great length to a crime that had never happened, and while my confession might make interesting reading, it would hardly enable anyone to hold a gun to my head. But Prager didn't figure out that part of it, so he liked the idea.

What he didn't like was the price I set.

"That's impossible," he said.

"It's easier than paying it in bits and pieces. You were paying Jablon two thousand a month. You'll pay me sixty in one chunk, that's less than three years'

worth, and it'll all be over once and for all."

"I can't raise that kind of money."

"You'll find a way, Prager."

"I can't manage it."