Hit Parade

Page 24

 

  “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. ”

  24

  “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. ”

  “You whispered because voiceprints don’t work with whispers. ”

  “Right. ”

  “So why are you still whispering, Keller?”

  “Oh,” he said aloud. “I didn’t realize. ”

  “I hate the idea of doing this for short money,” she said, “but you’re right about one thing. You need the work. ”

  Five days later he was in White Plains again.

  “It felt good to be working again,” he told Dot. “Getting a look at the guy, tracking his movements, starting to put a plan together. He’s not going to be easy. ”

  “Oh?”

  “He seems to lead a pretty regular life,” he said, “which can make things easy or difficult, depending. It’s easy because you know where he’ll be, but it’s not necessarily easy to get to him. He’s always at his office or in his apartment, or on the way from one to the other. The office building has the kind of security procedures that used to be reserved for the Pentagon, and the apartment building is one of those Park Avenue fortresses with twenty-four-hour doormen and elevator attendants, and security cameras all over the place. ”

  “How does he get from Point A to Point B?”

  “He has a car service. The same driver every time, as far as I can see. Car pulls up in front of his apartment building in the morning, drops him at his office. Works the same way at night. ”

  “What happens when he goes to a restaurant?”

  “He eats lunch at his desk, orders in from somewhere or other. Same thing at night. Either he works late, which he does most of the time, or he goes home and orders dinner delivered. ”

  “Workaholic, it sounds like. ”

  “Assuming he’s working. Maybe he goes to the office and puts his feet up, watches soap operas on a plasma TV. ”

  “Maybe. Didn’t he have an affair with somebody? Isn’t that how all of this got started?”

  “At the office. They were both having an affair with their secretary. ”

  “My guess,” she said, “is she doesn’t work there anymore. He’s got to be seeing someone, don’t you think?”

  “My guess is he orders in. ”

  “Like lunch and dinner. Well, it’s a tricky one, Keller. I’ll grant you that. Have you doped out a way into either of the buildings?”

  “Too risky. ”

  “What does that leave?”

  “Getting him between the door and the car. And that probably means in the morning, because the car seems to pick him up at the same time most mornings. ”

  “Eight, eight-thirty?”

  “Try a quarter to five. ”

  “It’s one thing to be a workaholic,” Dot said, “but you don’t have to be a nut about it. A quarter to five? And you were there to see this? It can’t take long to get to the office, not at that hour. ”

  “Call it fifteen minutes. ”

  “So you’d do what, lurk outside his apartment building? Or lurk outside the office? Either way, that’s a pretty con
spicuous hour to be lurking. ”

  “I’d have to time it so that I got there just in time. I’m not sure which is better, the apartment or the office. The apartment’s on Park Avenue and Eighty-fourth, and there’s nobody on the street at that hour, and you’ve got all those doormen keeping an eye on things. The office is on Madison Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street, and doormen aren’t a factor, but there are more people on the street. ”

  “You’d swoop in, catch him between the car and the door, and disappear before anybody can get a good look at you. ”

  “Something like that. ”

  “There’s an awful lot that can go wrong, Keller. ”

  “I know. ”

  “And it’s right here in New York. Thirty-seventh and Madison? That’s what, half a mile from where you live?”

  “Not even that. ”

  “I can’t say I like it. Maybe we should pull the plug on this one. ”

  “Maybe we don’t have to,” he said. “Our client already did. ”

  Dot’s fingers drummed the tabletop. It was a gesture Keller had seen her make before, though not too often. From what he could tell, it did not indicate a feeling of peace and contentment and the sense that all was right with the world.

  “He wants the money back,” she said.

  “He said it as if he really expected to get it,” Keller told her, “but he’s essentially a salesman, and that would make him an optimist, wouldn’t it?”

  “Evidently. ”

  “He’s probably read a lot of books about the value of a positive attitude. ”

  “They’ve got seminars, Keller. He could have taken a seminar. ”

  “I told him I didn’t think it was possible. That I’d already passed the money on, and that it wasn’t like a refundable deposit. This was over the phone, so I could only go by his voice, but he didn’t seem surprised. ”

  “I guess a positive attitude only goes so far. Why did he want to call it off? Money?”

  “Cold feet. ”

  “But while he was at it, he thought he’d ask for his money back. ”

  “Worth a shot. And money’s part of it, because he was saying it might be a while before he had the balance. ”

  “So it’s off. It was interesting, everything you said a few minutes ago about how you’d make your move on Blyden, but why bother telling me? If it’s all off. ”

  “It’s off until he tells me it’s on again. ”

  “Oh. ”

  “Because he’s going to call me in the next couple days and let me know. Cash flow is evidently a big consideration. ”

  “It always is. ”

  “He says he’ll be in touch,” he said, “and…Jesus, how’s that for timing?”

  “Timing?”

  He drew the phone from his pocket, looked at the screen, frowned. “It’s not him,” he said, “but who else could it be?”