“Mike’s case was special.”
“Just what I told him. He says he owes money he’s got to pay, plus there’s some things he wants to buy.”
“The cops are talking to him, and what he wants to do is pay some debts and spend some money.”
“That’s about it.”
“And if the answer’s no? Then what?”
“He didn’t say, but next thing I knew he was mentioning how the cops had been talking to him.”
“Subtle bastard. You know, when the cops talk to him a few more times—”
“I don’t know how he’ll stand up. He’s always been a stand-up guy before, but the stakes are a lot higher.”
“And you can sort of sense him getting ready to spill it. He’s working up a resentment about not getting paid. Other hand, if he does get paid...”
“He throws money around.”
They fell silent. Finally George said, “We haven’t even talked about Louis.”
“No.”
“Be convenient if the two of them killed each other, wouldn’t it?”
“No more worries about who’ll stand up. Down side, we’d have nobody to work with, either.”
“Why work?” George grinned. “You and me’d be splitting two million, six fifty.”
“Less Mike’s share,” Alan pointed out.
“Right,” George said.
They were planning it, working it out together, because it was not going to be easy to get the drop on Eddie, who was pretty shrewd and probably a little suspicious at this stage. And, while they were figuring it all out, Louis Creamer got in touch to tell them he’d just killed Eddie O’Day.
“He came by my house,” Louis said, “and he was acting weird, you know? He said you guys were going to pull a fast one and rat us out to the cops, but how could you do that? And he had this scheme for taking you both out and getting the money, and him and me’d split it. And I could see where he was going. He wanted me for about as long as it would take to take you both down, and then it would be my turn to go. The son of a bitch.”
“So what did you do?”
“I just punched him out,” Louis said, “and then I took hold of him and broke his fucking neck. Now I got him lying in a heap in my living room, and I don’t know what to do with him.”
“We’ll help,” said George.
They went to Louis’s house, and there was Eddie in a heap on the floor. “Look at this,” George said, holding up a gun. “He was packing.”
“Yeah, well, he was out cold before he could get it out of his pocket.”
“You did good, Louis,” George said, pressing the gun into Eddie’s dead hand and carefully fitting his index finger around the trigger. “Real good,” he said, and pointed the gun at Louis, and put three shots in his chest.
“Amazing,” Alan said. “They really did kill each other. Well, you said it would be convenient.”
“One of them would have cut a deal. In fact Eddie did try to cut a deal, with Louis.”
“But Louis stood up.”
“For how long?”
“That was nice, taking him out with Eddie’s gun. They’ll find nitrate particles in his hand and know he fired the shot. But how’d he get killed?”
“We’re not the cops,” George said. “Let them worry about it.”
We didn’t worry much. We looked at who was still standing, and we brought in the Walkers and grilled them separately. They had their stories ready and we couldn’t shake them, and hadn’t really expected to. They’d been through this countless times before, and they knew to keep their mouths shut, and eventually we sent them home. A week later they were at George’s house, in George’s basement den, drinking George’s scotch. “We maybe got trouble,” Alan said. “The cops in San Diego picked up Mike Dunn.”
“That’s not good,” George said, “but what’s he gonna say? They’ll throw the dame at him, Alfie’s wife, and they got him figured for the sister, too. He’ll just stay dummied up about everything if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Unless they offer him a deal.”
“That could be a problem.” George admitted.
Alan was looking at him carefully. George could almost hear what was going through Alan’s mind, but before he could do anything about it Alan had a gun in his hand and it was pointed at George.
“Now put that away,” George said. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Just put that away and sit down and drink your drink.”
“You’re good, Georgie. But I know you too well. I just told you they arrested Mike, and you’re not the least bit worried.”
“I just said it could be a problem.”
“What you almost said,” Alan told him, “was it was impossible, but you didn’t, you were quick on the uptake. But you knew it was impossible because you knew all along Mike Dunn was where nobody could get at him. Where is he, Georgie?”
“Buried. Nobody’s gonna find him.”
“What I figured. And what happened to his share? You bury it along with him?”
“I tucked it away. I didn’t want the others to know what happened, so Mike’s share of the money had to disappear.”
“The others are gone, Georgie. It’s just you and me, and I don’t see you rushing to split the money with your brother.”
“Jesus,” George said, “is that what this is about? And will you please put the gun down and drink your drink?”
“I’ll keep the gun,” Alan said, “and I think I’ll wait on the drink. Now that Louis and Eddie are out of the picture, you were gonna split Mike’s share with me, weren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why don’t I believe you, brother?”
“Because you’re tied up in knots. Because they grilled you downtown, same as they grilled me, and they offered you a deal, same as they offered me a deal, and we’re the Walkers, we’re not gonna sell each other out, and if you’d relax and drink your fucking drink you’d know that. You want your share of Mike’s money? Is that what you want?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
“Fine,” George said, and led him to the furnace room, where he hoisted the duffle bag. They returned to the den, with Alan holding a gun on his brother all the way. George set down the bag and worked the zipper, and the bag was full of money, all right. Alan’s eyes widened at the sight of it.
“Half’s yours,” George said.
“I figure all of it’s mine,” Alan said. “You were gonna take it all, so I’m gonna take it all. Fair enough?”
“I don’t know about fair,” George said, “but you know what? I’m not going to argue. You take it, the whole thing, and we’ll split what’s in the storage locker. And drink your fucking drink before it evaporates.”
“I’ll take what’s in the locker, too,” Alan said, and squeezed the trigger, and kept squeezing until the gun was empty. “Jesus,” he said, “I just killed my own brother. I guess I’ll take that drink now, Georgie. You talked me into it.” And he picked up the glass, drained it, and pitched forward onto his face.
* * *
The room fell silent, but for the crackling of the fire and, after a long moment, a rumbling snore from the fireside.
“A fine story,” said the doctor, “though not perhaps equally engrossing to everyone. The club’s Oldest Member, it would seem, has managed to sleep through it.” They all glanced at the fireplace, and the chair beside it, where the little old man dozed in his oversized armchair.
“Poison, I presume,” the doctor went on. “In the whiskey, and of course that was why George was so eager to have his brother take a drink.”
“Strychnine, as I recall,” said the policeman. “Something fast-acting, in any event.”
“It’s a splendid story,” the priest agreed, “but one question arises. All the principals died, and I don’t suppose any of them was considerate enough to write out a narrative before departing. So how are you able to recount it?”
“We reconstructed a good deal,”
the policeman said. “Mike Dunn’s body did turn up, eventually, in the well at the old farmhouse. And of course the death scene in George Walker’s den spoke for itself, complete with the duffle bag full of money. I put words in their mouths, and filled in the blanks through inference and imagination, but we’re not in a court of law, are we? I thought it would do for a story.”
“I meant no criticism, Policeman. I just wondered.”
“And I wonder,” said the soldier, “just what the story implies, and what it says about greed. They were greedy, of course, all of them. It was greed that led them to commit the initial crime, and greed that got them killing each other off, until there was no one left to spend all that money.”
“I suppose the point is whatever one thinks it to be,” the policeman said. “They were greedy as all criminals are greedy, wanting what other men have and appropriating it by illegal means. But, you know, they weren’t that greedy.”
“They shared equally,” the doctor remembered.
“And lived well, but well within their means. You could say they were businessmen whose business was illegal. They were profit-motivated, but is the desire for profit tantamount to greed?”
“But they became greedy,” the doctor observed. “And the greed altered their behavior. I assume these men had killed before.”
“Oh, yes.”
“But not wantonly, and they had never before turned on each other.”
“No.”
“The root of all evil,” the priest said, and the others looked at him. “Money,” he explained. “There was too much of it. That’s the point, isn’t it, Policeman? There was too much money.”
The policeman nodded. “That’s what I always thought,” he said. “They had been playing the game for years, but suddenly the stakes had been raised exponentially, and they were in over their heads. The moment the bearer bonds turned up, all the deaths that were to follow were carved in stone.” They nodded, and the policeman took up the pack of playing cards. “My deal, isn’t it?” He shuffled the pack, shuffled it again.
“I wonder,” the soldier said. “I wonder just what greed is.”
“I would say it’s like pornography,” the doctor said. “There was a senator who said he couldn’t define it, but he knew it when he saw it.”
“If he got an erection, it was pornography?”
“Something like that. But don’t we all know what greed is? And yet how easy is it to pin down?”
“It’s wanting more than you need,” the policeman suggested.
“Ah, but that hardly excludes anyone, does it? Anyone who aspires to more than life on a subsistence level wants more than he absolutely needs.”
“Perhaps,” the priest proposed, “it’s wanting more than you think you deserve.”
“Oh, I like that,” the doctor said. “It’s so wonderfully subjective. If I think I deserve—what was your phrase, Policeman? Something about dreaming of avarice?”
“‘Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.’ And it’s not my phrase, I’m afraid, but Samuel Johnson’s.”
“A pity he’s not here to enliven this conversation, but we’ll have to make do without him. But if I think I deserve to have pots and pots of money, Priest, does that protect me from greed?” The priest frowned, considering the matter.
“I think it’s where it leads,” the policeman said. “If my desire for more moves me to sinful action, then the desire is greedy. If not, I simply want to better myself, and that’s a normal and innocent human desire, and where would we be without it?”
“Somewhere in New Jersey,” the doctor said. “Does anyone ever think himself to be greedy? You’re greedy, but I just want to make a better life for my family. Isn’t that how everyone sees it?”
“They always want it for the family,” the policeman agreed. “A man embezzles a million dollars and he explains he was just doing it for his family. As if it’s not greed if it’s on someone else’s behalf.”
“I’m reminded of the farmer,” said the priest, “who insisted he wasn’t at all greedy. He just wanted the land that bordered his own.”
The soldier snapped his fingers. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s the essence of greed, that it can never be satisfied. You always want more.” He shook his head. “Reminds me of a story,” he said.
“Then put down the cards,” the doctor said, “and let’s hear it.”
* * *
In my occupation (said the soldier) greed rarely plays a predominant role. Who becomes a soldier in order to make himself rich? Oh, there are areas of the world where a military career can indeed lead to wealth. One doesn’t think of an eastern warlord, for example, slogging it out with an eye on his pension and a cottage in the Cotswolds or a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. In the western democracies, though, the activating sin is more apt to be pride. One yearns for promotions, for status, perhaps in some instances for political power. And financial reward often accompanies these prizes, but it’s not apt to be an end in itself.
Why do men choose a military career? For the security, I suppose. For self-respect, and the respect of one’s fellows. For the satisfaction of being a part of something larger than oneself, and not a money-grubbing soulless corporation but an organization bent on advancing and defending the interests of an entire nation. For many reasons, but rarely out of greed.
Even so, opportunities for profit sometimes arise. And greedy men sometimes find themselves in uniform—especially in time of war, when the draft sweeps up men who would not otherwise choose to clothe themselves in khaki. As often as not, such men make perfectly acceptable soldiers. There was a vogue some years ago for giving young criminals a choice—they could enlist in the armed forces or go to jail. This later went out of fashion, the argument against it being that it would turn the service into a sort of penitentiary without walls, filled with criminal types. But in my experience it often worked rather well. Removed from his home environment, and thrown into a world where greed had little opportunity to find satisfaction, the young man was apt to do just fine. The change might or might not last after his military obligation was over, of course.
But let’s get down to cases. At the end of the second world war, Allied soldiers in Europe suddenly found several opportunities for profit. They had access to essential goods that were in short supply among the civilian population, and a black market sprang up instantly in cigarettes, chocolate, and liquor, along with such non-essentials as food and clothing. Some soldiers traded Hershey bars and packs of Camels for a fraulein’s sexual favors; others parlayed goods from the PX into a small fortune, buying and selling and trading with dispatch.
There was nothing in Gary Carmody’s background to suggest that he would become an illicit entrepreneur at war’s end. He grew up on a farm in the Corn Belt and enlisted in the army shortly after Pearl Harbor. He was assigned to the infantry and participated in the invasion of Italy, where he picked up a Purple Heart and a shoulder wound at Salerno. Upon recovery from his injury, he was shipped to England, where in due course he took part in the Normandy invasion, landing at Utah Beach and helping to push the Wehrmacht across France. He earned a second Purple Heart during the German counterattack, along with a Bronze Star. He recuperated at a field hospital—the machine-gun bullet broke a rib, but did no major damage—and he was back in harness marching across the Rhine around the time the Germans surrendered.
Neither the bullets he’d taken nor the revelations of the concentration camps led Gary to a blanket condemnation of the entire German nation. While he thought the Nazis ought to be rounded up and shot, and that shooting was probably too good for the SS, he didn’t see anything wrong with the German women. They were at once forthright and feminine, and their accents were a lot more charming than the Nazis in the war movies. He had a couple of dates, and then he met a blue-eyed blonde named Helga, and they hit it off. He brought her presents, of course—it was only fitting, the Germans had nothing and what was the big deal in bringing some chocolate and cigarettes? Back
home you’d take flowers or candy, and maybe go out to a restaurant, and nobody thought of it as prostitution. He brought a pair of nylons one day, and she tried them on at once, and one thing led to another. Afterward they lay together in her narrow bed and she reached to stroke the stockings, which they hadn’t bothered to remove. She said, “You can get more of these, liebchen?”
“Did they get a run in them already?”
“Gott, I hope not. No, I was thinking. We could make money together.”
“With nylons?”
“And cigarettes and chocolate. And other things, if you can get them.”
“What other things?”
“Anything. Soap, even.”
And so he began trading, with Helga as his partner in and out of bed. She was the daughter of shopkeepers and turned out to be a natural at her new career, knowing instinctively what to buy and what to sell and how to set prices. He was just a farm boy, but he had a farm boy’s shrewdness plus the quickness it had taken to survive combat as a foot soldier, and he learned the game in a hurry. As with any extralegal trade, there was always a danger that the person you were dealing with would pull a fast one—or a gun or a knife—and use force or guile to take everything. Gary knew how to make sure that didn’t happen.
It was another American soldier who got Gary into the art business. The man was an officer, a captain, but the black market was a great leveler, and the two men had done business together. The captain had a fraulein of his own, and the two couples were drinking together one evening when the captain mentioned that he’d taken something in trade and didn’t know what the hell he was going to do with it. “It’s a painting,” he said. “Ugly little thing. Hang on a minute, I’ll show you.” He went upstairs and returned with a framed canvas nine inches by twelve inches, showing Salome with the head of John the Baptist. “I know it’s from the Bible and all,” the captain said, “but it’s still fucking unpleasant, and if Salome was really that fat I can’t see losing your head over her. This look like five hundred dollars to you, Gary?”