Hush Money (22 page)

He looked up at me, that sad-faced son of a worm. He wasn't sweating outside, not yet, but inside it must have been running down in rivulets.

“You know,” he said to me, “you're a dirty man. A profoundly dirty man.”

“Well like they say,” I replied, “it takes one to know one.”

Before I popped the next one, I measured him carefully. It was the big one, the last of the big ones, and I didn't want to miss a thing. Probably he knew it was coming, but sometimes even when the logic is written on the walls, you close your eyes.

I let him wait for it, and then I said sharply:

“Do you really think he killed her, George?”

It shook him all right. His heart jumped up into his cheeks and he had to swallow it back down. It took him three tries. Still, I'd have sworn the idea wasn't new to him. On the contrary, it was that somebody else shared it.

After all, it stood to reason. Why else would he have hired me in the first place for a coverup job?

Only Twink Beydon had had another idea, hadn't he. Sure, Twink Beydon had called me down to Bay Isle, had done his father's guilt routine for me, had even let the great dark secret out of his bag. Knowing, hoping at any rate, that it would lead me to the missing evidence.

And why was that?

Because in between, Dr. Watson, a certain Brother Pablo had begun to sweat him about it.

I'll say this for George S. Curie III, whatever he knew or suspected, he fought it down to the end. Twink Beydon a murderer? Preposterous! A tough man, yes, even ruthless when he had to be, but to murder his own daughter? It was laughable. Besides, where were the witnesses? Could he have walked into Karen's dormitory in broad daylight and out again without being seen? Highly unlikely. Besides, the police had checked him out along with everyone else, hadn't they? Why he hadn't been within miles of the campus that day!

Like they'd checked out Robin Fletcher, I thought to myself.

“He didn't have to have done it himself,” I said. “There are plenty of people around who'd push someone out a window if the price was right.”

“That's fantasy,” he said. “Pure fantasy.”

And so was all the rest of it: pure dirty-minded fantasy.

I let him run it down, just the way he might have in court. Then I asked him:

“What about her father, George? Was that fantasy too?”

“Her father?” he said with a start. “Who?”

“Oh c'mon George, you read it too, at least you read it in the letter. Karen's real daddy, you know? Nancy said Twink had him killed, she even told Karen how to prove it if she wanted to. Was that fantasy too?”

He shrugged.

“I couldn't say. I didn't …”

“I know,” I interrupted, grinning at him. “You didn't represent him then.”

You have to hand it to the shysters: if they don't represent you, they know from nothing.

“But you represented
her
, didn't you? Nancy? And was
she
a detective? Hardly, George. She said Twink had had him killed, but she wasn't there, was she? So where'd she find out about it? She had to go to someone for help, and who else but her attorney, good ole George S. Curie III? You ran it down for her, didn't you? Or more likely, you hired some stiff like me to do the dirty work for you.”

He didn't answer, but his expression did. It was in between cookie-jar and Cheshire cat, and maybe it was my imagination that he blushed a little but I don't think so.

“And how
did
he die, George?” I went on. Because suddenly I
knew
it!

“Poor old daddy,” I said. “I could dig that out too if I had to, but let me guess: Could it have been that he fell out of a window? Or was pushed? Like father, like daughter, now wouldn't that be one hell of a
coincidence
?”

Right on! his face told me. Right on the money! Bell Fruit Gum, Bell Fruit Gum, and Bell Fruit Gum!

And who was it said only the numbers've got intuition going for them?

But I didn't push it beyond that. There was no need to. Instead I laid out for him what I had for sure, all of it, plus enough of the Cage-to-Cage-to-Cage setup to convince him what would happen if anyone got any funny ideas about me and windows. I had the motive—in spades—and a modus operandi that would do for starters, and if there weren't any witnesses so far, who could tell what an ambitious district attorney might come up with once he started to dig?

It would never stand up in court, the indefatigable George S. Curie III told me when I was done. And I agreed with him. There was the admissibility of evidence for one thing. The long reach of Twink Beydon for another. I mean, everybody knows who goes to jail in this world and who doesn't, chances were it would have taken a lot more shut than open to put Twink behind bars. But like I told George, it didn't have to go that far. No, Your Honor, no sir. An indictment would do fine. Hell, the way I saw it even an investigation would have been enough to dry up his backers, because if there's one thing those goo-peddler types won't stand for, it's somebody else's stench bringing attention to their own. And then where would Twink Beydon have been? Like back taking potluck with the Diehls, if the Diehls would give him room at the trough. And from what I knew, he'd already waited too long, and maybe risked too much, to end up sucking hind tit.

I took a long hard gander at the man in question. We both did. I guess sleep must be the great equalizer for stiffs, like beauty parlors for the numbers, because he sure didn't look like a murderer, even by proxy. Not sprawled out that way, sighing like an overgrown baby, his chin tucked into his shoulder, the big beef cheeks spreading into jowls …

But then they say they never do.

And like I say, it didn't make much of a damn what
I
thought, and George S. Curie III must have come to the same conclusion about the indefatigable George S. Curie III, because finally he said:

“What's your price, Cage?”

I shook my head.

“It's not for sale,” I told him.

He stared at me, surprised, so I told him about Cage's Old-Age Retirement and Pension Fund. I showed him how it worked from the inside out, just like the annuity hustlers do. Only this one was based on just one security—IDH, they'd probably call it on the Big Board—and a stock dividend went into it every year in addition to the original investment.

Sweet and simple. Very.

“But that's highway robbery!” he said, the greed flickering in and out of his eyes like a deaf-mute's code.

“You could call it that,” I said. “Blackmail'll do too, hush money, I'm not particular.”

I also wanted it in writing, with him for a witness. I gave him twenty-four hours to draw it up, get Twink to sign it and deliver it to me. In triplicate. A copy for Twink, a copy for me and a copy for George S. Curie III.

That part threw him worse than the deal itself. After all, the money wouldn't be coming out of his pocket, but putting anything in writing makes the shysters nervous, much less when they have to sign it themselves. Beyond that, he could see he was going to have to sell it to Twink when he woke up, and I think he was genuinely scared to. Not that he had much choice or that I had to spell it out for him, because my way he at least had a chance to keep his client and … no, George, there was no other way.

We had a last skirmish over the will, of all things. I wanted a copy of it for my archives, and he said that was
illegal!
I mean, he actually said it was illegal—privileged, confidential and so forth, you figure it out! In the end I had to march him in to his Xerox machine by the scruff of the neck, and he did the rest quietly enough. He ran each page through for me, and I made him certify that it was a fair copy and stamp it with his notary's stamp and sign on the dotted line.

Then we came back into the library. I folded up the copy of Bryce Diehl's will and filed it in my jacket along with the musket. That seemed to take a load off his mind. In exchange I left him the copy of Nancy's letter for his client's bedside reading. And then I looked at my ex-employer again, a last look.

He was still out.

It was just as well.

Sweet dreams, Twink babe, I told him in my mind, have a nice day.

I was on my way, but George S. Curie III was gesturing at me with the pages of Nancy's letter.

“One thing,” he said kind of shyly. “Just out of personal curiosity, Cage, but what took you so long to get here with it? It's been over a week—ten days. When you didn't show up with it that night, and when Free … when Freeling didn't find it on you the next day, we thought … Well, we didn't know what to think.”

I didn't bat an eyelash, but
Jeezus!
They really did think I'd had it all that time? Hard to believe, harder than hard. Unless they hadn't figured that even the Lonesome Cages of this world can fuck up now and then, not to say get their heads bashed in, or that they've got to sleep too every once in a full moon like ordinary human stiffs.

Well, far be it for me to have spoiled their illusions.

“So you locked the doors and windows?” I said. “And unplugged all the phones and settled down to
sweat
it out of me?”

“That's right.”

“How come?” I asked him.

“Well, you hadn't delivered.”

“But why didn't you try beating it out of me?”

“You've forgotten,” he said with that grim prim smile of his, “I've worked with you before.”

Yeah, George, I forgot.

“But what took you so long?” he repeated. “You don't mean to tell me you did it because you
enjoyed
it?”

He was staring at me like I was crazy. I must've been staring at him the same way. Then I burst out laughing. It was my first good laugh in a few thousand years or so. Hell, I all but clapped him on the back.

“Sure George,” I told him. “That's right. I did it because I
enjoyed
it.”

And then it stopped being so funny. Not funny at all, and my own laugh sounded a thousand years old.

I left him in the library, still shaking his head over it. All of a sudden I was too tired to care, to explain or not to explain, too bone tired even to say I looked forward to the pleasure of working with him again on some future project. I went out the front door and found the Mustang and drove west slowly all the way to the sea, and I smelled the mist a while, hoping it would blow the must out of my mind, which it did but only a little, and when finally I went home, the house was empty.

Epilogue

And like they say, that's all she wrote.

Whadda ya mean that's all she wrote? Wait a minute! Like who killed Karen? Like what happened to Robin Fletcher? Where's the solution, where's the justice? What kind of detective are you anyway, Cage, we want our money back!

Etcetera etcetera
.

I can hear you screaming, friends. Oh yeah, all the way to Keokuk and back I hear you in the night. Well, at least you can't say I didn't warn you.

I know, I know, it's a lousy deal. Sure, and people are starving in Africa, and so on and so forth. Because I'll tell you something else you ought to have doped out by now:

This little book of mine,
Hush Money
, I didn't write it for you, or you, or you, no and not even for all the gang down at Eddie's All-Night Esso Station. It's a book with only one reader, friends. I guess you understand by now who that is.

Which isn't to say he hasn't been straight with me, so far. That next morning when the doorbell woke me up around noon, it was Miss Sensible Shoes herself, lorgnette and all, with the contracts in her satchel. I signed them and made her witness for me and lo and behold, the day IDH went public, what should I get in the registered mail but the first installment: one thousand shares of the blue chips, all made out to Cage's Triple-A Retirement and Pension Plan. The stock's been doing fine and so's the city of Diehl, ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule. It looks like the biggest California grab of the California decade, maybe the California century, and I even see where George S. Curie Ill's got himself onto the reorganized Board, smiling his Cheshire smile for the cameras, so he must be doing fine too.

Sure, everybody's doing fine, all us grabbers. Twink Beydon's finally on his way to the Rose Bowl and like I say, I've no complaints … so far.

Only lately it's gone quiet again out here in Santa Monica, very quiet. And like you already know, when the quiet comes old Cage gets that chilly feeling in his gut, and he starts worrying about his insurance, and his insurance on his insurance. He starts to think that, now that Twink Beydon's smelling Roses, maybe he'll be telling himself he doesn't need all that interference after all, hell, that he can carry the ball across by himself. And he'll look around the field at all the stiffs who're supposed to be clearing out for him on the power sweep, one in particular, a pulling guard name of Cage who's standing around with his thumb up his ass clipping coupons, and he'll say: “What're we payin' all this deadweight for? That one there—” pointing at me “—the one with his thumb up his ass. What's his name?”

Sooner or later, Twink. Maybe not this year or next, but it's bound to be. I can read your mind, ole buddy.

After all, who wants a silent partner?

So I've taken out a little insurance, and you could call this book a reminder of premiums due. Not that you need worry, once you think about it. The way I've scrambled it up, it would take anybody else a month of Sundays to put the facts together, if they had one to spare. And they'd have to give the map of California a twist in the key places for all the balls to fall into their holes, and even supposing they managed that, what would they use for proof?

Speaking of which, Twink, I've made a small addition to Cage-to-Cage-to-Cage you ought to know about, just to round things off. In fact, in case you've been looking for me lately, I just got home from a trip up Seattle way. It took some doing—I mean, it happened two decades ago and when a guy nobody ever heard of falls out a window, who cares?—but you forget, that's my old stomping grounds up there, and the law's the law and mighty accommodating too when they sniff the green.