“Of course.”
Walt finished his coffee and said, “I’d love to stay and catch up on the good old days, Neal, but I have to go and make an offer to Miss Polly Paget. You will excuse me, I’m sure.”
He pushed his chair out and stood up.
Brogan stood up and snapped shut the shotgun chamber.
“You’re not going to have him shoot me, are you, Neal?” Withers asked.
“If I did, it would be with only the deepest regrets, Mr. Withers,” Neal answered.
Withers picked up his briefcase. He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and then dropped his head back down and laughed. Looking straight at Neal, he said, “I’ve misapprehended you. You’re not looking for Miss Paget; you’re hiding her, aren’t you?”
And doing a lousy job of it, too, Walt.
“And you brought me in here to get me drunk,” Walt continued. “That betrays low character, Neal. Yours and mine, I’m afraid.”
True enough, Mr. Withers.
“I haven’t met very many saints in this business, Mr. Withers,” Neal said.
“Joe Graham is a saint.”
“Joe Graham is a saint,” Neal agreed. And what would he do in this situation? I wonder. I’d love to know, seeing as how he put me in this situation.
“And I suppose while we were having friendly drinks, you’ve had her moved?” Withers asked.
Well, no, Walt. That’s what I should have done when I first heard you were here, but I was too busy sulking about her possibly being in a family way.
Neal nodded.
Walt sat back down. The jauntiness suddenly deflated in that way chronic alcoholics have of looking either eighteen or eighty within seconds. Now he looked eighty. His skin resembled old yellow paper that could crumble at the touch, and his eyes looked tired. His next drink wouldn’t be coffee.
Withers sighed and leaned across the table.
“Here’s the problem, my boy,” he said. “I took a chunk of the advance money to pay off a gambling debt. I’m afraid I drank some of the rest. All forgivable, really, if one comes up with the goods, but
… you’ve done me in.”
He spread his hands, palms up.
“Who are you working for?” Neal asked.
“I have the great honor to be in the service of Top Drawer magazine, which has commissioned me to persuade Miss Polly Paget to serve as onanistic inspiration to millions of adolescent boys and adolescent men. These are the depths to which I have sunk, young Neal. Even in these substrata of our often-sad profession, I fail. I fail.”
He dropped his chin to the table and stared at the greasy surface of the tabletop as if it represented an eternity in purgatory.
A brilliant performance, Neal thought. Top-drawer, indeed. And if this outrageous play for sympathy doesn’t work, he’ll try a threat: Play ball, or I’ll go to the press just out of spite. Well, one good act deserves another.
“Two bourbons, Brogan?” Neal asked.
Brogan was so taken with the scene, he poured the drinks himself and brought them over. He even forgot to demand cash up front.
“You want to take naked pictures of her?” Neal asked.
“Not personally,” Withers answered. “I’m just supposed to find her, make an offer, and give her an advance.”
“But they’d be in good taste, right? The pictures?”
Neal had seen Top Drawer magazine. Caligula would have found its photos in questionable taste.
“The lighting, I’m told, is impeccable,” Withers answered. He knocked back the bourbon in one swallow. If he detected a glimmer of hope, he wasn’t letting on.
“And you’re not working for Jack Landis, right?”
“I’m not,” Walt mumbled sadly. Then, as if it was a fresh thought, he added, “Oh my God, are you?”
“No,” Neal said. He drank his whiskey slowly, thoughtfully, and then let out, “I don’t know, Walter. She’s not a prisoner; she can do what she wants. And it looks like she’s going to need money…”
Withers lifted his eyes from the table. “Believe it or not, Neal, they’re talking about half a million dollars.”
Neal whistled softly. Then he said, “Could they do it and guarantee her privacy?”
“Her privacy, my boy?”
“I mean, absolutely promise not to reveal her whereabouts?”
Withers brightened, although Neal couldn’t tell if it was the emerging deal or the whiskey.
“Well, after all,” he said, “they’re revealing everything else; I suppose they could withhold that.”
Neal silently counted to ten, then said, “I’d have to be present when you talked to her.”
“Not a problem, Neal. In fact, a pleasure.”
“No cameras, no tapes, no wires. And I’d have to pat you down, Walt.”
“I’ll get naked myself if that would help, Neal.”
From the Book of Joe Graham, chapter eight, verse four: When you have the trap set, let the mark pull the string.
“Okay,” Neal said. “Get a room at the motel down the street. I’ll talk to her and call you in the next day or so.”
Withers answered, “If it’s all the same to you-and no offense-I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Tugging at the string.
“Then-and no offense to you, Walt-get lost.”
“She has maybe, what-a half-hour lead, Neal? Can that hold up if every reporter, private investigator, and curiosity seeker in America descends on this burg by cocktail hour?”
Pulling on the string with both hands.
“You wouldn’t do that, would you, Walt?” Neal asked.
“I wouldn’t if I had a choice, Neal, but…”
He let the conclusion trail. It was Neal’s turn to stare at the table.
“Okay,” Neal said. “Let me go get my car.”
“We’ll take my car. You can drive.”
“Automatic or standard?”
“Automatic.”
“I can’t drive a standard shift,” Neal explained.
Overtime watched the drunken old detective and the younger man cross the street and get into the rental car. The old sot must be Withers, Overtime thought-too drunk to drive-and the young one must be the English tutor.
He kept watching as the car turned around and headed west on Route 50-away from the target house.
Where the hell are they going? Overtime wondered. Then he had an unpleasant thought: What if they moved her while I was sleeping?
Overtime felt extremely irritated for a moment. If he had to track the bitch, it would take time, and he was getting paid by the job, not the hour. Any time he spent following the target around the country was money out of his pocket.
He let his temper run for a minute, then cooled himself off.
No, most likely the English teacher had some unexpected street smarts and was taking Withers for a ride, which meant he’d be back.
And then they’d have to move.
Overtime didn’t like the timing. He’d rather wait until night and then take a window shot.
What to do, what to do? He should wait for Withers to find her, but right now he didn’t think that Withers could find her if she was in his underwear. On the other hand, maybe the dipso detective had done him a favor. Two women, alone in the house, how much of a problem could it be?
