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.'
'Don't be silly,' I said. 'You're an important man in your field, a success. If you don't have it in cash, you certainly have assets you can borrow against.'
'I can't do it.' His voice almost broke. 'I've had… financial difficulties.
Some investments haven't turned out to be what they should have been. The economy, there's less building, the interest rates are going crazy, just last week somebody raised the prime rate to ten percent—'
'I don't want an economics lesson, Mr. Prager. I want sixty thousand dollars.'
'I've borrowed every cent I could.' He paused for a moment. 'I can't, I have no source—'
'I'll need the money fairly soon,' I cut in. 'I don't want to stay inNew York any longer than I have to.'
'I don't—'
'You do some creative thinking,' I said. 'I'll be in touch with you.'
I hung up and sat in the phone booth for a minute or two, until someone waiting to use it gave an impatient knock on the door. I opened the door and stood up. The man who wanted to use the phone looked as though he was going to say something, but he looked at me and changed his mind.
I wasn't enjoying myself. I was putting Prager through a wringer. If he'd killed Spinner, then maybe he had it coming. But if he hadn't, I was torturing him to no purpose, and the thought did not set well with me.
But one thing had come out of the conversation: He was hurting for money.
And if Spinner, too, had been pushing for the fast final settlement, the big bite so that he could get out of town before someone killed him, that might have been enough to put the last bit of pressure on Henry Prager.
I'd been on the verge of ruling him out when I saw him in his office. I just didn't see that he had enough of a motive, but now he seemed to have a pretty good one after all.
And I'd just given him another.
I called Huysendahl a little later. He was out, so I left my number, and he called around two.
'I know I wasn't supposed to call you,' I said, 'but I have some good news for you.'
'Oh?'
'I'm in a position to claim my reward.'
'You managed to turn up that material?'
'That's right.'
'Very quick work,' he said.
'Oh, just sound detective procedure and a little bit of luck.'
'I see. It may take some time to, uh, assemble the reward.'
'I don't have very much time, Mr. Huysendahl.'
'You have to be reasonable about this, you know. The sum we discussed is substantial.'
'I understand you have substantial assets.'
'Yes, but hardly in cash. Not every politician has a friend inFlorida with that kind of money in a wall safe.' He chuckled over the line, and seemed disappointed when I didn't join in. 'I'll need some time.'
'How much time?'
'A month at the outside. Perhaps less than that.'
The role was easy enough, since I kept getting to rehearse it. I said, 'That's not soon enough.'
'Really? Just how much of a hurry are you in?'
'A big one. I want to get out of town. The climate doesn't agree with me.'
'Actually, it's been rather mild the past few days.'
'That's just the trouble. It's too hot.'
