Butcher's Moon

Simms and Shevelly and Faran. And Jack Walters, too, the attorney who had originally brought Leffler and Lozini together.

For these men, the back room of Rubidow, Rancher’s vault had a great advantage over either a foreign bank account or an American safety deposit box. Unlike the foreign account, there was never any problem about transporting the funds to or from the back room, nor was there that slightly uneasy feeling of being, after all, at the mercy of European banks and European governments which could at any time alter their politics, change their laws, redefine their banking practices.

As to a local safety deposit box, that was reasonably secure so long as a man was alive; though even so, it was possible for a district attorney with sufficient cause to get a court order and have such a box opened. But if a man should die, that’s when the true flaw in the safety deposit box would reveal itself; as a portion of the dead man’s estate, the box was required by law to be opened in the physical presence of the executor of the estate and a representative of the bank and an official from the Internal Revenue Service.

In the back room at Rubidow, Kancher, such problems didn’t exist. Adolf Lozini and his partners could add or subtract funds at any time, and if one of them should die, the others would take care of things. For Leffler, there was no risk, nor even any inconvenience.

At least, there never had been. But tonight, once Leffler and his wife were inside the office with the two hooded gunmen— the third man had stayed outside with the car—one of the men immediately said, “Okay, Mr. Leffler, let’s go take a look at the back room.”

It wasn’t until later that Leffler thought how impossible it was for these people to know that familiar in-office term; at the moment he only felt the shocked realization that it must be the Treasury bonds they were after. And his immediate response was to try to save the bonds by lying: “I can’t do that. There’s a time lock on the door.”

“You get one try at being stupid,” the gunman said, “and that was it. There’s no time lock on the vault. You do your back-room business at night.”

Leffler stared. Lozini, he thought, but couldn’t believe it. A streetlight outside the plate-glass window filled the front office with a deceptively dark pink glow; in that light, Leffler tried to read the featureless hoods and the stances of the bodies. How much did these two know?

Everything. One of them said, “That’s right, Mr. Leffler, it’s the mob’s money we want.”

It’s caught up with me, Leffler thought, sagging at once into despair, and he moved along uncomplainingly when one of them took him by the elbow and steered him deeper into the office, away from the pink sheen of the streetlight and toward the darkness of the vault.

* * *

Nick Rifkin wished his wife wouldn’t snore like that. It was humiliating to him, in front of these bastards. He stood beside the bed, barefoot, feeling chilly, and watched one of them fill a leather bag with the money from the safe while the other one stood back by the dresser and kept an eye and a gun on Nick. And Angela, undisturbed by light, by conversation, by anything at all, just lay there on her back with her mouth open and snooooored. Christ, she was loud.

Finally he couldn’t take it any more. To the one by the dresser, he said, “You mind if I turn her over?”

“You should turn her off,” the guy said. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, but he kept the sarcasm muted. Turning, he put one knee on the bed, leaned over, and poked Angela on the shoulder and the upper arm until she snorted and cleared her throat and complainingly rolled over onto her side. And became silent.

Nick straightened up again, to see the other one coming out of the closet, carrying the closed and full leather bag. Nick looked at the bag, sorry to see all that money go. No matter what happened, no matter who else got blamed for this, some of the shit was bound to fall on his own head and he knew it. “You guys are really making me a mess,” he said.

The one by the dresser said, “I’ll give you inside information. You won’t even be noticed in the rush.”

Nick gave him a sharp look. For the first time it occurred to him that maybe something more than a simple heist was taking place here. He’d heard rumbles the end of last week, some kind of trouble, a guy that was being looked for—could this be connected?

Uh uh; that was something else he didn’t want to know. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

The one with the bag said, “You’re such a smart individual, Nick. You’re really okay.”

”Don’t bother to give me a reference,” Nick told him. The other one said, “I’ll give you something better, Nick. A little suggestion.”

Nick watched him, waiting for it.

“Pretty soon,” the guy said, “you’ll want to make a phone call, tell somebody about this.”

“More than likely.”

“Call Dutch Buenadella,” the guy said.

Nick frowned. “Why?” “He’ll be interested, Nick.”

The one with the bag said, “Nick, you have to come for a walk with us now.”

Nick said, “Why don’t I just sit down here and count to a million?”

The one by the dresser said, “Humor us, Nick. Do it our way.”

They’d given him advice about who he should call, so they mustn’t be planning on killing him, or injuring him very badly. Something like a knock on the head he could live with. “Okay,” he said. “It’s your act, why should I horn in?”

As they were leaving the bedroom the snoring started again. Nick shook his head but didn’t say anything, and walked on downstairs, the guy with the money ahead of him, the other one bringing up the rear.

Downstairs they strolled through the bar, and it occurred to Nick to wonder why he wasn’t hearing from the