‘She doesn’t know.’
‘It’s going to be quite a jolt for her when she finds out, isn’t it?’
I moved impatiently. His sadistic smirk angered me.
‘I can’t see how that concerns you.’
He leaned forward and picked up the gun, examined it, then put it down again.
‘What’s going to happen to the bridge when you get locked up?’
‘They’ll find someone.’ I was feeling cold and numb. ‘There’s always someone else to take over another man’s job.’
‘Yeah.’ Keary shifted his bulk in his chair. ‘Another guy takes over my job tonight. By the time I’m half way home, all the bright boys here will have forgotten I ever existed. What’s your wife going to do without you?’
‘What do you care?’ I said. ‘I did what I did and I expect to pay for it. Let’s get on with it.’
He closed the file that lay before him and put it back in a drawer. Then he looked at his wrist watch.
He got to his feet.
‘Stick around for five minutes, Mr. Halliday.’ He picked up the gun and the reel of tape and pushing past me, he crossed to the door and went out, closing the door after him.
I sat there waiting.
Fifteen years!
I thought of Sarita. I blamed myself now for not telling her the truth. It was the bleakest, longest half hour I have ever sat through.
The hands of the wall clock showed half past five when the door pushed open and Keary came in. He was smoking a cigar, and he was grinning.
He closed the door, moved around me to his desk chair and sat down.
‘Have you been sweating it out, Mr. Halliday?’ he said. ‘Imagining yourself behind bars, huh?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘I’ve been saying goodbye to the boys,’ Keary went on. ‘At five o’clock I turned in my badge. I am now officially retired. Your case is to be handed over to Detective Sergeant Karnow: the biggest sonofabitch on the force.’ He took the reel of tape from his pocket. ‘When he hears this, he’ll jump for joy.’ The small hard eyes searched my face. ‘But you and me could fix it that he doesn’t hear it.’
I stiffened, staring at him.
‘What does that mean?’
The leering grin widened.
‘We could do a deal, Mr. Halliday. After all what’s better than money? I could sell you this tape if you felt like buying it. You’d be off the hook then. You could go back to your wife and your bridge and you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.’
He had used the exact words that Rima had once used. So it was going to begin all over again. I felt a sudden urge to lean across the desk and slam my fist into his leering face, but I didn’t. Instead, I said,
‘How much?’
The grin widened.
‘She was taking you for thirty thousand bucks, wasn’t she? Well, I’ll settle for twenty.’
I stared steadily at him. ‘And how much after that?’
‘I’ll settle for twenty thousand. For that you get the gun and the tape. That’s fair, isn’t it?’
‘Fair enough until you have spent the twenty thousand,’ I said, ‘then you’ll remember me and come around with a hard luck story: they always do.’
‘That’s your risk, pal, but you have a choice. You can always serve your sentence.’
I thought for a moment, then I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Okay, it’s a deal.’
‘Now that’s what I call being smart,’ Keary said. ‘I want the money in cash. When I get it you get the gun and the tape. How long will it take you to raise the money?’
‘The day after tomorrow. I’ll have to sell bonds. If you come to my office on Thursday morning, I’ll have the money for you.’
He shook his head and winked at me.
‘Not at your office, pal. I’ll call you on Thursday morning and I’ll tell you where we’ll meet.’
‘All right.’
I got to my feet and without looking at him, I went out of the office. I had just time to catch the six o’clock train back to Holland City. I sat staring out of the window, my mind busy. There had been no way out of Rima’s proposition because she had had nothing to lose. She had been so desperate for money that she would have gone to prison with me if I hadn’t paid her, but this blackmail proposition from Keary was very different. He had everything to lose. I would have to be careful, but I had confidence that I could out-smart him. One thing was certain: I wasn’t going to pay him a cent. I would rather take what was coming to me than be blackmailed for life by this fat, crooked cop.
On Thursday morning, I told Clara I was expecting a call from Detective Sergeant Keary.
‘I don’t want you to put him through to me,’ I said. ‘Tell him I’m out, and you don’t know when I’ll be back. Tell him to leave a message with you.’
A little after eleven o’clock, Clara came in to tell me Keary had telephoned.
‘He said he would meet you at one o’clock at the Tavener’s Arms.’
The Tavener’s Arms was a roadhouse a few miles outside Holland City. A few minutes to one o’clock, I drove out there. Carrying a bulky briefcase with me, I went into the bar.
Keary was sitting in a corner, a double Scotch and soda on the table. There were only two other people in the bar and they sat away from Keary.
As I crossed over to him, I saw his eyes on the briefcase.
‘Hello, pal,’ he said. ‘Sit down. What’s your poison?’
‘Nothing,’ I said as I sat down on the bench seat beside him. I put the briefcase between us.
‘I see you’ve got the money.’
‘I haven’t,’ I said.
The grin went off his face and his eyes suddenly became as hard as marble.
‘What do you mean – you haven’t?’ he snarled. ‘Do you want to go to jail, you punk?’
‘The bonds were only sold this morning,’ I said. ‘I didn’t have time to pick up the money. If you’ll come with me now, I’ll get it. You can see the money counted, and then you can have it.’
His face turned a dark purple.
‘What the hell is this? Are you trying to pull a fast one?’ he snarled, leaning forward to glare at me.
‘You try anything smart with me, and you’ll be behind bars so goddam fast you won’t even have time to tell your wife where you’ve gone.’
‘It’s a big job to count twenty thousand dollars, sergeant,’ I said mildly. ‘I thought you’d want a professional to do it for you, but if you want to do it yourself, then I’ll go to the bank now, get the money and bring it out here. I’m not trying to pull a fast one.’
He glared suspiciously at me. ‘I’m not so goddam stupid to go to the bank with you. Get the money in twenty dollar bills. I’ll count it. You get it now.’
‘And what do I get in return for the money?’ I said.
‘You get the gun and the tape. That’s the deal.’
‘You’ll give me the tape I made in your office when I confessed to being associated with the Pacific Studio guard’s shooting?’
‘What is this? That’s what you’ll get.’
‘How about a guarantee that you won’t blackmail me further?’ I thought he was going to hit me.
‘Don’t use that word to me, you punk!’ he snarled. ‘You’re damn lucky to get away with this! I could have asked for thirty thousand. To get out of a fifteen year stretch, twenty thousand is cheap!’
