'A hundred thousand?'
'Your lawyer gets that for taking you to lunch and you pay for it, at your club.' Donnell paused but stayed over him. 'Think a minute. Would you pay this woman two million dollars so she won't send you a bomb, blow you up?'
'If I have to.'
'Then wouldn't you want to give the same amount, at least, to the person that's gonna keep it from happening? You understand what I'm saying, the person being me?'
Look at the man's glassy wet eyes, all the busted blood vessels in his nose, his face; the man was a mess. Yeah, but he was nodding, agreeing.
'I guess that's fair.'
Donnell hurried back to the desk and sat down.
'Okay, I'm putting in--how's this? You being of sound mind . . .'--pausing to write--'you want to leave Donnell Lewis . . . at least two million dollars . . . if and when . . . you ever die.' Donnell finished, read it over--man, look at it--was about to say, Ready for you to sign, Mr. Woody.
The doorbell rang.
And what he said was, 'Shit.'
Got up and went out to the front hall hoping it was the paperboy come to collect, Donnell in a mood to kick the kid's ass across the street. He peeked through the peephole as he always did, cautious, and the dark cloud parted and the sun came out to shine on--lookit who's here--Sergeant Mankowski and the redhead name Ginger.
Chris said, 'I hope we're not interrupting anything. If Mr. Woody's floating in the pool we'll come back.'
'No, he's not floating today. Come in, come in.'
'Miss Wyatt would like to have a word with him.'
'Yeah, that's fine. He be glad to see you.' Donnell full of life in his silky yellow shirt and pants, smiling white teeth at them, saying hi, Ginger, saying to Chris he'd been trying to get hold of him but nobody seemed to have his number; was he hiding or what? Giving them all this chatter crossing the hall to the library, saying yeah, this was nice they dropped by, saying, 'Mr. Woody, look who come to see you. Ginger, Mr. Woody, and her friend.' All talk and motion all at once.
Greta was giving Chris a look. He shrugged, no help. Donnell was going over to the desk, Woody was pulling himself out of his chair, straightening his bathrobe, making himself presentable, Donnell shoving papers into a desk drawer and opening another one. Now he was holding what looked like a leather-bound commercial checkbook. Greta's voice, kept low, said, 'What's going on?' Chris said, 'Beats me.' Woody was creeping toward Greta on his swollen legs, arms bent but outstretched. 'Boy-oh-boy . . . Ginger, is that you? Sit down and we'll have a drink. Donnell?' Chris watched Donnell move close to the man to say something to him and the man said, 'Oh, yeah, that's right.' Donnell came over with the checkbook and said to Chris, 'Mr. Woody will fix Ginger up. He's got the bar there has a fridge in it'--looking at Greta--'if you like some wine. Or he'll make you a nice drink.'
Chris said, 'You have any peanuts?'
'Yeah, those peanuts, we fresh out. Listen, she be fine with Mr. Woody. Can watch some TV.'
Chris liked the way Greta said, 'I wasn't fine with Mr. Woody the last time I was here.' Turned to the man creeping up in his bathrobe and said, 'Are you gonna behave yourself?'
'Boy-oh-boy,' Woody said.
Donnell touched the man's shoulder. 'Yeah, that means he's mellow, feeling good. He'll be nice. Huh, Mr. Woody? Sure.' Donnell looked at Chris again. 'Come with me, I'll show you something will interest you.'
Greta motioned to Chris, Go on, and that took care of that.
Once they were in the hall Donnell stopped and opened the checkbook. 'See?' There were three green-tinted checks to the sheet, issued by Manufacturers National Bank, each imprinted with Ricks Enterprises, Inc. and bearing Woody's signature at the bottom.
'I have him sign three at a time when he's able to,' Donnell said, 'for whatever needs might come up. You being a need. You understand? This is opportunity looking at you.' He closed the checkbook. They walked down the hall and through the sunroom to the shallow end of the swimming pool. 'Go look on the bottom by the diving board.'
Chris saw the black athletic bag floating in the clear water. He walked along the edge to the deep end, looked down and studied the dark shapes on the bottom, Donnell's voice filling the room now, telling him from a distance how he'd found the bag, brought it in here and thrown it, and the bag must've hit the board and those things came out of it.
Chris looked at his watch. 'What time was that?'
'Was about quarter of eleven.'
'You thought if you dropped dynamite in water it wouldn't go off?'
'I was hoping.'
'You were wrong.'
'Then why didn't it?'
'It still might. Or it could've shorted when it hit the water, blown you through the window. Why don't you come here, so I don't have to yell.'
'I been as close to it as I want.'
Chris walked back to the shallow end. 'We don't know what time it's set for, do we? If it was put there early this morning, within the past twelve hours. . . .' He reached Donnell and said, 'You know you could be arrested, withholding evidence of a crime.'
'Man, I didn't make the bomb.'
'Doesn't matter. Why didn't you call Nine-eleven?'
'Have the police come, the fire trucks? Pretty soon we have the TV news. Mr. Woody don't want none of that. Man likes his privacy and is willing to pay for it.' Donnell brought a ballpoint pen out of his pants pocket and opened the checkbook. 'Tell me what your shakedown price is these days.'
Chris said, 'Anything I want?'
'Long as it seems to be right.'
'I say ten thousand?'
'I write it in.'
'What if I say twenty?'
'I write it in. But now twenty you getting up there. I'd have to sell that figure to the man, convince him.'
'He's already signed the check.'
'Yeah, but that don't mean the money's in the bank. See, he keeps only so much in there. It gets low, the man calls a certain number and they transfer money from his trust account to his regular business account. I think I could talk the man into paying twenty, but I'd have to have a cut, like ten percent. Two grand for the service, understand?'
'I don't know,' Chris said, looking out at the pool. 'I'd have to take my clothes off, dive in there . . . the bomb could go off any time. I'm fooling with a fast high explosive under water, can barely see what I'm doing--'
'You cut the wire,' Donnell said.
'Is that all?' Chris brought out the Spyder-Co knife that was always in his right-hand coat pocket. 'Here, you do it.'
'The shakedown pro. I should've known,' Donnell said. 'Drive up in your Cadillac, twenty don't meet your greed. Gonna go for what you can get.'
'The way I have to look at it,' Chris said, 'I make a mistake, I'm floating face down in a fucking swimming pool, something I never thought of before.' He paused. 'You'd have to look in the Yellow Pages, see if you can find another bomb disposal man.'
'For what, if the bomb's gone?'
'The next one. They'd have to try again.'
Donnell stared at him. 'You think so, huh?'
'You don't seem to understand what this is about. It's a payback,' Chris said, 'get even for getting snitched on and doing time. Mark and Woody's mom told the feds where to find Robin and her boyfriend, Skip. The mom's
