“I’m here for my money,” Wiggins said.
Big surprise, Douglas thought, and Halloway walked in without knocking. “Hello, Mr. Wiggins,” he said, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.” The men shook hands. Their eyes met. Douglas figured Wiggins should have known in that single meeting of eyes that he was a dead man. But maybe he was stupid.
“Are you authorized to make a payout?” he asked Halloway. “Cause what I need fum you is one million nine hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
IN ALL HER YEARS with W&D, Karen Andersen had never before looked down the barrel of a gun or into the eyes of a person who would have no qualms about pulling the trigger of that gun. She wondered briefly what Halloway would do in similar circumstances. She had seen him perform admirably in comparably challenging situations, but those had been when they were in bed together, and always during the window of opportunity Viagra presented. She was surprised now to discover that she was not at all frightened. Calmly, coolly, she said, “Please don’t force me to call the police.”
Villada laughed.
Karen reached for the phone on her desk, intending not to call the police but to summon Halloway for help. Ortiz slammed the butt of his revolver down on her hand. She pulled it back, winced, held the throbbing fingers to her breasts. Her lip was quivering, but she did not scream.
“We’ll be back,” Ortiz said. There was blood on the butt of the pistol. He yanked a tissue from the box on Karen’s desk, wiped the butt clean, and tossed the stained tissue into an ashtray. “Get the fockin money,” he said.“Real money this time,comprende?”
“Or we’ll kill every fockin one of you who works here,” Villada said.
Not if we kill you first, Karen thought.
“I HAVE NO IDEA what money you mean,” Halloway said.
“The money your two blond ladies took from me,” Wiggins said.
“I don’t know which ladies you mean.”
“Sheryl and Toni. With the long legs and the AK-47.”
“We have no such employees. Mr. Wiggins,” Halloway said, slowly and distinctly, “you are making a terrible mistake here.”
Their eyes met again.
This time Wiggins read the meaning in them.
Which was perhaps why he drew a pistol from a holster under his jacket. He pointed the gun first at Halloway, and then swung it around toward Douglas, as if to emphasize that his enmity was large enough to include both of them. The gun looked like a snub-nosed .38. Douglas didn’t think the man was foolish enough to kill them here in their own offices, especially since he was here to negotiate the return of money he felt was his. But who knew with these street thugs?
Halloway had been in hairier situations than this one. Not for nothing was he in charge here. He looked at the gun in Wiggins’s hand, and then raised his eyes to meet Wiggins’s again. His eyes seemed to sayThis is only about money, friend. Do you really want to die for it? But would Wiggins have pulled a gun on them if he didn’t realize he was already a dead man?
“You don’t want to do this,” Halloway said.
“I’ve done it before,” Wiggins said.
“Not with the consequences this would bring.”
Douglas knew this was bullshit. If Wiggins had in fact killed Jerry Hoskins, there had been no consequences at all. Wiggins must have realized this, too. He had blown one of them away, and the only thing that had happened was The Wierd Sisters coming to call. Douglas wondered if, in retrospect, Halloway was thinking he should have given the termination order back then on Christmas night. A bit late now, though.
“Tell you what,” Wiggins said. “I realize you don’t have that kind of money juss layin aroun in cash. But go get it, okay? I’ll come see you sometime soon,” he said, and backed away toward the door.
Sometime soon, you’ll be dead, Douglas thought. Bro.
Wiggins stepped out into the hallway.
THE THREE MEN reached the elevator at about the same time. One of the two Mexicans pressed the bell button set in the wall.
“How’d it go?” Wiggy asked them.
“Fockin people still owe us money,” Ortiz said.
Which was how a rather strange triumvirate was founded.
IT WAS STILL THURSDAY on what was shaping up to be the longest day of the year, never mind what the almanac said. Sitting at his desk at a quarter to five that evening, the squadroom almost deserted, Carella tried to make some sense of this bewildering case that seemed to focus entirely on money, real or largely imagined. Theimaginedcash appeared to originate in Iran, where billions of dollars in so-called super-bills were being printed on intaglio presses with plates provided by the good old U.S. of A., talk about payback time.
Carella knew some things for certain. The rest he could only guess at. He knew that Cass Ridley had made four trips to Mexico with a certain amount of money she’d exchanged for some kind of controlled substance, and had been paid $200,000 in cash for her efforts. This money was real, if the lady at First Federal could be trusted, whatever her name was. But Cass Ridley had also been given a ten-grand tip by the pair of Mexicans involved in the transaction, whoeverthey were, andthat money was fake. Poor Will Struthers, trying to spend the cash he’d pilfered, had twice been nailed passing phony hundreds. According to the lady at First Federal, Antonia Lugosi or something, twenty billion dollars in counterfeit hundreds were floating around out there, enough bogus bills to concern the Treasury Department, who had relieved Struthers of the phonies he’d stolen and given him real cash in exchange—but that was only a guess. Belandres! AntoniaBelandres! Hence the Lugosi association, forBela Lugosi, the best Dracula there ever was, the mind worked in curious ways its wonders to reveal.
