Scam

scowled. “I’m talking about Belcher. That son of a bitch Belcher. The guy I wanna nail. The guy caused me more problems than you could believe.”
    “I understand the sentiment. Could you be more explicit?”
    “Belcher’s the reason I couldn’t solve this case to begin with. All along it’s been Belcher fucking everything up.”
    “We knew that.”
    “Yes and no.”
    MacAullif raised one eyebrow. “I’m getting ready to strangle you. I don’t care how stressed out you are. You better start making sense, or I’m coming around the desk.”
    “Okay,” I said. “The big stumbling block here has always been Belcher framing me. Because it’s hard to get past. The solution is Belcher framed me. The fact it’s not the solution to the crime gets swept away.”
    “We’ve been through all that.”
    “Yeah, but there’s a wrinkle. And that’s what did it for me. I spent the whole morning with the bookkeeper for Philip Greenberg Investments, so I know that I’m right.”
    “About what, for Christ’s sake? Right about what?”
    “About the snake.”
    “What?”
    “I’m right about the snake. See, that was the problem all along. That goddamn Belcher. That’s what screwed everything up.”
    I ticked them off on my fingers. “It looks like a snake. It has rattles like a snake. It has fangs like a snake.”
    I raised my finger in the air. “And … it even bit me!”
    I spread my arms, shrugged, smiled.
    “But it’s not a snake.”

52.
    “G ET OUT OF HERE OR I’ll call the police.”
    “That’s what you said the last time.”
    Amy Greenberg’s eyes blazed. “Hey, like, I mean it. Barging in here like that.”
    “You really shouldn’t have opened the door. It’s the suburban life sucks you in. In New York City you’d open that door on a safety chain.”
    Amy Greenberg blinked. “Are you retarded or what? I said to get the hell out of here.”
    “And I heard you. I believe you also said you would call the police.”
    “That’s right. I will.”
    “If you must, you must. Remember to ask for Sergeant Belcher. He knows me. He’s the one arrested me before.”
    She backed away. “What is it with you? You get weirder every time you come.”
    I shook my head. “No. Not weirder. Just another day older and deeper in debt.”
    She frowned. “Huh?”
    “Sorry,” I said. “Way before your time. The thing is, I keep learning more and more. I have more information now. And it’s information I might want to share.”
    She looked at me suspiciously. “What does that mean?”
    I shrugged. “Well, that’s the thing. I could share it with you. On the other hand, if you call the police, I’d have to share it with them.”
    “Share what? What are you talking about?”
    “My theory of the case.”
    “Oh, you have a theory?”
    “What, you think my theory is I killed those people? No, my theory is I didn’t. My theory is someone else did.”
    She looked at me mockingly. “What a great defense. I bet no one’s ever thought of that before.”
    “Oh, I’m sure they have. Only in this case it happens to be true.”
    “Yeah, right. If you didn’t kill those people, who did?”
    “You did.”
    She looked at me a minute. Blinked. “Now I know you’re nuts.”
    “No, I’m actually rather sane. In fact, compared to the last few days, I got both feet on the ground,”
    “I’m gonna call the cops now.”
    “If you do, I’ll have to tell ’em what I know.”
    She hesitated. I could see her eyes move from me to the phone. She looked back at me. “Just what do you know?”
    “Just about everything. Which is remarkable, because yesterday I knew just about nothing. But suddenly it all fell into place.
    “From the beginning the thing that stymied me was What’s the scam? A guy gets set up in a bar with a topless dancer, there’s gotta be a scam. It was a real shock to find out that there wasn’t.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You know perfectly well. You’re the one who set it up. You’re the one who went to the talent agent to hire the dancer to make the play. Pretty stupid in retrospect, but only in retrospect. After all, you didn’t know you were going to have to kill anyone. So you hired the girl to drug Cranston Pritchert and steal his keys. That’s where you blew it—that’s where you made the bad move. And, ironically, you did it just when you thought you were being so smart. That’s because you’re young—you didn’t take account of human