The staked Goat

unbuttoned coat and acing me, since I was probably being filmed, recorded, or at least watched.
    The other alternative was that I wasn’t working for the authorities. In that case, there was at least a chance I was alone. If so, he could play along with the blackmail until he could kill me. The Clay Belker cover might be potentially too dangerous to resume, but he’d be free and away with the contents of his briefcase.
    ”Well,” he said, ”at least you can give me a lift to my office while you explain yourself.” Alternative Two.
    ”Come around. Front seat,” I said, depressing the switch with my left foot.
    ”All right.” He walked around to the passenger side and got in, case placed on the floor between his legs. ”My office is...”
    I shifted to reverse. I backed out and headed down Main Street in the eventual direction of Eddie’s junkyard.
    ”My office is back the other way,” said my passenger evenly.
    ”We’re taking the scenic route,” I said and glanced at him. He sat slightly sidesaddle, Walther PPK in his right hand. He held it low, out of my reach, and angled up at my chest.
    ”Fine weapon, the Walther,” I observed.
    ”Take the next right,” he said.
    ”Of course, without a silencer, kind of noisy.” The next right slid by.
    He advanced the weapon an inch or so toward me. ”I would take the next available right if I were you.”
    I smiled. ”Take a look at my left foot.”
    He looked down and tensed. ”You’re wired. I knew that....”
    ”It’s a wire, all right, but not to a tape machine. My foot’s depressing an armed switch. The switch is connected to enough explosives in the front of the car to send both of us back to Saigon.”
    He didn’t offer any reply.
    ”Therefore,” I continued, ”if you shoot me or don’t cooperate, I let up on the dead-man’s switch, and we both blow.”
    ”That’s crazy,” he said, still evenly. ”Either way you lose.”
    I tried to sound resigned. ”I’m a down-and-out private investigator, boy-o. I lost my wife to cancer and my best army buddy to you. Al Sachs has a widow and infant son that I sure as hell can’t provide for. I don’t see that anybody is so much worse off if I lift my foot except you.”
    ”You’re bluffing,” he said, still with no emotion in his voice. He must have been a great real estate bargainer. ”Nobody is that suicidal.”
    I shrugged and ignored the next available right.
    ”Nobody,” he repeated.
    We drove on for a bit. Neither of us said anything.
    ”Where are we going,” he finally said, not quite so evenly as before.
    I tried not to sound relieved. ”To someplace quiet where we can talk about Al’s family. And their future.”
    We traveled in silence after that.
    I drove past Eddie Shuba’s gate on the right and counted five blocks before turning in. It was 4:35 and already dark.
    ”I don’t like this,” said my boy.
    ”I don’t much care about that,” I replied.
    My rental was still across the street. From a windshield appraisal, it didn’t look like anybody had stripped it. I turned left into and behind the auto body shop. My passenger’s head whipped nervously left and right.
    He said, ”I hear a sound or see anybody, and you’re dead.”
    ”Relax,” I said. ”There’s just the two of us.” I turned off the engine. It was perfectly, almost serenely, quiet in the derelict neighborhood. ”Besides, if I’m dead, so are you.”
    I watched him steadily for a minute or two. The car was still warm from the heater, but he was perspiring a little more than the temperature alone would have warranted. He was pale, like a grunt from the bush during the rainy season in Vietnam.
    His gun hand was steady, though. Quite steady.
    ”You wanted to talk,” he said. ”So talk.”
    I shifted carefully to face him a little more directly. He stared at my left stationary foot until I stopped moving.
    ”I figure that by now you’re convinced I’m not working with the cops, the army, or anybody.”
    ”I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
    ”O.K.,” I said, ”so you’re not convinced. Let me do the talking, then, till you get bored. Then feel free to jump in.”
    He said nothing, so I continued.
    ”My guess is that you were up to your eyes in something, probably black market. Covering for shortage investigations, helping launder the skim, whatever. Anyway, you sensed that somebody was on to the operation, but was still a few turns or steps away from you. I figure