The staked Goat

been stupid, an unnecessary risk. I had no reason to believe Sachs had told you anything. He never mentioned you. I found your message at his hotel, and then I held my breath for about three days, poised to run. I... well... I assumed that Ricker had taken care of you. When I then read in the paper about your apartment building and the corpse that was supposed to be you, it all seemed so...”
    ”Fortunate.”
    ”Yes.” He snapped back to the present. ”Now where is—”
    ”Short memory, my friend. You first.”
    He gritted his teeth and worked his jaw and started twice to talk. His left hand, shaking badly, levered the attach^ case up and between us in the suicide seat, latches and handle toward me.
    ”Go ahead,” he said. ”Open it.”
    I thought back to Al’s alleged mistake at the drop-off. ”You open it.”
    Crowley smiled. ”You are either much more clever or far more stupid than I thought.” He seemed to relax. ”My judgment is for clever. If you had begun to open it, then either you were too stupid to recall how your friend failed, or could ignore it because you knew that switch under your foot was a dummy, attached to no bomb.” He reached forward and turned the case over, back to facing him. He was no longer the nervous killer but again the cool, methodical businessman. He fingered two catches, and the lid popped up, the case relieved of the pressure of being stuffed to bursting.
    ”If you had done that,” he said, wiggling his finger at the latches, ”you’d be dead now.”
    I winked at him and pointed to my left foot. ”So would you.”
    He winked back.
    I tipped the case’s lid back against the hinges and toward me. It was full of rubber-banded stacks of old bills, tens and twenties showing.
    ”Rough estimate?” I asked.
    ”Sixty-five thousand.” Then, more wistfully, ”All I’ve got in the world.”
    I grinned. ”More likely one-third maybe of all the old, passable cash you’ve got in the world.”
    He laughed, a real laugh. ”You’re good, Cuddy. Maybe good enough.”
    ”Bet on it.”
    ”Oh, I am, I am.” He sank back into the door behind him more, easing what must have been a stiff back. ”I’m betting that you’re even clever enough to realize I have no reason to kill you. Even if you turn to the police. You see, after tonight, Clay Belker just drops off the earth, through another trap door. I take off, so I don’t care who you go to with your information. You, and the widow and the kid, get sixty-five thousand dollars. I get a twenty-four-hour headstart. I’m not a vindictive man, really. Belker, the real Belker, and your friend, were genuine threats to me. You’re no threat, not after this time tomorrow. Gentleman’s agreement.” He smiled ruefully. ”Sorry, poor taste, in view of Sachs’, ah, derivation. I meant agreement as in officers and gentlemen.”
    ”Let’s say I’m clever enough to get out of here alive, with the money. Why should I wait for twenty-four hours?”
    ”Because—and I really believe this, after talking with you—you intend that money for Sachs’ widow and kid. Based on what Sachs told me about his motives, they really need it. No, if you blew the whistle on me, it would be tough for you to wash that money and get it to them. Tough enough for you that I think you’ll keep your end of the deal.”
    ”And if you’re wrong?”
    Crowley shrugged. ”If I’m wrong, I’ll find out about it. And the first thing I do, perhaps the last thing too, but the first thing I do is get to Pittsburgh and kill Martha and the boy.”
    He threw me with that one, and my face must have shown it.
    He laughed his good laugh again. ”Oh, come on now. You thought of everything else. Don’t feel badly. Your revenge has to be financial, that’s all. Just strictly financial.” He dropped his voice to a low, authoritative tone. ”Let that be enough.”
    ”It’s a deal,” I said. ”The package is in the glove compartment.”
    His eyes narrowed. ”What package?”
    ”Al’s package. The one he sent me.”
    ”What the fuck are you talking about? I searched his room and his car. Sachs had no camera. He couldn’t have sent you any package.”
    ”Okay, he didn’t. Step out of the car and dive off to the right. I’ll drive the hell out of here and you’ll have your twenty-four hours.”
    Crowley stared at the glove compartment.
    ”He couldn’t have. He wasn’t that smart.”
    I thought of the broken pinkie and 13 Rue Madeleine. ”Oh, he