The Scared Stiff

by Donald E. Westlake

  “One moment, please.”

  This time, it was one very short moment, and then Kaplan’s voice was there, rasping in my ear: “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Kaplan,” I said, “I owe you an apology. I was trying to get out of that marriage, I wanted to start over, a brand new life, I did that hoax, I faked my own death, my wife knew absolutely nothing about—”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’m Barry Lee and I’m not really dead,” I told him. “And I just found out my wife put in a claim on my life insurance. I forgot all about that insurance, and I don’t want anybody to think Lola’s trying to defraud anybody, she’s as—”

  “Is this some kind of hoax?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m telling you, I’m still alive.”

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  “It’s Barry Lee, I’ve told—”

  “Barry Lee is dead!”

  “He is not. I am not.”

  “You damn well better be,” he snarled. “What do you think you’re trying to pull?”

  I was bewildered. “Mr. Kaplan,” I said, “I thought you’d be pleased to know the company doesn’t—”

  And then I got it. All at once, I could hear Señora de Paula’s voice: “Leon is just wonderful at catching the bad boys. And the reason he’s wonderful is, he’s a bad boy himself. I’m sometimes surprised he switched sides.” And Kaplan himself: “Maybe I was never given a good enough offer on the other side.”

  It was him. Leon Kaplan, insurance investigator.

  Had he pulled this kind of thing before? Well, he was in the middle of it this time. I could see it. He had something, he’d found something, he knew something, and he’d decided the scam was so solid he could let it ride and count himself in and profit from it. Nobody else would ever need to know Barry Lee wasn’t dead. He could take — what, half? — from the “widow” or she’d go to jail.

  He’d make her sign something, wouldn’t he? So he’d have more control over her. Make her move into a motel or somewhere, monitor the phone calls, let her know if she calls Guerrera she goes to jail. So by the time I’d figure it out, it would be too late.

  Except, she sent me a message. She counted on me to read it, and by God I read it.

  “Hello?” His voice was harsh but wary.

  “Mr. Kaplan,” I said, “you seemed like such a decent guy when we had dinner together, but here you are preying on a poor widow.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Kaplan,” I said, “my next phone call, if I have to make a next phone call, will be to the police, and as part of my confession, I’ll admit that you were in on it from the beginning, that’s why you and I had dinner together. I’ll tell them—”

  “We never had dinner together!”

  “We did,” I said. “With the de Paulas, at Casa Montana Mojoca. I was using the fake identity you’d given me, Keith Emory. And I’ll tell the police—”

  There was a brief strangling sound down the phone line.

  I said, “Mr. Kaplan? Are you there?”

  “You — you—”

  “Yes, well, listen,” I said. “Pay attention. You were in the scheme from the beginning, you promised us you’d arrange it so you’d handle the case, even though it wasn’t assigned to you — you did that, remember? You said you’d make sure it went through the company investigation without a hitch — and you did, even after that anonymous letter came in. That’s the story I’ll tell in my next phone call, to the police.”

  “You’ll go to jail!”

  “I’ll be calling from Guerrera,” I said. “But I probably won’t stay in Guerrera. That’s all right, I’ll give the police enough details so they won’t need me around to get the goods on you.”

  “You son of a bitch,” he growled, “you’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Well, here’s what I’ll do,” I offered. “It’s quarter to five, down here. Now, if I get a phone call from Lola by quarter to seven, saying she’s free and happy, she’s got every penny of that money, she’s got whatever evidence you had hanging over her, you’re never going to pester either of us ever again, and she’ll be on the next plane down here, then I’ll be so busy getting ready for her that I won’t have time to make that phone call to the police. You see what I mean?”

  “I’m not sure I can—”

  “I don’t care, Mr. Kaplan,” I said. “Quarter to seven. Otherwise, you’re gonna find out if all those awful stories you’ve heard about prison are true.” And I hung up.

  Arturo put his beer down to applaud me. “Hermano,” he said, “you got that doped out. You did it. You’re pretty grade-A smart.”

  “Thank you, Arturo,” I said modestly.

  “Lemme get you a beer,” he said.

  “At seven o’clock,” I told him. “Then, one way or the other, up or down, I’ll drink every beer in the house.”

  51

  Wednesday, the day after my conversation with Leon Kaplan: for the first time ever, Arturo trusted me to drive his precious Impala. So here I was at General Luis Pozos International Airport, among the other cabs, waiting for the afternoon flight from New York. My white shirt was buttoned at neck and wrists, my saggy pants rode low on my skinny hips, and my mustache was growing out over my upper lip. I leaned against the hood of the Impala and grinned at the other cabbies, and they grinned at me.

  Yesterday, it turned out Kaplan hadn’t needed the full two hours to undo his scheme. An hour and twenty minutes after I’d hung up on him the phone rang. Arturo answered, then extended the phone to me, grinning, saying, “It’s our sister.”

  I took the phone. “Sis?”

  “Oh, Felicio,” said that great familiar voice. “It’s so good to hear you.

  “And you,” I said, and it was. My knees tingled.

  “Guess where I’ve been,” she said, sounding so chirpy and happy that I knew she must be really pissed off.

  “I can’t imagine,” I said.

  “Pine Plain!” she announced, as though it must be just the greatest place in the world.

  I’d never heard of it. “Pine Plain? What’s that?”

  “The most wonderful rehab center. They just take the best care of you.”

  “Rehab?” I didn’t get it yet. “You mean you were in an accident?”

  “Not that kind of rehab, silly,” she said.

  Then I did get it. “Oh,” I said. “Detox.”

  “That’s it! Our good friend Leon Kaplan just felt it would be good for me to sign myself in there for a few days.”

  “Ah,” I said. And wasn’t that perfect. It’s the way to put yourself in jail, hold yourself captive. Stay there and nothing bad happens, leave and the shit hits the fan.

  “He thought,” Lola went on, “Leon thought I’d just get in terrible trouble if I didn’t go for rehab, and I just had to write him a note and say I agreed with him.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “And it’s really a very nice place,” she assured me. “You have your own individual room, and group therapy sessions, and really quite good food. No wine, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you even have a telephone in your room, so you can make local calls.”

  “Sure. Local calls. You wouldn’t want to disturb anybody far away.”

  “That’s right,” she agreed.

  “Well,” I said, “you’ve always been a great communicator.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” she told me, and my heart swelled up.

  I said, “So how are you now? You’re out of there? One hundred percent all right?”

  “Six hundred thousand percent all right,” she said. “And I’m taking the plane tomorrow.”

  “Oh! When, when?”

  “Three twenty-five in the afternoon we land.”

  “I’ll see you there,” I promised her, and so here I was, the next day, at the airport, and it was three-forty, and I hadn’t yet seen Lola because the plane was late, but who I did
see was Rafez.

  Off behind the taxis he was, stepping out of the police car he’d been in when he’d stopped me while I was chauffeuring Maria. He was dressed the same as that time too, in the white guayabera and black sunglasses and black cowboy hat with the gold star on the front. He also wore white chinos and white cowboy boots and his black holster, and he looked like a corrupted angel as he crossed toward me, a faint smile on his lips. Behind him, his partner remained in the car, watching us.

  All the other cabbies turned away, moved off, hunched their shoulders, lowered their voices, became just subtly less present. Rafez ignored all that, which must have pleased them, and stopped in front of me to say, “Going somewhere?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But soon.”

  “You’re waiting for the New York plane.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And am I waiting for it too?”

  I grinned at him. “I think you are, yes.”

  “We could wait together.”

  I shook my head. “I’d rather not.”

  That surprised him. “But don’t you have something for me? Coming in on that plane?”

  “It isn’t for you yet,” I told him. “Not till I’ve got my visa and my ticket north.”

  “We are both wary, I see,” he said, as though the knowledge saddened him.

  I said, “I tell you what. When the day comes for us to leave, you can give us a lift back here to the airport, and we’ll give you a going-away present.”

  He smiled. “How generous we both are.”

  Together we heard the sound of the plane and looked up to see it, high and small, gleaming white in the sun, just disappearing past the terminal. It would now make a long loop out over the savanna as it descended, and land coming back.

  “I might like to see your wife again,” Rafez said.

  “I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to see you,” I told him. “Not now.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me but then decided not to take offense. “Tell me,” he said, “has she ever struck you?”

  I grinned at him. “Bony little fist, isn’t it?”

  He smiled back, pitying me. “I wish you joy with her,” he said, and turned away.

  The cabbies thawed as Rafez walked off. They glanced sideways at me to see if my very presence meant some sort of trouble in the general world of cabdom. I grinned at them and shrugged, and Rafez and his partner drove off, and the sun began to shine again, and the taxiing airplane got louder and louder and then abruptly switched off.

  It was another five minutes before the passengers began at last to straggle out, angular with luggage, and among them here she came, out of the U.S.-built terminal, all in white, my Lola, smiling like a sunrise.

  All the cabbies wanted that fare, but she was mine. She came to me, carrying her suitcase, and I took it from her, put it on the ground, and folded her in my arms. The other cabbies stood there with their mouths open, forgetting to yell “Taxi!”

  All good things must end, even that kiss. Her eyes were full of sparks. “If you don’t take me away from here,” she said, “we’ll really surprise those fellas.”

  I laughed, and we got out of there. And we lived happily ever after, the most devoted of brothers and sisters, Hansel and Gretel out of the woods; or at least until the six hundred thousand dollars ran out. But that’s another story.

  About Donald E Westlake

  Donald E. Westlake is a three-time Edgar winner and the recipient of the Grandmaster award. He is the author of more than 40 novels, including The Hook. He lives in New York City.