Money for Nothing

by Donald E. Westlake

  Now the smile was broader. “To rip it up, Josh? I don't think so.”

  “I don't want to rip it up,” Josh told him. “I just want to see it.”

  “If there is such a note, Josh,” Levrin said, “it might contain items you wouldn't want to see.”

  “I already know who we're waiting for.”

  “Ah.” Levrin nodded. He did not, Josh noted, look the least embarrassed. “Still, it would be better not, I think.”

  “If you don't want me to touch it,” Josh said, “put it against the windshield. Let me read it through the glass.”

  Surprised, Levrin considered that. “You really feel the need to see this document?”

  “I'd like to.”

  Levrin pondered, then shrugged. “If you wish.” And he turned and spoke to Hugo.

  Here came the gloves again, and out of Hugo's hip pocket a folded sheet of paper. Levrin stepped out of the way, and Hugo came forward, unfolding the paper, to press it against the windshield in front of Josh.

  Sewell-McConnell letterhead. They even had that detail. And a handwritten note that actually did look something like his own writing; possibly his own writing under stress.

  We were wrong. We thought we could help the world if we rid it of its monsters. We just became monsters ourselves. I can't stand this pain. I'm going to a better place, with my family. I beg forgiveness.

  “I certainly sound self-pitying,” Josh said.

  “Finished?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugo took the paper away, folded it, put it back in his hip pocket, removed the gloves.

  Josh said, “Could I get out of the car for a little while?”

  “Oh, I think not, Josh,” Levrin said.

  “Just to stretch my legs.”

  “No, that's a comfortable car. No need.” Gazing over the car roof toward the entrance, he said, “And the wait is over, in any case.”

  Josh looked, and across the pale concrete parking area under the bright midday sun, here came Mrs. Rheingold's big Marathon. When Josh next breathed, there was a little mewl sound in his throat that he couldn't suppress. He stopped breathing instead, and trembled, clutching the wheel with both clenched fists.

  The Marathon approached, larger than most of the cars around it, then nearer, away from the other cars, and he could see two men in the front seat, strangers to him, men like Hugo. In the back were three people, in a row on the seat; Jeremy and Eve, huddled as far to the right as they could get, and on the left Mr. Nimrin.

  “Nimrin,” Josh said. His voice was dull, without resonance.

  “Yes, of course,” Levrin said. “This will be a reunion, will it not?” The idea seemed to please him.

  The Marathon swung around to stop next to the Land Cruiser, facing the same way, its left side nearest. After an instant, the rear door on this side opened, and Mr. Nimrin hurtled out, to grab the Land Cruiser's rightside door, yank it open, thrust his upper body inside, show his red-faced furious glare to Josh, and shout, “Where are the uniforms?”

  43

  OUTSIDE THE BOX”, JOSH SAID.

  Mr. Nimrin stared. Some of the flush left his cheeks. He said, “What was that?”

  Something had snapped inside Josh, maybe when he saw Eve and Jeremy, maybe when he saw Mr. Nimrin's rage, some wire of tension had cracked apart, that had both held him together and held him down. Terror and despair still enclosed him like a shroud, but within that fog of hopelessness there suddenly hummed a brand new kind of energy. It had nothing to do with hope or anger or even hate. It was a kind of freedom, the freedom that floods in when everything has already been lost, when there's nothing left to struggle for, nothing left to protect.

  He wouldn't play Mitch Robbie's scenario, the schoolboy deception of outraged innocence, the imp tweaking the grown-ups. Nor would he play Josh Redmont's scenario, the paralysis of fear. He had a new role now.

  “Get in the car, Mr. Nimrin,” he said, “Let's talk.”

  Mr. Nimrin said something, angry, peremptory, some sort of demand, but Josh paid no attention, turning the other way instead to say to Levrin, “You people move away, I have to talk in private with Mr. Nimrin.”

  “Well, Josh,” Levrin said, trying to retain control of the situation, “I must say, I don't see a reason for that.”

  “If you'll look at Mr. Nimrin's face,” Josh told him, “I think you'll see the reason.”

  Frowning, Levrin stooped so that his face was disgustingly close to Josh's, so he could peer past him toward Mr. Nimrin. Now Josh had them on both sides of him, Mr. Nimrin leaning in the open door on his right, Levrin staring through the open window on his left. Not bothering to look toward Mr. Nimrin, already knowing enough of what that face would show, Josh said to Levrin, “See what I mean?”

  Levrin straightened. He was doing his best to hide discomfort and confusion. “You have one minute,” he said, to reestablish control.

  “It may take longer,” Josh told him. He no longer would give any of them anything. Lifting his left hand from the steering wheel, not even caring that it didn't shake, he made a little shooing gesture in Levrin's direction.

  For just one second, the jackal inside Levrin appeared, with a lift of the lip and a cold heat from the eyes, but then the louse turned away, abruptly, as though he'd done so before seeing that gesture, without in fact seeing it. He spoke gruffly to the other two, and all three went forward to stand just in front of the car, to throw sullen looks toward the windshield.

  Josh said, “Get in, Mr. Nimrin. Shut the door.”

  Mr. Nimrin hesitated. He looked through the windshield toward Levrin, then gave Josh a questioning look. “What has gone on here?”

  Josh showed his right palm. “I have fired a pistol.”

  Mr. Nimrin considered that, then nodded and slid into the Land Cruiser, shutting the door. “You do not have the air conditioner on.”

  “They don't let me have the key.”

  “No, of course.”

  Even-toned, moderate, Josh said, “How long have you known?”

  “You told me the target,” Mr. Nimrin pointed out. “When was that? Tuesday.”

  “How long have you known what they meant to do to my family and me?”

  Mr. Nimrin pretended innocence, not very well. “What do you mean?”

  “Levrin showed me the suicide note.”

  Astonished, Mr. Nimrin said, “What did he do that for?”

  “I asked him.”

  “Did I tell you he was an idiot?” Mr. Nimrin shook his head, throwing a sour glance toward Levrin. “Brutal, and an idiot.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Mr. Nimrin looked back at him. “An hour. No, less than that.”

  “Hard to believe,” Josh said.

  Mr. Nimrin frowned. “Do you believe, rather than that, do you believe, in all our conversations, I knew what was being planned?”

  “Yes,” Josh said.

  “I told you, from the beginning,” Mr. Nimrin reminded him, “that I was kept out of the loop, that they no longer trusted me and were holding my passport. When they activated you, I was outraged and baffled, you know I was. I couldn't think why they would bring you untrained amateurs into any operation at all.” The shrug and dip of the head he made might have been a kind of apology. “Well, now we know.”

  “You told me at the beginning,” Josh said. “Remember? ‘Lambs to the slaughter.’”

  Mr. Nimrin had the grace to wince. “Yes, of course. Unfortunately, we did not think it through as to who the butcher might be.”

  “Yet,” Josh said, “all of a sudden here you are. There's a little glitch in the program, and all of a sudden Mr. Out-of-theloop is the man in charge.”

  “They came to me,” Mr. Nimrin said, and shrugged. “You know where.”

  “Mrs. Rheingold's place.”

  “They said there was a problem with my moles. I had to solve the problem or face the consequences. Matériel that had been entrusted to you—”

  “Th
e uniforms.”

  “—vital to the success of the operation, had been stolen.” Mr. Nimrin was working himself up toward rage again. “I have very little time, Josh,” he said. “If I have to, I'll turn you over to Andrei to ask the questions. I must know, and I must know now, where are those uniforms?”

  “You rode here with Eve and Jeremy,” Josh said, “after you were told what was happening.”

  “Where are the uniforms?”

  “Once you got into that car with them,” Josh said, “you answered the question, is there any difference between you and Levrin. Other than that he's a bit more honest.”

  “Where are the uniforms?”

  “No,” Josh said. “Not even if I knew.”

  “You'll see if there's no difference between us, Andrei and I,” Mr. Nimrin said, “when I turn you over to him to force out the answers.”

  “Make something of a mess of me, I suppose,” Josh said.

  Exasperated, Mr. Nimrin said, “Do you think this a joke?”

  Josh said, “What I mean is, if he makes a mess of me, what happens to the suicide tableau?”

  “You'll be just as dead,” Mr. Nimrin snarled at him, “no matter what the police think.”

  “And so will you.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The uniforms may be gone,” Josh said, “but the assault rifles are still there. Do you suppose you can slip them out unseen before the police start searching my apartment? After they've found us dead, I mean. And no longer a suicide.”

  Mr. Nimrin studied the dashboard, trying to formulate his thoughts. At last he said, “If I can locate and return the uniforms, even if slightly late for the original plan, even if only for the alternative plan during the return trip from the stadium, if I can produce those goddamned uniforms, all other questions about me will be forgotten.” He glowered at Josh. “Do you think I will pause in turning you over to Andrei, to save my own neck? And be damned to the suicide note!”

  Josh said, “I can see that. So it's a good thing I don't know where they are.”

  Mr. Nimrin reared back. “Of course you do.”

  “Actually, no. The nice thing is,” Josh told him, “no matter how clever Levrin is at torture in a public parking lot in the sunshine, your deadline will be long gone before he can know for certain that I'm telling the truth.”

  Mr. Nimrin thought about that. “You believe you are willing to go that route.”

  “I believe that's my only route.” Josh offered Mr. Nimrin a sympathetic smile. “Also,” he said, “I don't suppose I'll be able to keep your little secret to myself, not with Levrin being so insistent and all. How you got me into this in the first place. Me, and Mitch Robbie, and Robert Van Bark.”

  Mr. Nimrin waggled a finger at him. “There's a new arrogance in you, Josh,” he said. “It's an unpleasant quality.”

  “Tough.”

  “Do not think,” Mr. Nimrin told him, “you are in the driver's seat.”

  Josh looked at the steering wheel in front of himself. “Well, as a matter of fact, I am.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “And soon,” Josh told him, “you'll begin to know what I mean.” Glancing out at Levrin and the others, getting restive out there, moving from foot to foot, he said, “Mr. Nimrin, it's time for you to start earning that eighty thousand dollars.”

  44

  MR. NIMRIN BROODED OUT THE window, where Levrin now stood flatfooted, glowering at the windshield. “He can't see us,” he said. “You notice? Because of the sun.”

  “He should have had me park to face the other way.”

  Mr. Nimrin sighed. “So many details. I think I should go out there, talk to him, put him in the picture.”

  “In parts of the picture.”

  Mr. Nimrin raised an eyebrow at him. “I preferred your earlier manifestation,” he said, and got out of the Land Cruiser.

  As Mr. Nimrin walked toward Levrin, who waited for him, pretending insouciance by putting his hands in his pockets, Josh looked over at the Marathon. Eve and Jeremy took up a little more space in there, now that they were alone in the backseat. The windows were shut, so the engine and air conditioner must have been on. The two in front carried on an idle conversation.

  Josh caught Eve's eye and tried a small smile and nod, hoping he looked encouraging. No response. Either she was too afraid to know what a right or wrong response might be, or she blamed him for where they were. Which she should.

  Mr. Nimrin and Levrin walked out over the sunlit concrete, away from the car and Hugo and the other thug. One spoke, then the other. Levrin's hands remained in his pockets, Nimrin's moved in front of himself, sculpting the story. Levrin's head was slightly bowed in the posture of one prepared to take whatever explanation, alibi, confession might be offered, while Mr. Nimrin's head leaned sideways toward the other man in a posture of confidence-sharing.

  What was going to happen now? Suddenly, there were no more certainties. Everybody's scenario had been scrapped.

  It was only now, with a chance to think while watching Mr. Nimrin and Levrin stroll together like plotters in a spy novel, that Josh realized the true brilliance of Robbie's idea. The actor cannot perform without his costume. The costume is part of the role, because there can be no suspension of disbelief without it. You can have plans, you can have guns, you can have a script and an audience and a socko finish, but if you don't have your costume you can't go on.

  So what would happen instead? Levrin would opt for torture, Josh was sure of that, and he supposed, Levrin being Levrin, he would immediately think he'd get farther if he tortured Eve, or possibly Jeremy, in front of Josh. “Shall I do this again?” That was just another horror he could do nothing about, another repayment on the eighty-four thousand dollars.

  What could he give Levrin? Mr. Nimrin, of course, and immediately. It would offer them all, at the very least, a little distraction, a little delay while they sorted Mr. Nimrin out. But then what?

  He could tell them that Robbie had taken the uniforms, but that he had no idea where. All true. Possibly to that theater, but probably not. Robbie would know there was always the possibility he would be mistrusted and his home and theater searched. Probably Tom or Dick or Harry, whose names and addresses Josh did not know, had the uniforms now, to await a production of The Prisoner of Zenda.

  Where was Robbie at this moment? Where was Tina? If she did go back with him to the theater last night—another reason for the uniforms not to be there—what happened next? Did she sleep with him, and then this morning kiss him a more serious goodbye than he could imagine? Or would his slightly mad sense of self-preservation come into play?

  Levrin and Mr. Nimrin continued their stroll in the sun. Whenever they were turned so that Josh could see their faces, Levrin looked discontented, irritated, frustrated, while Mr. Nimrin looked like a con-artist selling underwater building lots, smooth and calm and endlessly patient.

  A big sticking point for them would be the guns in Josh's apartment, or not so much the guns themselves as those large packing cases. With the original plan, the assassination team would have boldly walked out of the building wearing the uniforms and carrying the AK-47s, looking like people in costume, off to some sort of pageant or show, not dangerous or remarkable at all, not on a sunny Saturday in New York in July. With the original plan, after the Redmont family had been found dead, the police would have come across the empty gun boxes in their apartment, and that would have been merely one more proof of Josh Redmont's guilt.

  But now? No matter what they did to Josh, the rifles in their cartons under his bed were going to be an awkwardness, an anomaly. Would the guns be traceable back to their organization, or their organization's employer? A dead family, for no discernible reason. Assault rifles in their home. No possible explanations, at least not on the surface.

  Levrin will want to torture and murder me, Josh thought, for revenge and out of spite, even if there's nothing to be gained by it. It is Mr. Nimrin's job to see and to expl
ain that the plot has sickened, that they were not going to be able to perform their wickedness at Yankee Stadium after all, and that their only choice was to retire from the stage, await another opportunity, and not leave any mysteries for the American authorities to poke at. It is Mr. Nimrin's job to convince Levrin that it is in Levrin's self-interest to leave the Redmonts alone, not exact revenge, and go away. It is Mr. Nimrin's job to convince Levrin that a live Josh Redmont is no threat to him or his future plans.

  No wonder it was taking such a long while.

  45

  AT LAST, THEY SEPARATED. Both faces, seen from the car, were inscrutable, grim, not showing satisfaction or pleasure. And they weren't staying together; while Levrin headed back to the Land Cruiser, Mr. Nimrin strode directly to the Marathon. He passed close to Josh, but did not look in at him. There was perhaps an extra forcefulness in the way he opened the Marathon's rear door on this side—Eve and Jeremy slid away, into the same corner as before—but that forcefulness might mean no more than the tension everyone felt at the moment.

  Meantime, Levrin had paused to discuss things with his two thugs. Josh watched, trying and failing to read the body language out there, then was startled when the Marathon abruptly drove away. He looked, to see it angle rapidly toward the exit.

  They were taking Eve and Jeremy away? Where? Why?

  When he turned back, the other three were approaching, all of them poker-faced. They came up next to the car and Levrin said, “Get out of there now, Josh.”

  What was going on? If there was a threat in this, what was it? The Marathon was already almost to the exit as Josh stepped out onto the concrete. He would have closed the door, but Levrin held it open and said, “You will not mind if Hugo drives.”

  Automatically, Josh said, “Where?”

  He never saw the punch, he only felt the pain, just above his belt buckle, shimmering out through his body in hard wavelets. His breath burst from his nose and mouth, black pinwheels crowded his vision, and the strength left his body. He dropped forward, arms folding over his stomach as Levrin held his shoulders to ease his fall. He landed on his knees, Levrin released him, and he kept going, toppling forward and then, when Levrin gave his right shoulder a little prod, toppling leftward, to land on the concrete on his side, head not quite hitting the pavement, body bent over like a shrimp.