Money for Nothing

by Donald E. Westlake

  Several legs stood in front of him, unmoving. At first, he couldn't breathe, and then he could, and that was worse, as though he inhaled nail files instead of air. Still, he had to do it again, a little less painfully, and again, a little less.

  They waited for him, none of the legs moving, and finally he could straighten, could turn his head, look up at them, huge monstrous silhouettes against the sky. “What—?”

  It was Levrin's foot that came out to kick him, lightly, on the chest; not to hurt him but to attract his attention. He blinked upward, unable to make out their faces. Levrin's face. But he could make out Levrin's voice: “You will never ask me another question.”

  He nodded. There was nothing else he wanted to do.

  “Stand up now, Josh.”

  They didn't help. He clambered up the chainlink fence beside the car, wishing he could just keep climbing up and over the top and down the other side, to scamper away across that scrubby ground. But, no. He stood there, weaving slightly, holding the fence with one hand.

  Levrin looked as amiable and unruffled as ever. He said, “Do you know, Josh, the two results of what has just occurred?”

  Josh shook his head.

  Levrin smiled. “One, it relieved my feelings. Well, to some extent, it relieved my feelings. And two, just as important, it left no marks.”

  Interesting point. Believing Levrin wanted some feedback now, Josh said, “I see.”

  “Yes, of course you do. You will not mind if Hugo drives.”

  “No.”

  “Very good. Get into the backseat, Josh, you and I will travel there together. A new experience for you, I think, to ride in the backseat of your fine vehicle.”

  46

  WHEN, OUT OF JFK, Hugo drove first north on the Van Wyck Expressway, then turned east onto Northern State Parkway, Josh knew where they must be going, though he also knew better now than to ask. Mrs. Rheingold's estate above Port Washington; where else?

  They didn't know he already knew about that place, had seen it, at least from the outside. Was there any advantage in that? Was there any advantage anywhere?

  Not that he could see. There was no conversation in the car this time, an angry and frustrated Levrin glowering out his side window at the towns and trees of Long Island, the two thugs up front sitting as still and as thick as a pair of frogs on a rock. So, with a quiet period at last, he tried to look back over his recent conversation with Mr. Nimrin—funny how, even now, he couldn't think of the man without that polite honorific—and it seemed to him he had never actually admitted to being a part of the uniform-removal. He hadn't quite done Robbie's suggested portrayal of outraged innocence, but the confrontation had wound up in the same place.

  So that would have to continue to be his story, no matter what. He'd been dragged into this, all unknowing, seven years ago, through no fault of his own (well, maybe a little fault), and no awareness of what was going on, because of Mr. Nim-rin's payroll-padding scam. (Explain in detail.) Once he'd discovered, through Levrin's appearance and annunciation, the fix Mr. Nimrin had put him into, he'd done his best just to go along with the program, never dreaming they meant, as a grand finale, to doublecross him. Why, after two weeks of total obedience, would he suddenly do something so off-the-wall as to steal a bunch of uniforms? What were they to him?

  What alternative explanation did he have for the disappearance of the uniforms? None. Alternatives were for other people. That was a part of the change he had felt inside himself when Mr. Nimrin burst into his death scene. He would no longer go out of his way to please them, to be a good soldier, to go along and go along and hope for the best. There was no best, he knew that now, and no way out. He would not help them find their stupid uniforms, because he just didn't care.

  And, in fact, he didn't even care if they believed him.

  He knew the situation had changed now. He knew the ceremonies at Yankee Stadium were going forward even now without blood sports, that the whole scheme of these miserable evil people lay in shreds at their feet.

  But that had nothing to do with his own situation. That didn't mean he felt an inch more hopeful about himself. Or Eve. Or, goddam them, little Jeremy. What would a gangster in an old-time movie have told him he knew? Too much. You know it.

  Zipping along the Northern State, light traffic eastbound, heavier on the other side with people ending their weekends early, Josh tried to think what would happen next, what they might plan for the Redmont family now, and he thought he saw the way it would have to go.

  The same triple murder as on the original menu, but no longer in public, and no longer part of a public massacre. No, they would simply be shot somewhere and be buried there, on Mrs. Rheingold's estate, after Josh had dug their graves. And the rotten Mr. Nimrin, once Josh had ratted him out, might well be buried next to them.

  Then what? In a few days, when Josh and Eve's absence had been noted by enough people, the super would enter their apartment, find the AK-47s, and call the police.

  And so what? Weren't there bizarre stories like this in the newspapers two or three times a year? Sudden violence, baffling disappearances, photos in the papers of an ordinary apartment house or nice-looking suburban home, and a thick mixture of mystery and shock. Almost never was there a follow-up, an explanation for why that person—so ordinary, so middle-class, so without any kind of criminal record—suddenly came up missing, or was found shot in that car or hanged in that kitchen or sliced up in that bathtub. Such things were impossible, and could not happen. Then they happened. Then they were forgotten, and became impossible again.

  As for the villains, Levrin and Mr. Nimrin and Tina and Hugo and the assassination team and all the rest would be long gone, completely off this continent, planning some different outrage, brightening some other corner of the world.

  Any reason for them to delay? None that Josh could think of. Any way to get out of this, rescue Eve and Jeremy and himself? None that Josh could think of.

  47

  OFF THE NORTHERN STATE PARKWAY at Searington Road in Roslyn Heights, north to and through Port Washington, past Mailboxes-R-Us, past Revenge Estates and the world's biggest spite fence, to stop at that tall iron gate between tall brick gateposts topped by those gray stone balls. The nameless thug got out to walk heavily over to an intercom mounted on the left gatepost. He buzzed, waited, spoke, turned to come back to the car, and the big gates started to open, inward, the two halves receding like hands that beckoned into Hell. The nameless thug got back into the car and they drove through. Where Josh was seated, behind the driver, he could tilt his head a bit to the left and watch in the rearview mirror as those gates swung slowly shut, taking most of the daylight with them.

  The road, old pockmarked blacktop, curved through scruffy woods under a thick canopy of midsummer green leaves. Almost immediately the high wall disappeared and there was nothing but the road and the woods. Then the house emerged, as large and as decayed as when Josh had seen it first, from the side fence, somewhere over to the left.

  The house was stone, hadn't been cared for in years, was a mottled darkish gray, with black wood trim. Most of the windows were heavily draped in pale fabrics, so that they looked like rows of dead eyes, flanked by black wood shutters. The roof eaves were long, as though the roof were descending over the facade, to mask or blind it.

  A detached three-car garage with rooms upstairs stood to the right of the main house, and here the road split. Half of it angled leftward past the house's elaborate dark front door to make a loop and return, while the other half went rightward toward the garage. That was the route Hugo took, to stop in front of the last garage door to the right, farthest from the main house. Again the nameless thug got out, this time to pull open a pair of wide gray wooden old-fashioned garage doors. He stood to the side, and Hugo drove in.

  The interior was very dim, particularly after the nameless thug pulled the doors shut again. Immediately to the left, in the middle slot, a big boatlike Cadillac convertible, probably forty years o
ld, bright red, top down, was parked like spoils from some happier world. Beyond it was the Marathon, empty.

  “We get out now, Josh,” Levrin said.

  Josh overflowed with questions, all of which he kept inside. He had no desire to help Levrin feel relieved again. So, silent, asking nothing about Eve and Jeremy, nothing about what was going to happen next, he got out of the Land Cruiser, next to the Caddie.

  “Come around this way, Josh.”

  Josh walked around the back of the Land Cruiser, and Hugo had opened a door in the side wall, to which Levrin gestured, as genial and as dangerous as ever. “We will go upstairs,” he said.

  Through there, a closed windowed door was to the right, stairs to the left. They went up, Hugo first, then Josh, then the nameless thug, and Levrin last; so that Josh could neither race ahead of them up the stairs nor attack Levrin below. The stairs were narrow, enclosed in wooden walls of a medium brown, all lit by a window high in the right wall. When they reached that window, a door stood opposite it on the left, which Hugo opened, and they all trooped through.

  A living room, small, minimal, but in recent use. Coffee cups, newspapers, a gray cardigan sweater thrown over the back of the sagging sofa. Was this where the assassination team had been—what was Tina Pausto's term?—billeted?

  “Straight through,” Levrin said.

  It was a railroad flat, one room leading to the next, no hallways. Windows at left and right were near the floor, because the roof angled low. Beyond the living room was a small galley kitchen, also in recent use, with a bathroom off it to the right. Beyond that was a large bedroom, messy, with half a dozen cots, all recently occupied, and beyond that a much smaller room, with two narrow beds, a tall narrow armoire, an armless wooden chair, and a tall narrow window in the end wall, giving more light than the low windows at the sides.

  This was where they wanted him, for now. “We'll talk later, Josh,” Levrin told him from the doorway.

  Josh said, “I don't mean to ask a question, but I need to know where I can go to the bathroom.”

  “Why, out the window, Josh,” Levrin told him, gesturing at the window in the end wall. “Though you would not want to fall out. See you later.” And he backed away to close the door.

  Josh heard the key in the lock. He wouldn't want to fall out the window? Why not? Why not jump out the window, and run into the woods? Somewhere, somehow, he'd get over that goddam wall with all its broken glass on top, somehow he'd get to the police, make them believe him.

  He heard their footsteps recede, and immediately went to that window, an old double-hung with smallish panes, four each in top and bottom. It had a simple latch that held the two parts together, which he twisted free with some difficulty, then punched the top crosspiece of the bottom window half with the heels of his hands until at last the old paint and the rust of years gave way and the window scraped loudly open.

  Down below, Levrin and Hugo were just walking off, away from the garage, toward the main house. Hearing the window squawk, Levrin turned, looked up, smiled, offered an easy wave, and moved on toward the house. Hugo didn't bother to look up.

  So they'd left the nameless thug here, to watch him. He moved away from the window, back to the door, where he put his ear to the old-fashioned keyhole and faintly heard the television set.

  A railroad apartment, doors certainly open all the way through. No escape in that direction; but why not go out the window?

  He hurried to the window, leaned out, looked down, and saw why not. There was a basement to this structure as well. Instead of ground, one story down, there was a flight of concrete steps descending to a basement door, with a metal pipe rail on the outer side. The window was directly above the basement entrance, the lowest point of that stairwell.

  Not one flight down to ground, two flights down to concrete. And a window too narrow to give him a way to launch himself outward, over the concrete to the softer ground beyond.

  He looked toward the house, but Levrin and Hugo had reached it, and disappeared. Were Eve and Jeremy over there? Where else could they be? What was planned for them all, now that the original scheme had fallen through?

  Were Eve and Jeremy already dead?

  Money for nothing.

  48

  THERE WAS NOTHING TO DO but watch the house, and wait. The two structures were angled so that he could just see that broad dark front door with the driveway curving before it. The side of the house facing him was four windows broad, all of them blank, shielded by faded curtains, with dispirited ivy, much of it dead, crawling on the stone.

  It had been after one o'clock when they'd arrived here, and by three he was beginning to remember he'd had no lunch. He wasn't hungry, exactly, he was too tense and worried for that, but the growling in his stomach increased his nervousness, gave him more of a sense that his body was not completely under his control.

  As he fretted, nerves more and more jangled, for two hours nothing happened over there, and then all at once something did. A vehicle he hadn't seen before, a black Lincoln towncar of the sort used in New York City by private car services, came crunching around the drive to stop at the front door. Josh had just noticed the distinctive design of the diplomat license plate on the rear of it when both rightside doors opened and three people climbed out. Two of them, from front and backseats, were more thugs, like Hugo, but the third, also from the backseat, being more tugged than helped by the thug who'd ridden in back with her, was Tina Pausto. She wore loose tan slacks, a lightweight cream sweater, and brown flat pumps; not at all her normal style. Traveling clothes?

  First he saw that she was angry, and then, astonishingly, that she was handcuffed! The thug from the backseat grabbed her arm, to propel her toward the house, and as Josh leaned at the open window he could hear her enraged voice, very loud: “Take me to Andrei! He'll know—” And that was all, as the front door was pushed open and she was pulled through into the darkness within.

  Meanwhile, the other thug went around to the trunk, opened it, and took out two bags. One was a standard black wheeled flight bag with a handle that raised up, the other the small overnight bag he remembered from Jeremy's room, that had so upset Eve. The thug carried both into the house, leaving the door open. Faint exhaust from the tailpipe showed that the driver, still inside the car, had kept the engine on.

  She'd been leaving. Her job finished here, she'd packed and started to leave, and they had intercepted her. At the apartment? At the airport? They'd intercepted her and brought her here. Intercepted her, handcuffed her, wrists behind her back, and brought her here. Why?

  He thought again of that angry fragment he'd heard from her: “Take me to Andrei! He'll know—” Angry, but was it also frightened?

  What had she done to make them turn on her? From what Mr. Nimrin had said, that time they'd sat on the bench pretending not to talk to each other, Tina Pausto was a longtime valued part of their group. What had gone wrong? Had she told Mitch Robbie the truth, so he wouldn't be killed? Had her heart swayed her head, and now she would suffer the consequences? Somehow, Josh doubted that could be true. But what else could have happened?

  The two thugs came back out of the house, without Tina and without the luggage. They got back into the Lincoln, and it purred away around the driveway and out of sight.

  Everything's getting unstrung, he thought, not just my nerves but everything. Out at Kennedy, at that parking lot, he'd decided he could no longer be passive, no longer just do what everybody else wanted, but here he was again. Stopped, static, waiting for them to act.

  No more, he told himself, and at last turned away from the window. He looked at the door. It was time to get out of there.

  49

  THE ARMOIRE WAS ESSENTIALLY a free-standing closet, with two mirrored doors that opened to show a tall empty space within, a wooden rod for hangers across the top. Below the doors were two drawers, side by side, with ornate brass handles, in the same style as the knobs on the doors.

  The drawers were empty. Half
a dozen metal hangers hung on the rod, nothing more. On top of the armoire was a thin folded blanket. There was nothing under the bed, no other furniture except the chair he'd been seated in. The only electric light was a ceiling fixture, with a flat etched pink glass shade under it like a flying saucer.

  What else did he have? They were so little concerned about him they hadn't even searched him, so what did he have? Wallet, keys, a little change, his watch. His clothes. Nothing else.

  When he stooped to look through the keyhole, his view was blocked by the key, an old-fashioned skeleton key from the era when this garage was built, nothing ever renovated, updated. He could hear the television faintly, but couldn't see past that key.

  He needed to see. Straightening, he examined his own ring of keys and chose the one for the mailbox, the thinnest of them, but also the shortest. Stooping again to the door, he slid his key in next to the other one and pushed it a little to the left, jiggling it, and the key in the lock turned. Just a fraction, but enough to clear the view.

  Could he turn it the rest of the way, unlock the door? What if he broke off a piece of metal clotheshanger, bent it, used it to push the key up and around its orbit?

  No. He might get it almost halfway up one side or the other, but then his lever would run into the body of the key and stop. He could only get at it from below, and that wouldn't be good enough.

  But at least now he could see. He went to one knee this time to peer through the keyhole, and now he realized that, even more than a railroad apartment, this was what was called a shotgun apartment because the doors were lined up in a row and, with them all open, a person could fire a shotgun from the front and the charge would go through all the doorways and out the window in back. Which also meant he could see through the open doorways into the living room and look at the thug there, sprawled in an armchair he'd moved to the middle of the room, so he could keep an eye on this door. His right profile was to Josh as he sluggishly watched what sounded like some sort of sporting event. Saturday afternoon sports. Golf? No, it sounded a little louder than that. Tennis, maybe.