Money for Nothing

by Donald E. Westlake

  Josh straightened. If he were very silent and managed to get this door open, he might ease through and out of the line of sight without attracting that guy's attention. But the first question was, how to silently get this door open.

  It opened outward, meaning the hinges were on the other side, so he couldn't get at them. The lock was old-fashioned, but it was still a lock, a metal bolt extended into a metal-enclosed hole in the doorjamb. How to get that out of the way, without making noise.

  The keyhole and doorknob shared a decorative brass plate, held by two small brass screws at top and bottom. Josh put his keys away, took out his change, and found a dime. With that, which just fit snugly into the groove in the screws, and after trying for a discouragingly long time, he finally got both screws to turn. Once they started, they came right out, and then he could swivel the plate, still held by the doorknob, to expose the lock mechanism.

  And there it was, a simple cylinder with the key in it, angled just slightly leftward from its bottom position. But still very tight in there, too tight for his fingers to reach in.

  It was the mailbox key again that did it, pressing the skeleton key around to the left and up. At the apex, it met resistance from the bolt and he had to press steadily, teeth gritted, both hands on his key, afraid it might snap. But it didn't, and the skeleton key suddenly moved freely again, and he knew the door was unlocked.

  This was the moment. He stooped again to look through the keyhole, now smelling the old dusty metal scent of the lock, and the guard was exactly as before. Commercials played on the television, but he didn't look away from the set.

  Still peering through the keyhole, Josh slowly turned the knob. No sound. When it was turned all the way, he pushed slightly, and the door moved open an inch. Moving his head with it, keeping the guard in view, he pushed it a little farther, and just when the angle moved the guard out of his line of sight he had the door far enough open so he could release the knob. Then he stood, put both palms on the door, and took two deep breaths before pushing it open farther, just enough to slide through, not looking toward the guard now, not wanting to know, just sliding through, pushing the door gently closed behind him as he moved away to the left, not stopping until he was out of the guard's sight, standing next to one of the unmade beds in the larger room.

  He looked back, and the door was almost completely closed, the faint angle of it probably not visible from the other end of the apartment. He hoped not, anyway. And in any case, the guard seemed very involved with his spectator sport.

  Rather than risk showing himself too often, he climbed over three of the beds, then pressed himself to the far wall as he peeked cautiously around the doorframe there. No change. As he watched, the guard yawned and rubbed his face with both palms, then shifted his behind in the chair and blinked. Then went on watching.

  This doorway was much closer, much more dangerous. Josh waited, and waited, and waited, and finally realized he was afraid to do it, so afraid that he might just stand here forever, or until they'd come for him. So don't think about it, he told himself, just do it. Now.

  Into the kitchen, to the left, pressed against the refrigerator, then sidling to the right, hidden again. No reaction from the living room. He paused, facing the sink, both palms pressed down onto the front edge of the sink, looking into the sink. He could hear the television sound much louder now. Yes, tennis.

  And now what? The stove was to his right. Above it was suspended from the ceiling an iron ornamental rectangle with hooks, bearing three pans and a spatula. One of them was a frying pan, six inches wide, cast iron, excellent for frying a couple of eggs. And for other things as well.

  Josh carefully took down the frying pan, hefted its good weight in his hand, and it reminded him of the weight of the pistol Levrin had tricked him into firing out at JFK. Well, he'd learned something there, hadn't he? He wasn't violent by nature, had never thought of himself as someone who could do violent things, but he'd learned out there at Kennedy, hadn't he, at Levrin's hands? Learned, if he had to, he could shoot a gun he believed was loaded, shoot that gun and hope and believe it would kill someone. He'd learned that, hadn't he? So this was a piece of cake.

  The handle of the frying pan grasped in both tense hands, he came lunging around the doorframe into the living room, not even hearing himself bellow, not even knowing the unearthly sounds he made. Two-handed, he swung the frying pan directly into that gaping, astonished, upleaping face, felt the impact, kept going, whirling like a dervish, all the way around, a complete circle, then tottering back, off balance, dizzy, thudding his shoulderblades against the wall behind him, the frying pan bouncing on the carpet as he looked down at the overturned chair, the man splayed out on his back, that ruined face gushing blood like a fountain.

  That'll learn ya.

  50

  THIS GUY WOULD HAVE A GUN, of course he would. He'd feel naked without it. And now, Josh wanted it.

  The man's face still bled, though less than before, oozing instead of spouting. Josh remembered something from his reading, that dead bodies didn't bleed, because there was nothing to pump the blood, so this one was probably still alive.

  It was with a kind of dull surprise that Josh realized he didn't much care one way or the other. Dead or alive, it made no difference, just so the guy wouldn't go on being a problem.

  And where would he keep his gun? Pants pocket, most likely. Josh patted, not liking to touch this body, but felt the metal outline, reached into the rightside pocket, and pulled out a pistol that looked too fancy to belong to somebody like that. It was small, an automatic rather than a revolver, pale brushed metal with paler marbleized sidepieces added to the butt. The barrel was encased in a rectangular metal sheath, with the word BERETTA stamped into it on the left side, near the front. A piece shaped like a metal lima bean that angled down beside the trigger would be the safety; push it up, and you're ready to shoot.

  There was nothing else here he needed. His legs seemed to be trembling, but not badly enough to keep him from hurrying down the stairs and through the door at the bottom, which led him out to the end of the blacktop drive. The length of the garage was to his right, the main building beyond it.

  Rather than go down that way, which seemed to Josh too exposed to the dead eyes of the house, he turned left, went around the corner, and hurried down the side of the garage to the rear, the gun in his right hand held at his stomach. Looking around this next corner, he saw the house again, beyond the garage, but back here the brush and spindly trees had not been cleared away. With luck, he could get to the house without being seen.

  Before moving, he looked down at the Beretta. For a righthander like himself, that safety lima bean was perfectly placed, just above his thumb as he gripped the marbleized handle. Flick upward with the thumb, then pull the trigger. Simplicity itself.

  Once he started along the rear of the garage, the trembling in his body grew worse, because he felt frighteningly exposed, but he bit his lower lip and stared hard at the house, and just kept moving. And, as he walked, staying close to the rear of the garage, eyes burning with the intensity of his stare at the house, a bit of doggerel circled through his head, written by some nineteenth-century British poet: “Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive/Officiously to keep alive.”

  So he must still be ambivalent about the guy he'd hit with the frying pan. But that was all right; he could be ambivalent all he wanted, just so he hit him.

  He made it to the house without seeing any movement or causing any alarums. There were narrow basement windows at ankle-height, and the ground floor windowsills were on a level with his chest. The curtains inside there were old and frayed, gray with dirt, but lacy. He got an impression of what might have been some sort of living room, but there were no lights on in there and the interior was too dim to be certain.

  He moved along the side of the house to the rear corner, looked around it, and saw no one and nothing. Just the blunt grim stone facade, holding its secrets. He set out along the
rear, passed a window, a window, a window, and came to a door, up two shallow steps to a landing, flanked by wrought iron railing, to remind him all at once of the entrance to Harriet Linde's office. But he was a long way from that office and its implications now.

  He went up the steps, peered through the windows in the door at a dim interior, not a kitchen, possibly a large pantry, but when he tried the knob the door was locked.

  He needed to get in there, but how? To break a window in this door would make a sound that would be heard two or three rooms away. He had to get inside, but he had to be quiet about it.

  Finally, he left that door and retraced his steps to the last window from the corner on the rear wall. Peering in, he saw some sort of library or study, unoccupied. Below that window was a narrow basement window, and when he knelt to peer in, he saw that a simple latch closed it, and that it was hinged at the top to swing in and up. Inside, the basement was very dim. No lights, no people.

  The only way for him to keep going, he'd come to realize, was to act without thinking. Kneel by the basement window, see a dark empty interior, break the glass with the butt of the Beretta. A tinkling down below was quickly dissipated in the large empty space.

  The latch opened easily. Pocketing the Beretta, Josh pushed the window in and up, and saw there was a metal ring on the inside of it, in the middle of the bottom strip of wood. Holding the window open with one hand, he reached the other hand up through the broken part of the glass, being very careful not to slit his wrist on the jagged pieces remaining, and found the hook suspended from a beam in there. It wasn't hard to push the window up far enough to slip the hook over the ring and hold the window open.

  Rolling onto his stomach, Josh stuck his legs behind him through the open window and snake-crawled backward until he could drop into the basement. He paused to shut and latch the window, so it would look normal from outside, then turned to study where he was.

  This was not the entire basement, but a very large room in it, extended from back to front at this end of the house, with a plaster interior wall to the right, creating a space forty feet wide and thirty feet deep. Much of the area was empty, but in the front corner were many wooden crates and cardboard boxes piled high.

  Josh went over, to see if the boxes might contain anything of use, and they were all guns and hand grenades and ammunition and even small hand-launched rockets. Ordnance, this was called. Ordnance, two or three truck loads of it, all delivered through that basement window. What a lot of plans Levrin and his friends must have.

  Josh turned away, wanting none of this stuff. The Beretta was more weapon than he'd ever had before, except for his rifle in the army, that he'd mostly ignored, occasionally cleaned, sometimes had to march with, and only twice (on the range) fired.

  A closed door in the plaster wall led to another room, almost as large, this one containing a lot of stored stuff that probably should have been thrown away; old trunks, old armchairs and lamps, old television sets. In the middle of this room, an open wooden staircase led up. At the top, a closed wooden door was not locked. Josh listened, his ear at the door, then turned the knob and pushed it slowly open.

  A hall. Extending left and right, it had a dark runner carpet, dark photos and prints on the walls, sconces with pink glass shades shaped like tulips. At the left end, it stopped at closed dark wood double doors. At the right end, a corner of kitchen could be seen. There were a few other doorways on both sides.

  Josh moved leftward, wanting to know what was behind the closed double doors, but then he became aware of a voice, somewhere ahead of him.

  Levrin? Low, conversational, coming from a room ahead on the right. Levrin and then, suddenly interrupting, Tina, much louder, angrier. Talking that other language of theirs. Tina's harangue abruptly ended, with the sound of a slap, and Levrin began again, just as calm and conversational as before.

  Josh tiptoed forward, Beretta again in his hand. The first door on the right was closed, the voices coming from farther on. The second door was open. As Levrin talked, his voice seemed to move around the room. Clutching the Beretta to his chest, Josh inched forward until he could see around the doorframe and into the room.

  Just the two of them in there. Her left profile to Josh and the door, Tina Pausto was seated on a wooden chair without arms, her own handcuffed arms behind the chair's back, so she was trapped there. Her traveling clothes had been removed from her, so that she was now barefoot, in bra and panties. Her expression was very angry, but even in that first second, Josh could see that the anger was a failed attempt to hide terror.

  This was a small sitting room, with a few divans and overstuffed chairs and end tables. Levrin roamed among them, not bothering to look at Tina as he talked. His back was to Josh at this moment as he moved, waving languidly a box of wooden matches in his left hand. Josh could see on Tina's arm and leg where he'd been burning her.

  Fortunately, this time he did think before he acted, because his initial impulse was to step into the doorway and shoot Levrin in the back. But that was the wrong thing to do. The house was full of dangerous enemies, who would be alerted by a pistol shot. In any event, he was not here to rescue Tina Pausto, he was here to find Eve and Jeremy.

  In his strolling, Levrin turned, bringing himself closer to Tina and angling so he would in an instant see the doorway. His right hand was reaching for the box of matches in his left.

  Josh ducked back out of the doorway. As he heard the scratch of match on striker, he turned to go the other way, past the basement door again. He needed to find Eve and Jeremy, and very soon.

  If they were alive, where would they be?

  51

  BEFORE THIS HALL REACHED the kitchen, a second hall led to the left, broad at first, then narrower, and beyond the narrow section was visible the front door. The narrow section was a staircase, facing the front of the house. Josh was halfway up the stairs before he thought to wonder why he believed Eve and Jeremy would be on the second or even the third floor; he simply did. They wouldn't stash people downstairs, they'd stash them upstairs, he just knew that.

  At the top of the stairs a hall went left and right, but straight ahead was a broad arched doorway to another sitting room, this one with a line of windows across the far wall and a distant view over the scrub to Long Island Sound. Closed doors were along both lengths of hall, and he'd decided to start with those on the left when a cracked old voice said, “Oh, Charles, I'm glad you're here.”

  He jumped, frightened out of his wits, and saw the withered old lady come out of the sitting room, smiling, gripping her ivory-handled black cane, holding a lorgnette to eyes like oysters. She was shriveled to shorter than five feet, surely less than a hundred pounds, in a long-sleeve black dress too large for her. Maroon slippers on her feet seemed as old as she was.

  The Beretta! Quickly half-turning away from her, he pocketed the gun as he said, “Oh, hello. Mrs. Rheingold, yes, hello.”

  “Oh, don't be formal with me, Charles,” she said, with a ghastly little playful smile. “We've been first names with one another for ever so long.” That gesture must be what she remembered of how to curtsey, or as much of it as she could still do. “Charles, Miriam,” she said, lilting, with what was probably not supposed to be a smirk, “Miriam, Charles.”

  “Miriam, of course,” Josh said. “Lovely to see you again.”

  “Come in, come in,” she said, waving the lorgnette at the sitting room behind her. “I do hate to stand, you know. Come in.”

  No choice. “Well,” he said, “just for a minute.”

  The style of the sitting room was even older than Mrs. Rheingold. Fabric balls dangled from amber lampshades, faces were carved into the leading edges of chair arms, a Persian carpet was casually tossed over a side table, and dark footstools were scattered everywhere, like markers in a boardgame.

  Miriam Rheingold tottered toward a peacock-tail-backed throne near the windows, while jabbing with her cane toward a lesser armchair nearby and saying, “Sit there, sit
there, dear Charles.” She dropped like a bag of kindling into the throne, with a great whooshing sigh, then leaned forward to poke at something on the carpeted floor with her cane, saying, “Do sit down. Ah, there it is.” And she leaned back, smiling more or less in Josh's direction.

  Seating himself, looking nervously toward the hall, Josh said, “Well, just for a minute.”

  “I do love this room in summer,” she said, and waved her lorgnette at the windows, or the view. “North, you know. It never gets too hot in here.”

  It was in fact very hot, though dry. Josh said, “Beautiful view.”

  “Fewer sails than in my day,” she said. “Terrible little motors, so unattractive.”

  “Yes. Well, I should—”

  “We'll just have tea. So refreshing.”

  “I really should—”

  “You rang, muddum?”

  The voice was familiar. That's what she'd been poking at on the floor with her cane! Wishing the Beretta were in his hand now, no matter what the old lady might think of it—worse than motorboats, probably, pistols would be—Josh half-turned, and approaching from the doorway was, of course, Mr. Nimrin, obsequiously round-shouldered. His eyes never looked away from Mrs. Rheingold, but Josh could feel them burning into his own eyes just the same.

  “Yes, Roderick,” the old lady said. “See who's come to visit. Young Charles. It's been ever so long.”

  “Yuss, muddum,” Mr. Nimrin said. The hands clasped before his crotch didn't tremble a bit.