Money for Nothing

by Donald E. Westlake

  Which was something else getting up the noses of Agents Zimmer and Schwamm. “Just what is the relationship between Pausto and Robbie?” Agent Schwamm asked, not for the first time.

  “You'll have to ask them,” Josh said, not for the first time.

  “I'm asking you,” Agent Schwamm said, not for the first time, but while Josh was trying to remember what his usual line was at this point the first notes of “The Star Spangled Banner” emanated from Agent Zimmer's suit.

  His cellphone, of course. He answered it, sitting at attention in the old tan leather armchair with the new bullet holes in it: “Agent Zimmer.”

  He listened, gazing intently at Josh, who looked away, to find Agent Schwamm also gazing intently at him. So he looked instead at the bullet holes in the oil painting—Hudson River school, Hudson River, mountains, sunrise, possibly sunset—over the walk-in fireplace.

  “Sir.”

  Josh looked at Agent Zimmer, who continued to listen to his little black phone while gazing intently at Josh. So Josh looked at the Hudson River some more. Sunrise, he thought.

  “Is that the final word, sir?”

  Yes, sunrise. Very nice, too.

  “And the Pausto woman?”

  Josh wondered what that part of the Hudson looked like today. Built up a lot, probably.

  “Sir. We'll mop up here, return to sog in the morning. Sir.”

  Josh looked at Agent Zimmer, who now sat with the little phone in his hand, dangling over the chair's tan arm. He had a bad-digestion look. “You are free to go,” he said.

  “I am?”

  “He is?”

  Ignoring Josh, as though he'd already left, Agent Zimmer said to Agent Schwamm, “We'll mop up here, return to sog in the morning.”

  “Fine,” Agent Schwamm said, as someone else might say damn-it-to-hell.

  Rising, not wanting to move too fast or too abruptly, Josh said, “I'll just get my, uh, my family.”

  They didn't say goodbye.

  In the Land Cruiser, Jeremy asleep in Eve's lap, Josh warily watching the light traffic of a late afternoon July Saturday on the Northern State Parkway, the sun sliding lower and lower over Manhattan far out ahead, he said, “Never take a free gift, I've learned that much.”

  “Always look a gift horse in the teeth,” Eve said.

  “Boy, they do have teeth, don't they?”

  There was a moment of silence while Josh thought about his close call—his series of close calls—and then Eve said, “Poor Mrs. Rheingold.”

  “Poor her? She can afford to fix a few bullet holes.”

  “But her staff,” Eve said. “They were all spies, they're all either arrested or dead. She has to hire an entire new staff. She isn't up to that.”

  Josh shrugged, and they drove in silence again. Then Josh began to notice that they were driving in silence again, with that last sympathetic remark about Mrs. Rheingold just floating there in the car with them. He sneaked a quick glance away from the traffic at Eve's profile, which was beautiful and wonderfully familiar and just a little too innocent. Watching the road again, he said, “Eve? What have you done?”

  “I said I'd help out.”

  “Help out.”

  “She's going to need somebody, just for a little while. Interview staff, get the house tidied up.”

  “Eve? What are you going to do?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said, “we'll all drive out there. Then—”

  “We're going back?”

  “It will be wonderful for Jeremy,” Eve said. “Just like Fire Island in July, only now we'll have the north shore in August.”

  “August?”

  “We'll have our own wing of the house,” Eve told him, “completely away from Mrs. Rheingold. We can do the same as last month, only I'll need the car, we'll have to have a car out there, and you can take the train out on weekends.”

  “Weekends.”

  “There's swimming nearby,” Eve said. “And it's a wonderful house, Josh, just full of antiques. You wouldn't want her hiring somebody who'd steal her blind, would you?”

  “Another month alone in the city.”

  “But this month,” Eve instructed him, “you'll stay out of trouble.”

  Late Sunday morning. While Jeremy watched something appalling on television—Tina was right, they had to get cable—and Eve in the bedroom unpacked from Fire Island and repacked for Port Washington, which they would drive out to later that day, Josh sat all unstrung in his chair in the living room, surrounded by all the many sections of the Sunday New York Times. He seemed to be gazing at the front page of Automobiles, without actually receiving any messages from it. If he had the energy to worry, he might worry about having no energy, but on the other hand this lassitude was certain to be gone by the next afternoon when, after a short train ride, he would return to his life at Sewell-McConnell, a life which at this point he could barely remember. But he was sure it would come back to him.

  “Would you get that?” Eve called from the bedroom, which was when he realized that sound he was hearing was the telephone.

  “Right,” he answered, but stared at the ringing machine for a long second of deep distrust. What fresh hell is this? he asked the universe. But it's all over, isn't it? Isn't it all over? So he picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “I will not be a coward and a trifler,” declaimed a sonorous voice. “If I choose to love you, I dare marry you, in spite of all Bulgaria.”

  “Oh, for God's sake,” Josh said, as New York Times sections cascaded to the floor all around him. “Sergius.”

  “At your service.”

  “You got away?”

  “Not away, exactly,” Robbie said, in his own voice; if that was his own voice.

  Alarmed, Josh hunched over the phone. “Is she still holding you?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Mitch, you're not with her.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Robbie said, sounding quite pleased with himself, “I am.”

  “The police are looking for—The FBI is—They'll think you're an accomplice, they'll throw you in jail!”

  “No no no,” Robbie said, “nothing that dramatic. We're in negotiations already with the Feds.”

  “To give yourselves up?”

  “For what? Tina will defect, they'll give her a transitional stipend—”

  “Money?”

  “More than we were getting, Josh. In return, she will spill the beans. Many many beans. You wouldn't believe the things that girl knows.”

  “Yes, I would,” Josh said.

  “She's a valuable asset,” Robbie told him.

  “I'll take your word for it.”

  “We'd have the deal set up already,” Robbie said, “if they weren't being greedy about the movie rights.”

  “Movie rights!”

  “You can't get an agent on a weekend. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll call the Coast—”

  “Agent? Agent?” Josh felt as though his head had become a jelly donut, with his brain for the jelly. “An FBI agent? What do you—”

  “Of course not,” Robbie said. “A talent agent. Tina needs a major rep, and I'll see to it she gets one. There'll be something in it for you, too, you know.”

  Money for nothing, Josh thought. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Well, you're a character in the story,” Robbie pointed out. “Not a principal character, but one of them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I'll see to it they cast somebody good,” Robbie promised. “Not a star, you know, but a rising young fella, maybe fresh off a series. Don't worry, I'll take care of you.”

  “Thank you,” Josh said.

  “Gotta run,” Robbie said. “We're still in hiding, you know, until we cut the deal. Talk to you later.”

  Click. Josh looked at the phone, then gently put it on its cradle. He sat there, thinking various thoughts, surrounded by a fall of Times es, and after a while Eve came in and said, “Who was that?”

  Josh shuddered all over. “The
future, I think,” he said.