After the First Death - Lawrence Block [18]
“Look, I’ll level with you, Lou. This is our first night on shore in months. We’re okay in the money department, know what I mean? Twenty or twenty-five is not about to break us.”
And there was the question of the girls’ availability. They might be out on dates, or they might have made prior arrangements, or—
“You can check it out, can’t you?”
“I suppose I could call them—”
“Give ’em a call, Lou.”
We stopped at another bar. The boys had a drink while I went to the phone booth in the back, dropped my dime, and dialed an incomplete number. I chatted to myself for a few minutes, put the phone on the hook, recovered my dime from the coin return slot, and rejoined the trio at the bar.
I said, “I think we better forget it.”
“What’s the matter? They busy?”
“No, but—”
“But what?”
Reluctantly, I let them get the story from me. The girls were at home, and available. But they were very worried about the possibility of getting arrested. A good friend of theirs, also an amateur and a part-time model, had been arrested by a plainclothesman just a week ago and this had made them very nervous. At the present time they were restricting their contacts to men they already knew.
“What it amounts to,” I said, “is that they won’t take money from a stranger. They’d have to get the cash in advance and then act as though the whole affair was a party, with no mention of money or anything. And they’d have to be sure that you guys aren’t cops.”
“Us? You got to be kidding.”
I shrugged. “Listen, I trust you,” I said. “But they never met you. You’d be surprised the way vice squad detectives dress up like sailors. Especially this time of the month, when they’re in a hurry to get their quota of arrests. The girls are nervous. I talked to Barbara, and she said they’d rather go hungry than take a chance on getting arrested.”
I had to lead them along. But they followed well enough, and they finally figured out the suggestion they were supposed to make. The girls knew me, they pointed. out So how would it be if they gave me the money and I went up to see the girls and make the arrangements? Then the girls could tuck the dough away somewhere and they would come to their apartment and it would be as if there was no money involved at all.
I thought it over and admitted that it might work out.
“I’ll call them again,” I said. “It looked so hopeless at the time that I told them to forget it—”
“Jesus, Lou, I hope they didn’t find somebody else since then.”
“Well,” I said, I’ll call them.”
This time they clustered around the phone booth. I dialed a full seven-digit number at random and got a recording which assured me that the number I had dialed was not a working number. I talked with the recording, listened, talked, and finally hung up.
“Well?”
“A few problems,” I admitted. “Since it’s a Sunday, all the liquor stores are closed. They’ve got liquor on hand, but that pushes the price up. You may not want to go that high.”
“How high?”
“A package deal—all three of you for an even hundred dollars.”
They looked at each other. I read their faces, and evidently it was higher than they would have liked it, but not out of reach by any means. There was a second or two of silence, so I threw the clincher.
It sounded high to me,” I said. “I told Barbara I wanted ten per cent for setting things up, and she agreed. Believe, me, I don’t want to make money this way, not on you fellows. Forget my ten, and I’ll give her ninety dollars, that’s thirty apiece. But don’t tell her, understand? If the girls mention money, and the chances are they won’t, but if they do, you gave me a hundred bucks. Understand?”
That did it I was the greatest guy in the world, they assured me, and they wanted to buy me a drink again, but I reminded them of my ulcer. It was a shame there weren’t four girls, they told me. Then I could join them. It was really a shame, because I was one great guy, the greatest, and they thought I was terrific.
They gave me ninety dollars in tens. We left the bar, and the four of us walked over Greenwich Avenue to Tenth Street and down Tenth to Waverley