looking to get rich. I was looking to trap a killer.
The weekend floated on by. I spent a little time in the microfilm room at the library, scanning old issues of the Times and picking up useless information on my three possibles and their various friends and relations. On the same page with an old story about a shopping center with which Henry Prager had been involved I happened to see my own name. There was a story about a particularly good collar I had made about a year before I left the force. A partner and I had tagged a heroin wholesaler with enough pure smack to give the world an overdose. I would have enjoyed the story more if I hadn't known how it turned out. The dealer had a good lawyer, and the whole thing got thrown out on a technicality. The word at the time was that it had taken an even twenty-five thou to put the judge in the proper frame of mind.
You learn to get philosophical about things like that. We didn't manage to put the prick away, but we hurt him pretty good. Twenty-five for the judge, ten or fifteen easy for the lawyer, and on top of that he'd lost the smack, which left him out what he'd paid the importer plus what he could have expected to clear when he turned it over. I'd have been happier to see him in slam, but you take what you can get. Like the judge.
Sometime Sunday I called a number I didn't have to look up. Anita answered, and I told her a money order was on its way to her. "I came up with a couple of bucks," I said.
"Well, we can find a use for it," she said. "Thanks. Do you want to talk to the boys?"
I did and I didn't. They're getting to an age where it's a little easier for me to talk to them, but it's still awkward over the phone. We talked about basketball.
Right after I hung up, I had an odd thought. It occurred to me that I might not be talking to them again.
Spinner had been a careful man by nature, a man who had made himself inconspicuous reflexively, a man who had felt most comfortable in deep shadows, and he still had not been careful enough. I was accustomed to open spaces, and in fact had to stay enough in the open to invite a murder attempt. If Spinner's killer decided to take a shot at me, he just might make it work.
I wanted to call back and talk to them again. It seemed that there ought to be something important for me to say, just on the off chance that I'd taken on more than I could carry. But I couldn't manage to think what it might be, and a few minutes later the impulse went away.
I had a lot to drink that night. It was just as well no one took a crack at me then. I'd have been easy.
MONDAY morning I called Prager. I'd left him on a very loose leash, and I had to give it a yank. His secretary told me he was busy on another line and asked if I would hold. I held for a minute or two. Then she came back to establish that I was still hanging in there, and then she put me through to him.
I said, "I've decided how we'll work this so that you're covered. There's something the police tried to hang on me that they could never make stick." He didn't know I'd been a cop myself. "I can write out a confession, include enough evidence to make it airtight. I'll give that to you as part of our deal."
It was basically the arrangement I'd tried out on Beverly Ethridge, and it made the same kind of sense to him that it had to her. Neither of them had managed to spot the joker in it, either: All I had to do was confess at great length to a crime that had never happened, and while my confession might make interesting reading, it would hardly enable anyone to hold a gun to my head. But Prager didn't figure out that part of it, so he liked the idea.
What he didn't like was the price I set.
"That's impossible," he said.
"It's easier than paying it in bits and pieces. You were paying Jablon two thousand a month. You'll pay me sixty in one chunk, that's less than three years'
worth, and it'll all be over once and for all."
"I can't raise that kind of money."
"You'll find a way,
The weekend floated on by. I spent a little time in the microfilm room at the library, scanning old issues of the Times and picking up useless information on my three possibles and their various friends and relations. On the same page with an old story about a shopping center with which Henry Prager had been involved I happened to see my own name. There was a story about a particularly good collar I had made about a year before I left the force. A partner and I had tagged a heroin wholesaler with enough pure smack to give the world an overdose. I would have enjoyed the story more if I hadn't known how it turned out. The dealer had a good lawyer, and the whole thing got thrown out on a technicality. The word at the time was that it had taken an even twenty-five thou to put the judge in the proper frame of mind.
You learn to get philosophical about things like that. We didn't manage to put the prick away, but we hurt him pretty good. Twenty-five for the judge, ten or fifteen easy for the lawyer, and on top of that he'd lost the smack, which left him out what he'd paid the importer plus what he could have expected to clear when he turned it over. I'd have been happier to see him in slam, but you take what you can get. Like the judge.
Sometime Sunday I called a number I didn't have to look up. Anita answered, and I told her a money order was on its way to her. "I came up with a couple of bucks," I said.
"Well, we can find a use for it," she said. "Thanks. Do you want to talk to the boys?"
I did and I didn't. They're getting to an age where it's a little easier for me to talk to them, but it's still awkward over the phone. We talked about basketball.
Right after I hung up, I had an odd thought. It occurred to me that I might not be talking to them again.
Spinner had been a careful man by nature, a man who had made himself inconspicuous reflexively, a man who had felt most comfortable in deep shadows, and he still had not been careful enough. I was accustomed to open spaces, and in fact had to stay enough in the open to invite a murder attempt. If Spinner's killer decided to take a shot at me, he just might make it work.
I wanted to call back and talk to them again. It seemed that there ought to be something important for me to say, just on the off chance that I'd taken on more than I could carry. But I couldn't manage to think what it might be, and a few minutes later the impulse went away.
I had a lot to drink that night. It was just as well no one took a crack at me then. I'd have been easy.
MONDAY morning I called Prager. I'd left him on a very loose leash, and I had to give it a yank. His secretary told me he was busy on another line and asked if I would hold. I held for a minute or two. Then she came back to establish that I was still hanging in there, and then she put me through to him.
I said, "I've decided how we'll work this so that you're covered. There's something the police tried to hang on me that they could never make stick." He didn't know I'd been a cop myself. "I can write out a confession, include enough evidence to make it airtight. I'll give that to you as part of our deal."
It was basically the arrangement I'd tried out on Beverly Ethridge, and it made the same kind of sense to him that it had to her. Neither of them had managed to spot the joker in it, either: All I had to do was confess at great length to a crime that had never happened, and while my confession might make interesting reading, it would hardly enable anyone to hold a gun to my head. But Prager didn't figure out that part of it, so he liked the idea.
What he didn't like was the price I set.
"That's impossible," he said.
"It's easier than paying it in bits and pieces. You were paying Jablon two thousand a month. You'll pay me sixty in one chunk, that's less than three years'
worth, and it'll all be over once and for all."
"I can't raise that kind of money."
"You'll find a way,
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