“That’s why you should always get the money first,” the girl said suddenly, as though she had been mulling it over for quite some time.
“I guess so,” Mullaney said. The jacket was still in his hands. He glanced at it sourly, and then threw it to the floor. It lay inert and worthless at his feet. Angrily, and for good measure, he kicked it. Twice.
“Oh boy Kruger’s going to kill you,” Merilee said.
“Mmm.”
“Kruger’s going to absolutely murder you.”
“Listen, did you hear a bell?” Mullaney said.
“What?”
“Just a few minutes ago? I think it’s closing time. I think we’d better get out of here.”
“I think you’d better get out of New York,” the girl said. “I think you’d better get off the planet earth, if you want my advice, because Kruger is going to kill you.”
“Well...” Mullaney said, and he hesitated because he was about to make a speech, and he rarely made speeches. He was going to make a speech because he incorrectly assumed everything was ending instead of just beginning, and he thought it would be nice to say something to commemorate the event. He started thinking about what he was going to say as he led the girl toward the red light burning over the exit door at the far end of the labyrinth. By the time they reached the door, he knew what he wanted to tell her. He put his hand on her arm. The girl turned and stared up at him, her flaxen hair aglow with spilled red light, her eyes wide and solemn and fitting to the occasion.
“Merilee,” he said, “I really thought the money was inside the jacket, and I can’t tell you how sad it makes me that it was only paper scraps. But in spite of that, I remember what happened before I opened that jacket. I remember you, Merilee. And so whatever happened afterwards doesn’t matter at all, the disappointment doesn’t matter, the possibility that I’m in danger doesn’t matter, none of it matters except what happened with you. That was good, Merilee, that was something I’ll never forget as long as I live because it was real and honest and, Merilee, it was just really really good, wasn’t it?”
“No,” the girl said, “it was lousy.”
The guard at the front door of the library bawled them out for lagging so far behind all the others and causing him to unlock the door after he had already carefully locked it for the night, did they think he had nothing to do but lock and unlock doors all night long? Mullaney supposed the guard did have a great many other things to do, so he didn’t argue with him, he just meekly allowed himself to be let out of the library and then he walked down the steps and stood with the girl near one of the lions and figured they would have to say goodbye. She would go back to Kruger, he supposed, and he would go he didn’t know where.
“Well...” he said.
“I’m supposed to shoot you, you know,” she said.
“You might just as well,” he answered.
“I’m terribly sorry the relationship didn’t work out,” she said.
“So am I.”
“But I don’t think I could shoot you.”
“I’m grateful,” Mullaney said.
“When they get you — they’ll get you, you know...”
“I know.”
“... you just tell them you escaped, okay? That’s what I’ll tell them.”
“Okay, that’s what I’ll tell them, too.”
“Well,” the girl said, and glanced over her shoulder.
“It was very nice knowing you,” Mullaney said.
“Oh yes indeed,” she answered, and walked away.
We’ll meet again, he thought, not really believing that they would. He thrust his hands into the pockets of the too-short trousers, and began walking downtown on Fifth Avenue. A breeze had sprung up and he was a bit chilly now that he no longer had his paper-lined jacket. He began wondering about that jacket. He was very good at making deductions based on the condition of the track and the number of times out and the number of wins and losses and the weight of the jockey, and all that. He was also very good at figuring the true odds on any given roll of the dice as opposed to the house odds, and he could calculate within reason the possibility of, say, drawing a diamond to a flush, very good indeed at doing all of these things — which was why he’d lost his shirt over the past year. Well, hadn’t actually lost his shirt, was actually still in possession of his jasmine shirt, which was a bit too flimsy for a cool April night like this one. Nor was he really convinced that he was not a very good gambler; he was simply a gambler who’d had a run of bad luck. Being equipped, therefore, with a coolly calculating mind that was capable of figuring combinations, permutations and such, he put it to use in speculating about the jacket and the odd fact that The New York Times had been sewn into it, rather than the half-million dollars everyone had been expecting.
The first obvious truth about the jacket was that Kruger had not known the money (or even the facsimile of the money) was sewn into its lining. Henry or George, he forgot which, had mentioned that the money was supposed to be in the coffin, but whereas they had thoroughly searched the coffin, they had not thought to search the person in the coffin. Which meant, following a logical progression of thought, that whoever had told them the money was in the coffin had neglectfully forgotten to mention it was sewn into the corpse’s jacket.
Very good, Mullaney, he thought, you’re getting very close. To what, he didn’t know.
Kruger knew the money was in the coffin, but did not know it was in the jacket.
Excellent.
On the other hand, K and O’Brien and all the others knew the money was in the jacket, but apparently did not know the money in the jacket was only The New York Times. They had concocted an elaborate scheme whereby they were prepared to ship a coffin and a corpse (was it to be a real corpse, and was that why the original victim had jumped out of the limousine on Fourteenth Street?) to Rome, where an informed party no doubt was to have opened the coffin, removed the body, slit the jacket’s lining, and become richer by half a million dollars. But somewhere along the line, someone had decided it would be a good joke to substitute newspaper strips for cash and, all unbeknownst to K and his fellows, had tiptoed away with the loot and stitched the morning paper into the garment.
Very good.
Now, Mullaney thought, we come to the difficult part, difficult because Kruger and his fellows didn’t tell me anything much about it except that there had been a terrible highway accident. Was it reasonable to assume that the hearse and the coffin had been hijacked on the way to Kennedy and then shuttled out to Secaucus or environs awaiting the resurrection of the corpse? But how had Kruger and his fellows learned about the money in the first place? And who had substituted the newspaper strips for the cash?