“If you want to think so, okay. You could be wrong, though.”
“No, Harsh. I have had you investigated thoroughly.”
Harsh lifted his hand, removed the cigarette from his lips, and looked at it. He did not want the man to see his expression. “I heard there was a private detective from Kansas City snooping around. Was he your boy?”
“One of them. One of about twenty.”
“I don’t know what you thought that would get you.” Harsh rolled the cigarette slowly in his fingers.
Brother smiled with dislike. “It got you something, Harsh.”
“It did? How is that?”
“It enabled me to arrange to protect you from the police in the matter of D. C. Roebuck.” The man’s teeth were small white chisel edges under his lifted lip. “Providing you cooperate, of course.”
Harsh closed his eyes. For a moment he thought he was going to faint. His hand holding the cigarette lay limp on his chest.
“Harsh, I am going to talk steadily for several minutes. Making explanations. Do not interrupt.”
Harsh’s mouth was becoming very dry. He merely nodded his head.
“Harsh, I have been searching for a man to fit a certain exact description. The man must look exactly like the picture you have seen. He must have O-negative blood. The man must be of near criminal character, and he must be for sale. To find such a man I set up a so-called foundation and offered a reward, twenty-five dollars, for each O-negative blood donor, and I have expended many thousands of dollars fruitlessly on the device. Finally a local policeman notified me of someone who had needed such a donor here. It was you. I had a firm of private detectives from Kansas City investigate you at once, as I have had every possible candidate investigated in the past. The detectives found you had crowded D. C. Roebuck off the road and he was killed. They found a man in a service station in Carrollton, Missouri, who saw Mr. Roebuck drive away in pursuit of you. I have had them pay the service station man in Carrollton a sum of money to be silent. My detectives also found that locally the police wished to charge you with statutory rape, and I have stopped that by obtaining a birth certificate showing Miss Crosby is over twenty-one years of age. I have sold your car, and you will receive the price of a new one. I have paid your hospital bill here. The private detectives have checked your references, and I find you are a borderline crook. I have paid off the detectives, and they are gone. In other words, you are satisfactory, Harsh. I find you acceptable. Therefore only one thing remains to be settled.”
Harsh slowly put the cigarette between his lips. He felt for the book of matches on the bedside table, bent a match back to light it one-handed, and held the flame to the end of the cigarette. He noticed his hand was unsteady. He took one puff, and after that the cigarette hung on his lip with the tip smoldering.
“Mister, you kind of took the wind out of my sails.”
“You have questions, Harsh?” A sneer curled his lip.
“Yeah, I got a bushel of questions, Mister. You say you bought the service station guy in Carrollton, but will he stay—”
“I will answer no questions whatever, Harsh. You have been told the essential facts. That is sufficient.”
Harsh frowned at the thin curl of blue smoke coming off the end of the cigarette. “You’re kind of a puzzle to me, Mister.”
“Are you for sale, Harsh?”
“Eh?”
“Are you for sale. You heard me.”
Harsh took the cigarette away to moisten his lips with his tongue. “I admit taking Roebuck off my neck is worth something. But will it stick? I got to know more about—”
“I am talking about selling yourself for dollars, Harsh.”
“Oh. Well, you hadn’t mentioned money, only Roebuck, and I thought you meant one favor in exchange for another.”
“I will never need a favor from a man of your caliber, Harsh.”
“Well, if you say so. But a man never knows.”
“I asked you if you were for sale, you fool.” The man looked at Harsh with eyes as cold and moist as those of a dead cow.
“I guess the answer is yes.”
“Good. It is settled.” Brother began buttoning his topcoat preparatory to leaving. “This is as far as our discussion need go.”
“Wait a minute.” Harsh stubbed out the cigarette. “Nobody said how much money we’re discussing.”
“I already know your price tag, Harsh.” Brother drew a package of money from his pocket and tossed it on the bed. “That is the full amount we are discussing. There will be no more. Count it. It is not yours until your job is done. I will be back later.”
The sheaf of currency was held by a rubber band. It had come to rest exactly in the middle of Harsh’s stomach. He could see it by looking down his nose. He did not touch it.
“Harsh.”
“Yes?”
“You are to be removed from this hospital and taken to another city. That will happen this afternoon.”
Brother swung and walked to the door, opened it and went out, closing the door behind him.
I’ll be damned, Harsh thought, wondering how much money was in the packet. His palms suddenly felt sweaty and he rubbed the right one on the sheet. He pulled the money to him and slipped off the rubber band and began to count. He counted off five or six bills and stopped. He took one of the greenbacks with his fingers and held it up to the light, turning it this way and that and speculating on whether it was counterfeit. He did not think it was phony. It was a one hundred dollar bill. His palm was still sweating and he rubbed it on the sheet again, then went on counting, moving his lips and concentrating. Halfway through the pile his hand shook so that he had to pause. Jesus, he thought. He had a coughing spell that wracked him and he wondered if he was out of his goddamn mind. He seized all the money and shoved it under the sheet and lay there breathing heavily. He began to have visions of the nurse coming in and jerking the sheet off him and finding the money and taking it away from him the way they had taken away his clothes. He must be dreaming. Oh hell if he was dreaming, he might as well get the full effect of the dream and finish counting the money. He began counting again and his lips felt very stiff when he tried to move them to frame the numbers. He began to hear the blood going through his ears like water in a faucet. Finally he finished counting the money and clutched it all together and put it under the sheet with him and rolled over on it so the money was under his belly. He lay there having difficulty breathing. He felt the money pushing against the outside of his belly. Then he got the impression the money was penetrating right into his gut and making a lump like a barrel. The lump became as hot as fire. Then it began to melt and as it melted the gold fluid ran through his veins, ran through his veins into his throat, making him sick, making him have to vomit. He did not want to vomit on his bed. He lurched up but he had to let go anyway when he put his weight on his broken arm without thinking and the arm exploded with pain. He had to scream. The scream sounded like a fire engine to his ears. The whole hospital would hear the squall, he thought, and come running to take the money away from him. Oh, Lord. His bed was a mess. So this was how it felt, he thought, to get your hands on fifty thousand dollars.
PART TWO
SEVEN
The cablegram was delivered at eight minutes past ten o‘clock that morning and it put real terror into Mr. Hassam. Some minutes passed before he controlled his breathing to the point where he no longer took air into his lungs in shaky gasps. He memorized the name of the town, Kirksville, Missouri, where the cablegram had originated, and the name of the hotel, Colonial Motel, where the sender wished to be contacted, then he burned the cablegram on his desk ashtray. He sat staring at the ash.