“Arne, you hit?” Coretti was beside me now, one hand on my shoulder.
“No. Ulcer... medicine...”
He found the bottle in my coat pocket, uncapped it, got some of the painkiller into me. It seemed to take a long time for it to work. When the hurt finally subsided and I could get my breath, he helped me to my feet.
“You okay now?”
“Better. Just give me a minute.”
“Maybe I ought to call the paramedics...”
“No. I’m okay I tell you.” The pain was almost completely gone. I sucked in some of the damp air, looking over to where Feldstein lay. “What about him?”
“Dead. Broken neck.”
“We’ve got to radio in.”
“Better get the suitcase first. Can you climb back up the stairs?”
I said I could, but I leaned on Coretti on the way up. I was pretty shaky, all right. At the second floor level, the pasteboard suitcase lay against the wire mesh of the railing. Coretti picked it up. When we reached the third floor and climbed back into Feldstein’s room, I was oozing sweat.
Coretti laid the suitcase on the bed. I said, “Open it up, let’s have a look.” He nodded, flipped the catches, lifted the lid.
The suitcase was jammed full of money — fifties and hundreds in thick bundles. Plain wrappers with numbers written on them in pencil bound each stack. We stood there looking down at them, neither of us saying anything. The stench of cordite still lingered in the air.
I could feel tension rebuilding. Outside, the rain hammered in a steady cadence on the fire escape. The wind coming through the shattered window felt icy. In the hallway somebody coughed, somebody else said something in a low nervous voice. Other tenants. But they were hanging back, too scared to look in here. Coretti went over and yelled at them to get back in their rooms, then closed the door.
When he returned to the bed he said softly, “How much you think is in there, Arne?”
“I don’t know.”
Coretti began to take the bundles out of the suitcase, putting them on the bed. I didn’t try to stop him. “If the numbers on those wrappers are right,” he said when he was done, “there’s a hundred and twelve thousand here. A hundred and twelve thousand dollars, Arne.” His voice had a funny sound to it.
My throat was dry. I hadn’t thought about the money before. A routine assignment, stolen cash, a thief in hiding — it happens every day, it’s just a part of the job. But now, looking down at the bundles on the bed, the money took on weight, substance. It filled my thoughts. I kept staring at it, transfixed by it, more money than I would ever see again in my lifetime, and I was thinking what it would be like to have that much cash, half that much, enough to pay off the bulk of my debts, enough for the operation, enough so Gerry and I could start living decently.
It could be ours, it could be ours so damned easy. No one would ever know, we could tell them we didn’t find any money here, it was dirty money anyway. It could be ours, one hundred and twelve thousand dollars, fifty-six thousand apiece.
My stomach throbbed again. I could hear my heart pounding. I was still sweating, sweating like a pig in this cold room.
“Arne?” Coretti’s voice was almost a whisper.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. I didn’t say anything.
“You’re thinking it, too, aren’t you.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m thinking it, too.”
“We could do it, Arne.”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but... I don’t know.”
“We could do it,” Coretti said again.
“In fifteen years I’ve never taken a penny. Never even fixed a parking ticket.”
“Neither have I. But this isn’t a piece of small-time graft, this is a hundred and twelve thousand dollars. A chance like this comes once in a lifetime. Just once.”
“I know that, dammit.”
He licked his lips. “Well?”
The windblown rain was coming down harder now. I could feel the chill wetness against my face. “It’s a hell of a big risk. You know what’d happen if we got caught.”
“Sure I know. But I say it’s worth it. I say we won’t get caught.”
“If we claim there wasn’t any money, the captain’ll be suspicious.”
“Let him be. What could he prove?”
“The day clerk probably saw the suitcase when Feldstein checked in.”
“So we leave the suitcase. We can carry all the money in our pockets, under our coats.”
“There’d still be an investigation.”
“What could he prove, Arne?”
“As soon as we started spending the money they’d know.”
“A little at a time,” Coretti said. “That’s what we do, parcel it out a little at a time. It’s gambling money, there’s no way the bills can be traced.”
“Christ, Bob, you’ve been a cop as long as I have. It’s the little things that trip you up, the unforeseen things. You know that as well as I do.”
Coretti tongued his lips again.
“We’d go to prison,” I said. “Think about your family. What becomes of them if that happens?”
“I am thinking about my family. I’m thinking about all the things I want my wife and kids to have that I can’t give them. That’s all I’m thinking about right now.”
I kept looking at the money, and thinking, the way Coretti was, about the piled-up bills and the secondhand furniture and car and the second-rate clothing and all the doing without and the burning, throbbing thing that was eating a hole in the pit of my stomach. But at the same time I was thinking about the fifteen years I’d been a straight arrow, an honest cop, and the convictions a man has, the pattern of life he sets for himself, and what would happen if he were to sacrifice everything he believed in for one big gamble, one grab for the brass ring. Even if we got away with it, I knew that it would prey on my conscience, eat a hole in me bigger than the one in my gut and eventually destroy me.
I closed my eyes, and I saw Gerry’s face, Gerry’s proud smile, and I took a deep breath and opened my eyes and I said to Coretti, “No. I can’t do it, I won’t do it.”
“Arne—”
“No, Bob. No.”
Quickly, savagely, I began stuffing the bundles of cash back into the suitcase. Coretti grabbed my arm, but I shook it off and kept on refilling the case. When I was done I snapped the catch shut and hefted it and turned to face him.
“I’m going downstairs and report in,” I said. “And I’m going to tell them about the money, every dollar of it. That’s the way it’s going to be, Bob. That’s the way it has to be.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes locked with mine.
“You going to try to stop me?” I said.
A few seconds passed before he said, “No,” and stepped aside.
I went out into the hail and down the stairs, feeling the weight of the suitcase in my hand and against my leg, and I didn’t look back. The old man was waiting in the lobby, his eyes big and scared behind his glasses. He rattled questions at me, but I shoved past him and went out to the sedan. I locked the suitcase in the trunk, then called the Hall and told them what had happened.
Afterward I sat waiting with the wheezing heater on high. I’d been there five minutes when Coretti showed. He walked slowly to the passenger side and got in without looking at me. Both of us just sat there. The silence was as deep as it had been in the room upstairs.
He broke it by asking, “Did you report in?”
“Yeah.”
Silence again. Then he said, “God help me, I almost shot you up there. When you were putting the money back in the suitcase. I almost pulled my weapon and shot you in the back.”