“I didn’t have a setback,” said Varney. “I decided to take a break and cool off for a while. I’m ready to work. What is it?”
There was something in his voice that made Tracy’s instinct for self-preservation kick in. “I didn’t mean to offend, sugar,” she said gently. “I just have no way to know without asking. The job came through a man I know I can trust. He’s been doing business with us for at least ten years. A man he knows has an enemy.”
“What kind of enemy?”
“Some kind of business thing out in California went wrong, the enemy gave him up to the police, and he went to prison.” She stared at him and said reassuringly, “The man I know—my contact—stands between us and the client. The client only knows about my contact, and even my contact doesn’t know about you.”
“Why isn’t the client doing it himself?”
She squinted, as though she did not understand, then seemed to sort it out. “Oh, I get the question. The story is that if this enemy dies, there’s only one suspect. My friend was very clear on that point. The cops in California made some kind of deal with this guy. He turned informant, and in exchange, he got off completely free: everything he did got blamed on our client. This guy even got to keep his take from whatever it was they both did. The cops knew it wasn’t fair, but as usual, they settled for what they could get for sure—one conviction—and let their informant take his chances. If he got killed later, that was his problem. They probably won’t be disappointed. But it won’t stop them from going after our client. They know the client wants him dead. As soon as this guy hits the ground, they’ll be looking for the client.” She paused, and said to Varney with false patience, “Besides, I know it’s probably hard for you to see, but some people might want somebody dead, but not want to actually do it.”
“How is he protecting himself?” asked Varney.
“He wants to get you all hired and ready to do it. Then he goes back to California and establishes a clear, solid alibi. I’m not sure what that will be. Getting himself tossed in jail would be the best, but I doubt that he’ll do that. Anyway, when he’s sure he’s all set, he places a call from a pay phone to my friend. My friend calls me from a pay phone. I call you from a pay phone. No calls get traced later. You kill the guy in Minnesota, a couple thousand miles from where the client is. Everybody lives happily ever after. Or, practically everybody.” She smiled. “Satisfied?”
“Not quite,” said Varney.
She looked shocked, then mystified. “Sugar, what more could you want? Are you scared?”
“No,” said Varney. “How is the payment going to work?”
“Oh,” she said happily. “He’ll pay a hundred grand.”
“No,” Varney said. “I asked how. If the police know he’s the one who wanted the guy dead, and the guy dies while he’s got an alibi, they don’t give up. They’ll watch him for a while to see who he pays.”
She shook her head in delight. “It won’t happen, and if it did, it wouldn’t do any good. The police don’t know he has this kind of money—or any money. He had some hidden when he went to prison. Nobody knows about it. And,” she added proudly, “I took care of the rest.”
“How did you do that?”
“I set it up so he pays in advance. He already gave the hundred thousand to my friend. You get fifty thousand as soon as you agree. My friend holds the rest. When the killing is done, my friend passes along the other fifty. There’s no transaction that involves the client—or even takes place in the same state.”
Varney let some of his suspicion show. “You set that up, huh?”
“Well, of course I did, sugar,” she purred. “I can’t count on some strange client to protect me. He’s never done this before.”
Varney nodded, his tongue exploring the outer surfaces of his teeth. “So I get fifty in advance and fifty at the end, both from you.”
“That’s what I said,” Tracy agreed, her eyes settling on her fingernails, as though she were checking their length.
“I’ll do it,” said Varney.
“That’s smart, honey,” she said. “It’ll do you good. I just hate to see a young man lolling around, aimless, no use to himself or anybody else. It’s time that you pulled yourself together and stopped letting Mae lead you around like a little puppy dog, don’t you think?”
He said, “When you’ve got the fifty thousand, the name and address, call me and I’ll come around to pick them up.”
She brightened and opened the top drawer of the desk, pulling it into her belly. “Got them.” She handed him a thick manila envelope that felt like money, and another with some folded paper inside. “I expect the call to come from the client to my friend sometime around the fifteenth. Think you can be ready by then?”
“I’m ready now. I expect I’ll go where he is and have a look ahead of time.”
“Don’t forget to always leave me a phone number where I can reach you.”
“I won’t.” He opened the big envelope and got a peek at the hundred-dollar bills while he slipped the smaller envelope inside it. He lifted his shirt, pushed the manila envelope into the top of his belt, and tucked his shirt in over it. He glanced at Tracy, and saw she had been watching the process.
She saw him notice, and shrugged naughtily. “See you, sugar.”
He said, “While I’m gone, I want Mae in my apartment. Alone.”
She looked surprised. “Well, of course, as far as I’m concerned. You’ll have to make that clear to her. But I certainly won’t put temptation in her way.”
He nodded without bothering to look at her to detect the lie. “I’ll call you with a number where you can reach me.” He stepped out and closed the door. As he walked down the long, deserted hall, he noted all the things that were wrong with the deal. Tracy had said the price was a hundred thousand. That meant that it was more—probably two hundred—and she had taken a hundred out. There was no way in the world she would act as broker without a cut. She probably had to give the middleman something, but there was no question in Varney’s mind who would end up with most of it. She had also used her position as purveyor of information to exercise power over Varney, to drag out the process and watch him squirm, using every chance to impose her superior smile and tell him how worthless he was. She had sensed that this news was about to make him stronger, and she hadn’t been able to resist trying to weaken him, sucking away his strength like a tick.
He noted each of these things, but he only noted them and set them aside in his mind. The news was better than Tracy had imagined, and he only tallied the problems to remind himself that he knew them. He was no longer about to be penniless. He was walking along with fifty thousand dollars pressed against his belly under his shirt, with another fifty on the way. He was going out on the road again to find an enemy and cut him down.
Even the lies that Tracy had fed him about the job were good. She had made it sound as though this target was some hapless, stupid loser who had once simply gotten caught and squeezed and had the cops go easy on him. Varney didn’t believe it. Nobody would pay a hundred thousand, let alone whatever Tracy had really charged, to exterminate a man like that. Anybody who had served time would know fifty guys who would take out somebody like that for a thousand dollars.
The client was clearly a smart man. Tracy had not set this up. The client was the one who had fashioned the deal this way, because he had known that the police would suspect him, and he had known what they would do to prove he had done it. He had also known better than to hire an assassin directly. He was the one who had placed two intermediaries, two bloodsucking parasites, between him and anybody who hunted men for a living. He knew that the only likely way for him to get caught was if Varney screwed it up and traded him for a lighter sentence. This way, Varney couldn’t. But the client couldn’t tell the police who Varney was, either. All either of them could sell to the police was an intermediary who was next to worthless. Varney felt a certain respect for this client. It was good to know he was standing in for a man who was worth something, but who simply was too hemmed in by circumstances to go kill his own enemy.