“I would guess you’re here to get paid,” he said. Carl’s car was parked outside. Where was Carl?
Paul spoke from behind him. “If you’re ready to handle that now, we can take our money and be on our way.”
Sylvie’s face leaned closer, like the face of an apparition in a fun house. “You do have the money, don’t you, Scotty?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do. It’s here at the house. I’ll go get it right now.” He began to turn and took a step.
“Stop!” Paul’s voice was like a whip-crack. He said more quietly, “Hold it right there, Scott. Where are you going?”
“The money is outside. In the garage. I was going to get the opener.”
Paul rested his left hand on Scott’s shoulder, and Scott could feel the gun pressed under his right shoulder blade. “You’ve got to be careful around us right now, Scotty. I know you’re used to having people trust you, but we don’t. You were very definite on Friday that you wanted to pay us a million dollars for this job. Then that night your secretary sent us to meet you, and two guys tried to kill us.”
“I’m sorry that happened,” Scott said. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Those two were supposed to take you here, and I was going to call and tell them how to find the money to give you. I guess I overestimated them. They must have wanted to rob me.”
Sylvie said, “There’s no need to go into all that now. We’re only interested in collecting our money and going away.”
“That’s exactly what I want. What I’m planning to do now is walk outside to the garage, go in, and get your money. It’s in a suitcase.”
“I hope you don’t mind our going with you,” Paul said. “If we see what you’re doing, neither one of us will be nervous and edgy.”
“All right. Can I go now?”
“Go.”
Scott resumed his walk into the hallway, picked up a remote-control unit, and pressed the button. They heard the hum and rattle of the garage door going up. He set the unit down, then said, “I’m reaching for my keys,” and put his hand in his pocket.
He could see the two of them now. They were both tall, so they seemed in proportion to one another, the woman six or eight inches shorter than the man, but their heads came up almost to the tops of doorways and the bottoms of light fixtures, adding to the impression that they didn’t belong here. Their presence was an invasion of his refuge, and their height seemed freakish. He was eager to be rid of them. “I’m going to walk out to the garage now. There’s nothing out there that you aren’t expecting. No guns or anything.”
“Good,” Paul said. “All we want is a clean deal.”
Scott moved to the front door, stepped out and walked across the cobbled pavement. He could see Carl’s car, and it occurred to him again to wonder about Carl. Maybe Carl had driven in, seen something odd, and decided not to go into the house. Maybe he had gone in, heard the Turners arrive, and hidden somewhere inside. Carl would not want to be stuck in the house with these two and not have the money to pay them.
As Scott thought about it, he realized that he had handled the whole matter badly. He should have made sure the Turners got their money as soon as Wendy Harper had died. In the end, that was what this was going to amount to, anyway, and he could have had Carl make the payoff quickly and efficiently on Friday and averted this mess: having people following him around aiming guns at his back. If one of them tripped on the stupid rustic, uneven cobblestones, Scott was likely to die.
That really had been an act of the old Scott, not the new one. The old Scott had been occupied with small, scuttling, ratlike maneuvers that would keep him safe and still preserve his million dollars. He’d had the film washed from his eyes since then. A million dollars had seemed like so much money a few days ago, but now he knew that it was a small investment that was already bringing him huge benefits. He had to think like a winner.
Scott Schelling went to the garage and stepped to the back of the blue antique Maserati. It was the only car he ever drove himself. Most of the time, he sat in the back of the Town Car and let Carl drive. He felt guilty now, but he had put the suitcase in the Maserati because he hadn’t quite been able to trust Carl.
It wasn’t that Carl had ever been disloyal or dishonest. But part of Carl’s reliability was that Carl was an unimaginative and unambitious man. He was too inert and inactive to form an alliance with Scott’s enemies or concoct some scheme to embezzle. But what if he had found the compact black Tumi suitcase and opened it up? Who knew what Carl’s reaction would be to all of those crisp hundred-dollar bills? Carl was a blue-collar guy. One bill was a dinner for Carl and his blond girlfriend. She worked for the city, so she probably made less than he did. Two bills was a big night out. It was a lot of money to Carl, and it would be staring up at him from the suitcase. He might walk off with it without even taking a moment to think. So Scott had saved him from himself. He had simply put the money in the trunk of the Maserati, where Carl wouldn’t stumble across it.
Scott found the key to the Maserati, inserted it, and unlocked the trunk. For a second, he felt a premonition, a sensation that things were not right. But there was the suitcase, in the middle of the trunk, exactly where he’d left it. He used his thumbs to slide the buttons to the side so the catches would snap open, then lifted the top of the suitcase to reveal neat stacks of hundreds.
He turned to give Paul and Sylvie a look of triumph.
Paul said, “Okay, close it.”
Scott closed the suitcase.
“Bring it into the house.”
Scott lifted the suitcase, closed the trunk and carried the suitcase across the parking area and through the front door into his house. He was disappointed in their reaction. Did they actually plan to sit in his living room counting all those banknotes?
He closed the front door and held out the suitcase so Paul would take it. There seemed to Scott to be a regal quality to a man who was paying anybody a million dollars for any purpose, a natural superiority. Paul took the suitcase, but set it down by his feet.
Scott said, “Look, I’m sure you know that I didn’t count every bill myself. If a bank teller gave you a few hundred extra, keep it. If it’s short, I’ll make it good. You can count it at home.”
“That seems reasonable,” Sylvie said. With relief, Scott Schelling watched her step away from him toward the door.
Once Sylvie was clear, Paul fired into Scott Schelling’s back where he thought the heart should be.
45
JACK TILL SAT in the back seat of the unmarked car beside Wendy as Max Poliakoff drove them along the quiet street toward Scott Schelling’s house. Till said, “That house is 2908. Schelling’s is 3206. It’s going to be the third block up, on the right.”
“I’m nervous,” Wendy said.
Poliakoff half-turned in the driver’s seat to look at her. “Don’t be. We’ll knock and ask to speak with him. We won’t say who you are. If he’s the one, all you have to do is nod, and we’ll arrest him. If he’s not the right Scott, then you shake your head, and I’ll tell him some comforting nonsense about Neighborhood Watch.”
“I guess it’s just that I’ve spent so much time thinking about him. First Olivia and I kept searching the city for him so we could be sure Kit was all right. Then, after I got beat up, the last people in the world I wanted to see were him and the one with the bat.”
“We’ll get the one who hit you, anyway. He’s as good as in the bag. Once we pick him up, we’ll do a lineup and have you identify him formally. And then he’s going away.”
“You don’t sound as though you’re so sure about Scott,” she said.