I didn’t doubt he was completely serious at this particular moment, and I was quite sure there actually was a Mrs. Cornelia Dobbs and that Ambrose had agreed to kill her husband for five thousand dollars, but Ambrose tended to lose his sense of perspective when he was drinking. I figured that when he groped through the red haze of next morning’s hangover, he would be appalled at himself.
In fact, I thought I might have a problem convincing him to keep the thousand-dollar advance. Cornelia could hardly demand it back without risking considerable trouble for herself, but my manager had a peculiar code of ethics. He was capable of arranging a fixed fight, but he always stood by his word.
I was still turning over in my mind arguments in favor of keeping the advance and telling Cornelia to get lost when Ambrose passed out.
Ambrose awoke with the hangover I had predicted. When he could open his eyes all the way without bleeding to death, he gave me a weak smile and elbowed up.
“Smoked oysters don’t mix very well with champagne, I guess.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m sure it was the oysters.”
He got up, wrapped a robe around his lanky frame and went up the hall to shower and shave. When he came back, I made the same trip.
Ambrose has remarkable powers of recuperation. He was dressed and clear-eyed by the time I got back. We had no conversation until I finished dressing.
Then I said, “You won’t have to return the money. She couldn’t possibly do anything about it.”
“Return it? Why should I return it?”
“I mean she can’t go to the police.”
He frowned at me. “Why should she go to the police?”
“For fraud. When we don’t kill her husband.”
He examined me as though searching for the hole in my head.
I said patiently, “You’re certainly not serious about becoming a professional killer.”
“For five thousand dollars? Of course, I am. I explained it all last night.”
“You were drunk last night. We’re not killers.”
“We’re not anything,” he said. “You’re not a fighter. You’re an ex-fighter, which makes me not anything either. I’m an ex-fight manager.”
There must have been a lost look on my face, because he said in a more kindly tone, “This is our chance, Sam. With a stake we could find another fighter. I’ll manage and you can train him.”
“But murder, Ambrose!”
“Aw, come off it, Sam. You killed a man in the ring once.”
“An accident,” I said. “It’s not the same. They put you in the gas chamber for murder.”
“Only if they catch you. Do you know why most murderers get caught?”
“Sure. Because they’re not as smart as cops.”
“Most aren’t,” Ambrose agreed. “Statistically, eighty percent of the murders in this country are committed by friends or relatives of the victims. The cops have it easy with these cases. They simply check back on all the victim’s associates, and eventually they have to come to the one who pulled the trigger or swung the axe or dropped the poison in the coffee.”
“So eventually they’ll get to us.”
Ambrose gave his head a slow shake. “How? We’ve never even seen him and he’s never seen us. There’s no point of contact for the cops to check back on.”
That made sense, but it takes a while to adjust to the idea of murder. I said, “They always suspect the wife. Suppose she breaks down and fingers us?”
“She won’t break down. She’ll have a perfect alibi, and besides, it’s going to look like an accident.”
I fingered one of my cauliflower ears while I thought this over. Finally I said, “Suppose he doesn’t come out of the club alone?”
“Then we wait until the next night and Cornelia rigs another alibi.”
I had only one last question. “How do we collect the other four thousand?”
“She’s to bring it to Monty’s tomorrow night.”
“I’m still not convinced,” I said. “Let’s go get some breakfast, and maybe you can convince me while we’re eating.”
He did.
We spent the day in plans and preparations. We drove out to Glen Ridge Country Club and looked over the parking lot. Then we drove over the route Everett Dobbs would take home and found a beautiful spot for an accident.
The road wound over Glen Ridge, a small mountain with a hairpin turn right at the crest, protected only by a wooden guard rail. Below the guard rail the mountainside sloped down at a sixty-degree angle to another section of the winding road nearly fifty feet below.
“They’ll think he cracked up on the way home,” Ambrose said. “Cornelia says he drinks a lot, so it’ll just look like another drunk who missed a curve.”
We got out to the country club at nine that night, just in case Everett Dobbs left early. Ambrose parked the jalopy and we got out to look for Dobbs’ car. Cornelia had described it to Ambrose and had given him its license number, so we had no difficulty finding it even though it was quite dark by then and there were some fifty other cars on the lot.
As soon as we located it, Ambrose drove the jalopy into a vacant slot right behind it, and we settled back to wait.
Ambrose had brought along a fifth of Scotch for himself and a quart of bourbon for me in order to relieve the tedium. We also needed it to quiet our nerves.
“Maybe we’d better slow down on the hootch,” I suggested.
Ambrose frowned at me in the darkness and took another swig of Scotch. “I’m as sober as a sphinx,” he said.
At 10:00 p.m. a lone figure came from the direction of the clubhouse and weaved in our direction. He was a tall, lean man in a dark suit, and his gait indicated he was cock-eyed out of his skull.
“If that’s Dobbs, he’s an hour early,” Ambrose said. “From the looks of him, the barkeep probably cut him off. He wouldn’t have lasted until eleven.”
The man put a key into the door lock of the car we were watching.
“Guess this is it,” I said. “I can handle this joker alone. You just follow.”
I got out of the car and was surprised when I staggered slightly. Straightening, I went over to where the tall man was still fumbling with the lock.
“Having trouble?” I asked.
“The keyhole keeps moving, old man,” he said. “Would you mind seeing if you can hit it?”
He handed me the keys. The keyhole was moving, I noticed, but I managed to slip the key into it on the second try.
“Bravo!” the tall man said when I pulled the door open. “May I buy you a drink for your trouble?”
I decided getting him to go along willingly would be simpler than slugging him. “Sure,” I said, “but not here. I know a better place.”
“Fine,” he said with enthusiasm. “Any place good enough for my friends is good enough for me.” He thrust out his hand. “My name is Dobbs, old buddy.”
I shook the hand. “Willard,” I said. “Sam Willard, pal o’ mine.”
“Delighted, old man. And now the keys, please.”
“Maybe I’d better drive,” I said. “I know where this place is, and you don’t.”
“Be my guest,” he said, offering a little bow and losing his balance.
Preventing him from falling on his face by catching him, I helped him into the car, then slid behind the wheel.
The engine purred beautifully. As I pulled off the lot, the jalopy chugged along behind us. Dobbs promptly went to sleep. We reached the hairpin turn at the top of Glen Ridge without incident. It was just beyond the crest, so that there was a slight downgrade to it. I parked on the very crest and Ambrose parked behind me. There wasn’t another car in sight.
Dobbs was still sleeping, and I was afraid he would wake up if I pulled him over under the wheel. I figured nobody would be able to tell he hadn’t been behind the wheel anyway, after a drop of fifty feet.