19 Purchase Street (42 page)

In it, on the far side of it, lay Hine. He was nude, perspiring as though he'd just been doused.

“How are you today?” he asked amiably.

“The same,” Gainer told him.

“Glad you made it out.”

“Yeah.”

Hine's gesture invited Gainer to share the dune with him.

Gainer took two steps down into it and squatted.

“Relax,” Hine told him.

“This is good for the legs,” Gainer said. He wondered why the change in Hine.

“Nice day,” Hine said, “but it's going to cloud over. By four it'll be pouring. What time is it?” he asked Sweet, who sat with his ass burrowed into the lip of the dune and his legs extended down the inside of it.

“His watch said quarter to two. Nice watch.”

Gainer thought that had the sound of Sweet putting his word in for the watch, come the time when they divied him up. Or tried to.

“… Can I get anything?” Sweet asked.

“Don't interrupt,” Hine snapped at him.

Sweet just took it, stuck his forefinger into his ear and rotated it to clean or scratch, scuffed at the sand with his heel. Sweet had been with Hine as far back as Hotchkiss, the prestigious preparatory school up in Lakeville, Connecticut, where Sweet was expelled in the third year for having killed a cow. He'd chosen that cow because it was the one with an udder most swollen with milk. Had sighted at that pinkish, somewhat transparent part and pulled both triggers of a ten-gauge shotgun. He claimed he was shooting at a rabbit. Hine corroborated that. Sweet's parents were indignant, came got him, placed him in another prep school on the circuit, one that was not so strict about pranks.

“This doesn't bother you, does it, being bareass?” Hine asked Gainer.

“Not me. I'm a natural-born flasher.”

“You can understand why this is how it has to be.”

“Sure.” Gainer had at first thought it was to make sure he had no weapons, but now with all of them bare, he decided it was to eliminate the possibility of there being any concealed recording devices.

“If anything said this afternoon goes into anyone else's ear, I'll just deny it,” Hine said.

“Whose ear for instance?”

“Let's say Darrow, for instance.”

Gainer nodded. Play it street, he reminded himself. Whatever it is, string it out of him.

“You and I have something in common, we both dislike Darrow.”

“I don't say I especially dislike him,” Gainer said casually. “In fact as whiteshoes go, he's not so bad.”

“You ought to hate him.”

“Why?”

“That sharpshooter who almost blew you away last week was working on Darrow's order.”

Gainer put together a dubious expression.

“I'm in close and I know. You see me there.”

“Now that some time has passed, I'm seeing the incident more as Darrow does, that it was only a wild shot by some city crazy,” Gainer baited.

“You were in France when two middlemen were killed.”

“What's a middleman?”

“Ponsard, Becque.”

“Mean nothing to me.”

“Look, Gainer, I want to have this talk with you, and, believe me, it's in your best interest that we do, but if you—”

“Ponsard drowned.”

A silent moment.

“It was also Darrow who initiated the order for Norma.”

Gainer tried to stay unreadable.

Hine's eyes were on him, trying to see how he was taking it. “Want a drink?” Hine asked.

“No.”

“Mind if I do?”

“The ice cube might be wired,” Gainer said.

Hine had no sense of humor.

“You're cautious,” he said. “Good. I need you to be cautious.”

Hine arched his back, stretching. His ribs shed rivulets of perspiration. Beads of it hung shiny like decorations on his pubic hair. His cock lay doughy on his thigh.

“You don't seem to give a damn,” he said.

“About what?”

“What Darrow did to Norma.”

“I don't believe it. He liked her.” Still baiting.

“As a matter of fact, he did in a way.”

“So why would he want her killed?”

“She was skimming.”

“That's more bullshit.” Not baiting.

“She skimmed about twenty to thirty thousand from every carry she made over the last three years.”

“She couldn't have.”

“She did.”

“No way.”

“She found a way of sliding a hundred or two from a sheaf without disturbing the rest, she was very neat about it. She figured it was just a couple less pieces of paper to each sheaf. You met Fraulein Foehr?”

“Yeah.”

“Her scales caught Norma.”

“Why didn't they catch her the first time?”

“They did.”

“And you let her go on with it?”

“Not me. Darrow. He kept using her, knowing at any time he could end it. Finally, he got fed up.”

Gainer was stunned, felt as though he'd swallowed something so heavy it was impossible for him to move. It wasn't such a surprise to him that Darrow had, in some way, been behind Norma's death. What got him, dropped him, disappointed him, was the idea of Norma skimming, that she could have ever been that shifty. He pictured her going through it as Hine had described. Ever so carefully, slipping hundreds from each sheaf. Anyone might think of doing it but few actually would. Not his Norma, not her. He wouldn't believe it. Such scheming hadn't been in her. It was only Hine inventing, hoping to inflate his hate for Darrow for some reason, that was all there was to it.

No, that was
not
all there was to it.

Skimming fit, Gainer had to admit. Norma had been killed because she had skimmed. Well, so fucking
what
? The money was dirty, it was shit money, she'd stolen from the stealers, those who had put dishonesty in her hands in the first place. She hadn't deserved what she got. Maybe they thought so, but he still didn't, never would. The only thing Gainer blamed her for was underestimating Darrow and his people, which in itself only showed how naive, how innocent she actually was. Anyway, at least now he knew his man for sure. If what Hine said was true the Mob was in it only to the extent that Darrow was Mob. But what gave Darrow the weight to instigate such hits? Something about that didn't lock. Keep leading Hine out, Gainer told himself.

Hine said: “You could kill Darrow, couldn't you? Especially now that you have access to him, just do it, point-blank?”

“Sure.”

“Why don't you?”

“I'm not that stupid.”

“But you are plenty pissed.”

“That what you want, for me to kill Darrow for you?”

“You're dead anyway.”

“Not yet.”

“Darrow is just fucking with your head, keeping you around to sweat and kiss ass for a while. Not for long, though.”

“He offered me a job.” Baiting, drawing Hine out again.

“Carrying?”

“Yeah.”

“You believe him?”

“No …”

“No matter, you're going to like my offer better.”

“Not if it includes suicide. Why do you want Darrow dead?”

“I'm running up his back.”

“Hire someone.”

“I could, but it would be too obvious, risky. Besides, even if Darrow got hit by a car or someone this afternoon, chances are I might not be moved up into his spot. I'm in line to become Custodian, but they might put someone else in and I'd be no better off. Other measures are indicated.”

Gainer wondered who “they” were. And what the “measures” were. “You've got a problem,” he said.

“So have you.”

“I'm working on mine.”

“You'll work yourself to death,” Hine told him.

Gainer's toes were sunk in and his squat had given way so that now the base of his spine took most of his weight. He brought himself up slowly, grateful that his legs were that strong. Standing, he saw over the lip of the dune, saw the drift fences awry and buried to various degrees across the beach. The wind had picked up, broken the ocean into uncountable repetitive scallops. Hine was right. There would be rain soon. Gainer saw a gull dive, dip into the calmer area between breakers, come up with a fish, only to have it beaked from him by another gull that swallowed it more quickly. Gainer sat down on the dune and after a moment went eyes to eyes with Hine, allowing Hine to read him.

Hine opened with: “The money our people carry, where do you think it's kept?”

“I don't know. Some bank, I suppose.”

“What about right there at Number 19?”

Gainer thought of all those formidable servants. “Probably better than a bank, more convenient.”

“How much would you say is there?”

Norma's carries had usually been three million, so maybe they kept ten around. That was his guess: “Ten million.”

“Tell him how much Sweet.”

“Today?”

“Today.”

“Three billion, one hundred seventy-four million and change.”

Gainer's mouth was open. “You're shitting me.”

“It's there, I'll show it to you if I have to,” Hine told him.

“Say that number again,” Gainer said.

Sweet repeated it.

“That's the amount waiting to be washed,” Hine said. “We call it The Balance. Last night you slept no more than a hundred feet from it.”

“Where?”

“On that same upper floor but in the opposite wing.”

Gainer recalled the windowless upper area he'd noticed a few days ago. Now he knew the reason for it. At various times over the years he'd heard there was a lot of dirty money, Mob money, stashed in a private house somewhere. But the rumors always had it in New Jersey. He'd never believed it. His mouth wasn't open now, however, he felt like snapping his head to get it to register. Three billion in that house?

The nearly paralytic way lower-class people were affected by huge sums always amused Hine. He had to suppress a grin. He waited for Gainer's mind to absorb the amount, then told him, “What I want you to do is steal it.”

“Is that all?”

“The money is key. If anything happens to it, Darrow dies.”

“He cries himself to death?”

“He dies as a matter of course.”

“Who sees to that?”

“Don't ask,” Hine advised him.

Gainer knew better than to want to know.

“You must understand, of course, I only want you steal the money temporarily,” Hine said. “After Darrow is blamed and pays the price the money gets recovered.”

“By you.”

“Yes, and for that I am made Custodian and you're off the hook.”

“The way I see it, I'm still on and wiggling.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The code is specific. When a Custodian dies or is replaced, his orders are automatically cancelled.”

“Tell me about that.”

Hine ran it down briefly for him. The procedure for orders, the unequivocal intolerance of mistakes, the extreme penalty. He used the case of Gridley as an example.

“Nice genteel folk, you whiteshoes,” Gainer said.

Hine agreed with a shrug, not altogether without pride.

“So, I'd be stealing for my life.”

“And to be a little richer. Let's say ten million.”

“Cash.”

“Cash.”

“Ten million of the dirty—”

“Naturally.”

“Make it twenty,” Gainer said.

Hine was sure he had his man. “Tell you what, to show that my heart is in the right place, you can also keep the three million you got from Norma, with no further questions.”

“What three million from Norma?”

“Her last carry, you know.”

“I don't know.”

“It never reached the bank. Darrow and everyone, including myself, have been convinced all along that you got it somehow.”

“Is that why Darrow had me watched in Zurich?”

“Sharp boy.”

“Just for that make my end thirty million,” Gainer said.

“You're getting greedy.”

“Thirty million is crumbs.”

Hine, with a shrug, admitted that it was. “One thing more,” he said. “You mustn't count on me. I'll pass on whatever helpful information I can whenever I can, but otherwise I won't have any part in it.”

“Just me,” Gainer said.

“Fuck up and I'll be facing the other way.”

“Thanks.”

“You'll be no worse off than you are now.”

He had a point there, Gainer thought. “Tell me, Hine, if I take your proposition and Darrow's to die, how will he die? Can you guarantee some slow, excruciating, painful way?”

“I can't promise that.”

“But he'll know he's dying?”

“From the moment the money is missing, he'll know that.”

Gainer had to smile.

“Then we have a deal?” Hine asked.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I want to give it some thought. I'll be back to you.” Spoken like a true hot shit executive, he thought.

T
HAT
night at a middling Szechuan restaurant on the Post Road, Gainer told Leslie all about his meeting with Hine. Going over with her the points of Hine's proposition helped make clearer his own thoughts on them.

Leslie set a new personal record for not interrupting. She took it rather like a wife whose husband had been offered a much better job. It was, she believed, a splendid opportunity. “Three billion dollars,” she half-whispered, as though they were holy words. “I'll bet it would be the largest amount ever stolen.”

“At least right up there.”

“I think we could pull it off,” she said.

Arguing with her now about the
we
would be wasted effort, Gainer realized, and told her: “We don't even have any idea what it involves yet.”

“Doesn't matter, I
know
we could.” She was so excited she gave up on her chopsticks, forked at the eggplant garlic dish she'd ordered triple hot. She'd already extended a sample of it across to Gainer and burned his taste buds so they didn't seem to trust anything else he offered them.