Money for Nothing (12 page)

"Maybe they won't ask you to do much," Josh said. "I've just had some people staying in my place, when I wasn't there, and I'm kinda storing stuff for them."

Robbie's keen eyes bored in. "What stuff?"

"Well… guns."

"
Oh
, no!" Jumping to his feet, pacing the stage like Hamlet, Robbie said, "I don't
like
guns, man, I even have trouble with the props on the stage, I try to stay away from Mamet, I don't like any of that stuff, maybe you should just go away and—"

"Wait, wait," Josh said. "You can't just pretend this isn't happening, because it's
happening
. Levrin is gonna show up, because he obviously still needs somebody, because Van Bark didn't work out—"

"Ugh."

"If you can't make him believe you've been part of the sleeper thing all along," Josh said, "honest to God he's gonna kill you. Same as Van Bark. And then he'll come get
me
, because he knows the truth. And then Mr. Nimrin."

'This Nimrin sounds like—"

"
Hello
!" yelled a voice from offstage; from the lobby, in fact. "
Anybody here
?" yelled the voice, and Josh recognized it, the accent, the intonations.

Suddenly on his feet, he hissed, "It's him! It's him!"

Robbie gaped at him. "The terminator?"

"
Hello
!" Rattling of the locked door.

"He'll break it down!" Josh said, in a shrill whisper. "You've gotta go out there, talk to him!"

Robbie stared up the aisle. "
Talk
to him?"

"
Hello
! What's the matter with this door?"

"You're an
actor
!" Josh whispered, frantic with haste. "
Act
!"

"Act? But—" Robbie waved his arms, acting frazzlement. "What's my — what's my throughline?"

"You're a
spy
!"

"
Anybody there
?" More door rattling.

"Answer him, before he breaks in."

"Be right out!" Robbie yelled.

"Mitchell Robbie?"

"Be right there!"

Robbie started to move, but Josh grabbed his arm. "Where do I hide?"

"Behind the stage," Robbie said, distracted, and called again, "Here I come!" Instead of which, he did three quick deep kneebends, then straightened, having become somehow taller, thicker. "Be right there," he called, in a considerably deeper voice, and marched up the aisle.

"I COME FROM MR. NIMRIN. Of course, you
remember
Mr. Nimrin."

"Yes, of course. How
is
old Nimrin these days?"

Hide behind the stage. Behind the stage?

"Retired. Enjoying his retirement. I am Andrei Levrin."

"Among his roses, eh? Good for old Nimrin," Robbie said, his voice becoming more upper-crust English with every sentence. "Come in, old chap, come in."

But the back wall was blank black plywood. How could he—?

"Not much comfort in these digs, I'm afraid."

The voices were so
close
. And there, at the right rear corner of the stage, on the plywood wall, a round black wooden knob, the same color and texture as the wall, almost impossible to see. Push, or pull?

Push; which was why no hinges showed. Josh stepped through into a different kind of darkness, and the voices just kept getting nearer.

"I suppose you thought the call might never come."

"One stands ready. As the poet says, one also serves. Take the settee, why don't you, you'll find it more comfortable than it looks."

"Thank you. But first let me—"

"Ack!"

"Mitchell? What's the matter?"

"Nothing, not a thing, I wasn't certain what you were reaching for, I didn't want you to miss your footing on the — What's this?"

"Per our arrangement."

He's looking at the bankbook now, Josh thought, as he himself looked around at where he was hiding. Robbie's quarters, it must be, the living space that made it possible for Good Rep to get insurance.

It was a fairly large room, very messy, overcrowded with furniture, boxes, lamps, paintings, posters. It appeared to be a living room plus bedroom plus theatrical storage room, with two filthy windows in the far wall through which the remnants of daylight diffidently oozed, not helped much by the walls, which were painted in the pale grayish color variously known as landlord white or cockroach white, because it goes on the walls dirty and therefore it's very hard to know when it should be repainted. An open doorway in the left wall suggested an even grungier kitchen beyond.

But Josh's attentions were all behind him, on the conversation taking place just beyond this thin sheet of plywood, its hairy surface on this side also landlord white. Josh touched it with a palm, leaned close, and listened.

"Quite a lot of money." Robbie now sounded like a strangled Englishman.

"That was the agreement with Mr. Nimrin, as you recall. You do recall."

"Yes, of course. Memory like a steel trap."

"You are now, what this means is, activated."

"Yes." Thoughtful now, in control, no longer strangling. "One understood the situation at once, of course. What are my orders? Oh, and by what rank shall I refer to you?"

"Rank?" Josh could imagine Levrin frowning through lowered brows at Robbie. Don't overdo it, he begged. Don't get into the part
too
much.

"Well, Major, Colonel, whatever. One likes to do these things properly."

"Oh, I see." Wonderful; there was no suspicion in that voice at all. "Very considerate of you, but no, we don't do military ranks, we aren't that sort of group. In the old days, we might have said 'comrade,' but that doesn't seem to have the…
ring
it once had."

"So shall I call you Andrei? No cover name? Or possibly that
is
your cover name."

"Andrei will do very nicely," Levrin said, sounding just a bit nettled. "And you? Mitchell, or Mitch?"

"Oh, Mitch, Mitch is fine. But now to the assignment."

"You seem eager, Mitch."

"Well, it has been a long time between drinks, as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina. Or was that the Gov—"

"It's very simple, really." Levrin seemed in more of a hurry than before. "All you're going to do is rent a car."

"Rent a car? Is it a, is it a
long
journey?"

"No, no, not even out of the state. Can you take a note?"

"A what?"

"Write a note. Write the information."

"Oh, yes, of course, I'm sorry" — the voice getting even
closer
— "I'll just get a pen and—" another sudden strangled noise, an inch from the plywood. "No no, what am I thinking, silly me, pen and paper in the box office. I mean, ha ha" — moving away — "where else would it be? Half a sec."

The voice faded and jounced, as though Robbie were leaving at a dead run. Josh waited, ear to the plywood. Was that the sound of Levrin, up and around, moving about the stage? Bored, at loose ends, noticing that discreet little wooden knob, all in black?

Silent and swift as the headless horseman's horse, Josh slalomed through the collected junk, noticing along the way there would be no escape through those smeary windows. Bars could be dimly seen on the outside, and an alley between the end of this building and the side of the first one on the cross street. Forgetting the windows, Josh angled through that side doorway into a kitchen where all the shelves were empty because the deep broad sink was
full
.

"Here we are, here we are. Sit down, Andrei, we don't stand on ceremony here, all set, ready for the drill."

"Yes, fine."

As Josh headed back to his listening post against the plywood, it seemed to him he could almost
hear
Levrin square his shoulders, squelch his doubts, decide to move forward no matter how strange Mitchell Robbie had turned out to be.

"You'll use your own credit card," Levrin said, "but of course we'll reimburse you later. Keep your receipt."

"Keep… receipt."

"Yes. A reservation has already been made in your name at All-Boro Car Rental at Eleventh Avenue and West Fifty-fourth Street."

"… Fifty-fourth Street."

"Yes. It's a weekend rental. You needn't write that down!"

"No, fine, right you are."

"You'll get to the car rental agency at nine on Saturday morning. The car is to be a four-door sedan, seats five."

"… seats five."

"Yes. Once you have the car, drive north on Eleventh Avenue."

"… Avenue."

"Yes. At Sixty-third Street, on the southeast corner, there is a pay telephone."

"… pay telephone."

"Yes. Stop there, turn on your flashers — don't write that down, just remember to turn them on."

"Yes, certainly."

"Stand at the pay phone and soon it will ring, and you will be given your instructions."

To proceed, Josh told himself, to Yankee Stadium.

"And that's it?"

"That's all of it. You will follow the instructions, and then your part of the operation is complete."

'Top hole."

"You understand, I can't speak about the rest of the operation, only your part in it."

"Oh, quite. Need to know. Think nothing of it."

"Well, Mitch, I'm pleased to say, I think Mr. Nimrin's choice in your case was an excellent one. Excellent."

"What, off so soon?"

"More preparations to make. You understand."

"I could offer you a Diet Pepsi," the idiot said. "With or without rum."

"Thank you, Mitch, another time."

The two voices receded, complimenting each other. Josh waited till he could hear neither of them anymore, then very cautiously opened the thin plywood door a scant inch, to squint out at an empty stage. As he peered there, one-eyed, Robbie came hurrying back into the theater, beaming like a halogen lamp.

Josh crept out to the stage. "Is he gone?"

Robbie stopped just short of the stage, all the empty chairs behind him. "Forty thousand dollars!" he cried, in a stage whisper, and actually rubbed his hands together.

"Yes, I know," Josh said. "In the Cayman Islands. I checked, and it's real."

"For a weekend's work, driving something or somebody somewhere. You know it really doesn't sound that awful, when you finally get to it."

"No, not so bad," Josh said. "You're driving the getaway car."

"FROM WHAT?" ROBBIE ASKED.

"From the massacre."

Robbie backed until his legs bumped into the first metal chair behind him. He dropped into it, making the chair squeak. "I suppose," he said, "you're going to have to tell me about it."

It was quickly told. Kamastan; Mihommed-Sinn; gypsy curse; Yankee Stadium; assassination. When Josh was finished, Robbie stared out through the upstage doorway a while, at that far-off snow-covered mountain. At last, he frowned and said, "They want me to drive to Yankee Stadium?
After
they do it? It'll be a madhouse there."

"I don't know," Josh admitted. "Mr. Nimrin says, if
he
were doing it, his people on the honor guard would shoot the rest of the honor guards, release blood packets in their own uniforms, then kill the ambulance attendants on the way out. I don't think his friends are any less ruthless or bloodthirsty than he is. Whatever the details, I guess there'd be a place you were supposed to wait, they'd meet you there."

"Seats five," Robbie said. "But why do they need
me
? Why do they need
us
?"

"We're local, we know how things work, we know how to drive the local roads. That's why they have sleepers in the first place."

Josh was back on the settee by now, Robbie still in the aisle seat in the first row, but now he jumped up to start that pacing again. "No," he said, glaring at the floor. "Can't be done."

Josh watched him. "What can't be done?"

"All this killing." Forcefully he shook his head as he paced back and forth on the forestage. His English-spy accent was gone, but the facial tics around his mouth were strangely reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart. "We're shupposed to help kill one creep from a hundred thousand miles away to help some other creep a hundred thousand miles away?"

"I a hundred per cent agree with you," Josh said. "Believe me, uh, Mitch" — because, if Levrin could call him Mitch, then so could a fellow American ensnared with him in this mess — "believe me, I've been staying awake nights trying to find a way to make this not happen."

"There has to be one."

"If we go to the police," Josh told him, "we don't have enough for them, but we've done enough to get ourselves killed. I told my wife we could run and hide in Canada, she told me I'm not the type."

Robbie stopped his paces and tics to give Josh one brief intense stare, then nodded. "She's right, you're not."

Josh found himself vaguely insulted by that, but rather than pursue it, get caught up in a side issue, he said, "I suppose you are the type."

"I would be," Robbie said, "if that was the way to go. But that isn't the way to go." Suddenly he turned squarely to face Josh, shoulders hunched forward, jaw grim, arms bent like an ape. "Yeah, Tojo," he snarled, in a more gravelly voice than ever before, "I'm just a little guy, but that's all right, Tojo, because there's a million more little guys just like me, and they're on their way, Tojo, you hear me? You hear me? They're on their way!
Oh
-haa-haa-haa-haa-haa!"

Robbie's insane laughter slowly died away up among the lights. Josh said, "I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that."

Robbie cocked his head to peer at Josh. "All right," he said. "Hold on." He went over to get the metal chair he'd been sitting on, brought it closer, and sat on it to face Josh up close. "This is why," he said. "Why your wife's right, but why nevertheless we've still got to do something. And can. The difference between us, you and me, is, you're the corporate type, and I'm the creative type. That's why you—"

Stiffly, Josh said, "I'm with an advertising agency."

"Exactly," Robbie said, as though he thought Josh were agreeing with him. "You don't think outside the box because you
live
in the box. Tote that bale, get that paycheck."