The Perfect Crime (26 page)

“Emergencies?”

“Yeah, genius.
Your
emergency. See, when I leave--with the money of course--the dope is all yours--the rest is out in your car. ‘Course if you decide to make your phone call the police may have a different idea about that. When I leave I’m going to activate those little beauties on your back. With this.” He reached one last time to the box on the floor and picked up a canary yellow Futaba, a twin of the one Reader had used except for the color. His coup de gras. Ha! He liked that.

“That’s when you’re going to have to make a decision. But that’s what geniuses like you get paid the big bucks to do, isn’t it? Make executive decisions? You’re gonna get to make one pretty soon. You’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’ve got to pack up, get ready to put it in the wind. You rest easy while I finish up.”

He made one last pass of the house, gathered up everything he’d used that was lying around and put it in one of the cardboard boxes, along with the book of matches he’d used to light his last cigarette. The cigarette butt, he stuck behind his ear. Reader craned his neck watching him.

“You fuck, what’s this all about?” Reader’s neck muscles strained into ropes. “I don’t get it. You think I’m gonna call the cops? You an idiot or what?”

Grady looked around checking for anything he might have missed. Satisfied, he sat back down in the chair across from the man in the bed, took the cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it between his lips and lit it.

“You disappoint me, Reader. For an genius and a big-time criminal, you really aren’t that bright, are you?” He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “This is a filthy habit, you know? Wish to hell I could quit it. Maybe I’ll get in one of those programs. Maybe buy one of those patches. What do you think? You think those patches work?” He blew smoke at the ceiling, took another drag, stubbed it out on the floor and put it in the box with the other items.

“It’s simple, Reader. I’m going to leave with the money. No split. All mine. You get the dope. All yours. Some of the money. Enough that the cops put two and two together. And you’re right--I’m going to find a nice beach somewhere. Might surprise you where though. This beach, I don’t think you’d ever guess where it is. You can try though. If you get warm I’ll let you know.”

Grady was enjoying this. This was the best, sweetest part of this whole deal. This was better than justice. This was a reckoning.

“Well, here’s the deal, Reader. It’s simple. You either call the cops or you push a button. I’m going to leave the Futaba. Within easy reach if you strain a little. You pick whatever button strikes your fancy. Phone button, transmitter button. I’ve got to tell you though, I rewired this little baby. I’m not sure which is the right button that’ll deivate your little setup. It might be this one or it might be that one. Or you might want to call the cops and let them decide. Choice is yours. Remember choices? You tell me you’re a gambler. Gamblers get to make lots of choices. You get a big fat one. You get to call a bluff. Biggest fucking pot of your life. Do you go to jail or do you blow up? Or maybe you get lucky, pick the right button if you’d like to try that transmitter. I know which way I think you’ll go, but I’m not telling. I like to do a bit of psychoanalyzing myself from time to time. I’ve played a little poker too. I think I know what you’ll do. In fact I’m betting on it. I don’t think you got the guts you think you have when it comes right down to it. Either way I don’t give a rat’s ass. I win either way. You lose either way. Life’s a bummer, isn’t it?”

Grady held up the Futaba. He turned it around so Reader couldn’t see it and pushed a button.

“See? It’s activated. One of these two buttons deactivates it. One does something else. Something you won’t like. You’re on your countdown, Reader. Talk about tense! This is exciting shit, isn’t it!”

He laid the remote control device on the bed next to Reader’s left hand.

“All you got to do is turn it off, Reader. Or hit the button on the phone. Left hand, right hand, which will you choose?” He smiled at the man. “Of course they’ll also get this.”

He took a manila envelope out of his jacket pocket and went over and placed it on the table next to the package of cocaine.

“In case you’re wondering what this is, it’s a full account of how you pulled this job. Has your little episode up in Dayton on it. My writing’s not so hot, probably some misspelled words in it, but they’ll get the drift. I think there’s enough in there to convict you. This, plus the dope I’m leaving for you... See, this turns into a perfect deal for me. I thought about this a long time during the whole time I’ve been tracking you. Figured some of this out a couple of days ago. The rest came to me just a couple of hours ago or so. Something else. I kept thinking about the guy you thought you killed up in Dayton--his name was Jack if that matters to you. The thing is, if you woulda just paid him for the Futaba you woulda probably gotten away with your little foolproof plan. It’s a shame, isn’t it? You know, at first I was gonna catch you, turn you in, go back home. Maybe I woulda shot you ‘trying to escape.’ I asked myself what Jack would advise. We were pretty close, I’m happy to tell you. I think this is what he’d say to do.”

“I’ll kill you,” Reader said. His eyes were narrow slits. “There’s no place you can go I won’t find you, you one-eyed fuck.”

Grady couldn’t quit smiling. As much as he wanted to keep his face serious he couldn’t wipe off his grin.

“Well, ol’ buddy, that’s the chance I’m going to have to take. Oh, and I wouldn’t wiggle too much trying to get loose. The sad truth is I’m not that great at tying things and too much shaking and I’m afraid that phone’ll fall off. Then what would you do? All cuffed up and nobody to call. Now
that’s
what I’d call tense.

“Another thing. I expect you’ll want to make my part in this known if you choose the phone option. Go ahead, but I think you ought to know that I know something about getting lost too. Remember, I was a cop for sixteen years. I paid attention to some things. In fact I got a good idea on how to disappear for a long, long time. Probably forever. I feel pretty confident that’s what Jack would have wanted ‘specially since this money doesn’t belong to anybody but some asshole low-life drug dealer. I think a lot of cops are gonna like this idea, the g guy getting the money for a change. Maybe they won’t be so anxious to spend a lot of time and effort tracking me down. You know?”

Reader gave a bellow and lunged against the cuffs, making the bed shake, and the phone slipped and fell off. Grady made a “tsk-tsk” sound with his tongue and shook his head sadly. He got up, picked up the phone and replaced it, rewrapping the wire that held it, but with only one turn. It looked precarious.

“See? I told you I wasn’t good at this. You might want to think about doing that again ‘specially since I won’t be around to fix it next time. I’m glad you did that though. Reminds me.”

He took out a roll of gray tape from a pocket and went over and taped Reader’s mouth. His eyes widened.

“Wouldn’t want you making too much noise. Might spoil everything if somebody heard you and came in. I don’t think that’s likely, out here in the boonies, but you never know when some kid might happen by, coon hunting or after one of them cute little alligators you folks got down here. I believe you might try and talk them into helping you out of your little fix. Who knows what lies you might come up with? You see, I’m good at these little details. Who knows? I might be executive material myself. ‘Course not as good as you, I know. You’re the genius. Me? I’m a dumb cop. A detail man. Although, you might pay more attention to details in the future, Reader. Next time, you might check who a man’s relatives are before you kill him. You might also get your next dog from the pound and you might want to get a different partner, one who isn’t into shoes, one who maybe favors old boring wingtips. Like these.” He held up a foot and chuckled.

“Those are little things I know, but don’t you agree they can sure mess a guy up? Especially a madcap criminal genius like you surely are.

“Like I was saying, I was gonna do the righteous thing, but thinking it over got me to remembering how all my life I’ve been running around trying to catch scuzzballs like you. And mostly losing. We get a few, but more get away. End up like you thought you was going to, sitting on some beach in the Bahamas, different fuck every night, Dom Perignon in the water taps. And me? I sit in my little two bedroom and worry about how I’m going to pay for the roof that’s ready to fall in. So I got to thinking. I got to thinking about you killing Jack along with a shitload of other people you probably wasted in your miserable life. I got to thinking that the way things are nowadays, if I was to catch you and send you to jail, you’d probably get out someday. Probably sooner, the way things are with the namby-ass judges and lawyers we seem to have these days. Yeah, you’d be out and I’d still be worrying about that roof.

“So I decided to do the smart thing for once. I decided to take the money. Be the only one on the beach that probably wasn’t a master criminal. Think about you sitting in a stinking jail cell worrying about me enjoying your money. That way even if you get out someday, you suffer. If I give this money back to the cops, you don’t suffer near as much as you will thinking about me having a high old time on it.”

“Ummmmphf!” Reader was screaming through the tape. “Arrrgh. Mmmmmpf!”

Grady hefted the box to rest along his hip, grinning at the man’s frustration.

“I’ll be leaving, Reader. I know you want to be alone with your thoughts. I can see you want to tell me something, don’t you? Sorry. I don’t have any more time to sit and chat with you although I’ve got to say it’s been enjoyable.”

At the door he paused for a second. He could see the veins on Reader’s neck standing out and he was making a humming sound, similar t the sound a jet engine makes when it’s warming up. Perspiration ran in droplets off his nose.

Grady was relishing every bit of this. Especially the various looks that passed over Kincaid’s face. “Oh yes--there’s one more little thing. I don’t have to tell you what will happen when those batteries wear down--I mean, after all, you’re the guy who came up with this brilliant little brainstorm, aren’t you? Well, I don’t mean to be instructing the professor. I’d like to remind you what will happen if you wait too long and those babies wear down. You’ll be a whole lot of little geniuses, ol’ buddy. And I did a stupid thing, Reader. That old car of mine--it’s a real lemon--radio doesn’t work. I got this cassette player, this portable I been playing. All the way from Ohio. I didn’t want to take the time to have to shop for new batteries for your little hookup there so I used the ones from it and to be honest, I don’t know how much juice is left in them. Not much, I’m afraid. Maybe only minutes. Maybe a few hours. Who knows? I know I wish I’d bought Duracells. Aren’t those the ones with the bunny? No, that’s the Energizer ones. Well, no matter. On a cop’s pension you don’t get the real expensive ones. I bought the cheaper ones. Now, I could kick myself. Try and get a bargain and you get what you pay for I guess. Try being on a fixed income. It’s a real bitch.”

Through the bedroom window he could see the sun beginning to emerge. It was going to be a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky, looked like. Too much humidity, though. The heat was fine, just the humidity fucked it up. He wondered what the weather was like in Vermont this time of year. He bet it wouldn’t be this humid.

“I’ve got to be going now, Reader. Makes me nervous to be around you, ‘specially with those cheap-ass batteries. You take care now, and don’t forget to make that call.”

Pulling onto the highway, Grady smacked his forehead in mock anger. “Damn!” he said aloud, turning on the radio and searching for jazz. The stations came in loud and clear. “There’s one more thing I forgot to mention to ol’ Reader. Should I go back and tell him?” He pushed down harder on the gas pedal. “Naw. He’ll find out eventually.”

***

“Fuck my rights, and fuck you,” he said. There were cops all over the place. His hands were cuffed behind him now, and somebody had given him a cigarette which dangled from his lips. In front of him stood a beefy detective in a bad suit that looked like something from the ‘70s and matched the skinny tie he was wearing. He was holding a plastic bag containing Reader’s knife. He waved it at one of the policemen standing near him.

“Would you look at this!” he said. “Regular pig-sticker!”

“Yeah,” said the other officer. “It’s got blood on it, too.”

“Say,” another uniform chimed in, walking over. “Wasn’t old man Derbigny stabbed?”

The detective holding the knife looked at it again. “Yeah.” He looked down at Reader. “I got a feeling this was the knife used. Looks like this scumbag got his granddaughter, too. You’re in a lot of trouble, podner. Let’s see, we got drugs, a neat little story somebody was nice enough to leave for us about some business up in Ohio...yeah, I’d say you were royally fucked, ol’ buddy. That turns out to be Derbigny’s blood and your prints on that knife, you ain’t even gonna be safe up in Angola. That’s one powerful man you whacked, partner. He’s got friends in the weirdest places.”

“Hey, Roy,” somebody called from the doorway. “You won’t believe this!”

“What?” said the detective turning to look. A uniformed cotood there, a wide grin stretched across his face. He was holding up the pipe.

“Look.” The policeman turned the pipe upside down. Nothing happened.

“What is it, Bill?”

“There’s nothing in it, Roy. Only a note.” In his other hand he held up a scrap of paper.

“What’s it say?”

The policeman named Bill held it up for effect, glanced at the prisoner, showed perfect teeth in a cheek-to-cheek grin. “It just has one word.”

“Which is?”

“Gotcha.”

The whole room exploded with laughter. Except one.

***

Grady was half a mile away when he heard the sirens coming. Two black and white units passed him and a block up two more roared by, a fire truck following close behind.

“I win, Reader,” he said softly, under his breath. “I would have liked to have played poker with you sometime.” He kept an eye out for a gas station, someplace to buy some cigarettes. Tomorrow would be soon enough to quit.