Two for the Money
Authors: Max Allan Collins
“Strong and compelling reading.”
— Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
“Collins has an outwardly artless style that conceals a great deal of art.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“Collins breaks out a really good one, knocking over the hard-boiled competition (Parker and Leonard for sure, maybe even Puzo) with a one-two punch: a feisty storyline told bittersweet and wry... Never done better.”
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters... a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending.”
— Atlanta Journal Constitution
“The Nolan series by Max Collins is fast-paced and exciting. Plunk down some hard cash for this one today.”
— Prevue
“Powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Intelligent, witty, and exciting.”
— Booklist
“Ingenious.”
— Publishers Weekly
SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:
MONEY SHOT
by Christa Faust
ZERO COOL
by John Lange
SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB
by Robert Bloch
THE MURDERER VINE
by Shepard Rifkin
SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY
by Donald E. Westlake
NO HOUSE LIMIT
by Steve Fisher
BABY MOLL
by John Farris
THE MAX
by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
THE FIRST QUARRY
by Max Allan Collins
GUN WORK
by David J. Schow
FIFTY-TO-ONE
by Charles Ardai
KILLING CASTRO
by Lawrence Block
THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER
by Roger Zelazny
THE CUTIE
by Donald E. Westlake
HOUSE DICK
by E. Howard Hunt
CASINO MOON
by Peter Blauner
FAKE I.D.
by Jason Starr
PASSPORT TO PERIL
by Robert B. Parker
STOP THIS MAN!
by Peter Rabe
LOSERS LIVE LONGER
by Russell Atwood
HONEY IN HIS MOUTH
by Lester Dent
QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE
by Max Allan Collins
THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES
by Jonny Porkpie
for the
MONEY
by
Max Allan Collins
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-005)
First Hard Case Crime edition: November 2004
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE1 OUP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 1973, 1981, 2004 by Max Allan Collins
Cover painting copyright © 2004 by Mark Texeira
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-317-5
E-book ISBN 978-1-78116-100-5
Design direction by Max Phillips
The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime Books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.
Printed in the United States of America
Visit us on the web at
www.HardCaseCrime.com
To Barb
For aiding and abetting
BOOK ONE
E
XCERPT FROM THE
P
ORT
C
ITY
S
AVINGS AND
T
RUST
S
ECURITY
P
ROGRAM:
In compliance with the Bank Protection Act of 1968, the following programs were installed by this bank:
. . . (4) Each teller station will have ‘bait’ money in the amount of $1,000.00 in denominations of tens and twenties. Federal reserve notes will be used. A permanent record will be maintained by the Auditor on all ‘bait’ money which will show bank of issue serial numbers and series years of which are recorded.
A woman was usually a night to a week in Nolan’s life, yet this one had lasted a month and five days. But then, before it was different—before he’d never had so bad a need for one.
He sat up in bed, aware that the pain in his side was lessening, and scanned the room. He took in its drabness, and a slight smile came to his lips. Christ, had he really been staring at these four suffocating walls for over a month now? He closed his eyes, seeking not rest but relief from pink stucco walls and second-hand store furniture.
“Hi,” she said. She was in the doorway, bundled in a heavy coat, a sack of groceries filling her arms.
He nodded hello.
“I’ll just put these away,” she said.
He kept nodding, said, “Okay,” and watched her smile and leave the doorway.
He leaned back and reached out his arms while stretching his body. The pain didn’t increase at all from the movement; the place in his side where the bullet had gone in seemed completely healed over. Quite a difference from even a week before, when his body had been one big ache, one long, slow, muscle-bone-gristle ache.
He got out of bed and caught, turned away from his reflection in the bureau mirror. He climbed into a pair of boxer shorts, shaking his head and muttering.
That damn face of his, high cheekbones, narrow eyes, widow’s-peaked hair, that damn easily recognizable face, which both beard past and mustache present failed to disguise. At least the lean weeks had affected his body somewhat to the better. He felt drained, sure, but that roll of softness the years had put around his waist had disappeared.
“Hi,” she said, in the doorway again, now wearing only bra and panties.
She had never been beautiful, he supposed. But she’d been better than plain, and nowhere near ugly. Now, after seven or maybe eight years of traumatic experiences— assorted divorces, abortions, affairs with married men—she was getting the kind of lines in her face that polite people say show character. Nolan saw the lines as too much age for too few years, giving her an air of having been taken advantage of emotionally, used once and thrown away like Kleenex.
“You look tired,” he said.
She nodded, undoing the scarf that tied her black hair behind her head, letting the shoulder-length mane fall free. “I’m tired, all right,” she said, “but not physically, you know, just mentally. I mean, the old mind really gets a workout waiting tables eight till five. It’s a goddamn challenge.”
As she spoke, Nolan watched bitter lines deepen in her face and then lowered his eyes to her breasts as she released them from her bra. The breasts were large, and though beginning to sag, were still quite good. Her nipples were like rose-hued sand dollars.
“How was your day, Nolan?”
“Long. Dull.” He went back over to the bed and lay down again.
“How’s the side?” She came and stood by the bed and leaned over him, her breasts swaying like hanging fruit.
“What?”
“Your side, how’s it feeling?”
“Better.”
“Do anything today?”
“Just slept.”
“Oh? Now don’t hand me that line . . . you haven’t been sleeping more than nine hours out of every twenty-four since you been feeling better, and you had near that when I left for work this morning. So what’d you do today?”
“I watched television.”
“Sure you did. The soap operas.”
“That’s right.”
“Come on, Nolan.”
“I read the paper.”
“Do anything else?”
“No.”
“Took you all day to read the paper?”
“Slow reader.”
“All right, so be a bastard.”
“That was an accident of birth.”
“Smartass remarks don’t make you less a bastard, Nolan.”
“Okay, okay. I suppose I ought to tell you, anyway.”
“Tell me what?”
“I made a couple long-distance calls.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I’ll pay for them. I’m going to pay you back for everything you’ve done for . . .”
“Shut up, Nolan.” She sat down on the bed, facing away from him and touching her face with her fingertips.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“You don’t owe me a damn thing, that’s all. Do you understand?” Her voice was drum tight. “I am a lot of things, and I’ve been a lot of things, and I will be a lot of things in days to come. But I was not, am not, and will not ever be a whore.” She was quiet for a few moments, then added, her voice hushed, “You don’t owe me anything, Nolan. And if you try to give me any money, I’ll tear your goddamn heart out.”
He touched her shoulder.
She turned and rubbed her hand over his chest, twining her fingers in its hair. She made an effort and got a smile going and said, “I won’t try to pry out of you what those phone calls were about—you don’t have to worry about that.”
He nodded, smiled.
“Did you do anything else today?”
“No. Just did some thinking.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. That’s why those stupid damn phone calls put me on edge so.”
“What do you mean?”
“Now you’ve started thinking.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“You know what I mean. You’ve started thinking, and before I know it, well . . .”
“Well what?”
“Well, you’ll be gone, damn it.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You
are
leaving,” she said, “aren’t you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said you been thinking. Same difference.”
“Sometime I’ll leave. Everybody leaves sometime or other.”
“You’re half right. Everybody leaves me
all
the time.”
“What is this, self-pity day?”
“You’re goddamn right it is. Who else is going to pity me if I don’t? You?”
“How old are you?”
“What? Why are you forever asking me how old I am?”
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“All right, all right, I’m thirty-one.”
“What else are you? Besides thirty-one.”
“Free, white, and ten years too many?”
“You’re intelligent. Not bad looking.”
“Beautiful is what I am. A funhouse mirror with sex.”
“Shut up. You’re a good-looking kid.”
One side of her mouth smiled. “Maybe I should have pulled this self-pity routine before. I’ve never heard you talk so much—and compliments, too! Don’t stop now.”
He allowed himself a grin and said, “I’ll grant you I don’t talk much, but now I am, so listen, I got something to say: sling hash if you want to, or don’t sling it.”
She looked at him wide-eyed. “That’s it? That’s the big message?”
“That’s it.”
“Profound. Pretty fuckin’ profound, Nolan. ‘Sling hash or don’t sling it.’ Let me write that down.”