Free Comeback by Richard Stark

right, raging in the background when Tina answered the phone in that breathless lisp that made Dwayne's skin crawl. Listen to the man back there, yelling his way around the hotel suite; how he hates to lose money. "Let me talk to Will," Dwayne said.
    "Oh, Dwayne, he's so upset, I know he wants to talk to you."
    He did. Dwayne stood there at the pay phone in the hospital corridor and listened to a certain amount of unnecessary oratory and then at last cut in with, "Will, you can help down here."
    That caused a stumble in the oration. Archibald said, "Help? Down where?"
    "I'm at the hospital with Tom Carmody. They won't let the law question him, so it's up to you and me. They can't very well keep the man's religious advisers away from him, so we do the questions."
    "Questions? Tom?" Dwayne could almost hear the penny drop. "Dwayne! Do you really think that filthy little pervert— You think it's him?"
    "He's part of it. Come on down, Will."
    In a small bare conference room borrowed from the hospital administration, Dwayne gave Archibald a little orientation talk before they went in to see Tom: "Now, listen, Will. If we get mad, or we make him scared, we won't get a thing out of him."
    "I'd like to get his liver and lights out of him, that wretched little ..." Archibald sputtered, at a loss for words he could permit himself to use.
    "Will, that's the wrong attitude," Dwayne said patiently. "What we want is whatever information Tom Carmody has inside his head, and the only way we're gonna get it is if we go in there and preach sweet forgiveness."
    "Sweet for—!" Archibald choked on the word, his beefy neck flushing all the way around his collar.
    "Shit, Will, you play it to millions all the time. This once, play it to one. We want the money back, dammit."
    "Yes, we do," Archibald agreed, and sat back, and nodded. "All right, let me just get myself settled."
    "Sure."
    Archibald sat there a minute longer, eyes half closed, and when he made a steeple of his hands Dwayne thought in astonishment that the man was going to pray, but he didn't. He took a deep breath instead, managed a smile, got to his feet, and said, "All right, Dwayne. Let us go pour oil on the little prick."

6
    Miserable, hurt, alone, knowing at last what an utter fool he was, Tom Carmody lay on his back in the high hard bed in this small bare-walled one-patient hospital room and tried to decide what to do. Suicide; confession; silence followed by a life of atonement; silence followed by revenge on—
    On whom? Revenge on whom? Which brought him full circle to suicide once more. Who else should he be avenged on, except himself?
    Mary. Would they think Mary had anything to do with the robbery? Just because they were friends? Because he'd told her about— That he would never let them know! Never bring her name into it at all, never, never.
    His head was heavily bandaged, all across the top and around the back, the thick white layers covering his ears and even pressing his eyebrows down lower over his eyes. He lay cocooned, sounds muffling as they made their way through the swaths of cotton. Why had Grant hit him so hard? Why hit him at all?
    Of course, this way at least the police would never suspect, would have no reason to believe the person brutally attacked by the robbers was himself a part of the scheme. So, if he didn't confess—
    He kept remembering Grant, on that first meeting, look at him with his cold eyes and say, "If the police catch you, they won't ask your motive." No, they won't.
    But he could ask his own motive. Had he ever expected to get away with it, or had he unconsciously been trying to get himself caught all along? Had he ever realistically expected to collect his half of the take? When he didn't even know where they were going with the money from here, where to find them afterward? He knew George Liss's name; the others had probably used aliases. If George wanted to go on pretending to be an honest citizen, if he actually showed up next month