Free Grifter's Game by Lawrence Block Page A

home might be better—Manhattan homicide cops are too damned thorough. Westchester homicide would be a little less likely to know what was doing.
    How? A gun or a knife? The proverbial blunt instrument? Or would I wring his neck with my hands? I tried to remember whether or not you could get fingerprints on a human being’s neck. I didn’t think you could.
    I started to shake some more. Then I had another double bourbon and another beer and went back to the hotel.

6
    I got to the Automat at nine. The girl in the cashier’s cage dealt me a stack of nickels and I wandered around playing New York’s favorite slot machines. I filled a tray with a glass of orange juice, a dangerous-looking bowl of oatmeal, a pair of crullers and a cup of black coffee. Then I found a table that gave me a good view of the entrance and started in on my breakfast.
    I was working on a second cup of coffee when she showed. I looked at her and my head started spinning. She was wearing a very simple blue-gray summer dress that buttoned up the front. She looked sweet and virginal and lovely, and I waited for her to rush over to my table and wrap herself around my neck.
    But she was so cool it almost scared me. She looked right at me and the shadow of a smile crossed her face. Then she swept on past me, broke a quarter into nickels and invested the nickels in coffee and a glazed doughnut. Then she stood with the tray in her hands, looking around for a place to sit. Finally she walked over to my table, unloaded the tray and sat down.
    “This is fun,” she said. “The cloak and dagger stuff, I mean. I’m getting a little carried away with it.”
    I had too much to say and there was no convenient place to begin. I started a cigarette to go with the coffee and plunged in somewhere in the middle. “Have any trouble getting here?”
    “None at all. I rode in with Keith on the train. I told him I had to do some shopping. Remind me to do some shopping later. I’ll buy a pair of shoes or something. Anything.”
    “It must be nice to have money.”
    I just threw the line out; maybe it was a mistake. She turned her eyes on me and her eyes said a great many things that cannot be translated too easily into English. Sure, it was nice to have money. It was nice to be in love, too. Many things were nice.
    “Joe—”
    “What?”
    “I was thinking that maybe we don’t have to kill him.”
    “Not so loud!”
    “No one’s paying any attention to me. Look, there’s another way that I’ve been thinking about. We won’t have to kill him if it works out.”
    “Getting soft?”
    “Not soft,” she said.
    “What then?”
    “Maybe scared. I understand they electrocute murderers in New York. I … don’t want to be electrocuted.”
    “You have to be convicted first.”
    Her eyes flared. “You sound as though you hate him,” she said. “You sound as though killing is more important than getting away with it.”
    “And you sound as though you’re trying to back out. Maybe that’s what you want. Maybe we should forget the whole thing. You go your way and I’ll go mine. Buy yourself all the shoes you want. And a few more furs. And—”
    And a man sat down at our table. An old man, broken by time, with a frayed collar on his clean white shirt, with spots on a wide polka-dot tie. He very solemnly poured milk over a bowlful of corn flakes and sprinkled two tablespoons of sugar on top of the mess while we watched him with our mouths open.
    “Let’s go,” I said. “Come on.”
    No matter where you are in Manhattan there is a bar around the corner. There was a bar around the corner now and we went to it. We found the most remote of the three empty booths and filled it. I hadn’t wanted a drink; now I needed one. I had bourbon and water and she had a screwdriver.
    “Well?”
    “You’ve got everything wrong,” she said. “I’m not trying to get out of anything. You can be pretty saintly about this, can’t you? You don’t have to live with him.