Free Blood risk by Dean Koontz

need?"
        "My furniture, automobile, some art objects."
        "Inadequate, I'm afraid."
        "I have some very good artwork."
        "Art may be worth a fortune today, nothing tomorrow.
        The critics and the connoisseurs are fickle in their approval of any talent."
        "And the bank is involved in such unsound investments?" Tucker asked, feigning innocence, pointing at the Klee.
        Mellio said nothing.
        Tucker said, "These aren't paintings but primitive artifacts, valuable as antiquities and as art."
        "I'd have to have them appraised," Mellio said. "That would take a week, maybe longer."
        "I can send you to a reputable appraiser who would verify their value in half an hour."
        "We'd prefer to use our own man, and we'd need a week."
        "God," Tucker said, "I can't wait for the next stockholders' meeting so I can point out how you people are throwing money away on Klee paintings and other such claptrap. By your own admission-"
        "You're being childish," Mellio said.
        "And you are being dishonest, Mr. Mellio. I'm sure my father directed you to take every step to deny me this loan and to force me into signing the waiver. But you must see that if I don't get the ten thousand now, right now, I've got excellent grounds to level yet another suit against you, the bank and the administrator of the trust. No judge is going to believe that you seriously fear losing what you loan to me. It will be quite evident that your refusal is a spiteful tactic and nothing more."
        Mellio sat up and reached for his intercom controls. To Tucker he said, "I'll want a signed note from you, at least."
        Tucker said, "If I approve of the note's wording."
        "Of course."
        Mellio called for his secretary to bring the proper loan papers, though he was clearly unhappy about being forced into this.'
        "I'll want it in cash," Tucker said. "I'll tell you the denominations of the bills."
        "Cash?" Mellio asked, raising his eyebrows.
        "Yes," Tucker said. "I'm afraid your check might bounce."
        

----
        
        At nine-thirty, four blocks from the bank, with his ten thousand dollars packed into a slim briefcase, Michael Tucker made three short telephone calls from a public phone booth in a department store-one to a number in Queens, one to a number rather far out on Long Island and the third to Jimmy Shirillo in Pittsburgh. Satisfied that everything was moving along smoothly, he hailed a cab and rode to a point two blocks from the Queens address, got out, paid the driver, watched the taxi pull away and disappear in heavy traffic, then walked the rest of the way. That might have been an unnecessary precaution, even though the driver kept fare records that could be checked, but he had grown accustomed to his father's occasional private detectives padding in his wake, and he did not mind the slight inconvenience. No one followed him the rest of the way to Imrie's place.
        Imrie's place was a ground-floor showroom of a three-story brick structure on a quiet side street in Queens. A sign outside, reproduced in gilt lettering on the cracked glass door, said: antiques and used furniture. When Tucker went inside, the opening door caused a buzzer to shrill loudly far back in the stacks of chairs, tables, scarred bookcases, lamps, hutches, beds and a considerable variety of bric-a-brac. A moment later, as if unwillingly propelled forward by that noise, Imrie waddled out of a shadowed aisle between stacks of chairs and picture frames both used and antique.
        He said, "Just let me attend to the door, and I'll be with you." And he went to attend to it.
        Imrie was in his early fifties, bald except for a fringe of curly gray hair that accentuated the smoothness of the top of his skull, almost like a medieval friar. He stood no taller than five feet six, but he weighed an even two hundred pounds. Though his