“For what,” Deborah said in a very flat voice, and, if he had known her as I did, Mr. Spanos should have gotten very nervous.
But Spanos did not know Deborah, and he seemed to gain confidence from the fact that she had asked what it was for. He smiled, not really a happy smile, more like he wanted to show his face could still do that. “For almost nothing,” he said. “Just this.” He held up his hand and wagged one finger in the air. “When you find the animals that killed my little girl …” His voice broke a little and he stopped, took his glasses off, and wiped them on his sleeve. He put the glasses back on, cleared his throat, and looked at Deborah again. “When you find them, you tell me first. That’s all. Ten minutes before you do anything else. One phone call to me. And that money is all yours.”
Deborah stared at him. He stared back, and for a few seconds he was no longer a sniveling, snuffling man, but instead a man who always knew exactly what he wanted, and exactly how to get it.
I looked at the money in the still-open suitcase. Half a million dollars. It seemed like an awful lot. I had never really been motivated by money—after all, I had not gone to law school. Money to me had always been merely something the sheep used to show each other how wonderful they were. But now, as I looked at the stacks of cash in the suitcase, it did not look like abstract markers for keeping score. It looked like ballet lessons for Lily Anne. An entire college education. Pony rides and new dresses and braces and finding shells on the beach in the Bahamas. And it was all right there in that one small suitcase, winking its sly greenbacked eyes and saying, Why not? What could it hurt?
And then I realized that the silence had gone on a little too long for comfort, and I tore my eyes away from Lily Anne’s future happiness and looked up to Deborah’s face. As far as I could tell neither she nor Spanos had changed expression. But at last Deborah took a deep breath and put the suitcase on the floor and looked back at Spanos.
“Pick it up,” she said, and she nudged it toward him with her foot.
“It’s yours,” he told her, shaking his head.
“Mr. Spanos,” she said, “it is a felony to bribe a police officer.”
“What bribe?” he said. “It’s a gift. Take it.”
“Pick it up, and get it out of here,” she said.
“It’s one phone call,” he said. “Is that such a crime?”
“I am very sorry for your loss,” Deborah said very slowly. “And if you pick that up and get it out of here right now, I will forget this happened. But if it is still there when the other detectives come back in, you are going to jail.”
“I understand,” Spanos said. “You can’t say anything right now; that’s fine. But take my card, call me when you find them, the money’s yours.” He flipped a business card to her and Deborah stood up, letting the card fall to the floor.
“Go home, Mr. Spanos,” she said. “Take that suitcase with you.” And she walked past him to the door and opened it.
“Just call me,” Spanos said to her back, but his wife was once again more practical.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said. She leaned down and grabbed the suitcase and, with a mighty shove down on the top, just barely got it locked before Deke and Alvarez came back in with the two bodyguards. Mrs. Spanos handed the
suitcase to the one with the buzz cut and stood up. “Come on,” she said to her husband. He looked at her, and then he turned and looked at Deborah by the door.
“Call me,” he said.
She held the door open. “Good-bye, Mr. Spanos,” she said.
He looked at her for a few seconds more, and then Mrs. Spanos took him by the elbow and led him out.
Deborah closed the door and let out a loud breath, then turned around and went back to her chair. Alvarez watched her sit, grinning. She looked up at him before he could wipe the smile off.
“Very fucking funny, Alvarez,” she snarled.
Deke came over and leaned in the same spot he’d been leaning before the interruption. “How much?” he asked her.
Deborah looked at him in surprise. “What?”
Deke shrugged. “I said, how much?” he said. “How much was in the suitcase?”
Deborah shook her head. “Half a million,” she said.
Deke snorted. “Chump change,” he said. “Guy in Syracuse tried to give my buddy Jerry Kozanski two mil, and it was only a rape.”
“That’s nothing,” Alvarez said. “Few years ago one of the cocaine cowboys offered me three million for the junkie that stole his car.”
“Three million and you didn’t take it?” Deke said.
“Ah,” Alvarez said, “I was holding out for four.”