Hard Cash by Max Allan Collins Page B

the other night, sweetheart.”
    “Wait one fucking minute, now,” the girl said. “You aren’t accusing us of having anything to do with . . .”
    “I didn’t say that. Thursday night, we were together, so the shotgun thing is a true coincidence. I grant you that. But from my point of view, why not? Why couldn’t you have hired some people to dig up further blackmail material on Jon and me? That would at least explain the break-in at our place.”
    “I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit,” the girl said.
    “We had nothing to do with it,” Rigley said. “Any of it.”
    “Okay. So who did?”
    “You’re making mountains out of molehills,” Rigley said. “You’re desperate to find an excuse to get out of this situation, and so are trying to scare us out, confuse and frighten us into letting you off the hook.”
    Nolan smiled. A friendly smile. It hurt him to do it; he hated Rigley and the bitch, and being civil to them would give him an ulcer if he had to keep it up much longer. But he smiled. He said, “I’m not trying to get off any hook. It’s a good heist. It really is. It’ll be easy, fast money for Jon and me. We’ve done it before, so why not again? But don’t you see the reason the two of us are around to rob your bank a second time is that we’re careful, we only work under certain conditions, and that it’s foolish to pull a heist when there’s possibly something going on that could fuck up that heist? Don’t you see that?”
    “No.”
    “No.”
    “Okay. I tell you what. We’ll postpone it. Postpone it a month. Give me time to see what’s going on, if anything. That’s all I ask.”
    “No!” Rigley shouted. He slammed his hands on the table, and everybody’s drinks spilled, the pitcher, everything. “No! No, goddammit, you’re just playing with us, I’m not postponing anything , no!”
    And Rigley got up and ran behind the bar and got a bottle off the shelf and shakily poured himself a shot and downed it and then another and . . .
    The girl, quietly, leaned over and touched Nolan’s hand. Her touch was warm, and for the first time she extended a trace of sexual promise to Nolan. She said, “Please. Understand. This is hard for George. He’s been a respectable member of the establishment for too many years for this to be easy for him. Do you have any idea how long it took him to gather the courage to approach you at that restaurant? He’s been watching you for months. Planning this, building himself up, gearing himself to be capable of an act that he is barely capable of even now. Asking him to postpone the robbery would be suicidal not only for George, but for all the rest of us, for any of us involved with the robbery. George is an intelligent and capable man in his chosen profession, just as you are in yours. But where crime is concerned, George is an amateur. We have to go ahead with the robbery, and as soon as possible.”
    Nolan nodded. “All right. Go settle him down and bring him back here. And get a cloth and clean off this damn table, will you?”
    She went to Rigley, and Jon said, “That’s why you wanted me to be nice, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah,” Nolan said. “It’s bad enough working with amateurs, let alone uptight amateurs. If we’re going through with this, our asses depend on George Rigley coming through for us. So we got to make sure he’s comfortable, got to have him confident in us, got to put him at ease.”
    “What about the girl? She’s an amateur too, isn’t she?”
    “Her? An amateur? Kid, she could give us lessons.”
    And then the girl was wiping off the table and Rigley was settling down in the chair, nervous but better.
    “There’s one thing I have to ask,” Nolan said, “before we go any further.”
    “What is it?” the girl said.
    “It’s you,” he told her. Then he turned to Rigley and said, “Your robbery plan includes her. Her role is pretty minor, but she does have a role, or she wouldn’t be here right now, would she?