Hit and The Marksman by Brian Garfield Page A

not about to write it a hundred times on the blackboard. I want out. If you’ve got any brains, you do too.”
    â€œGo on—spell it out, Mike.”
    He nodded. “I talk a lot, I know. Reflex habit. But I’ve been sizing you up. I’m not as dumb as I look. You’re one of the mob’s prime suspects. I know that because I heard the boys talking this morning. This morning you went up to Madonna’s. What for? I asked myself. The answer was easy. You went up there for the same reason I did. When you drove in, I was parked up the road trying to work up the guts to go in and talk to Madonna, beg on my knees if I had to, just persuade them I didn’t do it. I didn’t have the nerve, but you did. Now, if you’d taken the loot you’d have been long gone by now, I figure. Besides, you’re tied up with Jo, and I know her well enough to know she’d never do a thing like this. So let’s lay it on the line. You didn’t do it and I didn’t do it and Joanne didn’t do it. What else is there? Madonna himself? I doubt it. Soldiers been drifting in and out of Madonna’s place all day, there’s a big flap, and I just don’t think it’s a mob operation. Some independent party is out there someplace with all that loot. But the mob doesn’t look at it that way—not yet, anyway. Too many coincidences for them. They know Joanne had keys to Aiello’s house and the alarm system—that was why Senna and Baker made a beeline for your place this morning. They know I just got out of the pen and went directly to Aiello’s last night and saw what was in the safe. Probably they figure all three of us were in it together, we pulled the caper, right? Just think about that, Crane.”
    I had; I was. I said, “Go on, Mike.”
    â€œOkay, the reason I opened up to you, I want to make a deal.”
    â€œWhat kind of a deal?”
    Now there was cunning in his eyes—anxious and fearful, but sly. “Together maybe we can find that loot,” he said. “If either one of us finds it and turns it over to the mob, do you think that’ll keep them from killing all three of us anyway, just to keep our mouths shut?”
    â€œKeep going.”
    â€œOkay. We find it, we split it down the middle, and we go our separate ways.”
    I said, “What about the mob?”
    He tried to smile. “Crane, forty thousand men disappear every year in this country, and a lot of them don’t ever get found unless they want to. If it helps you make up your mind, I got a good contact—not through the mob—with a plastic surgeon. You follow?” He dragged a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, glanced at it, and handed it to me. I looked at it—the name and address of a doctor in Studio City.
    He said, “Keep it, I got another copy. Hell, tie it all up in nice neat ribbons—leave a suicide note if you want to and make it look like you took a Brodie off the Golden Gate Bridge.”
    He was staring at me without blinking, almost holding his breath.
    I said, “What about Joanne?”
    â€œJoanne and me are quits. I won’t make waves. You cut your half with her or do it however you want.”
    â€œI notice you didn’t offer to split it in thirds.”
    â€œI didn’t think I had to. I thought you and Joanne were an item together. Making woo, all that crap.”
    I didn’t press it; what I said was, “Suppose we look but we don’t find the money?”
    â€œThen we get dead. I don’t know about you but I’m dead anyway. What have we got to lose?” He had a point.
    I said, “You’ve leveled with me as far as I can tell. I’ll give you this much. Madonna gave me forty-eight hours to produce the money.”
    â€œOr else what?”
    â€œHe didn’t specify. They’ll bring Joanne in and then bring me in and they’ll work us over to find out what we