Stephen King – Night Shift – The Ledge
THE LEDGE
‘Go on,’ Cressner said again. ‘Look in the bag.’
We were in his penthouse apartment, forty-three stories up. The carpet was deep-cut pile, burnt orange.
In the middle, between the Basque sling chair where Cressner sat and the genuine leather couch where
no one at all sat, there was a brown shopping bag.
‘If it’s a payoff, forget it,’ I said. ‘I love her.’
‘It’s money, but it’s not a payoff. Go on. Look.’ Re was smoking a Turkish cigarette in an onyx holder.
The air-circulation system allowed me just a dry whiff of the tobacco and then whipped it away. He
was wearing a silk dressing gown on which a dragon was embroidered. His eyes were calm and
intelligent behind his glasses. He looked just like what he was: an A-number-one, 500 carat, dyed-in-
the-wool son of a bitch. I loved his wife, and she loved me. I had expected him to make trouble, and I
knew this was it, but I just wasn’t sure what brand it was.
I went to the shopping bag and tipped it over. Banded bundles of currency tumbled out on the rug. All
twenties. I picked one of the bundles up and counted. Ten bills to a bundle. There were a lot of bundles.
‘Twenty thousand dollars,’ he said, and puffed on his cigarette.
I stood up. ‘Okay.’
‘It’s for you.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘My wife comes with it.’
I didn’t say anything. Marcia had warned me how, it would be. He’s like a cat, she had said. An old tom
full of meanness. He’ll try to make you a mouse.
‘So you’re a tennis pro,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen one before.’
‘You mean your detectives didn’t get any pictures?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He waved the cigarette holder negligently. ‘Even a motion picture of the two of you in that
Bayside Motel. A camera was behind the mirror. But pictures are hardly the same, are they?’
‘If you say so.’
He’ll keep changing tacks, Marcia had said. It’s the way he puts people on the defensive. Pretty soon
he’ll have you hitting out at where you think he’s going to be, and he’ll get you someplace else. Say as
little as possible, Stan. And remember that I love you.
‘I invited you up because I thought we should have a little man-to-man chat, Mr Norris. Just a pleasant
conversation between two civilized human beings, one of whom has made off with the other’s wife.’
I started to answer but decided not to.
‘Did you enjoy San Quentin?’ Cressner said, puffing lazily.
‘Not particularly.’
‘I believe you passed three years there. A charge of breaking and entering, if I’m correct.’
‘Marcia knows about it,’ I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I was playing his game, just what Marcia had warned against. Hitting soft lobs for him to smash back.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of having your car moved,’ he said, glancing out the window at the far end of the
room. It really wasn’t a window at all: the whole wall was glass. In the middle was a sliding-glass door.
Beyond it, a balcony the size of a postage stamp. Beyond that, a very long drop. There was something
strange about the door. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
‘This is a very pleasant building,’ Cressner said. ‘Good security. Closed-circuit TV and all that. When I
knew you were in the lobby, I made a telephone call. An employee then hot-wired the ignition of your
car and moved it from the parking area here to a public lot several blocks away.’ He glanced up at the
modernistic sunburst clock above the couch. It was 8.05. ‘At 8.20 the same employee will call the
police from a public phone booth concerning your car. By 8.30, at the latest, the minions of the law will
have discovered over six ounces of heroin hidden in the spare tyre of your trunk. You will be eagerly
sought after, Mr Norris.’
He had set me up. I had tried to cover myself as well as I could, but in the end I had been child’s play